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Summary: Act 4: Scene 1
Octavius, encamped near the Egyptian capital of Alexandria, receives Antony’s challenge to one-on-one combat and laughs at it. Maecenas counsels him to take advantage of Antony’s rage, for “[n]ever anger / Made good guard for itself” (4.1.11–12). Octavius assembles his army, which has been augmented by deserters from his enemy’s troops, and prepares to crush Antony for good.
Read a translation of Act 4: Scene 1.
Summary: Act 4: Scene 2
Enobarbus brings word to Antony that Octavius has refused to fight him. Antony asks why, and Enobarbus suggests that Octavius is so sure of success that one-on-one combat seems unfair. Antony declares that he will fight the next day, whether it brings him victory or death. He thanks his servants for their faithful service and warns them that this night might be his last night with them. They begin to weep, and Enobarbus, with tears in his eyes, rebukes Antony for such a morbid speech. Antony says that he did not mean to cause sorrow, and, as he leads them off toward a bountiful feast, urges them to enjoy their evening together.
Summary: Act 4: Scene 3
That night, Antony’s soldiers hear strange music resounding from somewhere underground. They whisper that it is the music of Hercules, the god after whom Antony modeled himself and who they believe now abandons him.
Summary: Act 4: Scene 4
The following day, Eros arms Antony for battle, and Cleopatra insists on helping. Antony feels confident about the coming fight, promising Cleopatra that anyone who attempts to undo his armor before he is ready to remove it will face his rage. An armed soldier enters and reports that a thousand troops stand ready for Antony’s command. Antony bids Cleopatra adieu, kisses her, and leaves to join the fight.
Summary: Act 4: Scene 5
Preparing for battle, Antony admits he wishes he had taken the earlier opportunity to oppose Octavius on land. A soldier comments that had he done so, he would still count Enobarbus as an ally. This report is the first Antony has heard of his most trusted friend’s desertion, and the news shocks him. At first, he doesn’t believe it, but Eros then points to the “chests and treasure” Enobarbus left behind (4.5.16). Antony orders soldiers to deliver Enobarbus’s possessions to him, along with “gentle adieus and greetings,” and he laments that his “fortunes have / Corrupted honest men” (4.5.22–25).
Summary: Act 4: Scene 6
Octavius, feeling certain of his victory, orders Agrippa to begin the battle. Octavius orders that the front lines be fitted with soldiers who have deserted Antony, so that Antony will feel like he is wasting his efforts fighting himself. After hearing of Octavius’s cruel plan, Enobarbus receives the treasure and is overcome by guilt. The combination of these events makes him realize that he has become a traitor. Deciding that he would rather die than fight against Antony, he declares himself a villain and goes to seek out a ditch in which to die.
Summary: Act 4: Scene 7
Agrippa calls for his troops to retreat, declaring that the power of Antony’s forces has exceeded his expectations. Meanwhile, Antony’s men win the battle and retake Alexandria with a fierce display of force. Scarus sustains a significant wound, but he refuses to relent, begging Antony for the chance to chase after the retreating army.
Summary: Act 4: Scene 8
Antony returns from war, vowing to destroy Octavius’s army completely on the following day. He praises his soldiers for their valor and commands them to regale their families with tales of the day’s battle. When Cleopatra enters, Antony declares his love for her. He announces that she is the only thing that can pierce his armor and reach his heart. Antony asks Cleopatra to commend Scarus, one of his bravest soldiers. The queen promises the man a suit of golden armor that once belonged to a king. Antony leads his troops and his lover in a triumphant march through the streets of Alexandria to mark the joyous occasion.
Read a translation of Act 4: Scene 8.
Analysis: Act 4: Scenes 1–8
Because the play’s dramatic structure suggests that the battle in act 4 will be climactic and probably result in Antony’s death, Antony’s victory in these scenes is surprising. After Antony’s flight from battle in act 3, and after Cleopatra’s apparent willingness to betray him, all seemed lost for the lovers. Indeed, the opening scenes of act 4 confirm and build upon this impression. Octavius rejects Antony’s proposal for hand-to-hand combat with such assurance that we feel that there is something prophetic in the lines, “Know that tomorrow the last of many battles / We mean to fight” (4.1.14–15). Antony himself seems to believe the end is near. Seemingly undone by the treachery of his own behavior, he burdens his men with sadness rather than rousing them for battle. Finally, as if to seal our sense that Antony’s ill fortune is guaranteed, soldiers hear an otherworldly music they interpret as the departure of the spirit of Hercules. If the spirit of Hercules had ensured Antony’s previous military victories, then its departure surely signals a coming defeat.
If we in the audience have been wrong to anticipate Antony’s final fall from grace, we are not alone. Enobarbus, who has long felt suspicious of his leader’s capacity to lead, now finds sufficient reason to defect to his enemy’s camp. Although he has made an effort to continue advising Antony, Enobarbus determines that Antony has finally lost faith in himself. On the night before the next battle is set to take place, Enobarbus interprets Antony’s morose speech about the coming of death as a sign that he’s given up hope for victory. With tears in his eyes, Enobarbus rebukes his master. Yet this is also the moment when Enobarbus makes the decision at last to leave Antony’s service. Arguably, this decision is the true source of his tears.
Enobarbus’s defection has the additional function of demonstrating a key difference between Octavius and Antony. Enobarbus leaves Antony’s service because he feels that the great leader he’d known previously had lost his capacity to make reasonable decisions. In short, he leaves because he felt Antony had been too far compromised by love. But when he arrives at Octavius’s camp, he quickly realizes that he’s shifted his allegiance to a man who, though perhaps more self-assured as a military strategist, is nonetheless brutal in his calculations. When Octavius orders his captains to place the recent defectors from Antony’s army at the front lines of his own army, Enobarbus registers the malice at the heart of Octavius’s strategy. When he’s left alone on stage, he also reflects on how Octavius executed another defector from Antony’s army simply because he had once been sent on a diplomatic mission to steer Herod the Great’s allegiance away from Rome. In other words, Octavius is both cruel and capable of holding a grudge.
Antony, by contrast, exhibits a generosity of spirit that only becomes clear to Enobarbus when Antony sends along his chest of treasure along with a kind word of farewell. Many characters in the play have derided Antony for the way his emotional attachment to Cleopatra and his love for Egypt have apparently emasculated him. Enobarbus makes such a claim himself in act 4, scene 2, when he rebukes Antony: “For shame, / Transform us not to women” (4.2.46–47). Enobarbus sees Antony’s emotionality as a form of weakness, and he clearly fears contamination. Yet he seems to change his mind about Antony when faced with his former leader’s ungrudging generosity. Now deeply regretting his desertion, Enobarbus calls Antony a “mine of bounty” (4.6.36), reflecting a new perspective that ranks the generous man as nobler and more honorable than Octavius. There is clearly more to leadership than shrewdly calculated military tactics. This recognition seems ultimately to bear out in Antony’s victory over Octavius.
