Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary
devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Extravagant Declarations of Love
In Act I, scene i, Antony and Cleopatra argue over whether
their love for one another can be measured and articulated:
CLEOPATRA: [to Antony]
If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
ANTONY: There’s
beggary in the love that can be reckoned.
CLEOPATRA: I’ll
set a bourn how far to be beloved.
ANTONY: Then
must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.
(I.i.14–17)
This exchange sets the tone for the way that love will
be discussed and understood throughout the play. Cleopatra expresses
the expectation that love should be declared or demonstrated grandly. She
wants to hear and see exactly how much Antony loves her. Love, in Antony
and Cleopatra, is not comprised of private intimacies,
as it is in Romeo and Juliet. Instead, love belongs
to the public arena. In the lines quoted above, Cleopatra claims
that she will set the boundaries of her lover’s affections, and
Antony responds that, to do so, she will need to discover uncharted
territories. By likening their love to the discovery and claim of
“new heaven, new earth,” the couple links private emotions to affairs
of state. Love, in other words, becomes an extension of politics,
with the annexation of another’s heart analogous to the conquering
of a foreign land.
Public Displays of Affection
In Antony and Cleopatra, public displays
of affection are generally understood to be expressions of political
power and allegiance. Caesar, for example, laments that Octavia
arrives in Rome without the fanfare of a proper entourage because
it betrays her weakness: without an accompanying army of horses,
guardsmen, and trumpeters, she cannot possibly be recognized as
Caesar’s sister or Antony’s wife. The connection between public
display and power is one that the characters—especially Caesar and
Cleopatra—understand well. After Antony’s death, their battle of
wills revolves around Caesar’s desire to exhibit the Egyptian queen
on the streets of Rome as a sign of his triumph. Cleopatra refuses
such an end, choosing instead to take her own life. Even this act
is meant as a public performance, however: decked in her grandest
royal robes and playing the part of the tragic lover, Cleopatra
intends her last act to be as much a defiance of Caesar’s power
as a gesture of romantic devotion. For death, she claims, is “the
way / To fool their preparation and to conquer / Their most absurd
intents” (V.ii.220–222).
Female Sexuality
Throughout the play, the male characters rail against
the power of female sexuality. Caesar and his men condemn Antony
for the weakness that makes him bow to the Egyptian queen, but they clearly
lay the blame for his downfall on Cleopatra. On the rare occasion
that the Romans do not refer to her as a whore, they describe her
as an enchantress whose beauty casts a dangerous spell over men.
As Enobarbus notes, Cleopatra possesses the power to warp the minds
and judgment of all men, even “holy priests” who “[b]less her” when
she acts like a whore (II.ii.244–245).
The unapologetic openness of Cleopatra’s sexuality stands
to threaten the Romans. But they are equally obsessed with the powers of
Octavia’s sexuality. Caesar’s sister, who, in beauty and temperament
stands as Cleopatra’s opposite, is nevertheless considered to possess
power enough to mend the triumvir’s damaged relationship: Caesar
and Antony expect that she will serve to “knit [their] hearts / With
an unslipping knot” (II.ii.132–133). In this
way, women are saddled with both the responsibility for men’s political
alliances and the blame for their personal failures.
