So we all remember Mark Anthony from Julius Caesar right? Whipped up the citizens of Rome into a full-on rebellion,
Led an army against Brutus and Kassius, uhh *epic music* Truly a victory for the forces of justice! That guy? Yeah pretty swell dude overall
but he's actually better known for a different Shakespeare play that I referenced a few times in that video a sequel of sorts by the
name of Antony and Cleopatra
So our story begins with two nosy soldiers explaining to us that Mark Antony used to be so cool before he got a girlfriend
At which point enter Antony and Cleopatra being completely adorable at each other.
Now Antony's part of this thing called the triumvirate, a group of three people
Ruling Rome together in the wake of Caesar's death the other two guys involved are Caesar Octavius and this guy named lepidus
Unfortunately Antony's a touch distracted these days and has been somewhat lax in his triumvirate duties on account of the fact that he's currently
Dating her. I mean are we blaming him? A messenger arrives from Rome
But Antony's too busy gazing into Cleopatra's eyes to listen which turns out to be a bad thing because it turns out the news was
That his wife Fulvia and his brother Lucius had staged a rebellion against Octavius and summarily lost and also Folvia is dead. The messenger throws
Some minor shade in the direction that maybe this wouldn't have happened if Antony were actually seeing to his duties in Rome and Antony's mildly
Bummed but not super broken up about it because lest we forget, he's dating her.
Oh, and it wouldn't be a shakespeare play without some hot Soothsayer-y action
so we get some sweet foreshadowing the form of Cleopatra's servants being told that they'll both outlive their queen and that the best days of
Their lives are behind them. Also there's this guy Enobarbus who's Antony's servant, and--Oh my God!
He had hair? So Anthony's come to the conclusion that being with Cleopatra is making him soft. Heh Heh Obvious joke
And he has to break things off and return to Rome because among other things there are pirates in this play and that needs
Dealing with or something so Cleopatra feigns a fainting spell and tries to get Antony to stay in Egypt
But Antony's like, "look, I love you, but there are pirates, man," and leaves although before he does Cleopatra mentions. How not broken up
he appears to be about the straight-up death of his wife and wonders
If he'll be that chill when she dies too. Spoiler warning-no he won't. One thing before I continue
Cleopatra is a very manipulative character
She does everything with extreme levels of theater and keeps pretty much every interaction on her own terms
Even though Antony's fundamentally going against her wishes by leaving she's still pretty solidly in control of the situation having confirmed that he'll come back
To her when he's done. Also noteworthy is that the Romans except for Antony don't see this right up until the very end.
The soldiers, Octavius and most other Roman characters in this play
characterize her as a shiny exotic toy keeping Antony distracted and weakening him as a soldier
But Shakespeare wrote a really solid character when he wrote Cleopatra.
She's proud and self-assured and makes her own decisions a lot of the time, and they're not always good ones.
But she's the one making them it's worth keeping an eye on her exact
Influence in the play and noting those few points where she loses control of the situation and how she responds to that.
Anyway! Back to the story.
Octavius and Lepidus are discussing the pirate problem as well as how Antony is utterly failing to Honor the code of bros before hoes
Lepidus is of the opinion that they should let him have some fun but Octavius is much saltier about the whole situation
Back at Cleopatra's palace a messenger from Antony arrives carrying a pearl that he says Antony kissed then ordered him to deliver to Cleopatra.
She asks him if he looked happy or sad when he left and upon hearing that it was more of a stoic unreadable kind of
situation she's quite pleased see if he were said it would be detrimental to his soldiers,
but if he were happy, well that would mean he liked being away from her which would be equally bad. So Anthony meets with
Octavius who's pretty salty with him
spending so much time in Egypt, but they decide to put aside their differences and focus on kicking pirate ass together instead
But to make sure they keep this whole blood-brothers thing going Octavius suggested Antony marry his younger sister Octavia to make them actually brothers too.
Antony's down for that, but Enobarbus confides in another servant that there's no way Antony's gonna get anything out of that relationship
Not when he has Cleopatra to go back to.
So Antony super promises Octavia that he'll be faithful to her but one soothsayer later
And he's already making plans to head back to Egypt after learning that
Octavius is destined for a more glorious future than he is. And you know what props to him for not going the Macbeth route
I mean, I know it's less glorious, or whatever to not murder your political opponents
But I'm not gonna fault this guy for wanting to spend the rest of his life with the woman he loves.
Speaking of, Cleopatra learns Antony's officially married.. again and gets pretty salty
But feels better once she learns that she's much prettier than Octavia. *Epic voice* Truly a victory for the forces of justice!
So the triumvirate meets up with Pompey, the pirate guy
they're gonna be fighting soon, and have a big old party on his boat because trying to murder each other doesn't preclude having a grand
old time. Lepidus gets stupid drunk and starts rambling about
Crocodiles or whatever while Pompey's servant is like you could totally kill them right now and Pompey's like "Ah you didn't have to tell
me man, you could have just done it. It would have been fine. Now it's too late."
So, party ends, some fighting happens, some winning happens, and then some politics happen as Octavius gets
paranoid about the other two legs of the triumvirate,
bad-mouthing Antony and throwing Lepidus in prison for plotting against him. Antony meanwhile takes his ball and goes home to Cleopatra
Crowning himself king of Egypt and his third of the empire with Cleopatra as his queen. He's also decided to fight the rest of Rome
I guess for funsies?
I don't know it kind of feels like Octavius brought that on himself. Antony and Lepidus both
felt like Octavius was taking more than his fair share of credit and winnings
and when he responded by throwing Lepidus in jail
I guess and and he decided to cut his losses and go home to his beautiful girlfriend.
I mean, that's fair obviously Octavia is upset, but really who's surprised?
So Anthony's hell-bent on fighting Octavius at sea even though his navy is outclassed and his army is much better
but Cleopatra supports him in his endeavor with her own fleet of 60 ships. Several of the soldiers are predictably salty having to take orders from
Cleopatra and when the time comes for battle she actually pulls her fleet out of the fight early for no explained reason.
And this is actually historically accurate and we're not entirely sure why she did that.
Anyway!
Anthony follows suit and they lose the battle and he feels terrible because he thinks he's turned into a coward. He and Cleopatra make up though.
I mean this is pretty much their entire relationship
So Antony, kind of down because of his defeat, sends a message to
Octavius asking to be allowed to stay in Egypt in peace which Octavius refuses. The messenger also asks that Cleopatra be allowed to pass on
Egypt to her children which Octavius says he'll think about as long as she kicks Mark Antony out of Egypt and lets Octavius deal with him.
So Cleopatra receives the news and tells the messenger that she'll agree to bow to Octavius,
Which again seems to be part of her textbook theatrical character
It's clear that Cleopatra has almost no respect for Caesar Octavius as a person
But if she thinks bowing and scraping him will get her ahead in life she's gonna do it.
Unfortunately poor timing is key because at this point Anthony bursts in it accuses her of betraying him.
Cleopatra says she'd never do that, Antony's happy and storms off [to] challenge Octavius to single combat
And his servant Enobarbus decides Antony's officially gone crazy.
Octavius refuses the challenge,
Antony gets pissed and decides to fight him anyway. The night before the battle there are omens everywhere and the soldiers believe this means that
Anthony's Patron God Hercules has decided to abandon them in their hour of need.
Antony doesn't care though and gets all geared up to fight
Whereupon he learns that Enobarbus has deserted him and gone too Octavius's side. Rather than being pissed
Anthony's just kind of quietly sad and orders his servants to deliver Enobarbus's stuff to him with a note of kind farewell.
His make Enobarbus so sad that he dies.
*Clip of song Who Can Say*
So a whole lot of complicated battle stuff happens
But the short of it is that in the end the Egyptian fleet defects to Octavius' side,
Antony blames Cleopatra and Cleopatra comes up with a fantastic idea of making him believe she's dead. That way he'll remember how much he loves her and
Everything will be okay again. Well unfortunately
Antony's already pretty depressed and this is kind of the icing on the cake he takes the death of his Juliet about as well as
Romeo did and decides to fall on his sword and join her with the added benefit of dying a hero rather than a coward, a
lovesick idiot, or any of the other things he feels like he's become.
However he doesn't even manage to stab himself correctly and just ends up mortally wounding himself
*Epic voice* Truly a victory for the forces of Justice! Like a hero. This is when he learns that
Cleopatra's still alive in what we in the writing biz like to call dramatic irony, and he's carried to her
Whereupon he dies in her arms
So Cleopatra is captured by Octavius's Forces
But refuses to be made a mockery of or paraded through the streets like a trophy. Among her complaints is a bit of subtle humor
In the original production, she'd obviously been played by a young man, and one of Cleopatra's examples of the disgraceful treatment
She'd be faced with is being played by a boy in stage productions.
It's a funny time for humor though, especially considering
she resolves to kill herself rather than give Octavius the
Satisfaction of using her as a trophy using some asps she gets someone to smuggle in in a basket of figs
Cleopatra Commits a very dramatic suicide by snake. Octavius wonders if
He handled the situation as well as he could have then orders Cleopatra to be buried next to Mark Antony which is sweet until you
consider the fact that egyptian funerary
Beliefs would have made it almost sacrilegious to bury a pharaoh in such an unfurnished tomb without even going through the embalming process
Nice going Octavius.
*singing* Shot through the heart and you're to blame
you give love
a bad name
I play my part and you play your game
you give love
a bad name
You give love
a bad name