Antony and Cleopatra: How the minor characters subvert the major characters

There are shades of greatness in the major characters of Antony and Cleopatra. Their words are lofty, their actions awe-inspiring, even their trivial bickering is memorable in a way that raises them above the mundane into the realm of the legendary. History pales in comparison to the grand scale of their mutual clashes, and the glow of nobility drapes every action of theirs.

Perhaps this is why Shakespeare introduced into the play a wide array of minor characters who actively subvert the role of the major characters, who open our eyes to the more human facets of their personalities, and give us a more practical and less grandiose perspective on their actions and motivations.

Most of the subversion takes place in the form of the minor characters commenting on and undercutting the atmosphere of nobility and greatness generated by the major characters. Given these deliberately confusing cross-currents, it is difficult to assess Shakespeare’s true feelings towards his major characters – whether he really believed in the touches of grandiloquence he bestowed on them, or whether he looked on them with the same sardonic eye that he often exercised through Enobarbus, and through the other minor characters.

As the play starts, even before we get a chance to meet him, we are introduced to the character of Antony in a speech by Philo that immediately deflates our vision of him as a noble and powerful Roman general. Instead, Philo constructs an image of a once-extraordinary man now reduced to a smitten fool: “You shall see in him the triple pillar of the world transformed into a strumpet’s fool”. And just as he subverts the established image of Antony by attacking his weakness for Cleopatra, Philo also attacks the very love that motivates Antony throughout the play, reducing it to a vulgar infatuation and calling him “the bellows and the fan to cool a gipsy’s lust”.

Philo’s opinion is not a solitary one. Almost every other character in the play looks upon Antony and Cleopatra’s relationship less as a bond of love and more as a power game, in which Cleopatra has used her sexual wiles to entrap Antony into lustful servility. Maecenas envisions Cleopatra as a victor in the game of power when he calls her “a most triumphant lady” and Enobarbus believes Antony to be a helpless pawn in Cleopatra’s hand when describing how “she pursed up his heart on the river of Cydnus”. Maecenas insinuates that Antony no longer has control of his armies when he “gives his potent regiment to a trull”, and Enobarbus tells Cleopatra herself, “An eunuch and your maids manage this war”. When Cleopatra flees from the war, Antony’s loyalty in following her is likened by Scarus and Enobarbus to that of a “doting mallard”.

In fact, the characters of the play seem to equate Antony’s loss of power to a loss of masculinity on his part, and consequently, an acquisition of feminine traits in his personality. In a society dominated by a patriarchal mindset, which Shakespeare was either mocking or was perhaps himself not entirely free of, masculinity was seen to be directly related to men’s power over women, while submission and pliability were considered feminine qualities. Thus, Cleopatra’s ability to manipulate Antony and wield power over him is interpreted by the other characters as an interchange of their masculinity and feminity.

At one point in the play, Charmian indicates the approach of Cleopatra by saying “Here comes Antony”. Although Alexas corrects her with “Not he, the queen”, it is unlikely that Charmian had actually mistaken her own mistress for Antony. It is much more likely that Charmian, still absorbed in the atmosphere of levity of the previous conversation, was poking fun at the man-like qualities that she perceived her mistress to have acquired while simultaneously mocking Antony’s woman-like tendency to submit to Cleopatra’s will. And that is essentially what Canidius means, when he says about Antony: “Our leader’s led, and we are women’s men”.

But far more than Antony, it is Cleopatra who incurs the insults and censure of the minor characters for the Roman general’s conduct. Her sensual nature and her passionate affair with Antony together lead to her image as an immoral woman. Thus, she is called Antony’s “Egyptian dish” by Enobarbus, a “trull” by Maecenas, a “ribauldred nag” by Scarus and a “gipsy” by Philo. Even when she has aroused the curiosity and admiration of the Romans, such as when Enobarbus describes the splendour of her first meeting with Antony to an awed Agrippa, Cleopatra is still sexually objectified by the men: “Royal wench! She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed. He ploughed her, and she cropped”.

Most of the time, Shakespeare does not treat Cleopatra’s character kindly. Her interactions with her messenger reveal unattractive facets of her personality. The first time, when the messenger brings her news of Antony’s marriage to Octavia, she flies into a paroxysm of rage, the violence of which only compares to the violence of Antony’s anger when he sees Caesar’s messenger kissing Cleopatra’s hand later in the play. In both instances, the messengers are punished unfairly and out of proportion to their alleged crimes – Antony has Thidias whipped and humiliated, and Cleopatra strikes her messenger several times, and even draws a knife to kill him. Both instances shed an unpleasant light on the major characters, underscoring their lack of self-control and their inability to behave with dignity, instead resorting to hysteria and vicious hatred. But though Antony can be said to have at least some reason for his vindictive rage against Thidias since Thidias was trying to manipulate Cleopatra into deserting Antony for Caesar, albeit under Caesar’s orders, Cleopatra’s behaviour with her messenger seems to be erratic and an unpleasant reflection on her character. Similarly, Cleopatra’s second scene with the messenger, when he invents faults in Octavia to flatter her, emphasizes her vanity and her conceit.

On the other hand, there are instances in the play when Shakespeare portrays Cleopatra as the extraordinarily beautiful, magnificent, larger-than-life character of legend. Enobarbus, when discussing her with Agrippa and Maecenas delivers a stirring tribute: “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. Other women cloy the appetites they feed, but she makes hungry where most she satisfies”. Shakespeare seems to have had mixed feelings towards Cleopatra, showing us both her ugly side and her queenly one.

Shakespeare’s use of the minor characters reveals the personalities of Antony and Cleopatra from various points of view. On one level, Antony and Cleopatra are merely two people exhausted by a life of excessive pleasure and luxury. On another level, they are tragic characters willing to risk kingdoms for their love. Shakespeare laughs at them for their foolishness, sympathizes with them for their suffering, critiques them for their faults and admires them for their moments of personal nobility.

But however ambivalent Shakespeare may have been about the love between Antony and Cleopatra, his attitude towards the world of the Roman generals and politicians is unfailingly critical. And since Rome’s political sphere is made up of many of the major characters – Caesar, Antony, Lepidus, Pompey – it is left to the minor characters to uncover the hypocrisy and superficiality hidden behind their noble exteriors.

Antony may have proclaimed himself overjoyed to be marrying Octavia, and Caesar may have professed grief at parting from her, but Enobarbus and Menas are fully aware that “the policy of that purpose made more in the marriage than the love of the parties” and that Antony “married but his occasion here”. The world may hail Antony and Caesar as brilliant generals, but Ventidius knows that “Caesar and Antony have ever won more in their officer than person”. Lepidus may seem to be the powerful third triumvirate of the Roman world, but Eros calls him “the poor third” and the servants laugh contemptuously at his drunken behaviour “this it is to have a name in great men’s fellowship. I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service as a partisan I could not heave”.

Under the guise of a joke to Antony and Cleopatra, Enobarbus’ barb at the political opportunism and insincerity on both sides is deceptively sharp: “if you borrow one another’s love for the instant, you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again. You shall have time to wrangle in when you have nothing else to do”. In a similar vein, under the guise of humour, Agrippa and Enobarbus make a scathing critique of Antony and Caesar’s false show of emotion during Octavia’s departure from Rome: “Will Caesar weep?”...”Why, Enobarbus, when Antony found Julius Caesar dead, he cried almost to roaring, and he wept when at Philippi he found Brutus slain.” “That year, indeed, he was troubled with a rheum. What willingly he did confound he wailed, believ’t, till I wept too.” Thus, when Menas tells Enobarbus “All men’s faces are true, whatsome’er their hands are”, his remark reflects not just on the previous encounter between the triumvirate and Pompey, but on the Roman political sphere as a whole.

Menas plays an important role in Shakespeare’s subversion of the major characters. When Pompey decides not to fight the triumvirs and to accept their offer, and when Menas proposes murdering the triumvirate and Pompey refuses, the audience might be relieved but Menas only thinks he is a fool. That is why he tells Enobarbus, “Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune”, and later, “Who seeks and will not take, when once ‘tis offered, shall never find it more”. Menas also turns the tables on Enobarbus by calling him a great thief “by land”. His statement forces us to wonder if Shakespeare was critiquing colonialism, because he seems to be making an intriguing and persuasive argument – that conquering other territories and capturing their wealth and resources was no less of ‘thieving’ than Menas’ piracy, which, after all, only captured the resources of solitary ships on the ocean.

But even more than Menas, it is Enobarbus who proves invaluable to Shakespeare’s attempts at subversion. Enobarbus has been read by some critics as a choral character, a character similar to the Choruses of ancient Greek tragedies. These Choruses served the purpose of expressing traditional attitudes and guiding the audience's response to the play. Shakespeare, too, employs Enobarbus as a means to convey his own opinions on the proceedings and to guide the audience’s response. Plutarch’s Parallel Lives of the Greeks and Romans from which Shakespeare derived Antony and Cleopatra was in narrative form and so Plutarch could insert his own commentary from time to time. But Shakespeare was forced to rely on Enobarbus in order to deliver his own commentary throughout the story.

However, there is an important difference between how the Greek tragedies used their Chorus, and how Shakespeare uses Enobarbus. During the course of the play, Enobarbus expresses attitudes that are anything but traditional. For example, when Antony tells him about Fulvia’s death, instead of sympathizing with Antony or mourning her loss, Enobarbus takes us by surprise with his cheerful lasciviousness: “Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it shows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein, that when old robes are worn out, there are members to make new”. Later, after a bout of depression and despair, when Antony suddenly regains his spirits and challenges Caesar to a duel, the audience is ready to applaud Anton’s courage and optimism. But Enobarbus sheds a different light on his sudden bravado: “I see men’s judgements are a parcel of their fortunes, and things outward do draw the inward quality after them to suffer all alike…Caesar, thou hast subdued his judgement too.” When Antony’s soldiers are grieved to hear him tell them it may be the last time they see him alive, the traditional response would be to be sorrowful. But Enobarbus penetrates through Antony’s affectation of despondency and replies to Cleopatra’s puzzled inquiry: “[He means] to make his followers weep”. Later, when Antony is full of courage and fervour to go onto the battlefield and fight Caesar, only Enobarbus realizes that Antony’s newfound mettle will prove the undoing of him: “To be furious is to be frighted out of fear, and in that mood the dove will peck the estridge; and I see still a diminution in our captain’s brain restores his heart. When valour preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with”. He gains support for his conviction from an unexpected quarter. In Caesar’s camp, the same idea has occurred to Maecenas, who is at that moment saying about Antony: “When one so great begins to rage, he’s hunted even to falling”.

Antony and Cleopatra’s minor characters seem to be absorbed upon bringing down its major characters from their high pedestal, upon depressing their pretensions. Even when they are ostensibly praising a major character, their praise shows up the defects of his character and seems to be highlighting the qualities he does not possess rather than the ones he does. For example, when Proculeius describes Caesar as “a conqueror that will pray in aid for kindness where he for grace is kneeled to” and someone “who is so full of grace that it flows over on all that need”, all that it serves to do it is remind us that he is shrewd, manipulative and definitely not gracious, since we already know that the only reason he wants to keep Cleopatra alive is that he is planning to parade her through the streets of Rome as a symbol of his triumph in the war (“For her life in Rome will be eternal in our triumph”). When Eros calls Antony “that noble countenance wherein the worship of the whole world lies”, the fact that Antony has not courage enough to kill himself when even Eros does so with honour makes Eros’ speech glaringly incongruous. In fact, as Antony admits himself shamefully, Eros seems “thrice nobler” than him. When Agrippa mourns Antony’s death and says of him: “A rarer spirit never did steer humanity; but you gods will give us some faults to make us men”, rather than excusing Antony for his faults since he is merely human, it draws our attention to the nature and number of his faults. In fact, his speech even touches upon Caesar when Maecenas says about him: “When such a spacious mirror’s set before him, he needs must see himself”. It reminds us that Caesar may have been the victor in this war, but essentially, he is the same as Antony and will eventually meet the same downfall.

But even with their many faults, with their selfishness and arrogance, with their cupidity and their deceit, the major characters of Antony and Cleopatra still have strains of the exceptional in them. They are rare and remarkable individuals, and despite the considerable amount of criticism their characters receive at the hands of the minor characters, they will always remain in our memories as charismatic and legendary personalities worthy of the attention they have received over centuries.