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Anthony and Cleopatra: what was the truth?
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Message 1.Μύ
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Friday, 9th September 2011
My knowledge of this era is vague, but as I understand the legend, Cleopatra held a poisonous asp to her breats to commi suicide after hearing false reports of Mark Anthony's death (or was it vice versa?)
Is any of this true? How do we know of the story, and from which reliable source?Link to this forum: Anthony and Cleopatra: what was the truth?
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Message 2
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Sunday, 11th September 2011
Suicide by asp-bite, as well as a different version involving a poisonous balm being applied to the skin, were both reported by Strabo as current rumours shortly after the event. Strabo may even have been in Alexandria at the time, though if he was then his unwillingness to plump for either version as definitive simply lends weight to the likelihood of gossip proliferating due to an absence of any hard data almost from the moment of her suicide. The asp version however caught the imagination of several Roman poets at the time so won out in the consciousness of contemporaries. By the time Plutarch wrote his version (upon which much of the modern rendition depends) it was accepted as the truth of the matter.
Plutrach is also our oldest source for the sequence of events, and that Antony's suicide was undertaken in the mistaken belief that Cleopatra was already dead. This may have originated in the propaganda issued by Octavian at the time in which one proof of Antony's "un-Romaness" was his infatuation with a female ruler. The notion of a female ruler was particularly repugnant to many Romans, especially those wishing to establish moral credentials for political purposes, so the notion that Cleopatra somehow bewitched Antony served Octavian well. Not only did it stress the unnaturality of a female holding absolute power but it also served to ameliorate potential future opposition from Antony's remaining supporters in that it provided a face-saving excuse for Antony's behaviour while still retaining the "obvious" necessity to lquidate him for the good of Rome. Octavian had attempted to capture Cleopatra after Antony's death so the sequence of events could hardly be denied. However the added pathos of a lovestruck Antony killing himself in the mistaken belief that his lover was dead added to the effect of Octavian's propaganda rather well. I imagine therefore that this was not something Plutarch invented himself but had been established as the official version from the beginning, however true or not it might actually have been.Link to this forum: Anthony and Cleopatra: what was the truth?
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Message 3
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Sunday, 11th September 2011
We don't know why Shakespeare had her apply the asp to her breast, by the way. Until his play all commentators had accepted the royal arm as the likely puncture point.
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Message 4
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Sunday, 11th September 2011
We don't know why Shakespeare had her apply the asp to her breast, by the way. Until his play all commentators had accepted the royal arm as the likely puncture point.Μύ
Shakespeare's Cleopatra actually dies suckling the asp - which should be ridiculous, but which is actually dramatically very effective. It is erotic - and we should expect this woman - from what we have seen and learnt of her during the course of the play - to turn dying, like everything else she has done, into a sensual experience.
But it's more than that - it is also a powerful maternal image and quite in keeping with Cleopatra as Isis, the goddess of motherhood and fertility. Her dying words are:
" Peace, peace!
Dost thou not see my baby at my breast,
That sucks the nurse asleep?"
And her "baby" - the asp - was the Egyptian symbol of royalty and divine authority.
Mind you, the scene done badly can become farcical. One 17th century wit, presumably at a Restoration production of the play with some trollop playing Cleopatra, was actually irritated because the suckling went on for far too long. The actress's bosom was obviously exposed for ages and not primarily for artistic or dramatic reasons. The bored playgoer reportedly shouted to her to get on with it - "I think the asp be weaned by now, madame!"Link to this forum: Anthony and Cleopatra: what was the truth?
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Message 5
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 12th September 2011
Shakespeare also depicted Cleopatra as antiquity's answer to Rex Williams when she invites Ray Riordan (Charmian) to partake of some billards in ACT II. Miss Riordan replies that her arm is sore (having just played 375 consecutive nurse shots in the 39BC World Billiards Semi-Final at the Cardiff YMCA against Terry Griffith) and suggests she bang some balls in with the eunuch Fred Davis, getting on a bit but who is still available for exhibition matches. Davis (Mardian) immediately confirms he's game but Rex "Cleo" Williams then capriciously decides to switch codes and bunk off to the riverbank to get in a spot of fly fishing instead.
A flighty and fickle woman indeed, Rex Williams, but Shakespeare certainly hit the decadent nail of the1st century BC Egyptian court right on the proverbial bonce, innit?Link to this forum: Anthony and Cleopatra: what was the truth?
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Message 6
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Monday, 12th September 2011
What on earth are you talking about??
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Message 7
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Monday, 12th September 2011
Haven't you come across one of Nordmann's variations on a theme of......... yet, raundsgirl? He relishes the opportunity to expand on something like this with a few grace notes of his own.
"Cleo. Give me some music; music, moody food
Cleo. Let it alone; let's to billiards: come, Charmian
Char. My arm is sore; best play with Mardian"
(A &C, act 2, scene5)
I'm surprised he hasn't managed to work Miss Church playing table tennis into the scenario.Link to this forum: Anthony and Cleopatra: what was the truth?
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Message 8
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 12th September 2011
Miss Church has never, to my knowledge, ever played table tennis.
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Message 9
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Monday, 12th September 2011
Oh dear, I was trying to be delicate.
Raundsgirl will now, quite understandably, think I'm raving as well.Link to this forum: Anthony and Cleopatra: what was the truth?
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Message 10
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Tuesday, 13th September 2011
He relishes the opportunity to expand on something like this with a few grace notes of his own. Μύ
But all soundly based on the text, ferval - even Plutarch mentions the "gone fishing"!
To be serious again - Professor Michael Lloyd (Dublin chap) - has written on the subject of Cleopatra as Isis:
But I'm afraid you need a university library to access it.
This is what J. J. Tobin says (Apuleius and Antony and Cleopatra, Once More):
"Several years ago Michael Lloyd demonstrated Shakespeare's use of certain aspects of the Egyptian goddess, Isis, as described by Plutarch and Apuleius for the development of the personality and character of Cleopatra. He argued cogently that Shakespeare had incorporated in his Egyptian queen the role of Isis as maternal and procreative force from Book X1 of Apuleius' The Golden Asse and even more so from Plutarch's De Iside and Osiride in the Moralia."
Cleopatra had certainly declared herself to be Isis and her coins I believe show her as the "New Goddess". The whole cult of Isis is very interesting - apparently it was enormously popular throughout the Mediterranean world? I've read this morning that the Roman Senate was actually quite alarmed at its spread, especially among the lower orders of society, and that Cleopatra was fully aware of this and used her "I am Isis" propaganda very successfully to strengthen her position.
I find the cult interesting too because of the Isis/Virgin Mary connection: Isis was a perpetual virgin and she was called, like Mary, Stella Maris and Queen of Heaven. Shakespeare may have had this in mind too: it is thought he used Elizabeth I - like his Cleopatra, a histrionic, sometimes ridiculous, but always majestic and utterly compelling woman - as one of his inspirations for the character (an Oxford pub owner's wife was possibly the other). Of course Elizabeth's adoption of the cult of the Virgin was part of *her* very successful religious propaganda.
But I've wandered away from the asp.Link to this forum: Anthony and Cleopatra: what was the truth?
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Message 11
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Tuesday, 13th September 2011
Well it was wasted on me, Ferval, as I'd never heard of any of the people mentioned, apart from the Shakesperean characters.
Temperance, thank you for the piece about Cleopatra and the cult of Isis; I found it most interesting. Am I right in thinking that Isis worship has a resurgence from time to time even now?
"But I've wandered away from the asp." Very wise of you!Link to this forum: Anthony and Cleopatra: what was the truth?
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Message 12
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Tuesday, 13th September 2011
Hi raundsgirl,
"But I've wandered away from the asp." Very wise of you! Μύ
Yes, I try to keep clear of the vicious little b*ggers.
Seems Cleopatra did too. A recent German study by Professor Christoph Schafer suggests that suicide-by-snake was not a good idea - far too many nasty side effects. He believes it is more likely that Cleopatra took a carefully prepared cocktail of opium, hemlock and aconitum:
I haven't read the Stacy Schiff biography, but this Guardian review suggests Schiff queries the reptilian option too. I wonder what the reference to a *sluggish* asp means? Do you get dopey asps? Maybe if it's too chilly for them, but in Egypt that wouldn't be a problem?
Angelina Jolie as Cleopatra. Heavens. She was awful as Alexander's mum.
Am I right in thinking that Isis worship has a resurgence from time to time even now? Μύ
I don't know. If I'm honest I don't actually know much at all about the cult of Isis. I do know the Shakespeare play quite well, but I'm sadly ignorant about Roman or Egyptian history and religion. Shakespeare, a bit of Plutarch and Mankiewicz are probably not the best of history tutors!
SST.Link to this forum: Anthony and Cleopatra: what was the truth?
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Message 13
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Tuesday, 13th September 2011
I do believe snakes are a bit dozy when they've been fed.
That biog sounds interesting but I may well steer clear of anything involving Angelina Jolie as Cleo, it sounds too awful to contemplate!
"Shakespeare, a bit of Plutarch and Mankiewicz are probably not the best of history tutors!"
No, but so much more entertaining, don't you think?
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Message 14
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Tuesday, 13th September 2011
I do believe snakes are a bit dozy when they've been fed.
That biog sounds interesting but I may well steer clear of anything involving Angelina Jolie as Cleo, it sounds too awful to contemplate!
"Shakespeare, a bit of Plutarch and Mankiewicz are probably not the best of history tutors!"
No, but so much more entertaining, don't you think?
Μύ
Absolutely. And I still sigh over the young and devastatingly handsome Marlon Brando as Antony in "Julius Caesar". His acting was surprisingly good too. Apparently James Mason (who was an excellent Brutus) and John Gielgud (brilliant as Cassius) coached Brando.Link to this forum: Anthony and Cleopatra: what was the truth?
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Message 15
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Tuesday, 13th September 2011
To return to the asp, it is suggested that
1 She was bitten on the arm by an asp
2 She was bitten on the breast by an asp
3 She was bitten on the breast and the arm by two asps
4 It wasn't an asp, it was a horned viper.
5 She bit herself and rubbed poisoned ointment into the wound.
6 She was pricked and poisoned by a hollow comb
7 She was pricked by a hair pin and poison applied.
8 She swallowed a mixture of hemlock, wolfsbane and opium.
All these presume that she wasn't just bumped off by Octavian.
You pays your money..........................
Personally, I think she made a sharp exit and spent the rest of her life as a belly dancer in a low dive in Alexandria.Link to this forum: Anthony and Cleopatra: what was the truth?
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Message 16
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Tuesday, 13th September 2011
Until his play all commentators had accepted the royal arm as the likely puncture point. Μύ
Yet seventy-five years or so before Shakespeare wrote Antony and Cleopatra the Italian painter Giovanni Pedrini Giampietrino had produced this "Death of Cleopatra" (painted around 1530). Just an excuse for an erotic presentation of a classical subject? Had the asp at the breast perhaps been shown by earlier Renaissance artists?
I think Dryden went for the arm in All For Love, but I can't remember. Will check.
Oh Lord, I've wasted hours today on this wretched asp.Link to this forum: Anthony and Cleopatra: what was the truth?
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Message 17
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Tuesday, 13th September 2011
Well it's interesting to look at it from all aspects!
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Message 18
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Tuesday, 13th September 2011
This flipping asp is addictive!
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Message 19
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Tuesday, 13th September 2011
To return to the asp, it is suggested that
1 She was bitten on the arm by an asp
2 She was bitten on the breast by an asp
3 She was bitten on the breast and the arm by two asps
4 It wasn't an asp, it was a horned viper.
5 She bit herself and rubbed poisoned ointment into the wound.
6 She was pricked and poisoned by a hollow comb
7 She was pricked by a hair pin and poison applied.
8 She swallowed a mixture of hemlock, wolfsbane and opium.
All these presume that she wasn't just bumped off by Octavian.
You pays your money..........................
Personally, I think she made a sharp exit and spent the rest of her life as a belly dancer in a low dive in Alexandria.
Μύ
Personally, I think Cleopatra bit the asp.
Thanks for those links - interesting stuff, but gosh, a lot to plough through!
The oven door story - incredible!
I'm back to Bona of Savoy now - she sounds like something from Round the Horne.
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Message 20
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Thursday, 15th September 2011
I've been looking at representations of the death of Cleopatra - both before and after 1607. As I expected the emphasis is always on Cleopatra's sexuality. The breasts seem always to be exposed - even if the asp is wrapped around the arm - and that useful snake is always the *phallic* symbol, never the symbol of Egyptian majesty and/or divinity. In the very early pictures (and one dated around 1450 is particularly disturbing - it features two very long asps, one dangling from each breast, a distressed Antony looking on), Cleopatra comes across very much as an alternative to Eve, the seductress and destroyer of men. Only the apple is missing.
Shakespeare explores all this, of course, but philogynist as he is, he turns it around. By the end of Act 5 the "triple-turned wh*re", the "strumpet", the "morsel" - the *woman* - commands even the reluctant respect of Octavian who comments on her "strong toil of grace". The tawdry gypsy queen out-Romans the Romans (not difficult - they are, from Octavian down, a coldly corrupt, if efficient, misogynist, racist bunch of petty bureacrats/pirates/thugs who do not seem to understand the meaning of honour) and has demonstrated to the Imperial masters the true way - the true *meaning* - of the "high Roman fashion" of death. Good old Shakespeare.
I'm still mulling over the significance of that strange exchange with the leering, aptly named "Clown" who brings Cleopatra the asp, wishing her lewdly "joy o' the worm". Harold Bloom comments that "in the Clown's repetition of 'I wish you joy o' the worm,' we hear something beyond his phallic misogyny.."
But do we? Phallic misogyny is everywhere you look with with Cleopatra. And it would seem it started with Plutarch and was encouraged later by the Church. To Plutarch, Cleopatra was Antony's evil genius, who "quenched straight" any spark of goodness left in him. The pranks and frolics with which she diverts him from his duties to the Empire, Plutarch describes with a telling mixture of male gusto and scorn. But she is also subtle and dangerous - the "serpent of the old Nile".
Interestingly, Mary Herbert, nee Sidney, had no time for all the snake nonsense. Her translation/version of Robert Garnier's "The Tragedy of Antonie" - which Shakespeare probably used - omits all reference to the asp.Link to this forum: Anthony and Cleopatra: what was the truth?
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Message 21
Posted by Temperance (U14455940) on Friday, 16th December 2011
Never mind all this high falutin stuff.
Christmas Day ITV3 5.20pm - Carry on Cleo.
Kenneth Williams as Caesar is not to be missed.
This film contains the best line ever written: "Infamy, infamy - they've all got it in for me!"Link to this forum: Anthony and Cleopatra: what was the truth?
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