49 pages • 1 hour read
William ShakespeareAntony and Cleopatra
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1607A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Act IVChapter Summaries & Analyses
Act IV, Scenes 1-2 Summary
Caesar refuses Antony’s challenge of single-combat. Caesar’s advisor believes that Antony will fight to the bitter end due to his rage, and so Caesar should take advantage of his irrational and distracted state. Caesar orders his army to prepare for battle tomorrow and to find men who previously served Antony.
Back at Antony’s camp, Antony rewards his followers and prepares for a night of rich feasting. He graciously thanks the men who have followed him, but says that they will likely serve another master soon. This causes his followers to weep, even the disloyal Enobarbus. Antony tells the soldiers not to shed tears and assures them that he intends to lead them to victory tomorrow.
Act IV, Scenes 3-5 Summary
Antony’s soldiers discuss the coming battle the next morning when they hear strange music mysteriously emanating from under the earth. One soldier speculates that it is a favorable sign, while another soldier interprets it as a bad sign that Antony’s favorite god Hercules is abandoning him.
The next morning, Antony wakes up and puts on his armor. Cleopatra asks him to sleep later, but he refuses, and so she helps to put on his armor. As Antony leaves for battle, Cleopatra wishes Caesar had accepted the deal to fight one-on-one.
Antony learns from his soldier Eros that Enobarbus is gone and has fled to Caesar. Learning that he left all of his possessions and treasures behind, Antony orders that they be sent to him with a polite note wishing that he never again has any reason to change loyalties. Antony laments that his fate has caused an honest man to become corrupted.
Act IV, Scenes 6-9 Summary
Caesar orders that Antony be captured alive if possible. A messenger brings Enobarbus his treasure from Antony. Enobarbus has a change of heart, hating himself for betraying his lord and declaring that a villainous man like himself should go and die in a ditch.
The battle with Caesar’s forces begins and Antony unexpectedly wins a victory in the first engagement. As Caesar’s soldiers retreat, Scarius recommends that they aggressively pursue. Antony returns to Cleopatra, who is joyful that he has succeeded. Antony richly rewards Scarius for his bravery in battle. Cleopatra allows him to kiss her hand and gives him golden armor.
That night, Enobarbus arrives at Antony’s camp, lamenting and wishing for death. He has decided to flee as a fugitive due to his shame. He collapses, and the night watchmen take him into the camp, deciding that he appears to be a soldier of some high rank.
Act IV, Scenes 10-13 Summary
the hills around the city and then orders his fleet to attack. Caesar hopes that his advantage at sea will win him the battle. Scarius fears that soothsayers have predicted that the inferior Egyptian navy will be Antony’s downfall.
Antony is betrayed by his Egyptian commanders, who have surrendered to Caesar. He is furious, cursing Egypt and Cleopatra for their treachery. He calls her a witch and swears that he will kill her for manipulating him. Cleopatra is terrified by Antony’s rage and hides. She tells one of her servants to go to Antony and tell him that she has died by suicide, then watch his reaction and report back to her.
Act IV, Scenes 14-15 Summary
Antony is still certain that Cleopatra has betrayed him and sided with Caesar when her servant, Mardian, comes and says that she has died by suicide to demonstrate her dedication to him. Horrified and ashamed, Antony resolves to die as well. He asks his servant Eros to kill him so that he will not have to endure the humiliation of capture. Eros stabs him, but Antony does not die. Caesar’s soldiers arrive, and he begs them to finish him off. However, Cleopatra’s servants inform him that Cleopatra is alive and fled out of fear. Antony asks Caesar’s soldier Dolabella to carry him to Cleopatra’s side.
Antony is carried to Cleopatra and he tells her not to mourn because he has not been defeated by Caesar, but rather vanquished by himself. He tells her to preserve her own life by surrendering to Caesar and to remember him at his height, when he was glorious and powerful. Cleopatra refuses to submit to Caesar, instead planning to die by suicide and follow him to death in the Roman fashion. She kisses him and Antony dies. Cleopatra and her women leave to bury his body.
Act IV Analysis
Act IV depicts Antony’s final loss against Caesar and deals extensively with the motivations behind his death by suicide, reflecting The Complications of Public Identity as Cleopatra and Antony face the ignominy of their defeat. The comedic tone of the earlier parts of the play becomes serious and somber, and Cleopatra’s manipulative behavior leads to tragedy rather than amusement. Shakespeare explores the subject of death by suicide by showing how the characters view ending their lives as the only way to maintain their identity after losing things that they frame as key components of themselves.
Before Antony’s death by suicide at the end of the Act, Shakespeare foreshadows the event by depicting Enobarbus’s parallel desire to die. After Enobarbus leaves Antony to side with Caesar, he is deeply ashamed after realizing that Antony sent him the treasures that he earned in Antony’s service. When he realizes that Antony is clearly a worthy and noble man to follow, Enobarbus cannot resolve the contradiction between his own betrayal and Antony’s generosity. After this, he views his own life as improper, calling out to the moon as he wanders by night:
O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,
The poisonous damp of night dispunge upon me,
That life, a very rebel to my will,
May hang no longer on me (4.9.15-18).
Shakespeare portrays Enobarbus’s wish to die as a way to bring his state of being in line with his will again. Being alive is contrary to what he sees as proper for a person like him, and therefore he wishes for his life to end. However, he asks the moon to kill him with the damp night air, suggesting that he seeks a death as ignoble and unheroic as his actions have been in life.
Similarly, Antony decides to end his life when he believes that Cleopatra is dead due to his own mistaken assumptions, signifying how central his love for her has become to his concept of himself. When he believes that she has betrayed him and told her navy to surrender to Caesar, he is furious and threatens Cleopatra with violence. Fearful, she hides from him and then decides to employ a test of his mood, similar to the ploys she used in Act I to keep his attention. She commands her eunuch: “Mardian, go tell him I have slain myself. / Say that the last I spoke was “Antony” / And word it, prithee, piteously” (4.13.10-12).
While she intends on testing Antony’s mood by seeing if he would be upset at news of her death, she inadvertently causes him to have a crisis of self. Believing that she died still loyal to him, Antony declares to his squire Eros, “Here I am Antony / Yet cannot hold this visible shape” (4.14.17-18). He compares his own body to a dissolving cloud or mirage, indicating that he feels he cannot be himself anymore now that Cleopatra has died. He asks Eros to help him to end his life, seeing it as a way to maintain his honor and to follow Cleopatra, marking himself as both a great soldier and a faithful lover. Rather than seeing his death as a punishment, he frames it ironically as a way to heal himself, saying, “Come, then, for with a wound I must be cured” (4.14.92).
While death by suicide was a common practice for high-status individuals seeking to avoid capture in ancient Rome, Shakespeare was writing during an era in which it was explicitly forbidden by Christian theology. His portrayal of Antony’s death suggests the nobility and bravery of his actions, but also rashness, misunderstanding, and foolishness as he dies when Cleopatra is actually alive and well. In Antony’s final moments, Cleopatra’s words to her mortally wounded lover suggest both blame and admiration:
Noblest of men, woo’t die?
Hast thou no care of me? Shall I abide
In this dull world, which in thy absence is
No better than a sty? O see, my women,
The crown o’ th’ Earth doth melt.—My lord! (4.15.69-73).
Cleopatra emphasizes how Antony is the “crown of the earth,” the only person who makes the world great and more meaningful than an animal pen, suggesting that for her to remain alive when he is gone would degrade her as well as sadden her. In the final Act of the play, Shakespeare sets up the question of whether or not Cleopatra will also end her life and display loyalty to Antony, or whether her temperamental and inconstant nature will cause her to submit to Caesar and save herself.
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By William Shakespeare
