Antony and Cleopatra

Question 1

Stage direction which shows Cleopatra’s theatricality

Answer 1

“She hales him up and down”

Question 2

How Antony immediately establishes authority over Caesar in Act 2 Scene 2

Answer 2

by asking him to “Sit, sir.” after Caesar says “Sit.”

Question 3

How Antony likens his marriage with Octavia to a transaction

Answer 3

He says to Caesar “dispatch we / The business we have talked of.”

Question 4

Political context: Pompey is annoyed with Antony, which shows how interpersonal relationships can have a significant effect on global affairs (they are on the verge of armed conflict as a result)

Answer 4

“I came before you here a man prepared to take this offer. But Mark Antony put me to some impatience.”

Question 5

How Enobarbus describes Cleopatra’s theatricality

Answer 5

“We cannot call her winds and waters sighs and tears; they are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can report”

Question 6

How Enobarbus describes Cleopatra’s majesty

Answer 6

“The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne […] The oars were silver […] O’erpicturing that Venus”

Question 7

How Cleopatra describes herself previous to knowing Antony

Answer 7

“I was / A morsel for a monarch”

Question 8

Positive description of Cleopatra

Answer 8

“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.”

Question 9

2 quotations that portray Antony as a strong soldier

Answer 9

1. Caesar: “Was borne so like a soldier that thy cheek / So much as lanked not”
2. Cleo: “the arm / And burgonet of men”

Question 10

2 quotations to show how Antony has changed since becoming infatuated with Cleopatra

Answer 10

“The triple pillar of the world transformed into a strumpet’s fool”

“He fishes, drinks, and wastes / The lamps of night in revel; is not more manlike / Than Cleopatra”

Question 11

Quotation to show how Antony indulges in pleasure

Answer 11

Pompey says “Keep his brain fuming. Epicurean cooks, / Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite”

Question 12

What the Soothsayer says to Antony in comparison to Caesar

Answer 12

“Near him thy angel / Becomes afeard. […] Thy lustre thickens / When he shines by.”

Question 13

Cleopatra describing Antony as a lover versus Antony as a soldier

Answer 13

“Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon, the other way’s a Mars”

Question 14

Enobarbus’ (correct) prediction in Act 2 Scene 6 about what Antony will do

Answer 14

“He will to his Egyptian dish again.”

Question 15

2 quotations to show Antony’s love for Cleopatra

Answer 15

“There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned”

“Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide arch / Of the ranged empire fall!”

Question 16

Antony realising that he must return to his duties in Rome

Answer 16

“These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, / Or lose myself in dotage”

Question 17

3 key quotations from Antony’s argument with Caesar

Answer 17

“I learn you take things ill which are not so, / Or, being, concern you not.”

“I know you could not lack.”

“No, Lepidus, let him speak. The honour is sacred which he talks on now, / Supposing that I lacked it.”
(conveys his political wisdom)

Question 18

Antony’s excuse for ignoring his duties

Answer 18

“Poisoned hours had bound me up / From mine own knowledge”

Question 19

In his first scene with Octavia (his new wife), Antony is already apologising to her for his behaviour

Answer 19

“I have not kept my square”

Question 20

2 quotations to show Cleopatra’s reaction to Fulvia’s death

Answer 20

“Can Fulvia die?”

“Now I see, I see, / In Fulvia’s death how mine received shall be”

Question 21

Cleopatra describing how much Antony means to her

Answer 21

“O, my oblivion is a very Antony”

Question 22

Quote to show the extent of Cleopatra’s love for Antony - she cannot survive without him

Answer 22

“Give me to drink mandragora.” […] “That I might sleep out this great gap of time / My Antony is away.”

Question 23

When Cleopatra is missing Antony and sexual allusion is used to convey this

Answer 23

“O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!”

Question 24

2 occasions in which Cleopatra echoes Antony

Answer 24

“He shall have every day a several greeting, / Or I’ll unpeople Egypt.”

“Melt Egypt into Nile”

Question 25

Reversal of gender roles between Antony and Cleopatra

Answer 25

“I drunk him to his bed. […] I wore his sword Philippan.”

Question 26

Cleopatra’s outburst of anger at the messenger who tells her that Antony is marrying Octavia

Answer 26

“The gold I give thee will I melt and pour / Down thy ill-uttering throat.”

Question 27

Cleopatra immediately regretting her angry outburst upon hearing news of Antony’s marriage (showing how her emotions fluctuate so much)

Answer 27

“These hands do lack nobility, that they strike / A meaner than myself”

Question 28

Caesar describing the fickle public

Answer 28

“This common body, / Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream, / Goes to and back”

Question 29

Pompey’s description of Caesar

Answer 29

“Caesar gets more money where / He loses hearts.”

Question 30

What Caesar says to Antony in their argument following his succession of criticisms

Answer 30

“You have broken the article of your oath, which you shall never have tongue to charge me with”

Question 31

Caesar’s concluding statement on his relationship with Antony

Answer 31

“We shall remain in friendship, our conditions so differing in their acts.”

Question 32

Antony’s description of Caesar’s fortune

Answer 32

“The very dice obey him”

Question 33

2 quotations from the feast, in which Caesar refuses to drink while everyone else revels in pleasure

Answer 33

“I had rather fast from all, four days, than drink so much in one.”

“Our graver business / Frowns at this levity.”

Question 34

Critical quotation about Antony

Answer 34

Antony was a ‘sensualist and a voluptuary’ who ‘dragged a fine nature through the common sewer of licentiousness’ (Charles Cowden Clarke)

Question 35

Critical quotation about Cleopatra

Answer 35

here […] has he given us the perfect and everlasting woman’ (Algernon Swinburne)

Question 36

Critical quotation about Antony and Caesar’s conflict

Answer 36

Jonathan Dollimore argues that “the conflict between Antony and Caesar represents a collision between older conceptions of power centred upon individual honour”

Question 37

Menas and Enobarbus discussing men and women (Act 2 scene 6, two lines)

Answer 37

Menas: All men’s faces are true, whatsome’er their hands are.

Enobarbus: But there is never a fair woman has a true face.

Question 38

What Cleopatra says to Antony in act 1 scene 3 about honour

Answer 38

‘Your honour calls you hence; / Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly, / And all the gods go with you!’

Question 39

Caesar on Antony’s honour

Answer 39

‘Antony, / Leave thy lascivious wassails […] It wounds thine honour that I speak it now.’ (act 1 scene 4)