Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra

Throughout Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, they are depicted as shallow characters that make brash decisions which do not particularly benefit anyone but themselves; however, Shakespeare manages to maintain sympathetic feelings from the audience towards Antony in particular.

The play opens with Roman followers of Antony, Philo and Demetrius, criticizing Antony and Cleopatra’s relationship. They give a disapproving Roman perceptive on what they see as the infatuation of their general with the lustful Egyptian ‘gypsy’. The Roman’s cruel banter towards Cleopatra is unjustified, and comes across to the audience as unnecessary. Even though sympathy is felt towards Cleopatra at this point, it is not felt towards Antony, as Philo and Demetrius’ comments on him are justified and mostly true. We feel sympathy towards Antony as he is evidently infatuated with Cleopatra, yet his followers and Romans are slandering him for it. The audience gets the impression that Philo and Demetrius are also making fun of Antony with their comments, stating that the “dotage of [their] general’s o’erflows the measure”, that his love for Cleopatra is over the top, almost implying that he loves her more than she does him, and that his affection towards her is pathetic.

Antony expresses his love for Cleopatra boldly and without shame, saying that he would “Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch of the ranged empire fall”. This was quite a foolish thing for Antony to have done, especially in front of Philo and Demetrius, who would most likely take the word back to Rome of Antony being so foolish. As one of the leaders in the triumvirate, we would expect Antony to never say such a thing as this, however, the fact that he has said this implies to the audience the large amount of affection he feels towards Cleopatra. As the audience aren’t affected by the rivalry between Rome and Egypt as the characters are, Antony’s love for Cleopatra