Antony And Cleopatra Caesar Quotes

Her seductive power, however, did not lie in her looks [...]. In reality, Cleopatra was physically unexceptional and had no political power, yet both Caesar and Antony, brave and clever men, saw none of this. What they saw was a woman who constantly transformed herself before their eyes, a one-woman spectacle. Her dress and makeup changed from day to day, but always gave her a heightened, goddesslike appearance. Her words could be banal enough, but were spoken so sweetly that listeners would find themselves remembering not what she said but how she said it.

Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me: now no more The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip: Yare, yare, good Iras; quick. 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 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. 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 desired. Dost thou lie still? If thus thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world It is not worth leave-taking.

The personal inevitably trumps the political, and the erotic trumps all: We will remember that Cleopatra slept with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony long after we have forgotten what she accomplished in doing so, that she sustained a vast, rich, densely populated empire in its troubled twilight in the name of a proud and cultivated dynasty. She remains on the map for having seduced two of the greatest men of her time, while her crime was to have entered into those same "wily and suspicious" marital partnerships that every man in power enjoyed. She did so in reverse and in her own name; this made her a deviant, socially disruptive, an unnatural woman. To these she added a few other offenses. She made Rome feel uncouth, insecure, and poor, sufficient cause for anxiety without adding sexuality into the mix.

Whoever is born on a day I forget to send a message to Antony will die a beggar. Bring ink and paper, Charmian. Welcome, my good Alexas. Charmian, did I ever love Caesar as much as this? Oh, that splendid Caesar! May you choke on any other sentiments like that! Say, “That splendid Antony.” The courageous Caesar! By Isis, I’ll give you bloody teeth if you ever compare Caesar with Antony, my best man among men.

In praising Antony I have dispraised Caesar.

Oh, Charmian, Where think’st thou he is now? 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 wott’st thou whom thou mov’st? The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm 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 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 With looking on his life.

CLEOPATRA TO THE ASP The bright mirror I braved: the devil in it Loved me like my soul, my soul: Now that I seek myself in a serpent My smile is fatal. Nile moves in me; my thighs splay Into the squalled Mediterranean; My brain hides in that Abyssinia Lost armies foundered towards. Desert and river unwrinkle again. Seeming to bring them the waters that make drunk Caesar, Pompey, Antony I drank. Now let the snake reign. A half-deity out of Capricorn, This rigid Augustus mounts With his sword virginal indeed; and has shorn Summarily the moon-horned river From my bed. May the moon Ruin him with virginity! Drink me, now, whole With coiled Egypt's past; then from my delta Swim like a fish toward Rome.

CAESAR. Take your time.

That something is not impossible does not mean that it happened.

She did not approach Caesar wrapped in a carpet, she was not a seductress, she did not use her charm to persuade the men in her life to lose their judgement, and she did not die by the bite of an asp…Yet other important elements of her career have been bypassed in the post-antique recension: she was a Skilled naval commander, a published medical authority, and an expert royal administrator who was met with adulation throughout the eastern Mediterranean, perhaps seen by some as a messianic figure, the hope for a future Eastern Mediterranean free of Roman domination.

What was said of an earlier tribune was more true of Antony: “He was a spendthrift of money and chastity—his own and other people’s.” The brilliant cavalry officer had all of Caesar’s charm and none of his self-control. In 44 the conspirators had deemed him too inconsistent to be dangerous. After the Ides Mark Antony was in his glory, entirely the man of the hour—at least until Octavian arrived. Cleopatra

We know that Antony pined for Cleopatra months later, though she wound up with all the credit for the affair. As one of her sworn enemies asserted, she did not fall in love with Antony but “brought him to fall in love with her.” In the ancient world too women schemed while men strategized; there was a great gulf, elemental and eternal, between the adventurer and the adventuress. There was one too between virility and promiscuity: Caesar left Cleopatra in Alexandria to sleep with the wife of the king of Mauretania. Antony arrived in Tarsus fresh from an affair with the queen of Cappadocia. The consort of two men of voracious sexual appetite and innumerable sexual conquests, Cleopatra would go down in history as the snare, the delusion, the seductress. Citing her sexual prowess was evidently less discomfiting than acknowledging her intellectual gifts. In the same way it is easier to ascribe her power to magic than to love. We have evidence of neither, but the first can at least be explained; with magic one forfeits rather than loses the game. So Cleopatra has Antony under her thumb, poised to obey her every wish, “not only because of his intimacy with her,” as Josephus has it, “but also because of being under the influence of drugs.” To claim as much is to acknowledge her power, also to insult her intelligence.

No more light answers. Let our officers Have note what we purpose. I shall break The cause of our expedience to the Queen And get her leave to part. For not alone The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches, Do strongly speak to us, but the letters too Of many our contriving friends in Rome Petition us at home. Sextus Pompeius Hath given the dare to Caesar and commands The empire of the sea. Our slippery people, Whose love is never linked to the deserver Till his deserts are past, begin to throw Pompey the Great and all his dignities Upon his son, who - high in name and power, Higher than both in blood and life - stands up For the main soldier; whose quality, going on, The sides o' th' world may danger. Much is breeding Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life And not a serpent's poison.

CAESAR Evet, öyle öldürmüş olacak kendini. Hekimi söylüyordu: Bir sürü denemeler yaptırmış Kolay ölmenin yolunu bulmak için. Alın götürün onu yatağı üstünde, Kadınlarını da çıkartın bu anıttan dışarı. Antonius'un yanına gömülsün Kleopatra. Böylesine ünlü bir çifti, hiçbir mezar Birleştirememiştir yeryüzünde. Sebep olanların da içini sarsan Büyük olaylardan biri bu yaşadığımız: Onların hikayesinin insanlara duyuracağı acı Daha küçük olmayacak Onları acınacak hale düşürenlerin zaferinden. Ordumuz bu ölüm törenine saygı ile katılacak, Sonra Roma'ya döneceğiz. Sayfa:164

Augustus, who in almost everything save his ambition was deeply conservative, had far too much respect for tradition ever to think of having such a venerable memorial removed from the Forum. Nevertheless, the statue of Marsyas was troubling to him on a number of levels. At Philippi, where his own watchword had been ‘Apollo’, that of his opponents had been ‘liberty’. Not only that, but Marsyas was believed by his devotees to have been sprung from his would-be flayer’s clutches by a rival god named Liber, an anarchic deity who had taught humanity to enjoy wine and sexual abandon, whose very name meant ‘Freedom’, and who – capping it all – had been worshipped by Antony as his particular patron. The clash between the erstwhile Triumvirs had been patterned in the heavens. Antony, riding in procession through Cleopatra’s capital, had done so dressed as Liber, ‘his head wreathed in ivy, his body draped in a robe of saffron gold’.89 Visiting Asia Minor, where in ancient times the contest between Apollo and Marsyas had been staged, he had been greeted by revellers dressed as satyrs. The night before his suicide, ghostly sounds of music and laughter had filled the Egyptian air; ‘and men said that the god to whom Antony had always compared himself, and been most devoted, was abandoning him at last’.

Kleopatra Öyleyse, sevgilim, soğuyan yüreğimden Buz gibi taşlar yağdırsın gökler Zehirleyerek hem de kanımın kaynağını: İlk taş boynuma düşsün ve erisin canımla birlikte. İkinci taş Caesarion'un başını alsın, Silsin birer birer izlerini soyumun; Bugün yiğit Mısırlılar'ımla birlikte Mezarsız bıraksın hepsini bu eriyen buz kasırgası; Nil'in sinekleri, kurtları gömsün yesin onları! Antonius Ferahladı yüreğim. İskenderiye'ye mi iniyor Caesar, Peki, ben de orda çıkarım karşısına. Kara gücümüz yiyitçe duruyor ayakta. Dağılan donanmamız da toparlanıyor, yeniden Yarıyor denizleri, meydan okuyarak. Nerelere gitmişti bu yüreğim benim? Dinle beni, kraliçe, bu dudakları öpmek için Bir daha dönersem savaştan, Üstüm başım kan içinde döneceğim. Kılıcımla ben yazacağım tarihimizi. Umutsuz değilim henüz. Sayfa:108

Old!" she said to herself. "I am not old! I have lived many years, that is all. But I am as timeless as an hour-glass that turns morning and night, and spills the hours of sleep one way, the hours of consciousness the other way, without itself being affected. Nothing in all my life has ever truly affected me.--I believe Cleopatra only tried the asp, as she tried her pearls in wine, to see if it would really, really have any effect on her. Nothing had ever really had any effect on her, neither Caesar nor Antony nor any of them. Never once had she really been lost, lost to herself. Then try death, see if that trick would work. If she would lose herself to herself that way.--Ah, death--!" But Mrs. Witt mistrusted death too. She felt she might pass out as a bed of asters passes out in autumn, to mere nothingness.--And something in her longed to die, at least, positively: to be folded then at last into throbbing wings of mystery, like, a hawk that goes to sleep. Not like a thing made into a parcel and put into the last rubbish-heap.

1595, Richard Field, fellow-alumnus of the King Edward grammar school in Stratford-upon-Avon, printed The lives of the noble Grecians and Romanes, compared together by that grave learned philosopher and historiographer, Plutarke of Chaeronea: translated out of Greeke into French by James Amiot, abbot of Bellozane, Bishop of Auxerre, one of the Kings privie counsell, and great Amner of France, and out of French into English, by Thomas North. This was the book that got Shakespeare thinking seriously about politics: monarchy versus republicanism versus empire; the choices we make and their tragic consequences; the conflict between public duty and private desire. He absorbed classical thought, but was not enslaved to it. Shakespeare was a thinker who always made it new, adapted his source materials, and put his own spin on them. In the case of Plutarch, he feminized the very masculine Roman world. Brutus and Caesar are seen through the prism of their wives, Portia and Calpurnia; Coriolanus through his mother, Volumnia; Mark Antony through his lover, Cleopatra. Roman women were traditionally silent, confined to the domestic sphere. Cleopatra is the very antithesis of such a woman, while Volumnia is given the full force of that supreme Ciceronian skill, a persuasive rhetorical voice.40 Timon of Athens is alone and unhappy precisely because his obsession with money has cut him off from the love of, and for, women (the only females in Timon’s strange play are two prostitutes). Paradoxically, the very masculinity of Plutarch’s version of ancient history stimulated Shakespeare into demonstrating that women are more than the equal of men. Where most thinkers among his contemporaries took the traditional view of female inferiority, he again and again wrote comedies in which the girls are smarter than the boys—Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing, Rosalind in As You Like It, Portia in The Merchant of Venice—and tragedies in which women exercise forceful authority for good or ill (Tamora, Cleopatra, Volumnia, and Cymbeline’s Queen in his imagined antiquity, but also Queen Margaret in his rendition of the Wars of the Roses).41

Herod the Great achieved power in Judea with Roman backing; he brutally suppressed all opposition. Herod was a friend of Marc Antony but, unfortunately, an enemy of Antony’s mistress Cleopatra. When Octavian (Augustus) Caesar defeated Antony and Cleopatra, Herod submitted to him. Noting that he had been a loyal friend to Antony until the end, Herod promised that he would now be no less loyal to Caesar, and Caesar accepted this promise. Herod named cities for Caesar and built temples in his honor.

Like Cleopatra,” observed Philostratus, “they reached such a pinnacle by using their connection to men: Cleopatra through Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, Domna through Severus, Maesa and her daughter through the two young cousins—one or both of them said to be the son of Caracalla. And now those boys rule jointly, since Antoninus adopted him and made him Caesar.

The agent reported from 26 BC, but that’s four years after Caesarion was supposed to have died. He’s alive and Pharaoh in Egypt, having struck a deal with Octavian. Octavian, who by 26 BC was now Augustus, Emperor of Rome.” “Okay,” Nada said. “Lead with the headline. And?” Edith stared at him in shock. “History is very different and going to get more so accordingly. Four years different when the agent etched this message. The fact there is no update to the message means that in that agent’s time, things had gone off course enough that he could not access the Needle. Or perhaps he no longer lived.” She barely paused to take a breath. “It could explain why, in your man Eagle’s history, the Lateran Obelisk was still in Egypt, never having been brought to Rome. “The implications are staggering if this is left unchecked.” She looked at her watch. “We only have six hours to fix this. It’s just the beginning. It’s likely, if left unchecked, the obelisk will disappear and then . . .” Moms held up a hand as Nada began to say something. “Six hours to fix something that’s already gone wrong for four years in the past?” “Yes, yes,” Edith said. “That’s the way the Patrol works. Go back to the day Caesarion was supposed to have been killed, although I believe the exact date isn’t recorded. I’ll have to do research.” She closed her eyes in thought. “After the naval battle at Actium, when Antony was defeated by Octavian, he fled back to Egypt. Cleopatra was there with Caesarion, who she had claimed from birth was the son of Caesar and heir.” “Was he?” Moms asked.

The Peacock & The Eagle: Cleopatra's Entry Into Tarsus by Stewart Stafford Cleopatra arrives, regal and mighty, From ocean spray as Aphrodite, Wealthy and waif, yearning for her, Dared all to defy her possessive aura. Mark Antony, struck by her sultry gaze, Lepidus, prisoner in a bureaucrat's maze, Sees power slipping from a friend’s hand, Ensnared by a siren from a scorched land. Lepidus was Caesar's trusted right hand; A granule falling through hourglass sand, Antony, headstrong military provocateur; Funeral orator from bloody crown auteur. Bargain's scorpion pincers; no longer twain: Cleopatra was Ceres, promising Rome grain, Antony was Mars' armed emissary, Business and pleasure's flood tributary. Antony: "Barge of emerald, Elysium's onyx! Beyond counsel words of sage sardonic, Gliding the Cydnus's silken seam, This Nile Helen shall be my queen." Lepidus: "Pleasure vessel of a floating whore, Yours for a sesterce on the Tiber's shore, Honour your oath, noble Roman creed, Lest passion’s shipwreck sets out to sea.” "This Venus virago on her mirage barge; Serpent prow, silver oars, rhythmic charge! What hubris to think she can equal, The bloody talons of our Roman eagle!" Antony: "Feast your eyes past peacock's bower, She speaks Rome's tongue of naked power. Mark it, that obsidian Sphinx stings - Human head, lion's body, eagle wings! "That is the form she takes to the public: I smell a perfumed alliance for the Republic! With Plebeians as her tickled cats, they hum, I crave her beauty and company. Come!" © 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.

Julia was fifth cousin to Julius Caesar

Her own brother was Lucius Julius Caesar, who was consul in 64 BC

Once he was ready, he would return and crush Caesar.

Caesar pursued and tried to prevent his escape

Caesar had won the first campaign, but he remained a rebel

In May 44 BC Cicero passed on a rumour that Cleopatra and ‘that Caesar of hers

nor even any indication that either Caesar or anyone else assumed that there should be.

Antony was Caesar’s fellow consul and a distinguished supporter,

but he lacked Caesar’s wealth, reputation and auctoritas, and the network of clients

Crassus had a reputation as a miser; Caesar was generous and already successful.

Caesar left full accounts of his campaigns in Gaul,

When Julius Caesar was thirty he saw a bust of Alexander and is supposed to have wept

but Octavian’s position was vulnerable because he had not been adopted while Caesar was alive

Here was a genuine son of Caesar, and it did not matter that he was a foreigner and a bastard,

Needing funds to pay his soldiers, Caesar took money from the Republic’s Treasury,

Caesar then left for the campaign in Spain.

claiming that Caesar’s clemency was a sham

As well as generals, Caesar needed administrators.

and sneaking into Julius Caesar’s house during an exclusively female religious festival.

Most people believed he was conducting an affair with Julius Caesar’s wife.

Caesar refused to testify against Clodius when the latter was charged with sacrilege.

Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion’.

Caesar was granted a five-year extension to his command in Gaul.

Caesar himself had massive debts when he left for his province early in 58 BC.

Pompey did not need Caesar as much as he had done in 59 BC.

In spite of Caesar’s new-found glory and great fortune from the conquest of Gaul,

In 59 BC Pompey had married Caesar’s daughter Julia, his only legitimate child.

Once Caesar’s command expired in Gaul, then he would have neither of these things.

Caesar had charisma, which he displayed in his courting of other senators

there were other men who resented being overshadowed by Caesar’s glory and achievements.

Several boasted that as soon as Caesar returned home

Caesar wanted to go straight from his command into a second consulship in 48 BC,

The question of how Caesar would return home from Gaul

were almost all hostile to Caesar

By the summer of 49 BC Caesar had outmanoeuvred the Pompeian armies in Spain

If Caesar had been beaten, then the civil war would have been over,

as Caesar’s subordinates failed to match his successes.

not simply relegate him to the supporting role of Caesar’s subordinate

Apollodorus carried the bag into the palace where Caesar was staying and brought her to his room.

is more than likely that Cleopatra was a virgin when she met Caesar,

Caesar was fifty-two, more than a decade into his third marriage

was a provocative move, and Caesar arranged for two senior courtiers,

Caesar did not have enough men to risk battle outside the city

Caesar’s men were able to hold their own after heavy fighting,

Now, Achillas was eager to seize them and then use them to prevent Caesar from retreating

Caesar’s men were able to secure control of the warships

there was an opportunity to win Caesar’s favour.

If Caesar died, then the Romans would be defeated and she was unlikely to survive.

leading Alexandrians came to Caesar and begged him to send Ptolemy to them,

If the boy king’s advisers were disappointed at Caesar’s reaction,

Dolabella, a staunch Caesarean who had assured him of Caesar’s goodwill.

After Pharsalus, most of Caesar’s veterans had been shipped back to Italy.

Caesar finally landed in Italy in September 47 BC and hurried to Rome.

Caesar rode into their camp himself

was extended to ‘Ptolemy called Caesar’. From quite early on the Alexandrians nicknamed him Caesarion (‘Little Caesar’).

Caesar never formally acknowledged the baby as his son – there would have been little point.

so by Roman law he could have no official status or inherit any of Caesar’s property.

On the other hand, Caesar does not seem to have done anything

Avenging Caesar’s murder would not in itself make Antony’s own position stronger or more secure,

Valued in itself, it was a reminder of Caesar’s generosity to many

Caesar’s body was displayed, dressed in his regalia and laid on an ivory bier.

clearly visible. Antony seems to have begun by listing some of the many honours voted to Caesar by the Senate,

showing once again how fond Caesar had been of the men who killed him.

CAESAR’S SON

His name was Caius Octavius and he was the son of Caesar’s niece Atia.

Octavius was Caesar’s closest male relative and at the age of just twelve

The first report of Caesar’s death brought with it news that he had made Octavius his principal heir

came to see him. He would not hand over Caesar’s papers or private funds,

Some of Caesar’s former supporters were more enthusiastic,

he also began to pay citizens the gift Caesar had promised in his will.

Generous bounties, combined with the appeal of Caesar’s heir

Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus – scholars conventionally call him Octavian

Octavian, however, persuaded people that it was a sign of Caesar’s ascent into heaven

Caesar did not live in the villa with the royal party,

Finally, all of Caesar’s associates joined in alliance against the conspirators

colleagues publicly rejected Caesar’s policy of clemency,

die and had his way. In return he sacrificed his uncle, Lucius Julius Caesar.

For Octavian –‘who owed everything to a name’ and his connection with the great Caesar