Textuality » 4A Interacting
Cleopatra is the queen of Egypt and one of the main characters of the tragedy.
She id introduced by Shakespeare as a sentimental woman. In the first act, in the first dialogue between Antony and Cleopatra, she asks Antony, who is a Roman Triumvir as well as Cleopatra’s lover, if the feeling between them is really love, and if it is, how much he loves her.
She would like to put a limit to their love to understand how much Antony cares for her. Antony answers that she has to find out a new heaven and a new Earth. He implicitly says that his love for her goes beyond them (heaven and Earth). It is out of bounds.
When an attendant, withinformation for Antony from Rome enters Cleopatra changes her behaviour: she doe no longer seem interested in Antony’s love anymore but she prefers to take an interest in Roman events.
Cleopatra is not the sentimental woman she would like to appear, now the real queen of Egypt appears on the floor, the one that for her empire is able to do everything, even to subdue her witless lover, clouded by his love itself.
Antony does not want to hear the attendant, he prefers to spend his time with his queen, who last night desired that. From that cue, another shade of Cleopatra’s behaviour comes to surface: her sex-appeal, which is another ploy of her “game plan”.
In a certain sense, for that reason we may think of Cleopatra as the prototype of a seducer.
At the beginning she subdues Antony appealing to feelings, when she sees the lie of the land, she sets out again to jump on Antony’s integrity, in order to make him her mental slave.
From that we may understand Cleopatra's intelligence, capable of exploiting her beauty, her sensuality and men’s stupidity to reach whatever she wants.
