Love often calls for sacrifice whether it be true or false. Likewise, duty often calls for a similar amount of sacrifice, whether it be true or false. In Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare shows us a world that is in the midst of a major transformation. For the love of Antony and Cleopatra takes place against the backdrop of a major world upheaval. Not only do we have the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra by Octavius, but we have the defeat of the pagan world in order to pave the way for empire. Antony, Cleopatra and the rich, exotic pleasures of fertile Egypt represent a pagan world that is coming to and end. Octavius, Octavia and Rome represent the new world order of empire and, ultimately, Christianity. As G. Blakemore Evans (1392) suggests, “Shakespeare divides this world into Rome and Egypt, and under the main division subsumes a series of systemic antithesis: Virtue and Pleasure, empire and self-destruction, firmness and infirmity of purpose, solidity and instability, reason and passion, lucky winner and generous loser, the rising and the falling man; Caesar and Antony, Octavia and Cleopatra.” Yet, regardless of the outcome and who ends up on either side of the equation, Shakespeare illustrates that there is value within both the rich, pagan world of Egypt and the dutiful, order of Rome. This analysis will demonstrate the value inherent in both worlds, regardless of the dichotomy within Antony’s soul which is torn between his love of Cleopatra and his duty to Rome.
The tragedy inherent in Antony and Cleopatra is that of the silencing of the pagan world and the conquest of Roman Empire. Shakespeare is well aware of the historical and earth-transforming nature of the schism between Rome and Egypt, Pagan and Empire worlds, and Antony and Octavius. The world was not as complex or as broad in scope as it is today. It was a time when one man, or as the case may be, two, could have total authority over the entire world...