ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA - Contextual Questions for Practice
For each of the following, state:
1. By whom and in what circumstances is the passage spoken. (Use not more than 50 words.)
2. What is the dramatic significance of the subject matter of the passage?
3. What do you consider to be the interest and importance of the way in which this subject matter is expressed? (In this section, you are expected to comment on such matters as diction, imagery and verse.)
1-Why have you stol’n upon us thus? You come not
Like Caesar’s sister. The wife of Antony
Should have an army for an usher, and
The neighs of horse to tell of her approach
5-Long ere she did appear. The trees by th’ way
Should have borne men, and expectation fainted,
Longing for what it had not. Nay, the dust
Should have ascended to the roof of heaven,
Rais’d by your populous troops. But you are come
10-A market-maid to Rome, and have prevented
The ostentation of our love, which left unshown
Is often left unlov’d. We should have met you
By sea and land, supplying every stage
With an augmented greeting.
2-No more but e’en a woman, and commanded
By such poor passion as the maid that milks
And does the meanest chares. It were for me
To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods;
5-To tell them that this world did equal theirs
Till they had stol’n our jewel. All’s but nought;
Patience is sottish, and impatience does
Become a dog that’s mad. Then is it sin
To rush into the secret house of death
10-Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women?
What, what! good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian!
My noble girls! Ah, women, women, look,
Our lamp is spent, it’s out! Good sirs, take heart.
We’ll bury him; and then, what’s brave, what’s noble,
15-Let’s do it after the high Roman fashion,
And make death proud to take us.
3-Stands he or sits he?
Or does he walk? Or is he on his horse?
O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!
Do bravely, horse; for wot’st thou whom thou mov’st?
The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm
5-And burgonet of men. He’s speaking now,
Or murmuring ‘Where’s my serpent of old Nile?’
For so he calls me. Now I feed myself
With most delicious poison. Think on me
That am with Phoebus’ amorous pinches black
10-And wrinkled deep in time? Broad-fronted Caesar
When thou wast here above the ground, I was
A morsel for a monarch; and great Pompey
Would stand and make his eyes grow in my brow
There would he anchor his aspect and die
15-With looking on his life.
4-O Antony,
I have follow’d thee to this! But we do lance
Diseases in our bodies. I must perforce
Have shown to thee such a declining day
5-Or look on thine; we could not stall together
In the whole world. But yet let me lament,
With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts,
That thou, my brother, my competitor
In top of all design, my mate in empire,
10-Friend and companion in the front of war,
The arm of mine own body, and the heart
Where mine his thoughts did kindle—that our stars,
Unreconciliable, should divide
Our equalness to this. Hear me, good friends—
Enter an Egyptian.
15-But I will tell you at some meeter season.
7-Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
So many mermaids, tended her i’ th’ eyes,
And made their bends adornings. At the helm
A seeming mermaid steers. The silken tackle
5-Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands
That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,
10-Enthron’d i’ th’ market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to th’ air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.
8-Triple-turn’d whore! ‘Tis thou
Hast sold me to this novice; and my heart
Makes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly;
For when I am reveng’d upon my charm,
5-I have done all. Bid them all fly; begone. [Exit Scarus.]
O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more!
Fortune and Antony part here; even here
Do we shake hands. All come to this? The hearts
That spaniel’d me at heels, to whom I gave
10-Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets
On blossoming Caesar; and this pine is bark’d
That overtopp’d them all. Betray’d I am.
O this false soul of Egypt!
9-Say this becomes him—
As his composure must be rare indeed
Whom these things cannot blemish—yet must Antony
No way excuse his foils when we do bear
5-So great weight in his lightness. If he fill’d
His vacancy with his voluptuousness,
Full surfeits and the dryness of his bones
Call on him for’t! But to confound such time
That drums him from his sport and speaks as loud
10-As his own state and ours—’tis to be chid
As we rate boys who, being mature in knowledge,
Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,
And so rebel to judgment.
10-Heart, once be stronger than thy continent,
Crack thy frail case. Apace, Eros, apace.—
No more a soldier. Bruised pieces, go;
You have been nobly borne.—From me awhile.
5-I will o’ertake thee, Cleopatra, and
Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now
All length is torture. Since the torch is out,
Lie down, and stray no farther. Now all labour
Mars what it does; yea, very force entangles
10-Itself with strength. Seal then, and all is done.
Eros!—I come, my queen.—Eros!—Stay for me;
Where souls do couch on flowers, we’ll hand in hand,
And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze.
Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops,
15-And all the haunt be ours.—Come, Eros, Eros!
11-Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
So many mermaids, tended her i’ th’ eyes,
And made their bends adornings. At the helm
A seeming mermaid steers. The silken tackle
5-Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands
That rarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfurne hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,
10-Enthron’d i’ th’ market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to th’ air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.
12-Methinks I hear
Antony call. I see him rouse himself
To praise my noble act. I hear him mock
The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men
5-To excuse their after wrath. Husband, I come.
Now to that name my courage prove my title!
I am fire and air; my other elements
I give to baser life. So, have you done?
Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.
10 Farewell, kind Charmian. Iras, long farewell.
(Kisses them. Iras falls and dies.)
Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall?
If thou and nature can so gently part,
The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch,
Which hurts and is desir’d.