Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare 

Shakespeare Project 2020

I recall liking Mark Antony a whole lot better in Julius Caesar than I did here. And Cleopatra....man, is she complex! Manipulative, whiny, independent, cunning, cruel. 

I.5 Cleopatra: "My salad days,

When I was green in judgment, cold in blood

To say as I said then."

II.5 Cleopatra: "Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire and stew'd in brine,

Smarting in ling'ring pickle."

As always, some very poignant lines written by the Bard. I think I've heard this in a song??

II.1 Menecrates: "We, ignorant of ourselves,

Beg often our own harms, which the wise pow'rs

Deny us for our good; so find we profit

by losing of our prayers."

And funny, er misogynistic.

IV.2 Enobarbus: "What mean you, sir,

To give them this discomfort? Look, they weep;

And I, an ass, am onion-ey'd. For shame!

Transform us not to women."

And what a tragedy, not only the play itself, but also the true story of Antony and Cleopatra

IV.9 Enobarbus: "O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,

The poisonous damp of night disponge upon me,

That life, a very rebel to my will,

May hang no longer on me. Throw my heart

Against the flint and hardness of my fault,

Which, being dried with grief, will break to powder..."

V.1 Caesar: "The breaking of so great a thing should make

A greater crack. The round world

Should have shook lions into civil streets

And citizens to their dens. The death of Antony

Is not a single doom;...