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Antony and Cleopatra

  • Please see the bottom of this page for helpful resources.
  • Please see the bottom of each scene for extensive explanatory notes.

  • Dramatis Personae.
  • Act 1
  • Act 2
  • Act 3
  • Act 4
  • Act 5
    • Scene 1. Alexandria. OCTAVIUS CAESAR's camp.
    • Scene 2. Alexandria. A room in the monument.

Next: Antony and Cleopatra, List of Characters

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Related Articles

 Plutarch's Influence on Shakespeare and Other Writers of the Sixteenth Century
 An Analysis of Shakespeare's Indebtedness to North's Plutarch
 The Character of Mark Antony
 An Analysis of Octavius
 An Analysis of Octavia

 An Introduction to Shakespeare's Cleopatra
 Shakespeare's Interest in the Subject of Antony and Cleopatra
 Sources for Antony and Cleopatra
 Famous Quotations from Antony and Cleopatra

 Antony and Cleopatra: Plot Summary
 Pronouncing the Names in Antony and Cleopatra
 Characteristics of Elizabethan Tragedy

 Shakespeare's Language
 Shakespeare's Metaphors and Similes

 Shakespeare's Reputation in Elizabethan England
 Shakespeare's Impact on Other Writers
 Why Study Shakespeare?

In the Spotlight

Quote in Context

An engraving of the beautiful Cleopatra by J. C. Buttre from 'Heroines from History' (1852)Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras: saucy lictors
Will catch at us, like strumpets; and scald rhymers
Ballad us out o' tune: the quick comedians
Extemporally will stage us, and present
Our Alexandrian revels; Antony
Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see
Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
I' the posture of a whore.
Antony and Cleopatra (5.2), Cleopatra

In Shakespeare's time, and for nearly a century thereafter, women were not allowed on the English stage. Boys whose voices had not changed were dressed in drag and forced to battle the challenging lines spoken by Shakespeare's great heroines. It seems unfathomable to us, and Shakespeare no doubt found it very frustrating at times, as we see in the above passage. But more often than not Shakespeare makes fun of the ridiculous practice, as in A Midsummer Night's Dream, when Flute cries, "let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming." Read on...

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