Antony and Cleopatra

William Shakespeare · England, c. 1606 · Shakespearean drama · WAEC set text 2026–2030

Why it is on the list

The one Shakespeare play on this syllabus. You will meet it in Paper 3. Learn the public / private split, the battle of Actium, and four or five speeches you can quote.

Setting

Rome, Alexandria, and the sea between them, after Julius Caesar’s death.

The story

Mark Antony, one of Rome’s three rulers (the triumvirate with Octavius Caesar and Lepidus), lives in Egypt with Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, and neglects his Roman duties.
News from Rome: his wife Fulvia is dead, and Pompey is threatening the empire. Antony returns, marries Caesar’s sister Octavia to patch the alliance, then goes back to Cleopatra.
Caesar is insulted. War follows. At Actium, Cleopatra’s fleet turns and runs; Antony follows her, and the battle is lost.
Antony’s men desert. Believing Cleopatra dead, he falls on his sword. He is carried to her monument and dies in her arms.
Cleopatra, refusing to be led in Caesar’s triumph through Rome, has an asp (a poisonous snake) brought in a basket of figs and dies in royal robes.

Characters

Mark Antony: Roman triumvir. Torn between soldier’s honour and his love for Cleopatra. His tragic flaw is that the private man overthrows the public one.
Cleopatra: Queen of Egypt. Theatrical, political, genuinely in love. She stages her own death so she will not be exhibited as a captive.
Octavius Caesar: Cool, calculating, the future Augustus. Rome’s rising power. He wins because he is never distracted.
Enobarbus: Antony’s lieutenant and the play’s clearest voice. His barge speech describes Cleopatra; he deserts Antony and dies of shame.
Octavia: Caesar’s sister, married to Antony as a political bridge. Quiet, honourable, and discarded.
Charmian & Iras: Cleopatra’s attendants. They die with her.

Themes

Public duty versus private desire — Rome versus Egypt, reason versus passion.
Power and performance — Cleopatra is always staging herself; politics is theatre.
Loyalty and betrayal — Enobarbus, the fleet, Octavia.
Death as victory — both lovers choose the manner of their dying so Caesar cannot own it.

Enobarbus describes Cleopatra’s barge (Act 2, Scene 2) — public domain

The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burned on the water. The poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were lovesick with them. The oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggared all description: she did lie
In her pavilion — cloth-of-gold of tissue —
O’erpicturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature.

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.

In the exam

Do not retell the whole play. Pick two or three scenes (Actium, Antony’s suicide, the monument) and quote.
Contrast is the engine: Rome/Egypt, Caesar/Antony, Octavia/Cleopatra. Examiners reward a clean contrast.
Enobarbus is a gift character — he sees clearly and still falls. Use him when the question is about loyalty or comment.