ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA - Contextual Question 7
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions below it.
[Alexandria. A room in CLEOPATRA’s palace. Enter DEMETRIUS and PHILO.]
Nay, but his dotage of our general’s
O’erflows the measure: those his-goodly eyes
That o’er the files and musters of the war
Have glowed like plated-Mars, now bend, now turn
The office and devotion of their view
Upon a tawny front. His captain’s heart,
Which in the scumes of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,
And is become the bellows and the fan
To cool a gipsy’s lust.
[Flourish. Enter ANTONY,CLEOPATRA, her Ladies, the Train with Eunuchs fanning her.]
Look, where they come.
Take but good note, and you shall see in him
The triple pillar of the world transformed
Into a strumpet’s fool. Behold and see.
Cleopatra. If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
Antony. There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned.
Cleopatra. I’ll set a bourn how far to be beloved.
Antony. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.
[Enter an ATTENDANT.]
Attendant. News, my good lord, from Rome.
Anthony. Grates me. The sum.
Cleopatra. Nay, hear them, Antony.
Fulvia perchance is angry; or who knows
If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent
His powerful mandate to you, “Do this, or this;
Take in that kingdom, and enfranchise that.
Perferm’t or else we damn thee”.
Antony. How, my love?
Cleopatra. Perchance? Nay, and most like.
You must not stay here longer, your dismission
Is come from from Casar; therefore, hear it, Antony.
Where’s Fulvia’s process? Caesar’s I would say. Both?
Call in the messengers. As I am Egypt’s Queen,
Thou blushest, Antony, and that blood of thine
Is Caesar’s homager: else so thy cheek pays shame
When shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds. The messengers!
Antony. Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the rang’d empire fall! Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike
Feeds beast as man. The nobleness of life
Is to do thus, when such a mutual pair,
And such a train can do’t, in which I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet
We stand up peerless.
Cleopatra. Excellent falsehood!
Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?
I’ll seem the fool I am not; Antony will be himself.
Antony. But stirred by Cleopatra
Now for the love of Love, and her soft hours,
Let’s not confound the time with conference harsh.
There’s not a minute of our lives should stretch
Without some pleasure now. What sport tonight?
Cleopatra. Hear the ambassadors.
Antony. Fie, wrangling Queen!
Whom everything becomes-to chide, to laugh,
To weep-whose every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admired.
No messenger but thine, and all alone,
Tonight we’ll wander through the streets, and note
The qualities of people. Come, my Queen;
Last night you did desire it.
[To the Attendant]: Speak not to us
[Exit all except DEMETRIUS and PHILO]
Demetrius. Is Caesar with Antonius prized so slight?
Philo. Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony,
He comes too short of that great property
Which still should go with Antony.
Demetrius. I am full sorry
That he approves the common liar, who
Thus speaks of him at Rome; but I will hope
Of better deeds tomorrow. Rest you happy.
In the passage, Philo’s commentary is followed by a conversation between Antony and Cleopatra. Suggest why Shakespeare has constructed the opening scene in this way and consider the extent to which the passage prepares us for the major concerns of the play as a whole.