Cleopatra in Italian and English Renaissance Drama 9789048537235

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Cleopatra in Italian and English Renaissance Drama

Renaissance History, Art and Culture This series investigates the Renaissance as a complex intersection of political and cultural processes that radiated across Italian territories into wider worlds of influence, not only through Western Europe, but into the Middle East, parts of Asia and the Indian subcontinent. It will be alive to the best writing of a transnational and comparative nature and will cross canonical chronological divides of the Central Middle Ages, the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Renaissance History, Art and Culture intends to spark new ideas and encourage debate on the meanings, extent and influence of the Renaissance within the broader European world. It encourages engagement by scholars across disciplines – history, literature, art history, musicology, and possibly the social sciences – and focuses on ideas and collective mentalities as social, political, and cultural movements that shaped a changing world from ca 1250 to 1650. Series editors Christopher Celenza, Georgetown University, USA Samuel Cohn, Jr., University of Glasgow, UK Andrea Gamberini, University of Milan, Italy Geraldine Johnson, Christ Church, Oxford, UK Isabella Lazzarini, University of Molise, Italy

Cleopatra in Italian and English Renaissance Drama

Anna Maria Montanari

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614), Cleopatra (c. 1585), oil on canvas, Rome, Polo Museale del Lazio, Galleria Spada, inv. 245. (Reproduced by the kind permission of Polo Museale del Lazio – Galleria Spada.) Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6298 599 5 e-isbn 978 90 4853 723 5 doi 10.5117/9789462985995 nur 617 | 694 © A.M. Montanari / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2019 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.

When suddenly, at midnight, you hear an invisible procession going by with exquisite music, voices, don’t mourn your luck that’s falling now, work gone wrong, your plans all proving deceptive – don’t mourn them uselessly. As one long prepared, and graced with courage, Say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving. – C.P. Cavafy, Απολείνειν ο θεὸς Αντώνιον (The god abandons Antony; vv. 1-8, trans. by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)

To my mother

Contents A Note on the Cover

11

List of Abbreviations

13

Acknowledgements 15 Introduction 17 1. ‘No Humble Woman She’ 1.1 Cleopatra through the Eyes of Ancient Historians 1.2 The ‘Egyptian Wife’

23 23 32

2. ‘The Subject of Talk the World Over’ 2.1 Enchantress and Martyr 2.2 ‘So lascivious, Cleopatra’ 2.3 The Legend of a Bad Woman

41 41 45 51

3. The Egyptian Queen’s Rebirth 3.1 Cleopatra Revised 3.2 A Royal ‘Model’ 3.3 ‘The Majestic Queen of the Nile’ 3.4 Seneca, Giraldi Cinthio, and Cleopatra

59 59 70 76 81

4. The Great Theatre of Cleopatra 4.1 An ‘invincible heart’ 4.2 A ‘wise and savvy’ Queen 4.3 The ‘greatest and most beautiful queen in the world’

105 105 125 149

5. ‘The wanton luxurie of Court’ 5.1 From Cleopatra to Cléopâtre 5.2 ‘Or meurs donc Cleopatre’ / ‘Die Cleopatra then’ 5.3 ‘A glorious Lady, and a mighty Queene’ 5.4 ‘Beautiful, unchaste and evil’

175 175 178 186 202

6. ‘A lass unparalleled’ 211 6.1 Dramatist, Actor and Poet 211 6.2 A ‘world of fluid size and shape’ 213 6.3 ‘His speech sticks in my heart’ 222 6.4 Dramatis Personae 230 6.5 ‘The witch shall die’ 243 6.6 The Comi-tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra 256 Conclusion 265 Bibliography 267 Index 301

List of Illustrations 1. Piero di Cosimo, Portrait of a Woman, Said to Be of Simonetta Vespucci (c. 1490) 69 2. Andrea Solario, Death of Cleopatra (c. 1514) 72 3. Michelangelo, Cleopatra’s Head (c. 1535) 73 4. Unknown artist, Portrait of Elizabeth Raleigh as Cleopatra 74 5. Unknown Venetian painter, Portrait of a Woman as Cleopatra (second half of the sixteenth century) 76

6. ‘A lass unparalleled’ 211 6.1 Dramatist, Actor and Poet 211 6.2 A ‘world of fluid size and shape’ 213 6.3 ‘His speech sticks in my heart’ 222 6.4 Dramatis Personae 230 6.5 ‘The witch shall die’ 243 6.6 The Comi-tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra 256 Conclusion 265 Bibliography 267 Index 301

List of Illustrations 1. Piero di Cosimo, Portrait of a Woman, Said to Be of Simonetta Vespucci (c. 1490) 69 2. Andrea Solario, Death of Cleopatra (c. 1514) 72 3. Michelangelo, Cleopatra’s Head (c. 1535) 73 4. Unknown artist, Portrait of Elizabeth Raleigh as Cleopatra 74 5. Unknown Venetian painter, Portrait of a Woman as Cleopatra (second half of the sixteenth century) 76



A Note on the Cover

This extraordinary portrait has been chosen for the book cover as it is representative of Cleopatra’s rich cultural ‘afterlife’. Painted when the Italian Renaissance was already waning, it possesses all the formal elegance and chromatic refinement of Mannerism.1 Yet its exquisite responsiveness to different and contrastive tendencies makes it a perfect visual corollary to Cleopatra’s adventures across time and space. The neo-Gothic vogue of the Catholic Reformation gives the composition a nearly feudal aspect; Cleopatra’s headdress resembles that of Matilde of Canossa in another portrait by Fontana (Torino, Galleria Sabauda, inv. 720)2; her clothes have a medieval and warrior-like quality, suggesting the influence of chivalric epic. All that, together with the fascination with Egypt and the exotic, contributes to the mysterious, almost magical atmosphere of the composition (see 3.1, 3.2). Love of the theatre is evident in the choice to represent a moment of high drama, in the striking, vividly coloured costume, and maybe even in the androgynous forms of the subject. Cleopatra, depicted half-length in profile, facing left, emerges from the dark into full light, exalted by a masterly harmonisation of sealing wax red, white, gold and brown. The sheen along the sleeve and the velvet collar further heighten the dazzling effect. She wears a precious, scarlet tiara, divided into four triangular sections. Beneath the headwear, a white veil with a border and dark and yellow stripes moulds, on the front, into a starched, undulating visor and a broad wimple, both ending with a badge. On the back, the veil falls down, covering her ears and the nape of her neck, then folds and comes forward, its end held in the queen’s left hand. Where the visor meets the wimple, a strand of hair demonstrates that this oriental-looking Cleopatra, for a long time mistaken for a ‘Turkish woman’, is in fact blonde, according to the dominant Italian tradition (see 2.2).3 This is no seductress, but a high priestess-queen. Her glance, untroubled by emotion, rests in silent complicity on the asp, and she opens its hiding place with a hieratic gesture, as if initiating some esoteric rite (see 6.5). Her union of West and East is finally exemplified by the details surrounding her. The embossed vase on the left (probably depicting Cronus’ head as the deity of time’s suspension in eternity) has a classical style, while the delicate inlay of the 1 2 3

For the painting, see Zeri 1954; Vicini; Cannatà-Vicini; Pomeroy 1998. See Bertelli; Vicini. Vicini; Zeri 1954.

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Cleopatr a in Italian and English Renaissance Dr ama

locked piece of furniture on the right shows a fantastic exotic design. 4 The figures on top of it have been identified as an ibis, a bust of Diana and a three-legged vase, respectively.

4

For Cronus, see Cartari, Le imagini de i dei de gli antichi, pp. 33, 35.

CAH CAH2 DBI

List of Abbreviations

MLQ PMLA RE RES RVF SEL SHA

The Cambridge Ancient History, 12 vols. (1924-1939) The Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn., 14 vols. (1970-2005) Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1960-) Journal of English Literary History Giornale storico della letteratura italiana Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue British Library, http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/ istc/ Modern Language Quarterly Publications of the Modern Language Association of America Real-Encyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1893-) Review of English Studies Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta, see Petrarca, Francesco, Canzoniere Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 Scriptores Historiae Augustae, trans. by David Magie, 3 vols. (London:

ShS SQ

Heinemann, 1921-1932) Shakespeare Survey Shakespeare Quarterly

ELH GSLI ISTC

Acknowledgements My greatest debt of gratitude is to Abigail Brundin and Robin Kirkpatrick, whose boundless generosity I cannot hope to repay. He helped me with the conception and development of this project in its earliest stages, she followed it to the last phase, offering her treasure of ideas and encouragement. I warmly thanks Gabriel Lyne and Lisa Sampson as well, for their critical readings, their gift of information and their acute suggestions: without their contribution these pages would be very different. I would also like to express my gratitude to Helen Cooper, David Hillman, and Vittorio Montemaggi for their intellectual support. I am especially indebted to Maria Pia Mussini Sacchi, who first ignited my interest in the Italian Cleopatra plays. Other persons who extended help and advice include Albert Ascoli, Gavin Alexander, Carla Brera, Robert Gordon, Caterina Zaira Laskaris, Teresa Donati, Manuel Rota, and Eleonora Stoppino. Special thanks to Deborah Harrison: she attentively read the material and the book is much the better for it, too. Special thanks also to Amelia Papworth for meticulous and perceptive attention to the details of the text as it was prepared for press and for her stylistic suggestions. I am extremely grateful to Erika Gaffney whose kindness went beyond the call of duty and I would also like to acknowledge for their contribution Chantal Nicolaes, Mike Sanders, and Sarah de Waard. I thank them all from the bottom of my heart.

Introduction ‘A Heart in Egypt’1 For over two thousand years artists and historians alike have been charmed by the extraordinary figure of Cleopatra. The essence of her fortune lies in her contradictory image, embodying the two opposite and irreconcilable female stereotypes that have long haunted the male heterosexual imagination: the lascivious enchantress and the steadfast lover. Cleopatra is a hybrid: on the one hand she is the empowered seductress, robbing men of their masculinity; on the other the devoted lover, incapable of surviving her paramour’s death. She commits suicide, the ultimate sin, and she is also a widespread symbol of lust, often depicted as naked, with serpents applied to her breasts. The impossibility of reducing her to a single portrait transforms Cleopatra into a sort of irresistible, quintessential woman, elusive and mysterious. Moreover, her life had something extra: even though it read like fiction, it was based on historical facts, and the public has always been partial to true stories. The history of Cleopatra’s literary tradition is multifarious by default. Each historical age, each European region, each cultural milieu modified her myth, according to its own moral values, its contradictions, its fears and preconceptions. This book considers some of the main adaptations of her story for the Renaissance stage, travelling from Italy to England to arrive finally with Shakespeare. Its organisation is chronological, making it possible to follow the development of the queen’s character and giving the reader the opportunity to identify the inception and changing of a particular motif. Chapter 1 sets out the historical and literary bases of Cleopatra’s myth in the classical period, surveying contemporary works by Greek and Latin authors and focusing on the two opposing images of the last of the Ptolemies that circulated in her lifetime: the lustful corrupter depicted in Augustus’ propaganda, and the monarch-goddess of Cleopatra’s own. The aestheticideological readings of her figure by poets such as Virgil, Horace, Propertius

1 Shakespeare, Ant., i.3.41.

Montanari, A.M., Cleopatra in Italian and English Renaissance Drama. Amsterdam University Press, 2019. doi 10.5117/9789462985995_intro

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Cleopatr a in Italian and English Renaissance Dr ama

and Lucan proved to be immensely productive over time and had a profound impact on Renaissance dramatists. Chapter 2 moves through late Antiquity and into the Middle Ages, showing how in some late-antique works, Cleopatra is unexpectedly praised for her suicide (Tertullian’s Ad Martyras) or astoundingly exalted as a stateswoman and a sovereign (John, bishop of Nikiu, Al-Mas’udi), while in Europe, by the Middle Ages, national differences in the treatment of this controversial figure began to emerge: the Italians continued to censure the queen of Egypt as a corrupted enemy of Rome (Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio) while English writers seemed to be more interested in the ‘romantic’ side of her relationship with Antony (Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate). The remainder of the analysis centres on Renaissance drama, focusing on Italy and England, but never neglecting the wider context. Chapters 3 and 4, taking the Renaissance renewal of the Cleopatra figure as a starting point, consider, in succession, all the Italian Cleopatra plays produced in the period (Giraldi, De Cesari, Pistorelli, and the anonymous Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio of the Aldini codex 392). These texts demonstrate a neo-Senecan style and a marked concern for contemporary issues. Through extensive textual analysis, I offer an assessment of the different ways in which the queen’s myth is adapted and interpreted by each playwright, in the light of the shifting social and cultural trends of early modern Italy. Chapter 5 crosses the Channel (passing through France), turning to the Elizabethan scene, where the cultural and political implications of the story re-emerge, mingling with different historical factors, including the Reformation, the presence of a queen on the English throne and the autonomous development of English theatre. Pembroke’s translation of Garnier’s tragedy and Daniel’s play provide evidence of the attempts to naturalise a dramatic form which addressed important political questions, such as tyranny and the moral stature of rulers. Samuel Brandon’s Virtuous Octavia, with its adulterous/chaste binary, completes and adds further variety to the picture. Finally, Chapter 6 is dedicated to Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra: the previously acquired data are used to approach the play from a comparative perspective. In each section of the chapter a different aspect of the text is investigated and compared to the corresponding feature in the preceding Cleopatra plays. The concluding argument, naturally emerging from this contrastive analysis, is that, with Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare created an unrecorded and unique kind of work, where two different plays (a comedy and a tragedy) consciously coexist from the first act to the beginning of the last one, in which tragedy is finally chosen as the definitive genre.

Introduc tion

19

Paradoxical as it may appear, despite her impressive fortune on the stage, Cleopatra’s stature as a ‘dramatic hero’ has been often underestimated. Her life has been considered hard to dramatise. Giraldi Cinthio, in his Lettera sulla tragedia, addressed to Ercole II d’Este (1543), was the first to assert that it was difficult to reduce the tale to a tragic form: Il fare la tragedia dell’argomento che ci porgono gli avenimenti di Cleopatra e di Marco Antonio suo marito […] mi si è offerto, alla prima vista, cosa tanto grave e faticosa, per la maestà delle persone che v’intervengono, che ne sono rimasto spaventato […] io cercherò in ciò di vincere me medesmo per comporne, quanto meglio potrò e saprò, la tragedia […] Ma se forse tardarò più nel compor la Cleopatra che non ho fatto nel comporre le altre due [tragedie], accusine […] il gran maneggio che porta questo real soggetto con esso lui, non la volontà mia prontissima a sempre servirla.2 [Turning the subject offered by Cleopatra’s and by her husband Marco Antonio’s deeds into a tragedy (…) appeared to me, at first sight, such a serious and difficult task, due to the royal state of the people in it, that I was scared by it (…) I shall try to overcome myself in that and to write the tragedy, as well as I know and can (…) But, should I be later in writing the Cleopatra than I was in writing my other two (plays), blame it on (…) the great difficulty that the subject has in itself, not my will, which is always ready to serve you.]3

Over a hundred years later, in the preface to his recasting of Shakespeare’s play, Dryden would insist that the subject was undramatic: That which is wanting to work up the pity to a greater height, was not afforded me by the story; for the crimes of love, which they both committed, where not occasioned by any necessity, or fatal ignorance, but were wholly voluntary; since our passions are, or ought to be, within our power. 4

Eminent critics later agreed with Dryden’s charge that the subject had a meagre tragic potential. Furthermore this was a typically ‘closed story,’ whose well-known facts potentially reduced the possibilities of innovation to a minimum. Each re-enactment of the episode had to struggle to find 2 Giraldi, Lettera sulla tragedia, pp. 485-486. See also below 3.4. 3 All translations are my own, unless explicitly stated. 4 Restoration Tragedies, p. 11.

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Cleopatr a in Italian and English Renaissance Dr ama

a way of engendering and maintaining suspense. At the same time, the biography of the queen was so fascinatingly alive with potential political interpretations, so filled with latent sentiments and passions, so suitable for moralising or eroding morals that it seemed to have remained almost as irresistible to dramatists as the historical Cleopatra was said to be to men. The long literary tradition concerning the queen of Egypt has not remained unexplored, yet it largely relies on older surveys, such as the fifth volume of Geoffrey Bullough’s Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (1964); Mary Morrison, ‘Some Aspects of the Treatment of the Theme of Antony and Cleopatra in Tragedies of the Sixteenth Century’ (1974); Marilyn L. Williamson, Infinite Variety: Antony and Cleopatra in Renaissance Drama and Earlier Tradition (1974) and Barbara J. Bono, Literary Transvaluation, From Virgilian Epic to Shakespearean Tragicomedy (1984). There exists no recent integrated assessment of Cleopatra as a dramatic figure, and past studies, although at the time they represented critical landmarks, are now in dire need of updating and completing.5 Since the end of the 1970s, literary texts have no longer been considered as autonomous utterances standing outside history, and criticism has become more theoretically sophisticated. Historical contextualisation, cultural codes, cultural reception, interaction between so-called ‘high’ and ‘popular’ culture are now fully taken into account, and so are theoretical issues such as the representation of race, of ‘otherness’ and of women’s roles, all of which now naturally demand investigation in relation to the subject of Cleopatra. Other kinds of broader and more specific questions also now demand interrogation, such as the implications of drama as a form distinguished from the other literary writings of the Renaissance, or the controversies and doubts about Chaucer’s intention in his Legend of Good Women. Recently there has also been a reassessment of Italian neoclassical tragedy, once almost universally condemned. This reassessment has taken as its starting point the assumption that the general censure of this form was based on anachronistic expectations, conditioned by Romantic and Classicising prejudices and by a post-Shakespearian perspective.6 Some recent studies 5 At first sight, the list of antecedents might also include Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Cleopatra, as well; but Hughes-Hallett’s brilliant work does not deal with the queen of Egypt as a literary character, but rather as a universal icon, and literary quotations have a marginal place in her study. An important contribution to our knowledge of the English Cleopatra plays is provided by the study of the subject by Yasmin Arshad, whose articles on Daniel’s Cleopatra are superlative. As her research does not have a comparative cut and explores the staging of drama in detail, I see it as necessary and complementary work to my own. 6 Ariani 1974; Guerrieri Crocetti; Di Maria; Morrison and Osborn; Morrison 1997.

Introduc tion

21

have had the merit of rectifying the errors and misconceptions of traditional scholarship, focusing renewed attention onto cultural contexts such as the new conception of dramatic space, the relevance of religion, and the definition of female status in male-authored texts.7 Regarding the English stage, we have definitively abandoned the long-held view of the so-called Pembroke circle, which was charged with having competed with Shakespeare and the commercial public theatre through the importation of a French, neo-Senecan model. This view profoundly influenced the twentieth-century reception of both Jodelle’s and Garnier’s plays and of Pembroke’s Antonius, and even altered the understanding of Daniel’s different versions of his tragedy. At the same time the role of so-called closet-drama has been re-evaluated (see below 5.2). In the twenty-first century, any approach to Renaissance theatre must necessarily adopt new perspectives and move away from the models of past criticism. In my study many interwoven aspects of the Cleopatra plays are taken into account: from the changes in rhetorical strategies employed by the different dramatists in treating the story as they had received it from the preceding tradition, to the sources, genre, and structure of the plays, not forgetting the interaction between the various characters. The originality of this book lies precisely in its particular interweaving of different threads. I take each entire play as a starting point and remain as close as possible to the text. Through textual analysis I am able both to emphasise the changes in the depiction of the character of the queen of Egypt, and to address many different contemporary issues, such as the domestication of foreignness, female types of heroism, the question of suicide, women as rulers, the concept of clemency, racial binaries and finally free will and predestination. As I decided to use the study of character as a way to provide fresh insights into dramatic texts, a more selective approach would end up being reductive. The method I pursue in this book is not often attempted: in most recent books dealing with Cleopatra literary texts are used rather as a means to illustrate socio-anthropological readings and not vice versa. Thanks to the prominence given to the plays, my enquiry on the one hand, provides a wide enough choice of examples to demonstrate the objectivity of the analysis in each case; on the other hand it combines close literary analysis with social history, a study of Western culture and its cognitive conflicts. My discussion of each Cleopatra play quotes from the original-language versions and also provides the corresponding English translation. Where on occasion I have employed the parallel-text method, this by no means 7

On the ‘defects of the Senecan medium’, see, for example, Williamson 1974, p. 131.

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Cleopatr a in Italian and English Renaissance Dr ama

implies a search for stylistic or thematic echoes, as this study does not deal with literary antecedents, direct contact or indirect absorption, and does not postulate any kind of source-text relationship among the various Cleopatra plays taken into account. It rather investigates the nexuses of continuity and the dynamics of change within the process of re-evaluation of the queen of Egypt’s figure, against changing backgrounds. Following the early development of the Cleopatra-narrative necessitates a series of precautions. Defining tragedies, even within this relatively short chronological arc, is very difficult, given that a variety of different meanings have been attached to the genre. Each work needs to be considered within the conception of drama it exemplifies. Secondly, the notion of character as a coherent and stable entity has suffered over the course of twentiethcentury turns in criticism. The integrity of fictional selves has increasingly been regarded with distrust, chiefly for fear of the anachronism of treating personages as real people. In relation to the current debates on the subject I share Lyne’s position in taking ‘what has become a counter-approach’ and give ‘the characters a large stake, and great credit, for their words and what they represent’.8 The study of the literary tradition about Cleopatra is a complex and fluid task and it requires a flexible attitude. My hope is that a global reconsideration of her place in the works examined here will shed light on the discrepancies, the fears and hopes, the dramatic conventions and innovations of early modern Italy and England.

8

Lyne 2011, p. 26. See also Curran 2014.

1.

‘No Humble Woman She’1 Abstract Ancient historiography and Cleopatra. Survey of the surviving works by Greek and Latin authors about her. Latin poets’ hate and admiration for Cleopatra. Virgil’s, Horace’s, and Propertius’ works. Later and minor classical authors’ variations on the subject. Lucan’s Pharsalia. Keywords: Cleopatra; Augustus; ancient historians; Augustan poetry

1.1

Cleopatra through the Eyes of Ancient Historians

We do not know much about Cleopatra’s life: little more than when she was born (69 BC), the names of her children (one reputedly by Caesar, Ptolemy XV Caesar, nicknamed Caesarion; three by Antony: twins Alexander and Cleopatra, and Ptolemy Philadelphus), the dates of her reign (51-30 BC), her political and private union with Antony, and her death by her own hand (3 August 30 BC).2 Ancient historians wrote much more about her, but most of what they wrote is not what we would regard as ‘fact’. Classical writers could introduce characters, alter events, and invent speeches with impunity, as it was considered perfectly acceptable in the interest of rhetorical impact.3 What is more, history is generally written, or rewritten, by the victors, and Antony and Cleopatra lost the war.4 1 ‘Non humilis mulier’, see Horace, Odes and Epodes, trad. by Rudd, i.37.32. 2 Thompson 2003. The bibliography on Cleopatra VII’s life, though vast, primarily consists of popular works. See Bouché-Leclercq, pp. 179-344; Grant 1972; Hughes-Hallett; Foss; Chauveau 2002; Hamer; Fletcher 2008; Tyldesley; Roller. We will never know if the child born shortly after Caesar’s meeting with her (23 June 47 BC) was his or not. See Volkmann, pp. 70-73; Grant 1972, pp. 83-85. 3 On the reasons why Greek and Roman historians fell short of modern standards of historiography, see Grant 1995; Crawford. 4 Syme, pp. 270-271. See also Tarn; Tarn and Charlesworth 1934b; Carter; Levi; Pelling 1996; Mackay. Even if Caesar’s heir never referred to himself as ‘Octavian’ in his early years, he will be subsequently called this way, for clarity purposes (Syme, p. 113). For Octavian, Marcone; Levick; Southern 1998a. See also below 3.4, 6.4.

Montanari, A.M., Cleopatra in Italian and English Renaissance Drama. Amsterdam University Press, 2019. doi 10.5117/9789462985995_ch01

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The lack of objective testimony becomes apparent if we consider the most important historical accounts from that revolutionary period. Little survives by contemporary authors. A few fragments make up what we have of Octavian’s Autobiography, whose partiality is well known.5 The only biographical work we still have, the Res Gestae Divi Augusti – a sort of long inscription that was to adorn his monument – is a masterpiece of ambiguity and omissions: Antony is not even mentioned by name.6 It was on the memoirs of Caesar’s heir that Nicolaus Damascenus (c. 64 BC-c. AD 5) would later draw for his life of Augustus, which is only partially extant. Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita lacks his retelling of the Battle of Actium and what we are left with, the so-called Periochae or Summaries – an abridgment of an epitome – are little more than a laconic list of events, albeit enough to tell us that Livy favoured Octavian.7 Born a few years after Julius Caesar, Cicero – one of the most famous victims of the proscriptions – did not write any historical narratives. In his Philippics, however, he creates a venomous picture of Antony which is not easily forgotten. He describes him as a drunken giant (ii.63), as a dissolute man (iii.28), and as a tyrant (xiii.18).8 If that was Antony, what could Cleopatra have been like? Morally condemnation of one amounted to moral condemnation of both.9 Later writers were influenced by those who came before them. Velleius Paterculus was so devoted to the nouveau régime that, in his Compendium, he defines Octavian’s victory as ‘fortuna publica’ [‘public fortune’] (ii.86.1).10 The next three historical narratives which cover Cleopatra’s life all date roughly from the time of Hadrian’s reign. Two out of three are biographies: Suetonius wrote a life of Augustus Caesar in Latin, Plutarch a life of Antony in Greek. Suetonius’ De Vitae Caesarum is filled with gossip and anecdotes. His interest in the morally corrupting consequences of absolute power casts a shadow on his portrayals of both Octavian and his enemies: 5 Pelling 1999, p. 26. 6 See, for instance, Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History. Res Gestae Divi Augusti, 4.24. On the literary and historical value of the account, see Syme, pp. 522-524. 7 See, for example, the summary of Book cxxxii in Livy, Summaries. 8 Cicero, Philippics. On Antony, see Plutarch, Ant., 1-26; Dio, xlii-li; Julius Caesar, Bell. Civ. On his figure, see also Roberts; Southern 1998b; Southern 2007; Shotter, p. 88; Pelling 1996, p. 8. 9 Cleopatra is never mentioned in the orations, but Cicero shows his dislike for her in his correspondence. See Ad Att., 362 (xiv.8.1), 374 (xiv.20.2), 393 (xv.15.2). He repeats his charges against Antony in his letters: Ad Att. 357 (xiv.3.2), 359 (xiv.5.1), 366 (xiv.12.1), 399 (xv.22), Fam., xii.4.1, xii.25.4. Cicero’s ghost appears among the dramatis personae of the anonymous Renaissance play Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio of the Aldini codex 392, now in the library of the University of Pavia, Italy. See below 4.3. 10 See also ii.85.1, ii.87.1-2. On Velleius Paterculus, see Woodman. His brief court history was written during the reign of Tiberius.

‘No Humble Woman She’

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Et Antonium quidem seras condiciones pacis temptantem ad mortem adegit viditque mortuum. Cleopatrae, quam servatam triumpho magno opere cupiebat, etiam Psyllos admovit, qui venenum ac virus exsugerent, quod perisse morsu aspidis putabatur. Ambobus communem sepulturae honorem tribuit ac tumulum ab ipsis in cohatum perfici iussit. [xvii.4] [Although Antony tried to make terms at the eleventh hour, Augustus forced him to commit suicide, and viewed his corpse. He greatly desired to save Cleopatra alive for his triumph, and even had Psylli brought to her, to suck the poison from her wound, since it was thought that she had died from the bite of an asp. He allowed them both the honour of burial, and in the same tomb, giving orders that the mausoleum which they had begun should be finished.]11

Nevertheless, his reconstruction of events is within the general guidelines of Octavian’s official propaganda. Plutarch’s Ἀντώνιος is, in fact, the biography of a couple: it is the first time the queen features to such an extent.12 Plutarch recounts both Antony’s vices and virtues, but, on the whole, he judges him as a capable man, ruined in the end by his own faults.13 The depiction of Cleopatra is crueller, as though she is considered the real foe. Antony is made out to be no more than a puppet in her hands: Ἡ δέ Κλεοπάτρα τὴν κολακείαν οὐχ, ὥσπερ ὁ Πλάτων φησί, τετραχῇ, πολλαχῇ δὲ διελοῦσα, καὶ σπουδῆς ἁπτομένῳ καὶ παιδιᾶς ἀεί τινα καινὴν ἡδονὴν ἐπιφέρουθσα καὶ χάριν, διεπαιδαγώγει τὸν Ἀντώνιον οὔτε νυκτὸς οὔτε ἡμέρας ἀνιεῖσα. καὶ γὰρ συνεκύβευε καὶ συνέπινε καὶ συνεθήρευε καὶ γυμωαζόμενον ἐν ὅπλοις ἐθεᾶτο, καὶ νύκτωρ προσισταμένῳ θύραις καὶ θυρίσι δημοτῶν καὶ σκώπτοντι τοὺς ἔνδον συνεπλανᾶτο καὶ συνήλυε θεραπαινιδίου στολὴν λαμβάωουσα. [29.1]14 [But Cleopatra, distributing her flattery, not into the four forms of which Plato speaks, but into many, and ever contributing some fresh delight and charm to Antony’s hours of seriousness or mirth, kept him in constant 11 Augustus, in Lives of the Caesars, trans. by Rolfe. For Suetonius, see Baldwin; Wallace-Hadrill. 12 Flacelière and Chambry, p. 87. In Plutarch’s life, only 25 chapters out of 87 concern Antony’s life before meeting Cleopatra. 13 Ant., 4, 9.3-6, 17.2-3, 24. 14 Demetrius and Antony, Plutarch’s Lives, trans. by Perrin. All references, unless openly stated, come from this edition. For the Greek text, see also Ant., ed. by Pelling.

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tutelage, and released him neither night nor day. She played at dice with him, drank with him, hunted with him, and watched him as he exercised himself in arms; and when by night he would station himself at the doors or windows of the common folk and scoff at those within, she would go with him on his round of mad follies, wearing the garb of a serving maiden.]

Plutarch consulted conflicting sources – many first hand – and liberally drew on philo-Augustan and philo-Antonian accounts as he wished. As such, his picture of Cleopatra is multifaceted and contradictory.15 Nevertheless, despite his attempt to preserve stories which differed from the official history, he did nothing to destroy the tópos of a war of East against West.16 Even more bitter hostility can be felt throughout Florus’ Epitomae de Tito Livio, the third historical account written in the age of Hadrian.17 He even calls Octavian’s forces at Actium ‘we’, while Antony’s men are referred to as ‘the enemy’.18 His version of Antony and Cleopatra’s romance is both striking and compelling: the queen turns Antony into a monster (ii.21.4.11.3). Unlike Plutarch (Ant., 85), he sets the queen’s death in the Egyptian mausoleum: Ibi maximos, ut solebat, induta cultus in referto odoribus solio iuxta suum se conlocavit Antonium, admotisque ad venas serpentibus sic morte quasi somno soluta est. (ii.21.4.11.11) [There, having put on the elaborate raiment which she was wont to wear, she placed herself by the side of her beloved Antonius in a coffin filled with rich perfumes, and applying serpents to her veins thus passed into death as into a sleep.]19

The f inal simile between sleep and death, enriched throughout a long Romance tradition, passing through Petrarch (TM, 1.166-172) and Boccaccio’s Latin works (De Casibus, vi.15.17), will eventually find its way to Shakespeare’s tragedy (v.2.338-342).20 15 Ant., 27.2-4, 53.3-6, 84; Comparison, 1.3. See Pelling 1999, pp. 26-36. 16 Ant., 60.1. 17 This title is – at least in part – misleading, as in fact Florus drew on different traditions. On Florus, see Bessone; Reeve 1988; Reeve 1991. 18 Ep., ii.21.4.11.5. 19 The English translation is that of Forster. 20 For its traditional use, see, for example, Homer, Iliad, xiv.231, xvi.672, 682; Hesiod, Thegonia, 211-212, 756, 758-759; Catullus, Carmina, v.4-6; Posidippus of Pella, Quae supersunt omnia, 131. For the motif in philo-Augustan poetry, see below 1.2. In his Etymologies, 12.4 (De serpentibus)

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A further historical work, by Appian, was possibly completed during the reign of Antoninus Pius (AD 138-161). His Roman History is generally regarded as relatively objective. One of his sources was probably Pollio’s History of the Civil War. Pollio had been a personal friend of Caesar and later become a partisan of Antony.21 However, Appian covered the matter of Egypt in a part of the fifth book that has been lost to us.22 In the extant section of his chronicle we find evidence of his cool judgement, but his neutral attitude seems chiefly restricted to a certain indulgence towards Antony’s conduct in his private life (Bell. Civ., v.8, 9, 76). The Roman History does not add anything really novel or unexpected to our knowledge of Cleopatra. The final reconstruction of the bellum cum Antonio et Cleopatra to be mentioned is that by Cassius Dio.23 It was composed about AD 200-222, with Livy as its principal source on the Civil Wars.24 Dio starts telling the same, familiar story, in the same, reproachful tone, claiming that Antony ‘became the Egyptian woman’s slave’ (xlviii.24.2). Yet if Plutarch had hinted at Cleopatra’s attempts to come to an agreement with Octavian,25 Dio goes further. He tells a tale of deception and betrayal. According to him, after the Battle of Actium, Octavian sent his libertus Thyrsus to the queen, to declare his love for her. Cleopatra rose to the bait and secretly switched her allegiance to him. She led Antony to believe that she had committed suicide, hoping he would take his life, which he did. Only after meeting the victor, when she realised that she could not seduce him, did she decide to kill herself and finally succeeded.26 Dio’s conclusion is curt: Κλεοπάτρα δὲ ἄπληστος μὲν Ἀφροδίτης ἄπληστος δὲ χρημάτων γενομένη, καὶ πολλῇ μὲν φιλοτιμίᾳ φιλοδόξῳ πολλῇ δὲ καὶ περιφρονήσει θρασείᾳ χρησαμένη, τήν τε βασιλείαν τὴν τῶν Αἰγυπτίων ὑπ᾽ἔρωτος ἐκτήσατο, καὶ τὴν τῶν Ῥωμαίων 14, Isidore of Seville gives a scientific explanation of the phenomenon, stating that Cleopatra was poisoned by a hypnalis, a snake of the same family as the asp, which is so called because it induces sleep in his victims. Before him, see Solinus, A Collection of Memorable Facts, 27.31, quoted in Gurval 2011, p. 60. Among Italian Renaissance tragedies, see Giraldi, Cleopatra tragedia, v.6.423; Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio, Aldini codex 392 (v.355). 21 On his exemplary behaviour, see, for instance, Vell. Paterculus, ii.86. 22 According to Fotius’ widely accepted description (cod.57, pp. 15, 21b-17a Bekker), Appian’s Roman History consisted of 24 books. We now have Books 6-8; part of Book 9; Books 11-17, plus the introduction to Book 4 and some fragments. The five books on the civil wars correspond to Books 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 of the original corpus. 23 This, that we follow, is the Roman order of his names. The Greek order was Δίων ὁ Κάσσιος. His praenomen is unknown. See Cary 1914, p. vii (the English version is his own). Dio’s books about the Civil Wars are part of that third of his History which has come down to us. 24 On the disputed question of Dio’s sources, Millar; Gabba 1955; Reinhold. 25 Ant., 73, 74, 76. 26 Dio, li 9-14.

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λήψεσθαι δι᾽αὐτοῦ ἐλπίσασα ταύτης τε ἐσφάλη καὶ ἐκείνην προσαπώλεσε, δύο τε ἀνδρῶν Ῥωμαίων τῶν καθ᾽ἑαυτὴν μεγίστων κατεκράτησε, καὶ διὰ τὸν τρίτον ἑαυτὴν κατεχρήσατο. (li.15.4) [Cleopatra was of insatiable passion and insatiable avarice; she was swayed often by laudable ambition, but often by overweening effrontery. By love she gained the title of Queen of the Egyptians, and when she hoped by the same means to win also that of Queen of the Romans, she failed of this and lost the other besides. She captivated the two greatest Romans of her day, and because of the third she destroyed herself.]

This is the general tenor of what we can gather from the Greco-Roman historians.27 The variety of trifles and insignificant details we are able to put together – from them, and other writers who touched upon these events – is striking, but it does not bring us any closer to the truth.28 In fact, we do not even know whether Octavian wanted Cleopatra dead, and encouraged her suicide, or wanted her alive for his triumph and was thwarted.29 The significant fact is that when Cleopatra died, in 30 BC, aged 39, she had already become a semi-mythologised figure.30 There were at least two different images of the queen in circulation while she was alive. The first was that portrayed in Octavian’s propaganda: an irresistible Circe, who led men to their ruin. Her guilty love had perverted Antony, threatening to destroy the res publica.31 27 There are minor documents not considered here, for instance, Eutropius, Breviarium ab urbe condita, 7.1-7; Zonaras, Epitome Historiarum, 10.29-31; Orosius, Historiae adversus paganos, vi.18-19; Anon (Aurelius Victor), Liber de viris Illustribus, 79, 85-86. Some of them will be discussed below 2.1. Strabo’s summary of the events is in keeping with the official version (Geography, xvii.1.11). He gives two different explanations for Cleopatra’s death: the asp or a poison ‘applied directly into her body’ (Gurval 2011, p. 55). Pliny the Elder also stresses Augustus’ ‘uprightness’ (Miles 2011a, p. 5). 28 We know, for example, that Cleopatra had golden thrones (Dio, xlix.40); that she wore an amethyst ring (Ant. Palat., IX 752); that she possessed a murrineus calix; that she wrote messages on onyx tablets (Plut., Ant., 58.6); that she had golden dishes (Suet., Aug., lxxi.1) and wonderful pearl earrings (Pliny, Nat. Hist., IX 119-122 [lviii]; Macrobius, 3.17.15-18). 29 On modern scholars’ scepticism about Octavian’s attempts to prevent her suicide, see Pelling 1996, pp. 64-65. For current views of Cleopatra’s suicide, see Whitehorne, pp. 186-196. 30 For similar remarks, from a different perspective, see Hughes-Hallett, pp. 95-102. Modern historians are divided into Cleopatra’s detractors and supporters; on opposite positions, for instance, see Bevan, p. 381; Volkmann, p. 195. 31 The Jewish historian Josephus (AD 37/38-98), in his Jewish Antiquities (Ant., xiv.324), also states that after meeting Antony in Cilicia, Cleopatra turned him into a slave of love. See also Josephus, Jewish War, i.243, 359. Josephus is one of the few ancient historians who did not see events through Roman eyes. Regrettably, this does not prevent him from violently attacking

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Octavian and Antony were fighting for supreme power in Rome, with no real legal or moral case on either side. Caesar’s heir was in need of a tangible foreign enemy upon whom he could declare war, in order to claim that he was defending his native country and Cleopatra was perfect for that role.32 Preconceptions, exaggeration, stereotypes and credulity did the rest. In ancient times, the East – traditionally def ined as an ethnic and geographical antimodel – did not possess clearly defined boundaries. It could encompass both Numidia and India, Egypt and Media. Just like the North, it was substantially identified with ‘those who are different from us’.33 Cleopatra was both a foreigner and a woman and became an ideal embodiment of the dangerous seductions of the East, with its lax morals, its decadent corruption, and its sumptuous wealth.34 It was a potent contrast to the Roman virtues of discipline, rationality, pietas, duty and self-control By putting his passion and private life before his Roman identity and the common interest of the state, Antony had renounced his true self. Plutarch compares his culpable behaviour with that of Hercules, stripped of his lion’s skin and of his club by Omphale, queen of Lydia: giving way to the folly of passion had emasculating effects.35 Omphale’s domination over Hercules was one of the motifs of the Augustan literary references to Antony and Cleopatra. The queen, selfish, cowardly and frivolous, was clearly unfit to rule. In Egypt, state matters were decided by eunuchs, hairdressers and manicurists.36 Before Actium, she foolishly and shamefully argued against a land battle and then, in the middle of the fight, and, lacking virile courage, she sailed away.37 The second Cleopatra was that created by her own propaganda, the goddess-queen who governed a great and noble country.38 The Ptolemies Cleopatra, as his point of view is that of her enemy Herod, king of Judaea. See, for instance, Ant., xv.91, and The Life. Against Apion, ii.57-58. 32 Res Gestae, 25. See Carter, pp. 167, 181-183. 33 For a synthetic view of the concepts of model and antimodel, see Segre, pp. 236-257. 34 For the vices of the Alexandrians, see Pseudo Caesar, Bell. Alex., xxiv; Cicero, Pro C. Rabirio Postumo, 12.35; Dio, xxxix.58. 35 Ant., Comparison, 3.3-4, see Plutarch, Demetrius and Antony, trans. by Perrin. For Hercules and Omphale, see Ovid, Fasti, ii.317-326; Heroides, ix.73-80. In his Bellum Civile, Lucan compares Cleopatra to Helen of Troy (x.60-62). Both Helen and Cleopatra were symbols of the destructive power of female charm (Bono and Tessitore, pp. 50-52). For the inversion of gender roles attributed to Egypt in antiquity, see Vasunia, pp. 92-100; Pucci, p. 196. 36 Plut., Ant., 60.1. 37 Plut., Ant., 62, 63.5-6, 66; Dio, l.33.1-2. Note that, according to most scholars, the battle was in fact only an attempt on Antony’s part to break out and escape with as many ships as possible and with the treasure chest. See, above all, Carter, pp. 215-227; Pelling 1996, pp. 54-59; Mackay, pp. 358-359. 38 See Ashton, p. 21.

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claimed kinship with Dionysus, via Alexander the Great. Furthermore, for 250 years, Egyptian queens had been associated with Isis, the powerful, multifaceted deity of love and abundance, generally identified with Aphrodite. Cleopatra, on public occasions, often wore the garb of the goddess.39 Daniel’s dramatic version of the regina rhetorically asks: ‘Am I the woman, whose inventive pride, / (Adorn’d like Isis,) scornd mortalitie?’ (i.33-34). 40 Isis was also the protector of women, and Cleopatra promoted women where she could. She restored priestess Aba to the throne of Cilicia, against her father, Zenophanes, and tried to help Alexandra in avenging her son Aristobulus, even though it may be suspected, in both cases, that her ultimate intention was to support rulers of royal blood. 41 Among the followers of the cult of Dionysus (Cleopatra’s family religion) women had high visibility, enjoyed great freedom and had many rights, so much so that Dionysiac males were often accused of being dominated by their wives, one of the charges against Antony himself (Plut., Ant., 10.3).42 Within the upper and learned classes, education of girls was typical and socially accepted, and women often acquired literary skills.43 Female members of the highest ranks of the aristocracy could act as counsellors and regents. This philogynistic stance was very different from the misogynistic standard which dominated in ancient Greece, a standard shared and articulated by Aristotle himself, in his History of Animals and Politics.44 The attitude towards women in Rome was complex but more positive, at least for the elite classes, and included the notion of ‘same and other’. 45 Nonetheless, in Latin literature, women defying their husband’s authority and taking autonomous decisions were often presented as maenads, like Amata in Virgil’s Aeneid (vii.373-405). Cleopatra, an intellectually empowered stateswoman, challenged the view of male superiority. 46 39 Wyke, pp. 100-103, 107. For the female role in the cult of Isis, see Heyob, Takács, pp. 78-95 discusses the political reasons for Augustus’ ambiguous relationship with the cult of Isis. 40 All quotations are taken from Delia and Rosamond Augmented. Cleopatra. The spelling and punctuation of the original edition has been maintained. The only silent alterations are the modernisation of long s, the use of u and v, and the expansion of abbreviations. 41 Josephus, Jewish Ant., xv.63-64. 42 On the issue, see Miles 2011a, p. 3. For the Dionysiac rites, see Segal; Detienne; Henrichs. 43 Plutarch, a priest of Apollo, was also initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus and his wife Timoxena, for instance, wrote essays with his approbation. Plutarch himself dedicated some of his books to his friend Clea, a priestess of Dionysus and a devotee of Isis (Isis and Osiris, 35.1). He also composed for her his collection of stories about women’s bravery. 44 For the status of women in ancient Greece and antiquity in general, see Blundell; Pomeroy 1995. For Aristotle’s view on women, see Okin, pp. 73-96; Horowitz. 45 See Hallett. 46 See Henrichs.

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She shaped her country’s ancient religion, adapting it to her political ends. Many Egyptians still perceived the Lagides as foreign usurpers, and so she did her utmost to legitimate her position. She was the first of her House to speak Egyptian fluently. 47 She improved the living conditions of the lower-class Alexandrians, winning the indigenous peoples over to her side. 48 Under her rule, Egypt probably thrived. 49 Supported by oracles, later altered or destroyed by Augustus, she tried to present herself as a sort of liberator, born to free the Oriental world from Rome’s yoke and to join Europe and Asia as equal.50 The queen’s arrival in Tarsus (41 BC), the celebration following the conquest of Armenia – be it a Roman triumph or not51 – and the donations of Alexandria (34 BC) were politically effective shows for the benefit of her subjects.52 Her policy was not at all inconsistent with that of Antony and of Rome in the East. Direct rule of the eastern lands was uneconomic and dangerous, because of the private ambitions and greed of proconsuls and financiers.53 Thus the dependent kings became clientes, lesser partners, of Rome, accepting its representative as their patronus, protector and benefactor. Thanks to minor territorial extensions and to some economic advantages, Cleopatra could present herself to the Egyptians as restoring her heritage, while Antony was exercising control over the area in the name of his fatherland. Some other aspects of this system were unavoidable. Eastern countries worshipped their kings: that was the only way to legitimate despotism. No Roman conqueror could avoid being regarded as a monarch and a divinity. The Antonii traditionally boasted that they were descendants of Hercules and Mark Antony identified with Dionysus (while Octavian’s patron god 47 Plut., Ant., 27.3-4. Pelling, in his notes, considers her flair for languages ‘suspiciously conventional’, but see Gruen, p. 50 n. 12. Mastery of foreign languages is a distinctive trait of other great female monarchs, such as Zenobia, queen of Palmyra (Trebellius Pollio, SHA, Tyranni Triginta 30. 21). For the motif in Renaissance theatre, see Garnier, Marc Antoine, ii.724; Thomas May, The Tragoedy of Cleopatra i.1.72-82. 48 Fraser, I, p. 127. 49 Chauveau 2000, pp. 24-25; Bowman. Conversely, see Thompson 1994, pp. 322-323. 50 Oracula Sibyllina, 3.46-54, 75-92, 350-361, 367-380. Two of these prophecies (3.75-92, 3.350-380) personified the saviour in a woman (Wyke, p. 103). For the censorship, see Suet., Aug. xxxi.1; Dio, lvi.27.1. 51 Bouché-Leclercq (p. 277) defines it a ‘parodie sacrilège’ of a triumph. See also Pelling 1996, p. 40; Versnel, pp. 20-38, 235-254, 288-289. 52 Jeanmaire, pp. 256-259. 53 On Antony’s policy in the East, see, in particular, Levi, pp. 205-208; Carter, pp. 154-158, 169; Syme, pp. 271-274; Pelling 1996, pp. 21-24.

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was Apollo) and with Osiris (the equivalent god in the Egyptian pantheon), and then of course with Mars, the god of war.54 Disorder and civil wars had led both rivals for Caesar’s legacy to seek new modes of coexistence for the different imperial territories. Politics and religion became entangled. Antony thought he could reshape Roman religious life by largely substituting it with Hellenistic cults and culture. Octavian wanted to revive Roman traditions and combine them with the Hellenistic world. When Antony was defeated a whole political concept was lost.55 Octavian’s victory also signified the victory of his interpretation of the war, but his deliberate manipulation of history proved productive in unexpected ways. The fame of the real Cleopatra, with an efficient government, unexceptional private life, and ill-advised alliances, would not probably have survived beyond her death. In his Augusti Vita Suetonius claims that, as he approached to his death, Octavian revealed that he saw his life as a pageant. He asked his friends whether he had played his part fittingly and quoted a traditional Greek tag, inviting them to give him a final round of applause.56 It is curious to note that, through his propaganda, he succeeded in turning his fierce enemies into characters much more attractive than himself. In the Renaissance plays on the Actium War, he would never be the protagonist. Daniel’s Cleopatra almost steals his lines: ‘And now o Earth, the Theater where I / Have acted this, witnes I dye unforst’ (v.2.1590-1591).

1.2

The ‘Egyptian Wife’57

While ancient historians wrote condemning Cleopatra, poets sang of their hatred, fear and reluctant admiration for her. In their verse, for the first time, the queen became a full literary personage.58 54 For the divine associations, see Suet., Aug., lxx; Virgil, Buc., iv. For Osiris, see Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 34-35. Theocracy in itself was well open to criticism by the Romans and the Greeks. 55 Jeanmaire, p. 261. 56 Suet., Aug., xcix.1. 57 ‘Aegyptia coniunx’, Aen., viii.688. For the English translation of Book viii, see Virgil, Aeneid, Book VIII, ed. by K.W. Gransden. 58 Though art and literature played a considerable role in propelling Octavian’s propaganda machine, the whole literary production of the Augustan Age cannot be ascribed to straightforward eulogy, see Zanker; DuQuesnay; Gurval 1995; Gabba 1982; Powell. Augustanism was not an unchanging picture and individual attitudes varied inside a dynamic situation (Kenney, p. 3). For the oversimplification of the distinction between ‘Augustan’ and ‘Anti-Augustan’, see Kennedy; Johnson 1974, in particular pp. 171-180. For a recalling of the cultural climate of those times, see

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Five principal reconstructions of the Battle of Actium and of the conquest of Alexandria have come down to us, one by Virgil (Aen., viii.626-713), two by Horace (Epode 9; Ode i.37), and two by Propertius (iii.11, iv.6). Virgil’s passage is almost unanimously acclaimed.59 Technically speaking, it is an ekphrasis, a description of images engraved on a shield. Just like Achilles before him (Il., xviii.478-608), Aeneas receives this magnificent piece of work, forged for him by Vulcan, from his divine mother.60 Depicted on the clipeus is a selection of scenes, showing the triumphs of Rome from Romulus to Augustus. The centrepiece is the Actian confrontation in its official version: an epic clash of the East against the West. Anthropomorphic Olympian deities fight Anubis and a host of bestial Oriental idols, while Apollo leads Octavian and his fleet (ll. 675-713). Cleopatra is identified through a periphrasis and relegated to the role of Antony’s foreign ally and paramour, bound to her companion by unholy ties [‘nefas Aegyptia coniunx’] (l. 688).61 Almost paradoxically, however, she is better served by the untarnished propaganda of the Aeneid than by the ironic and bitter lines of Roman elegiac poets. In the opening section (ll. 675-690), she simply moves in Antony’s wake, as he leads his barbarian army across the sea. In the second (ll. 696-700), she is portrayed as a noble and terrible enemy, calling upon her ‘monstruosa Aegypti numina’ [‘monstruous Egyptian gods’] (in Servius’ words, n. 678.6) unaware of the snake-shaped twin symbols of Death hunting her (‘necdum etiam geminos a tergo respicit anguis’ [‘nor as yet casts back a glance at the twin snakes behind’] l. 697). In the third section (ll. 707-713), she turns into one of Virgil’s favourite characters: the vanquished foe. Chased by a pale, cruel destiny, she repairs to the blue, protecting embrace of the mourning (‘maerentem’) Nile (l. 711): ipsa videbatur ventis regina vocatis vela dare et laxos iam iamque immittere funis. illam inter caedes pallentem morte futura fecerat ignipotens undis et Iapyge ferri, Ovid, Tristia, iv.10.41-54. For the importance of poetry to guarantee a good name to Augustus, see Ariosto, Orl. Fur., xxxv.26.1-4. 59 On Virgil and Augustan politics, see Lyne 1983; Rudd; Gurval 1995, pp. 209-247. 60 For Aeneas’ shield, see Becker; West. 61 Ovid defines her with almost the same words, ‘coniux Aegiptia’, in his eulogy to Augustus (Met., xv.826). Anubis will keep on barking at least up to when Prudentius was writing (Contra Symmachus, 532). Pembroke will turn Garnier’s ‘venerable’ Anubis (ii.678) into the ‘barking’ Anubis of ancient tradition (ii.685). For the Roman aversion to zoomorphic Egyptian deities, see Giovenal, Satires, 15.

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contra autem magno maerentem corpore Nilum pandentemque sinus et tota veste vocantem caeruleum in gremium latebrosaque flumina victos. [The queen herself was seen to woo the winds, spread sail, and now, even now, fling loose the slackened sheets. Her, amid the carnage, the Lord of Fire had fashioned pale at the coming of death, borne on by waves and the wind of Iapyx; while over against her was the mourning Nile, of mighty frame, opening wide his folds and with all his raiment welcoming the vanquished to his azure lap and sheltering streams.]

Horace’s portrait is not so kind.62 In his Epode 9 (the earliest treatment of the historical event that we have, although the exact date of composition is unknown) Cleopatra is only an extra, the perverse femina who has enslaved and unmanned Antony (‘Romanus […] emancipatus feminae’ [‘A Roman enslaved to a woman’], 9.11-16). Conversely she is the protagonist of Horace’s other piece on Actium, the so-called Cleopatra’s Ode (i.37). Here her figure is twofold: in the opening lines, she is a drunken megalomaniac, but subsequently the ‘fatal monster’ [‘fatale monstrum’] (l. 21) turns into a courageous monarch, full of pride and ready to face death, as long as she can avoid humiliation (i.37.25-32)63: ausa et iacentem visere regiam vultu sereno, fortis et asperas tractare serpentis, ut atrum corpore combiberet venenum, deliberata morte ferocior, saevis Liburnis scilicet invidens privata deduci superbo non humilis mulier triumpho. [She had the strength of mind to gaze on her ruined palace with a calm countenance, and the courage to handle the sharp-toothed serpents, letting her body drink in their black venom. Once she had resolved to die she was all the more defiant – determined, no doubt, to cheat the cruel Liburnians: she would not be stripped of her royalty and conveyed to face a jeering triumph: no humble woman she.] 62 For Horace and Cleopatra, see Wilkinson; Johnson 1967; Nisbet; Gurval 1995, pp. 137-165. 63 The word monstrum has multiple meanings and is closer here to the Latin ‘prodigy’ than to the English ‘monster’ (Gurval 2011, p. 65).

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Horace’s picture is complex and contradictory in many ways. Propertius’ Cleopatra, on the contrary, is unambiguous: in iii.11, his description is pure vituperation.64 At the opening of the elegy (ll. 1-28), before he turns his attention to the queen of Egypt, the lyric subject asserts that it is no wonder he is enslaved under the rule of a woman, and gives a long list of examples of dominant female figures, including Medea, Omphale, Penthesilea and Semiramis. In some cases, the association of Cleopatra with these characters proves a tenacious one. The simile with Omphale resurfaces in Garnier’s play (Marc Antoine, iii.1216-1229), and in the anonymous play Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio in the Aldini codex 392 (i Canto di Hercole, 73-74).65 Semiramis meets Cleopatra again in Juvenal’s Satires (2.108-109) and later on will share her fate in Dante’s Inferno (v.52-63), Petrarch’s Triumphi (TF2, 106-107) and Boccaccio’s Filocolo (iv.42.9). Medea will be compared with her in Jodelle’s Cleopatre captive (i.309-310). Perhaps Shakespeare remembered Propertius’ line 30 (‘famulos inter femina trita suos’ [‘a woman who fornicated even with her slaves’]), when his Antony defines his lover: ‘one that looks on feeders’ (Ant., iii.13.111).66 The second part of the elegy is dedicated to Cleopatra herself (iii.11.29-56). She is the ‘harlot queen of licentious Canopus’ [‘incesti meretrix regina Canopi’ (l. 39)], who wanted ‘to force the Tiber to endure the threats of the Nile’ and aspired to become empress of the Urbs (31-32).67 Even the unusual apostrophe of lines 51-54, within a Virgil-like passage (‘Yet you fled to the wandering outlets of the craven Nile – not that your hands received Roman fetters. You endured the sight of your arms bitten by the sacred asps and your limbs channelling the stealthy route of the numbing poison’),68 is immediately denied by the derision of lines 55-56, with their allusion to ‘a tongue dreanched in ceaseless toping’ [‘assiduo lingua sepulta mero’]. Scholars usually quarrel over the general meaning of Propertius’ elegy, but certainly the portrait of Cleopatra is clear: she is an incestuous prostitute, a degenerate descendant of Philip II of Macedonia (according to the 64 On Propertius, see Nethercut and especially Gurval 1995, pp. 189-208. For a discussion of these different portraits of Cleopatra, from the viewpoint of feminist criticism, see Wyke, pp. 98-140. 65 For Hercules’ submission to Omphale in Augustan figurative art, see Zanker, pp. 59-60. 66 For Propertius, see Goold’s translation; Shakespeare’s quotations are taken from Antony and Cleopatra, edited by David Bevington. 67 On the historical question, see Dio, l.5.4; Florus, ii.21.4.11.2; Eutropius, 7.7. See also Tarn and Charlesworth 1934b, p. 82. 68 ‘fugisti tamen in timidi vaga flumina Nili, / nec cepere tuae Romula vincla manus. / bracchia spectasti sacris admorsa colubris, / et trahere occultum membra soporis iter’.

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tradition which believed Ptolemy I to be Alexander the Great’s stepbrother), a drunkard, and nothing more.69 In Propertius’ second elegy on Actium (iv.6) Cleopatra only has a cameo role.70 Yet again she is a villain and flees to Egypt to die (ll. 21-22, 63-64). It is better this way: a woman would be a poor trophy, in those streets through which Jugurtha was once led (ll. 65-66).71 Modern criticism has often reinterpreted both Horace’s lyric Cleopatra and Propertius’ elegiac one, asserting that such talented poets would regard with scepticism the image of the barbarian seductress promoted by Augustus. Their attacks against her were simply a way to dismiss and ridicule his propaganda.72 Nevertheless, Renaissance dramatists understood it as history. Our survey of Augustan poetry would, however, be incomplete if, at this point, we did not go back to Virgil. By general admission, Aen., viii.626-713 is not the only passage of his epic where the ghost of Cleopatra is conjured up. Maro also had her in mind when he created Dido of Carthage. The ancient myth of Dido-Elissa – which had been rewritten and adapted for the occasion, both chronologically and conceptually – was bound to become entwined with the story of Cleopatra, whose memory was still fresh at the time.73 Both African queens had chosen a foreign warrior as a lover; both had given their relationship the name of marriage (Aen., iv.171-172). When the poet writes: ‘nunc hiemem inter se luxu, quam longa, fovere / regnorum immemores turpique cupidine captos’ [‘now they while away the winter, all its length, in wanton ease together’] (Aen., iv.193-194), his readers are (and certainly were) immediately reminded of the lovers of Alexandria.74 Above all, Dido and Cleopatra were associated in the public imagination by their self-inflicted deaths. Their suicides have often been given the same significance, having been variously read as an ultimate demonstration of love, a refuge from pain, a redemption through the so-called Romana mors, 69 For a contrasting examination of Horace’s and Propertius’ Cleopatras, see Cremona. 70 Johnson 1974, pp. 152-180; Connor; Cairns; Gurval 1995, pp. 249-278. 71 For this motif in De Cesari, see below 4.1. See also Williamson 1974, pp. 22-23. 72 Johnson 1967, p. 399. Simply considering these poems as ‘anti-Augustan’, however, brings a number of problems: see Feeney. 73 Dido has left us with two vestigial reflections: where Pompeius Trogus (followed by Macrobius, Sat., 5.18; Augustine, Conf., i.13.22; Hierolamus, Adv. Jovinianum, i.43; Justinus, Ep. Hist., xviii.6.1-7, and so on) had represented her as a chaste widow, Virgil depicted her as a seduced lover, two identities destined to intertwine through the centuries and to produce works of opposite interpretations. See Bono and Tessitore; Ferguson, pp. 19-22. 74 For quotations and translations, see Virgil, Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid I-VI, trans. by Fairclough. Gurval (2011, p. 70) notes that Virgil uses almost the same words to describe the two dying queens: ‘pallentem morte futura’ for Cleopatra (viii.709) and ‘pallida morte futura’ for Dido (iv.644).

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a means of recovering both dignity and the status of monarch, or as mere revenge.75 Dido, however, was no Cleopatra. She could not be presented as a whore, as that would tarnish Aeneas, too. She had to remain an admirable infelix regina. Virgil’s hero, in his turn, was above all a projection of Octavian, maybe partly of Caesar, but not of Antony, although, at least in the first part of the amatio, they had both apparently forgotten their national identity and duty. Iarba’s description of his rival in Aen., iv.215-217 (‘et nunc ille Paris cum semiviro comitatu, / Maeonia mentum mitra crinemque madentem / subnexus, rapto potitur’ [‘And now that Paris, with his eunuch train, his chin and perfumed locks bound with a Lydian turban, grasps the spoil’]) corresponds almost exactly to the image of Antony spread by Augustan propaganda and poetry (Horace, Epode 9.11-16, or Florus, ii.21.4.11.1-3).76 The basic scheme of the unmanned-warrior and the love-enchantress had its cosmological prototype in the Venus and Mars episode (Homer, Odyssey, viii.266-366; Ovid, Met., iv.170-189; Ars. Am., ii.561-600). This, in its turn, shared a common root with the topos of Hercules unarmed by Omphale. Hercules and Mars had a traditional allegiance, as types of the warrior-hero. So little by little, in artistic depictions, Mars would sometimes lend his sword and helmet to the Alcides, whereas Venus would add some of her goddess’ charm to Omphale. Yet while the Mars-Venus paring, through the philosophical reading of Lucretius’ De rerum natura, was progressively given the positive meaning of concordia discors, the Hercules-Omphale relationship maintained all its negative significance of vile subjugation to lust.77 Though Virgil drew on these mythic archetypes, he focused primarily on the human side of Dido and Aeneas’ affair, a decision which would prove fundamental for subsequent literary and dramatic variations on the episode. The superimposition of the two couples did not escape Renaissance dramatists, who plundered the Aeneid episode in their Cleopatra plays. Before killing herself, the queen of Carthage utters a vengeful prophecy (iv.621-629); similarly, in Daniel’s Cleopatra, Caesario, close to the end, predicts Octavian’ death without male issue, so that Antony’s offspring will reign after him (iv.1.1002-1017)78. Dido’s very last words, her ‘novissima verba’ (Aen., iv.650-658), are echoed by Garnier (v.1954-1957). Her difficult death by sword (Aen., iv.672-696) was closer to Antony’s than to Cleopatra’s. Celso Pistorelli noticed this, and thus based his version of the scene on 75 76 77 78

See Benario. For suicide in Roman culture, see Hill 2004; Edwards. For the motif, also see Bono, pp. 85-86. Waddington, pp. 216-217 and 221. See also Adelman 1973, pp. 83-88; Bono, pp. 113-114, 118-119. See below 5.3.

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Virgil’s structure. In the Aeneid, Anna runs to her wounded sister, tearing her garments and beating her breast, and demands to capture her last breath with a kiss, before embracing her and soaking up her blood with her dress. In Pistorelli’s play, Cleopatra’s reaction is the same, although it is Antony who asks for a last kiss (iv.217-218). Moreover Dido, in her dying agony, tries to open her eyes and her last movements are thrice repeated.79 Pistorelli’s Antony reacts in a similar fashion (iv.183-184): ‘Alhora ’l Re (come che risvegliato / Fosse da un grave sonno) aperse i lumi’ [‘Then the king, as if woken from a deep sleep, opened his eyes’] ‘E suspirò tre volte, e die’ fuor l’alma’ [‘And he sighted three times and surrendered his soul’] (iv.221).80 Later classical authors, Statius (iii.2.119-120),81 Pseudo-Rabirius (Carmen de Bello Actiaco, coll. iv-vi),82 Ponnanus (epigram 274) and even Martial (iv.11), drew from the same repertoire of Augustan poetry.83 Other poets mentioned Cleopatra while lamenting the evils of civil war, or when reviving the Horatian theme of literature’s immortalising power.84 Almost paradoxically, after Virgil’s, the most impressive portrait of Cleopatra in Latin literature is found in a poem generally defined as an antiAeneid: Lucan’s Bellum civile or Pharsalia.85 Lucan’s Cleopatra is portrayed in her youth, at the time of Julius Caesar, but his rancorous characterisation is influenced by later events. Having described her first appearance, the poet remarks, ‘Quis tibi vaesani veniam non donet amoris, / Antoni, durum cum Caesaris hauserit ignis / Pectus?’ [‘Who can refuse pardon to the infatuation of Antony, when even the stubborn heart of Caesar took fire?’] (x.70-73). In his lines, Cleopatra is, above all, an accomplished actress. She seduces Caesar, ‘simulatum […] 79 Aen., iv.688-691. 80 Celso Pistorelli, Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra. I am quoting from the copy now in Biblioteca dell’Accademia dei Filodrammatici, Milan (2402-E. II 34), keeping my interventions to a minimum. For the first part of the scene, see also Plutarch, Ant., 77.3. 81 In Statius’ evocation (Sylvae, iii.2.119-120), the Alexandrine palace is now infested by Cleopatra’s death-tools, ‘anguiferamque domum, blando qua mersa veneno / Actias Ausonias fugit Cleopatra catenas’ [‘and the snake-haunted hall where Cleopatra of Actium, sunk in gentle poison, fled Ausonian chains’] (see Statius, Sylvae, trans by Shackleton Bailey). 82 Despite its traditional title, the carmen did not describe the nauticum bellum, but its sequel, see The Fragmentary Latin Poets, pp. 334-339. See also C. Rabirius. Bellum Actiacum. 83 In Ponnanus’ epigram, the queen sensually offers her breasts to the snake. See Anthologia Latina, I, pp. 183-184. 84 Anthologia Latina, I, n. 462 and n. 417. For a detailed overview of the treatment of Cleopatra’s figure in Greek and Latin literature, see Becher. 85 Although Bellum Civile is the official title of the manuscripts, some editors prefer Pharsalia, pointing to a passage in the text (ix.985-986). For Lucan, see Bartsch; Holmes.

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dolorem’ [with ‘feigned grief’] (x.83), trusting in her beauty. Her sensuality and her excessive decus are cunningly used to arouse and dazzle: […] et inmodice formam fucata nocentem, Nec sceptris contenta suis nec fratre marito, Plena maris rubri spoliis, colloque comisque Divitias Cleopatra gerit cultuque laborat. Candida Sidonio perlucent pectora filo, Quod Nilotis acus conpressum pectine Serum Solvit et extenso laxavit stamina velo. (x.137-143) [Cleopatra, not content with a crown of her own and her brother for husband, was there, with her baleful beauty painted up beyond all measure: covered with the spoils of the Red Sea, she carried a fortune round her neck and in her hair, and was weighed down by her ornaments. Her white breasts were revealed by the fabric of Sidon, which, close-woven by the shuttle of the Seres, the Egyptian needle-worker pulls out, and loosens the thread by stretching the stuff.]86

The Italian dramatist De Cesari would probably be reminded of this charm, when describing the deceased Cleopatra in the nude (see below 4.1).87 Lucan’s Cleopatra is the woman who turned the corruption of Egypt into a powerful weapon and imposed her degenerate life model on the Empire. His slanderous portrait is affirmed by the poet through Plotinus’ sententiae (x.357-370), where the association of Cleopatra-meretrix once again dominates: ‘Aegypton habet Romamque meretur’ [‘she possesses Egypt and is playing the harlot for Rome’] (x.359); ‘Quem non e nobis credit Cleopatra nocentem, / A quo casta fuit?’ [‘Cleopatra considers every man of us guilty, if he has not defiled her’] (x.369-370).88 Lucan was Seneca’s nephew and as is well known, following the unsuccessful plot to assassinate Nero, had his veins opened by a surgeon and ended his life ‘the Roman way’. Soon after, Seneca followed his example.89 Both Nero and his victims were Antony’s descendants. Seneca, in his writings, sometimes refers to his famous ancestor, stating that he was a great Roman, 86 The English version is that of Duff. 87 For the seductive post mortem appeal, see Shakespeare, Ant., v.2.340-342. 88 For a brilliant commentary on the entire book, see Bellum Civile Liber X, ed. by Berti. 89 Dio, lxii.24-25; Tacitus, xv.60-64.

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who was transformed into a cruel and blood-thirsty man by his love for wine and – no less potent than wine – by his ‘Cleopatrae amor’.90 He never wrote a tragedy with a Roman setting, as Octavia is a spurious attribution. Had he written a Cleopatra play, we can only imagine the immense impact it would have had on later drama, considering how pervasive his model became in Renaissance Europe. Perhaps, in this case, we would now be left with quite different tragedies about the Egyptian queen.

90 Seneca, De Consolatione ad Polybium, xv.4.16 (in Moral Essays, II); Seneca, Ep. Morales, 83.25.

2.

‘The Subject of Talk the World Over’1 Abstract Late-antique historical accounts about Antony and Cleopatra: Tertullian’s Ad Martyras; John, bishop of Nikiu’s chronicle; Fabius Placidus Fulgentius’ De aetatibus mundi et hominis. The Middle Ages and the Egyptian queen. Survey of the main Italian medieval readings of her story: Dante’s, Petrarch’s and Boccaccio’s. The English medieval versions of the myth of Cleopatra: Chaucer’s, Gower’s and Lydgate’s works. Keywords: Late-antique historians; Italian medieval writers; English medieval writers

2.1

Enchantress and Martyr

Antiquity slowly became the Middle Ages but late-antique historical accounts, whether pagan or Christian, maintained a similar attitude towards Antony and Cleopatra.2 Two of them in particular, Orosius’ Historiae adversus paganos – commissioned by St. Augustine, as a corollary or appendix to his De civitate Dei (AD 413-426) – and the anonymous De viris illustribus (first to fourth century), whose author was probably a pagan – definitively solidified and took to extremes the negative portraits of the two lovers.3 1 ‘Totius orbis fabula’, Boccaccio, De mulieribus claris, lxxxviii.1. All the English quotations from the book are taken from Virginia Brown’s version. 2 This is true for most historians of late Antiquity, from Eutropius (Breviarium ab urbe condita, vii.1-7) to Zonaras (Epitome Historiarum, x.29-31). Writers in late Antiquity other than historians also kept to old models. See, for example, Prudentius, Contra Symmachum, 524-534; Corippus, In laudem Iustini, iii.13-18. I make no claim to touch upon, even in passing, the complex question of the relationship between Christianity and the Roman Empire. For an introductory survey and bibliography on the issue, see Mitchell and Young. 3 De viris illustribus urbis Romae (DVI) is part of the so-called historia tripertita, together with the Origo gentis Romanae and the Liber de Caesaribus (or Historiae abbreviatae). This corpus is made up of three works by three different authors, which were probably brought together between AD 360 and 395. See Momigliano; Braccesi. DVI was once attributed to Aurelius Victor

Montanari, A.M., Cleopatra in Italian and English Renaissance Drama. Amsterdam University Press, 2019. doi 10.5117/9789462985995_ch02

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In Orosius’ compendium, Antony is systematically denied any military prowess and his greed for money and power is emphasised. In De viris illustribus, Cleopatra turns into the dark heroine of an Oriental tale, ‘Haec tantae libidinis fuit, ut saepe prostiterit, tantae pulchritudinis, ut multi noctem illius morte emerint’ [‘She was so lustful that she would often sell herself, so beautiful that many men bought a night with her at the cost of their own death’] (86.2). 4 Not many years later, Latinius Pacatus Drepanius, in his panegyric to the Emperor Theodosius (AD 389), retold the epic confrontation between East and West, now more than ever conceived of as a struggle between moral corruption and liberty and duty. He believed it all to be true, but his account nevertheless has the flavour a literary tale (xxxiii.1-2). The great and famous Alexandrine war, distorted by exaggerations and mystifications, was inevitably bound to appear increasingly unreal, in later centuries.5 Strange as it seems, while her life was still condemned by historians, Cleopatra’s voluntary death was praised by at least one Christian Latin writer. In his treatise Ad nationes, Tertullian associated her with the cult of martyrs (1.18.3).6 In Ad martyras, he cited her among classical models of heroism as she faced her own death: ‘Bestias femina libens appetiit, et utique aspides, serpentes tauro vel urso horridiores, quos Cleopatra immisit sibi, ne in manus inimici perveniret’ [‘A woman has even voluntarily desired the wild beasts and even asps – reptiles surely more dreadful than bull or bear – which Cleopatra applied to herself lest she should fall into the hands of her enemy’] (iv.6).7 Subsequent fathers of the Church would point to a basic flaw in Tertullian’s argument, namely the lack of an ethical distinction between martyrdom and suicide. St. Augustine, in De civitate Dei, would be the first to reject the mors voluntaria ethic of the ancient world, stating that whoever killed a man, even himself, was guilty of murder (i.21.7-10), and thus establishing but is still incertis auctoris. Humanists (Petrarch, Boccaccio and Coluccio Salutati, among others) attributed it to Pliny the Younger (D’Elia, p. 48). 4 Quotations are taken from Sexti Aurelii Victoris, Liber de Caesaribus. The vita Cleopatrae is the last of the nine lives not included in the independent tradition of DVI and appears to be unusual in being both a woman’s life and a foreign leader’s biography. For the revival of the motif in later literature, see Pucci, p. 201. 5 For Pacatus, see Dattrino. 6 For Tertullian, see Burrows; Osborn. The chronology of Tertulian’s treatises is disputed. Ad Nationes is generally assigned to AD 197, while Ad Martiras to 197 or 202-203. 7 The English translation is that of Address to Martyrs, in Bindley, The Epistle of the Gallican Churches, pp. 51-61. On this point, see also Gurval 2011, p. 73.

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what would become orthodox Christian thought on the issue.8 Although Tertullian’s choice of classical examples was later discredited, it accurately represents how hard it was, for Christian philosophy, to free itself from the stoic concept of fortitudo.9 Tertullian was Carthaginian, while St. Augustine was born in AD 354 at Thagaste (the Roman province of Numidia) and spent his life in Roman ‘Africa’. A third ‘African’ Christian writer, John, Bishop of Nikiu (seventh century AD), has left us with an astoundingly positive portrait of Cleopatra.10 In Chapter 67 of his Chronicle, he asserts that ‘she was great in herself and in her achievements (in) courage and strength’ (2). She built the palace of Alexandria ‘and all that saw it admired it, for there was not the like in all the world’ (3). Moreover, ‘before she died, she executed many noble works and (created) important institutions’ (9). What is amazing in his picture is not what John tells us, but what he does not tell us. In Chapter 64, he states that Julius Caesar ‘fell in love with her and married her and begot a son by her’ (7). Not a word is said of Mark Antony and his children. As the text has suffered in the course of transmission, it could be that a portion of it has been lost, but the tone of the Chronicle suggests that this is not the case. Relating the queen’s death, John simply notes, ‘And this woman […] died in the fourteenth year of the reign of Caesar Augustus. Thereupon the inhabitants of Alexandria and of (lower) and upper Egypt submitted to the emperors of Rome, who set over them prefects and generals’ (67.9-10). Another positive portrait of the queen is included by the Arab historian Al-Mas’udi (Abu al-Husayn ‘Ali Ibn al Husayn), in his world history The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems (Muruj adh-dhahab wa ma’adin al-jawhar [tenth century]).11 His Cleopatra is above all a philosopher and a scientist, the last Greek sage: ‘She wrote about medicine, magic, and other aspects of the natural sciences, and those works, which bear her name as the author, are well known to the experts in the art of medicine.’12 Together with her husband Antony, she ruled over Macedonia, an Egyptian region. They 8 For similar observations from a different perspective, see Hughes-Hallett, pp. 150-154. 9 De civ. Dei, xv.4. 10 John was Coptic bishop of Nikiu and ‘rector’ of the bishops in Upper Egypt. Appointed general administrator of the Monasterie in AD 696, he then lost his post. Long sections of his Chronicle have been lost. The original Greek version (possibly with Coptic sections) has not come down to us, nor has the Arabic version. All we have is an Ethiopic translation from Arabic (1602). See the introduction to The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu. Quotations are taken from this text. 11 For recent positive views of the queen, in Arabian literature, see Loomba 2011, pp. 350-353. 12 Al Masu’di, p. 286. This edition has both the Arabic original and the French version. In my quotation, I translate the French into English.

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were attacked by Augustus who wanted, above all, to learn the scientific secrets she knew. He killed Antony and the queen, in order to preserve her knowledge, decided to deceive him. She asked for a particular snake, called a fitriyah, the venom of which killed instantly, and closed herself in a marble room in her palace, where all the most aromatic plants, flowers and fruits of Egypt had been collected. One of her maids voluntarily put her hand into the glass vase holding the serpent and died. Then Cleopatra seated on her throne with her crown on her head, put her hand in the vase and was poisoned, too. The snake slithered from the vase and hid among the leaves, unable to find a way out of the room. When Augustus arrived, at first he thought the queen was alive: he soon realised she was not, but was mystified as to the cause of her death. Attracted by the sweet-smelling plants, he approached them, and was bitten by the snake. As it had already struck twice, its remaining venom was insufficient to kill him immediately. However, the right side of his body was paralysed at once and at this point he understood what had happened to the queen, and realised that he had walked into a trap. He survived a day longer, and composed some famous poetry, which the Romans then used in their funeral rites. Both John of Nikiu’s and Al-Mas’udi’s Cleopatras look, to our eyes, fascinating, exotic and remote. Nonetheless, it is another image of the queen, dating from this same period, which haunts the imagination of the reader. We find it in the pages of an obscure historical compendium, De aetatibus mundi et hominis, by Fabius Placidus Fulgentius, once identified with St. Fulgentius of Ruspe:13 ‘[Caesar] Actiacae pugnae certamine triumphans exstitit atque Aegyptiacam superatam reginam lactandas praebere mammas serpentibus persuasit’ [‘He showed himself triumphant in the struggle of the Battle of Actium and forced the Egyptian queen whom he conquered to submit her breasts to be suckled by the snakes’] (Liber xiv H 176).14 The version of Cleopatra’s death in which she applies the asp(s) to her breasts will recur through the years, in illustrations, pictures, and literary works.15 Yet the implicit, almost blasphemous simile between baby and snake is something totally different. ‘Lactandas’ unites queen and asps in a sort of maternal relationship, stirring 13 Fulgentius lived around the late fifth to early sixth century. See Hays; Wetherbee. 14 Fulgenzio, Le età del mondo e dell’uomo. The English translation is that of Gurval 2011, p. 73. 15 See below 2.2, 3.2. Watson (1978, p. 411) states that Paulus of Aegina is the only one ‘among extant ancient writers’ to tell the story of Cleopatra clasping a snake to her breast. According to the pseudo-Galen (De Theriaca ad Pisonem, viii), an asp bite to the breast was a common form of public execution in Alexandria, but he does not mention the site of the wound, when describing Cleopatra’s death (pp. 412-413).

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up a latent, complex symbology, based on the biblical tale of Original Sin.16 It is precisely this picture, further complicated by other motifs, that we will meet again in the last act of Shakespeare’s play.

2.2

‘So lascivious, Cleopatra’17

Where Antiquity and late Antiquity had focused on Cleopatra’s life and death, the Middle Ages generally centred their interest on her afterlife. Her deeds were judged in the light of eternity and she was evaluated for her moral choices. In the medieval cultural code, the order of the material world corresponded to that of the divine world.18 In this context, the suprahuman dimension of the lovers of Alexandria (i.e. Cleopatra as Venus and Antony as Mars) disappeared, because classical figures, whether mythological and real, were used side by side as exempla. The second great innovation of the period was the myth of Cleopatra as a faithful lover. Some medieval poets started to write that she had died for love. On the one hand, the queen was, more than ever, a seductress; on the other, she became a paradigm of female steadfastness. The general attitude towards her remained hostile, as the prevailing scholastic models of gender, derived from Aristotle, claimed female inferiority and did not look sympathetically on her behaviour.19 Nonetheless, a positive version of her myth began to creep discreetly into Europe. In some cases Cleopatra simply loses her pejorative connotations – as in Santillana’s ‘Triunphete de amor’ (141) – while in others she is even given a positive depiction – as in Jehan Le Févre’s Livre de Leesce (‘Et Cleopatre, qui fu bonne’ [‘And Cleopatre who was good’]).20 National differences cannot be discounted: ‘The Italian writer stresses Cleopatra’s fame as a result of her part in Roman History; for the English she is a lover and they stress her personal qualities’ (Williamson 1974, p. 54). For the first time, then, the queen was freed from the unchanging 16 Notes to Le età del mondo, p. 237 n. to 437. 17 ‘Cleopatràs lussuriosa’, Dante, Inf., v.63. 18 I am of course oversimplifying. See Segre, pp. 132-138; Lotman 1973; Auerbach 2003, pp. 116-122, 194-198; Auerbach 1984, pp. 11-76 (53-73). See also Williamson 1974, pp. 46-47. 19 Aristotle, The Politics, i, ch. 12. On the issue, see Erler and Kowalesky; Elliott. 20 Jehan Le Févre, Livre de Leesce, 382. The Livre was probably composed at the end of 1373, as an answer to the misogynist Lamentations de Matheolus. Cleopatra is notably absent from Christine de Pizan’s philogynist Cité des Dames (1404-1405) and she is criticised both in John of Salisbury’s Policraticus (around 1159) and in the anonymous Roman de Renart le Conterfait (rédaction A 1319-1322; rédaction B 1328-1342). Also Martin le Franc’s Le Champion des Dames (1440-1442) gives a negative image of her. For Cleopatra in Jean de Thuin’s work, see below 3.3.

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domain of ancient Greek and Latin to have her story retold in a multitude of ever-changing vernaculars. Let us start our survey with the model for so many poets across Europe: Dante’s Commedia. We meet Cleopatra first in the Inferno, swirling in the moaning ‘bufera infernal’ [‘wind of Hell’] which scourges the lustful, in the second circle of Hell.21 She is the third bird-like spirit, after Semiramis and Dido, but while both the other two queens are described by a periphrasis and a brief synthesis of their sins, she is simply indicated by name and qualifier, ‘poi è Cleopatràs lussuriosa’ [‘And next, so lascivious, Cleopatra’] (v.63). There is no need to retell the story: the essence of her life is summarised in one word. Similarly, in her second Dantean appearance (Par., vi.76-78) the queen – hunted by the Roman eagle – is def ined through one adjective, ‘trista’, which, as many critics have observed, could mean ‘unhappy, wretched’ but also ‘wicked’ or ‘reckless’. Cleopatra’s capital vice is lust: we do not find her twisted into a hawthorn, in the suicides’ wood (Inf., xiii), but blown by the wind of carnal sinners.22 In her whirling flight, the queen is alone, notably not eternally embracing Antony. Unlike Francesca, she has not yet become an extreme heroine of the love-death pairing; her passion had no f ixed object and her sexual license does not leave any space for emotional complicity or anguished sympathy.23 Nevertheless, the story of Paolo and Francesca da Rimini which dominates Inferno v – soon transformed into icons of obsessive love, doomed from the very start – will cast its shadow over the Alexandrian couple in the Renaissance. Through Dante’s influence, in the late Italian Middle Ages – and not only then – lasciviousness became Cleopatra’s distinctive sign. This connotation is implicit in Fazio degli Uberti’s Dittamondo (i.1.73-75, see also 112-115) and, turning to the fifteenth century, in Juan de Andújar’s Italianate poem ‘La Visión de amor’, within the miscellany known as Cancionero de Stuñiga (140-141).24 Petrarch’s personage has the same marque d’infamie. Cleopatra ‘arsa / d’indegno foco’ [‘aflame / With wrongful love’] is only a fleeting apparition, within the allegorical processions of the Triumphi (Triumphus Fame 2 21 English translations are Kirkpatrick’s. 22 It has often been noted that no pagan who have committed suicide is found in the wood of Inferno, xiii, as killing oneself was a lesser sin for Gentiles than for Christians. See the commentary on Purgatorio, canto 1, by Kirkpatrick, pp. 322-327. On the subject, see also Limentani. 23 See Kirkpatrick 1987, pp. 6-9, 76-94; Contini 1970; Bono, pp. 55-56. 24 See Nicasio.

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106-107).25 This pale, marginal figure did not influence later dramatists.26 Yet the Triumphi and the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta heavily conditioned the lyric register of many European Renaissance Cleopatra plays in the wake of the success of Petrarchism, and details of Laura’s selective description were shamelessly employed to highlight the beauty of the sovereign. When Pistorelli wrote of her blonde hair, her ‘biondi crini’ (iv.432), Cleopatra had already been endowed with Laura’s famous golden hair (e.g. RVF, 90.1, 196.7-8, 227.1-4) for instance, by Giovanni Gherardi da Prato, in his Il paradiso degli Alberti: ‘Da poi ancora la detta legiadrissima e mirabile Cleopatra […] co˙lle sue biondissime trecce legate da uno filo finissimo d’oro’ [‘And then the very beautiful and admirable Cleopatra […] with her pale blonde plaits tied with a thread of the finest gold’] (i.100).27 Writers were depicting in line with their ideals of beauty, abolishing her uncomfortable ‘foreignness’.28 In effect, Cleopatra’s ‘cheveleüre ot sore et espesse et longue’ also appeared in the medieval romance Li fait des Romans (part 3, ch.15 [17] ll. 30-33), based on a different tradition.29 Nonetheless, Petrarch’s direct influence cannot be denied, as is shown by Garnier’s Petrarchan – or better, Petrarchesque – description of the blond queen in his play (Marc Antoine, ii.711-718). In Garnier’s lines, we find many of the stereotypes so aptly reversed in Shakespeare’s anti-Petrarchan sonnet 130: ‘Et le vermeil coral qui ses deux lévres peint’ (l. 714) [‘The coral color her two lips ingrains’ (l. 722)]; ‘La clairté de ses yeux, deux soleils de ce monde’ (l. 715) [‘Her beamy eyes, two suns of 25 The translation is that by Wilkins. Cleopatra had already been cited in Triumphus Cupidinis (TC1 88-90) with Julius Caesar, see also De Remediis utriusque fortune, i.69; De vita solitaria, 2.9; Fam., 18.7.3. In Africa, II, 242-243, we find a Virgilian depiction of the queen’s role at Actium. 26 Regarding the fortune of the Triumphs in England, see Hannay, Kinnamon and Brennan 2005d. In TF2 she is once again associated to Semiramis and to the chaste Zenobia. For her and Cleopatra, see Petrarch, Fam. 21.8.14. Zenobia will become an exemplary ‘good woman’ in many humanist treatises on the nature of the female sex, and features as one of the speakers in Thomas Elyot’s Defence of Good Women. See Jordan; Beilin 1987, pp. 9-11. 27 In this uncompleted collection of short stories, the medievalised queen is highly praised for her political and personal qualities, see 1.103. 28 Historically, Cleopatra belonged to the Ptolemaic dynasty, of Macedonian origin: ‘By descent half Macedonian and (apparently) half Greek, with a slight tinge of the Iranian, she was by instinct, training, and pride of race a Macedonian princess; Romans called her an Egyptian simply as a term of abuse, like Dago, for she had no Egyptian blood’ (Tarn and Charlesworth 1934a, p. 35). In his description of her court, Lucan indicates the presence of many different races (Pharsalia, x.127-131). 29 Although, in ancient French the term sor (feminine: sore) or sorel came to cover a wide range of colour shades, its first meaning was ‘brilliant blond or golden yellow’, to the point that in a passage from Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence’s Vie de Saint Thomas Becket (1174), Sorel is the name of a personification of ‘gold’. See Ott, pp. 82, 86; Van Daele. For Li fait, see below 3.3.

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this our world’ (l. 723)].30 Conversely, Cleopatra was seen as a dark lady by most English Renaissance writers, who were not influenced by the memory of Laura or rather as a dark-skinned woman whose ‘sanne-burnt beautie’ could not possibly please Antony’s ‘sight’, as Samuel Brandon puts it in his Virtuous Octavia (iii.2.29).31 Shakespeare’s Cleopatra is seen by Philo (i.1.6) and by Antony, in his rage (iv.12.28), as a gypsy with a ‘tawny front’ (i.1.9), and describes herself as ‘with Phoebus’ amorous pinches black’ (i.5.29),32 similar to the justification used by the woman in the Song of Solomon (1.6). It is only with the third, so-called, ‘Florentine crown’ that Cleopatra’s character comes alive. Boccaccio developed Cleopatra’s Latin portraits in the 1350s. His portrayals of her in the vernacular, on the contrary, date from the beginning and the very end of his literary career. In the third book of his early romance Filocolo (1336-1339), the allusions to Cleopatra are mainly focused on her debauchery (iii.35.7, iv.42.9), while at v.53.17 he laconically states that her reign was ended ‘per la forza de’ Romani, che ’l soggiogarono’ [‘through the power of the Romans, who conquered it’].33 In the Amorosa Visione (1342-1343, revised in 1355-1360) she proceeds, as one of Fame’s retinue, da capo, to the pressing – and here somewhat clumsy – rhythm of tercets: A loro Marco Antonio quiviritto seguiva e Cleopatra ancor con esso, che, in Sicilia, fuggì sanza rispitto, ridottando Ottavian, perché commesso le parea forse aver sì fatta offesa che non sperava mai perdon da esso. Ivi non potendo ella far difesa al fuoco che le ardeva forse ’l core 30 Two Tragedies, Hippolyte and Marc Antoine, ed. by Hill and Morrison. The English version is that found in Sidney Herbert, Selected Works. Her translation is line for line with a single exception, but ‘the lineation […] is obscured in Works because the text of act and scene divisions is included in the line count’, see Alexander 2006, p. 96 n. 51; Alexander 1999. I do not share Aebischer’s view that Garnier’s Cleopatra is ‘artificially white’ (p. 233). 31 See also Robert Greene’s romance Ciceronis Amor (first published in 1589). Of course there were exceptions, the most relevant of which is Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women (see below 2.3). In the anonymous Caesar’s Revenge (mid-1590s), Cleopatra has ‘Cheekes of Roses, lockes of Gold’ (ii.3.887-888). See Ayres; Waddington, pp. 217, 226 n. 39. For Brandon, see below 5.4. Daniel never describes the queen in any physical detail. 32 On the whole issue in Shakespeare’s play, see Adelman 1973, pp. 184-188; on Cleopatra’s racial indeterminacy, see Aebischer. 33 For the English translation, see Filocolo, trans. by Donald Cheney.

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di libidine e d’ira, ond’era accesa, a fuggir quello oltraggioso furore con due serpenti in mesta sepultura sofferse sostener mortal dolore; ed ancor quivi nella sua figura pallida, si vedeano i duo serpenti alle sue zizze dar crudel morsura. (x.55-69) [Behind them Mark Antony directly / followed, and Cleopatra still with him, / who fled towards Sicily without delay, / fearing Octavian, because it seemed to her / that she had committed so grave an offense / that she could never hope for his pardon. / Then, incapable of defending herself / against the flame that perhaps burned her heart / with the lust and wrath with which she was kindled, / in order to escape that excessive furor / with two serpents in a sad tomb / did she let herself undergo mortal agony; / and still there on her pale shape / the two serpents could be seen, / cruelly biting her breasts.]34

In Boccaccio’s picture, Antony is irrelevant, reduced to Cleopatra’s unmanned lover; she herself is deprived of every regal attribute. She dies in the mausoleum, poisoned by two asps (as in Florus’ Epitomae), that she applies to her ‘zizze’.35 The image of a woman with serpents at her breasts was a widespread symbol of lust in the Middle Ages, while the fact that in this version Cleopatra flees to Sicily may be part of a now-lost medieval version of her myth.36 In the Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta (1343 or 1344) Cleopatra’s name is associated for the first time with a motif which, grafted on to classical roots, will be of great importance in Renaissance drama: the instability of Fortune. She is once again full of ‘libidinose lusinghe’ [‘lascivious enticements’] (viii, 151), and quickly dies as ‘in piccola ora possono per le poppe due serpenti trarre d’un corpo il sangue e la vita’ [‘two snakes can quickly suck from 34 For the text and the English translation, see the edition of Boccaccio, Amorosa visione, edited by Branca, and the bilingual edition translated by Hollander, Hampton and Frankel. The version given is that of the B text. It is difficult to say whether the Amorosa Visione influenced Petrarch’s Triumphi or vice versa, as the dating of the work is disputed. See Wilkins; Calcaterra; Branca; Billanovich. 35 See above 1.2 and 2.1. For popular epic, see below 3.3. 36 For Cleopatra and Lust, see Adelman 1973, p. 64; Thomas 1963, p. 176 n. 9. For the iconographic aspects, see Van Marle, II, p. 48 and below 3.2.

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the breasts the blood and life of one body’] (viii, 152).37 Yet she is above all an exemplum of the pains provoked ‘da miserabili e inopinati assalti della fortuna […] se quegli è vero che egli sia generazione di sommo infortunio l’essere stato felice’ [‘by the mean and untimely assault of Fortune […] if it is true that having been happy leads to extreme misfortune’] (viii, 146).38 The same theme runs obsessively through the first Latin compilation of the mature Boccaccio, De casibus virorum illustrium (between 1355-1356 and 1373). It is no accident that one of its most famous observations about fate can be read at the end of Book VI, in the last part of Chapter xv: De Marco Antonio triumviro et Cleopatra Egypti regina. The passage lingers on the queen: ‘et pulchritudinem, quam feminea levitate monstraverat, acerbitate commota Fortune, delusam ipsa viventem infoderet; et quod permaximum desiderium ambierat imperium mausolei brevitate finiret’ [‘and, stuck by misfortune, she herself buried, baffled but still alive, that beauty which she had shown with feminine levity and the empire, to which she had aspired with such a longing, ended in the little space of a mausoleum’]. Renaissance dramatists will not miss the implication: on the stage, Cleopatra and Antony become exemplary victims of the goddess’ wheel.39 The anonymous author of the Aldini manuscript play, typically, will even call the inconstant goddess onto the stage to speak for herself (v, Canto della Fortuna, 45-50). 40 In Boccaccio’s next, and no less influential, Latin collection of lives, De mulieribus claris, the role of Fortune, under Providence’s dominion, is not so evident. Christian heroines (apart from Eve) are ignored, because the main purpose of the work is to prove the educative function of classical culture. The treatise is proto-humanistic and unprecedented: as Boccaccio underlines in his preface, no one had ever written about powerful women from antiquity before him. 41 Within this new picture Cleopatra is still 37 The English translation is that of Causa-Steindler and Mauch. 38 Cleopatra had already been mentioned within a catalogue of incestuous women, in Chapter i of the Elegia, together with Mirra, Semiramis, Biblis, and Canace (17.16). 39 For instance, Giraldi, Cleopatra, ii.3.171-174, v.456-471; De Cesari, Cleopatra, v.177-183; Jodelle, Cleopatre Captive, ii.308, iii.1169-1171; Pistorelli, Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, i.105-114; Garnier, Marc Antoine, iii.934-943 [Pembroke, Antonius, iii.945-954]; Daniel, Cleopatra, i.7-12. In Shakespeare’s play, the word ‘fortune’ and its derivatives appear 44 times. See Hillman 2013, p. 320; see also Schalkwyk, pp. 202-208. 40 For other examples, see 1.1-10, 3.129-138, 4.218-220. 41 Boccaccio, De mulieribus claris, ed. by Zaccaria, p. 28. On this point, see Jordan, pp. 243-244; Collina, pp. 107-113. Boccaccio started writing the collection in 1361 and kept working on it until his death; see Ricci, pp. 115-135. It is dedicated to Andrea Acciaiuoli, countess of Altavilla (Benson 1992, pp. 10-18).

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censured. After Antony’s death, she tried to make Octavian desire her, but could not, so she lay down next to her lover in the mausoleum (16), opened the veins on her arms, put two ypnales snakes upon the cuts and thus ‘avaritie, lascivie atque vite finem sumpsit infelix’ [‘the wretched woman put an end to her greed, her concupiscence, and her life’] (lxxxviii). 42 In writing his unfinished Esposizioni sopra la Comedia (1373-1375), in the last years of his life, Boccaccio retold Cleopatra’s story in the vernacular, for his commentary on Inferno v (84-99), using almost the same words as in De mulieribus. 43 The wicked lady, he says, was branded ‘lussuriosa’ by Dante to distinguish her from other Cleopatras ‘delle quali alcuna non ne fu, per quel che si legga, così viziata di questo vizio come costei, della qual qui intende’ [‘of which none was, judging from what we read, so corrupted by this vice as the one we discuss here’] (84). And with this we are back in the second circle of Hell, where we started.

2.3

The Legend of a Bad Woman

Boccaccio’s collections of biographies in Latin were influential throughout Europe. 44 Between 1476 and 1598, De casibus virorum illustrium was published, in translation, thirteen times in France, six in Great Britain, four in Italy, three in Spain, and once in Germany. 45 De mulieribus claris enjoyed similar fortune. 46 In time, a flood of versions, adaptations, rewritings, travesties and imitations (partial or complete) spread across Europe. Don Pedro López de Ayala, Laurent Guillot de Premierfait, Juan Rodríguez de la Cámara, Georges Chastellain, Antoine Dufour, Heinrich Stainhöwel, Michel Riz, Diego de Ábalos y Figueroa, Hieronymo Ziegler, Alvaro de Luna and 42 Boccaccio adds an alternative version of Cleopatra’s death to the passage. Before Actium, Antony suspected that she was trying to poison him. The queen secretly poisoned the flowers used for his chaplet and invited him to drink the flowers with the wine. But as he was about to drain the cup, she stopped him and said that she could have killed him, if she had wanted to. Antony then forced her to swallow the poison. The first part of the anecdote comes from Pliny’s Natural History (xxi 12). It was typical in the Middle Ages to rewrite ancient stories at will. See below 2.3 and 3.3. 43 Boccaccio also drew on De casibus, xv. The inspiration provided by De mulieribus is confirmed by the alternative version of Cleopatra’s death that both De mulieribus and the Esposizioni report. 44 For extant editions, see Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue (ISTC). 45 Zaccaria 1983, p. lii n. 1. 46 Zaccaria 1967, pp. 15-16; Cox 2008, pp. 23-26; Kolsky 2005; Franklin. Boccaccio’s De mulieribus was the first example of a genre destined to stimulate the debates about women in the Renaissance, see below 3.1.

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Alonso de Cartagena, among other writers, were inspired by one or other of these two works. 47 John Lydgate was to base his Fall of Princes (1431-1438) on Premierfait’s prose translation of De casibus. In England, there was also an anonymous translation of 21 chapters out of 106 of De mulieribus, in seven-line stanzas (between 1440 and 1450), 48 and Lord Parker Morley’s translation of 46 lives (Cleopatra excluded). 49 Well before then, Chaucer had already introduced both works into the English tradition with his Monk’s Tale, in which he drew mainly on De casibus (viii, ch. 6), but also on De mulieribus claris (xcviii).50 In his own collection of female lives, the Legend of Good Women, he was possibly the first writer to write about Cleopatra at any length outside Italy.51 She had already briefly appeared in his The Parlement of Foulys, once again as a follower of Cupid (288-294), in a painting portraying famous illicit lovers, both historical and literary.52 Compared with the Amorosa visione and the Trimphus cupidinis, Chaucer’s picture gestures towards the conception of Cleopatra as a heroine of true love, as the general focus here is not so much on her sin as on her sad death.53 Moreover she is placed outside an overtly moral/Christian context, as, in essence, the Parlement is a courtly love poem for St. Valentine’s day. This is critical when we examine Chaucer’s lengthy treatment of Cleopatra within the Legend of Good Women. This martyrology of Cupid’s saints is perhaps his most puzzling work. First of all, the date of composition is hard to determine.54 The Prologue itself, though containing some elements which could be useful for its dating, exists in two different versions (G and F) whose chronology is still questioned, although F is now generally considered the earlier.55 47 Zaccaria 1978; Collina. 48 List of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum, p. 28. For the dating, see Raith, p. 74. For De mulieribus claris in English, see Armstrong. 49 Forty-six Lives, Translated from Boccaccio’s De claris mulieribus by Henry Parker, Lord Morley. 50 Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer, Explanatory Notes to MkT, p. 926. I refer to the generally accepted chronology of Chaucer’s works, which are not easily dated or ordered. See Benson 2008. 51 Percival, pp. 221-238 (223); Frank, p. 37. 52 Note that the ‘bad’ women portrayed by Chaucer in PF are almost identical to the list cited in Boccaccio’s Fiammetta, 1.17.16, Cleopatra included. The queen of Egypt is absent in analogous lists by two other writers well known to Chaucer: Guillome Machaut (Le dit dou Lyon ll. 1312-1336) and Jean Froissart (Paradis d’Amour ll. 970-1004, 1139-1154). 53 Bennett, pp. 91-106. The lovers in the Chaucerian muster-roll are not only singled out for negative reasons. Tristan and Isolde, for instance, are turned into martyrs for love, in popular chivalric romances. 54 Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer, Notes to LGW, p. 1059. 55 Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer, Notes to LGW, p. 1060. He revised the Prologue after many years and the exact nature of the royal command is not clear. On the Legend’s completeness,

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A second point concerns the poem’s artistic value. Most early studies found it, in essence, a failure.56 Lately some scholars have looked at it more favourably, yet, on the whole, only the Prologue (especially in its F version) is considered as a fine example of Chaucer’s genius.57 Another crucial dilemma is the intentio auctoris. Here critics are divided into two opposite camps: on the one hand are those who claim that the legends are to be taken at face value, as eulogies of classical heroines; on the other, those who interpret them as a satire on womankind.58 Recent attempts to overcome both critical reductionist readings have proved, in the end, unsuccessful.59 Cleopatra occupies a pivotal position within the dispute, being the first lover in the narrative and the only character to be cited in the Prologue, including in the ballad it contains (F 566, G 542).60 Her life has been read as a celebration of a heroine of love by some critics, while others maintain that the inclusion of a lady of such nefarious reputation in Chaucer’s work is proof that he never intended to defend the female sex. Cleopatra’s biography then is carefully censored. For some scholars, the expurgation was designed to provoke an amused reaction in his well-educated and informed audience.61 Others say the omissions were made in order to soften Cleopatra’s portrait.62 Yet, as we have seen (2.1), a pattern of censorship does not necessarily imply any comical distortion. Maybe the whole question of Chaucer’s adherence

see Frank, pp. 189-210; Rowe, p. 120. For the identification of Alceste with Anne of Bohemia, see Wallace 1997, pp. 357-370. 56 In LGW, Chaucer, for the first time, took on a subject matter outside the codified French courtly tradition. Moreover, he employed a different verse pattern, the decasyllabic couplet (Frank, pp. 1-10). The discrepancies between the Legend and Chaucer’s mention of it in The Man of Low’s Tale (ll. 57-76) are a sort of riddle in the riddle. 57 Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer, Notes to LGW, pp. 1059-1060. 58 In favour of an ironic reading are, among other scholars, Garrett, Taylor, Percival; against it: Lowes, Kolve, and Mann. Sometimes the same passage is seen from two opposite perspectives, compare Percival, pp. 214-215, and Mann, p. 31. 59 Kiser, p. 131; Delany, p. 2. Percival’s essay (pp. 277-278) f inds irony in every single tale it examines. She even suggests (in the wake of Ovid’s Fasti, ii.833-834) that there is a humorous intent in Lucrece’s modest arranging of her clothes before dying, while the detail, originally attributed to Polissena by both Euripides (Hecuba 568-569) and Ovid (Met., xiii.477-480), attested by the Pseudo-Galen’s De Theriaca ad Pisonem (viii), and well known to medieval tradition, is still present, as a wholly admirable act, in Italian fourteenth-century octave poems on the fall of Troy. See Polissena ([Venice]: Giuliano Pasquali, n.d.). 60 Percival, pp. 221 and 237. 61 Kiser, pp. 100-101. 62 Percival, pp. 199-200; Kolve, p. 131.

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to his sources should be reconsidered, keeping in mind that the medieval writers often changed ancient stories as they liked.63 Besides these major questions, there are some minor points. The poet’s sources are uncertain and the narrative is excessively brief, the shortest of all stories told.64 Furthermore, it is disharmonious, as the description of the Battle of Actium takes up most of the narrative. Some claim the letter is a sort of ludic excursus, filled with erotic puns and innuendo, for the benefit of the men in the audience.65 According to others, it might be the legend in itself that is being used as an excuse for the realistic narration of a contemporary sea battle.66 Chaucer’s version of Cleopatra’s story marks a shift from tradition. She does not entomb Antony inside a pre-existing mausoleum, but rather builds a magnificent shrine (something like the wonderful palace of Nikiu’s chronicle) to house his mortal spoils (ll. 699-677). That way, a simple act of respect towards a political leader (his burial inside the Egyptian royal sepulchre) is transformed into a posthumous act of devotion.67 The coda to the passage (ll. 678-680) is probably Chaucer’s invention as well: ‘And next the shryne a pyt than doth she graue, / And all the serpentes that she myght[e] haue / She putte hem in Þat graue’. The lines have been read in many different ways: according to some critics, the grave filled with serpents prefigures the horrors of death; according to others, it is an emblem of luxury.68 This picture is followed by Cleopatra’s dying utterance: ‘Now loue to whom my sorwfull hert obeyede So ferforthely that fro that blisfull houre That I you swoor to ben a[l] frely youre, I mene you, Antonius my knyght, That neuer wakyng in the day or nyght Ye nere oute of myn hertes remembraunce For wele or wo, for carole or for daunce, And in myself this couenaunt made I tho, 63 Mann, p. 30. See above 2.2. 64 Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer, Notes to LGW, p. 1066. Boccaccio’s collection of lives of classical heroines is the closest formal antecedent and moreover includes Cleopatra as well. Other possible sources are Florus and Orosius. Delany (p. 189) signals also Hidgen’s Polychronicon. 65 For Chaucer’s bawdy, see Delany, pp. 137-152. 66 Schofield, p. 152. 67 Kiser considers it ‘an empty mockery of the precious jewel-studded reliquaries for the remains of saints’ (p. 109). 68 Kolve, pp. 150-151; Percival, pp. 233-236. Quotations are taken from Chaucer, The Legend of Good Women, ed. by J. Cowen and G. Kane.

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That right swich as ye felten wel or wo As ferforth as it in my power lay, Vnreprouable vnto my wifhode ay The same wolde I felen lijf or deth, And thilke couenaunte while me lasteth breth I wol fu[l]fill and that shall wel be sene; Was neuer vnto hir loue a trewer queene’ (669-705)

None of the probable sources allows her to speak. The only classical account in which she talks in the first person is Plutarch’s Ἀντώνιος.69 I would not give excessive weight to line 674 (‘I mene you, Antonius my knyght’), discussed at such length by critics.70 What really matters is that Chaucer imagines the queen uttering words of pure love. At this stage of literary history, that was an apax. Even in Cleopatra’s speech in Plutarch love is not the central issue (Ant., 84.2-4). Yet this kind of passionate oath of loyalty and faith (with a clear medieval parallel to the relationship of a vassal to his lord) will feature frequently in Renaissance drama (Garnier’s Marc Antoine, ii.533-546; Pembroke’s version, ii.540-553; Aldini codex, i.51-55). After proclaiming her eternal love, Chaucer’s Cleopatra leaps into the snake-filled pit to die (ll. 686-690). Serpent pits often appear in hagiographic literature, so the detail is in keeping with the intended martyrological structure of the work.71 Her nakedness has been pointed out as a novelty in medieval literature, if not in art. However, The Riverside Chaucer notes that she dies naked in Jehan de Tuim’s Histoire de Jules César, one of the accredited sources of Caesar’s tragedy in The Monk’s Tale.72 This poem in alexandrines is partly based on the medieval romance Li Fet des Romains (early thirteenth century), and, in fact, an appendix to some of the Italian early translations of the Fet also describes her thus.73 The influence of popular narrative might be of some importance in Chaucer’s tale. After all, the cliché used to describe the queen’s beauty (‘And she was fear as is 69 Ant., 84.2-4. Direct speeches are present as well in the Morte de Antonio et de Cleopatra, within the Libro Imperiale. 70 Rowe, p. 52; Taylor, p. 260; Percival, p. 233; Martin, p. 205. 71 Griffith 1959, p, 401. Conversely, see Percival, p. 233; Taylor, p. 261 n. 40. 72 Explanatory notes to The Legend of Cleopatra, 1067, n. to ll. 678-680, 696-702. For J. de Tuim, see also below 3.3. 73 In the Fioretto di Croniche degli Imperadori we read: ‘E spogliossi innuda com’ella nacque, ed entròe dentro al sipolcro col serpente’ [‘She undressed and entirely naked entered the tomb with the snake’]. See I Fatti di Cesare, pp. 306-307; Flutre, II, p. 204. See also below 3.3.

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Þe rose in May’ l. 613) comes from Boccaccio’s Teseida (i.125.4), but belongs to a tradition of street singing; the sea battle finds a parallel in the Morte Arthure, and the anti-Virgilian attitude of the Chaucerian legend of Dido is deeply rooted in a fertile medieval tradition.74 The legend has been criticised for its brevity and simplicity,75 yet in its staccato of images, and in its regular, soothing rhythm there lies a strange pathos. It looks like and is told like a fable, but, in Chaucer’s words, it ‘is storiall soth it is no fable’ (l. 702). Even if this statement has been judged as satirical, the author is nonetheless simply telling the truth: this is the only historical tale in the collection.76 With the Legend of Good Women, the modern, vernacular Cleopatra was truly born. Immediately thereafter (or so it seems), in the last chapter of his ‘consolation’ poem, the Confessio Amantis, John Gower told the tale of her death for love in a similar key to that used by his friend Chaucer 77: Among these othre upon the grene I syh also the wofull queene Cleopatras, which in a cave With serpentz hath hirself begrave Al quik, and so sche was totore For sorwe of that sche hadde lore Antonye, which hir love hath be.    (viii.2571-2577)

John Lydgate, in his translation of De casibus, does not describe the death of Antony and Cleopatra (vi.3618-3619) at length, as Chaucer had already masterfully done so (vi.3620-3640), but his unsympathetic judgement of the queen is clear: Hir auarice was so importable, He supprised with hir gret fairnesse, Folwyng ther lustis foul & abhominable, 74 For the former, see Schofield, pp. 144, 152; for the latter, see Percival, p. 246 n. 19. 75 Percival, p. 224. 76 For the satirical reading, see Taylor, p. 260; Martin, p. 205; Percival, p. 233; Kiser, p. 102. Even Chaucer’s closing remark (undoubtedly ironic) has been overstressed and I think partly misinterpreted (Rowe, p. 52; Taylor, pp. 266-267). 77 Quotations are taken from Gower, Confessio Amantis, ed. by R.A. Peck. For Gower, see Nicholson; Yeager. Also, the so-called Cronycle made by Chaucer is very close to the text of the Legend. See Old Texts of Chaucer’s Minor Poems, II, pp. vi-viii.

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She desiryng to haue be emperesse; And he, alas, of froward wilfulnesse, To plesen hire, vnhappily began To werreye the grete Octouyan.    (vi.3634-3640)78

Lydgate’s oeuvre could be considered symptomatic of the ambivalent attitudes towards Cleopatra which openly coexisted in England. While in the Temple of Glas it is Antony’s constancy that is praised (ll. 778-779), the queen reappears in other poems, sometimes as the epitome of true love, at other times as a model of inconstancy. In A Ballade of Her That Hath All Virtues, the poet claims that his beloved possesses, among other virtues, ‘Of Cleopatres abyding stabulnesse’ (3.19).79 Again in The Floure of Curtesy, on St. Valentine’s day, he praises her faithfulness (28.194-196).80 There is no hint of irony in these verses, unlike in Beware of Doubleness, in which Cleopatra is, once again, a target for satire (11.81-88). In Amor vincit omnia mentiris quod pecunia she becomes an exemplum of greed, because, we are told, she in fact loved ‘Anthonius tresoure’ (1.58). Lydgate was certainly not alone in denigrating Cleopatra, but he had some followers even when he took the opposite path and raised her to the status of model lover. In a poem attributed to Leonard Gybson, A very proper Dittie, printed under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the author complains this way: ‘Mee thinkes faithfull Thisbies be now very rare, Not one Cleopatra, I doubt, doth remayne’ (ll. 19-20).81 And, in the anonymous dream vision The Assemblie of Ladies (c. 1470-1480), possibly written by a woman, the female narrator sees engraved on the wall of Lady Loyalty’s council chamber: ‘how in pitous case / For Antony was slayne Cleopatrace’ (ll. 461-462).82 All in all, the two-sided Cleopatra was by now more considered a martyr (though unique) than an enchantress, and with this new complex picture in mind we are ready to see her set foot on the Renaissance European stage. 78 Quotations are taken from Lydgate’s Fall of Prences, ed. by H. Bergen. For Lydgate, see Dane and Beesemyer; Gillespie; Wallace 1997, pp. 332-334. On his misogynist attitude, see Delany, pp. 5-6. 79 Quotations are from The Minor Poems of John Lydgate. In The Complaint of the Black Knight, it is Antony to be once again exalted as a true lover (l. 368). 80 Another example is A Valentine to Her that Excelleth all (11.59-60). She is praised also in The Troy Book (iv.3655-3660). On Lydgate and Cleopatra, see Williamson 1974, pp. 52-54; Hamilton 1973, pp. 246-247. 81 A Collection of Seventy-nine Black-Letter Ballads and Broadsides. 82 The Floure and the Leafe, The Assemblie of Ladies, and The Isle of Ladies. See Doran, p. 160; Meale, pp. 127-128.

3.

The Egyptian Queen’s Rebirth Abstract The Renaissance and the Cleopatra vogue. Her legend is rearranged, highlighting those aspects that could be of general concern to the contemporary public. Cleopatra and figurative arts. Her parallel existence within chivalry poetry and romance: Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser. Renaissance theatrical literature and Aristotle’s precepts. Trissino’s Sωphωnisba. Giraldi Cinthio and the rise of the so-called neo-Senecan theatrical style. Analysis of his Cleopatra tragedia. Keywords: Renaissance; f igurative arts; chivalry epic; neo-Senecan tragedy; Giraldi Cinthio

3.1

Cleopatra Revised

With the Renaissance an outbreak of classical studies spread across Europe. Italy was its first, yet not exclusive, natural reservoir.1 Humanism did not sweep through every European country in the same way, and the cultural dynamics of different nations led to the deep and partly unconscious transformation of models and codes imported from elsewhere.2 As Kirkpatrick points out, ‘by the end of the sixteenth century France, Spain and belatedly England developed their own versions of the Renaissance enterprise, and advanced […] far beyond the horizons of the Italian original’ (2002, p. 4).3 Only some of the cultural fields influenced by the humanist movement are of interest to this study. For instance, Seneca’s tragedies, destined to have 1 Recent scholarship has highlighted the contradictory and short-lived aspects of the Renaissance, arguing that many medieval traits seeped into the Renaissance, and that some of its novelties did not endure over time. See Kirkpatrick 2002; Greenblatt 1980; Greenblatt 1992. On the limits of the so-called early modern period, see Ferguson, p. 14. 2 For cultural system dynamics, see Lotman 1985. For the influence of ancient writers on English literature, see Sowerby. 3 Kirkpatrick 2002, p. 4.

Montanari, A.M., Cleopatra in Italian and English Renaissance Drama. Amsterdam University Press, 2019. doi 10.5117/9789462985995_ch03

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an immense influence on Renaissance drama, were among the numerous works which entered circulation thanks to the efforts of prehumanists and humanists. 4 Much later, the publication of Aristotle’s poetics fostered a debate around literary genres, κάθαρσις and the so-called unities of space, time and action, which rapidly spread across many countries.5 Meanwhile, as a consequence of the study of ancient Greek and of the revival of classical literature, Europe was awash with translations, often from Greek to Latin and from Latin to modern languages. 6 Consider, first and foremost, the importance for Shakespeare of William Adlington’s version of Apuleius’ The Golden Ass (1566), of Arthur Golding’s rendering of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1567) and of Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives (1579), based on Amyot’s French version (1559).7 Among the elements of the Renaissance of significance for us is the doctrine of imitation (which was conceived of as mastering classical forms and themes, rather than as a reproduction of what Greek and Latin authors had already written) and the definition of literary genres.8 The reappraisal of classical rhetoric was also of central importance to Renaissance literature. Quintilian’s Institutionis oratoriae libri XII, Cicero’s De inventione, De oratore, and Orator, and the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium had a huge impact on schools and universities, encouraging a fashion for debate and declamation. Some treatises in particular – for instance, Horace’s Ars poetica or Pseudo-Longinus’ De sublimitate (Περὶ ὕψους) – encouraged rhetoricians to apply their techniques for reading poetry and poets to writing verse.9 Not least among the effects of the recovery of the Latin and Greek cultures was that it led to a vivid interest in the protagonists of both mythology and ancient history. Literature, inevitably, soon took up the legend of Cleopatra and her uninterrupted popularity now grew once more, favoured by the 4 We must not forget the rediscovery of Cicero’s Ad Attico, Ad familiares, the complete version of De oratore and Brutus; Tacitus’ Annales and Historiae; Apuleius’ Asinus aureus; Varro’s De lingua latina; Statius’ Silvae; as well as twelve unknown comedies by Plautus. See Kirkpatrick 1995, pp. 85-91. 5 Alessandro de’ Pazzi turned the Poetics into Latin in 1536. 6 Reynolds and Wilson; Weiss; Greene 1982; Lewis; Brooke and Shaaber. 7 The English translation of Appian by W.B. (possibly William Barker) was possibly used by Shakespeare (An auncient historie and exquisite chronicle […] [1578]). See Kiefer. De Remediis utriusque fortunae was translated by Robert Whyttinton in 1547; De beneficiis by Arthur Golding in 1578. 8 ‘Imitation is (1) an identification with or response to some trait of the model; (2) a performance in honour of the model, giving true and proper attention to detail and spirit; (3) a bringing of oneself into the spiritual presence of the model and devising a method of representing that presence’ (Lebranche, p. 323). 9 Adamson, Alexander and Ettenhuber, pp. 1-2.

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Egyptian vogue.10 The manuscript of Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica, which arrived in Florence in 1419, created an enduring myth.11 In his De re aedificatoria (printed in 1458), Leon Battista Alberti even suggested the creation of a system of modern hieroglyphics, as ornaments for contemporary monuments.12 When Marsilio Ficino edited and translated into Latin the Greek writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus (1463), presenting the legendary Egyptian sage as a sort of ancient prophet, the Egyptian revival took a philosophical turn.13 Florentine neo-Platonists marvelled at the resemblances between the Hermetic texts and biblical revelation, and the hieroglyphics came to be considered as ‘emblems of divine knowledge’.14 The land of the Nile was no longer seen merely as a monstrously fertile and barbarian country, but also as the seat of mysterious wisdom. Although Antony and Cleopatra continued, in some cases, to be considered as a moral warning of ungodly and wicked individuals, the general perception of the couple had evolved.15 Still within a proto-Renaissance atmosphere, Gherardi da Prato portrayed the queen of Egypt favourably, in his Paradiso degli Alberti: Era la miracolosa reina bellissima e d’ogni parte della sua persona assai graziosa e, come che già al pari di lei belle ne fosser vedute, era in lei tanta legiadria, tanta gaia piacevolezza, tanta affabilità gentile, tanti varii e infiniti e legiadri costumi che quasi chi lei rimiravan innebriati di dolcezza lei bella Venere si dicieno. (i.104)16 [The wonderful queen was exceedingly beautiful and utterly graceful in every part of her figure, and although it was possible to see other women 10 Williamson 1974, p. 72. For a list of late medieval and Renaissance texts pro and against the pair, see Dickey, p. 82 n. 30; Bevington, pp. 4-6. 11 Adelman 1973, pp. 67-68; Bono, pp. 191-197. See also Cardini. 12 Curran 2011, p. 101; Iversen; Finzi. The printing press accelerated popular and scholarly interest in Egypt with books such as the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499). See Miles 2011a, p. 5; Curran 1998. 13 Allen; Curran 2011, pp. 102-106. 14 Adelman 1973, p. 67; Bono, pp. 191-197. See also Cardini. 15 Cleopatra’s image as a harlot and an enchantress endured throughout the Renaissance. See Thomas D.D. Beard, The Theatre of Gods Judgements (1597); Malleus maleficarum (1490) (Prima pars, quaestio sexta, 19v). In 1606, in Frankfurt, C. Antonii, Q. Sorani & Cleopatrae Reginae Epistulae. De propudiosa Cleopatrae Reginae libidine was published together with the Priapea, Heraclii Imperatoris, Sophoclis Sophistae (W. Richter, 1506 [i.e. 1606]). In these almost pornographic letters, Cleopatra is a woman of insatiable libido. The text is now attributed to Melchior Goldast. For the attribution and for the medical texts falsely attributed to Cleopatra, see Rowland. 16 See above 2.2.

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as beautiful as she, she was so fair, so pleasantly gay, so amiable and kind, so filled with many different infinite virtues that those who looked at her, almost intoxicated by her sweetness, judged her a fair Venus.]

And some time before 1468, Luca Pulci (when writing his Pistole, a collection of letters in terza rima inspired by Ovid’s Heroides) had the idea of imagining the kind of material ancient historians might have created: the famous letter sent by Cleopatra to Octavian just before her suicide (Plut., Ant., 85.2; Dio, li.13.4).17 This epistle (n. xviii), which closes the collection, uses the image of the queen being bitten by two asps at her breasts (xviii.86), and ends with an epitaph that Cleopatra states she will write sua manu, with her blood-stained finger, on her grave: ‘Scrivi di te tu stessa l’epigramma, / col proprio sangue, in sullo avello in piastra, / dove è Antonio ancor, privo di fiamma: / “Di Cleopatra la frigida lastra / chiude qui il corpo. Cesare remunera / come Fortuna a Tebe dì Iocastra: / s’ancise a dare a Marco Antonio funera”’ [‘Write yourself your own epitaph, with your blood, on the gravestone of your tomb, where Antonio also lies, bereft of his flame: “The cold tombstone here encloses Cleopatra’s body. She rewards Caesar as in Thebes Fortune did once with Jocasta: she killed herself so that Marco Antonio might have a honourable burial.”’] (xviii.88-94).18 A brief version of the letter to Octavian is also present in Bernardo Accolti’s long capitolo on Cleopatra (Unici Cleopatra)19: ‘Come ogn’altro in victoria e gloria excedi, / Ogn’altro anchor in clementia excedendo / L’ultimo dono Octavio mi concedi: / Nel sepolcro d’Anton’ sempre descendo. / Recludi me. Se ’n vita n’hai disgiunti / In morte al men ne va ricongiungendo’ [‘Octavio, as you exceed everyone else in victory and glory, and exceeding them in mercy too, grant me one last gift and bury me in Antonio’s tomb, where I will descend forever. If we were parted by you in life, in death at least unite us’] (ll. 166-171).20 Accolti also wrote a Cleopatre epitaphium21: 17 In Capponi’s Cleopatra (1628), the letter is read by Dolabella to Augustus and to the audience (iv.4. 224-234, v.1.235-301). Also, Isaac de Benserade introduces the letter in his play (v.4.23-28). 18 I am quoting from the editio princeps, printed in 1481 (i.e. 1482). For the Pistole, see Carrai, pp. 15-33. 19 Bernardo Accolti (1458-1535) was a very popular poet in his day and has a small part in Castiglione’s Cortegiano (I.ix; II.v-vi; III.viii, lx-lxiii). For his life and works, see Mantovani; Ianuale 1993; Ianuale 1994; Calitti. I am quoting from the manuscript Rossiano 680, ff. 21v-26r. 20 The capitolo – which highly praises the couple – goes from Antony’s death to Cleopatra’s and is interesting in many respects. 21 For the motif in Renaissance tragedies, see Giraldi, iii.5.233; De Cesari, iii.27; Pistorelli, ii.244.

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Poi che ’l caro consorte mio fu victo, A le mamille mie posi e serpenti, Perché non mai la regina d’Egypto Serva vedessin le romane genti. Piglia exemplo, lector, da quel ch’è scripto, Che regno è nulla se non ti contenti: Vissi Antonio vivo, e mori’ morto lui, Per esser morta sua qual viva fui.22 [After my dear husband was defeated / my naked breasts to the snakes I gave, / so that the queen of Egypt was not seen / by Roman people turned into a slave. / Reader, take heed from what is written: / a kingdom is nought, if you’re not content. / I lived when Antonio lived, died when he died / To be his in death as I was his alive.]

The exemplarity of Cleopatra’s journey from greatness to misfortune, which had come down from the Middle Ages, was to become a commonplace in Renaissance tragedies about her. Roughly around the same time, Cleopatra’s popularity in England is exemplified by a poem by George Gascoigne (about 1525-1577), in which he imagined her exotic, dark ‘beauty’: She was not fayre, God wot, the countreye breedes none bright, Well maye we iudge hir skinne the foyle, because hyr teeth were white. Percase hyr louelye lookes some prayses dyd deserue, But browne I dare be bolde shee was, for so the soyle did serue.23

Despite the growing interest in Cleopatra, it was only in the sixteenth century that the character came to the fore on the stage. Mary Morrison maintains that this revival was triggered by the discovery of a statue (now known as the ‘Sleeping Ariadne’) acquired by Pope Julius II in 1512, which was then believed to be of Cleopatra with the asp round her arm, although in fact the

22 I am quoting from Mussini Sacchi 1995-1996, p. 258. The epitaph was part of a series of attempts meant to revive this classical kind of poem in the vernacular and it was later imitated by Marino (see 5.4). See also Rossi 1998, p. 106 n. 29. 23 George Gascoigne, ‘In praise of a gentlewoman who thought she were not verye fayre, yet was she as harde fauoured as might be’, The Complete Poems, I, 487, quoted in Adelman 1973, p. 186. In France, Cleopatra was, for instance, praised by Guillaume Belliard, in his poem Le Delitieuses Amours de Marc Antoine et de Cléopatre (1578).

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snake was only a bracelet.24 Certainly, admiration for that ancient work of art contributed to the vogue, and many artists and writers were inspired by the celebrated Belvedere statue.25 Between 1541-1543 and 1608, at least twelve different tragedies on the theme were produced in Europe, by Giraldi Cinthio (1541-1543, published in 1583); Francisco de Sá de Miranda (about 1550)26; Cesare de Cesari (1552); Jodelle (performed in 1552-1553, published in 1574); Hans Sachs (1560)27; Pistorelli (published in 1576); the anonymous author of Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio tragedia (second half of the sixteenth century); Garnier (published in 1578 and translated into English by Mary Herbert, countess of Pembroke, in 1590); Diego López de Castro (about 1582)28; Daniel (1594); Nicolas de Montreux (1595) and finally Shakespeare. 29 The list is impressive.30 In their attempt to recapture the true essence of the queen of Egypt, Renaissance tragedians reinterpreted the character in the light of Greek and Latin historians and poets. In Italy, a pivotal role was played, in this reimagining, by Count Giulio Landi’s Vita di Cleopatra (1551). This vernacular

24 Morrison 1974, pp. 113-114; Morrison 1997, pp. 167-168; Curran 2011, pp. 114-116. See also Morrison and Osborn, pp. xxvi-xxvii; Mussini Sacchi 2005. For the Renaissance fascination with Egyptian monuments, see Barkan. 25 Evangelista Maddalena di Capoferro composed a collection of Latin epigrammatic verses for it and Baldassarre Castiglione dedicated a Latin poem to the statue (Curran 2011, pp. 116-120). Both Capoferro and Castiglione make the statue speak in the first person, a device of ancient origin. For the influence of the statue on portraits of the queen, see Urbini. 26 Only a dozen lines of the play are extant. This Cleópatra was perhaps the first example of classical tragedy ever written in Portugal. 27 For Sachs’ tragedy, see Mantzius, pp. 148-164; Williamson 1974, pp. 169-181. He also wrote a poem and a monologue on the subject (Patrick, pp. 69-70). 28 López de Castro’s play, in four acts, mingles comic and tragic elements and is rich in gruesome episodes. It also mixes historical characters and personages created ex nihilo by the dramatist: Fulbino, Marcela (Fulbino’s wife and Antony’s lover), Dorista (her servant), Flaminio (a general who betrays Antony), and others. Historical events are left in the background, while love stories dominate. Cleopatra appears for the first time only on the third jornada and kills herself with two asps at her breasts, see Diego López de Castro, Antonio y Cleopatra, 10v. For the play, see Pérez Priego; Rennert. 29 A Danish play appeared one year after Shakespeare’s: Hans Thomissen Stege’s Cleopatra, en Historisk Tragoedia (1609), see Patrick, p. 71. For the plays written after 1608, see below Conclusion. Cleopatra also featured in a tragedy about Julius Caesar, the anonymous Caesar’s Revenge (c. 1595, published in 1606). 30 To these we may add Samuel Brandon’s play (see 5.4) and Lope de Vega’s Los triunphos de Octaviano (c. 1603). Alessandro Spinello’s tragedy Cleopatra (1551), often added to the list, deals in fact with Cleopatra II. See Williamson 1974, pp. 245-248.

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prose biography of the queen, although written after Giraldi’s tragedy, seems to have influenced both De Cesari’s and Pistorelli’s plays.31 Landi draws on many sources, but above all on Plutarch and Dio. According to Morrison, he ‘respects the facts recorded by historians and uses his imagination only to enhance descriptions and, as was legitimate for ancient historians, to invent speeches’ (1974, p. 115). Although he does not produce an expurgated or distorted version of the story, his biography proves to be laudatory and subtly innovative. A first and significant change is his choice to focus on Cleopatra rather than on Antony. The gender shift is confirmed by the prefatory letter, addressed to a woman, Costanza del Carretto.32 Even if Landi carefully underlines the differences between his heroine and his patron, he nonetheless works at some length to excuse Cleopatra of her faults, claiming that she is to be pitied, in the light of her marvellous and divine qualities, ‘meravigliose et divine’ (f. vi).33 After all, Egyptian customs were very far from those of the Christian world. Landi’s Cleopatra is once again irresistible, thanks not only to her extraordinary beauty, but also to her sharp intelligence, her charming conversation, and her political ability. He often reinterprets his sources to heighten his heroine’s exceptionality. At li.12.5, for instance, Dio narrates how Octavian, in the presence of the queen, kept his eyes downcast as he feared that otherwise he might concede to his prisoner’s appeal. Landi transform risk into certainty: had Octavian looked into her face, he would have succumbed (7r)34: ella arse et sottomise a l’amor suo dui più grandi huomini, più feroci, et più potenti che in quei tempi nel mondo fossero. Questi furono Giulio Cesare et Marcantonio: il terzo ancho haverebbe vinto, cioé Ottaviano 31 Landi (1498-1579) was born in Piacenza to an old and noble family. He was a friend of Annibal Caro and Pietro Bembo and was in the service of Ippolito de’ Medici, Guidobaldo II Della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, Alessandro Farnese, and Giulio Feltrio Della Rovere. He governed various towns inside the Papal States and travelled outside Italy. A polygraph, he has left us different works, among which the Descrizione de l’isola de la Madera (published in 1574), La vita di Esopo (1545), and the collection of dialogues Le attioni morali (not after 1560). See Cosentino; Williamson 1974, pp. 72-75; Bullough, pp. 224-225. Lodovico Domenichi’s vernacular translation of Plutarch’s Lives was probably influential on Italian drama, too. It was published in Venice, in two volumes, by Giolito (1555 and 1560). 32 Women’s interest in Cleopatra is none too surprising. The first, anonymous French translation of Plutarch’s Life of Antony (between 1519 and 1527) was dedicated to Francoise de Foix, comtesse de Châteaubriant (1495 c.-1537) and mistress of Francis I of France. See Sturel, p. 14; Pucci, p. 195. 33 Quotations are taken from Landi, La vita di Cleopatra reina d’Egitto. 34 For further examples of the technique employed by Landi, see below.

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Augusto, s’ei di mirarla bene et conversare con esso lei havesse avuto ardire [she made burn with love and subdued the two greatest, fiercest, most powerful men then living in the world. These were Giulio Cesare and Marco Antonio. She would have won the third too, that is Ottaviano Augusto, had he had the nerve to look at her properly and to make conversation with her]

The Vita closes on an accumulatio and emphasis: Cleopatra, says Landi, was full of magnanimity, wise, noble, witty, and clever. Her marvellous and excellent deeds could only be conjectured, however, as no authors specifically wrote about her (47r). It was not only a dynamic dialogue with classical history that transformed the portrayal of Cleopatra, bur also her new status as a dramatic character. Virgil was still a central reference, and the Aeneas-Dido episode was increasingly read as a wholly human love story with no divine shadow. Cleopatra was no longer refracted through Dido alone however: as a dramatis persona, she found herself positioned at the intersection of many heroines of ancient drama, from Sophonisba to Medea, from Hecuba to Alcestis. Classicising Renaissance tragedy often had female protagonists. One of the reasons for this was probably the evolution of the representation of heroism during the course of the early modern period. To oversimplify, we may say that what is anthropologically called the ‘sacrificial hero’ (who endures misfortunes and sufferings) progressively emerged as dominant over the sun hero (who actively confronts dangers, often fighting hand-to-hand with a sword).35 A myriad of elements contributed to the change and led to the crisis of virile heroism found in many Shakespearian plays, and whose consequences are seen in Antony and Cleopatra as well (see below 6.4, 6.5).36 The heroics of endurance was less clearly gendered than traditional heroism, as it shared some traits with the idealised representation of women in traditional gender ideology.37 Dominated by heroines, drama was considered a ‘feminine’ genre. It was not by chance that the first translation of a Greek play (Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis) into English was by a woman, Jane Lumley, 35 See Durand. For the change in the construction of heroism, see the introduction to Rose. 36 Ariosto’s description of the harquebus (ix.28-29, 74-75) and the famous aside against firearms (xi.21-28), in the 1532 version of the Furioso, are symptomatic of a society in which knightly virtues increasingly belong only to literature. See Casadei 1997, pp. 62-64. 37 Beilin 1987, pp. xviii-xix; Lamb 1990, pp. 3-7; Rose, p. xv.

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and Queen Elizabeth herself translated, among other works, the Chorus from Act ii of Seneca’s Hercules Oeteus, although the version was not publicly circulated.38 Women would soon display a certain interest in dramatic writing themselves, perhaps because, as has been stated, it ‘did not require the use of a single authoritative voice, offering instead a variety of positions which gave scope for, but did not need to include, personal feeling’.39 Nonetheless, the cultural relationship between women and the theatre was often contradictory and incongruent. Misogynistic notions remained powerful in European Renaissance society, even as defenders and detractors of womankind sparred throughout the period, augmenting their debates with the Catholic and Protestant theology, neo-Platonism, Aristotelianism, and many other sources. 40 In England, the main contributors to the debate on female role – such as More, Vives Hyrde, and Elyot – generally remained within the boundaries of a conventional ideal of woman. 41 Even if learned female authors gradually moved from pious writings and translations to original literary works, they were still considered outstanding creatures, defying the natural limits which constrained other women. 42 In Italy – especially after 1560, as Cox has shown – women’s influence grew in elite literary culture as they acted as protagonists, patrons, and addressees. 43 The f irst half of seventeenth century then saw a decline of the phenomenon and a gradual rebirth of misogynist attitudes. 44 In 38 For Jane Lumley, see Beilin 1987, pp. 153-157; Straznicki 2004, pp. 31-47. 39 Briggs, p. 76; Beilin 1987, p. 155. For Cary’s Mariam, see below 5.4. In Italy, despite the expansion of literary genres attempted by women in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the only surviving female-authored tragedy belonging to this period is Valeria Miani’s Celinda (1611). See Cox 2008, p. 150; Cox 2011, pp. 119-128; Rees 2008. For elite women’s participation in Italian private performances, see Sampson 2006, p. 105. For the social status of the f irst actresses, see Majorana; Andrews 2000. 40 Beilin 1987, p. xviii; Ross; Kolsky 2003; Jordan; Lamb 1990; Ferguson, Quilligan and Vickers. A number of these authors had female patrons. For the limits of Plato’s ‘feminism’, see Benson 1992, pp. 190-197. For the domestication of warrior maidens in Renaissance epic, see Jordan, pp. 256-257. 41 Benson 1992, pp. 157-230. For Elyot, Defence of Good Women (1540), see Jordan; Benson 1992, pp. 183-203. 42 Beilin 1987, pp. xxiii-xxiv, 126. 43 The first Italian female author to write a full-scale academic defence of women was Lucrezia Marinella (Cox 2008; Cox 2011). In her Le nobiltà et eccellenze delle donne (1600), she refers to Cleopatra more than once for her nobility and courage, stating that she was ‘magnif ica et splendida’ [‘magnificent and splendid’] (26v) and that she ‘molto più temè la vergogna, che non amò la vita’ [‘feared shame much more than she loved life’] (20v). The treatise was republished in 1601, in a revised edition. 44 Cox 2008; Cox 2011. On literacy and women in Italy, see Plebani. As Cox has stated, it is misleading to present the Italian Catholic Reformation as inimical to female cultural engagement in itself.

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the period considered here, however, the representation of the f igure Cleopatra did not signif icantly change: from Giraldi’s early tragedy to the late anonymous play found in the Aldini codex she always remains a positive character. Only in nontheatrical texts of the seventeenth century was she vituperated (see below 5.4). The ‘woman question’ was only one of the many themes touched upon by Renaissance dramatists, as the stage was then a medium for drawing attention to the morals and values of contemporary society. 45 In France and England, the pointed political dimension of drama would become particularly clear. Central concerns were the notion of kingship, the danger of tyrannical rule, and the conflict between public duty and private relationships. Other themes were God’s approach to justice, the notion of free will and the belief in predestination, and the ethics of suicide. The liberum mortis arbitrium was one of the most important points of contention between Christianity and pagan philosophy and literature. The Stoic view of suicide as an honourable act exerted a great influence on humanism and was even tolerated, in certain cases, by some Catholic casuists, who thus recalled in some fashion Tertullian’s position.46 Tragedies were often used to dramatise the debate around suicide, all the more so as, on the Senecan stage, the pagan gods usually represented conventional Christian values.47 The tragic hero/heroine generally preferred death to captivity (Watson 1960, p. 343). In Cleopatra’s case, things were complicated by the uncertainty around the motives for her self-inflicted death, as for the Stoics a suicide motivated by excessive devotion to an object of desire (Antony) was a ‘fundamental ethical error’. 48 Italy was the first country to experience a complex rereading and reconsideration of the Cleopatra story. 49 The reappropriation of her figure rapidly extended across Europe however: the queen of Egypt removed her medieval garb supposedly to show her true self, but in fact she was simply 45 Di Maria, pp. 79-100. 46 Watson 1960, pp. 117-123, 341-345. For the concept in antiquity and in the Renaissance, see Hill 2004, pp. 197-206; Kahn 1997, pp. 121-124, 141-142 n. 12. Some classical authors had written against it, as Cicero in his De republica (vi.15.15). Robert Burton, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, names Cleopatra in a list of people choosing suicide as a form of freedom (quoted in Kahn 1997, p. 142 n. 12). For the adaptation of neo-Stoicism to Christianity, from Petrarch to Justius Lipsius, see Cadman 2015b, pp. 7-8. 47 Di Maria, pp. 58-71. 48 Hill 2004, p. 159. For the female version of the magnanimous type, see below 4.2 and 5.2. 49 In the second half of the sixteenth century, Italian writers showed ‘greater anxiety about a proper representation of moral issues and patriarchal, secular, and religious authority’ (Sampson 2006, p. 44). See also Dionisotti 1967.

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Ill. 1: Piero di Cosimo (1462-c. 1521), Portrait of a Woman, Said to Be of Simonetta Vespucci (c. 1490). (Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (domaine de Chantilly), Musée Condé, inv. 13.)

remade as the product of a new age. Every century believes it has reached an objective reading of yesterday’s culture, and each time the following century purports to find a new truth. In the texts of the past we inevitably see only what we are able to understand.50 50 Adelman 1973, p. 1. For an interpretation of classics in the Renaissance, see Kahn 2013. For the lack of distinction between physiology and psychology in the early seventeenth century, see Hillman 2007, pp. 1-57; Paster.

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A Royal ‘Model’

Figurative arts occupied a central place in Renaissance culture, both thanks to the ‘competition, on a high philosophical plan between Art and Nature’, and to new representational techniques that created pseudo-scientific ideas with artistic activity.51 As such the unrelenting interest in the figure of Cleopatra in history, literature and the theatre is also testified by the vast repertoire of paintings on the subject produced in this period. Within the limits of my survey, a few depictions will suffice to show how, in art as in literature, the queen of Egypt underwent an analogous process of adaptation and presentation (see also ‘A Note on the Cover’). In the 1568 edition of his Lives, Vasari counted among Piero di Cosimo’s works, ‘a very beautiful head of Cleopatra, with an asp wound round her neck’, which was traditionally identified with an oil on panel currently at Chantilly, Musée Condé (see illus. 1).52 In fact, the painting remains a mystery, as neither its sitter nor its meaning have been unanimously agreed upon and the inscription at the base (‘Simonetta Ianuensis Vespucci’ [‘Simonetta Vespucci of Genoa’]), might be spurious.53 If she is Cleopatra, after all, the picture does not show the moment of her death or the instant immediately preceding it. It is rather a portrayal in which the sitter’s bared breasts, the presence of the snake and the secret smile suggest both the identity of the subject and her astute way out of Octavian’s grip. The timeless effect is completed by the open landscape in the background, in contrast with the classical sources, all claiming that the queen of Egypt died inside a mausoleum (see above 1.1). The dead tree and the dark cloud on the left may symbolise impending death.54 The asp coils around her neck almost like an ornament, completing and enriching the necklace, and the pearls, in the elaborate headdress, could allude to the episode of the queen melting a pearl earring into vinegar.55 The embroidered blanket around the shoulders adds an Oriental touch, even if the model responds to all the Renaissance (or better, Petrarchan) European standards of female beauty (see above 2.2). According to other suggestions, this could be Proserpina, or an allegory of Lust, both figures holding cultural interconnections with Cleopatra (see 2.2, 4.2, 6.5).56 51 Kirkpatrick 2002, pp. 170 and 191. 52 Vasari, Lives, IV, p. 134. Piero di Cosimo lived between 1462 and about 1521. 53 Simonetta Vespucci (1453-1476), the mistress of Giuliano de’ Medici, was traditionally considered Botticelli’s muse. As Piero di Cosimo was only a boy when she died prematurely, the portrait would have been a sort of homage to her legendary beauty. See Ettle. 54 Schneider, p. 54. 55 Pliny, Nat. Hist., ix 119-222; Macrobius, 3.17.15-18. See above 1.1. 56 Gerionimus, p. 297 n. 60.

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A totally different approach is that of Andrea Solario (1460-1524), whose dark-haired Cleopatra, regally dressed in sixteenth-century garb, has only one breast exposed, as if she was about to suckle the asp (see illus. 2). In fact, Solario’s Madonna del cuscino verde has the same breast exposed and tucks her head down in the same way. Such an attitude gives the image a disturbing overtone, as if it were a mother-and-child painting, not far from Fulgentius’ description (see above 2.1) or from the words of Shakespeare’s dying queen (see below 6.5). Cleopatra is framed just before the action takes place; her face is sad and regretful, her gaze fixed on the snake. The relation between the two is private, excluding the viewer. The ivy clinging behind the woman was traditionally a Dionysiac plant, as well as a symbol of death and rebirth. In the original, the lustrous, sunset colour palette enhances the sense of drama, while sky and water, in the fragmentary view in the upper left corner, are already cold. The outdoor setting and the pearl jewels are shared with di Cosimo’s portrait.57 In many other early modern paintings and engravings from Italy, the Netherlands and France, Cleopatra is in fact shown at the moment of death and her suicide is highly eroticised: she appears as an erotic icon, sometimes assimilated to Eve, the greatest temptress of all time.58 The best known case is probably that of Michelangelo (1475-1564) and his Cleopatra’s Head (about 1535). In this masterfully elaborated ‘presentation drawing’, the queen avoids the eyes of the viewer, as if embarrassed not by her (probably inoffensive) nakedness, but by her extreme gesture (see illus. 3). Her features suggest a strong and dominating personality, superlative to the last. The ambiguity of the braids/asp and the sinuous locks transforms her into a fascinating Medusa figure, and the whole design suggests the inspiration of some ancient work, or at least the attempt to capture the spirit of antiquity. The snake is clearly biting, not sucking, under the left nipple. Despite the oriental style of her sophisticated hairpiece, this is a fair-haired woman and the elegant curve of her neck reminds us of many of Botticelli’s figures (see above 2.2, 3.1).59 57 For this portrait, see Collomb 2004; Brown 1998. 58 Kolve, pp. 144-145; Hughes-Hallett, pp. 192-193. For Renaissance theatre, see below 3.4. Other examples of this tendency are the paintings by Bronzino, Guercino and Guido Reni. Significantly departing from this tendency are those depictions in which Cleopatra is assimilated to positive female models such as Artemisia (or maybe Sophonisba) and Judith, as it happens in the series of paintings once attributed to the master of the Chigi Saracini heroines, and recently reattributed to Domenico Beccafumi (1506-1507), see https://www.mpsart.it/luoghi-e-opere/ritorno-alla-luce/ Pagine/eroine_cleopatra.aspx 59 Kirkpatrick 2002, pp. 191-198; Wallace 2011; Chapman 2005; Wilde; Pöpper. The discovery of another, grotesque and anguished, Cleopatra on the verso of the sheet, in 1988, made world news, but its attribution is still uncertain.

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Ill. 2: Andrea Solario (1460-1524), Death of Cleopatra (about 1514); oil on panel, transferred to canvas, Milan, private collection. (Courtesy of DeA Picture Library, licensed to Alinari.)

A different social and cultural trend showing Cleopatra’s appeal to the imagination of both public and painters in this age is the spread of portraits of wealthy and/or aristocratic women costumed as the queen of Egypt. These artistic images cover a wide range of approaches, but in each of them the dominant figure is both ancient and modern, is both Cleopatra and the Renaissance living model performing her role.

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Ill. 3: Michelangelo (Buonarroti, Michelangelo, 1475-1564), Testa di Cleopatra n. 2 F recto (about 1535); black pencil, Florence, Casa Buonarroti. (© 2018 Foto Scala, Firenze.)

In the case of the currently untraceable Portrait of Elizabeth Raleigh as Cleopatra by an unknown artist (see illus. 4), the identity of the sitter has been challenged.60 However that may be, this is clearly the portrait of a young 60 Arshad; Arshad, Hackett and Whipday 2014. For the inscribed sheet of paper on the portrait, see 5.3.

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Ill. 4: Unknown artist, Portrait of Elizabeth Raleigh as Cleopatra; unknown collection; photograph, National Portrait Gallery, London. (Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London.)

woman pictured as Cleopatra. The figure is depicted all’antica, in a classical costume, the breasts clearly visible behind the diaphanous material, as in Lucan’s famous description (see above 1.2). The insignia of her power are all there: the royal tiara, the sceptre, the ermine-lined robe (an anachronistic detail), while luxury is evident in the jewelled bodice, vaguely resembling

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a formal breastplate. The locket wore by Cleopatra is the miniature of a young man (cast as Antony, despite his Renaissance beard and hairstyle) and it resembles those traditionally wore as a love token or as a reminder of absent relatives. The sad but determined glance of the queen is fixed on the asp, defiantly held high in her right hand, over the basket of figs. The Renaissance vogue of being depicted in the role of Cleopatra was pan-European, as the Portrait of a Woman as Cleopatra, by an artist belonging to the school of Venice, illustrates (see illus. 5). Even more clearly, in this work, the sitter makes no real attempt to be mistaken for the ancient queen of Egypt. This is a portrait ‘in fancy dress’, as the woman’s contemporary costume, and some accurate details of the intimate indoor setting – such as the wall covering, the furniture or the ‘Sansovino’ type mirror – clearly show. On the other hand, the basket of figs, the asp, the crown, even the rich jewels belong to the iconography of Cleopatra.61 The sitter’s attitude is both proudly royal and daring, with the shape of a leg clearly showing under her skirts. She looks slightly sideways, at the spectators, her face calm and demure. The platform or stilt shoes were then fashionable, but they remind us of theatrical cothurni as well, while the greenish overtone dominating the depiction in the original might allude to the poison green of Renaissance theories of colours.62 All the contrasting interpretations of the personage touched upon here have this much in common: they differ significantly from the Cleopatra of the medieval visual arts, characteristically meeting her death fully clothed.63 Regarding literature, however, it was in the epic tradition that Renaissance conceptions of Cleopatra showed most continuity with preceding medieval depictions.

3.3

‘The Majestic Queen of the Nile’64

Throughout the Middle Ages, Cleopatra had lived a sort of parallel existence within chivalric poetry and romance. Her fortune had probably started with the French chronicles about Julius Caesar and with the romans d’aventure and the chansons de geste of the so-called ‘Matter of Rome the Great’, whimsical stories telling of a medievalised classical world, far removed from 61 Zeri 1976, cat. 282, pp. 410-411; Walters Art Museum, cat. 680, https://art.thewalters.org/ detail/8168/portrait-of-a-woman-as-cleopatra/. 62 Pastoureau, p. 93. 63 There were of course some exceptions. See Kolve, pp. 144-145 and 235-236 n. 14. 64 ‘Regina splendida del Nilo’ (Ariosto, Orl. Fur., x.56.6).

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Ill. 5: Unknown Venetian painter, Portrait of a Woman as Cleopatra (second half of the sixteenth century); oil on canvas, the Walters Arts Museum, Baltimore, inv. 676. (Courtesy of the Walters Arts Museum, Baltimore.)

what we would now consider a faithful reconstruction of ancient history. In these texts, on the whole, Caesar became the undisputed protagonist and a generous conqueror. Once he was established as a hero, in accordance with popular fantasy, he needed a female figure beside him – Cleopatra. In the anonymously written Li Fet des Romains, Lucan’s model partly endures, and Cleopatra is still a villain. She acts as sort of counterpart to the dictator, using her body in order to gain power just as he uses his army.65 When, 65 Croizy-Naquet, p. 253; Li Fet des Romains, iii.15.14. The Fet’s principal sources are Sallust, Lucan, Suetonius, and the Bello Alexandrino.

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some ten years later, Jehan de Tuim wrote his Hystore de Julius Cesar (about 1240) he introduced a section about Caesar’s courtly love for Cleopatra, conforming to his anonymous antecedent in voluptuously describing her beauty.66 As a consequence, Italian compilations inspired by the Fet gave increasing importance to the queen. They were telling the sequel of the story, so they turned to Antony as the ideal partner. Little by little, Cleopatra became a heroine. In the Fioretto di croniche degli imperadori, she repents of her coquetry with Octavian, before throwing herself naked (as discussed in 2.3) into Antony’s tomb with the snake.67 The Libro imperiale (fourteenth century) goes even further and completely refashions the story, cutting Octavian out of the picture: Antony and Cleopatra ruled Egypt in peace. But after the Roman died a natural death and Cleopatra ruled alone, her nephews started to quarrel. Octavian summoned her to Rome to find an agreement. Cleopatra, misunderstanding and thinking the emperor intended to kill her, preferred to commit suicide. Thus, one night, she entered Antony’s tomb and clasped an asp to her left breast (ch. 38).68 In fact, when the categories and characters of French heroic tales reached northern Italy, the figure of Cleopatra was not only revitalised, but also ambiguously refracted through other characters. According to the rules of the genre, she kept her medieval traits well into the Renaissance. Moreover, here the narrative structure of the unmanned-warrior and the love-enchantress, the old trope of Venus and Mars, could partly regain that suprahuman quality it had lost in the Aeneid, as long as pagan ancient religion was refigured as magic. Ludovico Ariosto, in his Orlando furioso, alludes to Cleopatra more than once. Two of the allusions are momentous, as they frame one of the most celebrated sequences of the poem, the Ruggiero-Alcina episode (cantos v-x).69 Ruggiero, in his attempt to free Astolfo – who has been turned into a myrtle tree by the witch Alcina – falls under the spell of the lovely sorceress who enchants him with leisure and sensuality, like so many other knights before. First she takes him to her garden of delights and invites him to a 66 Parodi, pp. 249-267. 67 Flutre, II, p. 204. 68 Quoted in Flutre, II, pp. 289-290. The author, date and circumstances of composition of the Libro imperiale are uncertain. See also Jean Mansel’s Histories Romaines (1454); later on, part of his Fleur des Histoires told the story of Antony and Cleopatra (tome II, ff. 292v-294v). 69 The third one (xlvi.83.4) is not relevant. At xv.33.5-6 Octavian and Antony are both condemned for bathing their country in blood. For the Furioso, see Casadei 1993; Kirkpatrick 2002, pp. 7-11; Ascoli. For the appraisal of women in the Furioso, see Benson 1992, pp. 91-155.

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banquet likened to those thrown by Semiramis and Cleopatra (Orl. Fur., vii.20). The association of Alcina with Cleopatra, as an epitome of the emasculating and corrupting woman, becomes even more explicit when the witch Melissa, posing as the magician Atlante, comes to the rescue of Ruggiero. She finds him perfumed, dressed in oriental clothes and sparkling with jewels (vii.53-55), a depiction very close to that of the enslaved Antony in classical sources. Signif icantly, at the end of the episode, the desperate Alcina – now defeated and for ever deprived of her beloved Ruggero – is once again compared to Cleopatra, whose proud death is contrasted with the witch’s immortal lot: Morir non puote alcuna fata mai, fin che ’l sol gira, o il ciel non muta stilo. Se ciò non fosse, era il dolore assai Per muover Cloto ad inasparle il filo; o, qual Didon, finia col ferro i guai; o la regina splendida del Nilo avria imitata con mortifer sonno: ma le fate morir sempre non ponno. (x.56) [No fairy can ever die so long as the sun holds his course and the Heavens remain unchanged. Were it otherwise, Alcina’s grief was such that Cloto might have spun out her life-thread faster: or she herself might, as Didone, have ended her misery with a dagger; she might have followed the majestic queen of the Nile into a mortal sleep. But fairies never can die.]70

The motif of the Circe-like seducer had precedents in chivalric romance before the Furioso, and continued its intertextual life in Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata.71 When Tasso reinterprets the character of the irresistible enchantress in his Armida, Cleopatra’s shadow follows.72 The war of the West against the East is engraved on the silver door of her workshop, within a series of exempla of heroes weakened by love (xvi.1-7). 70 The English version is that of Guido Waldman. 71 The theme appears in Francesco Cieco’s Mambriano (cantos i-vii, xxxvi-xxxviii) and in the Libro della regina Ancroia (1479), one of the most important chivalric poems of the fifteenth century (canto xxvii [but xxx]). 72 Sampson 2006, pp. 87-90.

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Tasso combines Boccaccian and Petrarchan catalogues of lovers with the Virgilian description of the Battle of Actium, adding moral significance.73 It is Antony who dominates the scene:74 E fugge Antonio, e lasciar può la speme de l’imperio del mondo ov’egli aspira. Non fugge no, non teme il fier, non teme, ma segue lei che fugge e seco il tira. Vedresti lui, simile ad uom che freme d’amore a un tempo e di vergogna e d’ira, mirar alternamente or la crudele pugna ch’è in dubbio, or le fuggenti vele. Ne le latebre poi del Nilo accolto attender par nel grembo a lei la morte, e nel piacer d’un bel leggiadro volto sembra che ’l duro fato egli conforte. (xvi.6-7.1-4)75 [Does Antony flee? Could Antony despair / to rule the world, which he had craved so long? / Oh no, he does not flee, he does not fear, / he follows her who flees and pulls him along – / he like a man seething with love and ire / and shame, looks to his own ships holding strong / in the cruel battle which still hangs in doubt, / and now looks to her navy ducking out. // Then in the hiding places of the Nile / he lay upon her lap, he lay in wait / for death. The pleasure of her lovely smile / was enough to console him for his fate.]76

73 Once again, Hercules and Omphale open the list (xvi.3). For Tasso and the development of the heroic poem, see his Discorsi dell’arte poetica (first published in 1587) and in his Discorsi del poema eroico (1594). For the complex philological problems of Tasso’s poem, see Caretti; Getto. For Tasso’s influence in England, see Brand. See also Kirkpatrick 2002, pp. 255-258. 74 Tasso cites again the ‘barbara reina’ (xvi.5.8) at xx.118.1-6. 75 Tasso was not always as censorious of Cleopatra as he was his major poem. In his Discorso della virtù feminile e donnesca (1580), Cleopatra is praised for exactly those heroic virtues (such as wisdom and strength) which will be at the root of her dramatic character. Lust, her traditional sin, is minimised as a common failing in both great men and women (p. 65). I disagree with Cox’s reading of this passage (2008, pp. 171, 196). On this question, see Collina, pp. 107-108. Later in his treatise, Tasso unfavourably compares Cleopatra to Margaret of Austria, duchess of Parma (p. 68). Immediately afterwards, he sings the praises of Elizabeth I (p. 68). 76 The English translation is that by Esolen.

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The narrative structure that we have identified of the unmanned-warrior and the love enchantress was once again revived in Edmund Spenser’s unfinished Faerie Queene, in which the poet rivalled both the Furioso and the Liberata.77 Here Cleopatra’s subtle presence is more complex as, in addition to being alluded to in two different but ideologically akin figures, Acrasia and Radigund, she is also an extra in the story. In the fifth canto of the self-contained first book, she is among the bodies of overly proud heroes and heroines heaped like ‘carkases of beasts in butchers stall’, in the dungeons of the ‘sad house of Pride’ (i.5.49.2), and Spenser describes her as ‘high minded’ (i.5.50.7).78 In Books ii and v of The Fairie Queene Cleopatra reappears as one of the historical (or pseudo-historical) predecessors of Acrasia and Radigund, who are in their turn opposing incarnations of the same figure, the much-feared empowered woman, who, whether on the battlefield or in the bedchamber, succeeds in depriving men of their masculinity and ‘natural’ superiority.79 The parallel between Cleopatra and Acrasia is clear, with the latter a muted and overtly allegorical version (starting from her speaking name, which means ‘without control’) of Alcina and Armida.80 The parallels between Cleopatra and Radigun are less overt The latter is first of all an Amazon, a stock character in the Renaissance epic-chivalric tradition.81 Nevertheless, the similarities between Spenser’s Amazon episode (v.4.7) and the myth of Hercules and Omphale still suggests the shadow of Cleopatra, among the models for Radigund. The impression is confirmed by the opening of canto viii, which closes the narrative sequence with yet another catalogue of heroes subdued by women (ll. 1-2) featuring ‘warlike Antony’ neglecting the world’s ‘whole rule for Cleopatra’s sight’ (v.8.2.6-7). While the poet is no longer referring to Radigund here, instead commenting on Artegall’s leaving Britomart, the presence of the ‘Oetean Knight’ on the list (v.8.2.4) draws us back to the image of men dressed in women’s clothes, spinning and carding for the Amazon queen.82 77 For Ariosto, Tasso and Spenser, see Kirkpatrick 1995, pp. 182-192. For the representation of the disruptive quality of corrupted women within The Fairie Queene, see Healy, pp. 95-96, 164. 78 In the catalogue there is also ‘fierce Antonius’ (i.5.49.2). 79 This is of course just one of the multiple levels of the allegorical pattern within the poem. See Hamilton 1961; Hamilton et al.; Hough; Fletcher 1971; Benson 1992, pp. 293-303. 80 To these we may add Trissino’s Acrazia, from his epic poem L’Italia liberata dai goti (published in 1547-1548). 81 For an admirable examination of the success of the Amazonian narratives in chivalric epic, travellers accounts and other texts, see Stoppino, pp. 61-71. For the political allegory of the episode, see Berry 1989, pp. 162-165. 82 For the Aristotelian antecedents to the episode and for Bradamante, the humanist heroine, as opposed to Britomart, the Protestant one, see Benson 1992, pp. 251-306.

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Ariostan, Tassian and Spenserian treatments of Cleopatra, and of characters inspired by her, are equally important for our survey. In Spenser’s epic – ‘glorifying’ Elizabeth I – we find signs of the dangerous tendency to compare the sovereign with legendary queens that conditioned literary production in the Elizabethan Age.83 Ariosto’s reading of the figure of Cleopatra is significant precisely because it was refuted by those writers who looked to him for inspiration. The Orlando furioso was a source of motifs, stylistic formulas, and lexicon for Italian sixteenth-century playwrights, but they almost uniformly ignored its depiction of the queen of Egypt as a foreign witch. On the Italian (and European) scene, the general view of the character of Cleopatra is that in Ludovico Dolce’s Marianna (1565): Generosa Reina, che più tosto Volle morir, ch’a guisa di captiva Esser di quel felice alto Monarca Nel trionfo condotta innanzi al carro (i.369-372)84 [Generous Queen, who preferred to die, rather than being led, as a prisoner, in the triumph of that fortunate high Monarch, before his chariot]

3.4

Seneca, Giraldi Cinthio, and Cleopatra

While the medieval myth of Cleopatra lived on in chivalric epic, neoclassical taste required vernacular dramatic literature to alter its rules and models, in line with ancient drama. All this resulted, in Italy and especially in France (see 5.1) in an adherence to precepts derived or pseudo-derived from Aristotle, above all the three dramatic unities of time, space and action. 85 Still more important than the trif ling debates about these 83 For the question in general and for Spenser and Elizabeth I, see below 5.3. 84 For the meaning of ‘generosa’, as used in Italian Renaissance drama, see Weise, p. 195; Di Maria, p. 240 n. 36. On the relation between Cleopatra and Mariam, see also below 5.4 and 6.5. 85 Italian theorists were the f irst to rediscover and translate Aristotle’s Poetics. The f irst commentary to be published was that by Francesco Robortello (1548). The unity of place was not always rigorously observed. Trissino and Rucellai, for instance, did not adhere to it. It was expounded for the first time by Castelvetro in his Poetica d’Aristotele volgarizzata e sposta (1571). For the debates on the aesthetic and technical aspects of drama, see, for instance, Guidotti, pp. 13-101.

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rules is the fact that Aristotelian poetics itself proposed a misleading and rationalising reading of Greek drama.86 As a result, the Renaissance classical tragedies inspired by Περὶ Ποιητικῆς were innovative plays, based on the principles of decorum and didacticism, whose relationship with the classical examples they advocated as authorities was in fact contradictory and problematic. It was not just a matter of interpreting Greek tragedians through Aristotle’s eyes, however. As we have seen, the Renaissance, despite its obsession with antiquity, had to come to terms with its historical distance from the past and to reconcile it with current ideas of morals, religion, and propriety.87 In Italy, with his Sophonisba (or better, Sωphωnisba) (1515), Gian Giorgio Trissino tried to raise Grecian tragedy from the grave, but he was more interested in the literary aspects of drama than in reviving a long-lost theatrical tradition.88 His example, however, was much admired and inspired a series of Grecian plays, until another tragedian and theoretician, Giambattista Giraldi Cinthio (1504-1573) – above all in his Discorso over lettera intorno al comporre delle comedie e delle tragedie (dated 20 April 1543), but also in his Lettera sulla tragedia (1543), and in the Giudizio d’una tragedia di Canace e Macareo, con molte utili considerazioni circa l’arte della tragedia e d’altri poemi (published in 1550) – decided to launch Seneca as a new model, epitomising the features of his theatre in his Orbecche, the first regular tragedy to be performed on the Italian stage (1541).89 Over the course of the sixteenth century this new kind of drama met with warm acceptance, at least in print, and ended up shaping tragic form and style in Renaissance 86 See, among other scholars, Jaspers; Steiner. 87 Some of these problems were faced by Neoclassicism. See Lyne 2007a. For Italian Renaissance drama, see Di Maria; Ariani 1974; Guerrieri Crocetti. See also the introduction and notes to Giraldi Cintio’s Cleopatra by Morrison and Osborn. 88 The play, published as early as 1528, was not performed in Italy until 1562. Trissino’s awareness of a theatrical dimension to his work is, however, evident both in his dedication of the Sωphωnisba (Teatro del Cinquecento, p. 31) to Pope Leo X and in his La quinta divisione della poetica (II.7-44). For Trissino’s ambitious programme of linguistic and orthographic reform, see Migliorini; Griffith 1976. For the international fame of the play, see Cremante 1988a, pp. 18-19. 89 To the treatises we may add his letter in defence of the Didone. The Giudizio is anonymous and has been attributed to Giraldi by Christina Roaf. Giraldi took up the pseudonym of Cinthio when he first started writing Latin verses, in 1537. His fame beyond Italy rests mainly on his collection of short stories the Hecatommithi (1563), which provided the plots for Shakespeare’s Othello and (possibly) Measure for Measure. See Cremante 1988b, pp. 261-282. For his plays, see Horne; Morrison 1997. For Cleopatra in particular, see also Williamson 1974, pp. 76-86; Bono, pp. 90-102. For his biography, see Foà. A passionate defence of his works and of his political independence is found in Ariani 1974, pp. 115-178. See also Ariani 1977.

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Europe.90 Seneca’s dramatic style, with its declamatory and epigrammatic grandiloquence, greatly affected Renaissance dramatists. The ethical content of the plays was also admired: this was a tragedy without μεταβολή, based on the triad dolor/furor/nefas, where evil came from inside man, and the sense of guilt could be read in parallel to Christian morality.91 The theme of the wickedness of the soul was often expressed through the presence of ghosts, murders and mutilation on stage, blind excesses of fury, and revenge storylines. Nonetheless, the neoclassical dramatic tradition prized Seneca’s rhetorical art and stylistic virtuosities, over the paraphernalia of the horror-tragedy. The neo-Senecan theatrical style developed its topoi and conventions (lack of action, self-scrutiny, moral maxims, debates, prophetic dreams, choruses, master-confidant dialogues, messengers’ accounts and so on) and gradually came to constitute a sort of international refined ideal of drama. Tragedies were generally written by scholars and meant either for reading or for private performance. Also Giraldi’s Senecanism did not rest so much on the sensationalism of horrific features, but rather on his admiration for the supposed majesty and gravity of Seneca, whom he preferred to his Greek antecedents.92 Even the sections of his plays said by the chorus were much better conceived.93 His criticism of the Sophonisba was grounded in his anti-Hellenising stance and did not extend to its general poetic merits, as is shown by his metrical and stylistic debts, above all the use of ‘verso sciolto’ (unrhymed hendecasyllabic verse) for the dialogue. For the choral interludes, lyrical meters were employed. Cinthio’s reservations even extended to Aristotle’s poetics, even though they were hidden behind an apparent homage (Cremante 1988b, p. 266). Technically, he was an innovator. He introduced the so-called prologo separato, the five-act structure, and the division into acts and scenes.94 He reduced the presence of the chorus during the action and developed the tragicomedy, or better, in his terms, the ‘tragedia di fin lieto’ (‘tragedy with 90 Andrews 2006. By contrast, Giraldi’s influence in Ferrara was restricted as, by the end of the century, there was a revival of the Greek form of tragedy, with Pomponio Torelli. See Bruscagli; Sampson 2006, p. 21. 91 Herington; Branden. Seneca’s tragedy was first defined tragoedia rethorica by Leo 1963, pp. 147-159. For a different opinion, see, for instance, Davis. 92 Discorso over lettera, p. 184. 93 Discorso over lettera, p. 205. 94 For the prologue, see Giraldi, Orbecche, La tragedia a chi legge, 3176-3181. See also Discorso over lettera, p. 203. For Giraldi’s prologues, see Ariani 1974, pp. 131-140. For the f ive acts, see Orbecche, La tragedia a chi legge, 3191-3193; Discorso over lettera, pp. 204-207.

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a happy ending’).95 This new genre, with its romance and adventure plots, exotic settings and comic conclusions, nonetheless avoided clownish scenes and vulgar speech, and dutifully provided catharsis. Giraldi stated that he chose to please his public, despite Aristotle’s condemnation of this mixed model. However, considering his didactic and religious intent, he may also have considered tragicomedies a way out of the moral contradictions of the tragic pattern, in which innocents were not rewarded, and villains did not received fitting punishment through God’s providence.96 Giambattista Guarini would link his Pastor fido to tragicomedy (though not directly to Giraldi) and the Pastor fido, in its turn, would influence European drama.97 Only two of Cinthio’s nine tragedies were histories: Didone and Cleopatra.98 This is not surprising, since another important novelty of his theatre was the invention of the tragic fabula.99 A fictitious plot, Giraldi explained, was more likely to capture the attention of the audience, to move their emotion and to incite compassion and horror.100 Historical plays, or those based on traditional stories, were not so effective precisely because the public already knew what was going to happen. This might be why Aristotle himself stated that the best works among historical plays were those whose plots were less famous.101 This last point (the difficulty of arousing interest and maintaining suspense when dealing with a well-known fabula) will prove to be a central issue for the Cleopatra plays, as we shall see. Born in Ferrara, where dramatic performances had a strong tradition thanks to Ariosto’s comedies, Giraldi was aware of the laws of the stage and of the importance of public approval, even though he had not started his career as a playwright.102 He did not feel any inclination towards Cleopatra’s tale or, 95 Giraldi, Discorso over lettera, p. 176. 96 For Giraldi’s conception of the tragi-comic, see Kirkpatrick 1995, pp. 259-260; Sampson 2006, p. 24; Morrison 1997, pp. 6, 16-19; Horne, pp. 36-39; Herrick, pp. 113-117. See also Bruscagli, p. 265. 97 Sampson 2006, pp. 21-27. Giraldi drew not only on Greek and Roman dramatists and theoreticians, but also on comic playwrights such as Terentius and Ariosto. Besides a comedy (Gli Eudemoni), he also wrote a satyr play, the Egle (justifying his choice in the Lettera […] sovra il comporre le Satire atte alla scena [1554]) and an incomplete Favola pastorale (Sampson 2006, pp. 21-27, 51-52; Molinari 1985, pp. 883-888). Yet his ‘contemporaries […] removed him from their histories of pastoral drama’ (Sampson 2006, p. 21). 98 From the dedication of the Orbecche (f irst published in 1543) we learn that three other tragedies had already been completed by then: Didone, Cleopatra and Altile. 99 Giraldi, Orbecche, La tragedia a chi legge, 3171-3172. 100 Discorso over lettera, pp. 177-178. 101 Discorso over lettera, p. 178; Aristotle, Poetics, ix.3.25-27. See also Herrick, p. 86; Horne, pp. 34-35. 102 He turned to literature after studying philosophy and medicine. For contrasting positions on Giraldi’s artistic stature, see Dionisotti 1963, pp. 114, 120; Ariani 1974, pp. 115-117. For an up-to-date list of modern editions of his plays, see Giraldi Cinthio, Euphimia, pp. xlv-xlvi.

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at least, did not see in her story a suitable plot for drama (see Introduction). His Cleopatra tragedia was commissioned by Ercole II and the subject was not his choice. Nonetheless, Cleopatra seems to correspond perfectly to his conception of ideal characters. According to him, only those personalities who were midway between good and bad (‘persone mezzane’) could produce the tragic effect of catharsis, ‘e la cagione di ciò è che pare allo spettatore che ad ogni modo fosse degna di qualche pena la persona che soffre il male, ma non già di così grave. E questa giustizia, mescolata con la gravezza del supplizio, induce quell’orrore e quella compassione, la quale è necessaria alla tragedia’ [‘and that is because the spectator thinks the character who is suffering deserved some kind of punishment, but not such a harsh one. And this justice mingled with a grave torment leads to that horror and that compassion which are necessary for tragedy’].103 The queen of Egypt was a splendid example of this category.104 In his Cleopatra tragedia, the play’s instructive function is made clear in the prologue: Quindi vedrete, spettatori, quanto Poco giovin gli Imperij et i Thesori, E le potenze e l’altre doti humane Quando il piacere a la virtù prevale, Piacer che tragga l’huom fuor di se stesso. E che guerra maggior fanno a gli Imperi Le delitie e i diletti, che son fuori De l’ordine comun de la ragione, Che molte squadre de nemici armati. (28-37)105 [Thus you will see, spectators, the small worth of empires and treasures and power and other human goods, when pleasure prevails over virtue and pleasure is such as to take men out of their own minds. Greater wars are waged on empires by delights and pleasures, for they are beyond the ordinary reach of reason, than massed ranks of armed enemies.] 103 Discorso over lettera, pp. 181-182. Cf. 182. He was, again following Aristotle (xiii.1-3). For Giraldi’s moral reading of the catharsis and for its development, see Horne, pp. 30-32. 104 Cleopatra and Dido, as Horne (p. 33) points out, were probably his only two really ‘intermediate kind of characters’. 105 Quotations are taken from Cleopatra tragedia. The text is reproduced with only slight modifications. The vocalic u has been distinguished from the consonant v and some changes have been made in the punctuation.

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Only a few lines later is there a clear reference to the famous Horatian principle ‘miscere utile dulci’ (Ars poetica, 343-344): ‘Grazie vi chieggio a nome del Poeta, / Il quale altro non pensa, altro non cura, / Che porgervi giovando quel diletto / Che si conviene a favola reale’ [‘I beg your favour on the poet’s behalf. He only thinks and worries about giving you that pleasure which befits a royal tale’] (ll. 51-53).106 However, moral censure is attenuated in the rest of the play: Egypt is not depicted as a cradle of corruption and debauchery, and Cleopatra and Mark Antony are not a pair of drunken lovers, but rather a lawful royal couple undone by the unkindness of fate.107 The dramatic action is essentially static. Cinthio’s characters dwell at length on their misfortunes and vacillations of mood; they also comment on the action and discuss more general topics in Seneca’s style of extended speeches and monologues.108 The suicides and murders are dutifully reported by messengers.109 As Morrison has underlined, the absence of confrontation scenes is one of the characteristics of Giraldi’s theatre. Dialogues are a means ‘to express emotions rather than to examine alternative possibilities of action. They do not as a rule produce any result or decision which could move the action forward’ (1997, p. 26). They are also a way to recontextualise the dramatic text and to express contemporary issues. In Horne’s view, the interest in discussion scenes was ‘a literary phenomenon analogous to the contemporary vogue of the treatise in dialogue form’ (p. 96). In my opinion, they could also be considered Giraldi’s attempt to revitalise a well-known story. Take, for example, the exceptionally lengthy debate in two parts concerning clemency, based on Seneca’s De clementia, which occupies roughly 420 lines of the play in the second and third acts (ii.5, iii.3). Bullough summarises it thus: ‘Octavius with Agippa and Maecenas […] discuss what should be 106 The prologue is also interesting for its metatheatrical quality. This is less developed than in the Orbecche, but can still be identified on two different levels: public and authorial. The audience is also asked to participate in a willing suspension of disbelief, in order to be drawn into the illusion of the play (40-41). See Horne, p. 44. 107 In the play there are fourteen references to marriage. Before dying, Antony asserts that Cleopatra was ‘la più bella / Donna ch’ad uomo mai fusse congiunta, / Per matrimonio’ [‘the most beautiful woman ever joined in marriage to a man’] (ii.1.90-92). 108 Despite his love for Seneca, Giraldi was against the use of the stichomythia. According to Ariani (1974, p. 165), the tragedy is ‘una delle più drammaticamante potenti di tutto il Cinquecento’ [‘one of the most dramatically powerful of the whole Cinquecento’]. For Morrison (1997, p. 168), ‘there is an unusual amount of spectacle, action, and excitement in this play’. She insists, in particular, on the scene of Cleopatra’s capture (4.7). 109 For the ‘dicevoli morti’, see Giraldi, Discorso, pp. 184-187; Orbecche, La tragedia a chi legge, 3239-3247.

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done with Antony. Maecenas is for clemency, Agrippa for removing Antony once and for all’ (p. 223).110 The discussion has no real function: it does not make the plot progress and is even pointless, dealing as it does with the destiny of a defeated foe who is in fact already dead.111 In effect, however, Cinthio was addressing a fundamental problem for a courtier of his time. This ‘mercy debate’ has been juxtaposed with conspiracies against the Este rulers in this period. In both cases the conspirators (respectively, Giulio and Ferrante d’Este and Giovanni Paolo Manfrone) were spared and sentenced to life imprisonment, a punishment Maecenas also considered for Antony (iii.3.139-141).112 How Giraldi manipulated his sources is even more important. He probably lifted the idea of Octavian’s discussion from Dio, who reported (or reinvented) it (lii.1-40), but he introduced some changes and took liberties with his model.113 First of all, in order to ensure that the discussion occurred in his play he had to pretend that Maecenas was in Alexandria at the time of Octavian’s entrance, although he was actually in Rome. Secondly, he gave his Maecenas some of the arguments originally given to Agrippa, for instance, his love for truth (Dio, lii.3.3; Giraldi, ii.5.373-383) or his fears for Augustus’ safety (Dio, lii.4-5, 7, 8, 10, 12; Giraldi, ii.5.532-538). While the Greek historian favours Agrippa, the Italian dramatist’s sympathy is for Maecenas.114 Everything becomes clearer in the light of Cinthio’s response to De clementia. He ignored the theoretical content of the treatise and focused on the personal qualities of the optimus princeps, drawing on Machiavelli, Guicciardini and Castiglione.115 Such discussions were an attempt to correct Machiavelli’s pragmatic precepts, and to stake them to the prevailing Counter-Reformist ethical canons.116 In the political reality of the Este court, the legitimacy of individual power was not at stake. The only possible freedom from unrestrained tyranny was through benevolent justice.117 In 110 For a synopsis of the debate and for its closeness to the Octavia, see Horne, pp. 95-98; Morrison 1997, pp. 205-210. 111 Solimano, p. 400. The circumstance that the ‘terms of the debate become those of the choice facing Cleopatra – imprisonment or death’ (Williamson 1974, p. 82) is not enough to justify its length. According to Bono (pp. 99-100), Giraldi inserted the debate in order to extend the plot. 112 In the first case, the other two assailants (Boschetti and Roberti) were executed. See Iotti, pp. 61-77; Quazza; Benzoni; Lebatteux, pp. 269, 301; Solimano, pp. 415-417; Morrison 1997, pp. 205206. For the chronological problems of the second hypothesis, see Solimano, pp. 402, 417. 113 Morrison 1997, p. 205; Solimano, p. 400. 114 Solimano, pp. 400-401. 115 Lebatteux, pp. 301-304, 310; Solimano, pp. 411, 419. 116 Di Maria, pp. 27, 89, 96. In his Discorsi Machiavelli insists on the necessity of killing surviving enemies (iii.4.387). 117 Solimano, p. 414; Horne, pp. 155-157.

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Giraldi’s treatise De Ferraria et Atestinis Principibus commentariolum (1556), clementia is a key word.118 He probably identified himself with Maecenas, consciously dependant on his imperator.119 The didactic function of the Italian theatre was also clearly aimed at the signore himself. The principle of giving advice to the members of the ruling nobility through historical drama, as revived by Giraldi Cinthio, would eventually become one of the internationally distinctive traits of closet-drama. With some obvious degree of simplification, we might say that Jodelle’s, Garnier’s, Pembroke’s and Daniel’s conception of tragedy as a commentary on continuing ideological issues has its roots in Cinthio’s drama. We find the same refiguring of old plotlines with new meanings in the religious aspects of the play. The chorus and some subsidiary characters120 introduce moral comment, pondering free will (chorus Act i), the continual danger of being a king or queen (ii.4), and predestination (chorus Act ii, iii.5); they praise reason over sentiment (chorus Act iii), duty over opportunism (i.4) and humility over pride (v.4), invoking Hope (chorus Act iv) and blaming human faith in Fortune (chorus Act v). The themes of the choral ode closing Act i, human free will, and Act ii, predestination, have been considered instances of the prominence of such issues in Ferrara, after the marriage of Renée de Valois to Ercole II in 1528, with the consequent sheltering of Protestant circles at the court under her protection.121 Giraldi’s position has been judged contradictory by critics, and incompatible with his Counter-Reformation stance. The first chorus in effect claims that God did not bind man’s will (i.778-785). Only immoderate passion turns human beings into slaves and that is what happened to the famous couple: ‘E perc’han scielto per lor meglio il peggio, / Doglia crudele, et atra / Affligge hor Marco Antonio, e Cleopatra’ [‘And as they have chosen the worst over the best, now a cruel and bitter pain troubles Marco Antonio and Cleopatra’] (i.774-776). 118 See Solimano, p. 415 and n. 129; Horne, p. 157. Cinthio also wrote a Latin poem for the coronation of Ercole II, an unfinished encomiastic poem on Hercules’ deeds (published in 1557), and a conduct book for courtiers: Discorso intorno a quello che si conviene a un giovane nobile e ben creato nel servire un gran principe (written in 1565 and published in 1569). 119 Solimano, p. 419. For the role of the intellectual at court, see Lebatteux, pp. 310-311. 120 A ‘capitano di Marco Antonio’, a ‘segretario di Cleopatra’, a ‘cameriera di Cleopatra’, a ‘servo di Marco Antonio’, Olimpo (Cleopatra’s doctor) and a ‘familiare di Cleopatra’, as the list of ‘Le persone che parlano’ goes. 121 There is a certain insistence on the libero arbitrio in Cinthio’s early plays. See also Atile (choral ode to Act iii) and Didone (ii.2.356-361). On this question, see Horne, p. 39; Bono and Tessitore, pp. 213-215. For the duchess Renée, see Morrison 1997, p. 32; Sampson 2006, pp. 47-48. Tasso praises both her and her mother in his Discorso della virtù feminile e donnesca (p. 68); see Cox 2008, p. 170.

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The chorus closing Act ii insists instead that man’s destiny is written once and for all in the stars at his birth (ii.648-680). The queen could not avert ruin for herself or Egypt: Ma rivolto ha in niente Il tutto il Ciel, che morte le destina, E la vuol far rapina De la Romana gente. E sol perché destin tal hebbe in fasce, Per far chiaro ed aperto, Che in questo ermo diserto, Sua ventura ha ciascun dal dì che nasce (ii.689-696) [Still Heaven has turned everything into nothing, destining her for death and wanting her to become a prisoner of the Romans. And this is the only reason why she was given that fate as a baby, to show and make clear that, in this waste land, each of us bears his fate from the day he is born.]

Ariani reads, in these lines, ‘il sospetto orrido di una predestinata condanna (che è l’intuizione più nuova di Giraldi)’ [‘The horrid suspicion of predestinate damnation (which is Giraldi’s freshest innovation)’] (Ariani 1974, p. 171). Solimano (p. 418 n. 157), on the contrary, claims that the second chorus is uttered by Cleopatra’s barbarous attendants, whose assertions are meant to be considered unreliable. However, it is probably wrong to make much of this as, according to the speaking parts in the single edition of the play (1583), there is only one chorus, and that chorus is composed of ‘donne della corte di Cleopatra’ [‘women from Cleopatra’s court’] (p. 6). There seem to be further complexities. First of all, the motif of the meditation on fate was classical (e.g. Seneca, Oedipus, v.980-996) and had already become a locus communis in Italian Renaissance drama (Trissino, Sophonisba, 1108-1109; Rucellai, Rosmunda, 236-238). Secondly, the coexistence of astrology and theology, of astral influence and free will, had been disputed, quite independently since the Reformation, by many people from St. Augustine (De Civ., v.1-7) to Marsilio Ficino, Coluccio Salutati to Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and had been considered by many Italian authors, from Dante (Purg., xvi.65-84) to Machiavelli (Il principe, xxv.1-4) and Pulci (Morgante, xxv.135-139).122 Thirdly, Giraldi’s religious views are contradic122 Cardini, pp. 101-108.

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tory in themselves. On the one hand, he wrote the dedicatory letter to a Counter-Reformist work, the second edition of the Disputationes adversus lutheranos by the Carmelite friar Giovan Maria Verrati (1544); on the other, in 1562 he defended Ludovico Castelvetro from charges of heresy in a letter to the Bishop of Modena, Egidio Foscarari.123 True, he introduced into his theatre the concept of Divine Providence, an unprecedented move, but it cannot be denied that the Counter-Reformation vision of a providential design ‘at times seemed to border dangerously on the Calvinistic idea of Predestiny’.124 The outset of Giraldi’s ‘favola reale’ – an exchange between the protagonist and her nurse – is indebted to a topos of the Italian stage: the first scene of Trissino’s Sophonisba (18-117), in its turn going back to Greek drama. These kinds of opening dialogues were usually quite implausible, as they explicated facts which should have been well known to the characters.125 Then again, they performed a sort of ‘informative duty’ for the benefit of the extradiegetic public. In the absence of a prologue, responsibility for giving preliminary, useful information necessarily passed to them. In this case, the adaptation of the cliché is less clumsy than elsewhere and consists of an analexis of the events that took place before the Battle of Actium. The first lines give an example of its general tenor: Cleo. Lassa, dove più mai debbo piegare L’afflitta mente mia? Mi trovo tanto Da la Fortuna combattuta ch’io Non so a che più sperare in cosa alcuna. Nu. Reina mia, queste mortali cose Non rimangono sempre in uno stato, Ma di dì in dì si mutan, d’hora in hora, E come chi è felice temer deve Che l’allegrezza non si muti in pianto, Così chi miser è deve sperare Che la miseria si converta in gioia. Però se bene una, e due volte trista Havete avuta la Fortuna, lieta 123 Foà, pp. 445 and 446; Sampson 2006, p. 48. 124 Sampson 2006, p. 47. In Italy there were also local reformers with international connections: Cox 2008, pp. 72-75; Brundin 2001; Brundin 2005, pp. 14-15. 125 For the improbability of the dialogue between Erminia and Sophonisba, in Trissino’s play, see the note of Cremante (1988a) to ll. 18-117.

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Vi devete sperar di haverla ancora. Cleo. Così seconda un lungo tempo sempre Havuta l’ho, così felice, ch’io Dubito ch’ella inacerbir si voglia, E quanto mi alzò al sommo della ruota, Tanto mi cacci indegnamente al fondo. (1-19) [Cleo. Alas, which way must I now turn my worried mind? Fortune is fighting me so harshly that I can no longer hope for anything. Nu. My queen, these mortal things never remain in the same condition, but change from one day to the next, from hour to hour. And just as the happy man must fear that his happiness turns into tears, so the unhappy must hope that his misery turns into joy. Thus even if once and twice you have had bad fortune, you must hope you will be fortunate once more. Cleo. For a while it was so good with me, so happy that I am afraid now she wants to be pitiless and that just as she once rose me to the top of the wheel, she will now throw me down at the bottom, bereft of my dignity.]

As we have seen, since the Middle Ages the famous lovers had been transformed into an exemplum of Fortune’s instability and this theme is central to the imagery of Giraldi’s play.126 In the passage it appears twice. First (ll. 5-11) the nutrice summarises the locus communis of the revolution of the wheel, in verses carefully interwoven with parallel structures (‘Ma di dì in dì si mutan, d’hora in hora’ l. 7; ‘E come […] Così’ ll. 8-10). Note the ancillary reverse constructions of lines 9 and 11 (‘Che l’allegrezza non si muti in pianto’; ‘Che la miseria si converta in gioia’) and how ‘pianto’, exposed at the end of line 9, interacts with its opposite ‘gioia’, in line 11. Lines 13-15 adapt the subject to the present circumstances, offering a sort of isocolon, in which ‘Havete avuta’ faces ‘haverla ancora’, while ‘trista’, which closes line 12, is the opposite of ‘lieta’ (l. 13). Three lines later, after repeating some words of her confidant’s speech (‘Così […] / Havuta l’ho […] così felice, ch’io’ ll. 14-15), Cleopatra focuses on the metaphorical fall from high to low (ll. 18-19). The motif had been a theatrical cliché since antiquity. It was employed in Seneca’s plays (Agamemnon, i.101-102) and had already reappeared in Trissino’s Sophonisba (1960-1961). Giraldi reuses it at ii.3.272-275 and it is deployed by Pistorelli’s Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra as well (i.112-114). 126 Beside the exodus and the passage at ii.3.171-174, quoted in 2.2, see also, for example, ii.2.122126, ii.3.270-276, iii.5.227-233, iv.2.39-53, iii.124-127, v.165-169.

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The opening passage is also a good example of Cinthio’s style. Both in the Discorso (pp. 211-215) and in the Giudizio (p. 144), he advocated clear, pure language, condemning affectations and obscurities. As a matter of fact, his lines, though showing many sorts of rhetorical ornament, are far from the convoluted stylistic virtuosities of other writers of his day. However, decorum remained essential to him.127 No vulgar and comic speech or action should find a place in a tragedy: Introducono anco i Greci nelle loro Tragedie Re e Reine e altre persone gravi, che vengono tra sé a villanie e a contenzioni tali, a’ quali si vergognano venire oggi dì non pure gli uomini di tanta maestà, ma i mediocri istessi; e non pur gli fanno contendere tra lor Re, ma con bassissime persone, di cose alte […] cosa che appresso di noi è fuori d’ogni uso e d’ogni decoro.128 [The Greek, in their tragedies, also introduce kings and queens and lofty people who demonstrate such rude actions and riotous behaviour as would nowadays shame not only men of royal status but even common people; and they make kings quarrel about high matters not only among themselves, but also with people of the lowest rank, something that we never do and find utterly lucking decorum.]

Although in his Giudizio Giraldi criticises the indiscriminate and arbitrary recourse to Petrarch and other literary models, his verses are rich with quotations from major Italian poets.129 His ‘countryman’ Ludovico Ariosto often lends him his words. Scraps of the Furioso are scattered throughout the play: ‘Quanto più su l’instabil ruota vedi / di Fortuna ira in alto il miser uomo, / tanto più tosto hai da vedergli i piedi / ove ora ha il capo, e far cadendo il tomo’ [‘There is no stability to Fortune’s Wheel: The higher a poor devil rises on it, the sooner you will see him plunge down, head over heels’]130 (Orl. Fur., xlv.1.1-4) gives rise to ‘Certo egli è vero che quanto più in alto / è asceso l’huom, tanto maggior dà il tomo’ [‘It is certainly true that the higher a man gets, the nastier the tumble he will have’] (iv.2.52-53); ‘che val poco alternar poggia con orza’ [‘as it is no use to go from windward to leeward’] (Orl. Fur., xix.63.3-4) turns into ‘E s’alternar pur sai si poggia et orza’ [‘And 127 Giraldi, Discorso, p. 211. 128 Giraldi Cinzio, Giudizio ed Epistola latina, in Scritti contro la Canace, pp. 97-182 (p. 150). 129 Giraldi, Giudizio, pp. 151-153. 130 All the English translations are, once again, those of Guido Waldman, with the only exception of Orl. Fur., xix.63.3-4.

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if you know how to go from windward to leeward’] (iv.5.181).131 Sometimes single epithets are reused: ‘Et è per questo il gran Motor contento’ [‘For this reason the Great Mover is content’] (Orl. Fur., iii.44.5), ‘L’alto eterno Motore’ [‘The high eternal Mover’] (ii.710). However, the material from the Furioso is bereft of the bitter irony displayed by the original – a quality obviously considered unsuitable for a neoclassical tragedy. But it is chiefly on Petrarch that Giraldi draws: repetitions, syntagms, synonymic couples, metaphors, similes, antithesis, every kind of material and quotation from the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta and from the Triumphi are inserted above all in lyric-elegiac soliloquies.132 Compared to those of Trissino, Cinthio’s metres are simple: just a few canzoni and madrigals for the chorus, besides the sciolti. Yet here again we find the shadow of the RVF, as the metrical scheme of the choral singing that ends the first act (abC.abC.cdeeDfF, plus the congedo XyY) is similar to that of Canzoniere 125 (abC.abC.cdeeDff; envoy: Abb).133 As we have shown, the tragedy immediately focuses on its female protagonist. Cleopatra dominates, as women almost constantly do in Cinthio’s plays. Gli antivalomeni is in fact the only of his plays which does not have a female name as its title. In his Discorso, Giraldi insists on the validity of female tragic characters: le donne delle scene tragiche possono essere, quanto alla real qualità conviene, gravi, prudenti e accorte; e possono usare nel favellare sentenze morali, e piene di senno, secondo la lor condizione. (p. 216) [Women in tragic scenes can be, when it suits royal dignity, grave, prudent and wise; and in their speech they can make use of moral statements full of sense, as befits their status.]

On this point, he departs from Aristotle: E se ben pare che Aristotile dica che il senno e la prudenza non sia della donna, non si dee così semplicemente intendere, ma ciò è detto in rispetto all’uomo. Perché per prudente e saggia che sia la donna, non le conviene quel senno, quella prudenza, quella gravità che conviene all’uomo savio, avuto rispetto alla qualità dell’una e dell’altro. (p. 217) 131 Also RVF, 180.5. 132 Mussini Sacchi 2005, pp. 217-221. 133 Mussini Sacchi 2005, p. 215 n. 17.

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[And although Aristotle seems to state that sense and prudence are not for women, that is not be taken in itself, but in comparison with men. Because even if a woman is prudent and wise, that kind of prudence and sense which suits a wise man does not suit her, considering the different qualities of the former and the latter.]

The same concept is reaffirmed in the coda to the Orbecche, where praise of women mingles with the courtly homage to the French Duchess of Ferrara.134 These repeated excusationes tell us that, in those years at the Este court, Aristotle’s authority regarding female inferiority was, all in all, still undisputed. As we have seen (3.1), the conventional view on woman was beginning to be reconsidered in the Renaissance, and the dramatic stage called attention to the issue; all the same, the diminutio of the female sex persisted and even the most ‘fair-minded’ dramatists proved ambivalent and contradictory in their positions.135 In Ferrara – despite a tradition of philogynist culture dating back to the late f ifteenth century, women’s education, and their recent acquisition of importance within the dynastic structure of power – female authority did have its limits and only male Estes could govern. Wives could at most serve as regent for their son or deputise for an absent husband, but were excluded from succession. They did not have to claim for themselves ‘the heart and stomach of a king’.136 This sort of conditional stature is well expressed in the figure of Giraldi’s Cleopatra. She is a noble sovereign, but she has those faults which are ‘naturally’ ingrained in her gender. She admits that she fled from Actium ‘da feminil paura spinta’ [‘driven by female fear’] (i.1.24), the same concept which had already been introduced in the Argomento.137 She pretends to

134 Orbecche, La tragedia a chi legge, 3210-3223. 135 Di Maria, pp. 101-125. He does not stress the opposing views of women in drama, but female characters often underline their intellectual limits themselves. See also below and Giraldi’s Didone (ii.2.128-129, iv.2. 283-285, v.3.182-185). 136 The oration at Tilbury is partially reproduced in Rose, pp. 36-37. See also Benson 1992, p. 233. This argument is present in many Cleopatra plays, see, for instance, Jodelle (v.116); Garnier (iii.882-883); Aldini codex (v.276-277); Montreaux (ii.358-359, v.3-4, 391-394); but also Shakespeare (v.2.237-238). It will reappear also in Capponi’s tragedy (iv.4.302-303, v.3.180) and in Mairet’s (v.1723-1724). For profeminist literature and art in Ferrara, see Cox 2008, pp. 26-27. For the role of women in the perpetuation of the Este dynasty, see Stoppino. 137 Giraldi, Cleopatra tragedia, 6r. Williamson 1974 notes that the argument is organised ‘around a series of Cleopatra’s fears’. She also states that ‘it does not coincide with the action or interpretation of the play, which concerns the battle of Alexandria, not Actium’ (p. 77). For the protagonist’s emotional instability, see Bono, pp. 98-99.

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be dead, fearing Antony’s anger before even having met him (i.2-8), and complains of female inadequacy in troubled times: Ver è che la miseria humana avanza Qualunque altra miseria, che può l’huomo Dir d’esser nato a le miserie, al pianto. Ma, posto che l’humana sorte sia Più d’ogn’altra infelice, la miseria Del sesso feminil non ha qui pare, Né cosa vi è che più soggiaccia in tutto A la fortuna di noi Donne. Puote Col senno l’huomo, e con la sua prudenza, Al suo furor opporsi e superarla. Ma la fragilità nostra ci lieva Anche l’ingegno, e fà che noi da noi, Come cieche e insensate, andiamo a dare Col proprio core nei più acuti strali Ch’ella habbia, e trafiggianci insino a morte. (i.3.253-267)138 [It’s true, human misery trumps any other kind of misery and man can say he is born to misery and tears. Yet, if human fate is the most unhappy of all, female misery finds no rival, and no one is more subject to fortune in all things than us women. Man, with his wisdom and prudence, can fight and defeat her madness. But our frailty robs us of our intelligence as well, and makes us spear our own hearts with the sharpest of her darts, as if we were blind fools, until we are stabbed to death.]

Giraldi’s heroine is above all a woman of the ducal court, who moves within a much more restricted universe than that of her historical model. Her political power is secondary to the private sphere of emotion.139 Pointedly, Cinthio is the first dramatist to hint at the motif of motherhood (iii.8.438446, iv.4.151-153, iv.7.246-264), a motif that will be developed, in different terms, by both De Cesari and Daniel. 138 Compare Shakespeare iii.12.29-31. We are far from Orbecche’s feminist monologue (Orbecche, ii.4.879-937) or from Arrenopia (iii.10) and Atile (iii.4). The pairing of ‘frailty’ and ‘woman’ already had a long literary tradition before being reaffirmed by Hamlet (i.2.146). 139 Bono and Tessitore (pp. 209, 211) analyse Dido’s position in Giraldi’s play in these terms. I borrowed the analysis from them.

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She fights her war with the weapons considered typical of her sex: wiles, charms, and flattery. On meeting Octavian, in order to trick him she is ready to forswear her love for Antony (iv.9), stating that she was forced to follow him out of fear (iv.9.430-441), a lowly excuse that other Italian and English Cleopatras would have considered beneath their dignity.140 Cinthio’s protagonist also underlines how, once she became his wife, obeying Antony was her duty, paraphrasing Christian wedding vows (iv.9.478-481). The notion of a frail, sensitive creature modulates the figure, and this weakness enhances her royal dignity and splendour in facing the ultimate sacrifice. Maybe her best lines in the play are those she utters after Octavian (Ottavio) has left her.141 She states that she understands all too well what he has in mind: Dunque tu pensi Ottavio ch’io sia priva D’ingegno sì, sì di me stessa fuori, Ch’io non habbia compreso a che fin brami Ch’io resti viva e ch’io non veggia chiaro Che le promesse tue, le tue lusinghe Son tanti lacci, che mi metti intorno Per menarmi legata al Campidoglio? (v.2.32-38) [So, Ottavio, do you think I am so lacking in wisdom, so out of my mind, that I cannot understand for what purpose you want me to stay alive? Do you think I cannot clearly see that your promises, your allurements are a multitude of snares you put around me to take me to the Capital in chains?]

If the opening of the soliloquy is conventional, the author then introduces a subtle psychological note: Credi tu, Ottavio, che il tuo viso mostro142 Non mi habbia quel che tu nel cuor chiuso hai? Il disio c’hai ch’io honori il tuo trionfo, 140 Plutarch, Ant., 83.2; Horne, p. 93. Daniel’s Cleopatra resorts to the same kind of self-justification before Octavius Caesar (iii.2.605-608), but she stresses that it was love above all that bound her to Antony (iii.2.609-612). In Shakespeare’s play, it is Thidias who provides that justification for the queen (iii.13.57-58). Cleopatra also blames everything on Antony in both Jodelle’s (iii.955-958) and Montreux’s (iv.360-367) plays but not in Pistorelli’s tragedy. See also Williamson 1974, p. 127. 141 This judgement is shared by Horne (p. 93); Morrison (1997, p. 198); Bono (pp. 101-102); and Ariani (1974, p. 173). 142 ‘Mostrato’.

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E il malanimo tuo non ha patito, Non ha patito la tua mente, volta Tutta al mio scorno estremo, che mi guardi Sol una volta pur con gli occhi fissi, Tenendogli mai sempre a terra volti (v.2.52-59) [Do you believe, Ottavio, your face did not show what you keep locked into your heart? Your desire to have me in your triumph as a trophy and your malevolence could not – your mind could not – make it bearable for you to look into my eyes, not even once. You always stared at the ground.]

The detail is taken from a passage of Dio (li.12.5) already discussed (see 3.1). However, the explanation given by Giraldi differs from that of Landi’s Vita: Octavian looked down not because he feared being overcome by Cleopatra’s seductiveness, but because he knew he was lying and could not stand her gaze. In her edition, Morrison thinks it is the queen who misunderstands the Roman’s intentions (n. to 2696-2699), but nothing in these lines suggests that Cleopatra is wrong. After all, despite being ‘only’ a woman, she has managed to deceive her antagonist: Vedrai tu ch’una Donna havrà saputo (Per torsi a scorno et ad opprobrio grave) Ingannar te, mostrando di volere Seguirti a Roma, et fare il voler tuo. (v.2.65-68) [You will see that a woman was able (in order to avoid deep shame and dishonour) to deceive you, pretending she was ready to follow you to Rome and do as you wish.]

In the rest of the passage the pedagogical tone reappears once more: Morir già Sophonisba in libertade Volle, più tosto ch’esser serva e viva. E così anch’io vo’ col suo essempio fare. Se saputo non ho, con le mie forze, Difendermi da te, mentre io poteva, Se, per mia fragilità, vedere Non ho saputo quel che bisognava

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Che veduto io havessi al maggior uopo, Vedrai che ch’essendo giunta ov’hora sono, Cieca non sono stata. Et che s’hai vinto L’Egitto, non hai vinta Cleopatra. Meglio saprò morir ch’io non son vissa, Et meglio procurar la libertade Saprò con la mia morte che saputo Non mi ho procurar ben con la mia vita. Se le delitie mie non mi lasciaro Apparar l’arte del ben viver, hora Gli affanni insegnato hammi quel ch’io debbo Far per morir Reina entro al mio Regno. (v.2.85-103)143 [Sophonisba preferred dying free to living as a slave. And I want to do the same, following her example. If, with my strength, I was not able to defend myself from you while I could, if because of my frailty I could not see what it was necessary for me to see at the most important moment, you will see that, having arrived where I am now, I was not blind. You won Egypt, but you did not win Cleopatra. I will know how to die better than I have lived, and I will know how to free myself through my death better than I have known how to help myself through my life. If my delights prevented me from learning the art of living well, now my suffering taught me what I have to do to die as a queen in my lands.]

Dying free, as a queen, is Cleopatra’s proud and noble purpose, inspired by Sophonisba’s exemplum. The passage, through a series of parallelisms and oppositions, draws a line between past and present, blindness and sight, winning and losing, life and death. In the past, the queen was unable to see what she should have seen (ll. 90-92), yet Ottavio will see (‘vedrai’ l. 93) that she was not blind (l. 94). He might have won Egypt, but Cleopatra was not defeated. The idea is underlined by the isocolon and enhanced by the sharp enjambement (ll. 94-95). She will do better in future. The anaphora of ‘meglio’ (‘Meglio’ l. 96; ‘Et meglio’ l. 97) introduces two increasingly complex clauses, where chiasmus and isocolon mingle, to express the heroine’s resolution to live up to events (‘Meglio saprò morir ch’io non son vissa’ l. 96; ‘Et meglio procurar la libertade / Saprò […] che saputo / Non mi ho procurar ben’ ll. 97-99). The passage opens and closes on the semantic field of life (‘vissa’ l. 143 Compare Daniel, Cleopatra, i.171-180.

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96; ‘con la mia vita’ l. 99), while ‘con la mia vita’ parallels ‘con la mia morte’ at line 98. The fragility motif resurfaces (‘saputo non ho, con le mie forze’ / Difendermi da te […] / […] per mia fragilità’ ll. 88-90), but in the conditional mode (and note the anaphora: ‘Se […] Se’ ll. 88-90). The themes touched upon here (remorse for past folly and the desire to redeem oneself for a bad life) will be paramount in later plays, such as those by Garnier and Daniel. Nonetheless, in those works, Cleopatra is described as a repentant seductress: here it is only she who sees herself as such, in her soliloquy-apostrophe to Octavian. ‘In this tragedy she appears chiefly as a loving and faithful wife, not a mistress, and a courageous and dignified queen.’144 In any case, she states that sorrow has made her wiser and ready to brave death nobly (ll. 102-103). Immediately after this section, we find a hymn to freedom (once again dominated by figures of parallelism and repetition and by an insistence on sight), whose words have been said to possess ‘a magnificent ring’:145 Libera veggo pur (malgrado tuo) Ovunque io mi volgo, questo Cielo, Sotto cui nacqui e vissi e fui Reina; Et anche questo Ciel Cleopatra vede Non coi legami e le catene intorno, Ma in habito real. Questo Cielo anche Coglierà l’alma mia libera e sciolta. (v.2.104-110) [Still, as a free woman (in spite of you) wherever I look, I see this sky, under which I was born and lived, and was queen; and Cleopatra also sees this sky not while she is bound and chained, but in her royal dress. This sky will receive my free and unconstrained soul as well.]

Finally, the queen takes her leave of life, in lines peppered with anaphora, isocolon and polyptoton: A Dio, cara mia Patria, a Dio ti lascio, Populo mio, ti lascio cara Corte, In cui mi vissi già tanto felice. Pregate tutti a la Reina vostra Quant’esser puote più morte tranquilla. 144 Morrison 1997, p. 190. See also Williamson 1974, pp. 85-86. 145 Horne, p. 93.

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Pregate che i miei Figli, che Signori Esser devean di questo eccelso Regno, Et hora ne le man sono di Ottavio, Facciano miglior fin c’hor non faccio io. (v.2.120-128) [To God, my dear homeland, to God I leave you, my people, I leave you, dear court, where I once lived so happily. Pray, all of you, for a death as peaceful as possible, for your queen. Pray that my children – who were destined to rule this lofty realm, and are now in the hands of Ottavio – may come to a better end than the one I come to now.]

Despite her passionate adieu to her homeland, throughout the play Cleopatra is never presented as a ruler with particular qualities and political strategies, but rather as an unfortunate lover who fell in love with the wrong man. Her realm means nothing to her compared to her beloved.146 She exclaims: ‘Ma non mi duol del Regno, duolmi havere / Perduto Marco Antonio più che s’io / Perduti havessi mille Regni e mille’ [‘I do not regret my kingdom, I regret losing Marco Antonio more than I would regret losing thousands of kingdoms’] (i.3.304-306).147 Of the variant versions of her death by Plutarch (86.1-6) and Dio (li.14.1-2), Giraldi chooses the less famous: the poisoned hairpin.148 The Sacerdote relates: E questo detto, lagrimosa volta A le donzelle sue, si fè portare Un vasello d’argento. E da la tempia Destra si trasse un canoncino d’oro, Intorno al quale ella avolgea i capelli, E posel dentro al vaso, e, a un tempo istesso, Su ’l vaso pose il braccio in tutto nudo. E tratto il canoncin, toccò la carne E quasi lieta disse: ‘Ecco che viene, O Marco Antonio, a te la tua Cleopatra, 146 See also iii.1.1-5. 147 Garnier will make his protagonist express her devotion in analogous terms (ii.409-410); see Hill and Morrison, pp. 15, 19, 171 n. 94. 148 In his play, Giovanni Capponi combines both the killing methods. His Cleopatra states that she had a second plan ready: the golden hairpin (iv.4.324-336).

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Per non si dipartir più da te mai. Accolla lieto, come la solevi Accor, quando eri seco in questa vita, Ch’ella per esser teco hora abbandona. (v.6.410-422)149 [Having uttered these words she turned to her women, her face covered in tears, and asked for a little silver vase. And from the right temple she took a little golden cane, around which she used to wrap her hair, and put it into the vase, while at the same time she rested her arm, completely bare, on the vase. And after taking the little cane out, she touched her flesh and said almost happily: ‘Here comes, Marco Antonio, your Cleopatra, never to part from you again. Welcome her, as you used to welcome her when you were still with her, in this life, which she is abandoning now to be with you.]

The characters’ tendency to self-analysis does not necessarily imply an attempt at acute psychological insight. To Giraldi, who respected Aristotle’s precepts, character was subordinate to plot, and he preferred type over individual.150 This is all the more true for the male protagonists of the play. Historically, there coexisted two opposing traditions around Augustus, which could be labelled, oversimplifying, as empire-oriented and republic-oriented. The first emphasised the stability of government, peace and unity achieved in the Augustan era; the second rather stressed the loss of actual power by the surviving republican institutions and the rise of tyranny which his principate fostered.151 Giraldi’s Ottavio is, on the whole, the gracious victor, merciful to Egypt, weeping at the news of the death of his old ally and allowing the two lovers a common burial. ‘His qualities’, Horne notices, ‘are known mainly from what others say of him’ (p. 94). Likewise, his calculating nature is only suggested by his enemies. 149 The scene of Carmion adjusting Cleopatra’s diadem on her head is anticipated here (v.6.242252). The ethical question of the legitimacy of suicide was introduced onto the Italian stage by Trissino’s Sophonisba (1789-1790, 1805-1807), developed into debate by Rucellai’s Rosmunda (584-605), and repeated both in De Cesari’s (see 4.1) and in Pistorelli’s (v.1-102) tragedies. Giraldi was the first to use it in a Cleopatra play (iii.7.374-381, iv.568-583), but he does not labour it. 150 Di Maria, pp. 157-158. The same precept dominates his novelle, from which he took the plot of most of his dramatic works. 151 Bevington, pp. 5-6; Engle, pp. 210-211. In the Middle Ages, Octavian had been generally seen as an ideal ruler and his reign as a sort of prefiguration of the advent of Christ. See Iacopo da Varazze’s Legenda aurea (Saint Peter in Chains, August 1).

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Marco Antonio, in his turn, does not develop beyond the stereotypical image of the great hero ruined by the power of irredeemable love. He has some moving lines, for instance, when, after having been told of Cleopatra’s faked death, he exclaims ‘Valeva più costei che tutto il mondo’ [‘She was more valuable than the whole world’] (i.6.624), hyperbole not far from Shakespeare’s ‘Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates / All that is won and lost’ (iii.11.68-69). Once mortally wounded, he pleads: ‘Prego per l’amore / Che ci congiunse, e per la ferma fede / Che in voi vist’ho, mentre con voi son stato, / Che sovrastar vi piaccia in questa vita / Acciò che viva Marco Antonio in voi’ [‘I beg you, for the love that bound us and for the resolute faith I saw in you while I was with you, to remain please in this life, so that Marco Antonio might live on in you’] (ii.1.93-97). Plutarch simply states that he exhorted the queen to try and save her life, if that was possible without dishonour (Ant., 77.4). The emphasis on emotions is much stronger here. If love is the key to the entire play, from the ninth scene of Act iv, ἔρως embraces θάνατος more and more. The common burial motif, introduced at an early stage (ii.3.199-201), is repeated up to four times in the last two acts (iv.9.506-510; v.5.215-216; v.6.383-384, 439-443), culminating in Ottavio’s praise for the ‘ismisurato amore’ [‘boundless love’] of the star-crossed pair (v.6.430).152 The association between love and death, charged with an erotic sub-text, will subtly creep into moralist De Cesari’s tableau of the dead Cleopatra (see 4.1), just like the sensuous elements in some CounterReformation art.153 It will also pervade the last words of Garnier’s Cleopatra (see 5.2) and take up the hue of remorse in Daniel’s lines (5.3). Giraldi claimed he had brought tragedies back on to the stage. In fact, as noted earlier, Sophonisba was performed only after Trissino’s death, and most Grecian plays were dramas to be read, while his were conceived as dramas for the stage. Little is known about the actual performances. He probably employed a Vitruvian scena tragica and generally staged his entertainments in his private house, supervising every aspect of them. In the case of the Cleopatra tragedia we know neither the names of the architect nor those 152 The motif was homeric (Il., xxiii.83-88) and through ancient drama (Sophocles, Electra, 1168-1170; Euripides, Orestes, 1051-1053; Alcestis, 365-368) had reached Italian Renaissance tragedy (Trissino, Sophonisba, 1848; Giraldi, Orbecche, v.3.3026-3029; Dolce, Marianna, v.2899-2902). Of outside drama, we cannot forget Ariosto, Orl. Fur., xxiv.82.3-4. In this case, the element was also in the historical sources (Dio, li.12.7, li.15; Plut., Ant., 84.4, 85.3, 86.4). Thus, the detail is present in almost every Cleopatra play: De Cesari’s (v.295-303); Pistorelli’s (iv.379); Aldini’s (v.491-492); Garnier’s (v.1966-1967; Pembroke’s version (v.1989-1990); Daniel’s (v.2.1647-1648); Shakespeare’s (v.2.352). 153 For the image, see Horne, p. 148.

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of the scene painter and the actors. The tragedy was first staged between 7 and 20 June 1555, before the Duke of Ferrara and some members of his court.154 As Flaminio Ariosto (a young nephew of Lodovico) played the part of Orbecche in the first performance of the play, it seems very likely that Cleopatra was also played by a boy.155 The author himself stated that, although the entertainment lasted six hours, for some of the spectators even that was barely enough: ‘ancora che la Cleopatra tanto si estendesse, non vi mancarono di quelli cui parve che troppo tosto fosse condotta al fine’ [‘Albeit Cleopatra was very long, there were those who thought it was too quickly ended’].156 As Herrick remarks, ‘The audience was always the supreme arbiter for Cinthio, higher than Seneca, higher than Aristotle.’157 Yet, by his own admission, this audience had to be cultivated, with a good rhetorical education: vi dico che è meglio a meritar loda appresso dieci o quindici giudiziosi uomini che guadagnare il favore di tutto il volgo. Così adunque devete voi cercare d’essere più presto lodato da’ dotti, quantunque pochi se ne truovino, che dal semplice popolaccio: perché quelle lodi che da’ dotti vi verranno saranno ferme e dureranno molto tempo, ma quelle dello ignobile volgo, come neve al sole, al conoscere del vero si dilegueranno.158 [I tell you it is better to earn the praise of ten or fifteen wise men than to gain the favour of the common people. Thus you must try to be praised by men of learning, even if there are few of them, rather than by the plebs for the praises of the learned men will be stable and last in time, but those of the vulgar herd will melt like snow in the sun when the truth appears.]

This shared expectation between the author and the public, with all its implications and consequences, will be a distinctive trait of neo-Senecan drama, not only in Italy but also in the rest of Europe, as will be shown in the following chapters.159 154 In an autograph note, Giraldi stated that he had to interrupt the revision of his epic poem Hercule for a fortnight, as he was supervising the staging of his Cleopatra. For the composition and staging of the play, see Horne, p. 17 n. 5; Morrison 1997, pp. 168-169. On scenography in Giraldi, see Morrison and Osborn, pp. xxii-xxv; Morrison 1997, pp. 12-18. For a description of the scenery for the three classical types of drama, see Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, v.6.8-9; Serlio, Il Secondo libro di prospettiva, 41r-48v. 155 Horne, p. 16. For female performances in Renaissance Italy, see above, 3.1. 156 Giraldi, Discorso, p. 278 n. 69. 157 Herrick, p. 89; Sampson 2006, p. 24. 158 Giraldi, Giudizio, p. 159. 159 For the concept, see Jauss.

4. The Great Theatre of Cleopatra Abstract Other Italian dramatists who chose Cleopatra as their subject matter. A close analysis of Cesare De Cesari’s Cleopatra (1552), whose protagonist is, above all, a political leader. The third Italian Cleopatra play: Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra (1576) by Don Celso Pistorelli. Its structure and style. Pistorelli’s treatment of the story is as varied as possible within the limitations of the neoclassical tragedy. The most peculiar of the Italian Cleopatra plays: the anonymous Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio (Codice Aldini 392, Biblioteca Universitaria of Pavia, Italy). Keywords: Italian Renaissance drama; Cesare de’ Cesari; Celso Pistorelli; the anonymous Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio

4.1

An ‘invincible heart’1

Giraldi Cinthio was the first of a series of Italian dramatists who chose Cleopatra as their heroine. Cesare De Cesari – the author of the second Italian Cleopatra play, in chronological terms, published in 1552 – was born in Naples. We don’t know much about him, beyond the fact that he enjoyed great success among his contemporaries and that, besides the Cleopatra, he wrote two other tragedies which have come down to us, the Romilda and the Scilla, both published between 1551 and 1552.2 In his prefatory letter to the Romilda, De Cesari cites yet another tragedy, the Argia, which has been lost. He was part of the Accademia dello Sdegno or degli Sdegnati (Academy of the Disdainful), founded by the well-known poligrafo Girolamo Rucelli

1 ‘cor mai sempre invitto’ (De Cesari, Cleopatra, ì.104). 2 Mussini Sacchi 2005, p. 213. The dedicatee of the Cleopatra is Domenico Gazelù, secretary to the ambassador of Charles V, in Venice, Lope de Soria.

Montanari, A.M., Cleopatra in Italian and English Renaissance Drama. Amsterdam University Press, 2019. doi 10.5117/9789462985995_ch04

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and by Tommaso Spica in Pope Paul III’s Rome, and they apparently held him in high regard.3 De Cesari’s tragedy is even more nondramatic than Giraldi’s. 4 When the play opens Antony is already dead and in the first three acts there is a total absence of significant incidents. In Act iv, Antony’s funeral takes place, while in the last act, the only well-known event (Cleopatra’s death) is narrated second hand by the chorus. The core of the tragedy lies in the political and philosophical chess game between two leaders – the queen and Octavian – both conscious of their respective greatness. The prize at stake is a dignified death for Cleopatra – who could thus put an end to her pains and avoid the shame of Caesar’s triumph – and glory for Caesar, who needs the queen as his ‘desiata preda’ (i.360).5 The play opens with a monologue by the protagonist, followed by an answer from the chorus, thus substantially adhering to the classical model reappropriated by Trissino that we have already met in Giraldi’s Cleopatra. Here are the first words she utters: O superba città, nata felice Di quelle invitte e gloriose mani Ch’ebbero già de l’universo impero, L’alte querele mie mesta accompagna, Obliando per hor quel che ti noce, Ch’appagherai con un istesso pianto L’altero danno e la fatal ruina Che te cattiva e me pregion conduce A le mani di cui sovente il volto Tinse d’invidia il nostro stato altero. Non che pur mai desiderar osasse Esser felice di sì altera preda, Vedendo che Fortuna ambe ne tolse Con sì altero principio ambe Reine 3 Toppi, Biblioteca napoletana, p. 331. For Ruscelli, see Procaccioli and Marini; Procaccioli 2016. For Spica, see Procaccioli 2012. For the literary academy, see Maylender, V, p. 141; Bolzoni 1995, pp. 90-91; Bolzoni 2001, pp. 87-88; Vagenheim. 4 De Cesari’s plays have received limited critical attention. As far as I know, the only studies on his Cleopatra are Bullough’s introduction and summary (pp. 225-227); Herrick’s short note (pp. 147-148); Morrison’s allusions (1974); Williamson’s section (1974, pp. 87-92); and Mussini Sacchi 2005. Bono’s (pp. 87-89) perspective leads her to disparagingly dismiss both De Cesari’s and Pistorelli’s plays. This tragedy and Pistorelli’s are also briefly discussed by Hughes (p. 163). 5 Williamson 1974, pp. 87-88.

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Da le mamme materne. Ove si vide Altra città ne le famose braccia Cresciuta d’Alessandro? Qual etade Altera se n’andò di Cleopatra? Che de lo stato mio troppo per hora Dirò, s’io dico de l’Historia solo, Che Cleopatra son, come ti è assai Alessandria, qualor spiegassi al cielo, Che’l resto ben s’ha da saper per fama. (i.1-23)6 [Oh, superb city, happily born out of those undefeated and glorious hands which used to ruled the universe, sadly join my high complaints, forgetting for the moment what hurts you, and with one cry you will satisfy both the high damage and the fatal ruin that lead you captive and me prisoner in the hands of he whose face was often stained by envy of our high state. Not that he ever dared desire he could win such a high prey, seeing how Fortune gave such a high principle to both queens, starting from their mothers’ breasts. Where could you see another city grown in the famous arms of Alexander? Which age could take pride in Cleopatra? Of my state for now too much I shall say, only by saying of History that I am Cleopatra, just as it would be a lot if I showed Alexandria to the sky, as the rest must be well known by fame.]

These lines are a good example of De Cesari’s complex and highly rhetorical style, with an almost uninterrupted series of enjambements, periphrasis, phonetic games, alliteration (e.g. lines 19-23) and repetition (beside ‘altero’, see, for instance, ‘mani’ ll. 2, 9, 15, and ‘ambe’ ll. 13-14). Although the passage is an invocation to Alexandria, the city is only named in line 22, after two circumlocutions. In the first case, in effect, we have two periphrases working together and complicated by a synecdoche. In place of ‘Alexandria’ we find a descriptive phrase: the ‘superba città’ founded by Alexander the Great, with Alexander’s name hinted at through the allusion to his ‘invincible and glorious hands, which once dominated the whole universe’ (ll. 1-3). In the second case, Alexandria becomes ‘the city grown in the famous arms’ of the Macedonian king (ll. 15-17), before being finally named. Two other rhetorical figures are of some interest: the isocolon of line 7 (‘L’altero danno 6 Cesare de Cesari, Cleopatra Tragedia. I am quoting from the copy now in the University Library of Cambridge (Bute. 88.3), keeping editorial interventions to a minimum.

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e la fatal ruina’) and the hypozeugma plus synonymia, in parallel fashion of line 8 (‘Che te cattiva e me pregion conduce’). The opening scene and the entire first act have the main goal of foregrounding the dominant trait of the heroine: her pride.7 This is already apparent in the preceding quotation. ‘Altero’ (ll. 7, 10, 14), ‘altera’ (ll. 12, 18): Cleopatra repeats it over and over again, as if the word comes spontaneously to her lips. Along with the associated ‘superba’ and ‘invitte e gloriose’ (ll. 1 and 2), it is repeated up to five times in the passage, and recurs no fewer than forty times in the play.8 The queen’s address as a whole sounds like the defiant and presumptuous utterance of an egocentric primadonna, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. She and the city, Cleopatra boasts, share the same exceptional status: they were both born to dominate (ll. 14-15). Their position was so lofty that their mutual enemy Cesare (as the character list names him, defining him ‘Augusto’), though envious, had never before found the courage to attack them (ll. 4-15). Through two parallel rhetorical questions, she insists upon the singularity of their lot: where could you find another city that had grown so prosperous, after being founded by the famous King Alexander (ll. 15-17)? Which other age could proudly claim it gave birth to such an extraordinary human being as Cleopatra (ll. 17-18)? Both she and Alexandria are so great and famous that the whole world knows about them (ll. 19-23). The chorus, in its answer, tries to take advantage of the queen’s royal pride, while reciting timeworn arguments in favour of life: Pur di dirvi n’è forza Ch’un glorioso petto Assai del suo splendor toglie et ammorza, Quando, nel tempo che turbata mostra Corrucciosa la fronte sua Fortuna, Non fa l’istessa mostra Del suo valor, che ne facesse allora Ch’arridea lieta a ogni sua voglia, e pronta. Però fatevi scudo Donna, del vostro cor mai sempre invitto, Al celeste voler, che mal si fugge. (i.95-105)

7 8

Mussini Sacchi 2005, p. 227. Mussini Sacchi 2005, p. 227.

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[Yet I have to tell you that a glorious heart loses and diminishes much of its splendour if, on days when Fortune shows an angry face, it does not demonstrate the same valour it showed when she happily and immediately smiled at its every wish. Thus shield yourself with your invincible heart, woman, against heaven’s will, which is hard to avoid.]

Greatness loses much of its splendour when it yields to misfortune, and Cleopatra must shield herself with her ‘cor mai sempre invitto’ (l. 104) and face her doom, so the Alexandrine women state. The key word ‘Fortune’ is poised between the equivocal rhyme ‘mostra’ (l. 98): ‘mostra’ (‘far mostra’ means ‘to demonstrate’, ‘to show’ l. 100). Notably, according to Castiglione’s Il cortegiano (iii.36), one of the most admirable qualities for an accomplished lady is precisely her capacity to brave troubles with strength.9 In these lines, the Stoic precept of holding external things in contempt (ἀπάθεια) meets the heroic concept of fortitudo. In fact, in the Renaissance, the controversial Christian interpretations of Stoicism were all the more ambivalent – as will be seen – when they were applied to a woman.10 In Cleopatra’s vision, moreover, Fortune strikes against the great in particular (i.338-343), a concept that will be central to Daniel’s tragedy. Even in her darkest hour, when she is ready to kill herself, the queen cannot forget her rank and role. She must die, she explains, not only for Antony and for herself, but also because her state in life was so high that Fortune will never again be able to give her the same and she cannot accept anything less: Però questa crudel da così eccelso Grado cadder lasciommi, poco innanzi, Che, se volesse sollevarmi ancora A quell’altezza, di mia vita il corso Non bastarebbe, ancor ch’ella volesse Farmi di nuovo Cleopatra al Mondo, Così è crudel il precipitio mio. Dunque, perché debb’io restar più viva? Per esser forse di miseria specchio? (iv.157-165) 9 For Castiglione’s conservative position about women, see Benson 1992, pp. 73-90. For the motif, see Giraldi, Orbecche, ii.3.726-730; Pistorelli, Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, iv.272-273; Dolce, Didone, iv.2.1609-1610. The theme was already in Seneca, Medea, ii.159. 10 See below 4.2, 5.4.

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[Yet this cruel [Fortune] let me fall from such a high state a short while ago, that if I wanted to rise again to that height, the length of my life would not be enough, even if she wanted to make me once again Cleopatra, before the world: such a cruel fall is mine. Thus why do I still have to stay alive? Maybe to be a mirror to misery?]

As she tells her daughter, when she is close to the end, death is the only chance to preserve both her greatness and her good name (iv.166-177). The relationship between the queen and her daughter ( figliuola, as the dramatic personae defines her) is given some prominence in the tragedy, and De Cesari uses it to underline an altogether different aspect of his protagonist. Despite being an arrogant, self-confident woman, she cares for her children and can harbour tender feelings. Motherly love will be an important motif in Daniel’s play too, but while there it centres on Cleopatra’s parting from her son Caesarion, here it takes on a feminine aspect.11 When it first appears, in Act i, the motif springs from the queen’s love for all her children and, between the two who are singled out, Caesarion (Cesarione) seems to dominate: Se pur gli amati miei cari figliuoli Meco non sono più, prigioni essendo Appresso al vincitor, appena godo Tanto di ben che Cleopatra mia Talor mi veggio dolorosa a canto, Con giovanetti omei pianger la morte (Che le lagrime mie non sono assai) Del mio caro signore. Come serba di lui nel volto adorno La vera altera e gloriosa imago! E dove era maggior la mia speranza, S’estinse alhor che’l tuo signore uccise Cesarione mio, Che di Cesare padre il nome e’l core Serbava, ohimè, la cui memoria sempre Honorarò con infinito pianto. (i.282-297) 11 In Act i, Cleopatra says that her three children from Antony are prisoners of Octavian, while Caesarion is dead (i.282-284, 293-294).

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[Even if my dear, beloved children are no longer with me, being captives of the victor, I find some consolation in having my sad Cleopatra close from time to time, mourning my dear lord’s death, with her young laments (for my tears are fewer). How faithfully his high and glorious image remains in her face! The greatest hope I had perished when your lord killed my Cesarione, who had both the name and the heart of his father Cesare, alas, whose memory I shall always honour with endless tears.]

These lines – once again continually violating the correspondence between metrical and syntactical unity – are filled with fond expressions of love. The numerous rhetorical figures are used to simulate the emotions which Cleopatra experiences. The term ‘figlioli’, in the first line, is accompanied by significant adjectives: ‘amati, miei cari’ (l. 282). The first person possessive adjective, in particular, is repeated in the section, often at the end of the line in an emphatic position (‘Cleopatra mia’ l. 285; ‘le lagrime mie’ l. 288; ‘Del mio caro signore’ l. 289; ‘la mia speranza’ l. 292; ‘Cesarione mio’ l. 294). The queen seems to repeat it in an unconscious attempt to feel closer to those she cared for and has lost, or is about to lose. The only two occurrences when the adjective is not linked to a first name are, in a way, ossymoronic: ‘lagrime mie’ (l. 288) and ‘la mia speranza’ (l. 292). The semantic field related to weeping is the second dominant element of the passage, occurring three times, at lines 287 (‘pianger’), 288 (‘le lagrime mie’), and in the last, closing line (‘infinito pianto’). The queen states that the presence of her daughter comforts her a little. Yet even if the child Cleopatra is mentioned before Cesarione, her resemblance to Antony is only physical (ll. 290-291), while Cesarione – perhaps because he was male – shared with his father Caesar both a name and a heart (l. 295) and was the monarch’s greatest hope (l. 293). Nevertheless, while the memory of Cesarione soon fades from the tragedy, the young Cleopatra – a role created ex nihilo by De Cesari – plays a distinctive part in it. The choice to develop the character of this young girl is intriguing per se. In the second act, she meets Antony’s ghost (ii.132-168). In the fourth act, after lamenting her undeserved misery (iv.1-24), she is given the function of convincing her mother not to take her life, and plays a sort of controcanto to the chorus, as her emotional arguments (iv.93-138) contrast with the ethically motivated argument of the donne di Alessandria (iv.195-259). She begs her mother to live in order to take revenge for Antony’s death (iv.114-121). He would never want her to die. Se ciò non fosse, queste proprie mani, Ancor che poco a tal ufficio bone

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Per la novella età, nel vostro sangue Tingerei lieta, per mandarvi sciolta De’ tanti affanni a le sulfurie case; Nè temerei perciò che di crudele Nome acquistasse una figliuola, quando, Per tor la madre da sì crudi guai, La togliesse di questa amara vita. (iv.130-138) [If it were not so, I would gladly stain these hands of mine with your blood, though they are not so suited to the task because of their young age, and send you, released from so many worries, to the sulphurous houses; nor would I fear that a daughter might be considered cruel for this when, in order to relieve her mother of such terrible troubles, she took her bitter life.]

These passionate words, evoking gory imagery, remind us of Seneca’s revenge tragedy as well as some of his heroines such as Medea. Still, in the passage the young Cleopatra’s attitude is full of spirit and she appears almost heroic in her readiness for self-sacrifice. She shows the same brave heart after Antony’s funeral – in which she joins in Cleopatra’s and the chorus’ lament (iv.298-317, 390-392) – when she asks to die with her mother (iv.502-504).12 The queen’s reaction to that plea not only demonstrates a deep love for her child, but also suggests a sort of mirror-image identification with her, ‘Vivi, figlia, che se’l mio nome porti / Non dèi portar la mia misera sorte’ [‘Live, daughter: even if you have my name, you do not have to share my sad fate’] (iv.505-506). She wants her daughter to meet with a very different fate, as she has previously said in the act (ll. 468-486). Her feelings are clearly expressed in her heartfelt final wish that the child Cleopatra be happy for the rest of her life. In the passage, the queen tenderly lingers on the past: Fausto e felice sia quel primo latte Che ti nudrì, benché infelice sia Chi te lo porse, e sian sempre felici Le care fasce e i fanciulleschi panni Ch’avvolsero le tue tenere membra; Fausti quei basci che ti porsi in culla A le labra ancor molli del mio latte; (iv.472-478) 12 See also v.75-76.

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[Auspicious and happy be that first milk which fed you, even if she who gave it is unhappy, and forever happy may be those dear swaddling bands and clothes that wrapped your tender limbs; auspicious those kisses I gave, in your cradle, to lips still wet with my own milk]

Finally she expresses the hope that her tears may be enough to satisfy Fortune’s rage and spare her daughter (iv.479-483). In this passage, the visceral tie between Cleopatra and her child is underlined by the insistence on the swaddling bands and clothes (l. 475), on the first kisses (l. 477), and above all on mother’s milk (‘primo latte’ l. 472; ‘mio latte’ l. 478). With this image, De Cesari notably modifies a dramatic topos, as the allusion to the ‘alimenti primi’ [‘first nourishment’], in the Italian plays, relates to the relationship between child and nurse.13 The last farewell to the small Cleopatra comes at the beginning of the final act: O figlia, a me tanto più cara Di me stessa, quant’io la propria morte E la tua vita ugualmente bramo! Questa gratia ti chiede tua dolente Madre nel passo di sua vita estremo: Che tu supporti la sua morte in pace, Viva restando, e se potesse al Cielo Giunger questa mia voce, pregarei Qual fato regga le mondane cose Che come porti di tua madre il nome Non abbi la fortuna. (v.77-87) [Oh, daughter so much dearer to me than myself, how much I desire my death and your life equally! Your afflicted mother, on the edge of life, asks for this favour: endure her death in peace, staying alive, and could my voice reach the Sky, I would ask whatever Fate governs human things that you, bearing the same name as your mother, may not also share her fortune.]

13 Pistorelli, Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, v.441; Dolce, Didone, iii.1.712-713; Giocasta, iii.339-340; Medea, i.10-11; Le Troiane, i.93, iii.543-544. In Shakespeare’s play Cleopatra, when applying the asp to her breasts, compares herself to a nurse (v.2.304).

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This passage takes up the contraposition between mother and child we have just seen. The older Cleopatra is now openly linked to death, with the word ‘death’ itself opening and closing the sequence (‘morte’ line 78; ‘tua dolente / Madre’ l. 80-81; ‘passo di sua vita estremo’ l. 81; ‘morte’ l. 82) and the younger to life (‘figlia’ l. 77; ‘la tua vita’ l. 79; ‘Viva restando’ l. 83). From all these examples, the strength of Cleopatra’s maternal love and her anxiety at her failure to fulfil her parental duties could not be clearer. Still, the interaction between her various roles as selfish aristocrat, mother and monarch is complex and conflictual. There is a third side to De Cesari’s female lead. She is not only a monster of pride and a caring mother, but also a skilful politician and a diplomat, as becomes apparent in the course of her long verbal duel with Octavian. The conflict of wills between the two antagonists is the real core of the tragedy. In the first act, they merely face off, studying each other and introducing their leitmotifs.14 Cleopatra reminds the victor of her nobility and dignity. She might be at his mercy, but, not so long ago, before her now paling face, ‘Già si chinò di servitute in segno / Il grand’Egitto e l’onorato Cipro’ [‘Once both great Egypt and honoured Cyprus bent in sign of servitude’] (i.332-333). She was mistress of Libya and sole queen of Upper Syria (i.334335). She greatly praises her adversary for his well-known tendency towards mercy (i.418-430), thus making it harder for him to deny her requests. For his part, in his answer Octavian already reveals his central obsession, insisting that long-lasting honour is all that really matters, but nevertheless he raises her hopes and promises to treat her with respect.15 The real fight takes place in the third act. Here De Cesari tries to make his Cleopatra show both her rhetorical ability and her noble stature. She seems to have a clear idea of her enemy’s nature and starts by stating that clemency is the only true source of durable fame.16 Only then does she openly make her petition, asking to be left in Egypt, even if as a prisoner (iii.45-87). Octavian counters that clemency must not damage the honour of the person who exercises it. Submitting to the greatness of merciful Rome, ‘l’eccelsa Roma’ [‘high Rome’], he adds, is not dishonourable (iii.88-135). Cleopatra reacts to his words skilfully, pointing out that triumphing over a woman is petty and useless when there are so many warriors he can take as captives to Rome. The conquest of Alexandria is extraordinary in itself, so there is no need to be cruel towards a humble ‘femina’ (iii.185): 14 Williamson 1974, p. 88. 15 Williamson 1974, p. 87. 16 Here again most argumentations are taken from Seneca’s De Clementia.

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Qual gloria, signor mio, giunger cercate A la vittoriosa vostra impresa, Per honorar questo Trionfo altero D’una femina, in cui tanti guerrieri E illustri heroi voi vi vedrete inanzi? Ch’ha da creder alhor Roma felice? Ch’una sol donna vi mancasse a avere La gran gloria compiuta? O ch’era assai Sodisfatto a l’eccelsa vostra palma, Quando l’aveste ancor lasciata adietro? (iii.182-192) [What glory, my lord, are you trying to add to your victorious enterprise, by honouring your high triumph with a woman, when you have at your mercy so many warriors and illustrious heroes? What would great Rome think then? That one woman was all it took to make your glory complete? Or that your high victory would have been equally satisfied even if you have left her behind?]

His behaviour will, moreover, induce others to ill-treat women (iii.210-216). Finally, she turns to pathos. She asks the gods to kill her and relieve her from her pains; she affirms that even brutish beasts would prove kinder than Cesare Augusto, only to ask him right away to forgive her bitter words, prompted by sorrow (iii.217-249). Then she takes up his argument that the excellence of Rome is largely grounded on its clementia: Rome is a generous mother and treats the peoples it conquers as children. Why would Romans alter their famous laws for Egypt alone (iii.303-319)? When, despite her fluent speech, Augusto is not persuaded, she once again changes her approach: she will follow him to Rome, all she asks is permission to bury Antony first (iii.339-364). Thus, she eventually deceives the victor and, having bid farewell to her servants and to her child (v.1-94), much like Sophonisba (Soph., 1639-1662),17 she regally kills herself, as the chorus relates, specifying that the queen has been found naked, with the asp still wrapped around her arm.18

17 Trissino’s source was, in its turn, Euripides’ Alcestis (162-169). The farewell is related by a servo. This scene was a cliché within Italian Renaissance tragedy; see, for instance, Pistorelli’s play, v.432-475. 18 For Cleopatra’s nakedness in death, see also 2.2.

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Where other dramatists hint at Cleopatra’s past or present beauty and charm in life, De Cesari only lingers on her beauty in death: Havea volta la faccia Al cielo, forse in segno Che si doleva ancor di tanto sdegno. O chi vedea la fronte Alquanto oscura sì, ma bella tanto Che non le tolea ’l vanto Morte di cosa più tra noi divina, […] L’una e l’altra got’era Rose a punto lasciate19 Su la natia lor spina, Sì che l’abbatte il Sole. Taccio degli occhi poi, Ch’erano privi de’ divini rai, Ma haveano in lor una pietà depinta Che non mi lascia farne Memoria con parole. […] E la mia lingua preme Quel atto altier pietosamente bello, Con cui posava il capo Sopra l’un braccio, tal che’l fianco avaro Non era de la neve, Simile al petto, al ventre e a tutto’l resto. Potea lascivo e mesto Far quel bel corpo ogni pensier mortale, Perché del tutto vivo Parea, s’un crudo morso D’Aspido, ch’era ancor a l’alto braccio avvolto, non havesse Dato segno che l’alma, a miglior vita Poggiando, era indi uscita. (v.138-176)

19 Adverbial phrase, meaning ‘opportunamente’, s.v. ‘Appunto, a punto’ in Tommaseo-Bellini, II, p. 604, nr. 2.

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[She had turned her face to the sky, maybe to show that she still grieved over such an offence. Her face was a vision: although frowning, she was still so beautiful that death could not bereave her of the pride of being the most divine thing among mortals. (…) Both her cheeks were roses left as they should be on their native plant so that the sun strikes them. Not to speak then of the eyes that, even if devoid of the divine light, had such pity painted in them that I cannot evoke it with my words. (…) My tongue is constrained by her proud attitude, pitiful and wonderful, with her head resting on one arm, so that her hip was not less white than snow, and so were her bosom, her womb and all the rest. That beautiful body could make each human thought both lustful and sad as she looked truly alive, if the bite of the cruel asp, still wrapped around her upper arm, had not shown that her soul had fled, bearing itself away to a better life.]

‘Oscura’ (l. 142) does not allude to her complexion, but rather means ‘frowning’.20 Cleopatra’s beauty is only slightly diminished in death, as two similes underline (ll. 145-149). If behind the association of death and beauty and the overlapping of pale skin and snow (ll. 165-167) we can trace the ghost of Laura (TM1, 166-172),21 Cleopatra remains a completely different kind of woman. Her ‘bel corpo’ stirs up thoughts which are at once sad and lustful (ll. 168-169) and the descriptio reaches the womb. What is more, she retains her disdainful attitude. She defiantly turns her face to heaven, leaning her head over her arm in a dignified attitude (v.164-166).22 In this light, Charmion’s final act of adjusting the diadem on her head, as told by Plutarch (85.7), takes on a particular force. Honouring her mistress’ disposition, the slave girl dresses her so that she can be profoundly regal even in death: ‘Per non perder in un la vita e ’l nome’ [‘not to lose both life and fame at the same time’] (v.225). As far as pride is concerned, Cleopatra and her counterpart Cesare Augusto are very much alike. His concern for his reputation and fame is paramount.23 During the whole interview with the queen, the idea of having his honour tarnished appears unacceptable in the eyes of Cesare. 20 S.v. ‘Oscuro’ in Tommaseo-Bellini, XIII, p. 382, nr. 4. As we have seen, Italian Cleopatras were fair-haired. 21 Cleopatra’s cheeks are described as pink as roses (ll. 150-151), another Petrarchist attribute, belonging to Laura in vita. For the relation between Cleopatra and Laura, see Mussini Sacchi 2005, pp. 227-229. 22 According to Morrison (1974, p. 118), De Cesari was describing the statue of ‘Cleopatra’ in the Belvedere gardens. 23 Williamson 1974, p. 87.

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Thus he is left unmoved by every prayer, and always exhorts Cleopatra to resign herself to her fate. Even at the end, when all is done and she is dead, he still states that she has diminished his princely reputation and deprived him of his glory (v.236-245). Only after the semi-chorus’ reassurances that, in a country which has taught its children the value of clemency (ll. 246-258), a show of compassion will earn him higher glory than cruelty – an argument which has left him indifferent before – he finally seems moved and commands the common burial of the two lovers as a symbol of their ‘perfetto amor, fors’al mond’uno’ [‘perfect love, maybe unique in the world’] (v.301).24 Despite his final remark this is no tragedy of love. In her opening monologue, Cleopatra remembers Antony only at line 82, as something that adds to her sorrow: ‘Ma se talor aggiungo / La memoria infelice / Di Marc’Antonio mio /Al proprio danno, ben conosco a prova / Perché più possa in me Fortuna infida: / Ché non può morte, ove ’l dolor s’annida’ [‘But if, at times, I add to my personal suffering the sad memory of my Marco Antonio, I realise why treacherous Fortune still does have power over me: because death is powerless where pain is harboured’] (i.80-85). Her reiterated claims that she cannot live without him, in Act iv, sound almost excessive (e.g. iv.287-295, 336-389, 451-464). There is no direct cause-and-effect relationship between Antony’s and Cleopatra’s deaths. Her suicide is dictated by a mixture of motives. The dominant thought of both protagonists is actually the future. In Williamson’s words, ‘a concern for a place in human memory has replaced […] the love theme that was central for Giraldi’.25 In her view, this central motif well serves the ends of the tragedy: ‘Whatever Cesari’s play suffers in prolixity and lack of variety, it is admirable in thematic unity and careful construction’ (1974, p. 88). As the focus of the play is on the conflict of the protagonists, subsidiary personages are chiefly seen in their relationship to them. Apart from child Cleopatra, there is another role created ex nihilo for the tragedy, that of Epaphroditus (Epafrodito) – Octavian’s mellifluous and deceiving liberto – but it is too short to allow a real development (only 80 lines in Act i).26 Among the secondary roles necessary to the dramatisation of the story are Charmion and Iras, probably because of their final tableau with the queen. This was generally deemed essential by Cleopatra playwrights, 24 The semi-chorus is composed by Roman soldiers. 25 Williamson 1974, p. 91. 26 According to ancient sources, he was the freedman that Octavian put to guard Cleopatra (Plut., Ant., 79.3). The libertus plays a significant part in the Aldini codex as well.

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with the significant exceptions of Giraldi and Daniel, who took away their speaking parts and gave their final words to the nuntius.27 In Italy, before Shakespeare, De Cesari, Pistorelli, and the anonymous author of the Aldini codex grant them some autonomous space.28 De Cesari in particular gives the two girls a dialogue, early in the second act: Eras, Cherimonia [Er.] Cherimonia sorella, a me sorella In vero amor, come conserva e uguale In fedel servitute a Cleopatra, A Cleopatra che in istesso grado Assai d’altri maggior ambe n’elesse, Com’ogn’altra in amarla doppo noi Di gran lunga lasciamo e ella ’l conosce, Come non sdegni confessarmi uguale A te in amar questa reina nostra, Or che con novi, dolorosi accenti Di suo novo dolor segno dimostri, Ch’ancor gionto non è a queste orecchie, Mi degnarai che venga teco a parte, Ond’al mio cor, a gli occhi miei non pari D’invidiar a’ tuoi pianti e sospiri. Ch’escano uguali a tuoi sospir e pianti, Come, in contento, ugual letitia in noi Ugualmente n’abbraccia e gli occhi e ’l core. Che. Eras, sorella mia, dunque esser puote ch’in mortal pensier mai possa cadere, non che sentir, un infelice affanno che sia maggior di quel che sente e prova la nostra afflitta e misera reina, dal dì che con lo stato lasciò insieme la cara libertà, noi la speranza? (ii.82-105) 27 In their place, Giraldi introduces in his cast role a ‘cameriera di Cleopatra’, not clearly identified. 28 In De Cesari’s play their names are Cherimonia and Eras; in Pistorelli’s play Charmio and Ira, and in the Aldini codex Carmio and Ecira.

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[(Er.) Cherimonia, my sister, my sister through our bound of love and as an equally faithful servant to Cleopatra as me. To Cleopatra who so much prefers us both to any other waiting woman, because all the others love her so much less than we do and she knows that, given that you do not disdain to admit we are equal in our love for the queen, you will give me leave to inform you, in a new, sad tale, of a new pain of hers you have not heard of yet, so that my heart and my eyes will not be under the impression that they have to envy your weeping and sighs. Let my weeping and sighs be equal to yours, just as, in happiness, our eyes and hearts are wrapped in the same bliss. Che. Eras, my sister, is it possible then that a mortal thought has or feels a sad pain that overcomes what our distressed and unhappy queen feels and experiments, since she lost both her state and her dear liberty, and we lost our hope?]

The passage, illustrating the close link between Cleopatra’s women, clearly shows a typical technique in neo-Senecan drama, where the emotional relationships among the characters are lyrically described, rather than inferred from the action, as happens in the Shakespearean play. Significantly, in these verses we find a repetition of key words and expressions pointing to the concept of union and similarity: ‘sorella’ (ll. 81, 100); ‘uguale’, ‘ugual’ (ll. 82, 89, 96, 97) ‘ugualmente’ (l. 98), ‘in istesso grado’ (l. 84). Dolabella merits further attention for largely similar reasons. His minor importance in Plutarch has been noted by Morrison, who points out that his role was increased by Giulio Landi in his Vita di Cleopatra, Reina d’Egitto.29 Plutarch’s laconic allusion to the man who informed Cleopatra of Octavian’s moves is turned by Landi into the portrait of a knightly aristocrat, whose relationship to the queen is not much different from that of a courtier to a gentlewoman.30 De Cesari presents him as an example of that nobility that springs from the soul rather than from ancestry.31 In his dialogue with the chorus (ii.189-251), Dolabella states that whoever does not pity those in a wretched state does not really deserve the name of human being, claiming that he is personally moved all the more by their destiny, because inside him there is ‘aggiunta a la natura 29 Morrison 1974, p. 119. 30 ‘La onde in tanto à suoi voleri acquistossello pronto, ch’ei non preteriva, per quanto poteva per lei adoperarsi, et farle tutti i servigi che da un sollicito & amorevole servidore, per una si carissima Padrona farsi conviene’ [‘So that she made him so attentive to her wishes that he did not draw back from what he could do for her and from serving her in every way as a solicitous and loving servant must do for such a dear mistress’] (43v-44r). 31 Morrison 1974, pp. 119, 124.

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umana / La natia nobiltà di sangue illustre’ [‘added to human nature, the innate nobility of illustrious blood’] (ii.194-195). The chorus, nonetheless, goes further in its answer, lauding ‘true’ nobility over the disdainful presumption of blue blood (ii.204-221). After the choral intervention, Dolabella warns Iras of Octavian’s intention to take Cleopatra captive to Rome and leaves, without even talking to the queen directly (ii.236-259). Other playwrights developed the character in their own way with slight variations. Morrison summarises the process: ‘In Montreux Dolabella is given a lengthy role of over 200 lines. He pleads for clemency for the Queen in Act ii and in Act iv he begs Octavian to allow her to die and rejoin Antony. He is not, however, given a scene with her, nor does he warn her. In Daniel’s play an interesting transformation has taken place. Dolabella has fallen in love with her.’32 The transformation, according to Joan Rees, ‘throws still more light on Cleopatra by illustrating the powerful effects of her beauty and her personality even at this time of disaster’ (1964, p. 55). Shakespeare then ‘shows Dolabella falling in love with her on the stage’.33 His Dolabella shares the infatuation of Daniel’s character and is a noble soul as well. De Cesari’s dialogues do not aim at any kind of realistic or conversational quality. As we have already seen, Senecan tragedies were characterised instead by extended, rhetorical speeches and soliloquies. As previous quotations have shown, De Cesari in particular showed a predilection for decorative virtuosity and complex syntactic structures, often verging on convulsion, which is seemingly in contrast with Giraldi’s concept of clear and pure tragic language. Probably, as Di Maria maintains, the host of literary allusions that characterises Italian Renaissance tragedies was part of an intellectual game between playwrights and public.34 What we do know is that De Cesari’s play speaks largely with the words of famous Italian poets, Petrarch above all.35 But there are also echoes of Dante (e.g. ‘camin di nostra vita’ [‘our path in life’] [iv.310]: Inf., i.1), Ariosto (‘piastra né maglia’ [‘armour nor chain-mail’] [i.542]: Orl. Fur., xxxv.60.7-8) and many others. Of course, the common tendency to draw imagery, words and even plot points from 32 Morrison 1974, p. 119. See also Bullough, p. 236. For Daniel, see iii.681-706, v.1242-1353 and below 5.3. See also Dryden’s Dolabella, for a comparison. Dolabella also appears in the anonymous Caesar’s Revenge. 33 Bullough (p. 236). See Shakespeare, Ant., v.2.63-109, 196-205. 34 Di Maria, pp. 45-46. For the modernising functions of the literary quotations, see also p. 203. 35 For some examples, see Mussini Sacchi 2005, pp. 216-219, 127-229. Metrically, De Cesari – besides the sciolti, at times intermingled with seven-syllable lines – only employs some canzoni and madrigals for his choric odes.

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the same literary tradition does not prevent each dramatist from having specificities of his own. In De Cesari’s Cleopatra, for instance, we find greater concessions to the conventions of a ghostly and lugubrious atmosphere. In Act ii, we learn – through the tale of Cleopatra’s faithful servant Iras – that the queen’s daughter has just met her father’s ghost: ‘Ohimè, ch’hor hora, in questo loco istesso, Vedut’ho un’ombra dolorosa e trista, Che di mio padre la dolente effiggie Mi portò a gli occhi.’ Il ramentarsi alora Del passato timor le accrebbe al core Lo spasmo, onde le fu tolta la voce; Pur, prendendo doppoi qualche conforto Da le parole mie, puotè finire, Come l’horribil ombra da la porta Poggiando al letto, ov’hebbero sovente Antonio e Cleopatra per la notte Riposo amato, si chinò tre volte, Indi abbracciando la corona posta Ivi d’alhor che Cleopatra mesta Se ne spogliò le ribuffate chiome, Sparve da gli occhi al fin de la figliuola, Con una voce lagrimosa e trista Che disse: ‘O Cleopatra, affretta ’l passo, Che d’aspettarti omai più non m’è dato.’ (ii.150-168) [‘Alas, now in this very place I’ve just seen a painful shadow, filled with grief and sadness, that brought my father’s afflicted image to my eyes.’ Remembering then past fear, the spasm grew in her heart so that she could not speak; still, finally taking some comfort from my words, she could end her tale of how the horrible shadow, moving from the door to the bed, where often Antonio and Cleopatra had loving rest, bent three times then, embracing the crown that sad Cleopatra had put there after taking it from her tangled hair, he finally disappeared from his daughter’s sight, saying in a voice filled with tears and sadness: ‘Oh Cleopatra hurry up, as now I can no longer wait for you.’]

Antony has become a ‘shadow’ (l. 151), a ‘horrible shadow’ (l. 158). He is both ‘afflicted’ (‘dolente’ l. 152) and ‘filled with grief and sadness’ (‘doloroso e triste’

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l. 151). His voice is ‘filled with tears and sadness’ too (l. 166). Faced with the apparition, the young Cleopatra is wide-eyed (‘Mi portò a gli occhi’ l. 153; ‘Sparve dagli occhi’ l. 165). She cannot even speak out of fear (ll. 154-155), merely listens. The triple iteration of an action (‘si chinò tre volte’ l. 161), as linked to the world of the dead, has classical origins and had already been imitated by Italian poets.36 Minor allusions to spectres and macabre images appear throughout the tragedy. In Act iv (iv.79-83) Cleopatra imagines the dead shadows of her and Antony wandering around their shared tomb. Later in the act, it is Antony’s distressed soul that hovers alone near his grave in the chorus’ fantasy (iv.275-278). In this Christian universe in pagan clothing, Antony is damned, so Charmion asks him either to avenge them from the Afterworld, or to pursue his rival with ‘orribil forma’ [‘horrible aspect’] (iv.323-328). Thematically, the play is also characterised by the place assigned to religion and by references to fundamental tenets of the Christian faith in general and the Catholic Reformation in particular. Both the chorus and Cleopatra’s waiting women often appeal to God. The choral odes of Acts i and ii (i.471-542, ii.383-438) articulate, through prayer, the belief that the troubles of Egypt are a consequence of human sin and are not imputable to God’s blind wrath. The Lord has decided they have to be redeemed from their faults through suffering: ‘Alto Signor del Ciel, poi ch’a te piacque / I nostri lunghi errori / Pagar col prezzo de cotanti affanni’ [‘Mighty Lord of the Sky, as you wanted us to pay for our lasting mistakes at the price of so much pain’] (i.471-473). Yet God – as is stated in Act ii – only punishes his creatures to lead them back to the right path, making them understand their mistakes (ii.393-409). What emerges is the notion that Divine Providence (explicitly quoted at ii.384) governs the world with justice. Fortune is simply an instrument of redistribution. Significantly, in her soliloquy on the ‘mutabil ruota’ [‘unstable wheel’] (ii.4) at the opening of the same act (ii.1-80), Charmion does not seem far from the interpretation of Thomas Aquinas (Contra Gentiles, iii.74.1, iii.74.6), later poetically developed by Dante (Inf., vii.67-96). In Act iv the maid explains to the child Cleopatra that she is not being unjustly punished for her parents’ faults. Heaven is never cruel. Even a baby just born would deserve God’s rage, because of humanity’s natural inclination to evil; Grace will be granted to her, however, and, eventually, she will be rewarded for her suffering (iv.25-46). Later in the act, the chorus 36 Homer, Odyssey, xi.206-207; Virgil, Aen., ii.792-794, vi.700-703, from which Dante, Purg., ii.80-81; Tasso, Ger. Lib., xiv.6.5-8.

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exhorts Cleopatra not to kill herself, arguing that her life is God’s gift and does not belong to her (iv.247-259). This conception, though partly derived from Cicero,37 is nonetheless the expression of a fundamentally CounterReformation ideology which considers damnation to be the natural consequence of suicide (iv.269-271). Even Octavian sees himself as an instrument of God’s justice (iii.322-323), while the women of Alexandria think that his insensitive attitude is a means of divine punishment for Egypt (iii.437-438). Throughout the play, the chorus, in its odes, never stops trusting God and asking for his mercy, so that Octavian’s final show of kindness towards the Egyptians could be read – and in fact has been read – as an answer to those prayers.38 Even so, the exodus (a quatrain with scheme abbA) seems to suggest that, after such a storm, hope is not easily recovered: Se il fiero nembo scaccia Fiammeggiante Sol, quando Sdruscito legno errando Va, non però nocchier leva la faccia. (v.308-311) [If the flaming Sun drives away the raincloud, when a ravaged sailing ship is wandering, not for this the helmsman raises his head.]

Yet – although surrounded by strong moralising personages – De Cesari’s female lead is not explicitly blamed; her responsibility is only suggested in general terms. As Bullough has underlined, ‘sympathy with the characters in their emotional predicaments prevails over moral judgement’.39 With her disdainful death and her sensual beauty, the great sovereign Cleopatra earns the audience’s admiration rather than arousing their compassion. Giraldi Cinthio’s Cleopatra, conditioned by the male-dominated world of the Este family at Ferrara, was above all a lady of the court. De Cesari’s protagonist seems to move within a wider sphere, and is, above all, a political leader for whom honour is everything. Although he was born in Naples, De Cesari belonged to the literary milieu of the Republic of Venice, whose political institutions were an anomaly within the heterogeneous state system of the Italian peninsula. In the second half of the sixteenth century, while ‘most states were firmly under princely control and all relied on support 37 De Rep., vi.15.15. See Watson 1960, p. 118. 38 Williamson 1974, pp. 87, 91-92. 39 Bullough, p. 227. See also Morrison 1974, p. 117.

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from greater European powers’ (Sampson 2006, p. 153), Venice (even if it was chiefly led by rational economic considerations in its alliances) was still a republic. As such, it feared the loss of its ‘freedom’ under the rule of one lord. From this point of view a common line exists between De Cesari’s and Pistorelli’s plays, as we shall see. 40 All in all, De Cesari’s tragedy portrays the clash of two tyrannical wills, dominated by pride and ambition. And if it favours the queen of Egypt, it is only because it sees in Cesare Augusto the embodiment of the rising tyranny of the regia potestas.

4.2

A ‘wise and savvy’ Queen41

Chronologically, the third Cleopatra play of the Italian Renaissance period is Don Celso Pistorelli’s Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra. The one and only edition of this tragedy was published in Verona in 1576 by Sebastiano e Giovanni delle Donne. There are no details of its staging. We have little information about Pistorelli’s life. He was born in Vicenza and, from the frontespizio of his play, we learn that he was ‘Canonico secolare della congregazione di San Giorgio d’Alega di Vinigia’ [‘General canon of the San Giorgio d’Alega’s congregation in Venice’]. In fact, he is cited as a canon by both Quadrio and Allacci in their catalogues. The secular congregation had been founded, at the turn of the fifteenth century, by some young Venetian patricians on the Island of San Giorgio in Alga, in the northern part of the Venetian lagoon. Angiolgabriello Di Santa Maria (Paolo Calvi) in his Biblioteca e storia di quegli scrittori così della città come del territorio di Vicenza (1772-1778) adds another detail, though indirectly, stating that, somewhere in his works, Celso Rosini defines Pistorelli as ‘Visitator Generale’ [‘General Visitor’] (v.p. cxxii).42 According to the Statuti of the congregation, no one could become a canon without being at least eighteen years old and having been approved and elected by its Capitolo after a trial period of a year. 43 Only those who had been ‘anni trenta in Congregazione e varcato il Generalato’ (8v) were eligible for the office of visitatore (corresponding to that of rector). Thus, if we are to rely on Calvi’s words, Pistorelli must 40 For the background of the Venetian part of the programme of libertas Italiae, see Baron, pp. 387-403; Benzoni and Zanato. For Venice in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in general, see Cozzi and Prodi; Tenenti and Tucci. 41 ‘prudente e saggia’ (Pistorelli, Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, i.215). 42 Rosini, Sacri Apostolici Ordinis. 43 INSTITUTIONES / CONGREGATIONIS / S. GEORGI IN ALGA / VENETIARUM / IN VENETIA, APRESSO GIORGIO ANGELIERI VICENTINO / MDLXXIII, 4v.

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have stayed in the congregation for some time. Recently I happened to discover a poem of his in a collection of verses for Pietro Donato, ‘cardinale di Cesis e legato di N.S. in Bologna’ [‘Cardinal of Cesis and legate of O.L. in Bologna’], printed in Padua, in 1581, from which it might be inferred he was still alive and maybe locally famous.44 Nothing is known of his cultural background. The congregation had a rich library, but extant inventories only list sacred works.45 Pistorelli’s official role within the social life of the Serenissima is enough to suggest his sympathy for the myth of the Venetian state as a nondespotic regime, ‘Specchio di libertà, madre di fede, / Albergo di giustizia e di quiete’ [‘Mirror of liberty, mother of faith / site of justice and peace’], in the lines of Gian Giorgio Trissino. 46 While, across much of the peninsula, scholars were reduced to the acquiescent role of secretario (secretary) to a lord (as was the case with Giraldi), Venice’s independence imposed no literary alignment. The Serenissima was considered the true heir to the Roman values which had been lost with the end of the republic, and Dolce associated the two cities in his encomium of Venice in his Didone (ii.2.448-463). But when the question shifted from the rise of Rome to its empire, Venetians invariably took the side of the enemies of ‘tyrannical oppression’. Pistorelli almost certainly felt much more involved in local politics than De Cesari was and we can detect some traces of this attitude in his Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra. In his prefatory letter to the play, ‘Al mio signor et reverendo canonico il R. Michel’Angelo Lisera, dignissimo rettor in S. Maria de Vancio di Padoa’ [‘To my lord and reverend canon the R. Michel’Angelo Lisera, most worthy rector in S. Maria de Vancio of Padua’], 47 the author lists the most esteemed tragedies of his day and creates what could be considered a sort of dramatic reference guide for the second phase of Italian Renaissance drama, when new, vernacular dramatists came to the forefront as models alongside Greek and Latin auctoritates: Dapoi ch’hebbi, Signor Rettor Reverendo, composto la presente tragedia dell’infelice f ine di Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, stavasi ella nascosta 44 Corone ET Altre Rime in tutte le lingue principali del Mondo. 45 Cenci, pp. 273-330 (282-284). 46 Gian Giorgio Trissino, L’Italia liberata da’ Goti, p. 150 (ix). 47 At the bottom of the Congregation Statutes printed in 1573, we find the names of Eleutherius Brixiensis and Michael Angelus as visitors. Michael Angelus is probably to be identified with the dedicatee of the play. The Church of Santa Maria in Avancio – originally a Benedectine priory – had been granted to the canons of San Giorgio in Alga in 1458, at the request of Domenico Antonio to Pope Pius V.

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nella camera sua […] conoscendosi priva et quasi del tutto ignuda di quel pregiato stile ch’a la tragedia suol dare grandezza e maestà […] del cui bello, alto e fecondo dire […] ripiene gir se ne vede altere tante altre illustrissime signore: Sofonisba, Rosmunda, Orbecche, Canace et le pompose e dotte figlie di quel mai sempre […] saggio et amorevole padre Miser Lodovico, di cognome Dolce e di diffinitione, in ogni suo detto e scritto (f.2). 48 [After this tragedy on Mark Antony and Cleopatra’s unhappy end was composed, Reverend Lord Rector, she remained concealed in her room (…) knowing she was lacking and almost completely destitute of that precious style that usually gives greatness and majesty to a tragedy (…) filled with such beautiful, high and eloquent words (…) we see so many other illustrious ladies around: Sofonisba, Rosmunda, Orbecche, Canace and the stately and learned daughters of that ever (…) sage and loving father Sir Lodovico, whose surname and definition, in each written and spoken word, is Dolce.]

Pistorelli’s most distinctive trait as a dramatist is precisely this tendency to bring together different sources and models. He draws something from all the texts he cites in his dedication. From Sophonisba, he took many structural elements and dramatic transitions; from Rosmunda and Orbecche the combining of sources and stories of various bloody atrocities; from Dolce’s oeuvre elements of both form and content; from each stylistic details, hemistichs and whole verses, so that, at times, his versi sciolti become a mass of quotations. The dramatic structure oscillates between Greek and Latin models. Pseudo-Aristotelian rules are obeyed and the whole action compressed within the limits of a single day. The five-act formula, which Giraldi surreptitiously attributed to Seneca (see above, 3.4), is conflated with the exuberant prominence of the chorus, similar to that found in Jodelle’s Cleôpatre captive.49 This sort of coro stabile, fixed chorus, which is often present on the stage, plays the part of a sympathetic interlocutor, whose interventions are by no means confined to the odes at the end of each act. Pistorelli’s work is altogether closer to Trissino’s than to Giraldi’s. We have 48 The whole letter insists on the excusatio propter infirmitatem, a topos both in the Italian and European Renaissance, and is very close to Giraldi’s dedicatory letter for the Orbecche (where we find the same fictio personae) and to the famous letter to Leo X, which was prefixed to the princeps of Trissino’s Sophonisba. See above 3.4. 49 For the chorus in Jodelle’s play, see Guihard.

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no separate prologue, no division of scenes, no deities and ghosts among the dramatis personae, no long ethical and philosophical monologues. The only real example of extended soliloquy, Antony’s, in Act i (27-177), is, in effect, an historical summary serving as exposition. All tragic events are related by a messenger. Nevertheless, it would not be correct to assume that Pistorelli simply amalgamated and imitated whatever came before him. His play has many original features and his Cleopatra in no way recalls her two antecedents in the Italian canon. In fact, it is difficult to understand why Herrick considered the tragedy ‘mostly a tedious repetition of Cinthio’s Cleopatra’ (p. 148). Giraldi’s queen was above all a frail but loving wife, De Cesari’s a lofty sovereign. Pistorelli’s is both: a woman in love, chiefly in the first part of the play, and a dignified politician in the second. Cinthio’s principal, as we have seen, has frailties and faults and finally repents of a wicked life. Pistorelli’s heroine, by contrast, is never weak, never mean, never cowardly. The only scene in which she appears as a spoiled and childish woman is a skilful deception aimed at the Roman conqueror (iv.516-544). The same could be said of the persona of Mark Antony, who, in his rare appearances, is an excellent yet unfortunate general. No trace is left of the ‘Inimitable Livers’ or the ‘Partners in Death’ (Plut., Ant., 28.2, 71.3),50 of the neglect of duty, looseness of morals and drunkenness. Both lovers are highly praised and condemned rarely. Giraldi’s Counter-Reformist apologue, filled with political and ethical considerations, is turned in Pistorelli’s hands into a tragic royal love story. This does not mean that public issues melt into the narrative background. Mark Antony and Cleopatra are above all political leaders, keenly aware of their status and the resulting duties. After the f irst scenes of Act iv, Cleopatra is wholly absorbed in her final confrontation with Octavian and utterances of love disappear. Pistorelli had a much greater interest in history than either Giraldi or De Cesari. The central importance of the Alexandrine war is demonstrated by the structure and presentation of the action itself. Act i introduces the principal characters and sets the general picture. Acts ii and iii are both dedicated to the fall of Alexandria. Antony and Cleopatra are rarely on stage, instead being the subject of narrative sections. In Act iv the attention again focuses on the pair. Antony mortally wounds himself offstage and his last words in Cleopatra’s arms are related by a messenger. Later the queen confronts her steward Seleucus and deceives Octavian. In Act v she takes her life and Antyllus and Caesarion are murdered, their 50 The translation is taken from Pelling’s note to Plutarch, Ant., 28.2.

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deaths being the ultimate result of the downfall of Egypt.51 The play has been considered an attempted ‘dramatisation of history’, a sort of history play, that ‘might well be entitled “The Siege of Alexandria”’.52 Its historicity is clearly confirmed both by the frequent insertion of reports and by the vast range of historical sources. Pistorelli tells the story of Troy (iii.333-369) and of Achilles, touching on Alexander (v.154-221), narrates the death of Pompeus (v.109-140) and recalls some anecdotes about Octavian (iii.161-192).53 He draws not only on Plutarch, Dio and Suetonius, but also on Florus, Appian and minor chronicles.54 Even more importantly, he tries to capture the right atmosphere in order to recreate the past, using classical and chivalric epics to supplement his story. Catalogues of armies and kings embellish his lines (ii.110-142).55 Two of his minor characters seem to come right out of a cantare. In the first act, a messo covered in blood pretends to be dead, in order to be spared by the enemies (i.254-268);56 in the second act, a nuntio feigns madness to avoid torture (ii.23-63).57 Aesopean fables are inserted into the narrative (iv.612-615; Aesop, Fabulae, 185), another distinctive feature of Romance epic.58 The formal debts to chivalric tradition are even clearer, as the play is punctuated by echoes of the Furioso. For instance, fragments from Ariosto’s poem – and in particular from cantos vii and xviii – are scattered throughout the five acts, as well as the formula ‘com’è in proverbio’ [‘as in the proverb’], introducing a proverbial statement into the tragedy.59

51 For an exhaustive resumé of the tragedy, see Williamson 1974, pp. 96-99. See also Bono, pp. 87-88, 90. 52 Williamson 1974, pp. 93-94. 53 He mistook Theodorus, preceptor of Antillo (maybe intentionally) for Theodotus of Chios, the sophist, a hired teacher of rhetoric, responsible for the death of Pompey. 54 There are signif icant coincidences between Pistorelli’s lines and the vulgar translation of Appian’s narrative (from the Latin of Pier Candido Decembrio) by Alessandro Bracco, first published in Rome in 1519. 55 The list comes from Plutarch 61 and suggests a direct relationship between Pistorelli’s play and Landi’s Vita (f. 30) as the spelling of the names of two of the kings mentioned, in both Pistorelli and Landi, differs from the traditional one. 56 The episode is in fact very close to a passage in an ancient cantare, the Inamoramento de Carlo Mano (1491), ix.56-63. 57 Maybe in this case the general idea was suggested by Suetonius (Aug., xix.2). 58 The very same fable can be read in the Libro della regina Ancroia (1479), xi.84-85. On Esope in chivalric poems and prose, see Villoresi. 59 Here is a partial list: i.257 Orl. Fur., vii.41.1; iv.602-603 Orl. Fur., vii.48.3-4; v.441 Orl.Fur., vii.57.2; iv.330 Orl. Fur., xviii.147.7-8; v.273 Orl. Fur., xviii.150.6; v.485 Orl. Fur., xviii.184.1-2. For the introducing expression, see below 6.6.

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Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra moreover gives room to a multiplicity of different voices, instead of centring on a few principal characters and themes.60 These multiple view points are Pistorelli’s way of negotiating a famous basic plot and of maintaining suspense.61 While Cleopatra’s and Antony’s deaths were well known, Antyllus’ and Caesarion’s were not, so that they could better arouse and keep the interest of the audience. Furthermore subsidiary roles created ex nihilo, through their fresh interpretations, threw a new and intriguing light on long-familiar events. A corollary to this multiplication of viewpoints is the clearly non-Roman perspective adopted by the Alexandrines in Pistorelli’s play, a symptom of an attention to historical realism not found in the works of his Italian predecessors, who were chiefly interested in moral apologues and in the clash of leading personalities. Pistorelli’s chorus unfailingly sides with Cleopatra, its savvy ruler: Nemen la bassa plebe Mormorò contro a lei, E ’l volgo sciocco tacque (Che dir si può miracol) tanto quella Fu saggia in governar questo almo Regno.  (v.554-558) [Not even the plebs begrudged her, and the foolish vulgar herd was silent (which could be called a miracle) so wisely did she rule in this noble kingdom.]

Cleopatra was traditionally considered the harlot queen who had unmanned a good Roman soldier. By contrast here – also thanks to her association with Dido – the judgement is reversed: it is Antony who has led the queen and Egypt to disaster, partly out of ambition, partly because of his unlucky daimon: Se la Regina nostra Non era si cocente Di costui qui presente, Romano, che per lei tutto si mostra Foco, sarebbe fuora Di tanto duol, che dentro ognor l’accora. 60 Williamson 1974, p. 94. 61 Williamson 1974, p. 93.

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Ma sempre seguitarlo Gli62 piacque, e ’l fe’ consorte (ahi, poverina) Col darsi in suo potere, Né può restar d’amarlo, Che fia la sua roina; Questi n’è in odio al ciel, ma che? Tacere Meglio fora, e volere Ciò ch’ella vuol e brama. (i.437-450)63 [If our queen was not burning so for this Roman here present, who is on fire for her, she would not be in such pain, that relentlessly causes grief to her internally. But she always wanted to follow him and to share his fate (oh, poor thing) putting herself in his power, nor she can help loving him, and that will be her ruin; he is hated by heaven, but what of it? We had better be silent, and wish for what she wants and wishes.]

The typical portrait of the lovers as found in both ancient and medieval sources, is confined to Octavian alone as his personal view (iv.594-610). In the choral picture of the last hours of Alexandria we might see a projection of the concerns of Venice about its survival as an independent republic. This framework may have helped Pistorelli to develop his particularly ‘modern’ awareness of the partiality of extant historical narratives, not to be found elsewhere. As a consequence, Octavian is much more of a villain here than in Giraldi’s and De Cesari’s plays. The killings of Caesarion and Antyllus make him appear particularly cruel and he is not even given the chance to exhibit his clementia in a conclusive speech. After the verbal report of the deaths of Cleopatra and the two boys, the tragedy closes abruptly, with a short exodus lamenting the frailty of the human condition (v.741-748).64 Pistorelli’s play is the first to have the names of both lovers in its title, rather than after Cleopatra’s alone. Also uncharacteristic is the fact that the 62 The use of the pronoun ‘gli’ instead of the modern ‘le’, for a female, derives from the Latin dative illi, which was used both for male and female. See Trovato 1994, p. 103. 63 The same attitude is shown by one of Cleopatra’s women, Charmion, in the Aldini codex (ii.134-143) yet there it is counterbalanced by the words of Iras (ii.144-155) and above all, by those of Antony’s captain, Canidius (i.126-140). 64 It is a madrigal (ab.aB.cc.DD). Pistorelli (as both Giraldi and De Cesari) follows the Greek practice of closing the tragedy with a last choral lyric. See Nicolò Rossi, ch. xiii (Trattati, IV, 110-111).

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opening sequence is left to Mark Antony and to his faithful servant Eros (Ero), a character who appears in neither Giraldi’s nor De Cesari’s plays. Although much less common than the exchange between the heroine and her confidant, the dialogue between the hero and a subsidiary male character, as an opening scene, was not unprecedented in classical tragedies and the image of the servo fedel was another literary cliché.65 One of the aims of the opening scene is specifically to sketch the figure of Eros, in order to heighten pathetically his later sacrifice (iv.87-237), the same technique also employed by Shakespeare.66 The queen only makes her entrance at i.316, after three scenes (Antony and Eros; chorus and Nurse; messenger and chorus). Despite all this, the male protagonist only plays a marginal role and, after his first appearance, briefly reappears on the scene in Act ii and later only lives on in the messenger’s words. Another function of the opening scene is to introduce the first of the two prophetic dreams of the play, that of Antony’s. Prophetic dreams belonged to the tradition of classical drama (see, for instance, Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris first parodos, 148-151), were recovered by Italian Renaissance dramatists, starting with Trissino’s Sophonisba (101-117), and had an important role within neo-Senecan plays. They prefigured the development of the plot and, as Tasso observed, contained in Aristotelian terms both nodo (complication) and scioglimento (denouement).67 Predictably, this dream comes at dawn, when, according to tradition – in Dante’s words – ‘del ver si sogna’ [‘we dream […] of what is true’] (Inf., xxvi.7):68 Ma più mi dà timor il gran spavento Ch’hebbi nel letto e lì vicino a l’alba, Ch’era stanco dal sonno e chiusi gli occhi 65 For the ‘male’ opening, see Sophocles, Electra; Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis; Seneca, Thyestes. Pistorelli, however, was probably inspired by the opening of Dolce’s Ifigenia, which has other analogies with this scene. For the faithful servant, see Ariosto, Orl. Fur., xxvii.36.1-2; Giraldi, Orbecche, iii.2.1150; De Cesari, Cleopatra, v.48 and v.95-97. See also here i.24. The topos was so well known that in Cymbeline, Imogen, disguised as a boy servant, gives herself the name of Fidele (iv.3.381). 66 Ant., iii.5, iii.11, iv.4, iv.5, iv.7, iv.14. Pistorelli’s opening dialogue sounds strange, as the two men already know what has happened, but for this theatrical convention, see above 3.4. 67 ‘La Sophonisba’ di GianGiorgio Trissino con note di Torqto Tasso, 5v, quoted in Teatro del Cinquecento, I, pp. 43-44, note to ll. 101-117. For the English rendering of the terms, see Aristotle, Poetics, xviii.1. 68 The English translation is that of Kirkpatrick. The trust in dreams at dawn was already present in the first parody of Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris (148-152). See also Ovid, Her., xix.195-196; Dolce, Le Troiane, i.247-250.

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E mi pareva, a la Regina in grembo, Con essa far una ghirlanda bella Di fior contesta e mentre in man la prendo, Per adornargli ’l crin,69 ratto ella70 spiega Il giro suo e convertisi in Angue71 Che ’l braccio m’anellò con la sua coda E la lingua vibrò nel petto a lei, Ch’impaurita abbracciòmi, e un servo corse (Ch’al suo gridar s’era già mosso) et egli, Credendo di tagliar la schin’72 al serpe, Con quella ’l braccio mi troncò dal busto, E tutti duo cademo immantinente, E nel cader mi risvegliai pensoso Che ’l fatto fosse ver come fu in sogno; Così di questo sogno amaro et aspro73 N’aspetto74 acerbo effetto, anzi mortale. (i.143-161) [Yet what frightens me most is the great fear I felt in bed, close to dawn, when, tired and sleepy, I closed my eyes. It seems to me I had my queen in my arms and together with her, I made a beautiful flower-woven garland and just when I was taking it in my hand to dress her hair, suddenly it unfolds its loop and turns into a serpent, which coiled around my arm with his tail and stroked her breast with his tongue. She put her arms around me, in fear, and a servant arrived in a hurry (he had moved as soon as he heard her cry). He, believing he was cutting the snake, chopped off my arm from my torso, and we both immediately fell, and while I was falling, I woke up, wondering if that was going to happen for real, as it was in the dream; thus from this bitter and harsh dream, I expect a painful result, deadly, in fact.]

Williamson partly misunderstood this rather complicated and obscure passage. According to her, in Antony’s dream Cleopatra turns into a snake which curls around him, and his servant wounds Antony, in attempting to 69 Pronominal enclisis. For the use of the pronoun ‘gli’, see above n. 62. 70 ‘Ella’ stands for ‘it’ and applies to the wreath. 71 Strong Latinism, from anguis. 72 ‘Schin’ is ‘schiena’ ‘back’, with monothongination of the diphthong ie. 73 Reduplication of the adjective. See Dolce, Ifigenia, ii.473; Le troiane, i.324. 74 Ne is pleonastic, as in Petrarch and Boccaccio; for its use, see Pietro Bembo, Prose, 3.2.

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kill the snake. ‘Clearly’, she adds, ‘the dream is Antony’s unflattering view of his relationship to Cleopatra, in which he feels victimized.’75 Instead, semantically and syntactically, it is the garland (maybe an allusion to a crown?), not Cleopatra, that turns into an asp. That the asp tries to bite the queen is a clear reference to her future death by poison, whereas Mark Antony’s loss of an arm indicates both his fall and his death by sword. Williamson’s incorrect interpretation, in its turn, affects her overall view of what she considers an original variation on the relationship between the two protagonists. Moving backwards, she maintains that in the ‘long narrative about his military career that begins the play, Antony mentions Cleopatra only as the cause of his flight and desertion of his forces at Actium’ while, in reality, he does not openly say a word against his paramour, a far cry from his accusations in Giraldi’s tragedy. What is more, Pistorelli – alone among the Renaissance dramatists who wrote about Cleopatra – seems to share modern scholars’ view of the battle, implying that the Eastern fleet’s chief goal was in fact to open a way to the sea: E fui sforzato (come sai tu ancora) Mal grado mio, a ritrovar il scampo – Seguendo la Reina, che spiegata Havea la vela di color vermiglio – Non vèr l’Italia, come era ’l disegno, Ma dritto l’Asia a più veloce corso. (i.115-120)76 [And I was forced (as you well know) against my will, to find a way of escape – following the queen who unfurled the purple sail – not towards Italy, as was planned, but straight to Asia, which was faster to reach.]

In addition, Cleopatra’s nightmare parallels and complements Antony’s. Shortly after her first appearance, she recounts it to the ‘donne prudenti e belle’ of the chorus:77 75 Williamson 1974, p. 95. This wrong reading is taken up by Hughes-Hallett, p. 191. 76 In Pistorelli’s version, Italy appears as the appointed destination of the couple, as in Boccaccio’s Amorosa visione. In Landi’s Vita, Cleopatra does not flee from the battle but suspecting treason, draws aside with 60 ships. Antony, misunderstanding her move, follows her, increasing her suspicions and thus triggering her flight (f. 31). In none of the later allusions to Actium, in Pistorelli’s play, is the defeat imputed to Cleopatra (ii.110-115, iii.161-166, iii.248-251, iii.308-314). 77 The members of the chorus are thus defined by the nurse, when first entering the scene (i.204).

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Cle. Ho fatto un sogno, ’l più maligno e tristo Che sognar possi mai Donna mortale, E ciò fu inanzi a l’apparir del giorno. Coro. Vostra mercé, deh fattil manifesto. Cle. Parvemi ch’un Leon feroce e crudo Il mio consorte e me seguisse a un tratto Entro d’una gran selva opaca e strana,78 Et era già vicin per divorarlo, Quando gittossi in un vicino speco, profondo a guisa d’un gran precipitio. E mentre egli ruggiva appò quel sasso, M’ascosi in loco ’u non potea vedermi, Ma non possendo più di là partirmi Senza mio gran periglio, i’ mi die’ morte Con il velen che questo annello chiude,79 E così mi destai con grande affanno. (i.352-367) [Cle. I had a dream, the most evil and wicked dream that a mortal woman could ever dream, and that was before dawn. Coro. Please, tell us what it was like. Cle. I thought that a fierce and cruel lion suddenly chased me and my husband through a dark and strange wood, and it was already close to devouring him when he threw himself into a nearby chasm, which was so deep it resembled a large cliff. And while it roared on that rock, I hid myself where it could not see me. But, as I could not move from there without serious danger, I killed myself with the poison enclosed in this ring and thus I woke up in great anguish.]

Once again the dream foreshadows Antony’s fall. Cleopatra, checkmated, kills herself with poison. Yet, while the first dream had a sort of Edenic setting, the second combines both theriomorphic and catamorphic elements. The lion – whether it is considered a symbol of pride (as in Dante’s Inferno, i), of strength, or simply of Octavian – stands not so much for devouring death as for an opponent, forcing the unfortunate couple to suicide. And 78 For the forest in a prophetic dream, see Trissino, Sophonisba, 103. For ‘selva strana’ [‘strange wood’], see, for instance, Boiardo, In. Orl., i.8.16.5-6; Ariosto, Orl. Fur., xviii.22.6. ‘Opaca’, in this case, is a variant of Dante’s ‘oscura’ [‘dark’] (Inf., i.2). 79 For the ancient use of carrying some poison inside a ring, see Plinius, Nat. Hist., xxxiii.25-26.

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just as Eros had tried to convince his master that a bad dream is only a bad dream, so now the chorus insists that giving importance to such kind of imaginings is foolish: Fu crudo certo e dispietato ’l sogno Che la bell’alma vostra afflige e preme. Ma non prendete duol, che ’l maggior uso Non cura, anzi dispreggia tutti i sogni. (i.368-371)80 [The dream that distresses and crushes your beautiful soul was certainly cruel and merciless. Yet do not grieve, and more generally pay no heed to dreams at all: better still despise them.]

Even if Pistorelli’s tragedy gives voice to many different characters, Cleopatra still dominates it. The dramatist tried to put his heroine in the best possible light. She is, all in all, a sage and virtuous creature, whose only fault is her faithfulness to an ill-fated husband.81 She does not even indirectly cause Antony to kill himself, by sending the false report of her death. Antony, of his own accord, after meeting Octavian’s ambassador, retires with Eros and asks him to run him through with his sword.82 Nonetheless, the softened portrait of Cleopatra has a certain historical coherence. Counter-Reformist tendencies do not permeate this play (as they did in Giraldi’s and De Cesari’s), but determine a priori its features. Both Giraldi and De Cesari deployed the great vices of their idealised heroines in order to introduce long philosophical debates and to turn their protagonists into didascalic examples, in the model of medieval moralising. Pistorelli denudes the tale of almost all inconvenient details, giving a central position to history instead of ethics. A strong religious feeling pervades the tragedy (though as usual in pagan dress), blurring the traditional borders of choral odes, as its protagonist, like 80 The contraposition between a divinatory interpretation of the dream – given by the protagonist – and a physiological one supported by the chorus or by an interlocutor and destined to be proved wrong – was popular within Italian Renaissance drama. See, for example, Trissino, Sophonisba, 124-129; Giraldi, Orbecche, v.2.2672-2674; Speroni, Canace, 460-462; Dolce, Le Troiane, i.262-277. 81 Landi supported the version of a marriage between the two lovers (Vita, 29v). 82 There are rumours of Cleopatra’s suicide, but they are not ascribed to the queen (iv.101-103). Landi maintains that Cleopatra pretended she was dead, but also talks of rumours going round the city (35v). See also Williamson 1974, p. 95. Giraldi’s Cleopatra is responsible for the news, and so are the protagonists of the French plays, from Jodelle to La Chapelle.

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Dido, is truly a pia regina. Cleopatra’s reaction to bad news and predictable disasters is invariably to turn to the altars and make offerings. Twice, in her despair, she prays to the gods for help and relief from her misery. Both unfavourable sacrifices – whose literary antecedent is not so much the Aeneid as Dolce’s Didone (1547) – are barred from the view of the audience, but the second one in particular is extensively reported by Ira.83 Here the queen, in her prayer to Juno, is made to display truly royal stature through the rhetoric Pistorelli uses. ‘Consorte al maggior Dio, pietosa Dea, Se mai pietà delle miserie humane Il cor ti punse e intenerì ’l tuo petto, Pietà ti mova la Città turbata E circondata da nemici fieri! Stendi la destra tua e ti sovenga Che questo popol tutto a te consacra Le vittime ben spesso, come a Diva Di sé particolar sola gradita. Così io medesmamente t’offerisco Cotesta oblation placabil hoggi In ricompensa delle tante offese Fatte contro di te, contro ’l primiero Nume sovran, marito tuo e fratello, Che ne l’accetti gratiosamente Con quello ancor (e gli miei prieghi appresso) Che suol da’ Greci ricever gli honori; E se pei molti miei delitti gravi Non voglii aita dar a questa terra, Fa’, Regina del Ciel, fa’ ch’io sia quella Che porti ’l mal e sovra me sol cada Il giusto e divin tuo sdegno e gastigo; Ma guarda la città, sendo innocente E a te divota; io sola fei gli errori. 83 See Dolce’s Didone, ed. by Tomassini. The turning of wine into blood (i.383) comes from Virgil, Aen., iv.453-455; Seneca, Thyestes, iv.700-701; Dolce, Thieste, iv.130-133; Didone, iii.1.740. The changing colours of the flame (i.387) are from Dolce, Didone, iii.1.758-763. The adverse omen of the entrails (ii.264-266) are from Virgil, Aen., iv.61; Dolce, Didone, iii.1.750-754. For the bad smelling of incense (ii.303-304), see Dolce, Didone, iii.1.755-757. A comparison with Giraldi’s Didone (1543) did not prove momentous. In Dolce’s play, there is an allusion to Cleopatra (iii.1.783-789). For this, see also Bono and Tessitore, p. 208.

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E se t’aggrada pur che l’hoste84 mio La noia e prenda, mandami sotterra, Priva costei85 de l’aura sua vitale, Non far che resti in man di gente cruda,86 E questi voti miei gradissi e prendi.’87 (ii.271-299) [‘Merciful goddess, wife to the greatest god, if ever piety for human miseries touched your heart and moved your breast, be moved by this troubled city, surrounded by fierce enemies! Stretch out your right hand and remember that all these people so often offer their victims to you, as to their only special, beloved deity. Thus I myself offer you this soothing oblation, to make up for the many offenses against you, against the one true sovereign god, your husband and brother, that he might accept them with favour, together with that which is usually honoured by the Greeks and with my prayers as well. And if because of my many serious crimes you do not want to help this land, make me, queen of heaven, make me the one who bears the evil and your proper and divine disdain, and may punishment fall upon me alone; but spare and preserve the city as it is innocent and a votary of you; I was the only one who made the mistakes. And if you are pleased that my foe torments and conquers it, send me underground, deprive this poor wretch of her living aura, do not let me fall into the hands of cruel people, and welcome and receive these vows of mine.’]

That Juno is considered the deity protective of Alexandria (see lines 277-279) is probably due to the association between Cleopatra, Dido and Carthage.88 Yet the goddess’ name is never mentioned: the queen invokes her through pious periphrases, liturgically befitting Virgin Mary (‘pietosa Dea’ l. 271, ‘Regina del Ciel’ l. 290).89 The whole passage conforms to the model of Christian prayers: Cleopatra begs Juno to put the city under her protection (‘stendi la destra tua’ l. 276) and to remember the devotion of 84 Strong Latinism. 85 Cleopatra herself. 86 Boiardo, In. Orl, ii.18.44.4; Ariosto, Orl. Fur., x.95.1. 87 Notice the latina costructio: the verbs are moved to the end of the line. ‘Gradissi’: regressive assimilation of c, preceded by s. 88 As Ferguson (p. 22) observes, the fact that Dido, in the Aeneid, builds a temple to a Roman goddess, rather than to a Semitic one, is part of Virgil’s domestication of her story. 89 Petrarch, RVF, 366.13, but the periphrasis has already been employed, for a pagan deity, by Italian dramatists; see, for instance, Trissino, Sophonisba, 825, 1599.

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the Alexandrines (‘ti sovvenga’ l. 276). She pleads for divine compassion in fervent words, reminiscent of both Dante and Virgil: ‘se mai pietà delle miserie humane / il cor ti punse e intenerì ’l tuo petto, / Pietà ti mova la città’ (ll. 272-274).90 Polyptoton, reductio and enjambements suggest intense emotional involvement: ‘pietosa […] / […] pietà delle miserie humane / il cor ti punse […] / Pietà’ Cleopatra’s prayer, despite its seeming plainness, possesses a well-balanced structure. The queen stresses a marked distinction between herself (‘io’ ll. 280, 290, 294) and her subjects (‘la città’ ll. 274, 293; ‘questo popol tutto’ l. 276; ‘questa terra’ l. 289), both at the mercy of a cruel enemy (‘nemici fieri’ l. 275; ‘gente cruda’ l. 298). She is guilty of many abominable crimes (l. 288). She and she alone deserves to be punished (ll. 290-294). Her inner turmoil disturbs the word order (synchisis) and ‘Il giusto sdegno tuo e divin gastigo’ turns into ‘Il giusto e divin tuo sdegno e gastigo’ (l. 292). Once again Virgil’s voice rings in her passionate utterances (‘sovra me sol’ l. 291; ‘io sola fei gli errori’ l. 294, see Nisus’ words: ‘mea fraus omnis’, Aen., ix.428). Juno’s just wrath may well fall on her, but (‘Ma’ l. 293) the Alexandrines are innocent and must be spared (ll. 294-295). The noble act of honestly taking the whole blame on oneself, recognising one’s faults and facing the consequences, is attributed by Plutarch to Antony, not to Cleopatra (see Ant., 44.3), but his Life was Antony’s biography. Italian Renaissance drama favoured female protagonists instead, dramatising their aspirations and passions.91 Pistorelli’s play, despite having the couple’s names as its title, is no exception. With this shift of focus from Antony to Cleopatra, it applied the ideal of magnanimity to a heroine without challenging the dominant patriarchal ideology of the time. Self-abnegation and acting as a scapegoat were generally considered forms of heroism befitting a woman, as they could be likened to the attitude of a loving mother, ready to die for her children’s sake.92 The anonymous playwright of the Aldini codex 392 independently made the same shift. His female protagonist blames herself and appeals to the gods to take her life, sparing both her subjects and her children [‘questi miei carissimi figlioli e questo mio popolo’ (‘these dearest children and these people of mine’) (ii.12-15)].93 In Pistorelli’s case, we might also suspect an intertextual dialogue with David’s words to God’s angel during the plague 90 Dante, Purg., vi.116-117; Virgil, Aen., iv.314-319. 91 Di Maria, pp. 101-125. The Italian preference for heroines might be also read as a concession to the taste of a largely female audience (Cox 2011, p. 121). 92 Purkiss, pp. xxx-xxxi; Lamb 1990; Raber 2001. Many examples of female self-abnegation can be found, for instance, in Book III of Castiglione’s Cortegiano. 93 The theme was a commonplace, in the Italian tragedy of the Renaissance. See, for example, Dolce, Marianna, iv.2833-2836.

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(Samuel 24.16-17). Notably, in Cleopatra’s prayer the same verb, fare, is used both to appeal to the divinity in the imperative form and with anaphora (‘Fa’ […] fa’’ l. 290)94 and to refer to the queen’s faults (‘tante offese / Fatte contro di te’ ll. 282-283; ‘io sola fei gli errori’ l. 294). Finally, in the negative, it introduces the ideal of an ‘honourable death’ (‘Non far che resti in man di gente cruda’ l. 298).95 Here the reiterated euphemistic allusions to death help to describe both Cleopatra’s desire to put an end to her life (reiteration) and her fear of dying (euphemisms): ‘mandami sotterra, / Priva costei de l’aura sua vitale’ (ll. 296-297). From a psychological point of view, Cleopatra’s choice to duplicate Antony’s decision in taking her life seems to respond to an impassioned expression of heroism rather than to emotional frustration. The stock controversy about suicide is the most extensive ethical discussion in the play (iv.239-338, v.1-102), but here – notwithstanding the presence of Christian overtones – there is no trace of De Cesari’s theological competence. The prototypes of Cleopatra’s open defence of self-determinism, apparent renunciation (v.92-97 and 389-395) and final self-violence, are largely classical.96 At most, her stance could be related to Stoicism and to Tertullian’s unconventional conception of martyrdom (see 2.1, 3.1). In the narration of her death, pathos mingles once again with dignified feelings. The queen recommends her children to the pity of the gods (v.405424) and says farewell to her nurse, in words very close to those of Trissino’s Sophonisba (v.440-475),97 then prepares to kill herself: Indi prese di novo quel canestro E sparse ’l letto d’or di quei bei fiori, E sopra vi sedète, e levò l’Aspe Il qual vibrava (sibilando in fretta) L’immonda lingua, spaventosa e cruda. Alhor voleva oviar pur tanto male, Ma le Donzelle mi cennaro irate Che star dovessi (ohimé!) mutola e queta.98 94 For the anaphora of ‘fa’, see Dolce, Didone, ii.1.389-393. 95 For the concept, see Watson 1960, pp. 115-116. 96 Seneca, Phedra, i.250-273; Hercules Oetaeus, iii.884-933, besides Rucellai, Rosmunda, 584-605; Dolce, Didone, iv.2.1611-1652. In pretending that she still wishes to live, she recalls Sophocles’ Ajax, 646-683, and, above all, Dido’s deceit of her sister, both in Virgil’s Aeneid (iv.474-503) and in Dolce’s Didone (iv.2.1635-1726). 97 Trissino, Sophonisba, 1604-1610, 1654-1655. 98 The subject is the nurse, here covering the role of the messenger.

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E tenendol in man coi lumi asciuti Disse (pregando la Triforme Dea):99 ‘Concedami, Proserpina cortese, […] Concedami benigna ch’io trappassi A l’altra riva della morta gente Invitta e francha, con prepetuo honore,’ E ’n questo dir a la mamella destra Poggiò la bocca di quel fiero serpe, Che horribilmente gli la strinse e rose Coi duri e acuti, velenati denti, E per l’anguineo spasmo cadde morta, Né so perché io vivesse in quell’istante. (v.476-501) [Then she once again took that basket and strewed her golden bed with those beautiful flowers and she sat upon it and lifted the asp, which flicked its dreadful, cruel, foul tongue, quickly hissing. At this point I nonetheless wanted to remedy such an evil, but the enraged maids signalled that I should remain, oh my, dumb and still. And keeping it in her hand with dry eyes, she said, praying to the triform goddess: ‘Please let me, gentle Proserpine (…) please let me benevolently pass to the other side of the dead, unconquered and free, with perpetual honour.’ And thus saying, she put the mouth of that fierce snake to her right breast and it horribly clenched it and bit with its hard and pointed poisoned teeth, and the spasm caused by the serpent made her drop dead, nor do I know why I lived on, in that moment.]

According to Plutarch (Ant., 85.1-2, 86.1), the servant brought to her chamber a box of figs. The basket of flowers comes from Dio’s narrative (li.14.1) and finds a dramatic antecedent, as a stage property, in Speroni’s Canace (992-994). Pistorelli’s asp is not a baby, to be nursed to sleep like Shakespeare’s (see below 6.5), but a tiny, cruel monster, a minister of death. At all events, Cleopatra puts it to her breasts, a non-Plutarchian image with a long tradition, as we have remarked, passing from Ponnanus to Fulgentius, from Boccaccio to Luca Pulci and chivalric romance, and arriving at Shakespeare (v.2.303-309). Yet the main lines of Cleopatra’s grand scene are the same 99 Dolce, Didone, iv.2.1566-1568. Proserpina was traditionally invoked, when passing away. See, for instance, Trissino, Sophonisba, 1667-1669.

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ones we find in ancient sources and Charmion’s last act find a place here as in many other Cleopatra plays.100 As already mentioned, however, Pistorelli also introduced into the tragedy minor historical events, such as the deaths of Antyllus and Caesarion. Apart from the Italian playwright, Daniel is the only one to give space to Antony’s son (by Fulvia) and to Cleopatra’s son (by Julius Caesar). Yet in Daniel, only Caesarion has an important role, thanks to his preceptor Rodon’s extensive account (iv.835-1053) of Cleopatra’s speech, when parting from him, and of his final utterances, full of moral meditations, culminating in a prophecy we have already discussed (see 1.2). The passage, which is part of the dialogue between Rodon and the treasurer Seleucus (for whose betrayal, see below) is impressive in its attempt to present a verbal report of the victims’ deeds through the mouths of the traitors who plotted against them (and who are perfectly aware of the sad reward they are going to receive for their disloyalty) but all emphasis is on the queen’s motherly love and Caesario’s brave and bitter reflections (see 5.3). Pistorelli, for his part, does not miss the pathetic opportunity to commemorate the deaths of two innocent boys, thus paying homage to a ‘bel morir’ tradition with a long theatrical history, from Euripides (Hecuba, The Trojan Women, Heracleidae, Iphigenia in Tauris) to Giraldi (Orbecche) and to Dolce himself (Marianna, Troiane). At the same time, the grisly accounts of the assassinations (although there is no violent action on stage) are perfectly in line with Senecan tragedy. Compared to Giraldi’s and De Cesari’s plays, Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra marks a further step in this direction. The prototypes of the scene of both deaths are Seneca’s Thiestes, Dolce’s reworking of the Latin tragedy, and his Marianna. Occasional elements come from the killing of Polyssena in Dolce’s Hecuba (iii.182-190).101 The horrific, violent atmosphere culminates as follows: Pag.102 Anzi, quel serpe103 gli piantò difatto Nel tenerello sen tutto ’l pugnale, 100 Giraldi, Cleopatra, v.6.242-252; De Cesari, Cleopatra, v.206-225; Aldini codex 392, v.350-353 Jodelle, Cleopatre captive, v.1551-1554; Daniel, The Tragedie of Cleopatra, v.2.1639-1643. 101 Bono (p. 90 n. 18) asserts that the ‘death scenes of Antillo and Cesarione are badly garbled in the printed text’. Antillo’s words, addressed to the statue of Julius Caesar, would be Cesarione’s while Cesarione’s speech should be assigned to Antillo. A reading of the passages shows that she is mistaken (for Antillo, see v.631-639; for Cesarione v.720-724). In particular, Antyllus’ death in front of Caesar’s image comes from Suetonius (Aug., xvii.5). 102 The episode is related by a paggio (a pageboy). 103 The man whom Octavian asked to kill the boy.

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Che della schiena uscì più d’un gran palmo, E ’l miserel cascò supin rigando Di fervido licor la terra asciuta, E le sue guancie di vermiglie rose  Ne cangiò in freda Neve e puro avorio.  (Death of Antillo, v.649-55) E come disse ciò l’infame spada Alzò quel traditor crudo e maligno, E in un sol colpo gli partì la testa Dagli homeri, la qual gridò tre volte:  ‘Moro innocente senza alcun peccato.’  (Death of Cesarione, v.731-735) [Pag. On the contrary, that snake thrust the whole knife into his tender breast, so that over a hand’s span stuck out of his back and the poor boy fell on his back, dripping burning liquid onto the dry earth and his rose-red cheeks were changed to snow and pure ivory. (Death of Antillo) And having just said that, the cruel and evil traitor raised his infamous sword, and with one blow chopped off his head from his shoulders, and it cried three times: ‘Innocent I die, without any sin.’ (Death of Cesarione)]

Both Cesarione and Antillo are introduced to the audience long before their grisly murders, for melodramatic purposes. Cesarione plays a small but moving part, presenting himself to his ‘brother’ and pleading for his mother’s safety (v.224-271). His noble conduct impresses Octavian, but Arrius (Arrio) – the Egyptian philosopher who entered Alexandria with him – convinces him to get rid of the child (v.272-300).104 Antillo then is a central character in the play, with a role of 157 lines spanning two acts. His function is to offer a different opinion on the war; as an inexperienced, courageous adolescent, who is against surrender and retreat, trying to induce everyone to react and rise above misfortune.105 104 Pistorelli’s Arrius is an evil counsellor, whose part in suggesting the killing of Caesarion and Antyllus is much amplified from the single line he had in Plutarch’s narrative (Ant., 81.2). In Montreaux’s play he suggests the killing of Cleopatra (ii.1-363). For his figure in Daniel, see below 5.3. 105 Williamson 1974, p. 94.

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As we have seen in his captatio benevolentiae, within the prefatory letter, Pistorelli claims that his tragedy does not feature the elevated style of its predecessors. In fact, elaborate or rhetorical language is rarely used in his verses and decorative figures of speech are far less frequent than in Giraldi’s and De Cesari’s lines. A distinctive characteristic of his style is quick-paced scenes with single lines or half-lines given to each speaker, the so-called stichomythia, a Senecan device absent in Giraldi’s play and only once used by De Cesari (iii.277-286).106 In Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra there is no trace of Trissino’s polymetry. All choric odes are canzoni, with the exception of the concluding madrigal. Apart from these, there are only an attempted madrigal (i.316-324), a madrigale cinquecentesco (i.401-411) and a sort of ballata minore (i.412-420). Following Trissino’s example, when emotions are aroused, Pistorelli breaks the plain flow of versi sciolti with the insertion of settenari, but he rarely creates recognizable metrical schemes. In the exchanges, eleven-and seven-syllable lines intertwine, with occasional rhymes as a means of supplementary punctuation, while soliloquies and dramatic narratives gain a more natural rhythm from the sole use of the sciolti. Pistorelli draws heavily on literary tradition in general (primarily Petrarch) as well as on contemporary playwrights. Here is the congedo from the choral song closing the second act: Donne, vestiànsi a nero, E poi d’oscuro vel copriàn le tempie Tutte, dapoi che s’empie Di doloroso et infelice Nembo  Il sconsolato nostro e mesto grembo.  (ii.427-431)107 [Women, let us dress in black, and then let us all cover our temples with a dark veil, as our disconsolate and mournful lap is filling with a painful and sad cloud.]

In these few lines we find a web of verbal and conceptual echoes, both from contemporary and classical texts. The motif of dressing in black is 106 A good example of this kind of exchanges, in the play, is the dialogue between Octavian’s ambassador and the chorus, debating about justice and obedience (ii.344-367). 107 The song has the following metrical scheme: aBc.bac.DD.EE.xYyZZ. This non-Petrarchan irregularity of the congedo were condemned by Trissino’s Poetica 4 (see Trattati, I, 143-144).

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carried over from Euripides’ Alcestis (215-217) and had already been revived by contemporary theatre, for example, in Trissino’s Sophonisba (2045). The nembo:grembo rhyme is Petrarchan and frames the rain of flowers in the celebrated canzone 126 (42-45): ‘da’ bei rami scendea / dolce ne la memoria / una pioggia di fior’ sovra ’l suo grembo; / et ella si sedea / humile in tanta gloria, / coverta già de l’amoroso nembo’ [‘down from the boughs / (so sweet but to recall) / flowers in drifts fell upon her lap; / and she sat humbly / in her majesty, / already covered in a loving cloud’]. Here the lap is not amorous but mournful, the cloud thickening for the women of Alexandria not light but dark and reflective of their mourning. Through the ambiguity of the Italian ‘grembo’, meaning both ‘lap’ and ‘womb’, the image is suggestive of the obscure impression that something horrible is being unintentionally nurtured and will soon be born. The interest of Pistorelli’s work lies above all in its unprecedented adaptation of the Cleopatra theme for theatrical performance. His version of the Seleucus episode is a straightforward example of how he worked and shows how different tragedians could make the same tale their own. Jodelle, Pistorelli, Daniel and Shakespeare included the anecdote in their plays, taking it from Plutarch 83.5-7, the only historical account to relate it.108 The central section, in which Cleopatra defends herself from the charges of her treasurer – apart from the differences in tone – is largely similar in every tragedy, as if it were simply translated and amplified from the source. A comparison of the four passages demonstrates this: Mais quoy, mais quoy Mon Empereur, est-il un tel esmoy Au monde encor que ce paillard me donne?] Sa lácheté ton esprit mesme estonne,] Comme je croy, quand moy Roine d’ici, De mon vassal suis accusee ainsi, Que toy, Cesar, as daigné visiter, Et par ta voix à repos inciter.

Di chi si può fidar sotto le stelle? Signor, non vi sia noia l’ascoltarmi, Quantunque ben dirò delle mie pene] Che forse offenderan la vostra altezza.] Quelle nascoste gioie che nomare Non ho voluto (come dice questo Ingratissimo più d’ogn’om che vive) Son certe cosarelle solamente

108 Dio, li.13.3, simply states that Cleopatra spontaneously gave Octavian some ornaments she has kept for herself, hoping he would trust her and think she wished to live. We find the story in Landi’s Vita as well (f. 43). Note that Luca Pulci’s epistole xviii opens with a reference to Seleucus. Pulci pretends that only in this last letter did Cleopatra explain the reason why some jewels were kept back.

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Hé si j’avois retenu des joyaux, Et quelque part de mes habits royaux,] L’auroy-je fait pour moy las malhereuse!] Moy, qui de moy ne suis plus curieuse?] Mais telle estoit ceste esperance mienne,] Qu’à ta Livie et ton Octavienne De ces joyaux le present je feroy, Et leur pitiez ainsi pourchasseroy, Pour (n’estans point de mes presens ingrates)] Envers Cesar estre mes advocates. (Jodelle, Cleopatre captive, iii.1091-1108)109

In preggio e grate a donne, e queste serbo] Per placar, quando i’ fia condotta in Roma] (Che gli son per andar serva e captiva)]110 L’alta sirochia 111 vostra Ottavia e Livia,] A voi Signor, dignissima mogliera,] Da me cotanto offese, nel consorte La prima e nel cognato la seconda, A fin ancor che per il favor loro A beneficio mio l’ira s’acquieti, Che giusto sdegno112 ha desta in l’alma vostra] Contro questa di voi humil ancella.] Elle saran come mediatori Tra l’offeso signor e l’offensore,113 E placherangli in qualche parte ’l sdegno.] (Pistorelli, iv.520-541)114

109 ‘But what? But what? Is there still a worry in the world this wicked man can cause me? I should think so, when I am accused by my own subject, being the queen here. I whom you, Caesar, were so kind as to visit and personally exhort to calm. Would I conceal my jewels and a part of my royal arrays for myself, poor me, for myself, when I no longer care of what is of me? This was my hope instead: that I could give those jewels either to your Livie or your Octavia as a gift, and thus obtain their pity, so that they could act as my defenders with you.’ 110 Periphrastic construction. For the dittology ‘serva e captiva’, see Dolce, Hecuba, i.105. 111 From the Latin ‘sororcula’, diminutive for ‘soror’, sister. 112 Cliché, see, for example, Pulci, Morg., xxi.147.5. 113 Etymologic figure and polyptoton. Mark how the whole passage rings with indignation (‘offenderan’ l. 523; ‘offese’ l. 533; ‘ira’ l. 536; ‘giusto sdegno’ l. 537; ‘offeso – offensore’ l. 540; ‘sdegno’ l. 541. 114 ‘Whom can we trust under the stars? My Lord, please do not be bored by my tale, even if I will be talking of my pains, maybe offending your highness. Those hidden jewels that I did not want to list – as this man says, the most ungrateful human being that ever lived – are some trifles that only women appreciate and like, and I put them aside to appease, once I am taken to Rome, your noble sister Ottavia and Livia, your most praiseworthy wife, whom I deeply offended, the former because of her husband, the latter of her brother-in-law, hoping as well that through

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Ah Caesar, what a great indignitie Is this, that heere my vassale subiect stands,] T’accuse mee to my Lord of trechery? If I reserv’d some certaine womens toyes,] Alas it was not for my selfe (God knowes),] Poore miserable soule, that little ioyes] In trifling ornaments, in outward showes.] But what I kept, I kept to make my way] Unto thy Livia, and Octavias grace. That thereby in compassion mooved, they] Might mediat thy favour in my case. (Daniel, iii.2.660-670)

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O Caesar, what a wounding shame is this,] That thou vouchsafing here to visit me,] Doing the honour of thy lordliness To one so meek, that mine own servant should] Parcel the sum of my disgraces by] Additon of his envy! Say, good Caesar,] That I some lady trifles have reserved,] Immoment toys, things of such dignity] As we greet modern friends withal, and say] Some nobler token I have kept apart] For Livia and Octavia, to induce Their mediation, must I be unfolded With one that I have bred? The gods! It smites me] Beneath the fall I have. (Shakespeare, v.2.158-171)

However, the treatment of the episode as a whole is very different in the four plays. Daniel’s and Shakespeare’s scenes are shorter (respectively, 29 and 52 lines), the latter being, as usual, more lively (Seleucus has three interventions as against only one in Daniel’s version) and colloquial. Daniel, for his part, as Joan Rees underlines (1964, p. 52), ‘tones down the violence and preserves more dignity’. In both the queen herself introduces the theme and produces an inventory of her treasure. In both, after Cleopatra’s fit of rage, Octavian makes light of the incident and kindly invites his royal prisoner to hope for the future. Nevertheless, while Daniel’s heroine makes no comment, Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, immediately after the meeting, their favour the anger caused by rightful indignaton in your soul against this humble servant of yours might be subduded to my advantage. They will act as mediators between the offended lord and the offender, and partly soothe his rage.’

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remarks: ‘He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not / Be noble to myself’ (v.2.190-191). Jodelle’s version, in keeping with its tendency to lyricism and psychological investigation, has a long coda.115 A swift dialogue between Seleucus and the chorus, who rebukes him for his betrayal, is followed by a soliloquy in which the steward repents his ill-treatment of his lady and feels guilty for it (iii.1132-1144). The chorus takes up the theme in its ode (iii.1201-1208), and the closing words of the act, condemning Fortune, are Seleucus’ (ll. 1225-1226).116 Pistorelli’s reading of this section is once again unique. To begin with, in his play, Octavian betrays his greed, by being the first to ask about the treasure (iv.428-430).117 Secondly, the Italian dramatist is the only one to substitute Cleopatra’s handing of the note to the victor with a long, piece by piece description of the valuables. She copiously describes sceptres, swords, statues of gold and silver, necklaces adorned with jewels and pearls, garments, veils, crowns, rings, precious candlesticks, tables, sideboards, vases, basins, cups and breastplates (iv.442-515). Judged by modern standards the catalogue may seem verbose, but it responded to a contemporary vogue for the enumeration of fabulous riches in chivalric poems, a genre of some importance, as we have seen, in the tragedy.118 The epic flavour is reinforced by the insertion of fragments from the Aeneid, and specifically from the description of Aeneas’ gifts to Dido in Book i (647-655). But there is more. Obeying his propensity to include ancillary incidents, Pistorelli gives Seleucus a past and Cleopatra, while lamenting his treachery, tells the story of his life from childhood. He was a poor foundling and Cleopatra’s father took him into his court and raised him like a son. Once he was grown, Seleucus was appointed treasurer by the king, who always favoured him. After the death of her father, Cleopatra continued to treat him like a brother, and yet this is how he repays her (iv.545-571). The variation is noteworthy, even if the tale has much in common with Oronte’s biography, in Giraldi’s Orbecche (iii.1325-1345) and with Brandimarte’s in Boiardo’s Inamoramento de Orlando (i.21.45-46).119 Note also that here Octavian’s speech to Cleopatra, though it ends on a reassuring note, is hard hearted (iv.589-622). The comparative analysis above highlights Pistorelli’s particular technique of amplification. He created one-sided protagonists, ignoring 115 For Jodelle’s style, see below 5.1. 116 The motif of repentance is also developed by Daniel, but in the Rodon-Seleucus scene (see above). 117 The detail is absent in Plutarch’s biography, but not in Landi’s Vita (43r). 118 See, for instance, Boiardo, In. Orl., ii.1.21; Pulci, Morg., xii.42.3; Ariosto, Orl. Fur., xxxiv.49.1-2; lxiii.133.5-8. 119 The life of Posthumus, in Cymbeline, is yet another variation on the theme (i.1.40-54).

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their moral faults, but added all possible incidents – even trifling, fictional ones – to expand the range of the action. His treatment of the story is not mono-thematic, as it was in Giraldi’s and De Cesari’s plays, but as varied as possible within the rules of neoclassical tragedy.

4.3

The ‘greatest and most beautiful queen in the world’120

The most unexpected of the Italian Cleopatra plays is the anonymous Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio, which has come down to us in a manuscript, the Aldini codex 392, now preserved at the Biblioteca Universitaria of Pavia, Italy.121 Once again, the tragedy is named after the pair of lovers, like Pistorelli’s, but the order has been reversed, and the queen occupies the first position as its rightful protagonist. The manuscript is a paper quarto, bound in vellum, undated and unnumbered, consisting of 53 leaves.122 Although in good condition it has no marks of ownership, no colophon, nor any other data which could be useful in establishing its origins or date of composition.123 Nonetheless, the play can certainly be ascribed, from a linguistic perspective, to northern Italy in the late Renaissance period.124 It interweaves the main traits of Senecan drama with some characteristics of its own, thus producing something quite unusual in the general picture of Italian Renaissance tragedies. The first and most important novelty is the work’s formal structure. Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio is a prosimetron: exchanges, dramatic narratives 120 La ‘maggior e […] più bella reina del mondo’, Aldini codex 392, ii.35. 121 De Marchi and Bertolani, p. 222 n. 392. The tragedy has been edited by Elisabetta Rossi, without commentary or notes but with an introduction. Quotations are taken from it. I have added a progressive numbering for the prose, for clarity’s sake. The text is on the public domain, at the Biblioteca Italiana (http://www.bibliotecaitaliana.it). 122 Ff. 1v, 5v, 52v, 53 are blank and the codex is divided into four fascicles (ff. 1-16, 17-32, 33-48, 49-53). Two flyleaves at the beginning and three at the end (one of which replaces the last folio of the fourth fascicle) have been added within the modern binding. Within the codex two hands can be distinguished: the f irst transcribes the text, the second, more recent, adds marginal notations of a purely theatrical nature concerning the staging of the play. For further details, see Rossi 1998, pp. 103-104. 123 The manuscript has two different watermarks: the angel of the Annunciation, inscribed in a circle, surmounted by a tri-lobed flower and a mountain. The image of the angel was used both in Italy and France (and from the start of the sixteenth century in Germany, too) and ‘le type le plus ancien est de 1331’ (Briquet, I, p. 44). The image of the mountain (Briquet, III, pp. 588 and 590) is no more telling, as it was widely spread, both geographically and chronologically. See Rossi 1998, p. 103. 124 Rossi 1998, pp. 105-106.

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and monologues are in prose. There are an opening and a closing sonnet, a prologue (spoken by Mercury) and an Argument (spoken by the ghost of Cicero) in unrhymed hendecasyllabic verses. Each act is concluded with a soliloquy in sciolti – broken by some occasional rhymes and assonances – spoken by an ancient godhead, who mostly comments on the story. The list of deities is as follows: Hercules (Act i); Bacchus (Act ii); Mars (Act iii); Iris (Act iv); Fortune (Act v). The act is then closed by a short rhymed choral ode, not corresponding to any precise metrical scheme but made up of rhymed couplets. In addition, in Act v a priest intones a dirge over Antony’s bones and four priests sing an octave. All versified sections are clearly meant to be sung. Prose was generally condemned by Italian theoreticians and playwrights as unsuitable for tragedies.125 In his theoretical works, Giraldi Cinthio discusses the question more than once, each time using Aristotle’s authority as a starting point.126 In the Discorso over Lettera, for instance, he argues that – according to the Poetics – verse is an essential part of both tragedies and comedies and cannot be excluded. Prose drama existed in ancient Greece only because, in the beginning, they did not know how to do better (pp. 174-175). Castelvetro, in his turn, specifically censures the mixing of prose and verse, ‘sia per l’autorità d’Aristotele, che non pare in ciò commendare la novità e la singolarità, sia perché è più tosto mostro che parto perfetto d’umano ingegno il mescolamento del verso e della prosa’ [‘both because of the authority of Aristotle, who does not appear to praise this novelty and peculiarity, and because a mixture of verse and prose is a monster rather than a perfect child of the human mind’] (Poetica d’Aristotele, I, p. 35).127 Although prose examples in the genre were intermittently attempted throughout the Italian Renaissance, they were overshadowed by verse tragedies (1.4).128 The use of prose was more easily allowed in comedies. As has been convincingly noted, the version of the Mandragola composed by Machiavelli for the Faenza carnival of 1526 is one of the closest examples we have of a theatrical spectacle in the form of a prosimetron.129 The formal 125 For the link between tragedy and verse, see Steiner, pp. 238-283. 126 Discorso over lettera, pp. 174-175; Lettera sulla tragedia, pp. 472-474; Giudizio, pp. 136-137. 127 See Rossi 1998, p. 112. 128 Neri, pp. 126-135; Rossi 1998, pp. 111-112. 129 Rossi 1998, pp. 112-113. As she underlines, Ariosto composed both the Cassaria (1508) and the Suppositi (1509) in prose, but later rewrote both plays in eleven-syllable lines (p. 112 n. 49). In his Lettera sulla tragedia, Giraldi cites Ariosto’s case, as a clear proof that he thought prose insufficient to the purpose (p. 473).

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aff inity with comedy is no coincidence. As Rossi highlights, the play seems to have some kind of happy ending with a reconciliation: Octavian (Ottavio), in the end, repents of his rough behaviour towards the queen, forgives Cleopatra’s doctor, Olympus (Olimpio), who gave her the asp, and appoints him guardian to her children. He even promises to grant Cleopatra’s daughter a crown.130 But there is more. In the play, there is a propensity to appease violence and rage. Octavian tells Antony that he is ready to spare him, if only he surrenders and appeals to his mercy and, in his final speech, he specifies that he had planned to send Cleopatra back to enjoy her reign after the triumph. Light touches and even slightly comic elements are introduced. The musical and danced sections between the acts (there is a Moorish dance at the end of Act iv) are an integral part of the main action while, in sixteenth-century Italian drama, the intermezzi or intermedi were generally detached from the plot. Danced and sung sections, though, were common enough in earlier plays, in those favole boscherecce such as the Orphei Tragoedia or Niccolò da Correggio’s Favola de Orfeo, and in subsequent pastoral drama.131 With them Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio shares another important element: the composition of the chorus, whose presence is strictly confined to the closing of each act. It is not made up of Alexandrian women, and it does not have the conventional role of passive commentator on the action. Rather, the chorus is composed of nymphs and gives voice to themes usually as prompted by the godhead who appears immediately beforehand, in a very light tone. Thus we can venture the hypothesis that Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio is in fact a softened form of tragedy, not so different from the Greek tragedies with a happy ending or romantic dramas.132 By way of example, in the first act, Canidius (Canidio) – the loyal captain type we find in other Cleopatra plays – arrives in Alexandria with bad news for his general, but cannot get inside the palace as the door is closed. One of Cleopatra’s maids, Ecira (Ira), hears him knocking, but at first denies him entry: ECIRA. Chi picchia là? (Alla finestra) CANID. Amici siamo, son nuntio che vorrei esser introdutto dinanzi all’imperador o alla regina. 130 Rossi 1998, pp. 116-117. In tune with the attention to historical detail, Caesar’s heir is always called Ottavio. Likewise, Antony is called by his men ‘imperatore’, ‘emperor’, a detail from Plutarch, Ant., 43.1. 131 Rossi 1998, pp. 109-110, 113-114. The Orphei Tragoedia is an anonymous rewriting in five acts of Poliziano’s Fabula di Orpheo. For the development of the genre, see Sampson 2006. 132 Aristotle, Poetics, xiii.6.

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ECI.

Fratello, se Giove scendesse dal cielo co’ suoi fulmini e minacciasse rovina a questo real pallaggio, egli non potrebbe entrar a quest’hora, nella qual non vi praticano huomini di sorte alcuna, né vi si portano nòve, che possino turbar i loro piaceri, ma si ragiona solamente di amore e di altre cose dilettevoli. Vatene pur e ritorna dimane. CANID. Apunto addesso, che l’inimico si trova su le porte della città, è tempo di attender a queste pratiche. Deh, giovane amorevole, fammi gratia ch’io entri, perciò che io tengo cose di grandissima importanza per salute de’ tuoi signori e di tutta la città. ECIRA. Tu mi fai tutta tremare! E che cosa può esser mai questa che sia potente di portar salute a duoi così gran prencipi, i quali al presente si ritrovano nella maggior gloria, e nel maggior sollazzo che mai fossero? E pur, se ci fosse qualche sinistro, doveriano, come signori, esser i primi a saperlo. Chi sei tu? Come ti chiami per nome? Dílomi, acciò che io possa riferrirlo alle loro maestà. CANID. Se pur brami intenderlo, io te lo dirò acciò che la cosa non vada in longo. Dirai dunque all’imperador che Canidio, suo capitano, per gran sorte è capitato qui in Alessandria; e che son quello che vorrei esser introdotto per avisarlo di cose importantissime, alle quali è necessario hor hora provedere. ECIRA. Ho inteso; andarò a far l’ambasciata e non starò molto a ritornarti risposta. (i.141-162) [ECIRA. Who’s knocking? (At the window) CANID. We are friends, I am a messenger and I would like to be introduced into the presence of the emperor or of the queen. ECIRA. Brother, even Jove, if he came down from the sky with his flashes of lightning, threatening the ruin of this regal palace, could not enter at this hour, when neither can any kind of human call, nor it is permitted to deliver news that could spoil their pleasures for only talks of love and pleasant things are granted. CANID. This is truly a good time to pursue those practices, now that the enemies are at the city’s gates. Please, sweet maid, kindly let me in, because I bring news of the greatest importance for the safety of your lord and lady and of the whole city.

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ECIRA. You make me tremble with fear! And what can be so powerful it can grant safety to such two great royal lords, who currently are at the point of their greatest glory and greatest enjoyment ever? On the other hand, if there was any misfortune, they, as our lords, should be the first to know. Who are you? What’s your name? Tell me, so that I can relate it to their majesties. CANID. If you want to know, I will tell you, to make it short. You’ll tell the emperor then that his captain Canidio has by chance arrived in Alexandria and that I am the one who would like to be introduced to inform him of very important things which must be addressed now. ECIRA. I understand; I’ll go and deliver your message and it won’t take long before I bring you the answer.]

Without a doubt this is a humorous situation and the dialogue has a comic vein. Significantly, Rossi points out that the same type of scene can be found in Plauto’s Amphitruo or in Boccaccio’s Decameron (e.g. ii.5, the novella of Andreuccio da Perugia).133 Yet the most probable model for it is one of Euripides’s tragedies with double issue, Helen. Here Menelaus, on his journey back home after the war, comes to Egypt where his wife has been secretly kept prisoner. She was never brought to Troy, and her place was instead taken by a mere phantom. The door of the royal palace is locked and an old woman prevents the king of Sparta from getting inside (ll. 435-463):134 menelaos. Ho there! Gatekeeper! Come out of the house so that you may carry inside the message of my griefs! old woman. Who is at the gate? Leave this house! Do not stand at our courtyard gate and bother my master! Otherwise you will be put to death! You are Greek, and Greeks are not allowed here! menelaos. Ancient Lady, you may say these same words in a different tone: I will obey. Stop being angry! old woman. Go away! It is my job, stranger, to see that no Greek approaches this house. menelaos. Oh, don’t lay hands on me! Don’t thrust me away by force! old woman. You are to blame: you don’t do as I say. menelaos. Take the word inside to your master … old woman. You will regret it, I think, if I carry your message indoors! 133 Rossi 1998, p. 114. 134 Euripides, Helen. Phoenician Women. Orestes, ed. and trans. by David Kovacs. Reproducing the original text would take up too much space.

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menelaos. … that I have come as a shipwrecked foreigner, one under heaven’s protection. old woman. So go to some other house, not this one. menelaos. No, I mean to go in, do as I ask. old woman. I tell you, you are being troublesome. And soon you will be forced to leave. menelaos. Ah me! My famous military campaigns, where are they now? old woman. You were evidently a person of importance somewhere, but not here. menelaos. O fate, what undeserved scorn I suffer! old woman. Why drench your face with tears? In whose eyes do you deserve pity? menelaos. In the eyes of my former blessed state. old woman. So go away and bestow your tears on your friends! menelaos. What is this land? To whom does this palace belong? old woman. This is the house of Proteus, and the land is Egypt. menelaos. Egypt? O misery! What a long way I have sailed! old woman. And why find fault with the Nile’s gleaming water? menelaos. I wasn’t: it was my fate I was lamenting.

While defending his plays with a happy outcome against Aristotle’s disapproval, Giraldi refers to Greek archetypes. He also quotes the prologue to the Amphitruo (183), which, he maintains, describes the characteristics of the mixed type of tragedy, where vulgar and bourgeois characters mingle with the great and the good.135 On the whole, Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio might be considered more akin to Giraldi’s ‘tragedie di lieto fine’ [‘happily ending tragedies’] than to standard neoclassical plays. It seems to have an independent, even experimental approach to drama. A second peculiarity is a corollary to the first: stage directions, which we have not met so far. Their presence is constant. At times they are descriptive, as when the Furies appear on the scene together with Cicero’s ghost (‘vien le tre Furie con esso, e mai stan ferme, sempre sventilano fuoco’ [‘three Furies come with him, and they never stay still, they continuously wave some fire’]). At times they prompt the action, for instance, when satyrs and fauns join Baccus’ song at the end of Act ii (‘qui sonan essi satiri li fauni, in voce loro, questi versi’ [‘here the same satyrs and fauns play, in their voices, these verses’]), or when the coffin containing Antony’s corpse (casa, that 135 Giraldi, Discorso, p. 183; Giudizio, pp. 136-137. See Plautus Amphitruo, pp. 52-63. In the Amphitruo, it is Mercury who speaks and coincidentally Mercury speaks the prologue of the Aldini codex, too.

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is cassa, coffin) is brought on and off stage, in Act v: ‘et portan suso la casa con Anto dentro, et pian piano van per far il sacrificio’ [‘and they carry onto the stage the coffin with Anto inside and little by little they go to make the sacrifice’]; ‘Gli sacerdoti con quelli et il cantano a quattro, vestiti da sacerdoti et riportano la casa dentro’ [‘The priests are with them and they sing it in four voices, dressed like priests and take the coffin back inside’]. The presence of stage props and of stage directions suggests keen consideration of the details of staging. Though Giraldi’s plays were intended to be performed, they were also academic enough to be enjoyed as read texts, like Seneca’s plays. This tragedy, on the contrary, is not definitely to be read. The point is further strengthened by other traits. Unlike the other Italian Cleopatra plays, this one opens with a sonnet which is neither an argument nor a prologue: Se ben contemplo i taciturni aspetti, Cortesi e amabilissimi signori, Trati qui siete da i soavi odori De li honorati tragici soggetti. Se questo è il ver, que’ candidetti amori Ch’albergo fan ne’ vostri casti petti Destate, i’ prego, a tal che siate netti Da indegni e da perversi invidi humori, Però che qui non siam per dimostrare Sapienza od arte inesquisita 136 e rara, Ma sol, se si potrà, per dilettare. Se state attenti, in atto e ’n voce chiara Prometto tal tragedia presentare, Che vi sarà sin che vivrete cara. (Questo è un poeta che con una lira in scena canta questi versi) [If I correctly interpret your silent countenances, kind and most deserving lords, you were guided here by the sweet perfumes of honoured tragical subjects. If that is true, please awake those spotless loves that live within your chaste breasts, so that you are free of shameful and wicked, envious humours, because we are not here to show some rare and refined art, 136 ‘inesquisita’: the nexus in before the prosthetic vowel e strengthens the adjective ‘esquisita’.

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but only to delight, if we may. If you pay attention, I promise to present, in action and clear voice, such a tragedy that you’ll love it until you live. (This is a poet that with a lyre sings these verses on stage.)]

The sonnet (ABBA BAAB CDC DCD) is similar in its content to some of Giraldi’s prologues. Its exhortation to pay attention (‘Se state attenti’, line 12) comes from the first canto of the Inamoramento de Orlando (‘state atenti e quïeti’ [‘Pay attention and be quiet’], i.1.3), but it was a theatrical topos and reappears in Shakespeare’s plays, from Romeo and Juliet to Henry V. In this case, however, the sonnet is followed by the prologue itself and by the argument. In the first quatrain the poet asserts that, unless he is mistaken by their expressions, he thinks the ‘cortesi e amabilissimi signori’ have gathered to watch a play (ll. 1-4). The second quatrain centres on the audience’s interior disposition, with a reference to the ancient theory of humours, rediscovered in the Renaissance and destined to influence drama throughout Europe and comedy in particular. Although the lines might be read as an allusion to a moralising, Counter-Reformist reading of catharsis, they seem to refer to a mood preceding the play and not aroused by it. Spectators must purge their souls of any negative disposition and adopt a sympathetic one. It is reminiscent of the prologues to ancient comedies, where the audience is invited to be ‘aequi et iusti […] arbitri’ [‘fair and just (…) judges’] of the representation (Amphitruo, 16), an invitation repeated in the prologue to Ariosto’s Suppositi.137 Once again, the play presents a deviation from the norm.138 With the first tercet of the sonnet, the aim of the tragedy is introduced: it was not conceived as a show of knowledge, but intended to delight. ‘Dilettare’ [‘delight’], brings us back to the famous Horatian sententia (see above, 3.4). Here though there is no trace of the first pole of the famous couple: any allusion to the ‘utile’ has disappeared. The late Renaissance was ready for Guarini’s objections to catharsis, when he claimed (in the Compendio) that you must not introduce tragic action if not ‘per averne diletto’ [‘to get delight from it’], though he added that it was possible ‘purgar con diletto la mestizia degli ascoltanti’ [‘to purge the sadness of the audience with delight’].139 137 Ariosto, I Suppositi, p. 299. 138 Rossi 1998 (p. 114 n. 58) quotes Giraldi, but here the context is different. 139 Guarini, Il pastor fido e il Compedio della poesia tragicomica, pp. 235-246 (245). For Guarini, see Sampson 2006, pp. 129-168 (for the Compendio in particular, see pp. 132-134); Kirkpatrick 2002, pp. 266-267; Kirkpatrick 1995, pp. 255-259. For drama’s hedonistic function, see Sampson 2006, pp. 135, 139-141, 160-161.

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The second tercet further underlines the metatheatrical dimension and gives equal importance to two different aspects of performing: ‘atto’ [‘action’] and ‘voce chiara’ [‘words’]. The sonnet closes with a proud assertion by the poet, who promises to give the audience a wonderful treat in exchange for their well-disposed attention. Finally, stage directions make clear that the poet speaking the lines is not the real dramatist, but rather an actor playing his part (‘Questo è un poeta’ [‘This is a poet’]), destroying any possible suspension of disbelief on this point, too. This, however, is not the last appearance of the ‘poet’ on the stage. The tragedy is closed by a second sonnet spoken by him (‘Il Poeta come prima licentia gli uditori’ [‘The poet, like before, takes leave of the audience’]), whose content is more similar to the last lines of some of Shakespeare’s comedies than to Giraldi’s programmatic conclusion to the Orbecche (‘La tragedia a chi la legge’ [‘The tragedy to its reader’]). The poet notices that dawn is arriving and that it is time for them to sleep. He f inishes, ‘Gratie alte imortali / Vi rendiam poi, gratissimi auditori. // Ite felici: ecco Piroo che l’ali / Inalza fuor de’ salsi, ondosi flutti, / E scopre Apol co’ più lucenti albori’ [‘We then thank you so much, most pleasant audience. Happily go: now Pyrois takes his wings out of the salty waves, discovering Apollo with the brightest of dawns’] (ll. 10-14). This final appeal to the audience was typical of Latin comedies. Pyrois was one of the four horses of the Sun’s chariot, a minor scholarly notion, appealing to the taste of an educated audience. Similarly Mercury’s language, explaining the meaning of his attire at the opening of the prologue, is technical and precise: ‘Il caduceo che in questa mano io tengo, / Le celesti ali che il mio pileo porta / E gli indorati miei talari, fanno / Conoscere ch’io son nunzio di Giove’ [‘The caduceus which I hold in this hand, the blue wings on my pileus and my golden talaria make it clear that I am Jove’s messenger’] (Prologue, 1-4).140 Deep, mythological and historical learning meet lightness and simplicity of tone within the text. The play seems to have two sides: one neoclassical, one humble and popular, the same hodgepodge that is at the root of pastoral drama. 140 In the prologue, Mercury also alludes to the hissing of the Furies approaching the stage (ll. 39-41) and finally invites the audience not to be afraid of them, as they will only attack their designated victims (ll. 45-49). The interaction between actors and audience is taken into account elsewhere, too. Cicero, at the end of his monologue, tells his listeners that he leaves them to hear what Antony and Cleopatra have to say. Cinthio was firmly against actors talking directly to the audience, outside the separate prologue (Giraldi, Giudizio, 112). This rule was not universally accepted as Dolce’s second prologue to the Marianna shows.

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Consider the soliloquies of deities at the close of each act. Here the style is appropriate for the character. Mars’ monologue is packed with quotations from chivalric poems.141 In describing the clash between Octavian’s and Antony’s armies, the godhead seems almost to take on the pose of a canterino, expounding the deeds of his heroes to a street audience with the aid of some rough sketches: Ecco Antonio cacciar il suo rivale, Et atterrar trabucche e padiglioni,142 E riversar pedoni e cavallieri Stringendoli a fuggir ne’ lor steccati. Ecco Cesare poi, che con altr’arte Ricerca haver vittoria, Perché con oro e argento Corrompe i capitani De la terra e del mare; E abbandonato resta il magno Antonio: Ond’ei, per non venire Vivo in le mani di quel suo nemico, Morte si dà col ferro, E da Giove ha la gratia di morire In braccio de l’amata Cleopatra. Morte dolce e felice Spirar nel sen de la soa Beatrice!143 Cantate dunque Ninfe Il fin di questo invitto imperadore. (iii, Canto di Marte, 13-31) [Here comes Antonio, chasing his rival away and upturning pavilions and tents, and overcoming soldiers and knights, forcing them to shelter beyond the defensive fences of the camp. Then there comes Cesare trying to gain victory another way, corrupting both military and naval captains. And great Antonio remains alone so that, not to fall into the hands of his enemy alive, he kills himself with his sword, and is permitted by Jove to 141 Rossi 1998, pp. 117-118. 142 ‘trabucche’ is probably a mistake for ‘trabacche’ [‘shelters for warriors’], see Ariosto, Orl. Fur., xxxi.53.7-8: ‘e versò cavallier, pestò pedoni, / e atterrò trabacche e padiglioni’ [‘Horseman he overthrew, foot-soldiers he trampled, tents and pavilions he swept away’] (Rossi 1998, p. 118). The English translation is that of Waldman. See also Orl. Fur., vii.35.4 and 6. 143 Giraldi, Cleopatra, iii.5.220-223.

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die in the arms of his beloved Cleopatra. Sweet and happy death, to die in the bosom of his Beatrice! Sing then you nymphs of the end of this unconquered emperor.]

The influence of the tradition of epic romance is relevant. The precise description of the golden trinkets and gems adorning Antony’s coffin (Act v) finds its antecedents in the cantari, where knights errant often step into the rich underground tombs of ancient kings. An interest in jewellery and precious stones, as already stated, was typical of the genre: pur allhora haveva sepelito il corpo del suo Antonio in una cassa di finissimo cristallo, nella qual vi si veggono quattro pretiosissime pietre una per cantone, che, a similitudine di doppieri accesi, mandano un splendor mirabile. Penso che siano piropi che così fiammeggiano. In questa, per esser trasparente, si vede il magno Antonio collocato con la corona imperial in testa, col sceptro in mano, con la spada cinta e con tante gioie intorno che è un stupore a vederle. Sotto il suo real capo tiene un guancialetto ornato di perle orientali, di zafiri, diamanti e rubini, che non si vidde mai né la più ricca, né la più bella cosa, con tanti aromatici, e odori preparati per far le esequie, che non si potrebbe dir più. (v.56-64) [(She) had just put the body of her Antonio into a coffin of the finest crystal, in each corner of which you can see the most valuable gems, wonderfully shining as if they were big two-branched candlesticks. I think they are pyropes, which have such a glow. Within it, as it is transparent, you can see great Antonio laying with his imperial crown on his head, a sceptre in his hand, his sword girded and so many jewels all around him that it is a marvel to see. Under his royal head he has a small pillow, decorated with oriental pearls, sapphires, diamonds and rubies, and there was never a richer or nicer thing, with so many aromatic herbs and perfumes prepared for the funeral that you could say no more.]

Baccus’ soliloquy, in its turn, is an ironic canto carnescialesco.144 The god and his entourage of satyrs, fawns and nymphs sing, as a kind of refrain: ‘Vissuto ha Antonio, e viverà in eterno / famoso in cielo, in terra e ne l’inferno’ [‘Antonio lived, and he will live for ever, / famous on earth, in hell, and also in heaven’] (ll. 25-26).

144 Rossi 1998, p. 117.

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Even if we know that most Italian Renaissance plays were performed at Carnival, to the modern taste they seem very far from the irreverent and popular spirit of the festival, and their performance on that occasion only makes sense in relation to a limited, exclusive audience with academic taste.145 Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio is a more understandable choice. It is pervaded by a predilection for dressing up. We have already seen Mercury describing his attire, but most gods on first appearance do the same. Hercules shows off his lion skin and club (Act i); Bacchus his fat, red cheeks and his wreath of leaves (Act ii); Mars his weapons (Act iii); Fortune her shifty forelock (Act v).146 The content is equally surprising. Most Italian Aristotelians insisted on the importance of dealing accurately with historical fact in tragedy. According to Giraldi Cinthio, the dramatist can only add minor fictional characters to historical ones and introduce private episodes. Monarchs are public figures and all their public deeds would be known: ‘par fuori del verisimile che essendo simili persone negli occhi del mondo, possa essere fatta da loro azione alcuna singolare che tosto che ella è fatta, non debba venire nelle orecchie di ognuno’ [‘it seems incredible that being so important in the eyes of the world, these people can commit a deed of some import that does not reach everybody’s ears, as soon as it is finished’].147 Castelvetro argues along similar lines even more forcefully: since the plot of a tragedy must show royal action, it follows that it must show action that has really happened and that of a king who has existed, since we cannot imagine a king who never existed nor attribute any action to him, and even when the king has existed and we know he has existed, we cannot attribute actions to him that he never performed (3.7).148 Giraldi Cinthio, De Cesari, and Pistorelli all conform to these standards in their plays. Not so the anonymous playwright. Ancient sources are well known to him, as testified by numerous details, yet he deliberately ignores or changes a good numbers of events.149 Some parts of the story are totally rewritten, 145 For the significance of Carnival in Renaissance culture, see Kirkpatrick 2002, pp. 315-316. 146 Also, in Dolce’s two prologues to his Marianna tragedy Pluto calls the audience’s attention to their attire (Prologo primo, 1-4; Prologo secondo, 109-111). 147 Giraldi, Discorso, p. 177. See also Morrison 1974, pp. 117-119. As she notes, this respect was gradually lost over the course of the seventeenth century (p. 118). 148 Lodovico Castelvetro, Poetica, I, p. 252. 149 Among minor episodes or major ones treated in detail, we may cite: the arrival of Cleopatra on the river Cydnus (Plut., Ant., 60.7; Aldini, i.56-70); Antony’s daimon (Ant., 33.2; Aldini, iii.264-269); the swallow portent (Ant., 60.3; Aldini, iii.208-210); Antony’s challenge to single combat (Ant., 75.1; Aldini, iii.358-359); and a hint to the Seleucus’ episode (Ant., 83; Aldini, v.72).

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despite being familiar parts of the story. If reviving a well-known plot was a general problem with the Cleopatra plays, he seems to have solved it at its foundation by treating the subject very freely. Some of the changes introduced are noteworthy. In Act ii, Cleopatra faces her lover (or better, her ‘marito’, according to the play), threatening to stab herself in his presence in order to prove to him that she is trustworthy, and Antony prevents her from hurting herself (ii.207-309). In Act iii, Canidius suggests that Antony should secretly return to Italy, where many senators are ready to help, leaving Cleopatra behind in Alexandria (iii.53-112). In the same act we witness a completely fictional conference between Octavian and Antony after the Battle of Actium (iii.278-376).150 Even more intriguing is the absence of a striking scene we have met in every single Cleopatra play so far: Octavian’s visit to the queen. In this tragedy the would-be Augustus only sees her when she is dead. Her body, brought on stage in a chair,151 has already turned into the image that featured in Octavian’s triumph, according to Plutarch (Ant., 86.3), or into a statue not much different from the Sleeping Ariadne, maybe responsible for the Italian Renaissance vogue for Cleopatra (see above 3.1):152 ARIO.153 Ma eccovi che vengono con la reina morta. (Quivi portano la regina sopra d’una sedia adobada con l’aspido et con il braccio nudo) PROC. Eccovi, invittissimo imperadore, colei che, vivendo l’imperador Antonio, havea concetto nel suo grand’animo di farsi imperatrice di Roma. OTTA. Dunque questa, questa è quella Cleopatra cotanto famosa, che di sé ha lasciato così gran nome all’Imperio Romano? PROC. Quella è, sacratissimo imperadore, e questo è l’aspido che nel suo bel braccio ha fatto queste due picciole punture, che le 150 The conference is preceded by an informal dialogue between minor representatives of the two parts, a bit like in Shakespeare’s play, before the dinner on Sextus Pompeus’ barge (ii.6.83-131). In Act iii, Antony also has a strange prophetic dream based on ornithomancy (iii.213-259). 151 We can imagine her as the dying Cleopatra of some paintings by Guido Cagnacci (16011663), sitting on a chair instead of lying on a bed (e.g. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienne 1658; Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan about 1660). Baroque art was well known for its theatricality. 152 It could remind us of Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, turning ‘marble-constant’ (v.2.239). Adelman (1973, p. 155) reads it as a way to escape the flux of time through art. 153 Arrius.

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hanno tolta la vita, che altro segno non si è ritrovato nel suo real corpo,154 la bellezza del quale, o Cesare, è tale che meritamente si potria agguagliar ad uno di quelli delle più sublimi e delle più gloriose dee del cielo. E non fu maraviglia se il gran Cesare vostro padre e ’l magno Antonio al primo tratto se ne invaghirono, e accortezza grande fu la vostra a non volerla così incautamente vedere, perciò che, essendo ancor voi huomo come gli altri, e non havendo il cuor di tigre né di orso,155 facilmente allettato e forse ammagliato dalle sue lusinghe, sareste corso la medesima sorte che gli antecessori,156 e non sarebbe stata mareviglia, poscia che così morta par ch’habbi ancora potere di tramutar il cuore delli huomini: il che si può chiaramente vedere nell’aspetto di vostra maestà, qual veggio, fuori del solito, tutto alterato e mesto. OTTA. Tu non t’inganni, Proculeio, perciò che la bellezza e la maestà di questa nobilissima reina mi è riuscita di sorte e talmente mi ha penetrato il petto, che di già mi pento di esser stato tanto rigido con lei, e son sicuro che non havendo io, come hai detto, il cuor di tigre, mi sarei facilmente inclinato a compiacerla nella sue dimande. Gran cuore, in ogni modo, ha havuto e grand’arte ha saputo usare per morir libera, e perciò degna di laude (v.458-481) [ARIO. But here they come with the dead queen. (They bring the queen on stage in a chair, with the asp on her naked arm.) PROC. Here you see, unconquered emperor, the woman who, when Antonio was still alive, had devised deep in her soul to become empress of Rome. OTTA. So this, this is that famous Cleopatra, who bequeathed such a great name to the Roman Empire? PROC. It is she, most sacred emperor, and this is the asp that left these two small bites which took her life, as no other sign has been found on her royal body. Her beauty, oh Caesare, is such that it could deservedly be said to equal that of one of the most sublime and glorious goddesses of heaven. It is no marvel that your father, great Cesare, and great Antonio fell in love with her at once, and it was very wise of you to avoid meeting 154 Plut., Ant., 86.3. The attention to this detail suggests a careful reading of the source. 155 The hyperbole is traditional. See, for instance, Petrarch, RVF, 152.1-2; Ariosto, Orl. Fur., xxiii.48.4; Giraldi, Orbecche, iv.1.2299-2301; Pistorelli, Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, i.268: ‘Che mosso avrei a pietà le tigre e gli orsi’ [‘That would move tigers and bears to pity’]. 156 Caesar and Antony.

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her so unprepared, because as you are a man no different from the rest, and you do not have a tiger’s or a bear’s heart; easily charmed and maybe bewitched by her allurements, you would have shared the very same fate of your predecessors and that would not have been strange, because even dead as she is, she still seems to have the power to change men’s hearts. And that is clearly shown by your majesty’s expression, which I see unusually altered and sad. OTTA. You are right, Proculeio, because the beauty and majesty of this most noble queen had such an effect on me and so deeply penetrated my heart that I already repent being so stern with her. And I am sure that as I do not have, as you said, a tiger’s heart, I would have easily agreed to satisfy her requests. Anyway she had a great heart and she used great skill to die free, and thus be praiseworthy.]

It was in fact Alexander the Great who, according to Plutarch, avoided frequenting Darius’ wife, whose beauty was legendary, fearing he would be charmed by her (Alex., 22.3). The shift from one historical figure to another is proof of the anonymous author’s knowledge of ancient sources and, at the same time, his unconventional use of them. He does not hesitate to cut the original episode and substitute it with another taken from a different Life. The way the anonymous dramatist works is also evident in his treatment of the episode of the false message of Cleopatra’s death. In Plutarch (Ant., 76.2), as well as in Giraldi (i.6), the messenger on duty simply announces to Antony that Cleopatra is dead, while, in Cinthio’s play, the nurse – acting as a messenger – describes at length the supposed suicide (i.6.586-595). Here the sequence is linked to a new variation introduced into the plot. Canidius had previously suggested that Antony hurry back to Italy on his swiftest ship, the Falcona, leaving the queen behind. When Diomedes, Cleopatra’s secretary, reports to Antony his lady’s death, he takes that suggestion as his starting point. Someone tells the sovereign her lover had left for Rome after the desertion of the fleet. She, ‘come fossennata’ [‘as if she were out of her mind’], rushes to the harbour and, turned towards Italy, calls after him, accusing him of having abandoned her. Then she kneels and, crying out Antony’s name, runs herself through with a sword (iv.1). Such a pathetic Dido-like tale increases the credibility of Antony’s passionate reaction to the news, a reaction strictly in line with Plutarch’s model (Ant., 76.3-5). The treatment of the characters is original and unusual, too. In each play discussed in our survey the well-known story was expurgated one way or other, omitting some unpleasant aspects of the protagonists’ personalities. Here instead, as far as Antony is concerned at least, almost every charge is

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true. He really is a debauchee, he really has created the club of the ‘partners in death’ (i, Canto di Hercole, 57-58). In his opening lines he states that he wants to live out his last days ‘con tutti que’ maggior piaceri e con tutte quelle più alte magnificanze che a noi saranno possibili’ [‘with all the greatest pleasures and the highest splendours we can possibly have’] (i.18-19). Furthermore, he appears credulous and simple, not particularly wise, from a political or a military viewpoint. Most of his decisions are in fact suggested by his faithful captain, Canidius. His characterisation, although typified, does not lack some original traits. Facing Octavian, in their last conference, he paradoxically states he was happy enough with his meagre fortune and only wanted to live on in Alexandria, leaving the rule of the empire to Caesar’s heir, was it not that Octavian came to Egypt determined to destroy him (3.282-291). Yet he remains overall a courageous and proud man and the anonymous author conforms to the laudatory picture he found in Plutarch by repeating his praiseworthy dying words (Ant., 77.4; Aldini, v.1-22). Cleopatra is a totally different character. She understands the situation much better than her paramour,157 and sees through him personally, but nonetheless gives in to his whims, as she is desperately in love with him and ready to share his fortune. In fact, she considers herself the sole cause of his ruin (ii.11-12). Her unconditional loyalty to Antony finds its roots in the medieval relationship between vassal and lord (see 2.3). She is determined to follow her husband and master anywhere and anyhow, for better or for worse (see, for instance, below, in the extensive quotation from Act ii). At the same time, she is a wise stateswoman with a matter-of-fact attitude towards life. A good instance of this is her dialogue with Olimpio about poisons. Plutarch probably incorporated within the last ten chapters of his life of Antony some vivid details and medical observations derived from the version of the events written by the queen’s doctor, Olympus.158 He overtly quotes him as a source at 82.4, stating that he helped the queen to take her life. Yet he does not mention him when describing Cleopatra’s experimentation with poison on condemned prisoners (Ant., 71.4).159 Landi follows his lead (f. 32v). In Giraldi’s play – the only other tragedy in which he appears among the characters – Olimpio is an old doctor, faithful to his Hippocratic oath, who simply refuses to offer 157 For instance, she keeps saying she does not trust Antony’s soldiers (iii.113). 158 Pelling, notes to Ant., 71-87. 159 Allusions to Cleopatra’s interest in finding a way to die are found in antiquity, for instance, also in the Carmen de bello actiaco (see above 1.1), and in Aelian’s On the Characteristics of Animals (ix.11). For Renaissance theatre, see Mairet, Le Marc-Antoine ou la Cleopatre (v.6.1636-1638). In Shakespeare’s play, there is a hint of this in the last act, when Caesar remarks: ‘her physician tells me / She hath pursued conclusions infinite / Of easy ways to die’ (v.2.348-350).

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his sovereign a painless way of dying (Giraldi, Cleopatra, iii.1.21-30).160 Here instead, Olimpio not only fetches the queen the asp, but also plays a central role in Cleopatra’s choice of her instrument of death: CLEOP. Hora incominciano le angoscie e i travagli e l’imperador con suo gran danno si accorge che cosa importi ad un capitano il darsi all’otio et ai piaceri, e non proveder in tempo al bisogno della guerra. Addesso che le cose sono spacciate, e che d’ogni intorno si ritroviamo cinti dall’armi di Ottavio, egli vuol proveder de diffese e metter la città in pericolo di esser malmenata; e incomincia ad haver me in sospetto che non lo voglia tradire, e dar in man di Ottavio. […] Olimpio, nutritio mio, è arrivata l’hora di dar fine a’ miei travagli; a voi che siete perito delle cose medicinali, e altresì de’ veleni mortiferi, tocca prepararne uno, che presto mi tolga la vita. Guardate qual sia di manco dolore e passione, e quello datemi, perché io al tutto voglio morir libera, e reina di Egitto. Non voglio sopportar che queste mie carni siano tocche da altri che dal mio Antonio, qual intendo seguir in vita e in morte. OLIMP. Chi dicesse, altissima reina e figliuola serenissima, che così vi posso chiamare, havendovi io, dopo la morte della mia cara moglie, che vi diede i primi alimenti,161 nodrita e allevata nelle mie braccia, che il partito, qual intende pigliar vostra maestà non sia magnifico e generoso e degno di una tal reina, certo direbbe il falso, perciò che è cosa assai più honorata e gloriosa farsi illustre con una volontaria morte, che vivendo in altrui potere, divenir favola del mondo.162 Chi dicesse ancora che il partito non sia duro et aspro, certo che anco si direbbe il falso, perché l’ultimo DELLE COSE terribili E’ LA MORTE.163 Quando dunque all’uno e all’altro si potesse con honeste conditioni provedere, e far prova di placar Ottavio, e farsi confermar, se non tutto, almeno qualche parte del regno, par a me, o serenissima reina, che sarebbe assai men male. 160 For the role in Giraldi’s play, see Morrison 1997, pp. 188-189. 161 See above 4.1. Also Araspe, Cleopatra’s counsellor in Capponi’s play, has raised her from infancy (ii.4.202-204, iv.5.201-203). 162 See 2.1, but also Petrarch, RVF, 1.9-10. For the theme in Pistorelli’s play, see below 6.6. 163 Capital letters come from the original text. The sententia is present almost in each of he most celebrated Italian neoclassical plays. See Trissino, Sophonisba, 332-333; Rucellai, Rosmunda, 594595; Giraldi, Orbecche, iv.1.2307-2309; Dolce, Marianna, i.444-445. See also Pistorelli, Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, v.34-35: ‘Perché de tutti i mali / La morte è ’l più maggiore’ [‘As of all evils Death is the worst’].

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I Romani son di natura clementi e godono infinitamente quando è lor data occasione di usar la clemenza.164 E qual più degna e più alta occasione potrebbero ritrovar di questa, poi che salvano il regno e la vita della maggior e della più bella reina del mondo? CLEOP. Olimpio, non moltiplicate più in parole,165 né in ragioni. Apparecchiate pur quanto vi ho detto per ogni buon rispetto, e fatte che fra lo spatio di poche hore si ritrovi all’ordine acciò che, quando sarà il tempo, me ne possa servire. Non si mancherà poi a procurar partiti ma io ci veggio delle difficoltà assai. La mia ultima resolutione è di seguir la sorte del mio Antonio.Via dunque all’esseqution [sic] del fatto. (ii.1-41) [CLEOP. Now anguish and troubles begin and the emperor, to his great harm, realizes what it means for a captain to live a life of idleness and pleasure, without considering the needs of war in good time. Now that everything is lost and we are closely surrounded by Ottavio’s army, he wants to provide some defences and put the city in danger of being destroyed; and he begins to suspect that I want to betray him and put myself in the hands of Ottavio. (…) Olimpio, my nurse, now is time to put an end to my troubles and, as you are an expert in medical remedies and mortal poisons, prepare me one that will swiftly take my life. Consider which is least painful and most peaceful and give me that one, because I want to die free and queen of Egypt. I cannot suffer my flesh to be touched by anyone but my Antonio, whom I intend to follow in life and death. OLIMP. Highest queen and serene daughter – as I can call you, being the one who, after my wife’s death, gave you the first nourishment, nurturing and feeding you in my arms – whoever maintains that the choice your majesty desires to make is not splendid and generous and worthy of such a queen, would certainly be lying, because making oneself famous through a voluntary death is a far greater honoured and glorious thing than becoming famous across the whole world, by living in someone else’s power. And whoever then would affirm that this choice is not hard and harsh would also be lying, as DEATH is last of all terrible THINGS. Thus, if we could obtain both things fairly and succeed in calming Ottavio and make him leave you at least part of the kingdom, if not the whole of it, I think, most noble queen, it would be better. Romans are naturally merciful and they feel immensely happy when they are given the opportunity to use their 164 For Roman legendary clementia, see 4.1. 165 See, for instance, Bandello, ‘La sfortunata morte di dui infelicissimi amanti’, p. 78.

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mercy. And what worthier and higher occasion than this, as they are saving the realm and the life of the greatest and most beautiful queen in the world? CLEOP. Olimpio, stop adding words and reasons. Prepare what I am asking, so that, come what may, in the space of a few hours, it will be ready and, come the time, I can use it. We will not then stop trying to find alternatives, but I can see a lot of difficulties. My last resolution is to follow the fate of my Antonio. So on with the execution of the plan.

In the opening lines of the scene, Cleopatra coldly criticises Antony’s behaviour. He should have done something before, instead of being intoxicated by revelry and pleasures. Then he gave no thought to his rival. Now it is too late. She knows that everything is lost and she wants to be ready for the worst. Olimpio tries to restrain her, counselling her to put hope in Roman clemency and magnanimity, but his attitude towards suicide is Stoic rather than Christian. To him the honour of a glorious death is infinitely preferable to a humiliating life in captivity. Suicide would be a magnificent act of regal dignity. Death is still terrible, however, and should be avoided if acceptable conditions of surrender are offered. This is a world away from the Christian position that taking one’s life was not permissible, a position so well illustrated, for instance, in De Cesari’s play. The queen’s reply offers clever strategic planning: she will try as hard as she can not to take things to extremes, but she must know how to face the final defeat. In the next section, once again the court doctor does his best to comfort her, reminding her of the glory she gained from Julius Caesar, who frightened her so much at first. Octavian will certainly be seduced by her charm, too (ii.42-51). Here again, the anonymous author makes his Cleopatra react with great detachment and a practical mind. She does not degrade herself with false hopes, as her lover does. She knows Octavian will not yield to her wiles and flattery. She will be taken captive to Rome and face his triumph. She will be Octavia’s servant, comb her hair and follow her, holding her train. Neither Daniel (i. 65-66) nor Shakespeare (v.2.51-54) give so much space to Octavia’s scorn for her. Cleopatra even admits the Roman matron would be in the right, as she stole her husband and claimed she would be crowned empress of Rome. No, she has made up her mind. She is only looking for Olimpio’s advice as to the best way to get the result she hopes for: CLEOP. Vi ho già detto, padre mio, che non multiplichiate più in ragioni, in suggerirmi speranze vane. So ben io la differenza ch’è dalla natura di Cesare, e di mio marito, a quella di Ottavio, e quello ch’io fei con loro e quanto ho fatto con lui; e son certa che non userà

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pietà veruna verso di me, ma procaccierà, col biasmo del nome mio, di menarmi legata nel trofeo di Roma e mettermi in mano di Ottavia, sua sorella, ad acconciarle le trecce e a sostentarle la coda della veste per la città, e a malmenarmi a suo modo; e sapete se haveria ragione di farlo, havendole io levato il marito, e sparso fama di farmi imperatrice di Roma.. Non no, fatte pur quanto vi ho detto, e non mandate più la cosa in longo, altrimenti hor hora, alla presenza vostra, mi trappasserò il petto con questo pugnale che in mano mi vedete. Voglio giocar di securo. (ii.52-62) [CLEOP. I have already told you, my father: do not give more reasons, suggesting vain hopes. I know very well the difference between Cesare and my husband’s nature and Ottavio’s, and what I did with them and what I have done with him, and I am certain he will not have any pity for me; he will make me take part, in chains, in his triumph in Rome, slurring my name, and will put me in the hands of his sister Ottavia to braid her plaits and carry the train of her dress through the city and to be ill-treated at her will, and you know she would have good reason to do it, as I robbed her of her husband and spread the rumour I wanted to become empress of Rome. No, no, do what I told you to and do not keep on, or this very moment, in your presence, I will pierce my breast with this dagger in my hand. I want to be sure.]

Olimpio agrees to get her the venom, although he thinks he will die before giving it to his sovereign (ii.63-66). Cleopatra fatalistically encourages him to face up to misfortune. All mortals are victims of the cyclical pattern of Fortune. There follows a list of animals and herbs whose lethal properties are weighed by Cleopatra and by the doctor. The queen leaves the final choice to him and he chooses a sleep-inducing asp: CLEOP. Non vi contristate padre mio, queste son cose che dona il mondo e la Fortuna. E’ necessario far quanto ho detto per ogni disordine che potesse nascere. Preparatine pur uno che faccia l’effetto presto e che non dia molta passione, e non vi dubitate poi del resto, perché non si mancherà di tentar tutto quello che sarà possibile per salvarsi. OLIMP. L’aconito genera dolori, la cicuta e ’l napello estorsioni e sudori frigidi, la rubetta gonfia il corpo e manda la morte in longo e, brevemente, tutti i veleni presi per bocca partoriscono accidenti e sincope crudeli.

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CLEOP. Non si può ritrovar qualche sorte di serpi che faccia l’effetto? La ceraste intendo che uccide in un’hora, l’anfisibena più presto e l’aspido che induce sonno profondo e, indi a poco, morte. […] Ma che non si dimori più: preparate quello che più sicuro e più spedito vi pare. OLIMP. Horsù, io andarò, e nell’aspido voglio che fermiamo il nostro disegno, come in quello che veramente dà manco pena de tutti gli altri; e so un mio amico che ne ha alquanti per farne teriaca. Uno di quelli mi farò consignare e in poter vostro lo darò. (ii.67-86) [CLEOP. Do not be sad, my father, for these are things given by the world and Fortune. It is necessary to do what I said, to face whatever difficulties may arise. Prepare a drink that will have a swift result and does not deliver too much pain, and do not doubt, as for the rest, because we shall try all that we can in order to save ourselves. OLIMP. Wolf’s bane causes pain, hemlock and napellus convulsions and cold shivers. Rubeta swells the body and it takes time to have its lethal effect and, in short, all poisons, drunk, bring on fits and cruel syncope. CLEOP. Is not it possible to find some kind of snake to achieve the result? I understand the cerastes kills within the hour, the amphisbaena quicker still and the asp induces deep sleep and then death, little by little. (…) But let us stop delaying: prepare the one you think is safest and swiftest. OLIMP. Come on, I am going, and I want to choose the asp for our plan, as it gives less pain than any other, and I know a friend of mine who has many of them to prepare a theriac. I will make him give me one and put it in your power.]

Here the anonymous author does his best to show Olimpio’s as well as Cleopatra’s medical knowledge. Aconito (wolf’s bane), cicuta (hemlock), and napello (a variety of wolf’s bane) are common poisonous plants; the rubetta (from the Latin rubeta) is a toad. The cerastes (a serpent with little horns), the amphisbaena (a snake incorrectly thought to have two heads, one at each extremity), and the asp are all described by Lucan in his famous catalogue of serpents (Pharsalia, ix.700-838) as well as by Pliny the Elder (Nat. Hist., viii 85 [xxxv]).166 Finally, the term ‘teriaca’ [‘theriac’] (from the Greek θηριακή) – was generally used, in antiquity, to indicate an antidote to snakebites. But it is 166 According to Lucan, the ‘aspida somnifera’ [‘sleep-inducing asp’] (ix.701) was the first serpent born from the blood of Medusa, so that no other snake is richer in poison. In Al-Ma’sudi’s life of Cleopatra (see above 2.1), the serpent which kills both the queen and Octavian has two heads.

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noteworthy that it is the queen who suggests snakes as the agents of death. The strong interest in realistic – almost novella-like – details is unmatched in Italian Cleopatra plays. Never had the protagonist of those tragedies shown such a practical nature or such swift disillusionment. Her treachery at Actium is not seen here. Instead it is Antony who ignominiously flew from the battle: ‘Aricordatevi’, Cleopatra tells him, ‘ch’accetai ancor io voi nella mia real nave, quando foste rotto da Ottavio, e sano e salvo vi condussi qui in Egitto, dove foste fatto signore’ [‘Remember that I took you on board my royal ship when you were defeated by Ottavio, and safe and sound I brought you here to Egypt, where you became the lord’] (iii.93-95). Yet this Cleopatra not only knows passion and bravery, but also tenderness and affection. Motherly love, a major theme in both De Cesari’s and Daniel’s plays, is not forgotten here. Before killing herself at Antony’s funeral, the queen appeals to her children in touching words: Ah, figliuoli dolcissimi, ah Cleopatrina cara, e che sarà mai di voi pupilli, da poi che sarete privi della vostra amorevole madre? Ahi, che di già mi par veder il sangue vostro correr per le contrade di Alessandria, che così fanno i tiranni che vogliono assicurar gli stati loro; e questi saranno i scettri e i trionf i che vi aspettavano. O dei eterni, che in protettione havete questo bel regno, habbiate – se in voi fu mai clemenza – pietà di questi innocenti fanciulli e non permettete che del sangue loro si satii il crudel tiranno.. Non piangete figliuoli, perché mi raddoppiate il dolore. Di voi e di questo mio popolo sarà quello che piacerà ad essi eterni dei, a’ quali vi ho raccomandati. (v.246-254) [Ah, my sweetest children, ah my little Cleopatra, what will become of you, my dearest, once you are bereaved of your loving mother? Oh my, it seems to me I can already see your blood running through the streets of Alexandria, because that is the way of the tyrants who want to secure their positions, and these will be the sceptres and thrones awaiting for you. Oh eternal gods, who have this fine kingdom under your protection, if you ever were merciful, pity these innocent children and do not let their blood satiate the cruel tyrant. Children do not cry, you double my pain. The eternal gods will do what they want with you and my people and I commend you to them.]

Superlatives (‘dolcissimi’), diminutives (‘Cleopatrina’), and a rich, typified adjectivation (‘f igliuoli dolcissimi’; ‘amorevole madre’; ‘dei eterni’; ‘bel regno’; ‘innocenti fanciulli’; ‘crudel tiranno’; ‘eterni dei’) mingle in these few lines with bloody imagery (‘mi par veder il sangue vostro correr per

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le strade di Alessandria’; ‘non permettere che del sangue loro si satii il crudel tiranno’), poignantly dissenting from it. Finally, in the short prayer to the gods, subjects and children are associated, underlining the idea of a queen mother.167 Even if she shares most of her f inal deeds and words with previous Cleopatras, the general attitude of the anonymous author’s protagonist is somehow different. She calls her servants to witness that she dies a free queen, in a defiant tone: ‘moio reina libera, col scettro in mano e col diadema in testa’ [‘I died a free queen, with the sceptre in my hand and the crown on my head’] (v.232-233) and her death is described in a few simple lines, which could be the sad conclusion of a novella: ‘Sappi vostra maestà’ [‘Your Majesty must know’]. Proculeio states, in Act v, ‘che la bella reina Cleopatra, ispedito che hebbe il suo sacrificio, subito entrata in camera et abbracciati i figliuoli e le serve, intrepidamente, senza altro dire, con un crudel aspido che Olimpio, suo medico e nutritio, qui presente, le havea preparato, si diede la morte’ [‘that beautiful Cleopatra once she had finished her sacrifice, immediately went into her room and, having embraced her children and maids, bravely, saying no more, killed herself with a cruel asp that the here present Olimpio, her physician and nurse, had prepared’] (v.345-349). No last monologue, no farewells. She faces her doom ‘senza altro dire’ [‘saying no more’]. Epafrodito defines her as ‘sdegnosa, furibonda e altera’ [‘disdainful, furious and proud’] (v.131-132), and even her enemies must pay homage to her great spirit. Cleopatra’s counterpart is far less complex. The anonymous author’s Octavian is moved by Antony’s death (iv.253-257), is kind to the Alexandrines (v.32-51), and ready to pay homage to the defeated couple (v.488493). According to Rossi, the insistence on his clementia is a glimpse of the encomiastic intent of the play, which could have been dedicated to some eminent patron.168 Yet the character is not faultless, and some parts of the play could hardly be found flattering by a powerful dedicatee. For example, in the final scene, when he faces the victor, Olimpio harshly rebukes him for his cruelty towards his sovereign and Antony (v.380-408). Among minor roles, Canidio merits special mention. Publius Canidius Crassus, after serving under Lepidus and acting as suffect consul (40 BC), became Mark Antony’s lieutenant. He advised Antony to fight on land before 167 See above 4.2. Note that Elizabeth I stated, in one of her speeches: ‘as many as are English are my children’, quoted in Rose, p. 32. Also in Garnier’s play the queen movingly says adieu to her children (v.1846-1868). 168 Rossi 1998, pp. 116-117.

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the confrontation with Octavian, and later at Actium he was commanderin-chief of the land force against the Romans. The anonymous author’s and Shakespeare’s plays are the only Cleopatra plays where he features as one of the dramatis personae. In Giraldi’s tragedy there is a nameless captain who could have been inspired by him or by any of the officials of Antony mentioned in the sources. Yet Cinthio’s character is merely a confidant who tries to induce his general to act like a Roman. The anonymous dramatist’s Canidius is much more than this: he acts as a military and political adviser, suggesting almost every move to his leader. The idea was probably borrowed from a passage in Plutarch (34.9) – also exploited by Shakespeare in the dialogue between Ventidius and Silius (iii.1).169 Another hint came perhaps from 42.4, where Plutarch says that Canidius had a strong influence on his general. Plutarch says nothing of his fate, last mentioning him as the bearer of the news of the defeat in the Ambracian Gulf (71.1). We learn of his fate from other sources. Velleius Paterculus praising Octavian’s clemency, reports: ‘Canidius timidius decessit, quam professioni ei, qua semper usus erat, congruebat’ [‘As for Canidius, he showed more fear in the face of death than was consistent with his lifelong utterances’]170 (ii.87.3), without openly imputing his execution to the emperor. Orosius bluntly states that he was killed ‘iussu Caesaris’ [‘by Caesar’s order’] (vi.19.20), adding enigmatically that he was ‘infestissimus quidem semper Caesari, sed et Antonio infidus’ [‘He always was really harmful to Caesar, but unfaithful to Antony as well’]. For Shakespeare he is a traitor (iii.10.32-34).171 The anonymous dramatist, on the contrary, credits him with admirable feelings and makes him commit suicide together with his general. ‘La camera è tutta piena di sangue e d’inmagine di morte’ [‘The whole room is filled with blood and images of death’], Derceteus (Dicerteo) explains, telling of Antony’s fatal wound, ‘essendosi ancora in quell’istante ammazzato Canidio, suo capitano, qual valorosamente si trafisse il petto con la spada che teneva a lato’ [‘as just then his captain Canidio killed himself, too. He bravely ran himself through with the sword he had at his side’] (iv.170-172). 169 According to Plutarch, it was generally rumoured that both Antony and Octavian were more successful in campaigns conducted by others than by themselves. 170 For the English translation, see Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History. Res Gestae Divi Augusti, trans. by Frederick W. Shipley. 171 From the historical sources we learn that Canidius deserted his legions after Actium and hurried after Antony (Vell. Pat., 85.6; Plut., Ant., 67.5 and 68.3). Pelling (notes to Ant., 68.5) states that he stayed loyal to his general. According to Landi, on the contrary, he abandoned his post and fled to Octavian (32r). For the ‘sei re di corona’ (Landi, f.30), see Plutarch, Ant., 63.3 and 71.1.

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Thus, the loyal captain succeeds (like Eros) in striking the kind of mortal blow that his leader cannot.172 The stylistic sources of such a composite play are of course hugely varied, including all the necessary models from Petrarch to Ariosto, and, considering the dates, Tasso, with a partiality for Boccaccio’s Genealogia deorum gentilium and De casibus virorum illustrium. More noteworthy, from this point of view, are the interconnections with those writers, identified by Rossi, who belonged to the same chronological period and geographical area. Some linguistic analogies show that the author knew both the vernacular translation of Boccaccio’s treatises by Giuseppe Betussi (respectively, 1547 and 1545) and the translation of Plutarch’s Lives by Lodovico Domenichi (1556). The incipit of the priest’s song in Act v, ‘Ossa di maraviglie e di honor piene’ [‘Bones filled with marvels and honour’], intertextually dialogues with that of a sonnet over the bones of Roland by Giulio Camillo, nicknamed Delminio, ‘Ossa di meraviglia e d’honor piene’ Delminio’s Rime, first published in 1552 by Gabriel Giolito (Venice), were edited by Ludovico Dolce, whose influence on this play has already been noted. Domenichi entered into correspondence with both Dolce and Betussi and both Dolce and Domenichi were, for a time at least, members of the same academy, the Accademia della Fratta. Betussi and Domenichi, then, together with Tommaso Porcacchi, were editors of Virgil’s opera omnia in 1556.173 As far as we know, Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio was the last, unconventional product of the Italian Renaissance theatrical vogue for the story of Cleopatra. Its contradictions; the interweaving of rhetoric with naturalistic language; the apparent adherence to the unities of time, place and action, coexisting with a compression of events defying probability; the mingling of classical and popular culture; the importance given to music and dance; all this points to a new context, a new age, and a new taste. Meanwhile, the subject had spread throughout Europe, generating different plays in different cultural milieus.

172 In this respect, Dryden’s Ventidius, in his death, is set midway between Eros and Canidius (All for Love, v.317-334, 356). 173 Rossi 1998, pp. 123-126. For a biography of these writers, see the respective voices of the DBI and Di Filippo Bareggi, passim. Both Domenichi and Betussi took part in Italian Renaissance praise of women. See Cox 2008, pp. 92-93. For the Accademia della Fratta, see Procaccioli 2016.

5.

‘The wanton luxurie of Court’1 Abstract Étienne Jodelle’s Cleopatre captive. Garnier’s Marc Antoine (1578). Mary Sidney, countess of Pembroke’s Antonius – a translation of Garnier’s Marc Antoine – and the distinctive traits of her work. Analysis of Daniel’s Cleopatra. Daniel’s A Letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius, a poem in ottava rima on the same subject. Samuel Brandon’s The Virtuous Octavia (1598) and the two letters accompanying the tragicomedy. The dichotomy between adulterous Cleopatra and chaste Octavia are chiefly repurposed within texts written by Renaissance women (for instance, Cary’s Mariam). Keywords: Garnier; Mary Sidney; Daniel; Brandon; Cary

5.1

From Cleopatra to Cléopâtre

In the winter of 1553 Cleopatra first spoke French, at the Hôtel de Reims in Paris, in Étienne Jodelle’s Cleopatre captive.2 Thus the queen of Egypt became the first heroine of French tragédie humaniste. The play was performed in the presence of Henri II and of the duke of Guisa. The occasion was the celebration of the victory of Metz, against Charles V, and the marriage of Diane d’Angoulême to Orazio Farnese. The event was praised by Ronsard and the other poètes de la Pléiade.3 Jodelle (1532-1573) was at the time an avant-garde twenty-year-old poet. The shift from one country to another was not without consequence. P.R. Horne has summarised thus the formal differences between Italian and French dramas: 1 Daniel, Cleopatra, iv.1212. 2 For Jodelle’s life and oeuvre, see Balmas; Charpentier; Cornillat; for this play in particular, see Williamson 1974, pp. 100-109. Cléopâtre captive was performed a second time that year, at the Collège de Boncourt, for the benefit of scholars. 3 It seems that Jodelle became part of the group after the success of his play.

Montanari, A.M., Cleopatra in Italian and English Renaissance Drama. Amsterdam University Press, 2019. doi 10.5117/9789462985995_ch05

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Early French tragedy was much more narrowly academic than Italian tragedy of the same period; more tightly bound by classic rules, which the French theorists themselves made more restrictive. The subjects considered suitable for tragedy were the narrowest possible; and of the action chosen a minimum was actually shown on the stage. A tragedy depended for its effect on its rhetorical qualities […] and the whole play was more lyrical than dramatic. 4

The translation also implied a passage from the shattered reality of the Italian signorie and republics to the wider horizons of national monarchies. The historical background was completely different, too. France was on the verge of its Wars of Religion (1562-1598) and Jodelle, who would later write anti-Protestant sonnets, in his play spares neither Roman Catholics nor Huguenots. The imminent storm induces him to an antireligious position which would have been unthinkable after 1562. He firmly believed in the moral function of drama and, in his preface to the tragedy, he called the attention of the victorious king of France to the destiny of his royal characters.5 His successful experiment opened the way for other French Cleopatra plays and Robert Garnier’s Marc Antoine appeared in 1578.6 With this pièce, Antony regained the honour of the title. Marc Antoine was not Garnier’s first play. He had already published two other Roman tragedies, Porcie (1568) and Cornélie (1574).7 His interest in Roman history, according to critics, shows his obsession with the disastrous effects of civil discord. Drama was for him a way to comment on contemporary events. By casting Octavian as uncontainably ambitious and tyrannical, the play offers advice to the court, against unrestrained monarchical will, according to the playwright’s idea of the theatre as a rhetoric of political power, and, at the same time, the question of good rule is expressed in a highly decorous and ever-so-careful humanistic style. In his play, the theme of moral responsibility and of the consequences of private choices upon public matters is central. The pleasures of love cause the greatest damage to sovereigns (iii.1090-1093). Antony has in fact succumbed to the charms of the queen of Egypt, forgetting himself, 4 Horne, p. 99. See also Morrison 1974, p. 116. 5 Balmas, p. 302. 6 For Garnier, see Mouflard; Jondorf; Witherspoon; Liénard; Bono, pp. 116-121; Prescott. 7 Marc Antoine was then revised in 1585. Cleopatra is negatively quoted in his Porcie, v.150. Cornélie was translated by Thomas Kyd in 1593-1594. For the date, see Cadman 2015b, p. 44.

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his honour, and his duty (i.97-104, 119-124; iii.1148-1169). He condemningly describes himself as ‘un porc ventru touillé dedans la fange’ (iii.1153) [‘the fatted swine in filthy mire’ (Pembroke, iii.1166)].8 Garnier’s Cleopatra really was the cause of Antony’s ruin and she repeatedly admits it (ii.430-448, v.1792-1813). What is more, it is impossible to blame all on fate or on God’s wickedness. The queen of Egypt states that gods are not responsible for human choices and mistakes, as human beings act of their own free will (ii.472-482). Fortune, in the play, though both blamed and invoked, is little more than a decorative figure. Garnier’s technique differs from that of Giraldi, De Cesari, or Pistorelli: the royal couple is guilty, yet partly redeemed in the end by death or, in the case of Cleopatra, by willingness to die, as the play ends with the queen swooning over Antony’s tomb in what has been aptly described as a ‘proleptic representation of death’.9 The play is mainly a lyrical portrait of noble characters, faced with the illusory nature of worldly greatness. Garnier’s Cleopatra is above all a victim of excessive passion and, just as in Giraldi’s play, her behaviour responds to the Renaissance stereotyped image of women: she is jealous, fearful, and ready to do anything for love (ii.409-410, 449-456, 465-466, 672-688).10 To give voice to the queen’s emotions, passions and fears, Garnier turns to lyric and narrative poetry, drawing on a plethora of sources, Virgil, Latin elegiac poets, Dante, Petrarchism and Ariosto, Ronsard and the other poètes de la Pléiade, while Seneca inspires the rhetorical set pieces and stichomythic exchanges.11 After Garnier, the subject matter was revived, once again, in 1594 by Nicolas de Montreux, a Catholic tragedian, whose Cleopatre tragedie,

8 Hill and Morrison, pp. 18-19. For Pembroke’s skill in the translation of this line, see Beilin 1987, pp. 132-133. 9 Alexander 2006, p. 104. The emphasis on individual responsibility does not imply a didactic or simple tone, as Garnier seems to sympathise with the ill-fated pair, in an intertextual dialogue with the traditional reading of Dante’s reaction to Francesca’s speech, in Inferno v. The superimposition of the two couples (see 2.2), in this particular case becomes overt, in the literary closeness of Marc Antoine, iii.936-937 to Inf. v.121-123. 10 Hill and Morrison, p. 18; Raber 2001, p. 63. According to Bono (p. 120), ‘Cléopatre is abruptly ennobled’ unconvincingly, in the last part of the play. 11 Theatrically, her love is compared to Alcestis’ (ii.596-597), but lyrically (as shown by Hill and Morrison, p. 176) she is once again, Dido (Aen., iv.653-658; Garnier v.1954-1956), while the speech delivered over Antony’s body amplifies Plutarch’s, with an eye to the last words of Zerbino and Isabella (Orl. Fur., xxiv.78-87).

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written when the civil wars was long since begun, responds to a CounterReformist ideology in its retributive scheme, where sin is punished and virtue rewarded.12 Meanwhile, Mary Sidney Herbert, countess of Pembroke, had translated Garnier’s Marc Antoine into her native language, thus introducing the tragic subject into England. It was, in effect, the irony of fate that a lady compared to Octavia by the poets she patronised escorted Octavia’s rival onto the English stage.13

5.2

‘Or meurs donc Cleopatre’ / ‘Die Cleopatra then’14

As Mary Sidney was not the author of an original Cleopatra play, but instead chose to translate Garnier’s Marc Antoine into English, the interest of Antonius (1590; first published in 1592) within our survey, lies primarily in the reasons she made that choice.15 Most of Pembroke’s work consists of translations. In the Renaissance, as Krontiris notes, ‘translating was esteemed an acceptable form of female authorship, because of the translator’s subservience to the authority of the original, usually written by a male’ (pp. 21-22).16 At the same time, though, in the sixteenth century, translation enjoyed a higher status than today. The issues surrounding it were far more complex than can be explored here, but it can be said, oversimplifying, that the imitation of classical works was then the basis of ‘original’ writings, as a way to compete with them and to absorb their qualities. Consequently the distinction between translation and imitation was blurred (see above 3.1). Raber warns that the act of translation was presented, by male translators, as a form of patriotic project: through it, foreign and classical literary works were made available to the English, 12 This does not mean that Montreux’s work is oversimplistic, as right and wrong are not clearly divided and Cleopatra is still a heroic figure (Williamson 1974, p. 130). For Nicolas de Montreux, who took the nom de plume Ollénix du Mont Sacré, see Simonin. For later French tragedies on the subject, see below Conclusion. 13 Hannay 1990, p. 110. For the tenor and meaning of the dedications, see Beilin 1987, pp. 125-126; Hannay 1990, pp. 78-79. 14 Garnier, Marc Antoine, v.1903; Pembroke, Antonius, v.1927. For the lineation of Antonius in Sidney Herbert, Selected Works (and in Collected Works before it), see above, 2.2 n. 30. 15 For the text, see Sidney Herbert, Selected Works, pp. 41-111. For Mary Sidney, see Hannay 1990; Lamb 1990; Beilin 1987, pp. 121-150; Bergeron; Alexander 2006. For Antonius, see Sanders, pp. 89-137; Norland 1996; Brennan 1998; Weller. 16 See also Beilin 1987, pp. 59-62; Hannay, Kinnamon and Brennan 2005a, p. 15; Raber 2001, p. 66; Straznicki 2004, pp. 27-31.

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thus promoting the growth of native literature. By choosing a translation, Mary Sidney subtly aimed at this second, prestigious function of translating, while apparently accepting the feminine role of faithful reproducer of the words of the original.17 Daniel and the other poets she patronised stressed her pivotal role in promoting poetry’s refinement and development.18 Her choice to translate a neo-Senecan tragedy would impose a reexamination of the relationship between closet and stage drama, but as the problem has already been fully discussed by a host of critics, I am restricting it to a few essential points. The primacy of commercial theatre in England had favoured a tendency to marginalise and neglect elite intellectual plays, which were considered – a bit like Italian neo-Senecan tragedies – minor and unsuccessful attempts at writing drama, firmly opposed to the public stage. A fresh set of critical considerations, focusing on the nature and meaning of the public/private dichotomy, has discredited this assumption, showing how closet drama meaningfully contributed to the development of English Renaissance theatre. Its intersections with plays for public performance have been traced, its utter untheatricality questioned and its importance in offering opportunities for female agency (both as dramatists and performers) emphasised.19 Scholars have challenged the idea that Mary Sidney was the head of a reactionary conspiracy to destroy native popular tragedy, a campaign inspired by her brother’s criticism of the barbarities of English drama in his Defence of Poetry (XV).20 Hannay underlines how the countess and her family were patrons of English companies of players, her two sons being the dedicatees of Shakespeare’s First Folio. Considering these connections, it is unlikely that Pembroke could seriously think of displacing English plays for commercial performance by substituting them with neoclassical closet drama.21 She chose it exactly because it was conceived for reading 17 Raber 2001, p. 70. See also Beilin 2015, p. 188. 18 For Mary Sidney’s mentorship of writers, see Lamb 1990, pp. 28-71; Bailin 1987, p. 125; Hannay 1990, pp. 106-142; Celovsky, pp. 269-272. 19 Privacy also made it suitable for social and political dissent. See Straznicki 2004, pp. 1-18, 49-52, 112-120. The term ‘closet drama’ itself has been criticised and the genre is now at times referred to as ‘elite domestic play’ or ‘neo-Senecan drama’, see Arshad, Hackett and Whipday, p. 169; Straznicki 2004, p. 113; Weller, p. 201; Cadman 2015b, pp. 1-7. 20 Defence of Poesy, pp. 44-48. For the so-called ‘conspiracy theory’, see the bibliography in Hannay 1990, p. 248 n. 52. The traditional view, still held by Marilyn Williamson, was f irst debunked by Lamb (1981). See also Lamb 1990; Brennan 1988; Hannay 1990, pp. 119-125; Straznicki 2004, pp. 16-17; Celovsky, pp. 270-271; Cadman 2015a; Cadman 2015b, pp. 1-7. 21 Hannay, Kinnamon and Brennan 2005c, p. 45; Hannay 1990, pp. 119-125. The family’s association with Shakespeare of course does not imply Mary Sidney’s own patronage, as Hannay herself states (1990, p. 125).

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out loud or for private presentation within aristocratic households or at court, and because it met her goal of contributing to the moral and political education and entertainment of a cultural elite. By naturalising an example of the French theatrical avant-garde, she was at most aiming at positively influencing the popular stage.22 As for her preferring a French play over an Italian one, Raber is probably right when she notes that, in England, by the time Mary Sidney translated the tragedy, the Italian roots of the humanist movement were regarded with increasing suspicion.23 Elizabeth I had been excommunicated in 1570, the loathed Spain dominated in different parts of ‘declined Italy’, 24 and identification with Italian culture was unsafe. Moreover French neoclassical drama, more academic and poorer in action than Italian drama, might appear more appropriate, in Mary Sidney’s eyes, as a means to purge the weaknesses of early English drama. Lastly, a good reason to favour France was the parallel drawn in its drama between the Roman civil wars and the French wars of religion, just when the English feared they were on the verge of facing such a conflict themselves, following the death of the ageing (and heirless) Queen Elizabeth.25 Pembroke’s preference for Garnier’s Marc Antoine in particular has been given specific and at time contrasting explanations by critics.26 She ‘may have been attracted […] by the portrayal of Cleopatra as a strong, independent, charismatic but enigmatic woman who is also a queen, a woman of significant stature’, Norland comments.27 Yet it is another factor that seems to be pivotal. In its princeps edition, Antonius followed Mary Sidney’s version of the Discours de la vie et de la mort by the aristocratic French Protestant Philippe Du Plessis Mornay, thus should be read alongside it.28 The treatise is a moral meditation on life and death and it exposes the spiritual emptiness of earthly pleasures and passions and of the ambition of the great. As its companion piece, the play becomes an exemplum of ‘the worldly life against which De Morney inveighs’ 22 Hannay, Kinnamon and Brennan 2005c, p. 45; Straznicki 2004, pp. 7-18. 23 Raber 2001, pp. 81-82. Pembroke was fluent in both Italian and French. 24 Daniel, To the Countesse of Pembroke, 78, in The Complete Works. 25 Hannay, Kinnamon and Brennan 2005c, p. 41; Straznicki 2004, p. 14. For the political interest of neo-Senecan English drama, see Cadman 2015b, pp. 1-7. 26 Richard Hillman, in particular, denies any topicality (2004, p. 63; quoted in Weller, p. 200). In England the impact exerted by the political content of a Cleopatra play was further complicated by the presence of a queen on the throne (see 5.3). 27 Norland 1996, p. 161. 28 Beilin 1987, p. 128; Hannay, Kinnamon and Brennan 2005b, pp. 112-113; Straznicki 2004, pp. 51-52. Only three surviving copies of this edition contain both works, see Bond, p. 65.

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and a parable of the fall of princes.29 In this sense, Antonius also relates to Pembroke’s subsequent translation, that of Petrarch’s Triumph of Death, so that the Egyptian queen may be seen as Laura’s opposite pole.30 Laura, it has been observed, ‘encounters the same conflict between passion and reason that Cleopatra does in Antonius, but she chooses reason and leads her lover to God, rather than choose passion that would cause his destruction and her own. Both Laura and Cleopatra, however, are portrayed as strong, eloquent women who defeat death through their nobility and resulting fame.’31 Mary Ellen Lamb and Gavin Alexander then both insist upon the intensity of Pembroke’s emotional and literary ties with her late brother. Most of her translations focus on mourning, loss and death.32 The Discours de la vie et de la mort was influenced by Stoic ideals and, according to Lamb, its ‘emphasis upon passive endurance over heroic action and its privileging of inner composure as a positive virtue provided a powerful model of heroism that was accessible to women’.33 In Pembroke’s eyes, Garnier’s Cleopatra was the embodiment of a female variatio upon Stoic values. Though the reason for her suicide (love) was anti-Stoic in itself (see 3.1), her loyalty to Antony and her noble death showed every woman a double, usable way to demonstrate heroism: total fidelity to her husband and a noteworthy death.34 On his side, Alexander’s acute analysis takes, as a starting point, Pembroke’s choice to fashion herself as the literary heir of Philip Sidney, both in completing and imitating his works. She was drawn to Marc Antonie by her interest in endings: the end of Antony, Cleopatra’s feeling the end approaching. ‘It is in writing about death that Pembroke comes alive as a poet,’ he notices.35 Let us finally turn to the translation itself, stating at the outset – for clarity’s sake – that Pembroke’s rendition was based on the French edition of 1585.36 She utilised unrhymed iambic pentameter (English blank verse) – adopted for drama by Marlowe, Sackville, Norton and others – to translate 29 Beilin 1987, p. 128. 30 Beilin 1987, pp. 128-137; Lamb 1990, pp. 129-140. 31 Hannay, Kinnamon and Brennan 2005d, p. 265. 32 She also tried her hand at Petrarch’s Triumphus mortis. For the composition of the Triumph of Death, see Hannay, Kinnamon and Brennan 2005d, pp. 262-266. See also above 2.2. 33 Lamb 1990, p. 127. For a critical view of her interpretation, see Cadman 2015b, p. 26. For the popularity of neo-Stoicism in the Sidney circle, see Cadman 2015b, p. 12. 34 Lamb 1990, pp. 130-131. I do not share completely though Lamb’s view of Garnier’s Cleopatra. See below. 35 Alexander 2006, p. 103. 36 For the different editions of the play, see Hill and Morrison, pp. 29-30. The translation is literal and retains many of the original rhetorical devices. See Brennan 1998, pp. 150-151; Weller.

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Garnier’s alexandrines in rhyming couplets and more complex schemes for the choruses’ variety of lyric forms.37 Rhyme is used only for emphasis: at the close of paragraphs, for stichomythia and sententiae.38 Antonius is considered by Witherspoon, ‘an extremely careful and conscientious work, executed by one who knew French well, and who was versed in classic history and legend’ but lacking in the ‘lyrical and emotional touches which are so important a part of the original’ (p. 91).39 This judgement in itself is symptomatic. The loss of these touches is not a taint per se, but rather a distinctive trait of Mary Sidney’s work. As Weller points out, ‘the text of Antonius may be most productively understood as a kind of collaboration between Garnier and Sidney’.40 However faithful to the letter, a translation is always a reading of the original text and the reading by an English Protestant woman of a play by a French Catholic man could hardly be neutral. 41 In Pembroke’s version we can recognise traces of her mindset, of her concerns and obsessions. Her unusually loose rendering of the argument has been seen as a reflection of her feminine perspective. It emphasises Antony’s marital responsibilities, showing great sympathy for Octavia; it omits the allusion to Cleopatra’s beauty. 42 In parallel, Sidney’s version stresses the queen’s social standing and undercuts the allusions to her charms throughout the play. 43 Her tendency to substitute most of the original’s minute mythological and historical allusions chimes with her interest in anglicising foreign models, with her idea of using them to reform native literature. It is a way of lightening the Continental taste for erudition. She probably felt that this new kind of tragedy needed some adaptation to be accepted and admired by her English readers. 44 37 Hannay, Kinnamon and Brennan 2005c, pp. 45-46. She maintains Garnier’s rhyme scheme in two of the choral odes (Brennan 1998, p. 147). For the reduction of the French line, see Norland 1996, p. 162. As Weller (p. 200) underlines, the use of blank verse in the early 1590s is ‘suggestive’. 38 Brennan 1998, p. 147. Weller (p. 206) notes that, in the chorus, ‘the effect of her iambic tetrameter is necessarily different’ from Garnier’s eight-syllable line, despite the use of the same rhyme scheme, also for the presence of feminine rhymes. 39 See Williamson 1974, pp. 132-133. She considers some parts of Mary Sidney’s literal translation almost ‘grotesque’ (p. 133). 40 Weller, p. 202. 41 For her work, she probably consulted both North’s and Amyot’s versions of Plutarch’s Lives. See Brennan 1998, pp. 147-148, 150. 42 Norland 1996, pp. 164-165; Brennan 1998, pp. 147-149. For the cultural explanation, see Sidney Herbert, Selected Works, p. 43. 43 Norland 1996, pp. 165-168. 44 Brennan 1998, p. 151.

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Another dominating obsession of Pembroke was death. Alexander has shown how her engagement with death is betrayed by her translation. In the conclusion of her poem to her brother’s ‘Angel Spirit’, she prefigures her death, as Garnier’s Cleopatra does, using the same words (‘I can no more’) as the swooning queen in Antonius: ‘I can no more, I die’ (v.1893).45 Death permeates her idiolect, filling her pen with neologisms and unusual words concerning it.46 Alexander gives some examples of her obsessive lingering on the same semantic field. One of them comes from Act iv, and from Derceteus’ relation of Mark Antony’s suicide. Garnier had, ‘A grand’peine avoit-il ce propos achevé’ (iv.1606) and Pembroke translates, ‘Of speaking thus he scarce had made an end’ (iv.1623), adding a pun absent in the original. To these we may add, for instance, a passage from the chorus of Act iii, where, within a sort of hymn to death, Garnier’s ‘la mortelle Parque au contraire / Nous offre un secours salutaire / Contre tous les humains malheurs’ (iii.1254-1256) becomes ‘Death rather healthfull succor gives, / Death rather all mishaps relieves / That life upon us throweth’ (iii.1268-1270). Here the word death, out of the classical periphrasis, tolls twice, at the beginning of the line, in anaphora. Mary Sidney’s interest in the art of dying combines with her religious fervour and with her gender in another significant aspect of her translation: her awkward dialogue with Garnier’s deep sensuality. 47 If, as the translator of a male-authored text, Pembroke was less open to accusations concerning its unchaste content, that did not mean she would feel at ease, relating Marc Antoine and Cleopatre’s ‘folles amours’ (iv.1443). One of the most sensuous passages in the play is the queen’s speech at the funeral of her ‘husband’. A side-by-side examination of the original and the translation shows how the countess’ version reacts to Garnier’s carnal imagery: Non, non, je suis heureuse, en mon mal devorant,] De mourir avec toy, de t’embrasser mourant,] Mon corps contre le tien, ma bouche desseichee,]

No, no, most happy in this hapless case,] To die with thee, and dying thee embrace,] My body joined with thine, my mouth with thine,]

45 Alexander 2006, p. 95. 46 Alexander 2006, p. 98. 47 Quite surprisingly, for Chernaik (p. 163) Garnier and Daniel do not bring out ‘the erotic aspects of death’s embrace’. For Mary Sidney’s tendency to chasten the eroticism of the original, see Hillman 2004, especially pp. 70-71, although I do not agree with his general argument. Weller gives a brief comparison between the two texts act by act.

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De soupirs embrasez, à la tienne attachee,] Et d’estre en mesme tombe et en mesme cercueil,] Tous deux enveloppez dans un mesme linceul.] (v.1962-1967)

My mouth, whose moisture burning sighs have dried,] To be in one self tomb, and one self chest,] And wrapped with thee in one self sheet to rest.] (v.1985-1990)

The eroticism of the French lines is intense. In Cleopatra’s reverie the common burial she dreams of becomes an everlasting post-mortem erotic act. She imagines embracing her paramour, flesh to flesh, mouth to mouth (ll. 1963-1964); her throat is parched, as it would be out of lust, out of love sighs, in the heat of lovemaking, and, just as in lovemaking, the two lovers are wrapped in the same sheet (where ‘linceul’ combines its everyday meaning with the funeral meaning of ‘shroud’). The rendering of these lines has been defined a poetical tour de force, for its cluster of epanalepsis, anadiplosis, alliterations, rhyming couplets etc. 48 Yet despite Pembroke’s careful attention, her rendition creates a very different effect from the source text, chiefly because of some rational clarifications, some lexical choices and its general solemnity. First of all, the sinuous series of enjambements in the French verses is substituted, in the English rendition, by a sort of staccato rhythm. At line 1988 (‘My mouth, whose moisture burning sighs have dried’) the sensual image of the burning sighs of passion – due to the insertion of a relative clause – is tuned down to an aseptic, almost medical-jargon level. What is more, the introduction of the present perfect of the verb ‘to dry’ (‘have dried’) chillingly frames the action in the past. But it is with the last, concluding line that the whole passage takes on an entirely different light. Here, Mary Sidney – finding her pentameter at a disadvantage against the French alexandrine – introduces a space-filler indicating and emphasising her concern with loss and mourning. She adds ‘to rest’. It may well be, as Mary Ellen Lamb asserts, that the queen, through her willingness to die, cleanses herself of sexual faults, yet this is true in Pembroke’s translation only. What stands out in the original passage is not ‘the confinement of Cleopatra’s sexual impulses to an expression of desire for death’. 49 Even death, on the contrary, seems unable to extinguish the protagonists’ physical, 48 Alexander 2006, p. 103. 49 Lamb 1990, p. 132. According to Ingram (p. 300), ‘the eroticism fails to re-create a believable grand passion’, but this is so, once again, only in Pembroke’s version. For an opposite interpretation, see Sanders.

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overpowering love. To die, as Lamb observes, in early modern English, was a euphemistic synonym for ‘to orgasm’ as well (1990, p. 132). In Garnier’s tragedy there is no final purging of the soul from luxuria. It was Pembroke who had ‘the negative capability to associate the suicides of Antony and Cleopatra imaginatively with the good Christian death’.50 The same passionate urgency connotes the last lines of the tragedy: Que je vous baise donc, ô beaux yeux, ma lumiere!] O front, siege d’honneur! belle face guerriere!] O col, ô bras, ô mains, ô poitrine où la mort] Vient de faire (hà! mechef!) son parricide effort!] Que de mille baisers, et mille et mille encore,] Pour office dernier ma bouche vous honore;] Et qu’en un tel devoir mon corps affoiblissant] Defaille dessur vous, mon ame vomissant.] (v.1992-1999)

Then let me kiss you, you fair eyes, my light,] Front seat of honor, face most fierce, most fair!] O neck, O arms, O hands, O breast where death] (Oh, mischief) comes to choke up vital breath.] A thousand kisses, thousand, thousand more] Let you my mouth for honor’s farewell give,] That in this office, weak my limbs may grow,] Fainting on you, and forth my soul may flow.] (v.2015-2022)

After skilfully handling the first three lines, translating literally from the French, Pembroke is forced to replace line 1995 of the original entirely, for rhyming purposes; but with line 1996 she regains her closeness to Garnier’s text, with its ‘mille et mille baisers’ almost taken out of Catullus’ mouth (Catulli Liber, 5.7-8, ‘da mi basia mille, deinde centum, / dein mille altera, dein secunda centum’ [‘give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, / then another thousand, then a second hundred’]).51 After line 1998, however, the translation regains a personal tone. In the French tragedy, Cleopatra addresses Antony’s dead body so fervently that her final évanouissement 50 Alexander 2006, p. 100. Significantly, while Garnier’s Cleopatra is ready to follow her love ‘aux Enfers pallissans’ [‘to pale Hell’] (ii.650), Pembroke omits the detail, ‘perhaps for theological reasons’ (Brennan 1998, p. 151). 51 Bullough (p. 231) sees a direct filiation from Pembroke’s translation in Shakespeare’s ‘many thousand kisses’ of the dying Antony (iv.15.21). The English translation is that of Cornish.

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resembles a swoon in the ecstasy of love (‘Defaille dessur vous’). Mary Sidney faithfully follows the original, and ‘limbs’ (l. 2021) is only a bland, if slightly cold, variation from ‘corps’. Alexander stresses how the reversed first foot, in the conclusive line, acts out ‘the collapse it describes’.52 Yet – although she had literally translated the verb at iii.1101, where Marc Antoine wished he had ‘vomited’ his ‘bloud’ on the battlefield53 – she cannot bring herself to make her Cleopatra vomit her soul, as Garnier does. In this psalm-influenced translation, a soul, a man’s immortal core, cannot possibly be thrown up.54 It ‘flows forth’ with dignity, thus spoiling beyond remedy the impact of the original, visceral image.55 A few lines before, at 2008, transposing the image of Cleopatra’s tears dried by the fire surging in her breast (Garnier, v.19841985) she again replaced the French verb ‘vomist’ (‘ainsi qu’une fournaise’, l. 1985) with the softer ‘rise’. Beyond the differences in the French and English versions the queen’s complaint over her beloved’s bones that ends the tragedy remains so effective and full of pathos that some commentators maintain it could be interpreted in two different ways: either Cleopatra mourns Antony’s death and collapses over the tomb or she and her waiting women, while she is speaking, ‘take poison, or apply the asps, and actually die a few moments later’.56 ‘But both Garnier’s Cleopatra and Pembroke herself in her poem to Sidney’s soul,’ as Alexander points out, ‘can only imagine and plan for their deaths. In Cleopatra’s case it takes Daniel to write the death itself.’57

5.3

‘A glorious Lady, and a mighty Queene’58

In the lengthy dedication of his Cleopatra (1594) to his patron the countess of Pembroke, Daniel presents it as a sort of ‘sequel’ to her translation of Garnier (‘Madam, had not thy well grac’d Anthony, / (Who all alone having remained long,) / Requir’d his Cleopatras company’ [14-16]).59 Most of 52 Alexander 2006, p. 104. 53 Garnier has ‘je vomisse la vie et le sang au milieu’ (iii.1090). 54 Alexander 2006, pp. 99-100, 104. 55 Brennan (1998, p. 151) notices the change, but simply observes that Pembroke ‘avoids the non-heroic connotations’ of ‘vomissant’. For a different view, see Weller, p. 208. 56 Hill and Morrison, p. 16; Purkiss, note to v.208. 57 Alexander 2006, p. 98; Weller, p. 207. 58 Daniel, Cleopatra, v.1.1345. 59 The dedication – consisting of fourteen stanzas, each having eight iambic pentameter lines, rhyming ababbcac – was omitted in later editions and revised in the 1607 edition. For a feminist reading of this text, see Raber 2001, pp. 98-103. For Daniel’s Cleopatra, see Rees 1964;

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the statements in the introductory verses to the play remain within the traditional boundaries of dedicatory cliché (1-24). Both the self-disparaging attitude and the personification of the tragedies were topoi – of which we have already had an example in Pistorelli’s lettera prefatoria (4.2) – as was the magnificatio of the dedicatee. Yet we can immediately discern the presence of an element we did not find in the Italian dedicatory letters, the political emphasis. Daniel – so he says – was called by Pembroke not only to a higher literary genre (tragedy, we must remember, according to Aristotle, was superior even to epic), but also ‘to sing of state’ (l. 8).60 Singing of state was not an easy task in Elizabethan England. In writing an original English Cleopatra play, Daniel had moved further than his patron, taking complete responsibility for its content, and representing a female ruler in a female-ruled country could have embarrassing implications. Elizabeth’s presence on the throne ‘in certain respects […] was a radical event’.61 Classically, females were considered born to obey.62 Though later Protestant thinkers claimed that Elizabeth was an exception to the general rule of disastrous feminine magistracy, even in 1558 John Knox – in his treatise The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstruous Regiment of Women – insisted on the tyrannical nature of such power. Female rulers could only enforce their authority by ‘a combination of usurpation, seduction, and witchcraft’, potentially destructive for their male subjects, a process paralleling – we may say – Antony’s debasement in Cleopatra’s hands.63 Notably, the classical reference used by Knox to support his argument was the metamorphosis of Ulysses’ companions by Circe, a long-standing alter ego of the queen of Egypt. Knox’s attack was aimed at Catholic Mary Tudor of England and at Mary Queen of Scots, but it nonetheless exposed a latent fear of women as bearers of political power per se. Not by chance, a recurring embodiment of the male counterpart to the literary projections of Queen Elizabeth – in the literature of her times – is Hercules, or at least the Herculean hero, and the figure of Hercules silently carries with it the reminder of his feminisation Leavenworth; Ingram, pp. 301-304; Kneidel; Williamson 1974, pp. 134-149; Bullough, pp. 231-236; Lamb 1990, pp. 132-136; Raber 2001, pp. 98-110; Norland 1996, pp. 169-176. It seems likely that Daniel ‘had coterie access to the play, though the publication dates of the works do not require it’ (Bond, p. 65). There is a modern critical edition of the 1594 play by Sister H.L. Sampson (1966). 60 Aristotle, Poetics, xxvi.3-7. 61 Berry 1989, p. 61. For Elizabeth’s verbal strategies to legitimise her actions and her position and for the development of her techniques of representation, see Benson 1992, pp. 231-250; Rose, pp. 26-54. 62 See, for instance, Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes, 5.36. 63 Berry 1989, p. 68; Rose, p. 30.

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by Omphale.64 An exemplary case, in this sense, is the narrative strand of Artegall, Radigund and Britomart, in Book v of Spenser’s The Fairie Queene, a passage whose connections with Cleopatra’s myth have already been approached, in this survey (3.3). On the level of historical allegory, the episode condemns, in Radigund, that combination of political authority and sexuality that could be imputed to Mary of Scotland, but at the same time, within the broader frame of Book v, it suggests a subtle critique of Elizabeth herself, through the juxtaposition of ‘Mayd Martiall’ Britomart and Belphoebe, the representation of the Queen’s body natural, as distinguished from her body politic (Gloriana). Britomart is praised as a heroine of the patriarchal order, through her intended marriage and future offspring, while Belphoebe’s chastity is pictured as self-sufficient and autonomous, like Elizabeth’s, with the concomitant problems of legitimacy and succession.65 This complex knot of figures shows how easily the literary image of a female monarch could slip towards the opposite but equally deplorable extremes of sexual predator and untamed virgin, both dangerously beyond the control of men. During Elizabeth’s reign there was at least one significant fluctuation towards one of the poles: the Essex case. It is no accident that the play Fulke Greville decided to burn – fearing it might be interpreted as a comment on the rise and fall of the earl – was precisely his Antony and Cleopatra. Greville claimed that his purpose in writing dramas was ‘to trace out the highways of ambitious governors, and to show in the practice of life that the more audacity, advantage and good success such sovereigns have, the more they hasten to their own desolation and ruin’, a purpose not that far from the political theme emphasised by Daniel in his Cleopatra.66 Yet Daniel’s approach, in exploring ideological conflicts, was sufficiently universal to be innocuous, as will be seen, and, above all his play, as a pair with Pembroke’s translation, was centred on the conflict between Cleopatra and Caesar rather than on her relationship with Antony.67 This likely explains why he did not have to destroy it. Then again, he found himself in trouble some years later, with his Philotas, precisely because of its supposed links with the Essex rebellion.68 Closet-drama writers were trading on shifting 64 See, for example, April, in Spenser’s The Shepeardes Calender, or Chapman’s The Shadow of Night. For the motif, see also above 1.1. 65 Berry 1989, pp. 153-165. For Elizabeth and Belphoebe, see also Bono, pp. 74-75. 66 Greville, A Dedication to Sir Philip Sidney, p. 133; for the burning of his Antony and Cleopatra, see also p. 93. See Straznicki 2004, pp. 15, 50; Cadman 2015a, pp. 3-4. 67 Leavenworth, p. 23. 68 For Philotas and its apology, see Straznicki 2004, pp. 14-15, 50-51; Gazzard; Pitcher; Raber 2001, pp. 111-125; Rees 1964, pp. 97-105; Cadman 2015b, pp. 104-105, 108.

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sands indeed. The genre’s didactic vocation as ethical commentary on contemporary social and political conditions made it increasingly dangerous. In another passage of his dedication (ll. 33-40), Daniel pays homage to the campaign against ‘Gross Barbarism’ (l. 35) in which he is going to take part. Now we know that he was not criticising drama exclusively, but English poetry in general (and maybe paying a parenthetical homage to Shakespeare, with a pun),69 but the introduction of a Continental model which could work as a pastime for the upper classes, while positively influencing the popular stage, remained central to the Pembroke circle. It is in this respect – its being a Senecan closet drama – that Daniel’s work may firstly be considered a supplement to Pembroke’s Antonius. It takes account of formal neoclassical rules, picks up the plot of its model(s) and pushes it further. Secondly, and most prominently, Daniel’s tragedy somehow completes Mary Sidney’s translation because it revives the didactic themes at the basis of her interest in Garnier’s play: the conflict between public and private pressures, the cost of rulers’ ambition and the moral degeneration of their people, the inadequacy of pagan values, and confrontation with death. Thus Pembroke’s exploration of the art of dying is recovered, too. Cleopatra’s end dominates the play, but at the same time deeper historical and philosophical implications are given to her story. Her suicide is turned into a paradigm of the cyclical fall of empires. Sooner or later, every great state will inexorably decline and be overthrown.70 A kernel of the cyclical philosophy of history was already present in Garnier’s choral ode to Act ii (for which see below), yet Daniel developed the idea into a systematic philosophical tenet and took it to its extreme consequences.71 In a world of perpetual change, where ordinary humanity generally seeks to thrive or at least to adapt to circumstances, suicide is the only heroic way out left to princes. The originality of the playwright’s conception lies here and in the way he selects and orders, from the historical sources, those particular episodes which work to his coherent philosophical purpose, giving consistency to the whole work.72 From this point of view, the two philosopher sequence is particularly telling (Act iii.1). Daniel’s choice to introduce a dialogue between Arius, one of Octavian’s philosophy teachers, and Philostratus, a sort of court 69 Line 33, ‘pennes (like Speares)’. See Hannay 1990, p. 122. 70 Daniel thus concludes his Argument, ‘And so, heereby, came the race of the Ptolomies to be wholy extinct, & the flourishing ritch Kingdome of Egipt utterly over-throwne and subdued.’ 71 For Garnier and Daniel, see Witherspoon, pp. 100-108. The theme pervades also the closing lines of the chorus in Capponi’s Cleopatra (1628; v.5.17-23). 72 Williamson 1974, p. 134. See also Leavenworth, p. 24; Bono, pp. 122-124.

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sophist, is unprecedented.73 Arius was the man in whose company Octavian made his entry into Alexandria (Plut., Ant., 80.1). In this respect – as well as under the guise of evil counsellor, suggesting Caesarion’s killing (Plut., Ant., 81.2) – he had already been cast in Pistorelli’s play (see above 4.2). In Garnier’s tragedy, on the other hand, we find a soliloquy by Philostratus on the dire consequences of love and the signs and wonders foretelling Egypt’s downfall (ii.237-320; Pembroke ii.241-324). Daniel, for his part, decides to work from the hint found in Plutarch (80.3-5), where the historian said that Arius begged Octavian’s pardon for Philostratus, by imagining an interchange between the two philosophers.74 The reprieved man is grateful to have his life saved and this prompts a dialogue on man’s natural fear of dying. The way you live is not important, as long as you can prolong your life (iii.1.453-468), and even philosophical theories are not enough to reconcile oneself to death (iii.1.69-92). The discussion marks a contrast between the pair’s cowardly instinct to survive at any price, and Cleopatra’s heroic resolution to die. In this way, Joan Rees observes, it becomes an integral part of the tragedy ‘because, far from dispersing attention, it concentrates it even more firmly on the fate of Cleopatra and reveals implications as yet not touched on’ (1964, p. 51). In the same scene, Arius himself reaffirms the cyclical theory of history at the heart of the conceptual unity of the play (iii.1.525-536). The second part of the sequence – where he emphasises the impact of individual corruption and civil and religious decline on the decay of Egypt – only reinforces the idea. In the closing stichomythia, the philosopher reassumes the function he had been given in Pistorelli’s play, suggesting that Octavian will be forced to get rid of Caesario, as ‘Pluralities of Caesars are not good’ (iii.1.560). Hence the tragedy, briefly describing the fate of Cleopatra’s elder son, effortlessly turns to another motif, closely connected with the others: switching loyalties to seek prosperity. The Caesario strand leads to another oft-quoted example of Daniel’s sophisticated structural texture of the play: the Seleucus-Rodon scene. In a way, it opens as a sort of coda to the treasure episode (see 4.2). The dialogue not only modulates the theme of self-reproach, however, shifting from the 73 Areius Didymus was a Stoic philosopher, with Platonic learnings (Pelling, note to Ant., 80.1). We learn from Suetonius (Aug., LXXXIX.1) that Octavian lived with Areius and his sons and was instructed by him; Philostratus was a sophist at the court of Cleopatra (Pelling, note to Ant., 80.3). 74 Arius is one of the characters of the Aldini codex play, too, but the anonymous author, as is his style, exploits Plutarch’s Life in his own way. He ignores the episode of Phylostratus pardoned by Caesar, yet makes his Arrius beg for the life of the physician Olympus (v.409-413).

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treasurer’s treachery to the greater betrayal of Caesario’s tutor, but it also reintroduces another connected motif, that of Cleopatra’s children. In Garnier’s play Eufron, their teacher, asks the queen not to abandon them to their fate (v.1818-1831) and she begs him to take care of them and go away, far from Octave Cesar’s bloody hands (v.1832-1845) Daniel takes up the suggestion and develops it into the story of Caesario’s parting from his mother and his death, interweaving it with the topos of the εὐψῦχία also found in Pistorelli’s play (4.2), but without the fascination with lurid violence. What matters here is rather, once again, the mutability of worldly success. Williamson notes, ‘Because Cleopatra’s children are the last of the Ptolemies, their murder reinforces our sense that Egypt has reached a true end’ (1974, p. 141). Caesario’s prophetic last words, predicting Augustus’ death without heirs, in their turn refer indirectly back to the principle of cyclical change, as he ponders the misfortune of the great (iv.1.1010-1017) .75 Through the prophecy the theme of the inconstancy of Fortune is linked to a trait of Cleopatra’s characterisation that Daniel enhances: her motherly love.76 The motif appears first in the opening scene of the tragedy (i.73-90), and then in the first scene of the second act (ii.1.332-344) so that when Rodon relates his tale of betrayal and death, ‘the full significance of the earlier references to the children is revealed’ (Rees 1964, p. 53). That the account of the queen’s farewell is put in the mouth of the traitor only adds to the general effect of the passage: ‘O my devided soule, what shall I doe? Wheron shall now my resolution rest? What were I best resolve to yeeld unto When both are bad, how shall I know the best? Stay; I may hap so worke with Caesar now, That hee may yeeld him to restore thy right. Goe; Caesar never will consent that thou So neere in blood, shalt bee so great in might. Then take him Rodon, goe my sonne, fare-well. 75 For the historicity of the prophecy, see above 1.2. 76 Rees 1964, pp. 52-55; Williamson 1974, pp. 138-141. According to Williamson (1974, pp. 148-149) Cleopatra’s role as loving mother is further enhanced in the 1607 version, which opens on the queen’s farewell to Caesario. For Raber (2001, p. 106) Daniel’s Cleopatra is instead ‘emptied of gender’ and centred only on her role as queen. In Shakespeare’s plays the theme is only hinted at, see v.2.130-132. Garnier’s Cleopatra seems to put Antony before her children (ii.404-410, 555-558). In Jodelle’s play, there are few allusions to them (iii.940-950, iv.1241-1244). In Montreux’s tragedy, see iii.362-387.

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But stay; ther’s something els that I would-say: Yet nothing now, but o God speed thee well, Least saying more, that more may make thee stay. Yet let mee speake: It may be tis the last That ever I shall speake to thee my Sonne. Doe Mothers use to parte in such post-hast? What, must I ende when I have scarce begun? Ah no (deere hart,) tis no such slender twine Where-with the knot is tyde twixt thee and mee. That blood within thy vaines came out of mine, Parting from thee, I part from part of mee: And therefore I must speake. Yet what? O sonne.’ (iv.1.917-937)

This speech is an aporia, conveying the idea of turbulent emotional perplexity through a series of rhetorical questions and ecphoneses.77 It opens with an apostrophe by Cleopatra to her ‘divided soule’ (ll. 917-920) and goes on to introduce the opposition between going and staying (ll. 921 and 923), then develops it, associating the former with silence (ll. 925, 927) and the latter with speaking (ll. 926, 928-930, 937). The stay-go theme tangles with the semantic field of kinship, which closes the passage (‘my sonne’ ll. 925 and 930; ‘Mothers’ l. 931; ‘sonne’ l. 937), while the idea of hesitation is enforced through anaphora (ll. 926-927 and 936, this time with internal rhyme, antanaclasis and polyptoton) and anadiplosis (l. 928). Alliterations complete the highly rhetorical address; see, for instance, line 928, where the sibilant s and the dental t (suggesting solid immobility) interlace with the flight of ms (Least saying more, that more may make thee stay). Finally ‘blood’, as in iv.1.1002-1017 (see above) recurs twice (ll. 924 and 935), yet the first occurrence – referring to the link between Octavian and Caesario – clashes with the second, referring to that between Caesario and Cleopatra herself. By sending her son away for safekeeping, only to have him killed, Cleopatra, at an intertextual level, is associated with the Greek motherly figure par excellence, Hecuba, frustrated in her attempt to put her son Polydorus out of harm’s way at king Polymestor’s Thracian court (Euripides, Hecuba).78 Prominently, Polymestor’s excuse for the murder of Hecuba’s youngest child is that he has dispatched an enemy of Greece before he reached a dangerous age (ll. 1132-1144), the very same argument Arius resorts 77 Sampson 1966, pp. 101-102. 78 The tale is famously told also by Ovid (Met., xiii.533-575).

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to in Daniel’s play (iii.1.559-570). Cleopatra’s prime purpose, in temporising with Caesar, is precisely to protect her children and the tearful goodbye between mother and son re-emerges in the queen’s final address to the asp, leading the mother-love motif full circle.79 Cleopatra’s role as loving mother, in conflict with her instincts as a ruler, is part of the complex characterisation of the principal. Her portrait is once again selective, and pointedly so. Just as the dramatist picks out the episodes he finds in ancient history, adapting them to the tragedy’s philosophical and political content, analogously he chooses certain available traits of the queen’s personality in order to construct the image he needs. He makes his protagonist appear a fascinating but not a scheming woman. In her life she was vain and selfish, she never truly loved Antony; she only discovers love when it is too late and repents. Regret is one of the key notes of the play. Daniel’s Cleopatra is no longer the irresistible enchantress we have met so far, in tragedy after tragedy, but is rather aging and her looks fading. While Garnier’s heroine bewails her ‘trop aimable beauté’ (ii.430) [her ‘face too lovely’] (Pembroke, ii.437), Daniel’s feels tenderly thankful to Antony, who loved her in the ‘Autumne’ of her beauty: And yet thou cam’st but in my beauties waine, When new-appearing wrinkles of declining, Wrought with the hand of yeeres, seem’d to detaine My graces light, as now but dimly shining. Even in the confines of mine age, when I Fayling of what I was, and was but thus: When such as wee, doe deeme in iealosie That men love for them-selves, and not for us. Then, and but thus, thou didst love most sincerely, (O Anthony,) that best deserv’dst it better. Thys Antumne of my beauty bought so deerely, For which (in more then death) I stand thy debter. Which I will pay thee with most faithfull zeale, And that ere long, no Caesar shall detaine me; My death, my love and courage shall reveale, The which is all the world hath left t’rnstaine me. (i.155-170)80 79 Rees 1964, p. 54. 80 Shakespeare exploits the non-Plutarchan idea of a wrinkled protagonist too (Ant., i.5.30), See Bullough, p. 235.

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Dolabella, who falls in love with Cleopatra all the same, wonders what her charms must have been when she was young and triumphant (iii.2.705730).81 Cleopatra muses that her ‘poore Beautie’ (iv.2.1081-1089), by which she won Dolabella’s love and persuaded him to reveal Caesar’s secret plans, has finally done her its best service, ‘For now the time of death reveal’d thou hast, / Which in my life didst serve but to undoe mee’ (iv.2.1088-1089). Daniel’s self-judgemental protagonist, through the interactions of different roles and facets, brings together and synthesises the multiple strands of the all-pervading fall-of-princes theme: past greatness, the duties of rulers, betrayal, universal mutability, pride and grief. She is painfully aware of the fact that ‘the victor is always called right morally’.82 Still she is above all a charismatic sovereign, who gains more splendour as her end approaches and thus transcends moral condemnation.83 Her self-destructive course is also a redemptive progress. She might be a woman, but her attitude before death is perfectly in keeping with the Renaissance’s pagan-humanist ideal of magnanimity. The whole description of her last minutes and of her parting from life is put into the mouth of the servant bringing the figs and, through the nuntius’ moving account, Daniel enhances his protagonist’s nobility: Now not an yeelding shrinke or touch of feare, Consented to bewray least sence of paine: But still in one same sweete unaltred cheere, Her honor did her dying thoughts retaine. (v.2.1582-1585)

In this respect, among the examples of noble death offered by recent history, Mary of Scotland’s execution could certainly work as a model.84 The dead queen reminds us both of Petrarch’s Laura, in the Triumphus Mortis, for her incredible post-mortem beauty (TM1, 166-172), and of De Cesari’s Cleopatra, for her defiant expression (v.138-140, 164-166).85 Yet loe that face the wonder of her life, Retaines in death, a grace that graceth death, 81 As Rees has remarked, ‘Cleopatra responds now with gratitude, whereas once she had thought that all men owed her love as a duty and she was bound to none’ (1964, p. 55). 82 Williamson 1974, p. 143 and n. 63. See Daniel, Cleopatra, i.107-126, iii.2.621-627. In the play, the chorus itself tends ‘to condemn the queen once she is defeated’. 83 Norland 1996, pp. 172-174. 84 For her exemplary death, see Watson 1960, p. 117. 85 The parallel between Cleopatra and Laura was already present in De Cesari’s scene.

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Couller so lively, cheere so lovely rife, That none wold think such beauty could want breath. And in that cheere th’impression of a smile Did seeme to shew shee scorned Death and Caesar, As glorying that shee could them both beguile, And telling death how much her death did please her. (v.2.1606-1613)

This highly rhetorical passage is interspersed with alliterations (see l. 1609: ‘beauty […] breath’; l. 1611: ‘seeme to shew she scorned’; l. 1612: ‘both biguile’) and various forms of repetition. The keyword ‘Death’ gloomily tolls five times in eight lines (1607, 1611, 1613), opening the occurrences with a conduplicatio and closing them on a chiastic construction with prosopopoeia. A second keyword ‘cheere’ appears twice (ll. 1608, 1610). Compressed in these few lines we also find a polyptoton – more precisely an etymological figure – (‘grace […] graceth’ l. 1607) and an example of paronomasia, significantly playing on the words ‘lively / lovely’ (l. 1608), accompanied by conduplicatio (‘so […] so’). Luxury, immoral behaviour and royal stature are two sides of the same coin. Chiefly due to Cleopatra’s weakness, ambition and lust, Egypt has reached the autumn of its greatness, too. The queen remorsefully laments that she has brought about the demise of her country (i.21-24, 99-110). The chorus insists upon the innocence of the ‘poore multitude’ (iii.766) and accuses her of being the cause of their present plight: ‘And likewise makes us pay / For her desordred lust, / th’ int’rest of our blood’ (i.209-211). Garnier had already developed those suggestions he found in Jodelle’s play about the country’s unfair destiny (i.437-440, v.1525-1526) into an effective dramatic motif. In his play, Philostrate introduces the theme in the first scene of Act ii (237-320). Egypt, the sophist laments, does not even know what its faults are, yet the gods are punishing it. The chorus then, closing the same act, sings an elegy to its homeland’s lost greatness and to the helpless fertility and immense flow of the Nile. Nonetheless, they predict that Rome will eventually be destroyed as well. A ‘barbare seigneur’ (ii.834), a ‘barbarous prince’ (Pembroke, ii.843), will plunder its proud marble palaces. Everything changes and returns to its beginning (ii.857-863). The theme will emerge again in the Choerus de Soldats Cesariens (iv.1784-1791).86 Digging at the root of monarchy’s frailty, Daniel puts things in a completely different light. In his hands, Egypt’s misery becomes a history of moral degeneration. How could Egyptians forget ‘all religion, law and order?’ 86 For this motif, see Williamson 1974, pp. 120-121.

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(iv.1177). The answer lies in the principle of cyclic ‘change and alteration’ (iv.1187), but that fatal decline is made possible by the irresponsibility of rulers, ‘Wee imitate the greater powres, / The Princes manners fashion ours’ (iv.1198-1199); ‘The wanton luxurie of Court / Dyd forme the people of like sort’ (iv.1212-1213). Through the corruption motif, Daniel identifies a cause-and-effect link between the downfall of Egypt and Rome’s future ruin, totally absent in the French tragedy. Conquering armies often acquire the vice of their enemies, and the chorus hopes their degeneration may be a contagious disease for the Romans: And thus is Egipt servile rendred, to the insolent destroyer: And all their sumptuous treasure tendred, all her wealth that did betray her. Which poyson (O if heavens be rightfull,) may so far infect their sences, That Egipts pleasures so delightfull, may breed them the like offences. And Romans learne our way of weaknes, be instructed in our vices: That our spoyles may spoyle your greatnes, overcome with our devises. Fill full your hands, and carry home, Enough from us to ruine Rome. (iv.1228-1241)

Lucan had been the first to lengthily underscore the luxus and voluptas of the ‘perfida tellus Aegyptia’ (viii.539-540) and their nefarious influence over Roman traditional mores, thus reviving a topos in the Latin moralistic tradition. 87 In his vision, Cleopatra was the symbol of that corruption in itself, and Julius Caesar was responsible for the translatio of oriental degeneracy into Roman society. Yet Lucan, from his historical perspective, could not connect Rome’s decline to the influence of Egypt. Daniel does. In his play it is Octavian Caesar who takes the first steps towards his land’s future collapse, by arranging the conditions whereby its government will turn into a despotic regime. In Leavenworth’s words, ‘Caesar is the model of the unprincipled Machiavellian prince. But the picture Daniel draws is not the blasphemous villain of the popular stage. His Caesar is the Prince whose 87 Pharsalia, i.8 and i.10.

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character has been warped by pride’ (p. 69). He and Cleopatra, just like De Cesari’s protagonists, have much in common. They both know that ‘to be a Prince, is more than to be a man’ (ii.370), they are consumed by ambition that ‘Vulture vile, / That feedes upon the hart of pride’ (ii.432-433), and they share the fate of the great: ‘Princes (like Lyons) never will be tam’d. / A private man may yeeld, and care not how, / But greater harts will breake before they bow’ (ii.374-376). As Cleopatra dominates the scene, all other personages are illustrative of types, rather than of real people. Dolabella has already been discussed (see above 4.1). Proculeius, in his analogous role of go-between, merely shows deference and admiration for his leader (ii.241-382). It is rather the description of the queen ‘twixt maiestie confos’d and miserie’ (ii.294) when she is taken, with the long simile of a ‘burning Lampe’, that makes his part really noteworthy (ii.229-310). To tell his tale of splendour and ruin, Daniel resorts to a careful sorting of his historical sources. Though he entertains a privileged relationship with Plutarch’s Life (in North’s translation),88 he takes some details from Florus and Augustan and some later poetry (Horace, Propertius, Virgil, Lucan). He probably read Dio, too. His theatrical antecedents are not slavishly followed. Beyond Garnier, we can distinguish some traces of Jodelle, but it is with Garnier’s tragedy (in Pembroke’s translation) that he chiefly carries on an intertextual dialogue. Let us take, as an example, the choral ode closing the last act, where an apostrophe to the Nile, now subject to the Tiber, is introduced (v.1668-1681). The opposition between the two rivers was classical, and we have already met it in Propertius’ Elegy, iii.11 (see above 1.2). Yet Daniel’s passage owes the central theme of the confrontation to lines 765-775 of Garnier’s chorus to the second act. The point is well illustrated by a parallel reading of both sections: And canst O Nylus thou, Father of floods indure, That yellow Tyber should With sandy streames rule thee? Wilt thou be pleas’d to bow To him those feete so pure, Whose unknowne head we hold A powre divine to bee? Thou that didst ever see 88 Leavenworth, pp. 26-27.

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Thy free banks uncontroul’d, Live under thine owne care: Ah wilt thou beare it now? And now wilt yeeld thy streams A pray to other Reames? (v.1668-1681) O vagueux prince des Fleuves, Des Ethiopes l’honneur, Il faut qu’ores tu espreuves Le servage d’un Seigneur; Que du Tybre, qui est moindre En puissance et en renom, Voises reverant le nom, Qui fait tous les fleuves craindre Superbe de la grandeur Des siens qui veulent enceindre De ce monde la rondeur. (ii.765-775)

Wand’ring prince of rivers thou, Honor of the Ethiop’s land, Of a lord and master now Thou a slave in awe must stand. Now of Tiber, which is spread Less in force and less in fame, Reverence thou must the name, Whom all other rivers dread, For his children swoll’n in pride, Who by conquest seek to tread Round this earth on every side. (Pembroke, ii.774-784)

Daniel takes from his forerunner merely the idea of the personified Nile paying tribute to the Tiber and modifies the remainder. Garnier’s assertions are substituted by a series of rhetorical questions, thus putting the Nile’s condition in a different perspective. What is a sad certainty in the French text, in Daniel’s lines acquires a grievous tone of incredulity. How can the sacred ‘father of floods’ possibly accept the domination of the ‘sandy’ and ‘yellow’ Tiber? Moreover, while Garnier’s text insists upon the semantic field of slavery and fear tout court (‘espreuves / Le servage d’un Seigneur’ ll. 767-768; ‘Voises reverant’ l. 771; ‘craindre’ l. 772), Daniel prefers to concentrate on the loss of freedom: ‘Wilt thou be pleas’d to bow’ (l. 1672); ‘Thy free banks uncontroul’d’ (l. 1677); ‘wilt yeeld thy streams’ (l. 1680). Daniel did not follow Sidney’s example of versification, employing alternately rhyming pentameters. Variety is introduced through the insertion of different rhyme patterns, enjambements, stichomythia, occasional couplets, and so on. The choruses exhibit even greater metrical skill.89 On the whole, the periodic rhythm of his Cleopatra has been judged ‘majestic’.90 In tune 89 For the choruses, see Rees 1964, pp. 57-61; Sampson 1966, pp. 128-137. 90 Leavenworth, p. 38.

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with his concern with the didactic implications of the story, his imagery only suggests the delineation of the events being related, while underlining instead their moral emphasis.91 Some traits of his visual imagination are reminiscent of classical epic. Think, for instance, of the long similes present in the messenger’s verbal reporting of Cleopatra’s death: ‘Looke how a stray’d perplexed travailer […] Such was her ioy’ (v.2.1460-1466); ‘Looke how a Mother at her sonnes departing […] So shee’ (v.2.1526-1535); ‘Looke how a new-pluckt branch against the Sunne […] So her disioyned ioyntures as undonne’ (v.2.1602-1604). Even if, as previous samples have shown, his style is highly rhetorical, his diction is simple. Daniel seems to conform to Giraldi’s exhortation to avoid obscurity and affectation of language more than Giraldi himself (see 3.4). He chooses common words to express his poetic world. He has been accused of an excessive partiality for the same, overworked expressions,92 while in fact every aspect of his construction – from his selective use of sources to his idiolect – contributes to the organic progress of his general philosophical discourse. The Tragedie of Cleopatra was entered into the Stationers’ Register on October 1593.93 It was published the following year, in Delia and Rosamond augmented, with a separate title page, and revised in subsequent editions. The printings of 1595 and 1598 saw only minor changes but, in the 1599 edition (The Poeticall Essayes of Samuel Danyel. Newly corrected and augmented), the first act was modified and slightly remodelled. The play reappeared in 1601, 1602, 1605, 1607, 1609, 1611 (twice) and 1623. Some of these editions show minor alterations, yet the 1607 text is recast and reshaped throughout and these changes were reflected in both 1611 editions as well. As Howard B. Norland writes, ‘Daniel deleted 337 lines from his previous text, added 397 lines, and altered 275 lines; only 1141 lines remained unchanged’ (1996, p. 174). Most changes are logical and clarify the plot. Major novelties are the increase in blank verse; the splitting up of some long speeches into dialogues; the introduction of new scenes (Derceteus’ account of the end of Antony; the narration of the raising of Antony’s body); the recasting of the death of Cleopatra from narrated action to dramatic representation; the appearance of Caesario on the stage and his dialogue with his mother; the extension of the maids’ roles; and the insertion of new characters (Derceteus, Diomedes, 91 Leavenworth, p. 45. 92 Sampson 1966, pp. 135-136. 93 For the editions, see Witherspoon, p. 107; Rees 1964, p. 62; Bullough, p. 231.

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Gallus). Such revisionary work was not unusual for Daniel.94 Yet, in the case of his Cleopatra, it has received greater critical attention because of how it was supposedly influenced by the popular stage in general and by Shakespeare’s tragedy in particular. When he revised the text, Daniel had written a masque (The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses), had been licenser for the Children of the Queen’s Revels from 4 February 1604 to 28 April 1605, and had produced the tragedy Philotas (1605). As Hannay states, ‘His term as a licenser […] was turbulent. […] Not surprisingly the company forfeited the queen’s patronage.’95 The appointment, at any event, had put him in touch with the necessities of the plays for public performance. Philotas is much closer to a theatrical drama than Cleopatra.96 Some critics maintain that a shortage of money led him ‘to make his Cleopatra more suitable for the theatre, with the hope that like Philotas it would be performed on the stage’.97 Other scholars emphasise that the new version of the tragedy remained ‘a closet drama, because Daniel, in full consciousness of his literary purpose, wanted to preserve that form’.98 Joan Rees (1964, p. 110) argues: The revised Cleopatra is another step in what seems to be an attempt to arrive at a new form in English drama, one which will have greater vigour than Garnier’s, more complexity and subtlety than Gorboduc, and yet capable of appealing to ‘the better sort of men’ those whose taste is too refined and fastidious to be delighted by the ‘idle fictions and grosse follies’ of the contemporary drama.

In any case, Williamson and others consider the revised version to be ‘artistically inferior’ to the 1594 text.99 The related Shakespearian question is even more complex. Where the influence of Daniel’s earlier version at least on Antony and Cleopatra is almost universally acknowledged, the role played by Shakespeare’s tragedy on the modified text of 1607 remains controversial.100 Rees once again downplays 94 Sampson 1966, p. 60; Arshad, Hackett and Whipday, pp. 177-178. 95 Hannay 1990, p. 126. 96 Rees 1964, p. 106. 97 Schanzer 1957, p. 381. See also Witherspoon, pp. 109-111; Norland 1996, p. 174; Williamson 1974, p. 148; Bono, p. 121; Arshad, Hackett and Whipday. 98 Leavenworth, pp. 22, 108-109; Sampson 1966, pp. 67-69. 99 Williamson 1974, p. 148; Rees 1964, pp. 111-112. For a different position, see Arshad, Hackett and Whipday. 100 Among those who maintain that Shakespeare was the borrower, Williamson 1974, pp. 238-241; Norman; Schanzer 1957; Bullough, pp. 231-232; and (with some reservations) Sampson 1966, pp. 69-79. For an analysis of Shakespeare’s debts, see Leavenworth, pp. 87-109.

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the disputes, noting that Daniel did not in fact revise his play because of Shakespeare, but rather to demonstrate that the limits of closet drama could be enlarged, without contaminations by popular drama (1964, p. 111): Maybe Shakespeare also knew A Letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius, a poem in ottava rima on the same historical subject which falls into the genre of female complaint, which appeared in 1599.101 He was acquainted with many of Daniel’s works and one passage in particular seems to have left an echo in his Antony and Cleopatra. In the Letter, Octavia imagines her rival making fun of the very same epistle she is presently writing, ‘Whilst proud disdaineful she, guessing from whom / The message came, and what the cause hath been, / Will scorning say, “Faith, this comes from your dear; / Now, sir, you must be shent for staying here.”’102 These lines are somehow close to Shakespeare’s opening scene, in which Cleopatra talks about Fulvia’s letters (i.1.18-34). The poem, consisting of 51 stanzas, is both Octavia’s passionate appeal to her unfaithful husband (asking him to return to his senses, leaving his amica) and a heartfelt protest against the female condition. It is ‘distressed womankind’ (23.1), Octavia laments, which is considered ‘uncostant, fickle, false, unkind’ (15.6), while men can enjoy their liberty to general approval. The Letter shows a deep human sympathy with its protagonist and it is proof of Daniel’s capacity to identify with his characters.103 It was probably conceived as a means to comfort the countess of Cumberland, to whom it is dedicated, on her unhappy marriage.104 It possibly depicted yet another model of female Stoicism, a heroine of constancy.105 Still, though this time 101 The Letter was published in 1599 and in 1601 (reissued 1602), 1605, 1607 and 1611, see Daniel, Selected Poetry and A Defense of Rhyme, p. 90. See also Bullough, pp. 237-238; Rees 1964, pp. 76-78; Lamb 1990, p. 135; Raber 2001, pp. 107-110. The classical model for the genre was of course Ovid’s Heroides. 102 Stanza 2. The quotation is taken from Daniel, Selected Poetry, p. 93. 103 Hiller and Groves, p. 10. 104 Rees 1964, p. 76. The parallel between the countess and Octavia acquires a puzzling overtone with the recent proposal that the sitter for the so-called Portrait of Lady Elizabeth Raleigh as Cleopatra was her daughter, Anne (1590-1676), who was Daniel’s pupil (Arshad; Arshad, Hackett and Whipday). The identif ication is based on a detailed examination of the inscription in the upper-left corner of the painting, whose words come from Daniel’s revised version of his Cleopatra. Arshad notes that the portrait ‘raises important questions about early modern closet drama and ways in which aristocratic women played roles.’ (Arshad, p. 30). See also above 3.2. 105 Lamb 1990, p. 135. It has been recently underlined that the meaning of ‘the heroics of constancy’ was ambivalent in both classical and Renaissance understanding of Stoicism, especially when the constant figure examined was a woman. See Bruce.

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the viewpoint is that of the outraged wife, Cleopatra is not merely reduced to the role of the villain and retains some of her greatness.106 It is rather in Samuel Brandon’s play, and in the letters appended to it, that she is turned into a sort of ‘evil anti-type to Octavia’.107

5.4

‘Beautiful, unchaste and evil’

None of the Cleopatra plays we have met so far had cast, among their dramatis personae, the Egyptian queen’s ‘rival’ Octavia, although she had been praised by Plutarch as a ‘marvel of a woman’ (31.2), and as the quintessence of a Roman matron.108 Daniel and Brandon were the first to pay proper attention to her, and the latter even made her the protagonist of his The Virtuous Octavia (1598).109 As Bruce points out, ‘Octavia better exemplified the qualities of the ideal Tudor Englishwoman – she valued her marriage, she was devout, she was chauvinistic; she was, in short, an ideal character upon which to work out the conflicts facing the Pembroke poets as they addressed issues of patronage, succession, and religious and civil war, and possibly, as they strove to take English letters in a Sidneian direction’ (p. 47).110 Fulke Greville, in his Letter to an Honourable Lady, used her as an exemplar of obedience, moderation and self-mastery.111 Shakespeare would be the next playwright to insert Augustus’ sister in his list of actors, even if he drew nothing from Brandon’s closet-drama (Ant., ii.3, iii.2, iii.4, iii.6).112 106 Rees 1964, p. 81. 107 Raber 2001, p. 108. 108 Plutarch mistakes her for Octavia maior, Octavian’s half-sister, but she was in fact his full sister (Pelling, note to Ant., 31.1). 109 We have a scant knowledge of Samuel Brandon’s life. See Kathman; Hadfield; Witherspoon, pp. 112-115; Rees 1964, pp. 79-81; Williamson 1974, pp. 149-159; Bullough, p. 238; Lamb 1990, pp. 136139; Raber 2001, pp. 107-110; Leavenworth, pp. 78-80. Daniel’s Letter appeared in print in 1599, while Brandon’s play was entered in the Stationers’ Register the previous year; nonetheless who influenced whom is still not clear, as Brandon might have known Daniel’s work in manuscript. See Rees 1964, p. 79; Lamb 1990, p. 136; Witherspoon, p. 112; Bruce, p. 58 n. 31. For Brandon and Shakespeare, see Williamson 1974, pp. 241-244. 110 The play was dedicated to Lady Lucia Audelay, the mother of one of Pembroke’s aristocratic neighbours, Mary Thinne. The letters printed together with the play are dedicated to Thinne. For The Virtuous Octavia and the tragedies associated with the Sidneys, see Straznicki 2004, pp. 15-17, 49. 111 Bruce, pp. 42 and 49-50. 112 Octavia had already been cast in López de Castro’s Marco Antonio y Cleopatra (1582), but her role was marginal. In France, Octavia firstly appeared in Mairet’s tragedy (1637). For Shakespeare’s Octavia, see below 6.4.

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The Virtuous Octavia has recently been given some deeper scrutiny.113 Bruce (p. 51) suggests that the author used both its principal and the character of a licentious woman, the Roman lady Sylvia, to expose ironically the inadequacies of the Christian-Stoic morality offered to women. Written in quatrains and divided into five acts, each closed by a lyrical chorus, the play conforms to the formal requirements of the French Senecan school, yet it is labelled tragicomedy, presumably because its heroine, despite her sad situation, survives and maintains her virtue in the end. At one point, Octavia clearly states it: ‘O traytor passion, if thou couldst subdue / Thy sovereigne reason, what ill tragedies / Wouldst thou soone acte’ (ii.163-165).114 Nevertheless, the ‘pyrrhic nature’ of her victory has been underlined, as the conquest of constancy is presented to a female readership as the only socially acceptable compensation for their unhappy marriages.115 This is not the occasion to examine the play in detail, since Cleopatra does not appear among its characters.116 We will simply take into consideration the image of the queen indirectly transmitted by the text, comparing it to that of Antony’s lawful Roman wife. For the first time, in effect, the two women, contending for Antony’s love, are placed in a sort of antithetical relationship. They are the opposite of one another, just as later happens in the virtual portraits ‘drawn’ by Giovanni Battista Marino (1664) in his Galleria, where Cleopatra is part of the sub-section entitled ‘Beautiful, unchaste and evil females’ (Belle impudiche e scelerate) and Octavia of the one dedicated to ‘Beautiful, chaste and generous women’ (Belle caste e magnanime).117 As the focus is on the matron (defined ‘empress’ by the play), Antony and Cleopatra’s love story moves into the background. With the exception of her meeting with Caesar, Maecenas and Agrippa for the declaration of war in Act iv, Octavia only hears distant echoes of the main historical 113 See Hadfield, p. 537; Cadman 2015b, pp. 59-68. 114 Quoted also in Rees 1964, p. 80. For the text see Brandon, The Virtuous Octavia 1598, ed. by J. S. Farmer. In the quotations, I have introduced the modern distinction between u and v. The line count is mine. This is just one of many metatheatrical allusions. See, for instance, iv.153-154, where Octavia rhetorically asks her brother, ‘O Caesar, shall my heart be made a stage / For you to play a bloudie tragedie?’ Her closet-drama doesn’t want to be turned into a popular horror play. See also iv.357-358. 115 Raber 2001, pp. 109-110. 116 For a resumé of the play, see Williamson 1974, pp. 151-153. 117 She shares this position, as usual, with Semiramis and, much more unexpectedly, with Elizabeth I, among others. Antony’s portrait appears in the positive sub-section Prencipi, Capitani ed Heroi. For the diffusion of the galleria genre in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, see Cox 2008, pp. 181-182; Zarri.

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events of the period, in her Roman house, from the verbal reports of couriers. Faithful to her virtuosity and good nature, she never utters a single hard word against her rival. The responsibility for denigrating her is left to the messengers coming from the East, first Titius (iii.297-400), then Geminus (v.13-22), and finally Byllius (v.251-303). From these accounts Cleopatra emerges as the wily, ambitious femme fatale we already know. All the traditional topoi against her are present. She exceeds ‘the height of vanitie’ for ‘artficiall ornaments, / For pompe, for pride, for superfluitie, / For all excesse that folly represents’ (iii.313-316). She has a ‘Syren tongue’ (iii.319) and the crafty wit of Circes (iii.320). She has captivated Antony ‘like a man enchaunted’ or ‘with some mad fury haunted’ (iii.361 and 363), making him follow her in her ‘shamefull luxurie’ (v.25). She is not even so ‘admirable faire’ (v.5), being dark-skinned, as Titius assures (iii.317-318). Geminus explains, ‘The fairest thing that in her may be seene / Is that she is a Ladie and a Queene./ […] that sun-burnt coast, yeelds not a face / Which with the Romain beauties may compare: / There mought be found a thousand in this place / Whose naturall perfections are more rare’ (v.17-22).118 She only pretends she is in love with Antony, and thus ‘syrenizes’ him (iii.332): She pives hir body with the want of food, That she mought seeme to languish for his sake: and by hir gestures would be understood, How from his absence she hir death should take. […] Then would she stand of purpose in his way, In any place where he should passage make; And there as though unwilling to bewray, What bitter griefe she inwardly did take: Downe from her eyes distils a Christall tyde, Which at his comming she would dry againe, And sodainly would turne her head aside, As though unwilling to reveale her paine. Thus in his presence ravished with ioy, She smiles and shewes, what mirth she can devize: But in his absence drowned with annoy, She seemes to take her life from those his eyes. Then Meeremaid-like his seences she invades, 118 See also above 2.2. Octavia is of course much fairer (iii.9-11).

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With sweetest nectar of a sugered tongue: Unto her will, she ever him perswades. The force of her words witch-craft is so strong. (iii.333-356)

Here Plutarch’s tale (Ant., 53.3-5) of the queen’s pretence of love is reproduced with subtlety. Cleopatra adopts the same kind of tricks used by the mistresses of Latin love elegy, without overplaying her hand (‘as though unwilling to bewray’ l. 343).119 Her behaviour is a performance from beginning to end (‘mought seeme’ l. 334; ‘would be understood’ l. 335; ‘of purpose’ l. 341; ‘as though unwilling’ ll. 343 and 348; ‘shewes what mirth she can devize’ l. 350; ‘seemes to take’ l. 352), while her almost magical power of seduction reminds us of the literary enchantresses of chivalric epic, inspired by the historical figure of Cleopatra (see 3.3). When Byllius narrates the last cases of the war (v.233-312), she, as Williamson notes (1974, p. 153), ‘is again the villain, having betrayed Antony in her flight at Actium, by the defection of her navy at Pelusium, and finally at Alexandria, when, frightened by Antony’s rage at her treachery, she sends him lie about her death’. Most notably, in this narration, not only does the Roman general bravely kill himself at once, without either the intervention of Eros or any further delay, but Cleopatra’s suicide is totally omitted. In Brandon’s play, the queen of Egypt represents the antithesis to the perfect model of wifehood because she is a dominating figure, concentrating power and authority in her hands. Titius laments: Proud Cleopatra, Aegypts craftie Queene, Rules Antony, and wrongs she cares not where: So insolent hir late attempts have been, As no pride-scorning Romaine heart can beare. She is become our Queene and governour, And we whose courage feares the force of no man: By servile basenesse of our Emperour, Must be content to stoope unto a woman (iii.297-304)

Octavia instead is repeatedly praised for her constancy and obedience (i.387-406; iii.271-274; iv.165-181, 229-236; v.406-421). 119 Pelling, note to Plutarch, Ant., 53.6-7.

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The two letters accompanying the tragicomedy (Octavia to Antonius and Antonius to Octavia) replay and amplify the same philosophical themes debated there: reason versus passion; public responsibility versus private relationships. In Octavia to Antonius, the ‘empress’ takes into account, one after another, the possible charms of her rival and of her exotic realm: riches (ll. 157-220), lust (ll. 221-292), unfamiliar pleasures (ll. 293-396), wit (ll. 397-428) and beauty (ll. 429-456), yet each of them is condemned from a strictly moral viewpoint, in the same tone of a meditation on the trials of life. In Antonius to Octavia, we finally hear her husband’s voice. But his lengthy declarations of love for Cleopatra (ll. 45-64, 181-188, 213-224, 258-264), his putting the blame of his philandering on the stars and gods (ll. 91-100), his recourse to the example of Hercules and Omphale (ll. 196-200), his meagre excuses about his princely state and his honour (ll. 205-206, 317-324): they all sound weak, naïve and unconvincing. Significantly it will be chiefly within texts written by Renaissance women that the dichotomy between adulterous Cleopatra and chaste Octavia will be repurposed and emphasised, in combination with the black/white binarism. As Kim F. Hall has stressed, European female authors tended to differentiate between women on a class or racial basis, in order to negotiate and strengthen their own position of submission within the dominating patriarchal group. Though inferior to men, they were at least as white as them.120 In Cary’s The Tragedie of Mariam (1613) – as occurs in other plays about Herod the Great and the Macabean princess – Cleopatra, though offstage, is a powerful presence and, in this case, Mariam’s fair beauty is set against her dark complexion.121 Alexandra has no doubt whatsoever about Antony’s choice, had he but fixed his attention on her daughter Mariam’s portrait. As she tells her, ‘He would have loved thee, and thee alone, / And left the browne Egyptian cleane forsaken. / And Cleopatra then to seeke had bene, / So firme a lover of her wayned face’ (i.2.194-197).122 Later on, in her monologue of Act iv, Mariam compares herself to her ‘antagonist’, alluding once again to the black/fair dicothomy, in her meditation about Death’s impartiality: 120 Hall 1995, pp. 178-180. 121 For Cary’s sources, see Beilin 1987, p. 165; Ferguson, p. 268. For the play’s political, private and religious implications, see Beilin 1987, pp. 157-176; Ferguson, pp. 266-332; Cadman 2015b, pp. 175-191. For the dating of the tragedy, see Ferguson, pp. 269, 301. Critics generally tend to think it was composed before 1605. 122 Cary, The Tragedy of Mariam, 1613: u/v have been silently modernised. See also Cary, The Tragedie of Mariam in Three Tragedies. For Cary, see also Wright; Raber 1995; Straznicki 1994; Straznicki 2004, pp. 48-66.

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Now death will teach me: he can pale aswell A cheeke of roses, as a cheeke lesse bright: And dim an eye whose shine doth most excell, Assoone as one that casts a meaner light. Had not my selfe against my selfe conspirde, No plot: no adversarie from without Could Herods love from Mariam have retirde, Or from his heart have thrust my semblance out. The wanton Queene that never lov’d for love, False Cleopatra, wholly set on gaine: With all her slights did prove: yet vainly prove, For her the love of Herod to obtaine. Yet her allurements, all her courtly guile, Her smiles, her favours, and her smooth deceit: Could not my face from Herods mind exile, But were with him of lesse then little weight. That face and person that in Asia late For beauties Goddesse Paphos Queene was tane: That face that did captive great Iulius fate, That very face that was Anthonius bane. That face that to be Egipts pride was borne, That face that all the world esteem’d so rare: Did Herod hate, despise, neglect, and scorne, When with the same, he Mariams did compare. This made that I improvidently wrought, And on the wager even my life did pawne: Because I thought, and yet but truly thought, That Herods love could not from me be drawne. (iv.8.1803-1830)

The passage is a long, articulated contraposition between Mariam’s and Cleopatra’s beauty (‘my semblance’ l. 1810; ‘my face’ l. 1817; ‘that face’ ll. 1819, 1821-1824), but works at the same time as an accusation and a moral judgement against the latter. Cleopatra is once again ‘false’ (l. 1812), ‘the wanton Queene that never lov’d for love’ (l. 1811), that was ‘wholly set on gaine’ (l. 1812). The long list (accumulatio) of the seductive techniques employed by her in the vain attempt of charming Herod (‘her allurements, all her courtly guile, / Her smiles, her favours, and her smooth deceit’ ll. 1815-1816) finds a correspondence in the asyndeton of the king’s reactions (‘Did Herod hate, despise, neglect, and scorne’ l. 1825). His love for Mariam, which she

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thought immutable, opens and closes the sequence (ll. 1808-1809, 1830), nonetheless crowned, as in a medieval tale, by consideration of the power of all-levelling Death. Finally, in Herod’s lament (Act v), the racist contrast between Mariam and Cleopatra definitely acquires a moral overtone: had the king not interpreted fairness as a sign of sexual virtue, his wife’s fate might have been different: If she had bene like an Egiptian blacke, And not so faire, she had bene longer livde: Her overflow of beautie turned backe, And drownde the spring from whence it was derivde. Her heav’nly beautie twas that made me thinke That it with chastitie could never dwell: But now I see that heav’n in her did linke, A spirit and a person to excell. (v.2181-2188)

As Ferguson notices, this kind of binarism also makes Cleopatra into Salome’s double.123 Many bad qualities ascribed to Herod’s sister were traditionally hers: inconstancy, wantonness, falseness, avidity, promiscuity. And Herod, in his dialogue with Salome of Act iv, opposes her to Mariam in the same terms of racialised ideology responding to the stereotypical canons of female beauty, dominating in Renaissance Europe (iv.7.1729-1736). Despite the complexities and contradictions of the protagonist, and the ‘web of similarities and differences’ binding female personages together (Ferguson, p. 284), the dualism fair-good/ black-bad is further underlined by the character of the fair and virtuous servant Graphina.124 Aemilia Lanyer, in Salve Deus Rex Iudaeorum (1611) – dedicated, among others, to the countess of Pembroke – also devalues Cleopatra, by denigrating her illicit passion and by contrasting it with Octavia’s lawful rights (ll. 213-224).125 Later in the central poem, Cleopatra is unfavourably compared to one of her dedicatees, the countess of Cumberland, with a direct apostrophe (ll. 1409-1432).126 And, as it has been noted, even if blackness here (l. 1431) 123 Ferguson, p. 317. 124 Ferguson, pp. 284-290; Beilin 1987, p. 173; Cadman 2015b, pp. 180-182. 125 Salve Deus is dedicated to Queen Anne, Princess Elizabeth and other noblewomen, but the dedication to the countess of Pembroke is prominent (Beilin 1987, p. 189). 126 Beilin 1987, pp. 194, 200. The comparison continues in ll. 1433-1448. For Lanyer, see also Chedgzoy; Garrison; Woods.

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does chiefly ‘refer to Cleopatra’s moral state […] [it] is inextricably linked to her foreignness’.127 Not only The Virtuous Octavia and The Tragedie of Mariam, but also Salve Deus could be somehow connected to the Sidneys and their refined cultural coterie.128 Yet it was outside the boundaries of so-called Senecan readable dramas that the tale of Cleopatra had meanwhile reappeared.

127 Hall 1995, p. 184. Analogously, in Dryden’s All for Love, ‘fair Octavia’ rebukes Cleopatra for her ‘black endearments’ (iii.442-444). 128 On Cary’s play as a Sidnean closet drama, see Straznicki 2004, pp. 48-66 and 136 n. 4. For Brandon and the Sidneys, see Straznicki 2004, pp. 16-17; Bond, pp. 65-66. For Pembroke as a literary example for Lanyer, see Hannay 1990, pp. 206-207.

6. ‘A lass unparalleled’1 Abstract Antony and Cleopatra’s breach of the neoclassical requirements. Importance of rhetoric in the Renaissance and Shakespeare’s peculiar exploitation of it. Antony and Cleopatra and Venus and Adonis. A brief exam of some characters in the play. The manifold aspects of Antony’s personality. The character of Cleopatra. A comparative reading of the queen’s apostrophe to the asp. The blending of comedy and tragedy in the play is a conditio sine qua non to its existence. Two contrasting plays (comedy or dark comedy and tragedy) coexist within the same frame. It is only after her lover’s suicide that Cleopatra definitively fixes the genre of the play, and she chooses tragedy. Keywords: Shakespeare; rhetoric; structure; characters; comparative perspective; genre

6.1

Dramatist, Actor and Poet

As it has emerged from the previous chapters, the so-called neo-Senecan play, suitably adapted, circulated among privileged social classes and academic and learned groups throughout Europe, despite their various political and ideological backgrounds. Compared to it, home-grown English drama existed in a completely different world.2 I must of course oversimplify, as it would take far too long to deal with those issues in any detail, in this all-too-short chronological summary. In short, the development of public theatres in London in the sixteenth century (with the consequent professionalisation of actors and dramatists) had created a massive demand for new plays, on the one hand, and on the other had given the popular taste for spectacle and action unprecedented centrality. Acting companies were commercial 1 Shakespeare, Ant., v.2.310. 2 Briggs, pp. 250-291; Gurr; Braunmuller and Hattaway; Righter; Brown 2002.

Montanari, A.M., Cleopatra in Italian and English Renaissance Drama. Amsterdam University Press, 2019. doi 10.5117/9789462985995_ch06

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organisations and competed against one another to gain the favour of paying spectators.3 The audience was notably heterogeneous: playgoers came from the whole range of social classes, from labourers to craftsmen, from prostitutes and pickpockets to gentlemen. Theatrical drama had to capture the imagination of them all.4 Classical rules were generally ignored; Seneca was mainly considered a source of gruesome details and bloody revenge motives. Catharsis was not systematically pursued.5 Action was represented mimetically rather than through narrative. In the works of both resident and nonresident poets myths mingled with folk tales, local legends, and the Bible. As tragedy derived from comedy and in its turn developed out of the mystery cycles, it remained a mixture of farcically comic and tragic scenes, in which kings and clowns happily coexisted.6 In Briggs’ terms (p. 281), it ‘consisted of a particular type of plot, rather than a distinctive set of dramatic conventions such as Aristotle had described in his Poetics’. Acting companies were characterised by the repertory system, which suggested that a variety of familiar plays were performed daily and new ones learned with few rehearsals.7 The plays in themselves then were transient texts, subject to changes determined not only by lapses of memory but also by the interaction with the visible and audible audience surrounding the stage, and by its reactions.8 Furthermore, in Renaissance public theatres, the strict interaction between the players and the playgoers made stage illusion far weaker than in modern theatres.9 Both in the case of neo-Senecan drama and of popular tragedy, the readers/spectators were called to judge what was happening on the page/stage. It all derived from the disputationes and debates of grammar schools.10 Yet Italian Renaissance tragedy and closet-drama remained much more faithful to this model, because of their educated and refined addressees. In their debates, the capacity to give voice to the position of a mythological or historical hero, in a rhetorically proper way, was 3 Gurr, pp. 39, 61; Briggs, p. 257. 4 Briggs, p. 251; Gurr, p. 268; Heinemann, p. 166. 5 As for Shakespeare, he did not consciously try to accomplish neoclassical moral catharsis but his plays allow ‘one to experience emotions that otherwise must be painstakingly controlled’ (Hillman 2013, p. 307). 6 Briggs, pp. 279-281; Watson 2003, p. 303. 7 Gurr, p. 211. 8 Parts were generally allocated by typecasting, hence some actors were very popular, see Gurr, pp. 209, 124-126. 9 Gurr, pp. 8-9, 218-221, 259; Braunmuller, pp. 81-90. 10 Adamson, Alexander and Ettenhuber, p. 2; Briggs, pp. 252-253, 288-289; Braunmuller. On the topic, see also Enterline; Kahn 1997, pp. 11-16.

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much more important than the clash of ideas in itself. Not so for the commercial theatre, whose audience was rather interested in strong feelings and looked for a deep emotional involvement. In this respect, popular drama was unexpectedly closer to ancient Greek plays, whose ideological core was an attempt to work out how to deliberate (see Foster). Both English theatrical drama and Greek tragedy were concerned with the limits of reason and with the contradictions of ethical assumptions, a far cry from the rationalisation of Aristotle, in his Poetics, which had such a huge influence on the academic type of play (see 3.4). After the loss of medieval philosophical and religious unity, popular Renaissance drama voiced the anxieties of a society that was ideologically uncertain.11 It did not promote a thesis or a message, but rather asked unanswerable questions about the human condition.12 Shakespeare was influenced by this multifaceted reality, yet he was also a successful poet and well aware of it. The first edition of his Sonnets would appear in 1609, and he had already published the mythological poem Venus and Adonis (1593), his most frequently reprinted work in his lifetime.13 Each different aspect of his professional and artistic personality had its weight in the conception of his dramatic world and is reflected, as we shall see, in his Antony and Cleopatra.

6.2

A ‘world of fluid size and shape’14

A simple look at the presentation of the dramatis personae for Antony and Cleopatra suggests a breach of neoclassical requirements.15 Giraldi Cinthio, in his Lettera sulla Tragedia, explained that, in ancient drama, the number of the interlocutors was not fixed, adding that those tragedies which had a long list of actors were much praised. As he stated, ‘le azioni reali sono di gran maneggio, e vi intervengono persone singolari di varie condizioni […]. E però a me pare che il numero delle persone introdotte rappresenti in gran parte la reale maestà dell’azione, pur che vi sia introdotto questo numero di persone giudiciosamente, e specialmente quando vi intervengono 11 Watson 2003, p. 299. 12 See Steiner. 13 Wells and Taylor 1988, p. 223. 14 Adelman 1973, p. 145. 15 Giving an exhaustive bibliography for the play is of course an impossible task. For a list of the studies I found particularly useful in my analysis, for different and opposite reasons, see the ‘Shakespeare’ section in the general bibliography.

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re di diverse nazioni i quali vi abbiano le corti loro’ [‘Royal deeds require careful handling, and involve many individuals of different types (…). Thus I think that the royal majesty of the action is broadly represented by the number of people introduced, so long as this number of people is wisely introduced and above all when kings of different nations, having their court there, take part in it’].16 However, none of the neo-Senecan plays we have met so far can match the lengthy Shakespearian cast list. Giraldi’s tragedy (the richest) has 19 characters; De Cesari’s 10; Pistorelli’s 17; the Aldini codex 392 has 12; Jodelle’s 9; Garnier’s 12; Daniel’s 10. Shakespeare’s play has 35 roles, not including soldiers, messengers and other attendants. Elizabethan dramatists, as Braunmuller observes, often adopted ‘the bibliographical, “whole life” plot anathematized by Aristotle but familiar from morality plays’.17 This ‘expansive biographical formula’ (Braunmuller, p. 73) imposed a larger number of parts. If we consider the regularity of doubling in Elizabethan acting companies, that huge number seems also to suggest a mastery of the medium. The dramatist is not afraid of introducing a lot of different characters even if it might disconcert the audience. It is a show of self-confidence. To state that in Antony and Cleopatra the pseudo-Aristotelian rules are simply disregarded is reductive: the play proceeds at a swift pace with great structural fluidity, in a space-time in which time tends to vanish and space tends to expand to infinite. The span of some ten years is compressed into a few hours of performance, while, as we have seen, in the case of Giraldi’s Cleopatra, for instance, the events of a single day were represented in over six hours.18 Unrelated scenes, set in different corners of the world, follow one another and a plethora of messengers walks on and off the stage, relating often unreliable reports. As Adelman observes, we ‘are asked to accept a play with too many short scenes and too many minor characters’.19 16 Giraldi, Lettera sulla tragedia, p. 481. 17 Braunmuller, p. 73. Shakespeare was not the first playwright to tell the story of the famous pair in the linear mode of a chronicle. Sachs’ Die Königin Cleopatra mit Antonio dem Römer in fact shares some traits with both the dramatic models dominating in the Renaissance. See Williamson 1974, pp. 169-181. 18 The freedom in playing with time becomes clear in the sequence between Cleopatra and the messenger from Rome (ii.5, iii.3), as the events in Alexandria and in Rome (ii.6, ii.7, iii.1, iii.2) are presented as covering the same period of time, which is impossible. See Adelman 1973, pp. 151-154; Hall 1989, p. 157. Bevington assumes a ‘similar use of discrepant time’ (in this case a contraction) at ii.3 and iii.2, to justify the seeming duplicity of Antony towards Octavia. 19 Adelman 1973, p. 141. See also pp. 35, 40-41, 45; Smith, p. 86.

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The episodic structure has often disconcerted critics, although it suggests the breadth of the empire and the action criss-crossing it.20 Its main consequence is that contraposition of Egypt and Rome which has always been considered a distinctive trait of the play.21 This kind of bipolarism could not be fully exploited by Senecan drama, because of the limits imposed on space and action. According to Renaissance dramatic theories, lack of unity was an unacceptable infraction of dramatic decorum. Here instead the political/geographic opposition penetrates to the core of the play. To begin with, in Shakespeare’s text, as in Lucan’s Bellum Civile (although without the same unredeemable negativity), Egypt becomes an anti-Rome, the realm of the reversal of its values. One is all excess, fertility, sensuality, otherness; the other is all individuality, moderation and order, the land of stability, of the solidity of the earth.22 In their propaganda, Antony and Octavian identif ied respectively with Dionysus and Apollo (see above 1.1). Apollo had much in common not only with Augustus but also with Shakespeare’s Rome. He was the deity of reason, of Platonic love, of metaphysical elevation through philosophy, of soberness and clear oppositions: manhood versus womanhood, us versus them. He patronised poetry in as much as it was organised on a metrical basis. Dionysus, traditionally called Ὕης, was associated with ‘the nature of moisture’ and with life-giving liquids.23 He was the god of intemperance and passion, of mutation, of the masculine and feminine erotic, and prolific union. He was portrayed as a hermaphrodite to show he governed the fusion of the two sexes. 24 His principle was synthesis; he confounded categories and dualisms as he confounded reason. The dissolution of Antony’s social self, his overflowing the measure, the physical and emotive merging with Cleopatra, participated in the nature of both Egypt and Bacchus. Egypt’s equivocal abundance is symbolised by the Nile. In Garnier’s and in Daniel’s plays the river was 20 Pelling 1999, p. 40; Adelman 1973, p. 198 n. 27; Hall 2002, p. 82 n. 37. For a reading of the geographical shifts in the light of the colonial theme and of the representation of empire, see Loomba 1993, pp. 124-130. Note that the Folio did not give the act division, which was much later introduced by Rowe. 21 See, for instance, Colie, p. 177; Spenser, pp. 373-378; Smith, p. 63; Felperin, pp. 107-112. The binary opposition of Egypt and Rome has been recently challenged; see Kahn 1997, pp. 110-112, 139-140 n. 3; Harris, pp. 408-409; Williamson 1974, p. 184. 22 Bevington, p. 33. For an opposite view, see Smith. For the complexity of the dichotomy, see also Bono, pp. 201-202; Waddington (above all p. 223); Adelman 1992, p. 340 n. 47. 23 Plutarch, Moralia, Isis and Osiris, v, 364D. 24 Cartari, Le imagini de i dei de gli antichi, p. 389. For the same reasons Venus was sometimes pictured as bearded (p. 482). This modern edition of Le imagini is based on the enlarged 1587 text. The first edition appeared in 1556. See also Adelman 1973, pp. 93-94.

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characterised by its fertility, mysterious sources and immense flow. Here its distinctive trait is its mingled and corrupt bounty: it breeds both crops and serpents, it fertilises and rots at the same time. The abiogenesis of reptiles and mice from its mud, quickened by the sun, was a pre-Aristotelian and an Aristotelian belief. Landi, in his Vita di Cleopatra, describes the process (5r). In the Faerie Queene the Nile is said to spontaneously generate thousands of ‘ugly monstrous shapes’ (i.1.21.9). In Shakespeare’s play, Lepidus tells Antony: ‘Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the operation of your sun’ (ii.7.25-26), a line which carries the echo of ‘my serpent of old Nile’, a periphrasis for Cleopatra herself.25 With the dual setting, exoticism gains a greater role than in most of the previous tragedies. The Romans in Rome become a double of the extradiegetic audience, and share their curiosity about Egypt. The weeping crocodile is amply described to Lepidus by Antony in the scene just quoted (ii.7.37-45), together with the Great Pyramids (ii.7.16-32) and the Alexandrine orgies (ii.7.89-97). By contrast, the monstrous reptile was briefly cited only by Garnier (‘larmeux crocodile’ ii.398), while pyramids did not appear anywhere.26 In Giraldi’s play ‘piramide’ is simply a synonym for ‘mausoleum’ (iv.6.209). Shakespeare and Cinthio are the only playwrights of our group to introduce among their characters a typical Eastern courtier, a castrated man. But while the Italian writer simply calls him Eunuco, Shakespeare gives him a proper name, Mardian, and, with the name, a distinctive individuality.27 Giraldi’s eunuch’s long speaking part is completely indistinguishable from those of other generic servants in the play (i.8.703-707; ii.2.110-159; ii.3.180182, 223-276). Shakespeare not only insists on the physical difference of Mardian but, maybe reminiscent of the castrati of his time, makes him a singer (i.5.10, ii.5.2).28 The picture drawn by Shakespeare is complex and variegated: despite their differences, neither Rome nor Egypt is faultless or uncorrupted. They could be conceived as almost complementary.29 The Renaissance picture of 25 There is more than a hint to abiogenesis in the play. See, for instance, i.2.185-187, i.3.68-69, ii.7.25-26. For Cleopatra and the crocodile described by Antony, see Ingram, p. 323. 26 For pyramids, see Montreux ii.241-242. Cleopatra, in her speech to Proculeus, transforms both the Nile’s fertility and the pyramids into grotesque and negative instruments of death (v.2.56-61). 27 The character is in Plutarch’s Life (60.1). See Dryden’s Alexas for a comparison. 28 For the eunuch as a f igure of Antony’s emasculation, see Kahn 1997, p. 141 n. 8. See also Bosman. 29 Markels, p. 37; see also Colie, p. 180.

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Egypt was twofold and most Cleopatra plays put the two opposing images in a chronological order. Once it was a great and well-ordered kingdom, then it became all vice and chaos because of the irresponsibility of its rulers. Only in Pistorelli’s and De Cesari’s tragedies, is the country never blamed. In all cases, the final moral judgement is definite and unambiguous. Here, on the contrary, nothing is clear. The multiplications of readings and viewpoints and the frailty of boundaries between the opposites increasingly begins to appear as the true nature to the play. The same tendency is evident when we turn to consider the genre. NeoSenecan tragedies were proud of responding exclusively to the requirements of the tragic mode. Irony and the burlesque were regarded as indecorous (see above 3.4). Antony and Cleopatra instead shows a blending of tragic and comic much subtler than the mere juxtaposition of farce and tragedy typical of English popular drama and censured by Sidney.30 In Shakespeare’s transposition even the audience’s familiarity with the story is used to bring together sadness and mirth through the playwright’s allusions to later events. The characters say things that carry one meaning (usually funny) to them, but sound ominous to the ears of the spectators, well aware of the conclusion. Thus snakes creep throughout the play, starting with the identification of Cleopatra with the ‘serpent of old Nile’, feeding on poison at i.5.26-28.31 And the motif of her death (though at first faked), once Antony has ‘departed’, is introduced, in a comic setting, as early as i.2.134-140.32 Even her fainting from the first swoon (i.3.13-17, 71-73) through the almost comic performance of the messenger scene (ii.5.111-112), to the anguished, final example (iv.15.70-77), are, in a sense, a premonition of death, if not a ‘proleptic representation’ of it.33 Conversely, a tragic episode, such as Cleopatra’s hoisting of the dying Antony, may appear almost farcical (see below 6.4). In order to create this mixing of tonalities, Shakespeare freely combined material from both his previous tragedies and comedies. Writing of Cleopatra, most of the playwrights who had preceded him had only written one play, or were at the beginning of their careers, while he had a huge dramatic memory to draw upon. The association of love with imagination 30 For the presence of comic techniques, see Adelman 1973, pp. 50-52, 219 n. 21. 31 See i.2.187; i.5.26; ii.5.41, 80, 97; ii.7.44; iv.15.26; v.2.242, 254, 256, 258, 261-262, 73, 287, 345-347. In Jodelle’s tragedie her love is ‘serpente meurdriere’ [‘mortal snake’] (i.108). 32 For the sexual implications between ‘death’ and ‘little death’, see, for instance, Partridge, p. 101. 33 Fainting was common on the Italian stage: see Trissino, Sophonisba, 1733-1736; Speroni, Canace, 1231-1237. The precedent was Seneca (Phaedra, ii.585-588). In Pistorelli’s Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra there is a whole scene centred on the queen’s swooning (iv.348-380).

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that we find in Antony and Cleopatra belongs to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, too, where the lover is said to see ‘Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt’ (v.1.11).34 The couple’s sprightly verbal sparring, in the first act, are comparable to that between Rosaline and Berowne in Love’s Labour’s Lost and between Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado about Nothing. A host of analogies can be found (and has been found) between Antony and Cleopatra and Othello, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens.35 The most obvious antecedent is of course Julius Caesar. The structural (two sequences with an interlude in between) and thematic (the conflict of power) similarities between the two plays have often been underlined, even if Antony and Cleopatra is much more complex and further reaching than the earlier tragedy.36 Some minor common traits are telling as well: the description of Caesar as a colossus bestriding times (i.2.136-139) matches that of Antony (Ant., v.2.81-85); Cassius’ words to Pindarus are close to those of Antony to Eros (v.3.36-50); Brutus’ assisted suicide resembles Antony’s (v.5.44-51); Titinius’ self-killing after Cassius’ death parallels Eros’ before his master’s, while his crowning of his dead captain with a wreath of victory (v.3.79-90) anticipates Charmian’s final gesture with Cleopatra’s crown (Ant., v.2.312-313), especially considering that the garland episode is absent in North’s Life of Brutus (p. 153). However, in the years separating the composition of these two Roman plays Shakespeare’s attitude towards the classical world and its heroic values had subtly evolved, encompassing both the mockery displayed in Love’s Labour’s Lost and the bitter ironic detachment and cynicism of Troilus and Cressida.37 Commentators have often also underlined the similarities between Antony and Cleopatra and Shakespeare’s preceding two-protagonist tragedy, Romeo and Juliet.38 The closeness of the two tales had already been noted before. The play of the Aldini codex 392 weaves a web of intertextual echoes with 34 Quotations from Shakespeare’s works (with the exception of Ant.) are taken from The New Oxford Shakespeare. However, for both brevity’s and clarity’s sake, I have retained the traditional act-scene-line system, supplied in smaller font in the margin by that edition. Adelman 1973, p. 219 n. 17. For the Helen image in the play, Ingram, p. 308. 35 On Antony and Othello, Coriolanus, and Timon, see below 6.4. In both the cases of Coriolanus and of Timon of Athens, considering their uncertain dating, the similarities might come from Antony and Cleopatra, but there does seem to be common roots. 36 Kirkpatrick 2002, pp. 352-354. 37 Kirkpatrick 2002, pp. 360-363; Kirkpatrick 1995, pp. 287-288. In Troilus and Cressida a ferocious parody takes the place of the Cervantean comic elegy of the chivalric ideals. 38 Loomba 1993, p. 128; Snyder (Ant.); Conti Camaiora (Rom.); Rozett; MacMullan; Pollard. Note that in Rom. Cleopatra is defined as ‘a gipsy’ (ii.4.39).

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Bandello’s La sfortunata morte di dui infelicissimi amanti (ii.9), even closing on a sonnet whose metrical scheme coincides with the epitaph to Bandello’s novella (ABBA ABBA CDC DCD), and borrowing some parole-rima (rhyming words) from it (‘bella’ / ‘quella’ / ‘stella’ [‘beautiful’ / ‘that’ / ‘star’]).39 Without a doubt the contamination of genres also links Antony and Cleopatra to Shakespeare’s late works, where he experimented with hybrid genres and mingled the dramatic principles of tragedy and comedy in different proportions and ways. 40 If he was thus yielding to the emerging fashion of the times, he was also developing his art in ‘wholly unexpected directions – none of which can be conveniently mapped within existing generic boundaries’ (Kirkpatrick 2002, p. 335). 41 The only aspect of the play which seems to conform to traditional treatments of the story is its closeness to historical sources. Shakespeare has been charged with having sold his ‘soul to Plutarch’ (North) rather than ‘trying to write a play’. 42 In fact, his predecessors were often much more faithful than he. As Leavenworth notices, Daniel adhered to the English translation of Plutarch ‘with remarkable fidelity’ although he compressed ‘the narrative passages from North’s already sparse accounts, so that the strictly narrative parts of Cleopatra unfold with striking directness and precision’ (p. 26). Italian playwrights (as already shown) were generally tied to historical fact, in accordance with the requirement for verisimilitude, and tried not to diverge from ancient authors. Antony and Cleopatra has always polarised critical responses in primis regarding the evaluation of its characters and meaning. 43 Once again, it is 39 Bandello, Le novelle, in Tutte le opere, I, 726-778. See Rossi 1998, pp. 115-116 n. 61. 40 Antony and Cleopatra, for instance, shares many elements with Cymbeline. Not only is the Cydnus scene embroidered in the ‘tapestry of silk and silver’ of Imogen’s bedroom (ii.4.66-76), but the plot is set in Augustus’ times. Modern corrupt behaviour is set against old principles and the dialogue between the Queen and Cornelius, the doctor (i.5.11-45) reminds us of the Aldini portrait of the sovereign of Egypt tasting poisons (see above 4.3). Slander’s venomous tongue is compared to that of the ‘worms of Nile’ (iii.4.30-35), faithful servants cannot bring themselves to kill their masters (iii.4.30-99), death resembles sleep (iv.2.211-217), the (apparently) dead male protagonist is described in superhuman terms (iv.2.310-314), and the female protagonist metatheatrically brought back to the actor ‘boying’ her (v.6.229-230). Imogen then shows echoes of Cleopatra in becoming the innocent target of her paramour’s jealousy, infected by Roman misogyny. For Cymbeline, see Kirkpatrick 1995, p. 294; Kirkpatrick 2002, pp. 351-352. 41 See also Lyne 2007b; Gibbons 2003; McMullan and Hope; Knight; Tillyard; Traversi; Cooper 2004; Danson; Palfrey; Adelman 1973, pp. 103, 109, 166-168. 42 Mason, pp. 269, 262. For Shakespeare and Plutarch, see Pelling 1999, pp. 37-45; Honigmann; Brower, pp. 348-352; MacCallum, pp. 318-327; Bevington, pp. 2-5. For a detailed analysis of Shakespeare’s departures from Plutarch, see Thomas 1989, pp. 93-120. 43 For a survey, see Bevington, pp. 13-15; Rosenberg, pp. 28-29.

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multiplicity against unity that has been misunderstood (Adelman 1973, p. 45). The sharply opposing reactions are symptomatic of a deliberate authorial stance. As Berry (1999, p. 73) has noted of many of Shakespeare’s tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra is ‘a spectacle whose semiotic instability unsettles any confidence that what is seen can be intellectually deciphered and understood’. Starting from the very first dialogue between Philo and Demetrius, the actions and words of some characters (mainly the protagonists) are often framed by a commentary on the part of other characters whose opinions diverge, thus inundating the audience with competing perspectives and keeping them detached from the famous couple. 44 The preceding Cleopatra tragedies invariably opened on the duologue between one of the protagonists and an intimate associate: in no case were there alien perspectives to contend with. The traditional tragic mode asked the spectators to identify themselves with the principals. Here instead conflicting viewpoints lead to numerous aporetic and epistemological difficulties. What Antony and Cleopatra do and claim often contradict each other. Only in the last part of the play (starting from Act iv scene 12) are we ‘permitted to become involved with the lovers’, and ‘their evaluation tends to take on the status of emotional fact even in spite of the literal fact’. 45 Adelman concludes that in Antony and Cleopatra the opposition of action and word is finally resolved through poetry. The structure of the play implies a ‘paradox of faith’ (1973, p. 111). ‘If we come to believe in the associations of poetry it is […] precisely because they are so unbelievable’ (1973, p. 110). Through its contrapositions the text thus succeeds in capturing, partly at least, the fluid and impure complexities of our experiences in the world much better than our intellectual formulations do. 46 Shakespeare probably chose this particular subject matter because of its characteristics, being inspired by Plutarch’s multifaceted account, but I think he also saw in it the possibility of emotively revitalising an overtold story. He shifted the core of the play from the development of the plot towards its dramatic conclusion via the assessment of the characters. Thus the problem of decision implicit in every theatrical experience is taken to the extreme. He, as Adelman again observes, ‘can count on the audience to know the story and the traditional interpretation of it; and the conflict of interpretation that the audience brings to the theater becomes part of the play’ (1973, p. 53). The spectators are led to believe their judgement of 44 Adelman 1973, pp. 31-40. 45 Adelman 1973, p. 159. For a different reading, see Loomba 1993, pp. 124-135. 46 Adelman 1973, pp. 169-171.

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motives is crucial, a bit like in a morality play about the fall of the powerful, only to be baffled in the end because the standard moral criteria do not work. These changing perspectives are in fact the main characteristic of Antony and Cleopatra. 47 Even in Adelman’s brilliant scrutiny, however, some dissonant features remain unexplained. I think it would be possible to throw some light on them as well, if we stopped considering the play as ‘a tragedy disturbingly grafted onto a comic structure’, 48 and started conceiving of it as a unique experiment, a play with two souls, one tragic, one comic, coexisting contemporaneously until the last act, as I will aim to show in the last part of this chapter (see 6.5, 6.6). Another central trait is the fundamental role of metatheatricality, ‘the specific dramatic form of irony where the mode of representation is the focus’ (Lyne 2007b, p. 9). Shakespeare’s protagonists always seem half-aware of the effect of their speeches, half speaking their hearts and half performing. Metatheatricality had always been present in Shakespeare’s plays, and it is all the more crucial in his last phase. Antony and Cleopatra does not include any play-within-a-play, nor any dramatised preparations for it, yet it goes even further than this, as inferential and metaphorical hints at theatricality and metatheatricality are ubiquitous. 49 As David Hillman underlines, the ‘paradoxical interplay between facticity and fantasy, the authentic and the performed’ is vitally important for the play and there are endless examples (e.g. i.3.76-80, iii.13.29-31, iv.14.8, v.2.324-326).50 Shakespeare knew very well that all figures of public reputation are used, to some degree, to playing roles.51 Nothing like this was conceivable for Italian Renaissance tragedy or for closet drama, whose bonds with the stage were much weaker. Some self-referential traits do appear in the Senecan Cleopatra plays, yet even in the most metathetrical of them, that of the Aldini codex 392, they are chiefly confined to the prologues or to the verse. In De Cesari’s tragedy, Octavian tells the queen that the Romans ‘in altra età da le famose Historie / Con pietà i vostri casi ascolteranno, / Ch’hanno a scusar alfin col gran potere / De gl’inimici le ruine vostre’ [‘in a different age will learn of your cases by famous histories and will finally justify your ruin with your enemies’ 47 48 49 50 51

Adelman 1973, p. 30. See also Mooney, p. 174. Watson 1960, p. 337. See also Adelman 1973, p. 170. For metatheatre in Shakespeare, see Righter (alias Anne Barton), pp. 187-189. Hillman 2013, p. 330. For self-dramatisation and political ethics, see Markels, pp. 13-15, 51-58.

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power’] (i.385-388), but that is all. The most notable exceptions to this rule are not found in Giraldi’s tragedy, despite its being ‘stagable’, but within Daniel’s. Not only is the nuntius’ account of queen’s death filled with acting images, and she herself compares her life to a play (see above 1.1), but the choral ode to Act i also evocatively describes the fall of the two lovers as the end of a theatrical illusion: The scene is broken downe, And all uncov’red lyes, The purple Actors knowne Scarce men, whom men despise. The complots of the wise, Prove imperfections smoake: And all what wonder gave To pleasure-gazing eyes, Lyes scattered, dasht, all broke. Thus much beguiled have Poore unconsider at wights, These momentary pleasures, fugitive delights. (i.229-240)52

6.3

‘His speech sticks in my heart’53

As became apparent in Chapters 3 and 4, rhetoric was at the heart of Renaissance drama. Even if different kinds of plays emphasised different aspects of Seneca’s legacy, neo-Senecan tragedies were not alone in being fascinated by his grandiloquence and brilliant manipulation of words. Antony and Cleopatra is generally considered a late example of Shakespeare’s stylistic virtuosity.54 In this respect, the fundamental difference between this play and the preceding Cleopatra tragedies lies more in its peculiar exploitation of rhetorical techniques than in the presence of rhetorical figures per se. In the Italian as well as in the French tragedies, in Daniel’s Cleopatra, for that matter, tropes and schemes were chosen each time according to the poetical necessities faced in a single passage. In Shakespeare’s text, on the contrary, 52 For the political implications of the passage, see Cadman 2015b, pp. 55-56. 53 Shakespeare, Ant., i.5.43. 54 Colie, p. 179. As Markels observes (p. 153), the style of the play ‘might properly have a book to itself’. I have considered only those features related to my survey.

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some specific figures characterise the whole poetic texture, contributing to the general meaning and vision. Antony’s penchant for excess finds an appropriate means of expression in hyperbole, Cleopatra’s histrionic nature in synoeciosis and antithesis.55 Even the language other characters use to describe them is hyperbolic.56 Better still, perhaps the greatest hyperbolic set pieces in the play are precisely and respectively, the queen’s description in Enobarbus’ words (ii.2.245-250), and Antony’s in Cleopatra’s eyes (v.2.75-91). The ‘organic’ usage of rhetoric goes even further. Plutarch (Ant., 2.5), states that Antony was a follower of Asianism, a highly ornamented style which ‘bore a strong resemblance to his own life, which was swashbuckling and boastful, full of empty exultation and distorted ambition’.57 This detail is ignored by all the Cleopatra tragedies. Shakespeare instead employs Antony’s rhetorical style to illuminate both his principal characters and the whole play. Asianism becomes a linguistic correlative of the Egyptian way of life and serves to underlie the counterpoint Alexandria-Rome.58 Shakespeare had already introduced it in Julius Caesar, where it was restricted to Antony’s demagogic verse speech and contrasted to Brutus’ Attic rhetoric in prose.59 In Atticism, the style simply describes the event: it is a means to an end. Conversely, in Asianism, the style is the meaning: it becomes the event itself.60 The reason/passion opposition and the paradox of artifice turning into emotional engagement are major forces in the play.61 Note also that Asianism was historically an ‘old’ style. It was at the height of its popularity when Antony was young (Plut., 2.5). Atticism was born as a reaction against it in the mid-first century BC.62 Anachronistic ethics and new values, young 55 Spenser, p. 375; Adelman 1973, p. 112. For hyperbole and paradox, see Spenser; Colie; Doran; Ettenhuber, pp. 197-216. For a sceptical attitude towards the transcendental language of the play, see, for instance, Mason, p. 231. 56 See, for instance, Philo’s speech (i.1.1-10); Caesar’s words (i.4.56-72). 57 Ant., trans. by Perrin. That style had come into fashion in Greece with Hellenism, when the various populations of the East had started writing in Greek. 58 Colie, pp. 177-178; McDonald, pp. 66-71; Loomba 2011, p. xi. For a partly different view, see Lewis, p. 9. 59 Colie, pp. 170-175. For Atticism and Asianism in Coriolanus, see McDonald, pp. 61-66. 60 Lanham, p. 176. The polemic over Asianism and Atticism had returned into prominence in the Renaissance (Colie, pp. 168-169). 61 Colie, p. 206, though her argument is slightly different from mine. We learn from Suetonius that Octavius Caesar preferred the Attic style, too (Aug., LXXXVI.2). If Atticism is a translucent denotative style, where one thing corresponds to one word, then in Shakespeare’s Caesar we find a kind of ‘faked’ Atticism, where words and fact correspond only in appearance, while you can say one thing meaning another. 62 This is of course oversimplifying the matter, as the def inition of Attic and Asiatic style varied over time (Colie, p. 171).

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versus old: once again their significance is clear within the play (see below 6.4). As McDonald underlines, the two styles were even sexually marked in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Egyptian Cleopatra would therefore express, through her deceptive and sensual style, a woman’s language, as opposed to the masculine, succinct and efficient words of the Roman Octavian. McDonald adds: ‘Antony stands in for the dramatist poised stylistically between the masculine and the feminine, the Attic and the Asiatic, tragedy and romance’ (p. 69).63 The same ‘organic’ use of language we found in the images of speech makes imagery consistent.64 In the Italian Cleopatra plays single keywords, such as fortuna, dolore, morte, miseria, and sdegno, migrated from one character to another without notable consequences. In Antony and Cleopatra internal echoes are modulated within the play so that their meaning, by turns, is augmented and perfected, by analogy or contrast. Just think of bounty as it variously refers to the generosity of Antony (iv.6.22, iv.6.33, v.2.85) and then of Caesar (only once: v.2.42); or to the repetition of the exclamation ‘O Antony’, on Enobarbus’ (iv.6.32, iv.9.23), Caesar’s (v.1.35), and finally Cleopatra’s lips (v.2.306).65 In neo-Senecan theatre then the images, in large measure, recurred from one tragedy to another, sharing the same antecedents in ancient drama or literature, in a sort of intertextual game, rather than responding to an individual thematic pattern. Their function was increasing the sensation of revisiting and enlivening antiquity, rather than contributing to the coherent conceptual realisation of a single play in itself. A classical topos ([Seneca], Octavia, 14-15) was, for instance, the common image of the Fates cutting off the thread of human life, which reappears in so many Cleopatra plays (Pistorelli, Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, v.13-15; De Cesari, Cleopatra, iv.401-403; Jodelle, Cleopatre captive, iii.1212; Garnier, Marc Antoine, v.1816; Pembroke, Antonius, v.1839).66 In Antony and Cleopatra, instead, the imagery seems to feed on the general atmosphere of the play and to follow the progression of the characters’ drama.67 Images of excessive breeding (see above 6.2), of the 63 See pp. 61-71, 76. For Cleopatra’s language, see Hume, p. 295. 64 Miola 1983, p. 16. In the play ‘it is impossible to separate the diction, imagery, syntax and rhythm’ (Markels, p. 162). See also MacMullan, p. 408. 65 For bounty, see Adelman 1992, pp. 174, 334 n. 22. 66 But see also, for example, Speroni, Canace 797-800; Aretino, Orazia i.440-441; Dolce, Marianna, i.274; Dolce, Didone, i.1.267. 67 Clemen, p. 159; Brower, pp. 324-325. See also MacMullan, p. 406. For Thomas, mirroring the play’s dualism, ‘each image is used both in a positive and in a negative way’ (1989, p. 146).

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Nile’s contradictory bounty, in particular (ii.5.24-25, ii.5.79-80, ii.5.9697, v.2.58-59), of liquidity and of sailing (i.2.143-145, i.4.44-47, ii.7.63-64, iii.10.36, iii.11.55, iii.12.8-9, iii.13.64-66),68 images of stars and of light fading (ii.3.27-28, iii.2.66-67, iii.13.149-151, iv.14.46, iv.14.108, iv.15.11, iv.15.90, v.2.192-193) are closely interwoven and constitute a fundamental part of the complex polysemy of the play.69 Even when they belong to the same semantic f ield we f ind in other Cleopatra plays, the effect is very different and ‘an added dimension is supplied to the traditional concept’ (MacMullan, p. 407). Within this bipartite picture, Daniel occupies a place of his own. His use of imagery is midway between the neoclassical tradition and that peculiar adaptation of the expressions to the context of the play we find in Shakespeare. This hybridisation considered, it is not surprising that his tragedy shares a significant number of image patterns with Shakespeare’s. Beside the unifying features we have seen so far, Antony and Cleopatra’s language is also enriched by Shakespeare’s ‘disconcerting but exhilarating’ variety of diction.70 His rich tragic style is offset with strong comic elements and this impressive contrast creates and maintains a delicate equilibrium within the play.71 One of the methods employed to qualify the use of hyperbole is precisely the contrast of heightened style and very ordinary words (Doran, p. 163). Strong Latinisms collide with epithets of Anglo-Saxon origin, as at v.2.298 (‘knot intrinsecate’: knot + intricate + intrinsic), at v.2.301-302 (‘ass’ / ‘Unpolicied!’) and at v.2.310 (‘A lass unparalleled’), or low and high terms unexpectedly combine (ii.2.236, ‘Royal wench’).72 Everyday language, prosaic enough, is used when we would least expect it. Fulvia’s death is announced in an unadorned single-line dialogue, going straight to the target: Ant. Fulvia is dead. Enob. Sir? Ant. Fulvia is dead. Enob. Fulvia? Ant. Dead. (i.2.151-155) 68 69 70 71 72

Clemen, p. 159 (I have silently adapted some of his examples to Ant. edited by Bevington Bevington, pp. 32-35; MacMullan, pp. 403-410. Kirkpatrick 2002, p. 352. Colman, p. 148. Richards, pp. 64-65.

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The same monosyllabic diction reappears, when Antony learns of Cleopatra’s faked departure: Ant. Dead then? Mard. Dead (iv.14.34)

And while, in most plays, Cleopatra utters (reported) high-sounding famous last words, in Shakespeare’s her final statement is an aposiopesis, completed by her maid:73 Cleo. What should I stay – Char. In this wild world? So fare thee well. (v.2.307-308)

Indecency is of course among the components of multivocality. As has been observed, ‘probably no other English play has ever used bawdy with greater finesse than The Winter’s Tale or Antony and Cleopatra.’74 However, the usage of sexual innuendo and puns is polyvalent. They contribute to the characterisation and, above all, they gain, in the end, an unprecedented dignity of their own, by asserting the force of sexual passion as a part of love, of life itself.75 This web of heterogeneous linguistic strands is totally absent in closet drama and also in the Italian plays. Their ornate and elegant language is essentially that of a readable dramatic poem and, as a result, protagonists, second leads and minor personages do not generally speak their own language, but rather that of the poetic drama itself. As in Petrarch’s unilinguismo (monolinguism) all that is comic or vulgar is avoided.76 In this choice of diction the manners of expressions of lyric poetry (Latin elegiac poets and Petrarchism in primis) are inextricable from Senecan declamatory speeches and ruminative soliloquies. This stylistic choice reverberates in the treatment of the personages themselves.77 In his analysis of Giraldi’s Cleopatra, Herrick briefly compares 73 See Giraldi, v.6. 417-422; De Cesari, v.77-87; Pistorelli, v.486-495; Daniel, v.2.345-352. 74 Colman, p. 144. On the subject, see also Hulme; Partridge; Hillman 2013, p. 332; Fitz, p. 302. 75 Colman, pp. 148-149, 151; Brower, p. 322; Schalkwyk, p. 209; Ingram, pp. 314-315. 76 Contini 1979, pp. vii-xxxviii; Peterson, pp. 32-35. For a different view about Giraldi’s language, in particular, see Herrick, p. 112; Morrison 1997, p. 11. For a stylistic analysis of the components of Petrarch’s language, see Trovato 1979; Vitale 1992; Vitale 1996. 77 Hall 2002, p. 70; Hume.

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Antony’s reaction after the queen’s supposed betrayal in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra and in Cinthio’s play. Here are the two extracts: All is lost! This foul Egyptian hath betrayèd me. My fleet hath yielded to the foe, and yonder They cast their caps up and carouse together Like friends long lost. Triple-turned whore! ‘Tis thou Has sold me to this novice, and my heart Makes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly; For when I am revenged upon my charm, I have done all. Bid them all fly. Begone!   […] O, this false soul of Egypt! This grave charm, Whose eye becked forth my wars and called them home, Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end, Like a right gipsy hath at fast and loose Beguiled me to the very heart of loss. What, Eros, Eros! (Ant., iv.12.9-17, 25-30)    O Cleopatra iniqua, O malvagia, o infedele, o scelerata, Per te, per te, io, che ponea terrore A tutto il mondo, hora son dato in forza Al mio Nemico. (Cleopatra, i.5.351-355) [Oh, unjust wicked, unfaithful, evil, Cleopatra! Because of you, because of you, I am given in the end to my foe, when once I terrified the whole world.]

Herrick negatively opposes the ‘fine tragic outburst’ in the former theatre piece to the conventional railing against inconstancy in the latter (p. 111). What he does not take into account is the underlying difference in the use of linguistic registers in the two tragedies. In Shakespeare’s, Antony’s impotent rage is a good example of the complex mingling of words and expressions, from trivial to poetic, typical of the play. Its polyphonic variety allows the richness of the character to emerge: Antony is simultaneously a rude soldier, a well-educated general and a refined lover; he seethes,

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suffers, hates and loves, all at the same time. His words vibrate with rage and regret. Giraldi’s Antony, on the other hand, obeys the rules of a refined expressiveness. His utterance is that of a typical deceived lover within a neoclassical setting, aiming at a balanced statement of emotions rather than at their vivid enactment. To Renaissance Senecans such a vast linguistic range was undesirable, in the name of theatrical decorum. This brings us to another point. Antony and Cleopatra is generally considered more ‘talky’ and void of dramatic action than most of Shakespeare’s plays.78 Yet it remains distinct from the academic kind of tragedy, in which informative reporting is part of the general macro-summary implied by the play’s construction. A good illustration of it is Dionysus’ (Hercules’) desertion of Antony. The belief that the patron gods would leave a doomed town was common in antiquity.79 In Plutarch (75.4-5), the strange night music and noises are heard by the whole city and the interpretation is left to those Alexandrines interested in divination. In the Aldini codex the episode is told by Canidius,80 and negatively interpreted by Arrius: ‘il rumor poi sentito per Alessandria non è altro che quel dio, che il tuo signor ha sempre imitato, il qual si è partito e l’ha abbandonnato del tutto’ [‘the noise then heard in Alexandria was no other than that god whom your lord always imitated, who went away and utterly abandoned him’] (iii.254-256).81 In Giraldi’s tragedy the sequence is related too, but put into Antony’s mouth: Appresso i suoni che s’udiro e i canti Hieri di notte uscir fuor de la porta Mi fecero conoscer che il Dio Baccho, Sotto il favor del qual son visso sempre, Mi abbandonava (i.5.437-441) [Then those sounds and songs that were heard last night, getting out of the gate, made me understand that the god Bacchus, under whose favour I always lived, was leaving] 78 Bradley, p. 284; Gibbons 1993, p. 189; Mason, p. 232. 79 Pelling, note to Ant., 75.4-5. 80 ‘Si sentì poi in quell’istante, uno strepito grandissimo de timpani, de corni e di altri stromenti rusticani, che scorreva per la città, né si puoté mai conoscer chi color fossero’ [‘You could hear then, in that instant, a huge din of timbals, horns and other rustic instruments run through the city, but it was impossible to know who they were’] (iii.234-237). 81 In Garnier’s play the flight is reported by Philostrate (ii.311-320).

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Shakespeare on the other hand, in a few lines, makes the whole scene come alive, although the hearers have now become Antony’s guards (iv.3.13-22).82 Shakespeare’s substitution of Dionysus with Hercules is not without meaning, as Robin Kirkpatrick (2002, p. 354) has noted: ‘The God, Hercules – so often, for the Renaissance, the symbol of an heroic power of human selffashioning – has left him.’ The change was almost inevitable, as the image of Dionysus as the conqueror of the East was not immediately available to the playgoers of those times. To them Bacchus would substantially be the fat and drunken deity of wine and orgies: his leaving Antony might have been misunderstood.83 Antony and Cleopatra is mainly written in a flexible blank verse, and both lyricism and sparkling naturalness conspire in giving life to its music.84 Many critics have praised the power of its lines over its dramatic quality.85 Rhythm and grammar seem to be dynamically melting and transforming, a verbal correlative to the deliquescence of identity and tragic instability: enallage, ellipsis, inverted word order, verbless constructions, and neologisms abound.86 Such flexibility springs from Shakespeare’s mature poetic talent, a talent he had already amply displayed. No other dramatist in our survey, except Daniel, could really bear the same title of poet. His Cleopatra has been seen by Peter Erickson as ‘an attempt to reclaim the dark woman whom the poet of the Sonnets so consistently degraded’.87 Similarities have been noted too with the praise of the astonishing male beauty of the fair youth. But it is, above all, in Venus and Adonis that the later play is unmistakably foreshadowed. Adrien Bonjour has listed a series of tenuous yet tenacious links between the two texts.88 Analysing the shared imagery, Bonjour defines the shift from the looser and more laborious style of the earlier 82 The direct intrusion of the mythological realm into the human anticipates the romances, see Adelman 1973, p. 80; Bradley, p. 290. 83 Even Cartari states: ‘Benché si trovi che Bacco fosse un ardito capitano e di gran valore e che soggiugasse diverse nazioni, nondimeno non tanto per questo fu celebre il nome suo appresso degli antichi quanto perché fu creduto ritrovatore del vino’ [‘Although we read that Bacchus was a bold and valiant captain and that he subdued many nations, nevertheless, among the ancients, his name is not so much famous for that as because he was considered the discoverer of wine’] (p. 365). See also Pelling, note to Ant., 4.1-3. Not by chance, in the play, is Bacchus quoted only in the Galley scene (ii.7.107-110). 84 Colie, p. 169; Bevington, p. 15. 85 Among other scholars, see Ridley, p. xlvii; Bradley, p. 282. 86 McDonald, p. 70; Briggs, p. 285; Hillman 2013, p. 332; Bevington, n. to 4.15.69. 87 Erickson, p. 125. Quoted also in Bevington, p. 25. See also Paris, pp. 163-164. 88 Bonjour. See also Lever.

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work to the condensed and pregnant lines of the latter a ‘sheer miracle of compression’ (Bonjour, p. 78). Formal debts are even greater. The epyllion is rhetorically dominated by antithesis (e.g. ll. 155-156, 251-252, 610, 965-966, 985-986), a trope all too familiar to the readers of Antony and Cleopatra. Furthermore, the love affair of the protagonists is observed with a detached eye, as if from the outside, and has ironic and comic overtones, even to the point of the burlesque.89 Finally, like the play, the poetic narrative starts as a comedy about romantic follies but ends tragically. Moreover, in the poem similarly, ‘Love is a spirit all compact of fire, / Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire’ (ll. 149-150).90

6.4

Dramatis Personae

Let us now turn to a consideration of the presentation of the characters in Antony and Cleopatra. As it would be impossible here to conduct a study of all the significant voices, I will just briefly analyse those which will prove more relevant to my analysis (see below 6.6). A Shakespearean personage who is a unicum is Enobarbus. Invented by the playwright, out of the few lines he found in North (Ant., 40.8, 56.3, 63.3-4), the role has been traced back to the type of the soldier convinced of the folly of love ties for a good warrior.91 In this sense, it has something in common with Antony’s confidant in Giraldi’s tragedy, a devoted captain who tries to bring his leader back to his senses, but proclaims he will remain faithful to the end (i.4.332-335). Giraldi’s capitano also shares with Domitius a distinctively Roman antifeminism (Shakespeare, Ant., i.2.148-149, 156-163; iii.7.6-9).92 A similar subsidiary role is that of Canidius in the play of the Aldini codex 392, except that neither of the Italian characters ever goes over to Octavian. Their different fate is in itself proof that there is much more to Enobarbus. It might be said that he ‘embodies the cognate conceptual relationship between the terms “servant” and “friend” in Shakespeare’s England’ (Schalkwyk, 89 Bonjour, pp. 73-76. For the characteristics of the epyllion and its relationship with classical sources, see Sowerby, pp. 298-298. 90 Bonjour, p. 78. For the intertextual resemblances between Venus and Cleopatra, see 6.5. 91 Bevington, p. 11. See North’s translation, pp. 201, 216, 223. According to Carr (n. to 234), Shakespeare was also influenced by the episode of the rewarded soldier who went to Caesar anyway (Plut., Ant., 74.3). In Giraldi’s play, only this second episode is present (i.2.137-146). 92 For Enobarbus’ hostility towards women, see Dash; Fitz, p. 306. The same attitude is shared by Dryden’s Ventidio (v.228-298).

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p. 204). He is ‘mixed in composition, like Antony’, but of a simpler, blunt nature (Adelman 1973, p. 130).93 He also bears a strong resemblance to the kind of personage Mooney terms a ‘reflector’, someone placed in a privileged position, a Figurenposition, half in and half outside the play.94 This detached observer finds his origin in late morality drama where, as Barton observed (p. 25), ‘sin continually appeared disguised as common sense’ and the Vice figure, its personification, maintained the same attitude as the spectators’ intermediary.95 Such sceptical voices are not unusual in Shakespeare’s theatre and they often held the same destructive function as their old lineage (just think of Edmund or Iago).96 But Enobarbus is closer to another kind of cynical realist, the scorner of love Mercutio.97 The spokesmen of reason and good sense, either good or evil, whenever put into direct contact with the sublime of passion must necessarily destroy it (Iago) or die, otherwise, under such clear-sighted scrutiny, it would be too hard for such a supreme feeling to stay alive and grow. In a linear tragedy like Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio is killed in a duel because of Romeo’s interference. Enobarbus, instead, because of Antony’s presumed diminution of brain (iii.13.202), does the ‘right thing’ and deserts, only to pitifully die, when magnanimity proves that his charismatic comrade-general is ‘Antony yet’ (iii.13.95). In death, like Cleopatra, he looks as if ‘he sleeps’ (iv.9.25). As Ornstein notes, ‘we sense that his desertion of Antony is, like his death, an act of love. He leaves Antony when he can no longer bear to watch Antony’s failure as a general, and he is redeemed by his response to Antony’s generosity even though he has no chance to express to his master the full measure of his devotion.’98 I think a second reason for the decease of this choric tale spinner, who calls himself ‘the villain of the earth’ (iv.6.31) and, before crossing-over, considers that if he stayed he would ‘earn a place i’ th’ story’ (iii.13.46), lies in his function within the delicate balance of tragic and comic elements of the play (see 6.6). Critics show far greater sympathy for Enobarbus than for Octavian (Octavius Caesar). The latter has been defined as ‘abstemious, cool-blooded’ (Chernaik, p. 150): ‘a typically masculinist Machiavellian Founder’ (Engle, p. 213); ‘a bureaucratic bean counter’ (Raber 2001, p. 90) and so on.99 He is the custodian of the Roman values in a teleological vision of history, where 93 94 95 96 97 98 99

For Antony’s stoic affirmation of identity, see Seneca’s ‘Medea superest’ (Medea, ii.166). Mooney, p. 178. See also pp. 19, 172, 175; Brower, pp. 329-330; Hall 2002, p. 52. See also Braunmuller, pp. 82-84; Mooney, pp. 19, 172. For Iago and Vice, see Brower, p. 15; Loomba 1993, p. 61. Melchiori, p. 458. Ornstein, pp. 399-400. See also Hillman 2013, p. 316. For a survey of the critical response, see Chernaik, pp. 150-151.

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the supremacy of the Urbs is unquestioned. His function as an instrument of epochal change has also been widely acknowledged.100 In this light, his inexorable fortune (ii.3.33-38) and incredible speed (iii.7.20-23) convey a sense of the unfolding of an ineluctable historical process. But his apparently coherent characterisation does not imply that the role is monolithic.101 As observed above, Italian and English dramatists preceding Shakespeare embraced one of the two opposite visions of Augustus offered by tradition (see above 3.4). Shakespeare was certainly aware of these contrasting readings as well as of the articulation of Roman institutions and values, from the embryonic republic to the sophisticated and mature empire. His Octavius Caesar is no traditional villain. The playwright might have departed from Plutarch’s portrait, making him appear in a less favourable light, yet, at the same time, he gives the audience no access to his interiority, just as he does with his principals, transforming him into a sort of ‘enigma’.102 While the neoclassical personages of Senecan plays were all there on the page, in the author’s words, Shakespeare’s characters often have a double ambiguity: a major one, implied in the text itself, making it difficult to judge their motives and actions, and a minor one, a sort of room for manoeuvre, between role and impersonator, left open to the talent of a particular actor.103 Octavian is a good example of the calculated ambiguity between dramatic role and histrionic enactment of it. Indeed, the part has been played in different ways.104 Some of his speeches are especially significant in this respect: his contempt for Antony’s behaviour and his description of the Antony of old (i.4.1-10, 16-33, 56-72); his dialogues with his sister (iii.2, iii.6); the eulogy for the dead Antony (v.1.35-48) and his final epitaph for Cleopatra and the lovers (v.2.347-360). In each case, the real motivation behind his ambiguous words is left inscrutable, so that they depend upon the interpretation of the hearers, in turn influenced by the representation of the character that the actor wants to convey. On each occasion, some unpleasant traits of the future Augustus’ personality remain undeniable, but equally they are stressed or mitigated according to this oscillation. The contrary critical responses to these sections of the text are a clue, I think, to their ambivalence.105 For 100 Chernaik, pp. 139-140; Engle, pp. 210-211; Thomas 1989, pp. 120, 221; Barroll 1984, pp. 200-261; Kahn 1997, p. 112; Hall 1989, p. 157. 101 Barton, p. 128; Hall 1989, pp. 156, 164. 102 Barroll 1984, p. 195. See also Thomas 1989, pp. 93, 103, 120. 103 Hillman 2013. 104 Rosenberg, p. 124. For contrasting critical readings, see Chernaik, pp. 150-151. 105 For the f irst point, see, for example, Thomas 1989, pp. 11, 14, 125-126, 221; Adelman 1973, pp. 131, 138; Adelman 1992, p. 180; Paster, pp. 160-161; Chernaik, pp. 148-149; Worthen, p. 299.

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instance, in the second case (iii.2, iii.6), Octavian may simulate great concern for Octavia only to favour his political necessities, knowing from the start that her marriage will not work, or he may really care for her, even if he tries to suppress those tender feelings and favour the marriage hoping for the best. He would still be using his sister as a pawn, but then again Antony is doing the same, even if, according to some critics, when in Rome Antony is infected by its hypocrisy (Barroll 1984, p. 262). Octavia herself, as far as we know, might feel that this is her duty and willingly accept it. We do not know her any better than we know her brother and the two portraits we get of her are antithetical (ii.2.136-139, ii.3.251-253, ii.6.120).106 The complexities of Caesar’s character notwithstanding, recent scholars believe his entangled relation with Antony cannot be disregarded. It has been multifariously analysed as the expression of a homosocial bond of ‘rivalry, enmity, identification’,107 working as a magnetic pole on Antony’s identity, opposite to Cleopatra’s (Paster, p. 162). The two world sharers might be in most respects antithetical, but they are nonetheless inextricably entwined. Their link has been regarded as oedipal. Underlining Antony’s age and Caesar’s youth, Shakespeare, as Adelman underlines, makes it ‘resonate with the son’s contest against the father he must idealise, possess, and, above all, subdue’ (1992, p. 181).108 He insists on the dichotomy often subverting the parts, with the older acting as a boy, the younger as a mature man. In the beginning, it is Octavius who criticises Antony, calling him a boy (i.4.30-33); in the second part of the play, it is Antony who starts referring to his opponent as a boy (e.g. iii.13.17-19, 20-21; iv.12.14, 23, 48). The inversion of roles adds a supplementary note to the boy-man opposition: the confrontation between past and present values. What in the eyes of Octavius Caesar is Antony’s political immaturity signals adherence to a heroic code whose tenets are perceived as anachronisms by the materialist politicians of the day. Vivian Thomas explains: ‘Rome has reached a point For the second, see Adelman 1992, p. 187; Thomas 1989, pp. 102-103; Barroll 1984, p. 196; Engle, pp. 213-214. For the third, see Colie, p. 197; Chernaik, pp. 149-150; Rosenberg, p. 121; Adelman 1992, p. 182; Bono, p. 162; Mooney, p. 187; Barroll 1984, p. 212; Mason, p. 268; Chernaik, pp. 149-150; Thomas 1989, pp. 115-116, 138-139, 145; Dollimore, p. 198. For the fourth, see Rosenberg, pp. 467, 469; Paris, p. 142; Lewis, p. 11; Rackin, p. 211; Lyne 2007b, pp. 37-38; Chernaik, p. 164; Thomas 1989, p. 119; Kahn 1997, p. 138; Schalkwyk, p. 206. Charnes (1993, p. 106) then reads the play as ‘the ultimate triumph of Octavius’. 106 Shakespeare’s Octavia is an ambiguous character. She only speaks 35 lines in the play and her appearances are not long enough to dissipate uncertainty. See Thomas 1989, pp. 95, 105; Barroll 1984, pp. 224-226; Markels, pp. 33-36, 43-44; Bono, p. 161; Dash, pp. 144-145; Fitz, pp. 301-302. 107 Kahn 1997, p. 111. See also pp. 135-137; Kahn 2013, p. 231; Chernaik, pp. 149-150. 108 See also Adelman 1992, pp. 179-180, 335; Adelman 1973, pp. 137-139.

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where the supreme leader is not a magnificent warrior. […] Rather he is the quintessential civil servant and political manipulator’ (p. 21).109 Antony has not recognised the demise of the heroic era. Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great still belonged to a world of heroic values and, challenging fortune, preferred an honourable war to any dishonourable compromise. Their descendants do not have the nerve to risk that much. Midway between the generation of the fathers and that of the sons, Antony is associated with both. He is not the heroic past incarnate as Thomas says (p. 11): he can bend to a settlement, signing the treaty with Pompey, or marrying Octavius’ sister, yet both his official image and his interior self incline towards the heroic ideal.110 Magnificence, extravagance, courage and magnanimity are part of it. In antiquity the most admired hero-warrior was the Dionysian Alexander; his generosity was proverbial as was his bravery, or his physical courage. He led his army from the front (as Antony does and Octavius does not), he was immensely popular with his soldiers, and he dared some of his enemies to fight sword against sword (Diodorus Siculus, xvii.20.3-5).111 The historical Antony imitated him and Shakespeare makes his character try to exert the same kind of leadership. He fights by sea because Octavius dares him to do so (iii.7.27-29); he offers to meet him in a duel and he is surprised when his challenge is refused (iv.1.3-6, iv.2.1-5).112 Shakespeare modified Plutarch’s account in order to create a more attractive portrayal of his male protagonist,113 but at the same time, he omitted most allusions to his strategic abilities, leaving the impression that the character faces military problems with some naivety, some readiness, some innocence almost.114 This Antony might not be the ‘shrewd contriver’ feared by Cassius in Julius Caesar (ii.1.158) but he is still the man ‘that revels long a-nights’ (JC, ii.2.116) and who ‘is given / To sports, to wildness, and much company’ (JC, ii.1.188-189). Meanwhile he has also grown older together with his 109 For an analysis of the fading concept of honour, see Dollimore. 110 Hall 1989, pp. 158-159, 145, 155; Markels, pp. 127, 129-130; Ornstein, pp. 393-394, 396-397; Barroll 1984, pp. 88-89, 95-99, 104-108, 110, 124, 200; Williamson 1974, p. 202; Adelman 1973, pp. 137-139. Antony’s crisis as a knight-warrior is part of the general crisis of the traditional heroic identity for which, see above 3.1. See also Rose, pp. 20-21. 111 For Antony’s camaraderie, see, among other scholars, Bradley, p. 290; Engle, p. 210; Barroll 1984, pp. 119, 267, 272; Schalkwyk, p. 206. For his generosity, see Colie, p. 196; Hall 1989, p. 143. 112 Rose, p. 20. In the Aldini codex, the challenge to single combat is worded thus: ‘Io, Ottavio, quantunque mi ritrovi in età senile, disf ido voi giovane a corpo a corpo a combatter meco, per decider le nostre litti’ [‘I, even if I am old of age, challenge you, Ottavio, who are young, to struggle hand in hand with me, and settle our dispute’] (iii.358-359). 113 Thomas 1989, p. 93; Markels, p. 33; Brower, p. 348. 114 Barroll 1984, p. 95. See also pp. 97, 126 n. 10.

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creator, becoming more complex, more flexible, sometimes even comic, being besieged by the shadows of many characters before him. He shares some traits with Coriolanus, the Herculean hero who obeys a code of values no longer shared by Rome. But some of his other traits are far from those of Coriolanus, who is inflexible, dignified, and aristocratically disdainful of lower classes.115 Antony may be embittered by the fickleness of the commoners (i.2.178-180, i.3.48-52), but he certainly has a way with his attendants. Like Henry V among his soldiers (Henry V, iv.1), the ‘valiant’ Mark Antony (Henry V, iii.6.10) wanders incognito among the Alexandrines at night (Ant., i.1.55-56). Like Prince Hal he feels at his ease in every social sphere and he shows a certain ‘histrionic self-consciousness’ (Markels, p. 63). The opposition between Lancaster’s dedication to public affairs and Hal’s dissoluteness finds a vague echo in the Octavius/Antony duality, but whereas Hal emerges from the tavern ‘still uncompromised candidate for the throne’ (Markels, p. 63). Antony, through his choices, kisses ‘away / Kingdoms and provinces’ (Ant., iii.10.7-8). His chivalric challenge to Octavius remind us of Hal and Hotspur.116 Not by chance, Cleopatra has been compared to Falstaff even if, in yet another inversion of boyishness and maturity, the Romans find Antony’s adulthood erratic rather than his youth.117 Still, much as his enemies may consider him crude and irrepressible, Antony seems to think of himself as an overgenerous Timon before his disgrace, except that while Timon gave away his richness, Antony gives away himself.118 His heroic fragility is that of Othello and like Othello it might be said of him that ‘he was great of heart’ (Oth., v.2.360).119 In both cases the heroic personality is progressively eroded, there by Iago, here by a mixture of self-responsibilities and circumstances. The Moor’s ‘otherness’ is direct, Antony’s indirect, born out of his ‘Egyptianisation’ through his link with Cleopatra. Both were ‘noble’ and both fell, one way or another.120 Both are charged with being 115 The superhuman dimension is central to Coriolanus as well (e.g. iv.1.18; iv.2.56; iv.5.119; iv.6.94-95, 104-105; v.3.150-154) as it is the fragile bond/boundary between being and appearing, reality and performance (iii.2.14-15, 105-110; iv.5.74; v.3.40-42). 116 Bevington, p. 26. 117 For Cleopatra and Falstaff, see Fitz, pp. 298, 315; Rozett, p. 159; Goddard, p. 64; Bradley, pp. 299-300; Mills, p. 105. 118 Adelman 1973, p. 130. We learn from Plutarch that the historical triumvir identified himself with the legendary misanthrope, after the debacle of Actium (Ant., 69.6-7; 70). For Timon’s fantasy of male bounty and Antony and Cleopatra, see Adelman 1992, pp. 165-192. 119 For Anthony and Othello, see Brower, p. 331. Cleopatra is certainly no Desdemona. She has been compared to Othello, too. See Goddard, p. 67; Mills, p. 105. 120 For nobility in Antony and Cleopatra, see Brower, p. 328; Redgrave, p. 79, quoted in Worthen, p. 296; Bevington, p. 61.

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somehow ‘dominated’ by their women – ‘Our general’s wife is now the general’ (Oth., ii.3.282). Both face two conflicting views of love: the brutish, lascivious vision of Iago and of the Romans, and the sublime conception of the couple: the interracial, interculture composition of the pair plays a part in the collision.121 In the first example, external pressures succeed in turning the male protagonist against the supposed cause of his shame; in the second, we approach that situation (iv.12.30-49), but Cleopatra’s faked death changes the scene and Antony, his noble stature regained, kills himself instead. Still, whereas the Moor’s self-disintegration has the devastating aggressiveness of an illness of the soul, Antony’s psychological decline consists of gradual dissolution, like King Lear’s.122 The diminution of Garnier’s Marc Antoine is the corruption of a ‘coeur saoul’ (iii.1154), a ‘glutted heart’ (Pembroke, iii.1167). Shakespeare’s protagonist experiences almost total cognitive failure, coming to feel unreal, as inconsistent and mutable as clouds, as vapour.123 The manifold and ambiguous aspects of his personality have been so variously explored and interpreted that it would take a volume to consider them all. Commentators have been especially puzzled by the frequent parodic and ludicrous attitudes adopted by Antony during the play. As Ornstein notes (p. 390), ‘Most of the ironies in Antony and Cleopatra are not present in Plutarch’s account’; they are Shakespeare’s own emphasis.124 These ironies have been judged, on occasion, embarrassing to the charisma of a tragic hero, and consequently minimised. Central to this key issue is the vexed issue of Antony’s death: is it botched and awkward or is it utterly heroic? Kahn has learnedly suggested that Shakespeare’s audience found it great, an impressive demise, and has compared it to the much admired difficilis obitus of Cato (who, after stabbing himself, reopened his stomach and disembowelled himself when he discovered he was still alive).125 I think the question needs further articulation. First of all, the fumbling of Antony’s suicide does not exactly evoke the astounding fortitude of Cato’s self-murder. Secondly, Plutarch himself comments that Antony took his life ‘in a cowardly, pitiful, and ignoble way’ (Comparison, 6.2; trad. Perrin) and some of Shakespeare’s contemporaries shared that view, such as the Christian-Stoic humanist Justius Lipsius (1547-1606) who, in his De Constantia 121 Loomba 1993, pp. 126-127; Loomba 2002, p. 273; Rose, p. 20. 122 Adelman 1973, p. 148; Goddard, p. 68; Markels, pp. 136-137, 150-151. 123 Adelman 1992, pp. 188-189. His vacillation of personality (e.g. v.5.31-41) has also been compared to Richard II’s (Ornstein, p. 397). 124 See also Bevington, p. 18. 125 Kahn 1997, pp. 121-127.

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(bk 2, ch. 15), accused the Roman general of having dispatched himself with a ‘womanish hand’.126 Thirdly (and most importantly) Shakespeare’s is a work of art and consequently capable of transforming tragic material into comic and vice versa, at his own behest. The point is better illustrated by a comparison with the structural pattern of the same sequence in the preceding Cleopatra plays. Of the Senecan tragedies we have analysed, only three include Antony’s death: Giraldi Cinthio’s, Pistorelli’s and the anonymous drama of the Aldini codex. To that group we may add, of course, Garnier’s play.127 Their common source is Plutarch (Ant., 76.4-5, 77), and the tension of the episode, the one which could be easily turned into dark comedy, is the section between Eros’ noble death and Antony’s last dying words in Cleopatra’s arms (Ant., 76.5, 77; North, p. 236). Two of the three Italian tragedies erase this section almost completely. Giraldi’s version runs thus:128 Eun. Perch’egli con la spada ha se percosso Di sì grave percossa e tanto sangue Uscito gli è fuor de la piaga, ch’egli Puote lo Spirto a gran fatica havere. Cle. Ahi Cleopatra, Ahi misera Cleopatra, Questo colpo medesmo anche ha te uccisa! Fammi sapere il tutto. Eun. Egli sì tosto che da me intese ch’eravate viva, Alquanto ricourossi e lieto disse: ‘Esser più non mi può grave la morte.’ Cle. Ahi lassa, ben fia a me grave la vita, Se vita si può dir c’habbia colei Che ir oda a morte chi era la sua vita! Eun. Poi replicò: ‘Non mi è grave la morte, Poi che colei per cui mi son trafitto È viva, e posso anchor l’ultimo fiato Sospirar ne le sue braccia.’ E questo detto Levato si è con gran fatica, e vuole 126 Lipsius, Two Books of Constancy, p. 168, quoted in Barroll 1984, p. 128 n. 26. 127 In Jodelle’s play, Antony’s ghost briefly (and literally) recalls the episode (i.136-146). Some allusions are also in Montreux’s play (iii.61-72, v.206-211). 128 In Chintio’s play nothing is said of Eros. For Eros in Shakespeare’s play, see Barroll 1991, pp. 160-165; Stewart, pp. 88-96.

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Essere a voi condutto. […] Ecco, Reina, che si fa condurre Da suoi Soldati a la presenza vostra. (ii.1.36-54, 67-68) [Eun. Because he struck himself so hard with his sword and so much blood emerged from the wound that he can hardly breath. Cle. Ah Cleopatra, ah miserable Cleopatra, this very stroke killed you too! Tell me everything. Eun. As soon as he learned from me that you were alive, he cheered up a bit and happily said: ‘Death can no longer be a burden to me.’ Cle. Alas, but life will be a burden to me, if you can call life that of she who learns that he who was her life is dead! Eun. Then he added: ‘Death is not a burden, as she for whom I stabbed myself lives, and I can still breath my last breathe in her arms.’ And having said so, he got up with great exertion and wants to be brought to you. (…) Here he is, my queen, carried into your presence by his soldiers.]

In Pistorelli’s version, a page narrates the events to the chorus. Antony realises that Eros has killed himself with the sword: (Vedendosi da lui così schernito) La trasse da quel corpo, e nel suo Reggio129 Piacque tingerla ancor di doppio sangue. Coro. O caso miserabil et acerbo! Come puotè da sé finir la vita? Pag. La finì pur, e tosto ’l scorgerete, Che quinci han da passar per riportarlo In loco ove nol vegga ’l suo Nemico. Così egli comandò, così desia. Coro. Come sepper le donne il caso attroce? Pag. Il Re sentito fu quando ch’al servo Gridogli in tuono spaventoso e rio, 129 A second ‘corpo’ is implied here. ‘Reggio’ stands for ‘regio’.

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Vedendo ch’in se stesso ascose ’l ferro; E fu la bella Charmio che l’udìte, Ch’andava anch’ella dietro a l’alta donna Per celarsi con lei in loco oscuro. Coro. La Regina era corsa ad occultarsi? Pag. Era con Ira andata e chiamò Charmio Che la seguisse, e ’l loco era vicino A quello dove ’l Re s’apprì le carni; Così passando lei l’udì a gridare E narrò ’l tutto a la Regina, et ella Corse a la luce e ’l mirò brutto e mole Del proprio sangue e rispirava ancora. (iv.135-158) [(Seeing he had been fooled by him) he quickly took it out of the body and in his royal body decided to stain it with double blood. Coro. Oh miserable and cruel case! How could he put an end to his own life? Pag. He could indeed and soon you will see it, as they are going to pass close by to take him to a place where his enemy will not see him. That is what he commanded, what he wished for. Coro. How did the women learn of the dire case? Pag. The king was heard when he was yelling at his servant, in a terrible and angry voice, seeing he had run himself through. And it was beautiful Carmio who heard him, while she was following the sovereign to hide with her in an obscure place. Coro. Was the queen running to hide herself? Pag. She had gone with Ira and asked Carmio to follow her and the place was close to that where the king opened his flesh; so, while she was passing by, she heard him crying and told all that had happened to the queen, and she ran into the light and saw him dirty and wet with his own blood, but still breathing.]

When the queen and her women appear on the stage, they are already carrying the corpse of Antony (iv.239-245). Although technically both Antony’s pathetic agonies and his raising into the monument could have been enacted (as the gruesome killing has already occurred), Giraldi and Pistorelli edited out the scenes, evidently because they considered them difficult to handle in an aesthetically proper way.

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Garnier did not eliminate the details but his strategy was a plain summary, strictly respectful of his historical source (iv.1605-1656). Even the anonymous author of the Aldini codex, in one of his typical oscillations between subjection to and liberty from Plutarch’s Life, nearly translates it literally. Antony’s fatal wounding is described to Diomedes (Diomede, secretario di Cleopatra) by Derceteus (Dicerteo, maggiordomo di Antonio [Antony’s butler]), who is carrying his bloody sword: DICER. Sappi che, subito entrato che fu l’imperador in camera, spogliata che gli fu la corazza, volse che Erote, suo cameriero, l’uccidesse, ma egli prevenendolo uccise se stesso alla soa presenza; il che, veduto da lui, e laudandolo per valoroso e forte, tolse l’istesso pugnale, qual è questo ch’io tengo in mano, e se lo cacciò due volte nel fianco, chiamando ad alta voce la reina Cleopatra, ond’io l’ho lasciato più morto che vivo. Sì che le cose passano a questo modo. Tutti son fuggiti, chi in qua, chi in là. (iv.164-170) [You must know that as soon as he entered his room, the emperor, once he had removed his armour, wanted Erote, his servant, to kill him, but he, preceding him, killed himself in his presence. Seeing that, he praised his valour and strength, and took this dagger, the very same I have in my hand, and thrust it twice in his side, calling Queen Cleopatra, in a loud voice, so that I left him more dead than alive. This is how things are going. Everyone has fled, someone here, someone there.]

The sequence’s finale is then recounted by Diomedes (who had given Antony the false news of Cleopatra’s death): Finalmente, con l’aiuto di alcuni altri, lo conducessimo, mezzo morto e tutto tinto di sangue, sotto la finestra del sepolcro, dove la reina con le due camariere comparse. E quivi con una funne, aiutandosi l’una e l’altra, lo tiravano suso. Egli porgeva le mani alla reina et ella a lui e quelli da basso le animavano a tirar forte e star salde, perché già erano lasse. In fine tirarono tanto che la reina, come quella che più desiderava di haverlo e ch’era di maggior core e forza, lo prese per un braccio e lo tirò dentro, dove si sentivano gridi e sospiri che andavano al cielo. (v.6-13) [Finally, with the help of some others, they took him half dead and all covered in blood under the window of the mausoleum, where the queen

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appeared, together with two servants. And from there, with a rope, helping one another, they brought him up. He stretched out his hands to the queen and she to him, and those down there encouraged them to pull hard and stand firm, as they were already tired. In the end, they pulled so much that the queen, being the one who wanted him most and having better heart and strength, took him by the arm and dragged him in, where shouts and sighs were heard, going up to the sky.]

Even here, in the least ‘tragic’ of the Italian Cleopatra plays, Antony’s solitary twilight hour, when he is left alone crying for mercy is not included. The pathetic hoisting of his body is rendered from Plutarch’s account almost word for word, as if to avoid any possible detachment from the gloomy original. Shakespeare, on the contrary, lingers deliberately on the indecorous transitions of the action. His character is spared no humiliation, rather his weaknesses are ironically underlined: the humorous exclamation after he falls on his sword – ‘How, not dead? Not dead?’ (iv.14.103); the vain pleading of his men, who in ordered sequence refuse to help him (iv.14.104-114); the final ignominy of Dercetus deserting and taking away his sword to give it to Caesar, depriving him of his last symbol of power and virility (iv.14.115-117). None of the other plays include the ultimate shame of a traitor pulling the sword out of his flesh. In the Aldini codex, Decerteus admits his intentions to Diomedes in Antony’s absence (iv.172-175). In Giraldi’s play (iii.4.196-205) the sword reappears in the hands of the faithful captain, who substitutes Plutarch’s Decertaeus in bringing Antony’s bloody sword to Octavian (Ant., 78.1). In Pistorelli’s tragedy the carrier of the blade is the page who relates the story (iv.225-231).130 And then, when Shakespeare’s Antony reaches the monument, he is unceremoniously dragged up, like some dead thing, surrounded by the ‘weighty puns’ of the queen and her maids.131 Rozett (p. 160) is right: I think the comic overtones are undeniable.132 Still, Antony’s weakness, his inability to maintain a firm hold on his martial identity, strangely combine, in the play, with his suprahuman 130 This episode is absent in Garnier’s play, too. Dryden will be equally reticent (v.345-355). It might be noticed that Dercetus’ words to Octavius Caesar are not much different from those of his Italian predecessors (v.1.5-12). Here though, realistically, at first Caesar doubts what he is hearing (12). 131 Worthen, p. 302; Bono, p. 188. 132 See also Burton, p. 121; Colie, p. 205; Worthen, p. 302; Barroll 1984, p. 117; Thomas 1989, p. 137; Rackin, pp. 207-208; Ornstein, pp. 390, 399; Chernaik, p. 160; Lyne 2007b, p. 35; Fackin, pp. 207-208. For a different view, besides Kahn 1997, see Khan 2013, p. 232; Mooney, pp. 185-186; Brower, p. 336; Hamilton 1973, p. 250.

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dimension. Most critics have stressed the centrality of ancient myth in Antony and Cleopatra as well as the singular way it is used.133 Antony is directly or indirectly associated with Hercules, Mars, Ajax, Atlas, Aeneas, Bacchus, and Osiris, and Cleopatra with Venus, Isis, Mother Earth, Dido, Eve and Helen of Troy. Mythology played a key role in neo-Senecan drama, too: not only did it supply the subject matter for the tragedies, it also enriched their lofty language through a productive net of intertextual references to Greco-Roman literature. Bono (p. 116) claims that ‘Garnier anticipates Shakespeare in his use of Antony’s rumored Herculean ancestry to lend mythic and moral resonance to his involvement with Cleopatra.’ His Marc Antoine includes, for instance, a long narration equating the Hercules-Omphale dalliance with the male protagonist’s situation (iii.12161233). But the allusions are nothing more than this: mere mythic ancestry claims, external similes.134 Garnier’s protagonists do not mimic deities and heroes in their behaviour: Shakespeare’s do. His technique is different: it is not just that his characters hyperbolically compare themselves (or are compared by others) to pagan gods and demigods, it is also that their personalities and reactions are determined not only by contingency but also by a constellation of mythological allusions.135 Then again, the enactment of the roles is mostly amusing and ungodlike. Antony once was (so they say, so he says) like his classical archetypes at their best, in that he could do things no other man could do. Now the scale remains superhuman, but the resemblance fits ironically with those figures at their worst. AntonyBacchus is not the conqueror of the East, but the god of drunkenness (ii.7.96-112). We do not see Antony-Hercules overwhelming monsters and choosing Virtue, but subjugated by Cleopatra-Omphale (ii.5.18-23), or comically furens (iv.12.16-17, 32-49); 136 we do not see Antony-Ajax as the famous warrior who deserved Achilles’ panoply, but as a suicidal madman assaulting the innocent (iv.13.1-3, iv.14.38-39); 137 we do not see Aeneas choosing duty over pleasure, we see his antitype dwelling where 133 Waddington, p. 210; Adelman 1973, p. 79; Jones; Mooney, pp. 181-182; Hall 1989, pp. 143-144, 151-154. 134 The same attitude was recovered by Dryden in All for Love (iii.11-28). For Mary Sidney’s ‘mistranslation’ of the passage, see Weller, p. 206. 135 Mooney, pp. 182-183; Adelman 1973, pp. 79-80. 136 In Caesar’s Revenge, Julius Caesar, stating that he will remain with Cleopatra, adds, ‘Heere will I pitch the pillars of my fame, / Heere the non ultra of my labors write’ (ii.3.85-86). For the Herculean hero, see Jones, pp. 64-66; Coates, pp. 45-52; Schanzer 1963; Bevington, pp. 8-9; Hillman 1987, pp. 442-451; Barroll 1984, pp. 256-257; Bono, pp. 151-167; Adelman 1973, pp. 80-82; Chernaik, p. 159; Miola 1983, p. 144. 137 For Ajax in the play, see Brower, p. 334; Barton, pp. 117, 121; Barroll 1984, pp. 115, 186 n. 28.

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his ‘pleasure lies’ (ii.3.40) and imagining an Elysium where illicit love is rewarded (iv.14.50-54);138 we do not see a second Mars defeating his enemies (if not fleetingly, in a skirmish) – we rather see him armed by Eros and Venus-Cleopatra, or exchanging clothes with her (iv.4.1-18, ii.5.18-23).139 Although the metaphoric language throws a mythical aura round him, visual evidence often contradicts it, and the result is that of a stage figure out of his part. He is a bit like the poor players in Love’s Labour’s Lost. He acts badly, claiming, ‘I am Hercules’, ‘I am Mars’, while the tragedian laughs behind his back and implicitly comments, ‘You lie, you are not he’(LLL v.2.540), or ‘This cannot be him’. We can make fun of his bombast and of his Othellian jealousy, but still this dark, funny side coexists with a brighter one, larger than life, too: Antony’s chivalric attitudes, his self and material generosity, his final magnanimous acceptance of defeat, and his love for Cleopatra.140 Even his most hostile denigrators tend not to deny his devotion to her, or to dismiss it as sexual ‘dotage’. Indeed, many critics seem to consider the play as the tragedy of Antony alone, with the fifth act as a kind of appendage: it was he who abdicated his honour, his heroism, his manhood, for a woman. Cleopatra would be a sort of reflection of him, reacting to his nobility, absorbing his lessons, at best belatedly learning to love him as she should; the ‘objective correlate of his own being’, a ‘living symbol of his own identity’ (Barroll 1984, p. 102). But as Shakespeare deliberately changed Plutarch’s title in order to include the queen and she is the true protagonist of our survey, let us finally turn to her and evaluate the part she plays in this rendering of the story.

6.5

‘The witch shall die’141

Cleopatra is perhaps the most challenging female role ever created by Shakespeare, both in length and in characterisation. The part is almost equivalent to that of Antony. He has 812 lines, she 670, but they span the 138 See Dryden variatio (v.395-397). In Pistorelli’s play, Antony states he is going ‘a la comun città fosca di Dite’ [‘to the common dark city of Dis’] (iv.197), while Cleopatra refers to the ‘Campi Elisi’ [‘Elysium’] (iv.267). The image is also in Montreux’s tragedy (iii.293-296, v.226-229). 139 For the fusion of this myth with that of Hercules and Omphale, see above 1.2 and below 6.5. For the meaning of the cosmic union in Antony and Cleopatra, see Adelman 1973, pp. 95-101. For a comic reading of the scene, see Ingram, p. 320. 140 Bradley, pp. 297-298. 141 Shakespeare, Ant., iv.12.47.

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entire tragedy and the whole fifth act is hers.142 Nonetheless, the queen has often been underestimated by commentators. Even Adelman asserts that ‘she lacks the full privileges of the Self in comparison with Antony’.143 She has been depicted as a professional courtesan in love or as a kind of repentan, after Antony’s suicide, turning from the deceiver she was to a noble lover (e.g. Goddard, pp. 60-61; Markels, pp. 140-141; Mooney, p. 187), but this is a portrait of Daniel’s protagonist (see above 5.3). According to other critics, she is not even transfigured by her paramour’s death, and her real tragedy is that she is ‘totally ignorant of the existence of an unselfish love’ and that she learns it ‘too little and too late’ (Mills, pp. 104-105). In sum, she is a great egoist, who likes thinking she is in love but is really incapable of any true emotion. Conversely, she has been conceived, for instance, by Bayley, as a childlike simpleton, who does not understand what is really happening around her and is not fully responsible for her actions (p. 131).144 Even when she is cast as the irresistibly fascinating quintessential woman, she comes to be admired for the wrong reasons: wiles, inconstancy, mysteriousness, passion, and irrationality.145 When each single charge is set against the evidence of the text, it is indeed difficult not to get the impression that a double standard is being applied. While Cleopatra is censured for idly recalling her past lovers in Egypt, although she extolls her present love above them (i.5.30-35, 66-75), Antony, who is at the same time marrying another woman, is hardly blamed (ii.2.131162, ii.3, iii.2.23-67, iii.4).146 Bradley (p. 295), Bono (p. 207), Thomas (1989, p. 135), Mills (p. 94), Paris (p. 152) and others think the queen responsible for Antony’s choice to fight by sea at Actium, though Shakespeare here clearly departs from Plutarch (iii.7.27-53).147 If the decision is not directly imputed to her, she is often still considered the cause of the debacle because of her 142 Hill 1986, pp. 244, 246. 250. As Fitz (p. 309 n. 71) notes, ‘When she is absent from the stage, dialogue and action continually remind the audience of her.’ 143 Adelman 1992, p. 341 n. 56. 144 Although it is true that Shakespeare’s Cleopatra is less cunning than Plutarch’s (Hill 1986, p. 257 n. 11; Barroll 1984, pp. 137, 140; Fitz, pp. 310-313) the same is true of Antony (above 6.4). For a comparison between Shakespeare’s and Plutarch’s Cleopatra, see Pelling 1999, pp. 43-44. 145 For this tactic, see Fitz, pp. 298-301, 310 n. 76; for the persistent disapproval of Cleopatra in criticism, besides Fitz’s contribution, see Chernaik, pp. 140, 265 n. 16. The remains of this uneasiness are visible also in Bevington, pp. 19-20. Harris has contested the conception of the Ur-woman, claiming that Roman desire is in fact fixed on a homoerotic reflection of itself, but the result of this assumption is the disintegration of the character of the queen. 146 Dash, pp. 142, 148. See also Barroll 1984, p. 153. For Cleopatra’s ‘repeated erotic attachments for Roman generals’, see Hillman 2013, pp. 311-316. 147 Fitz, pp. 311-312.

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running from the battle, an accusation once again refuted by Enobarbus, and in no positive terms (iii.13.1-12).148 Next comes the interview with Thidias (Plutarch’s Thyrsus), prevailingly interpreted as if Cleopatra is making ‘some political overtures’ to Caesar.149 Bevington (p. 26) admits that ‘a capable actress’ can deliver her responses to the Roman agent with irony, but the text itself is fairly clear on the point: on Thidias’ arrival, the queen openly insists on Enobarbus’ presence (iii.13.46-52). As Ornstein underlines, ‘How foolish of this cunning woman to plan a betrayal of Antony in the presence of Enobarbus!’ (p. 400).150 Indeed, we do not see Cleopatra’s deceit but rather Domitius’ projection of his own doubts and his need to justify his planned desertion. The false report of her death is hard to excuse, even if Shakespeare mitigates her fault by attributing the plan to Charmian and introducing reiterated threats of death on Antony’s side.151 What is disconcerting is that, according to some scholars, this makes her fully responsible for her lover’s suicide.152 Now, while there are Cleopatra plays where Antony actually takes a kind of Romeo-like stance and claims he cannot live a single hour without her love (Giraldi, i.6.595-609; Aldini codex, iv.103-114), Shakespeare’s choice is different.153 Not only does his male protagonist already consider death as the solution before Mardian’s arrival (iv.14.21-22), but he also states that the queen, killing herself, had shown a nobler mind than he (iv.14.55-62).154 The only way to see Cleopatra as his indirect killer is by sharing the view that both the first naval defeat and the second one (when the fleet deserts) are her sole responsibility and this seems a bit far-fetched.155 As it is, she could have hastened the inevitable, at most. Regarding the multiplicity of reasons that would discredit the queen’s suicide, Fitz has listed Antony’s and Cleopatra’s motives, showing that, in both cases, they are complex 148 Markels, pp. 132-133. 149 Fitz, pp. 304, 312. For the negative view, see Barroll 1984, pp. 162-163; Mills, pp. 95-96; Williamson 1974, pp. 113-114; Mooney, p. 178; Ingram, p. 312. Bayley (p. 129) excuses her, because of her ‘girlish naivety’. 150 See also Dash, pp. 144, 149; Mills, p. 96. In the play of the Aldini codex, the queen ironically dismisses Antony’s suspicions (ii.234-237). 151 Dash, p. 152; Hall 1989, pp. 161-162; Fitz, pp. 312-313; Rackin, p. 207; Bono, pp. 185-186. Dryden will blame it all on Alexas (v.228-235, 251-256). 152 Markels, pp. 141-142; Mills, pp. 97-98, 105. 153 Also Dryden’s Antony has the typical attitude of the desperate lover (v.268-276). 154 In effect he feels himself diminished by it (iv.14.97-99). The anonymous dramatist of the Aldini codex makes his Cleopatra rebuke Antony for his credulity: ‘Come, signor mio, al primo aviso di una vana nòva, siete stato così veloce nella vostra morte! E chi haveria mai stimato tanto?’ [‘What, my lord? At the first notice of false news were you so quick in killing yourself! Who would have ever thought of that?’] (iv.187-189). 155 Rozett, p. 159; Fitz, p. 312.

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and similar.156 In fact, what scholars find distressing is that she does not immediately respond to Antony’s death with her own. This necessarily ‘precludes any interpretation of her tragedy as a love tragedy’ (Mills, p. 98). The idea that such a solution would be melodramatically adolescent is not commonly shared by commentators. Conversely, Cleopatra has been unfavourably compared to Juliet and her love has been deemed immature (Fitch, p. 40). Such critics say that she accepts suicide only when it becomes clear that she cannot come to terms with Caesar, even if she has already repeatedly expressed her wish to die (iv.15.85-96; v.2.1-8, 37-38), she already knows Caesar’s intentions (v.2.105-109), and has given instructions for the means of suicide beforehand (v.2.191-195).157 At the very least, they explain that she prevaricates because she is a coward by nature (Rosenberg, p. 83). And yet Williamson (1974, p. 191) has underlined the peculiarity of Antony and Cleopatra’s relationship (‘Their love is part of their world, not an alternative to it; what we deal with in Antony and Cleopatra is not a grand passion, but a passion of the great’) and Barton has more than persuasively proved the necessity of a divided catastrophe, for the sake of the union of feminine and masculine principles, as well as of Antony himself.158 Through her gloriously self-destructive gesture, Cleopatra ‘not only redeems the bungled and clumsy nature of Antony’s death in Act iv, catching it up and transforming it within her own flawless farewell, but crystallises and stills all the earlier and more ambiguous tableaux of the play’ (Barton, p. 133). Significantly, in none of the Cleopatra tragedies we have discussed does the dramatist feel compelled to somehow justify her delayed death. This of course should not imply that everybody is against Shakespeare’s heroine. Feminist criticism has highlighted how Cleopatra might exemplify a different kind of leadership, aimed at consorting with Rome in a collaborative rule instead of fighting it, a kind of politics that would be typically feminine, and felt as subversive by patriarchal societies.159 The plethora of negative interpretations could be dismissed as springing from an unconscious fear of dominating women (Fitz, p. 298) or from an equally unconscious aversion to the prospect of suffering the same debasing of manhood experienced 156 Fitz, pp. 304-306. For the prejudice, see Williamson 1990, p. 115; Mills, pp. 100-102. 157 Thomas 1989, p. 141; Barroll 1984, p. 181; Bradley, p. 303 n. 126; Bevington, pp. 26-27; Ridley, p. xlvi. For the positive view, see Goddard, pp. 61, 63; Dash, pp. 149, 156; Rozett, p. 161; Mooney, pp. 187-188; Brower, p. 341; Dash, p. 156; Ornstein, p. 389; Bono, pp. 211-212. 158 See also Rackin, p. 207; Bono, p. 219. For the centrality of the socio-political purpose in Antony and Cleopatra’s love, see Hillman 2013, pp. 310-311. 159 Gallop, p. 29; Engle, pp. 216-217; Chernaik, p. 156. See also the whole essay by Dash.

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by Antony, even in the name of the ecstatic union of immortal love.160 Yet this solution would be unfair: such diffuse and persistent unsupportive approaches to the character must find at least some partial answer within the play. True, each charge against her can be rebutted, in the end, but certainly Shakespeare could have been much clearer had he wanted to be.161 His Cleopatra is in fact mysterious, but not in the generic and fascinating sense of so many idealised post-Romantic descriptions.162 Her inscrutability, like that of Antony, is imputable to the oscillating opinions about her that we get from the text and from the dramatic technique that keeps us detached from her interiority (Barton, pp. 128-129). I think the playwright wanted his character not to garner a univalent response from the spectators. He certainly considered that racial preconceptions, the misogynist tradition and a fear of otherness would throw them off balance in their evaluation of Cleopatra, just as had happened with ancient historians and poets, who blamed almost everything on her. When the queen asks an enraged Antony, ‘Not know me yet?’ (iii.13.161), she might as well be asking the same question of the audience. In the next section I shall contend that Shakespeare’s Cleopatra was in effect meant to f it both opposite views (positive and negative) for most of the play. Numerous critics seem to have been taken in by Shakespeare so badly that they unconditionally choose the unsympathetic side of his female protagonist. As a consequence the status of tragic hero is much more easily granted to Antony than to her.163 All considered, Cleopatra might be right in complaining to him that, being a woman, she lacks the bulk to be regarded as a hero: ‘I would I had thy inches. Thou shouldst know / There were a heart in Egypt’ (i.3.40-41). She is not the sole Shakespearean heroine, who never acts travesti, to wish she could play a male role within the story. We may recall, for instance, Beatrice (Ado, iv.1.304, 306-307); and, much closer to Cleopatra, both poetically and thematically, the goddess Venus telling Adonis, who is stubbornly resisting her: ‘Would thou wert as I am, and I a man, / My heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound’ (Ven., 369-370).164 Without a doubt, Venus is Cleopatra’s real alter ego. In her Shakespeare foreshadows the same kind of serio-comic conciliation of opposites we 160 For the high price of this fusion, see, for example, Hall 1989, pp. 164-165. For its significance for the audience, see Adelman 1973, p. 160. 161 For two opposite and coexisting views, see Rackin, pp. 206, 208; Paris, p. 141. 162 For instance, Mills, pp. 102-103. Fitz (pp. 315-316) simply thinks she is not mysterious at all. 163 Fitz, pp. 298, 314-315. 164 For women expressing the desire to be a man in Renaissance drama, see Loomba 1993, p. 93.

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find in the queen of Egypt.165 After all, Cleopatra’s Venus-like apparition upon the Cydnus is her ‘only full-length portrait’ in the play.166 Venus never grows old (ll. 139-144); she is mistress and slave to love at the same time (l. 220). In her wooing of Adonis, she is loquacious, panting, weeping and perspiring, but, despite her comical and undignified attitudes, still remains a mermaid-voiced deity, summarising so many different figures within herself (ll. 145-148).167 She is also Lucretius’ and Seneca’s all-creating alma genetrix, the cosmic principle of fertility and a hypostasis of Nature itself (ll. 171-174, 229-240).168 She pretends she is swooning or she is dying, as Cleopatra does (e.g. Ant., i.3.71-73), and while Adonis’ refusal of the little death brings on the great one (Lever, p. 85), in the tragedy the queen’s petit morts (faked or sexual) are crowned by her grand death.169 In her study of the parallel passages between the epyllion and the play, Bonjour has stressed the formal and conceptual similarity of Ven., 17-21, and Ant., ii.2.245-450.170 The promise of insatiable desire is shared by the goddess of love and by Cleopatra, but, in the mythological fable, this magic is extended to Venus’ object of desire. In her lust, Venus ‘glutton-like’ feeds ‘yet never filleth’ (l. 548), because it is Adonis who is ‘a dish for the gods’ (‘But O, what banquet wert thou to the taste, / Being nurse and feeder of the other four’ ll. 445-446; Ant., v.2.268-269, i.5.3-32).171 In her mourning for the death of the young hunter, Venus anticipates motives we meet in the play: ‘Now Nature cares not for thy mortal vigour, / Since her best work is ruined with thy rigour’ (ll. 953-954); ‘Alas, poor world, what treasure hast thou lost, […] What canst thou boast / Of things long since, or anything ensuing?’ (ll. 1075-1078). And when she evokes the memory of her liaison with Mars, we are immediately reminded of Antony bending his ‘direful’ eyes (Ant., i.1.2-10; Ven., 97-101),172 or being turned into the queen’s fool (‘And for my sake hath learned to sport and dance, / To toy, to wanton, dally, smile, and jest, / Scorning his churlish drum, and ensign red, / Making my arms his field, his tent my bed. // Thus he that overruled, I overswayed’ ll. 105-109). Of course, within the 165 Bonjour, p. 74. 166 Bonjour, p. 78. 167 Sowerby, p. 297. 168 Lever, pp. 82-83; Adelman 1973, p. 100. See Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 1-43; Seneca, Phaedra, first choral (274-359). 169 Hillman 2013, p. 332. 170 Bonjour, pp. 73-74. See also her analysis of the kindling and cooling images, pp. 74-76. 171 For the motif of the courser, in both works, see Lever, p. 83; Bonjour, pp. 76-77, 79. For the Platonic image of the unruly horse, quoted by Plutarch (Ant., 36.1), see, for instance, Hughes, p. 161. 172 Bonjour, p. 77.

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mythological sphere, Shakespeare also firmly relates his heroine (like almost all his predecessors) to the Virgilian Dido and to her Ovidian correspondent (and to Helen) in the Heroides.173 Cleopatra then, just like Antony, has a whole court of preceding and subsequent theatrical characters surrounding and substantiating her. Shakespeare could put a host of queens at her service. There is the ‘Amazonian trull’ (3H6, i.4.114), Margaret the wife of Henry VI, who is a ‘queen in title and in style’ (2H6, i.3.47) but boxes duchesses on the ear (2H6, i.3.136-137), stabs York (3H6, i.4.175), is compared to a venomous adder (3H6, i.4.112) and asks a king-adder to kill her by poison (2H6, iii.3.63-64). She casts herself like Dido and Henry like Aeneas, in an amended version of an episode from Virgil (2H6, iii.3.103-108), and nobly bewails her change of fortune (3H6, iii.3.4-11). There is Elizabeth, the ‘queen in jest, only to fill the scene’ (R3, iv.4.91), who wishes her ‘swift-wingèd’ soul may catch her late husband’s and ‘follow him / To his new kingdom of ne’er-changing night’ (R3, ii.2.44-46). There is the future wife of Lewis the Dauphin, Blanche of Castille, who ‘wants nothing – to name want – / If want it be not that she is not he’ (Jn., ii.1.434-435). Her union with Lewis is described in neo-Platonic terms: ‘He is the half part of a blessèd man, / Left to be finishèd by such as she; / and she a fair divided excellence, / Whose fullness of perfection lies in him’ (Jn., ii.1.436-439). There is Constance of Bretagne, who calls Death ‘amiable’ and ‘lovely’ and who is ready to ‘kiss’ his ‘dètestàble bones’ (Jn., iii.4.25-29) and wants to ‘buss’ him as his ‘wife’ (Jn., iii.4.35). There is Gonoril, asserting, ‘I must change arms at home, and give the distaff / Into my husband’s hands’ (Lr., iv.2.17-18). The announcement of her death resembles Antony’s (Lr., v.3.219-220). Comedic heroines are subtly connected to Cleopatra as well. In the opening scene of the play, the queen’s witty malice in deriding her suitor matches that of the aforesaid Beatrice and of Rosaline, or even the humorous repartees of Helena or Hermia. The sovereign of Egypt has been compared to Rosalind (Adelman 1973, pp. 213 n. 93), Katherina (Ingram, pp. 315-317) and Portia, too (Hill 1986, pp. 247-249). Such a rich intertextual constellation of analogies does not gain her the dignity of tragic stature. She has very rarely been compared to Shakespeare’s great male principals. On occasion, she has been juxtaposed to Lear, to Othello, and to Hamlet, but among men she is most frequently linked to Falstaff, a comic coprotagonist. Her funny side is much more easily accepted than Antony’s. Ingram (p. 315) writes that ‘she lives various roles, which persistently recall those of “bad” women. They are hardly ever tragic roles; 173 For Dido and Cleopatra, see, for instance, Bono. For Ovid’s heroines, see Brower, pp. 352-353.

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generally, they are both humorous, and also part of the comprehensive, “multiple unity” which constitutes comedy.’174 Only through her suicide, scholars claim, can she finally become worthy of the highest dramatic praise.175 If this is so, then she responds to that female ideal of Stoicism we have seen pursued by Pembroke as the only way open to women to acquire heroism (see above 5.2). And she really does die magnificently. The transcendence of her end reconciles her to critics. Whereas the boundaries between infatuation (transferable love) and true love had seemed to blur, in both lovers, for most of the play, with her suicide Cleopatra ‘simultaneously severs the pattern of moving on from one powerful Roman leader to another and affirms her inviolable bond to her “man of men”’.176 The moral dilemma of suicide so fiercely debated in the previous Cleopatra plays finds only a pale echo here (iv.15.85-87), compared to ‘what’s brave, what’s noble’ (iv.15.91). In producing her self-managed spectacle of death, competing against Octavius Caesar’s, she twice asks for her royal costume (v.2.225-227, 274).177 Analogously, Giraldi makes two different nuntii repeat that the queen, before dying, put on the attire she wore when she became sovereign of Egypt (v.4.156-160, v.6.329333).178 Daniel’s Cleopatra too royally dies ‘glittering in all her pompous ricth aray’ (v.2.200). In Daniel’s and in Shakespeare’s tragedies she is ‘again for Cydnus’ (v.2.227).179 Shakespeare’s Cydnus scene (ii.2.200-228) is sublime poetry, but the real difference between the suggestiveness of his passage and Daniel’s lies in the structure of the play itself. Here, thanks to Enobarbus’ famous evocation, when Cleopatra theatrically re-enacts her first meeting with Antony the splendid tapestry of her pageant on the barge is immediately brought before our eyes. The audience remembers a very different past together with the characters. The time-memory gives depth to the present, although the spectators are only remembering a speech within the fictional past of the play and the characters their own intradiagetic experience, much 174 See also Rozett, pp. 153, 159, 161; Barroll 1984, pp. 135, 145; Hall 2002, p. 54. 175 Adelman 1992, p. 191; Kahn 1997, p. 138. 176 Hillman 2013, p. 331. See also Schalkwyk, pp. 202-203, 207-208, 212. 177 Wolf (p. 335) asserts, ‘as Antony has stripped off his armor, Cleopatra inverts this action by putting on the symbols of political office, her robe and crown’. 178 The former messenger is a famigliar di Cleopatra (one of Cleopatra’s servants), the latter is the sacerdote (the priest). 179 Daniel is the first to associate her final regal dress and ornament with her arrival in Tarsus. For Shakespeare and Daniel, on this point, see Bullough, p. 236; Williamson 1974, p. 146. For Shakespeare’s scene, see Rackin, p. 205; Mooney, pp. 181, 189; Lewis, p. 8; Berry 1999, p. 87; Bonjour, p. 73; Thomas 1989, p. 100; Doran, pp. 172-173; Spenser, p. 374.

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further back. In Daniel’s case the tableau is painted at the very moment of Cleopatra’s death and the elegiac element is lost (v.200-210).180 Shakespeare’s episode incorporates the comic interlude with the clown (v.2.240-273),181 but otherwise the main ingredients are the same ones we have analysed in the preceding Cleopatra plays: the donning of regalia, the longing for Antony, the adieu to her women. Yet the atmosphere is different. The wellbalanced elegant, dramatic verses of the neo-Senecan tragedies give way to high verse merged with low-key observations182; the stock farewell from the maids is revived by Iras’ immediate death of a broken heart (286-292) and through it Cleopatra – haunted by an imaginary snake throughout the play – begins her emblematic transformation into a cosmic serpentine goddess, the ‘Serpent of old Nile’, mysteriously assimilated into the sphere of never-dying nature (287). The core of the suicide scene is the queen’s apostrophe to the asp (297-307). Dramatically the detail was not a common cliché. Giraldi Cinthio’s heroine is not even bitten by a serpent. In both De Cesari’s and the anonymous author’s tragedies, the speech is not included.183 In Pistorelli’s play, as we have observed (4.2), Cleopatra, taking the ‘angue velenoso e crudo’ [‘poisonous and cruel snake’] (v.404) out of the ‘cesto pien di vaghi fiori’ [‘basket filled with nice flowers’] (v.400) simply invokes the triple goddess Proserpina (v.476-501). The passage could be found, however, in some Italian nontheatrical works, such as Accolti’s Capitolo in terza rima. Here the queen, offering her arm and breasts to the asp’s ‘funereo dente’ [‘fatal tooth’] (163), declares: da poi che soccorso Non mi porge huom’ alcun, porgalo un angue. Nudo offerisco al tuo horribil morso El braccio mio, le mammelle e le vene, A ciò sia el velen tuo al cuor trascorso. Cingi la gola mia: più si conviene Ch’io porti te, serpente, al collo intorno, Che le servil Roman impie cathene. Assai, di vinta, vincitrice torno, 180 Dryden will follow Shakespeare’s lesson, introducing the description at the beginning (iii.162-187) and re-evoking it at the end, but he will transform it into a moral parable about alluring pleasure (v.456-463). 181 For the clown, see below 6.6. 182 ‘I am fire and air; my other elements / I give to baser life. So, have you done?’ (v.2.283-284). 183 In Capponi’s Cleopatra, the queen briefly talks to the two snakes, before applying the first to her left breast and the second to her left arm, the vein of which goes straight to the heart (iv.4.292-299). Among the French tragedies, only Benserade introduces the apostrophe (v.5.71-84).

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S’io posso far che mai Roma non veda Serva d’Egypto la Reina un giorno.184 Hormai la Morte optata mi conceda El velen tuo, poi che ’l Ciel ti consente El Regio petto mio in cibo e preda. (149-162) [As no man is giving me help, let a snake give it. I offer my naked arm, breasts and veins to your horrible bite, so that your poison can reach the heart. Clasp my throat: I would rather have you, a snake, around my neck, than the Roman pitiless chains of a slave. Fully from a defeated woman to a queen I will return if I can make sure that Rome never sees one day Egypt’s queen as a slave. Now longed-for death may give me your poison, as Heaven allows you to have my chest for food and prey.]

In Cleopatra’s macabre imagination, the snake appears, at the same time, as donor (ll. 149-150) and predator (l. 162). His coils become living chains, contrasting with those of Rome (ll. 154-156) and turn defeat into victory (ll. 157-159). The concept of tragedy paradoxically transformed into triumph and Cleopatra’s association with the metamorphosis of lifeless things into living creatures are variously redeployed within the different literary variations on the sequence. The lines given by Daniel to his queen equally reconcile the incompatible, besides possessing a sort of jubilant desperation: O rarest Beast (sayth shee) that Affrick breedes, How deerely welcome art thou unto mee? The fayrest creature that faire Nylus feedes Mee thinks I see, in now beholding thee. What though the ever-erring world doth deeme That angred Nature fram’d thee but in spight: Little they know what they so light exteeme, That never learn’d the wonder of thy might. Better then Death, Deathes office thou dischargest, That with one gentle touch canst free our breath: And in a pleasing sleepe our soule inlargest, Making our selves not privie to our death. If Nature err’d, o then how happy error, Thinking to make thee worst, shee made thee best: 184 Anastrophe.

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Sith thou best freest us from our lives worst terror, In sweetly bringing soules to quiet rest. When that inexorable Monster Death That followes Fortune, flyes the poore distressed, Tortures our bodies ere hee takes our breath, And loades with paines th’already weake oppressed. […] Therefore come thou, of wonders wonder chiefe, That open canst with such an easie key The dore of life, come gentle cunning thiefe, That from our selves so steal’st our selves away. Well did our Priests discerne something divine Shadow’d in thee, and therefore first they did Offrings and worshyps due to thee assigne, […] In zeale I make the offring of my blood, […] And heere I sacrifize these armes to Death, That Lust late dedicated to Delights: Offring up for my last, this last of breath, The complement of my loves deerest rites. (v.2.1476-1521)

There is an apt crescendo of paradoxes. The ugly, deadly asp is converted by Daniel’s rhetoric into the rarest wonder of Nature, because it outwits the Monster Death, in freeing human beings painlessly from pain and stealing his victims from themselves (235-271). Cleopatra offers herself as a sacrificial victim to it (272-280).185 Shakespeare’s queen is less talkative. Her asp is no magnificent idol, gently opening the door of life, but rather a poor creature, which – as Alexander’s sword did with the Gordian knot – severs, with his bite, the entanglements of existence: Cleo. […] Come, thou mortal wretch, With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate Of life at once untie. Poor venomous fool, 185 Sampson 1966, pp. 106, 118-119. Dryden will epitomise and simplify Daniel’s lines (All for Love, v.472-479). For the parallel with Daniel’s sequence, see Leavenworth, pp. 113-114. For Daniel’s asp as a divinity, see Adelman 1973, p. 63.

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Be angry, and dispatch. O, couldst thou speak, That I might hear thee call great Caesar ass Unpolicied! Char. O eastern star! Cleo. Peace, peace! Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, That sucks the nurse asleep? Char. O, break! O, break! Cleo. As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle – O Antony! – Nay, I will take thee too. What should I stay – (v.2.297-307)

The disturbing image of the queen breast-feeding the snakes we first met in Fulgentius’ De aetatibus mundi et hominis here reappears. But what in Fulgentius was a fleeting notation is dramatically broadened, providing emotion and poignancy to Cleopatra’s grand scene.186 First she almost fondly talks to the ‘worm’ (v.2.297-302). Then she hushes Charmian, saying that the imaginary baby’s suckling is making her drowsy (302-304). Thus, in the same line 304, the effet de sens implicit in the act of breast-feeding a serpent beautifully blends with the assimilation of sleep and death, openly associated with Cleopatra for the first time in the play at v.2.340.187 This sensuality is not Garnier’s refined volupté, but the tragic parody of a carnal consummation, oriented towards reproduction.188 In Shakespeare’s version, the exchange of dead things for living creatures resurfaces, too. ‘The worm’, it has been noted, ‘replaces the sword as a symbol of sexual pleasure (“joy of the worm”) and agent of death’.189 Within the narration of Cleopatra’s story, in his El mayor monstruo del mundo (first published in 1637), a play centred on Mariam and Herod, Calderòn de la Barca will reintroduce the same inanimate-versus-animate motif in his queen’s speech to the asp: Y, asiendo un áspid mortal de las flores de un jardin, dijo: ‘Si otro de metal 186 For English contemporary examples, see Bevington n. to 5.2.330. For the question of whether Nashe and Peele were Shakespeare’s sources, see Reeves; Ribner; Bradbrook. For the unnatural maternal image, see Loomba 1993, p. 129. 187 MacMullan, pp. 404-406. 188 Chernaik, pp. 163-164. 189 Wolf, p. 335.

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dio a Antonio trágico fin, tú serás vivo puñal de mi pecho, aunque sospecho que no moriré a despecho de un áspid pues, en rigor, no hay áspid como el amor, y ha días que está en mi pecho.’ (607-615) [And taking a mortal asp from the flowers of a garden, she said: ‘If one made of metal gave a tragic end to Antonio, you will be my chest’s living dagger, although I suspect I will not die because of an asp, as, in fact, there is no asp like love and I have had that for a long time in my chest.’]

The enduring (con)fusion of life and death, in Shakespeare’s lines, is not accidental. Pharmacopoeia categorises the snake’s venom as both deadly poison and elixir of life. In the final tableau of the dead Cleopatra her ‘inf inite variety’ returns, blending creative and destructive traits, the ophidian enigmatic bisexual symbol of death, immortality and circularity, the Christian imagery, and the Egyptian regenerative myth, through the image of Isis’ maternal embrace with the ouroboros, the lunar epiphany of time.190 The queen’s darkness becomes the darkness of primeval abiogenetic matter, the darkness of the lime.191 She is once again the earthly Venus of yore. And the implications of her superhuman side are important. Through the centuries and through these pages we have seen the unmanned-warrior and the love-enchantress sequence, in its twofold declinations (Venus and Mars, Hercules and Omphale) turn from the divine to the human dimension, with the exception of chivalric epic, where the suprahuman plane survived but became magical. Shakespeare retrieved both sides of the tradition, but he did not simply put the mythological/ fantastical aura back in place, he succeeded in transforming the human into the divine/magical and vice versa. From the standpoint of classical mythology, Antony and Cleopatra tells us, with its allusions to Christendom, that there is no place left on earth for the godheads of old and heroes of the past. Times are about to change, and in the new reality a god can die 190 Bono, pp. 190, 204-206; Adelman 1973, pp. 63-64, 203-204 n. 27 and 29; Ingram, p. 328; Adelman 1992, p. 185. 191 Berry 1999, pp. 86-87.

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and ancient gods will indeed die soon.192 But the play could also be read as a humanised version of the Romance epic variatio of the sequence.193 The chivalric Antony, the greatest soldier in the world, is under a spell, a ‘grave charm’ (iv.12.25); he is ‘the noble ruin’ of Cleopatra’s magic (iii.10.18), and yet the spell is not ‘dotage’ but love. There is no possible rescue: he tries to free himself by acting like a Roman and by marrying Octavia, but it is no use. He must go back and share the Egyptian’s fate. The only real solution (which is in fact a coronation and definitive capitulation to love at the same time) is death. But Cleopatra, the ‘enchanting queen’ (i.2.125), the ‘witch’ (iv.12.47) whom ‘age cannot wither’ (ii.2.245) although she is wrinkled and old (i.5.30),194 is no Alcina and she does not belong to any immortal lot. While ‘le fate morir sempre non ponno’ [‘fairies never can die’], she can die and, once defeated and forever bereaved of her paramour, she commits suicide.

6.6

The Comi-tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra

Just like its female protagonist, Antony and Cleopatra is extremely controversial (Wolf, p. 328; Hall 1989, p. 149). An ever-changing holograph, like Antony (ii.5.118-119), beyond description, like the crocodile (ii.7.38-41), it seems to resist any deep survey, any complete rationalisation, to the point that some commentators have declared it a dramatic failure.195 Some apparent contradictions simply elude resolution (Loomba 1993, p. 124). That is not unusual per se. Great works of art are partly unfathomable, rich in multiple meanings by nature. But this play, with its polarised readings, appears exceptional even by that standard. One of the most intriguing aspects of the question, summing up many of the perplexities, is that of literary genre.196 What kind of drama is Antony and Cleopatra? Is it a tragedy, as it is labelled in the First Folio? And, in that case, is it lyrical-romantic or heroic-political? Is it a history? A tragicomedy? Some hybrid form, mixing tragedy, comedy and romance? Some trait-d’union between Shakespeare’s great tragedies and his late works?197 I think it would 192 For Christianity in the play, see Brower, p. 344; Mason, p. 275; Gibbons 1993, pp. 193, 201; Engle, pp. 221-224; Cavell, pp. 21-22, 26-27. 193 For Ant. and romantic epic, see Vincent, p. 78. 194 Adelman 1973, p. 138. For Alcina’s false youth and beauty, see Ariosto, Orl. Fur., vii.72-74. 195 Mason, p. 270; see also Paris, p. 134. 196 Thomas 1989, pp. 9-13; Fitz, p. 314 n. 90; Chernaik, p. 156; Kahn 2013, p. 230; Kahn 1997, p. 110. 197 Bono, p. 149; Barroll 1984, p. 50; Brower, p. 353; Hall 2002, pp. 47-51.

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be more profitable to consider it as a singular fruit of his mature career, an unprecedented and unrepeatable experiment. Most of the Cleopatra plays we have met may be considered more or less innovative in their own terms. As Morrison underlines, ‘Giraldi’s Cleopatra is the most dramatic, and it is the earliest, of all the regular tragedies in Italy, France and England on this theme before Shakespeare’ (1997, p. 167). Pistorelli draws the subject closer to a history play, the anonymous author of the Aldini codex 392 turns it into a pastoral tragicomedy of some sort, Daniel into an organic philosophical meditation. With Shakespeare all this, in a sense, comes to coexist. The Italian plays contributed to the early development of the neoclassical tragedy, then at the vanguard, and thus created and enforced all its rules; Daniel imported and adapted the pattern via France; Shakespeare innovated again, not only trespassing on the conventions of closet-drama, but also on those of his own theatrical tradition. He revisited and revised both tragic and comic elements employed in the past, putting them together within a unique frame. Let us take a step back and return to the triumph theme. In each Italian play the motif is repeatedly hinted at [Giraldi, i.1.42-45, iii.6.334-342, iv.2.101103; De Cesari, iii.77-81, 116-118, 182-191, 346-348; Aldini codex, ii.55-56, iv Canto di Iride 8-9, v.241-242, 340-343]. Williamson claims it is almost absent in Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra (1974, pp. 95-96). Yet Pistorelli is the only Italian dramatist to develop a picture of the celebratory march. His queen states that she once thought of entering Rome as an empress, and laments: Ma veggio che gli andrò più abietta e vile Che forastiera mai donna v’entrasse, A vanto sol del mio più gran Nemico, (Come è in proverbio) al vincitor le corna Alzar e al perditor restar scornato.198 Et a gioco e trastul d’alte Donzelle, Ch’in Roma, belle e adorne, su balconi Poste, m’adocchieràn legata al carro, Cui favola i’ sarò continua e nota.199 Laonde ’l mio gravoso aspero danno200 198 For ‘com’è in proverbio’, see, for instance, Ariosto, Orl. Fur., xxxvii.106.3-4. For ‘le corna alzar’, see Horace, Epode 6.11-12. See also Ariosto, Orl. Fur., xlv.37.4; Giraldi, Cleopatra, iv.2.118-119. ‘Scornato’: etymological figure with ‘corna’. 199 For ‘favola’, see above 2.1 and 4.3. 200 Petrarch, RVF, 268.12-13. ‘Amor, tu ’l senti, ond’io teco mi doglio, / quant’è ’l damno aspro et grave’ [‘You feel it, Love; I grieve with you; you feel / how bitter is this loss’] (English trans. by J.G. Nichols).

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Ad altri porgerà contento e gioia; E dove quivi un tempo fui la prima, In altrui terra ne sarò da sezzo;201 E s’hoggi in Alessandria e nell’Egitto Riverita da tutti i’ so>n< e ‘nchinata 202 (Come Regina lor Madre e Signora)203 Vilipesa in Italia e nel sublime Regno de’ Regni e Imperio Universale, Mostrata a dito dalla plebe i’ fia, Ad infamia e disnor della mia stirpe (iv.316-335)204 [But I see that I will go there more despicable and low than a foreign woman ever did, and all the pride will be my foe’s. (As in the proverb) the victor will raise his horns and the vanished man remain with broken horns – and to the amusement of noble young ladies that in Rome, beautiful and dressed up, will see me from their balconies, tied to the chariot, and for whom I’ll be a well-known and lasting fable. So that my heavy and hard loss will give pleasure and joy to others, and where here I was once first I will be in a foreign land the last. And if today in Alexandria and in Egypt I am respected and honoured by everyone (as their queen, mother and lady) I’ll be insulted and pointed at by the plebs in Italy and in the sublime kingdom of kingdoms and universal empire, to the dishonour and slander of my family.]

In the passage, Cleopatra’s fear is trifold: first comes the pillory, divided into two: the noble, rich young ladies, watching the progress and enjoying her disgrace (ll. 321-326), and the plebeians, pointing their fingers at her (ll. 335-336); then the social upheaval: while queen in Egypt, she will become a slave in Rome (ll. 330-333). Much as this picture is vivid and terrible, the metatheatrical dimension finds no place in it.205 Though less violent, the tableau is closer to Shakespeare’s first allusions, to the allusions of Antony: when he uses the triumphal progress in order to scare the queen, after her supposed betrayal (iv.12.33-39), or when he tries to persuade Eros to keep his promise and dispatch him (iv.14.72-77). 201 From the Latin sequior, secius, s.v. ‘Sezzo’, in Tommaseo and Bellini, XVII, p. 636. 202 The hypermetry is emendable as suggested. 203 For the assimilation of the sovereign-subject relationship to maternal love, see above 4.2. 204 In Accolti’s Capitolo, with her last words, Iras gives voice to the queen’s fear at the prospect of being used as a spoil of war (ll. 184-189). 205 See also Dryden, All for Love, v.424-429.

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Cleopatra’s fantasies are different. They are imagined in theatrical terms. Iras will become ‘an Egyptian puppet’ (v.2.207), Antony will be represented as a drunkard and she, badly played by a squeaking boy, will appear ‘I’ th’ posture of a whore’ (v.2.215-220). Here the play becomes more ahistorical and nonspatial than ever. Markels writes, ‘The performance on the stage and the reality it claims to imitate […] together create a unified experience that occurs outside of time […] the creative insight asked of us is to imagine the historical Cleopatra and the boy actor as literally contemporaries, with all their differences intact, and yet all the distance between them erased. […] By holding poised in our mind the Queen of Egypt and her boy impersonator, in fact, we create and experience the immortality of Cleopatra’ (pp. 3-4).206 By centring their attention on space-time bending to zero, critics have finished up almost ignoring the other side of the coin: the genre of the theatrical performance that we come to face, thanks to the short circuit of space and time. The ‘squeaking boy’ casts, first of all, the shadow of his theatrical function on what we are watching or reading, tearing apart the veil of dramatic illusion. Still, if what we are watching is a performance, could it possibly correspond to the popular spectacle given in Rome, during the celebration of Octavian Caesar’s triumph? The answer is that, up to this point, it could.207 The blending of comedy and tragedy universally acknowledged in the play is a sine qua non to its existence.208 The ambiguity of judgement is in fact ambiguity of genre. Two contrasting plays coexist within the same frame. Both Antony and Cleopatra behave at times like tragic heroes, at times like comical characters.209 Everything is paradoxical, overemphasised, because the protagonists are at the same time characters and actors on the stage.210 The minor characters commenting on events who ask us to ‘behold and see’ are not so much moral judges as intradiegetic spectators of a giant 206 The passage has been compared to Julius Caesar, iii.1.112-117, yet in that case, the erasure of distances and time may take place without distortions of any kind. For Cleopatra as performed by a boy, see also Khan 2013, pp. 218-219; Ingram, p. 313; Rackin, pp. 201, 207-208; Bono, pp. 189-190; Worthen, p. 303. 207 According to Ingram (p. 313), instead, it is ‘a version of the play Shakespeare might have written had he wanted his “quick comedians” (The King’s men) to stage the Roman view’. See also p. 327. 208 My argument here is indebted to the analysis of a number of critics: Barton, Ornstein, Goddard, Rozett, Vincent, Bono, and Rackin. Above all, it parallels in many respects Barton’s study, although my emphasis is different. Vincent’s position is similar, too, but I disagree with her view, which makes Egypt synonymous with comedy and Rome with tragedy. 209 Paris, p. 138; Wilders, p. 49. See also Thomas 1989, p. 144. 210 Rackin, pp. 201, 207; Hillman 2013, pp. 329-330.

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play-in-a-play, exactly the type of theatrical device commentators find strangely lacking in such a metatheatrical work.211 Up to the last act, both readings (comedy or dark comedy and tragedy) are made possible by the ambiguity of the text, even in dealing with tragic events such as Antony’s death. Antony and Cleopatra can be really seen (and have indeed been seen in some stagings) as a drunkard and a whore, suffering from delusions of grandeur, or conversely as a magnanimous soldier and an enchanting queen.212 Their love could be both ignoble lust and immortal passion, both love-as-an-emotion and love-as-a-performance (Hillman 2013, pp. 302, 316, 330). Up to that point. It is only after her lover’s suicide that Cleopatra definitively fixes the genre of the play, and she chooses tragedy (Adelman 1992, p. 183). She cannot simply kill herself over Antony’s body, like Juliet: she needs the right scene to make herself and Antony immortal through art and in history.213 The same classical theme of the triumph of poetry over time is widely treated in the Sonnets.214 It has also been observed that, despite her claims, her modus moriendi is not typically Roman.215 But what if, with the words ‘the high Roman fashion’ she (or better, Shakespeare through her) was in fact alluding to neo-Senecan drama?216 Death by poison was common in Italian Renaissance tragedy and in closet-drama: just think of Sophonisba. Antony and Cleopatra could nonetheless be labelled a tragedy, as according to a locus communis dating back to the Middle Ages, tragedies opened happily and closed sadly.217 Still it could not be considered a tragicomedy like the ones 211 ‘[C]haracters stage emotions and accuse one another of bad acting; the pattern of framing suggests that we see the central figures as actors in a play within the play’ (Adelman 1973, p. 39). See also Adelman 1973, pp. 31-32; Schalkwyk, p. 212. 212 Mooney, p. 171 (also pp. 172, 190). See also Adelman 1973, p. 110; Schalkwyk, p. 212; Lyne 2007b, p. 35; Hall 1989, pp. 140, 148, 155; Paris, p. 142. 213 Adelman 1992, p. 190. For Cleopatra’s theatrical death, see Hill 1986, pp. 253, 255; MacMullan, p. 410; Righter, p. 189; McDonald, pp. 70-71; Barton, p. 133; Hall 2002, pp. 56, 78; Mason, p. 275; Ingram, pp. 327-328; Paris, p. 157; Lyne 2007b, p. 38; Chernaik, p. 163; Ornstein, pp. 402, 404; Worthen, p. 305; Bevington, pp. 27-28; Schalkwyk, p. 210. 214 Schalkwyk, pp. 208, 212. 215 Barroll 1984, p. 175; Ornstein, p. 401; Waddington, p. 223; Colie, pp. 180, 205; Khan 1977, pp. 133, 137; Schalkwyk, p. 209. 216 Closet drama had already been parodied, in the play, with the episode of Cleopatra’s faked death, when a nuntius (Mardian) had come to the stage, relating her conventional and pathetic last utterances (iv.14.22-34). But what then was pretence and farce is now reality and tragedy. In Hamlet, the ‘passionate speech’ of the Player, prompted by Hamlet (ii.2.369b-421) might be considered a wider ironic example of a Shakespearian neoclassical tragedy. The prince of Denmark comments: ‘[I]t was never acted, or if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleased not the million – ‘twas caviar to the general’’ (ii.2.343-345). 217 Paolazzi, pp. 3-110. For the Renaissance, see, for instance, Giraldi, Discorso, p. 174.

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conceived by Giraldi Cinthio and Guarini, or like the romances subsequently written by Shakespeare himself.218 It is rather an unicum, a tragedy sui generis, a comi-tragedy. No other tale would have offered the tragedian the same chance to be moulded into such an audacious hybrid. To begin with, opposite opinions about both the protagonists and the ‘villain’ had been circulating for centuries and the story was well-known; secondly, Plutarch’s Antony and Cleopatra both shared a deep histrionic nature, she thanks to her contrived emotional outbursts and her wily arts, he as the embodiment of the comprising of public image, private values and self-deception. Both had been performing all their lives.219 Both Dionysiacs, they sponsored actors, and Antony even gave the town of Priene to the ‘Artists of Dionysus’, a guild of artistic performers (Ant., 57.1). It is no surprise if Shakespeare decided to celebrate the couple through a metatheatrical mélange des genres. The ‘trick of self-reference’ might be ‘the stock-in-trade of modernizers’ (Cavell, p. 31), yet the idea of a play with multiple illusionistic planes, self-consciously aware of its theatricality, does not appear too far-fetched within the Shakespearian oeuvre, so rich in metadrama.220 In order to produce this unrepeatable comi-tragedy, Shakespeare on the one hand had to keep the public constantly alert to stage acting, to the player/ character dialectic.221 The ebb and flow of greatness and triviality, past and present, pathos and bathos, mimesis and fantasy is employed to increase the tension opposing illusion and reality.222 On the other hand, he had to keep the tragic and comic in the most delicate equilibrium, both in the characters’ nature and within the action. They mostly coexisted and dominated in turn. From this comes the introduction of much-discussed scenes, such as the dinner on Sextus Pompey’s flagship with its tavern song, reminding us of Othello (Oth., ii.3.56-62, 74-82), which may appear disorienting and extravagant in the eyes of the audience, but suggests a deliberate stylistic

218 For the comi-tragic form in Italy, see Kirkpatrick 1995, pp. 259-264. For a definition of comedy, tragedy and tragicomedy, in general terms, see Vincent, pp. 55 n. 5, 74 n. 16. For romance and tragicomedy, see Bono, p. 149 n. 11. Corneille’s Cid was something different, too. For an ironic list of theatrical genres, see Hamlet, ii.2.310-313. 219 For Antony, see Plut., Ant., 10.4-5, 14.1, 24.3. For Cleopatra, see above 1.1. Her death, in North’s narration, really resembled a theatrical scene. Better still, a dress rehearsal, with an assistant (Iras) readjusting a detail out of place (the crown). 220 For presentational and representational drama, see Mooney, pp. 2-5, 20-21. 221 Adelman 1973, p. 39; Hillman 2013, pp. 330-331; Worthen, pp. 302-303, 305; Rackin, p. 203; Ingram, pp. 310, 324; Goddard, p. 64. 222 For the contrast between word and action, see Hillman 2013, p. 315; Hume, p. 287; Paris, p. 143; Ingram, pp. 320-321; Bevington, p. 15; Schalkwyk, pp. 198, 208; Hall 2002, p. 55.

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emphasis.223 The unstable unit of the pillars of the world, already about to collapse, finds expression through a grotesque sequence where nothing in the end stands firm, and the great Romans dance in a whirling, indecorous formation (ii.7.96-129). Comedy reaches its peak when Cleopatra mistreats the messenger bringing the news of Antony’s marriage (ii.5), or when Antony has Thidias flogged (iii.13.87-106), yet increasingly, on each occasion, despair, jealousy and loneliness shadow the buffoonery.224 Similarly and on the other side of the scales, in the name of tragic rebalancing, Enobarbus has to die at a crucial stage of the gradual movement towards tragedy, when his master’s credibility is at a minimum, thus inaugurating the series of death scenes. Once Cleopatra has decided to die, comic and tragic start to divide more clearly (Adelman 1973, pp. 158-159). The Seleucus’ episode offered Shakespeare a new balancing comical cue and thus he increased the burlesque situation he found in North’s version. However, irony and parody were receding. To favour the rise of tragedy, Shakespeare has to redraw the play within the boundaries of the genre and his female protagonist could no longer appear as a ‘quean’ and a queen at the same time. Nevertheless, he could not abolish comedy all of a sudden, lest the entire structure of the work should lose its equilibrium and collapse. That is why he introduced the clown, whose humour is external, not internal to the heroine.225 This kind of theatrical device finds parallels in tragedies such as Hamlet or King Lear.226 The clown summarised and exorcised at the same time all the coarse farce in the play, leaving the sublimity of language free to dominate the final sequence.227 Through her spectacular end, Cleopatra leads Octavius Caesar in her alternative triumphal march (Goddard, p. 66; Doran, p. 178). The play we have been seeing will not resolve, after all, into the farce (or dark comedy) of the Roman victory over a degenerate and a strumpet and their vulgar lust, but rather become a tale of undying love, whose protagonists are a great warrior and a noble queen.228 223 For different critical readings, see Hume, p. 292; Williamson 1990, p. 116; Adelman 1973, p. 146; Colie, p. 181; Bevington, p. 22; Hall 2002, p. 55; Chernaik, p. 152, Bono, p. 210. See also Thomas 1989, p. 134. 224 For the comic touches, see Hall 2002, p. 54; Mason, pp. 250-251; Hillman 2013, p. 306; Rozett, pp. 162-164; Ingram, p. 328. 225 For the use of clowns, see Videbaek; Rackin, pp. 209-211; Barton, p. 132; Barroll 1984, pp. 245248; Chernaik, p. 163; Hall 2002, pp. 56-57; Rozett, pp. 161-162. 226 For Ham, see, for instance, Rozett, pp. 161-162. 227 For the sublime, see Hume, pp. 298-299; Colie, pp. 198, 206; Velz, p. 9. Cavell (pp. 31-32) assumes a mingling of ridiculous and sublime in Cleopatra’s ritual as well, but see Adelman 1973, pp. 159-160. 228 Barton, p. 133.

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The connection of sleep, death, drama and dream is common in Shakespeare and finds its consecration with Hamlet (iii.1.158-190). Hamlet himself links the ‘dream of passion’ to players, in his metatheatrical monologue about the illusionistic power of histrionic art (‘For Hecuba!’, ii.2.445-462). Antony and Cleopatra develops the same quadruple association in its own way. In Act i, Cleopatra asks for a poison (mandragora), to sleep the time away while her lover is far from her (i.5.3-6). Once he is gone forever, she constructs before Dolabella a titanic figure ‘past the size of dreaming’, and when she wishes for ‘such another sleep’ (v.2.76) she is obviously thinking of the sleep of death.229 Her dream of Antony coincides with a dream of death and, at the same time, with the dream of artistic representation. It is a vision and it anticipates the birth of the fictional Antony.230 Goddard was right: ‘the imaginative germ of Antony and Cleopatra is found in Romeo’s opening speech in the fifth act of Romeo and Juliet’:231 I dreamt my lady came and found me dead – Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think! – And breathed such life with kisses in my lips That I revived and was an emperor. (v.1.6-9)

Both kind of dreams, that of sleep (or big sleep) and that of art have the power to bring the dead back to life. They are both destroyers and preservers. Antony’s dissolving in the cloud scene, when he feels as mutable and insubstantial as the pageant spectacles which ‘mock our eyes with air’ (iv.14.7), implies the same kind of dissolution asserted by Prospero in The Tempest (iv.1.146-163). He could almost make Prospero’s words his own, ‘Our revels now are ended. These our actors, / As I foretold you, were all spirits, and / Are melted into air, jnto thin air’ (iv.1.148-150).232 Yet even if he shares Antony’s magnanimity, Prospero is much closer to Cleopatra. As Ornstein writes, ‘In Shakespeare’s great tragedies illusion and seeming are opposed to moral reality. But in Cleopatra’s artful spectacle as in the masques of Prospero illusion and reality intermingle’ (p. 104).233 Both are actors and 229 For the apotheosis of Antony, see McDonald, p. 70; Adelman 1973, p. 102; Bono, p. 189; Bevington, p. 28; Rackin, p. 209; Lewis, pp. 10-11; Paris, p. 140. For Cleopatra sleeping the period of time away, see Adelman 1973, p. 155. 230 See also Dryden, All for Love, i.1-31. 231 Goddard, p. 67. 232 Compare Mac., v.5. 23-27. 233 See also Markels, p. 151; Mooney, pp. 2-5.

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playwrights of the play in which they appear, but while Prospero can freely make up his mind and discard the tragedy of revenge in favour of comedy with his white magic (Bono, pp. 220-224), Cleopatra the witch can only resolve her play’s uncertainty of genre through a magic coup de theâtre. If death, sleep, dream and theatrical illusion are associated in the play, if drama is a dreamlike metaphor of life, then the ‘stagy-queen’ will not stop performing with her suicide. Her ‘little life / Is rounded with a sleep’ (Tmp., iv.1.157-158). Thus, as she promises Charmian (v.2.230-231) and Charmian repeats (v.2.313), she only has to drift into the sleep of death and she will ‘play’ forever.234

234 For the relationship among art, time, memory, identity and death, see Lees-Jeffries.

Conclusion Exeunt omnes Who was Cleopatra? For centuries historians and writers have tried to answer that question. Shakespeare’s play suggests that it is the wrong question to ask. The queen’s innermost nature remains mysterious to the end and makes us aware that her case is paradigmatic of a common condition. Too many contradictory traits coexist inside each of us – an ‘infinite variety’ – and what others receive from the outside is always a partial view, a distorted image. Everyone sees what s/he wants to see. This cognitive conflict was neglected by those who took up Cleopatra’s story immediately after Shakespeare. Dryden (All for Love, 1678) led the question of the persona back to the limits of the theatrical representation. His heroine ‘is imprisoned and finally destroyed by the opposed but equally unwanted roles thrust on her by her admirers and enemies, for her true character is persistently obscured as those who surround her transmute a good, loyal, but mundane woman into a figure of either barbaric evil or divine radiance.’1 He also led the play back within the very boundaries of genre which Shakespeare had disrupted. Other tragedians, both in Italy, England and the rest of Europe, followed the path traced by neoclassical tragedy, or simply adhered to the theatrical tradition of their countries (just think of Spain). Some of them revived the political theme in the light of contemporary issues, others preferred to emphasise considerations of love, desire and passion. Invariably Cleopatra’s identity was recomposed. For the rest of the seventeenth century, her fame was greater than ever, as the following list of plays demonstrates:2 Guilliam van Nieuwelandt, Aegyptica: ofte Aegyptische tragoedie van M. Anthonius en Cleopatra: Op den regel Wanhoop, nijdt, en dwaes beminnen, Reden, deught en eer verwinner 1 Hughes, p. 166. See also Chernaik, p. 144. 2 The dates of the works listed are not always entirely trustworthy, as there were slight discrepancies in the sources I saw.

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(1624); Thomas May, The Tragedie of Cleopatra Queen of Aegypt (1626); Giovanni Capponi, Cleopatra (1628); Francesco Pona, Cleopatra (1635); Benserade, La Cleopatre (1636); Jean de Mairet, Le Marc-Antoine (1637); Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla, Los àspides de Cleopatra (1640); Daniel Casper von Lohenstein, Cleopatra (1661); Giovanni Delfino (or Dolfin), Cleopatra (1660); Charles Sedley, Antony and Cleopatra (1677); Jean de La Chapelle, Cléopâtre (1682). To these we may add those plays in which the queen was a secondary personage, such as Charles Chaulmer, La mort de Pompée (1638); Katherine Philips, Pompey (1663), a translation of Corneille’s Pompée (1643); John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, The False One (1647); William Davenant, The Play-House to Be Let (first performed 1663); or Jean La Fontaine and Charles Champmeslé, Ragotin (1684).3 Yet her ‘salad days’ (Ant., i.5.76) on the Renaissance stage were over, for the first creative surge with its innovative power was exhausted. New contexts and aspirations demanded new artistic perspectives. The next chapter of Cleopatra’s dramatic incarnation is yet to be written. 4 What this survey, I hope, has demonstrated – by providing an analysis of the Italian and English Cleopatra plays on a number of levels and by comparing their appropriation of the figure of the queen of Egypt – is that the more dramatists tried to grasp Cleopatra’s real essence and fix it on the page the more they ended by reflecting both the aspirations and values and the limits and contradictions of their own age. Through a strategy of transformation of the features handed down by Antiquity, in each successive variation on the theme she was adjusted to the office of mediator between masculinity and femininity, West and East, past and present. Shakespeare’s contribution is an exception. The elusiveness of his principal character is the elusiveness of art itself, of the categories of genre, of the dividing line between comic and tragic. It changes over time as we keep changing.

3 Ragotin was a parody of La Chapelle’s Cléopâtre. Patrick (pp. 74-75) gives some incomplete details about the play. The list should also include Giovan Battista Manzini, Cleopatra umiliata, but the play seems to survive only in French translations, such as that by Claude Dupuis (1647). Outside the tragic genre, we may recall, Giovanni Capponi, Cleopatra moribonda (1618, an idyll), Girolamo Graziani, La Cleopatra (1632, an epic poem in thirteen cantos, expanded in 1652); Alonso de Castillo Solórzano, Historia de Marco y Cleopatra, ultima reyna de Egipto (1639, a prose compilation), Gauthier de Costes de La Calprenède, Cléopâtre (1647-1658, an unfinished roman); Georg Neumark, Die Verführerische Kleopatra (1666, a narrative poem); Paganino Gaudenzi, Di Cleopatra, reina d’Egitto, la vita considerata (1642). 4 With the growing fortune of opera, Cleopatra was chosen as a subject by many composers of the time. For a complete list, see Sadie 1992.

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— P. Ovidii Nasonis Tristium Libri V, Ex Ponto Libri IV. Halieutica Fragmenta, ed. by S. G. Owen, 6th edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963) Pacatus, Panegiryc to the Emperor Theodosius, trans. by C.E.V. Nixon (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1987) Phlegon of Tralles, Phlegon of Tralles’ Book of Marvels, ed. and trans. by William Hansen (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1996) Plautus, Titus Maccius, Amphitruo, ed. by David M. Christenson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) Pliny the Elder [Gaius Plinius]. Natural History, with an English translation, 10 vols., ed. by H. Rackham, W.H.S. Jones and D.E. Eichholz (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958-1962), III: Libri VIII-XI (ed. by H. Rackham, 1955) — Natural History, with an English translation, 10 vols., V (Libri XVII-XIX), ed. by H. Rackham (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961) — Natural History, with an English translation, 10 vols., VI (Libri XX-XXIII), ed. by W.H.S. Jones (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961) — Natural History, with an English translation, 10 vols., IX (Libri XXXIII-XXXV), ed. by H. Rackham (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961) Plutarch, Alexander and Caesar, in Plutarch’s Lives, trans. by Bernadotte Perrin, 11 vols. (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914-1926), VII (1919): Demosthenes and Cicero. Alexander and Caesar, pp. 223-609 — Bravery of Women, in Moralia, ed. and trans. by Frank Cole Babbitt, 15 vols. (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927-2004), III (1931), pp. 471-581 — Demetrius and Antony, in Plutarch’s Lives, trans. by Bernadotte Perrin, 11 vols., IX: Pyrrhus and Gaius Marius. Demetrius and Antony (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1920), pp. 137-343 — Isis and Osiris, in Moralia, ed. and trans. by Frank Cole Babbitt, 15 vols. (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927-2004), V (1936), pp. 6-191 — Life of Antony, ed. by C.B.R. Pelling, 2nd edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) — Plutarch’s Lives of Coriolanus, Caesar, Brutus and Antonius in North’s Translation, ed. by R.H. Carr (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906) — Plutarchus, Chaeron. Le Vite, Trad. di M. Lodovico Domenichi, 2 vols. (Venice: Giolito, 1560) Posidippus of Pella, Posidippi Pellaei, Quae supersunt omnia, ed. by C. Austin and G. Bastianini (Milan: LED, 2002) Propertius, Elegies, trans. by G.P. Goold, rev. edn. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999) — Sexti Properti Elegos, ed. by S.J. Heyworth (Oxford: Clarendon, 2007) Prudentius, Prudence, Psychomachie, Contre Symmaque, ed. and trans. by M. Lavarenne (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1948) Quintilian, M.F., Declamationes XIX maiores, ed. by G. Lehnart (Leipzig: Teubner, 1905) — The Orator Education, ed. by Donald A. Russell, 5 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001) Rabirius, C. Bellum Actiacum, e papyro Herculanensi 81, ed. by Giovanni Garuti (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1958) Sallust, The War with Catiline. The War with Jugurtha, ed. by John T. Ramsey, rev. edn. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013) Seneca, Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, trans. by Richard M. Gummere, 3 vols. (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961-1962) — De Clementia, ed. and trans. by Susanna Braud (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) — Moral Essays, trans. by John W. Basore, 3 vols. (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963-1965)

Bibliogr aphy

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— Hercules, Trojan Women, Phoenician Women, Medea, Phaedra, ed. and trans. by John G. Fitch, rev. edn. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018) — Oedipus. Agamemnon. Thyestes [Seneca] Hercules on Oeta. Octavia, ed. and trans. by John G. Fitch, rev. edn. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018) [Seneca] (pseudo), Octavia. Attributed to Seneca, ed. and trans. by A.J. Boyle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) Servius, Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii Carmina Commentarii, ed. by Georgius Thilo and Hermannus Hagen, 3 vols., II: Aeneidos Librorum VI-XII Commentarii (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) Solinus, C. Iulii Solini Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium, ed. by Theodor Mommsen (Berlin: Nicolas, 1864) Sophocles, Ajax. Electra. Oedipus Tyrannus, ed. and trans. by Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994) Statius, Sylvae, ed. and trans. by D.R. Shackleton Bailey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003) — Thebais, ed. and trans. by D.R. Shackleton Bailey, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003) Strabo, The Geography of Strabo, trans. Horace Leonard Jones, 8 vols. (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960-1967), VIII: Book 17 (1967) Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, trans. by J.C. Rolfe, 2 vols. (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964-1965), I: Julius. Augustus. Tiberius. Gaius Caligula Tacitus, The Histories, trans. by Clifford H. Moore, The Annals, trans. John Jackson (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), IV: Books 13-16 Tertullian, Tertulliani, Quinti Septimi Florentis, Address to Martyrs, in Herbert T. Bindley, The Epistle of the Gallican Churches: Lugdunum and Vienna, with an Appendix containing Tertullian’s Address to Martyrs and the Passion of St. Perpetua, Translated by T. Herbert Bindley (London: SPCK, 1900), pp. 51-61 — Ad Martyras, in Opera, 2 vols. (Turnholti: Typographi Brepols Editores Pontificii, 1954), I, pp. 1-8 (ed. by E. Dekkers) — Ad Nationes, in Opera, 2 vols. (Turnholti: Typographi Brepols Editores Pontif icii, 1954), I, pp. 1-8 (ed. by E. Dekkers), I, pp. 9-75 (ed. by Ph. Borleffs) Trebellius, Pollio, Tyranni triginta, SHA, III (1932), pp. 64-151 Trogus, Pompeius, Historiae Philippicae, see Iustinus — Fragmenta, ed. by O. Seel (Leipzig: Teubner, 1956) Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History. Res Gestae Divi Augusti, trans. by Frederick W. Shipley (London: Heinemann; New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1924) Virgil, Aeneid, Book VIII, ed. by K.W. Gransden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976) — Aeneid VII-XII, Appendix Vergiliana, trans. by Rushton Fairclough, rev. by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2000) — Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid I-VI, trans. by H. Rushton Fairclough, rev. by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1999) — Vergil’s Aeneid Translated by John Dryden, ed. by Federick M. Keener (London: Penguin, 1997) Victor, Sextus Aurelius, Sexti Aurelii Victoris, Liber de Caesaribus, ed. by Fr. Pchlmayer, rev. by R. Gruendel (Leipzig: Teubner, 1961) Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, trans. by Morris Hicky Morgan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914) Vopiscus, Flavius, Divus Aurelianus, SHA, III (1932), pp. 192-273 Zonaras, Epitome Historiarum, cum Caroli Ducangii suisque Annotationibus, 6 vols., ed. by Ludwig Dindorf (Leipzig: Teubner, 1868-1875)

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Middle Ages Alighieri, Dante, The Divine Comedy 1: Inferno, trans. and ed. by Robin Kirkpatrick (London: Penguin, 2006) — The Divine Comedy 2: Purgatorio, trans. and ed. by Robin Kirkpatrick (London: Penguin, 2007) — La Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata, ed. by Giorgio Petrocchi. Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Dante Alighieri a cura della Società Dantesca (Florence: Le Lettere, 1994) Boccaccio, Giovanni, Amorosa visione, ed. by V. Branca, in Tutte le opere, III (1974), pp. 13-272 — Amorosa visione, trans. by Robert Hollander, Timothy Hampton and Margherita Frankel (Hanover, NH: University of New England Press, 1986) — Consolatoria a Pino de’ Rossi, ed. by Giuseppe Chiecchi, in Tutte le opere V/ii (1994), pp. 614-687 — Decameron, ed. by Vittore Branca, 2 vols. (Turin: Einaudi, 1980) — De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, ed. by V. Zaccaria, in Tutte le opere IX (1983) — De mulieribus claris, ed. and trans. by Vittorio Zaccaria, in Tutte le opere X (1967) — Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta, ed. by Carlo Del Corno, in Tutte le opere V/ii (1994), pp. 59-139 — The Elegy of Lady Fiammetta, ed. and trans. by Mariangela Causa-Steindler and Thomas Mauch (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990) — Esposizioni sopra la Comedia, ed. by Giorgio Padoan, 1951 (Milan: Mondadori, 1994) — Famous Women, ed. and trans. by Virginia Brown (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001) — Filocolo, ed. by E. Quaglio, in Tutte le opere I (1967), pp. 45-675 — Filocolo, trans, by Donald Cheney with the collaboration of Thomas G. Bergin (New York & London: Garland, 1985) — Forty-six Lives, Translated from Boccaccio’s De claris mulieribus by Henry Parker, Lord Morley, ed. by H.G. Wright (London: Early English Texts Society, 1943) — La genealogia de gli dei de’ gentili di M. Giovanni Boccaccio con la spositione de’ sensi allegorici delle favole, e con la dichiaratione dell’historie appartenenti a detta materia, tradotta per M. Gioseppe Betussi da Bassano (Venice: Giacomo Sansovino, 1569) — Teseida, delle nozze d’Emilia, ed. by Alberto Limentani, in Tutte le opere II (1964), pp. 251-664 — Teseida, delle nozze di Emilia, ed. by Edvige Agostinelli and William Coleman (Florence: Edizioni del Galluzzo per la Fondazione Ezio Franceschini, 2015) — Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, ed. by Vittore Branca (Milan: Mondadori, 1964-) Cancionero de Stúñiga, ed. by Manuel and Elena Alvar (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1981) Chaucer, Geoffrey, The Legend of Good Women, ed. by Janet Cowen and George Kane (East Lansing: Colleagues, 1995) — The Parlement of Foulys, ed. by D.S. Brewer, 1960 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1972) — The Riverside Chaucer, ed. by Larry D. Benson, 3rd edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) Collection of Seventy-nine Black-Letter Ballads and Broadsides (A) (London: Joseph Lilly, 1867) Degli Uberti, Fazio, Il Dittamondo e le rime, ed. by Giuseppe Corsi (Laterza: Bari, 1952) The Floure and the Leafe, The Assemblie of Ladies, and The Isle of Ladies. 1990. Ed. by Derek Pearsall (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute) De Voragine, Jacobus, Jacobi a Voragine Legenda Aurea. Vulgo historia longobardica dicta (Osnabruck: Zeller, 1969) Froissart, Jean, Le Paradis d’amour. L’orloge amoureus, ed. by Peter F. Dembowski (Genève: Droz, 1986) Gower, John, Confessio Amantis, ed. by Russell A. Peck (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 2006)

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Higden, Ranulf, Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden maonachi Cestrensis: Together with the English Translations of John Trevisa and of an Unknown Writer of the Fifteenth Century, 9 vols. (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1865-1886) Le Franc, Martin, Le Champion des Dames, ed. by Robert Deschaux (Paris: H. Champion, 1999) Le Fêvre de Resson, Jean, Les lamentations de Matheoulus et le Livre de Leesce de Jehan Le Fêvre de Resson, ed. by A.G. Van Hamel, 2 vols. (Paris: Émile Bouillon, 1892) Le Roman de Renart le Contrefait, ed. by Gaston Raynaud and Henri Lemaître (Genève: Slatkine, 1975) Lydgate, John, Lydgate’s Fall of Prences, ed. by Henry Bergen (London: Humphrey Milford. Oxford University Press, 1924) — The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, ed. by Henry Noble McCracker (London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934) — The Temple of Glas, ed. by J. Allan Mitchell (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 2007) — The Troy Book, ed. by Henry Berger (London, 1908) Machaut, Guillome de, Le dit dou lyon, in Œvres de Guillome de Machaut, ed. by Ernest Hœpffner, 3 vols. (Paris: Librairie de Firmin Didot et Cie, 1911), II, pp. 159-237 Petrarca, Francesco, Canzoniere, ed. by Marco Santagata (Milan: Mondadori, 1996) — Canzoniere, trans. by J.G. Nichols (Manchester: Carcanet, 2000) — De remediis utriusque fortunae (Biblioteca Italiana, 2004), ww2.bibliotecaitaliana.it/xtf/ view?docId=bibit000299/…xml [accessed 29 December 2017] — De vita solitaria, ed. by Marco Noce (Milan: Mondadori, 1992) — L’Africa, ed. by Nicola Festa (Florence: Sansoni, 1926) — Le familiari, ed. by Umberto Bosco (Florence: Sansoni, 1942) — Trionfi, Rime estravaganti, codice degli abbozzi, ed. by Vinicio Pacca and Laura Paolino (Milan: Mondadori, 1996) — The Triumphs of Petrarch, trans. by Ernest Hatch Wilkins (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962) Santillana, Iñigo López de Mendoza (Marqués de), ‘El Triunphete de Amor’, in Obras (Madrid: José Rodriguez, 1832), pp. 369-372 Salisbury John of, Ioannis Saresberiensis Polycraticus sive de nugis curialium et vestigiis philosophorum, ed. by K.S.B. Keats-Roan (Turnholti: Brepols, 1993) — Policraticus of the Frivolities of Courtiers and the Footprints of Philosophers, ed. and trans. by Cary J. Nederman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) Sprenger, Johann and Heinrich Institoris Kraemer, Malleus maleficarum ([Speyer], [Drach], [1490]), Herzog August Bibliothek, HAB Wolfenbüttel , 19v, http://diglib. hab.de/inkunabeln/151-quod-2f-1/start.htm?image=00038 [accessed 26 October 2017] Villion, François, Œvres, ed. by André Mary (Paris: Garnier, 1970)

Renaissance to the Present Manuscripts and Incunabula

Accolti, Bernardo, Rime, Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rossiano 680 Beccafumi, Domenico, Tre eroine Chigi: Cleopatra (1506), https://www.mpsart.it/luoghi-e-opere/ ritorno-alla-luce/Pagine/eroine_cleopatra.aspx [accessed 27 December 2017] Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio, Pavia, Biblioteca Universitaria, Codice Aldini 392 Inamoramento de Carlo Mano, Bologna: Bazaliero de’ Bazalieri, 1491. Parma, Biblioteca Palatina. Inc. Parm. 641

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Libro della regina Ancroia, Venice: Filippo di Pietro, 1479. New York, Pierpoint Morgan Library. PML 22108 Mansel Jean, La fleur des histoires, 1454, Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Ms-5088 Pulci, Luca, Pistole, Florence: Antonio di Bartolomeo Miscomini, 1481, Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, K5 56/6 Polissena, [Venice]: Giuliano Pasquali, n.d., Trento, Biblioteca comunale. G1 e 35/11 López, de Castro, Diego, Marco Antonio y Cleopatra, Madrid, Biblioteca National de España, Mss/14648, 1582

Texts in Print

Aretino, Pietro, Orazia, in Teatro del Cinquecento, I: La tragedia, pp. 565-727 Ariosto, Ludovico, Orlando Furioso, ed. by Cesare Segre (Milan: Mondadori, 1976) — I Suppositi, in Opere minori, ed. by Cesare Segre (Milan: Ricciardi, 1954), pp. 297-349 — Orlando Furioso in English Heroical Verse by Sr John Harington of Bathe Knight: Now Thirdly Revised and Amended with the Addition of the Authors Epigrams (London: G. Miller for J. Parker, 1634) — Orlando Furioso, trans. by Guido Waldman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) Authorized Version of the English Bible. 1611, ed. by William Aldis Wright, 5 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) Bandello, Matteo Maria, ‘La sfortunata morte di dui infelicissimi amanti’, in Tutte le opere, ed. by Francesco Flora, 2 vols. (Milan: Mondadori, 1934-1935), I: Le novelle, pp. 726-778 Beard, Thomas, The Theatre of Gods Judgements or a Collection of Histories out of Sacred, Ecclesiastical and Prophane Authors, Translated out of French, and augmented by more than three hundred Examples (London, 1597) Belliard, Guillame, Le premier livre des poèmes de Guillame Belliard, secretaire de la Royne de Navarre, contenant Les delitieuses amours de Marc Antonie, et Cléopatre, les triomphes d’amour, et de la mort, et autre imitations d’Ovide, Pétrarque et de l’Arioste (Paris: Claude Gautier, 1578) Bembo, Pietro, Prose della volgar lingua. Gli Asolani. Rime, ed. by Carlo Dionisotti, 1966 (Turin: Tea, 1989) Benserade, Isaac de, Cléopâtre Tragédie (Paris: Antoine de Sommaville, 1636) Betussi, Giuseppe, see Boccaccio Boiardo, Matteo Maria, L’inamoramento de Orlando, ed. by Antonia Tissoni Benvenuti and Cristina Montagnani (Milan: Ricciardi, 1999) Braccio, Alessandro, see Appian Brandon, Samuel, The Virtuous Octavia, 1598, ed. by John S. Farmer [New York: Tudor Facsimile Texts, 1912] Browne, Thomas, Sir Thomas Browne’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica, ed. by Robin Robbins (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), pp. 398-399 Caesar in Aegypt. A tragedy […] Written by Mr. Cibber (London: John Watts, 1725) Caesar’s Revenge, see The Tragedy of Caesar’s Revenge Calderòn de la Barca, Pedro, El mayor monstruo del mundo, ed. by Ángel J. Valbuena-Briones (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 1995) Camillo, Giulio (Delminio), Di m. Giulio Camillo tutte le opere […] (Venice: Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari e fratelli, 1554) Capponi, Giovanni, Cleopatra tragedia (Bologna: Benacci, 1628) Cartari, Vincenzo, Le imagini de i dei de gli antichi, ed. by Ginetta Auzzas, Federica Martignago, Manlio Pastore Stocchi and Paola Rigo (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1996) Cary, Elizabeth, The Tragedy of Mariam, 1613 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1914)

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— The Tragedie of Mariam in Three Tragedies by Renaissance Women, ed. by Diane Purkiss, pp. 97-166 Castelvetro, Ludovico, Poetica d’Aristotele volgarizzata e sposta, ed. by Werther Romani, 2 vols. (Bari: Laterza 1978-1979) Castiglione, Baldassarre, The Book of the Courtier, translated by Sir Thomas Hoby (London: Dent; New York: Dutton, [1974]) — Il libro del cortegiano, in Opere di Baldassarre Castiglione, Giovanni della Casa, Benvenuto Cellini, ed. by Carlo Cordié (Milan: Ricciardi, 1960), pp. 1-361 Cavafy, C.P., Collected Poems, trans. by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrand, ed. by George Savidis, rev. ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992) Chapman, George, The Works of George Chapman: Poems and Minor Translations (London: Chatto and Windus, 1874) Cieco da Ferrara, Francesco, Mambriano, ed. by Giuseppe Rua (Turin: Chiantore, 1926) Cooper, Thomas, Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britannicae (Georg Olms: Verlag Hiedesheim; New York, 1975) Corone ET Altre Rime in tutte le lingue principali del Mondo. In lode dell’illustre s.or LUIGI ANCARANO, di Spoleto Cavaliere, Dottore et Rettor de leggisti in Padova. Raccolte da Livio Ferro, Accademico Eletto. Con una oratione dello Ecc.te s.or Antonio Riccobono (Padua: Lorenzo Pasquinati, 1581) Daniel, Samuel, ‘A Critical Edition of Samuel Daniel’s The Tragedie of Cleopatra’, ed. by Sister Helen Lucy Sampson (PhD dissertation, University of Saint Louis, 1966) — Delia and Rosamond Augmented. Cleopatra (London: Waterson, 1594) — Selected Poetry and A Defense of Rhyme, ed. by Geoffrey G. Hiller and Peter L. Groves (Asheville, NC: Pegasus, 1998) — The Tragedie of Cleopatra, in Certaine Small Workes Heretofore Divulged by Samuel Daniel one of the Groomes of the Queenes Maiesties Pruie Chamber, & Now Againe by Him Corrected and Augmented (London: Waterson, 1607) — The Tragedie of Cleopatra, in The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Samuel Daniel, 5 vols., III: The Dramatic Works, ed. by Alexander B. Grosart, 1885 (reprinted New York: Russell and Russell, 1963), pp. 1-94 De Cesari, Cesare, Cleopatra Tragedia (Venice: Giovan. Griffio, 1552) Delfino, Giovanni, La Cleopatra di Giovanni Delfino, ed. by Mauro Sarnelli (Santa Marinella: Quid, 1994) Di Tarsia, Galeazzo, Rime, ed. by Cesare Bozzetti (Milan: Arnaldo e Alberto Mondadori, 1980) Dolce, Ludovico, Didone Tragedia, ed. by S. Tomassini (Parma: Zara, 1996) — Le tragedie di M. Lodovico Dolce cioe, Giocasta, Didone, Thieste, Medea, Ifigenia, Hecuba. Di nuovo ricorrette et ristampate (Venice: Domenico Farri, 1566) — Le troiane (Venice: Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari, 1566) — Marianna, in Teatro del Cinquecento, I: La tragedia, pp. 731-877 Domenichi, Lodovico, see Plutarch Dryden, John, All for Love, ed. by N.J. Andrew (London: A & C Black; New York: W.W. Norton, 1975) Elyot, Thomas, The Defence of Good Women (Oxford, OH: Anchor Press, 1940) Fletcher, John and Philip Massinger, The False One, ed. by Robert Kean Turner, in The Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon, ed. by Fredson Bower, 10 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966-1996), VIII (1992), pp. 115-209 Garnier, Robert, Les tragedies de Robert Garnier, Conseilleur du Roy, Lieutennant general Criminel au Siege Presidial et Senechausee du Maine (Paris: Mamert Patisson, imprimeur du Roy, chez Robert Estienne, 1585) — Porcie Tragédie, ed. by Jean-Claude Ternaux (Paris; H. Champion, 1999

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Cleopatr a in Italian and English Renaissance Dr ama

— Two Tragedies: Hippolyte and Marc Antoine, ed. by Christine M. Hill and Mary G. Morrison (London: Athlone Press, 1975) Gascoigne, George, The Complete Poems of George Gascoigne, ed. by William Carew (Hazlitt: Roxburghe Library, 1869) Gherardi da Prato, Giovanni, Paradiso degli Alberti, ed. by Antonio Lanza (Rome: Salerno Editore, 1975) Giraldi Cinthio, Giovan Battista, Cleopatra tragedia, di M. Gio. Battista Giraldi Cinthio, nobile ferrarese (Venice: Giulio Cesare Cagnacini, 1583) — De Ferraria et Atestinis Principibus commentariolus (Ferrariae: Franciscum Rubeum, 1556) — Discorso intorno a quello che si conviene a un giovane nobile e ben creato nel servire un gran principe (Pavia: Bartoli, 1569) — Discorso over lettera di Giovambattista Giraldi Cinzio intorno al comporre delle comedie e delle tragedie a Giulio Ponzio Ponzoni in Scritti critici, ed. by C. Guerrieri Crocetti (Milan: Marzolati, 1973) — Gli antivalomeni, ed. by Irene Romera Pintor (Madrid: Editorial Complutense, 2008) — Gli ecatommiti, ed. by Susanna Villari, 3 vols. (Rome: Salerno Editore, 2012) — Egle. Lettera sovra il comporre le Satire atte alla scena. Favola Pastorale, ed. by Carla Molinari (Bologna: Commissione per i Testi di Lingua, 1985) — Egle, ed. by Carla Molinari in Teatro del Cinquecento, I: La tragedia, pp. 881-967 — Euphimia, ed. by Irene Romera Pintor (Madrid: Editorial Complutense, 2008) — Lettera sulla tragedia, in Trattati di poetica e retorica del Cinquecento, ed. by Bernard, Weinberg, 4 vols. (Bari: Laterza, 1970-1974), I (1970), pp. 485-486 — Le tragedie di M. Gio. Battista Giraldi Cinthio, nobile ferrarese: cioè Orbecche, Altile, Didone, Antivalomeni, Cleopatra, Arrenopia, Euphitia, Epitia, Selene […] (Venice: Giulio Cesare Cagnacini, 1583) — Orbecche, in Teatro del Cinquecento, I: La tragedia, pp. 260-448 — Scritti contro la Canace. Giudizio ed Epistola latina, see Speroni, Sperone, Canace e scritti in sua difesa Greene, Robert, A Critical Edition of Robert Greene’s Ciceronis Amor: Tullies Love, ed. by Charles Howard Larson (Salzburg: Istitut für Englische Sprache und Literatur, 1974) Greville, Fulke, A Dedication to Sir Philip Sidney, in The Prose Works of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, ed. by John Gouws (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986), pp. 3-136 Guarini, Giovan Battista, Il pastor fido e il Compedio della poesia tragicomica, ed. by Gioachino Brognoligo (Bari: Laterza, 1914) — Il Pastor Fido ed. by Elisabetta Selmi (Venice: Marsilio, 1999) I Fatti di Cesare, ed. by Luciano Bianchi (Bologna: Romagnoli, 1863) Ingegneri, Angelo, Della poesia rappresentativa e del modo di rappresentare le favole sceniche, ed. by Maria Luisa Doglio (Modena: Panini, 1989) Institutiones Congregationis S. Georgi in Alga Venetiarum (Venice: Giorgio Angelieri, 1573) Jodelle, Estienne, Cleopatre captive, ed. by Kathleen M. Hall (Exeter: University of Exeter, 1979) La Chapelle, Jean de, Cléopâtre Tragédie par le Sieur De La Chapelle (The Hague: Adrian Moetjens, 1683) Landi, Giulio, La vita di Cleopatra reina d’Egitto. Dell’illustre S. Conte Giulio Landi (Venice: n.pr., 1551) Lanyer, Aemilia, The Poems of Aemilia Lanyer, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, ed. by Susanne Woods (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) Li Fet des Romains, ed. by L.-F. Flutre and K. Sneyders de Vogel, 2 vols. (Paris-Groningue: E. Droz-J.B. Wolters, 1938) Lipsius, Justus, Two Books of Constancy, trans. by Sir John Stradling, ed. by R. Kirk and C.M. Hall (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1939)

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McEachern, Claire, ed. 2013. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearian Tragedy, 2nd edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) McMullan, Gordon and Jonathan Hope, eds. 1992. The Politics of Tragicomedy: Shakespeare and After (London: Routledge) Markels, Julian. 1968. The Pillar of the World: Antony and Cleopatra in Shakespeare’s Development (Columbus: Ohio State University Press) Melchiori, Giorgio. 1978. ‘Introduzione’ to William Shakespeare, Antonio e Cleopatra. I drammi classici, ed. by Giorgio Melchiori (Milan: Mondadori) Mills, L.J. 1990. ‘Cleopatra’s Tragedy’, in Major Literary Characters: Cleopatra, ed. by Harold Bloom, pp. 91-107 Miola, Robert. 1983. Shakespeare’s Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) — 1992. Shakespeare and Classical Tragedy: The Influence of Seneca (Oxford: Clarendon Press) Mooney, Michael E. 1970. Shakespeare’s Dramatic Transactions (Durham: Duke University Press) Ornstein, Robert. 1967. ‘The Ethic of Imagination: Love and Art in Antony and Cleopatra’, in Shakespeare: Modern Essays in Criticism, ed. by Leonard F. Dean, rev. edn. (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 389-404 Palfrey, Simon. 1997. Late Shakespeare: A New World of Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Paris, Bernard J. 1991. Character as a Subversive Force in Shakespeare: The History and Roman Plays (London and Toronto: Associated University Presses) Partridge, Eric. 1968. Shakespeare’s Bawdy: A Literary and Psychological Essay and Comprehensive Glossary, rev. and enlarged edn. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul) Paster, Gail Kern, 2013. ‘The Tragic Subject and Its Passions’, in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearian Tragedy, ed. by Claire McEachern, pp. 152-170 Rackin, Phyllis. 1972. ‘Shakespeare’s Boy Cleopatra, the Decorum of Nature, and the Golden World of Poetry’, PMLA 87, 201-212 Redgrave, Michael. 1958. Mask or Face: Reflections in an Actor’s Mirror (London: Heinemann) Reeves, John D. 1952. ‘A Supposed Indebtedness of Shakespeare to Peele’, Notes and Queries, 197, 441-442 Ribner, Irving. 1952. ‘Shakespeare and Peele: The Death of Cleopatra’, Notes and Queries, 197, 244-246 Richards, I.A. 1936. The Philosophy of Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press) Ridley, M.R. 1965. ‘Introduction’ to William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, ed. by M.R. Ridley, pp. xxxix-xlix Righter, Anne. 1962. Shakespeare and the Idea of Play (London: Chatto & Windus) Rosenberg, Marvin. 2006. The Masks of Anthony and Cleopatra (Newark: University of Delaware Press) Rozett, Martha Tuck. 1985. ‘The Comic Structures of Tragic Endings: The Suicide Scenes in Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra’, SQ, 36, 152-164 Schalkwyk, David. 2008. Shakespeare, Love and Service (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) Schanzer, Ernest. 1963. The Problem Plays of Shakespeare: A Study of Julius Caesar, Measure for Measure, and Antony and Cleopatra (New York: Schocken) Smith, Peter J. 1995. ‘Sexual Geography of the Renaissance: On the Imagery of Antony and Cleopatra’, in Social Shakespeare: Aspects of Renaissance Dramaturgy and Contemporary Society (Basingstoke: Macmillan), pp. 62-91 Snyder, Susan. 1981. ‘Patterns of Motion in Antony and Cleopatra’, ShS, 33, 113-122 Spenser, Benjamin T. 1958. ‘Antony and Cleopatra and the Paradoxical Metaphor’, SQ, 9, 373-378 Steppart, Michael. 1980. The Critical Reception of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra from 1607 to 1905 (Amsterdam: Grüner)

Bibliogr aphy

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Stewart, Alan. 2007. ‘Life and Letters in Antony and Cleopatra’, Shakespeare Studies, 35, 77-104 Thomas, Mary Olive. 1963. ‘Cleopatra and the “Mortal Wretch”’, Shakespeare Jahrbuch, 99, 174-183 Thomas, Vivian. 1989. Shakespeare’s Roman Words (London: Routledge) Tillyard, E.M.W. 1958. Shakespeare’s Last Plays (London: Chatto & Windus) Traversi, Derek. 1954. Shakespeare: The Last Phase (London: Hollis & Carter) Ure, Peter, ed. 1969. Shakespeare: Julius Caesar, a Casebook (London: Macmillan) Velz, John W. 1978. ‘The Ancient World in Shakespeare: Authenticity or Anachronism? A Retrospect’, ShS, 31, 1-8 Videbaek, Bente A. 1996. ‘Rustic Clowns in Titus Andronicus, The Taming of the Shrew, Antony and Cleopatra’, in The Stage Clown in Shakespeare’s Theatre (Westport: Greenwood Press), pp. 7-11 Vincent, Barbara C. 1982. ‘Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra and the Rise of Comedy’, English Literary Renaissance 12, 53-86 Waddington, Raymond B. 1966. ‘Antony and Cleopatra: “What Venus Did with Mars”’, Shakespeare Studies, 2, 210-227 Watson, Curtis Brown. 1960. Shakespeare and the Renaissance Concept of Honor (Princeton: Princeton University Press) Wells, Stanley and Gary Taylor, eds. 1988. Introduction to Venus and Adonis in The Complete Works (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 223-224 Wilders, John. 1995. ‘Introduction’ and Notes to Antony and Cleopatra (London: Routledge) [Arden] Williamson, Marylin L. 1990. ‘Patterns of Development in Antony and Cleopatra’, in Major Literary Characters: Cleopatra, ed. by Harold Bloom, pp. 108-117 Wolf, William D. 1982. ‘”New Heaven, New Earth”: The Escape from Mutability in Antony and Cleopatra’, SQ 33, 328-335 Worthen, W.B. 1986. ‘The Weight of Antony: Staging “Character” in Antony and Cleopatra’, SEL, 26, 295-308

Index Names mentioned in footnotes are indexed where there is useful information clearly associated with them. Purely bibliographical information and passing references are ignored. References to illustrations are in bold. Accademia dello Sdegno 105 Accolti, Bernardo Unici Cleopatra 62-63, 251-252 (death of Cleopatra), 258fn204 acting companies London 211–212 repertory system 212 Actium, Battle of 54, 134, 170 in Aeneid 33–34 in Gerusalemme liberata 79 Adamson S., G. Alexander and K. Ettenhuber 60fn9, 212fn10 Adelman, Janet 48fn32, 49fn36, 61fnn11&14, 63fn23, 69fn50, 161fn152, 213fn14, 214, 217fn30, 218fn34, 219fn41, 220–221, 224fn65, 229fn82, 231, 233, 235fn118, 236fnn122-123, 243fn139, 244, 247fn160, 249, 250fn175, 253fn185, 255fn190, 256fn194, 260, 261fn221, 262, 263fn229 Adlington, William, The Golden Ass 60 Al-Mas’udi 43-44 Aldini Codex 392 see Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio Alexander, Gavin 48fn30, 177fn9, 181, 183, 184fn48, 185fn50, 186 Alexander the Great 30, 36, 108, 129, 163, 234, 253 Alexandria (city) 43, 107 protected by Juno 138 Venice, comparison 131 Allen M. J. B. 61fn13 Antony Ariosto’s Orlando furioso 78 Asianism rhetoric 223 Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio (anon) 128, 158, 163-164, 167, 170 Cicero on 24 death 236–241 De Cesari’s Cleopatra 118, 122-123 desertion by Dionysus 228–229 as Dionysus 215 Giraldi’s Cleopatra 86, 102, 226-228, 237–241, 245, Garnier’s Marc Antoine 176–177, 236-237, 240 as hero 234–235 as historical figure 24fn8 27, 29, 30, 31-32, 42, 61, 215 Lydgate’s Temple of Glas 54 and mythical characters 242–243

Pistorelli’s Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra 3738, 128, 130–134, 136, 139, 238–241 Spenser’s Fairie Queene 80 Suetonius on 25 Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata 79 see also Shakespeare, Antony Antyllus (Antillo) 142 death 143 Appian, Roman History 27, 129 Aquinas, Thomas, Summa contra gentiles 123 Ariani, Marco 82fn89, 83fn94, 86fn108, 89 Ariosto, Ludovico, Orlando Furioso 33fn58, 66fn36, 77, 81, 92, 121, 129, 132fn65, 173, 177 Ruggiero-Alcina episode 77–78 Suppositi 159 Aristotle 45, 94, 103 History of Animals 30 Poetics 60, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85fn103, 93, 101, 132fn67, 150, 154, 187, 212, 213, 214 Politics 30 Arius 190fn74 on cyclical theory of history 190 and Philostratus, philosophical dialogue 189–190 Arshad, Yasmin 20fn5, 73fn60, 201fn104 Helen Hackett and Emma Whipday 73fn60, 179fn19, 200fn99 Ascoli Albert R. 77fn69 Asianism rhetoric 223-224 astrology, and theology, coexistence 89 Atticism rhetoric 223-224 Augustine, St. De civitate Dei 41, 42–43, 89 Augustus (Augusto) see Octavian Bandello, M.M. La sfortunata morte di dui infelicissimi amanti 219 Barroll, John L. 233, 234fn114, 237fn128, 243, 260fn215 Barton, Anne (Righter) 221fn49, 231, 232fn101, 246, 247, 259fn208, 262fn288 Beilin, Elaine 66fn37, 177fn8, 178fn13, 180fn28, 181fnn29-30, 206fn121, 208fnn125-126 Benson, Pamela J. 50fn41, 52fn50, 67fnn40-41, 77fn69, 80fn82, 109fn9, 187fn61 Berry, Philippa 80fn81, 187fnn61&63, 188fn65, 220, 255fn191 Bevington, David 101fn151, 214fn18, 215fn22, 225fnn68-69, 244fn145, 245, 254fn186

302 

Cleopatr a in Italian and English Renaissance Dr ama

Boccaccio, Giovanni 18, 26 Amorosa Visione 48–49 Decameron 153 De casibus virorum illustrium 50, 52, 173 De mulieribus claris 50-51, 52, 54fn64 Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta 49-50 Esposizioni sopra la Comedia, Cleopatra 51 Filocolo 35, 48 Genealogia deorum gentilium 173 Teseida 56 Boiardo, M.M., Inamoramento de Orlando 148, 156 Bonjour, Adrien 229–230, 248 Bono, Barbara J. 20, 87fn111, 94fn137, 106fn4, 142fn101, 177fn10, 242, 244, 255fn190, 264 Bono, Paola and Vittoria Tessitore 29fn35, 36fn73, 95fn139 Bouché-LeClercq 23fn2, 31fn51 Brandon, Samuel 18 Antonius to Octavia 206 Octavia to Antonius 206 The Virtuous Octavia 48, 202-205 Braunmuller, A.R. 214 Brennan, Michael G. 185fn50, 186fn55 Briggs, Julia 67fn39, 212 Brower, Reuben A. 231fn96, 235fnn119-120, 242fn137, 249fn173, 256fn192 Bruce, Yvonne 201fn105, 202, 203 Bullough, Geoffrey 20, 86-87, 106fn4, 124, 185fn51, 250fn179 Cadman, Daniel 68fn46, 180fn25, 181fn33, 222fn52 Caesar, C. Julius 23, 24, 27, 32, 37, 38, 43, 47fn25, 55, 64fn 29, 75, 76, 77, 111, 142, 167, 196, 218, 223, 234 Caesar’s Revenge (anon) 48fn31, 64fn29, 121fn32, 242fn136 Caesarion (Cesarione) 23, 110, 111, 128, 130-131, 142-143, 190 Calderón de la Barca, El mayor monstruo del mundo 254–255 Camillo, Giulio (Delminio) 173 Canidius (Canidio) 131fn63, 151–153, 161, 163-164, 171–173, 228, 230 Capponi, Giovanni, Cleopatra 62fn17, 94fn136, 100fn148, 165fn161, 189fn71, 251fn183 Cartari, Vincenzo 215fn24, 229fn89 Cary, Elisabeth The Tragedie of Mariam Cleopatra/Mariam comparison 206–207 Cleopatra’s presence 206–207 Herod’s lament 208 Casadei Alberto 77fn69 Castelvetro, Ludovico, Poetica d’Aristotele 81fn85, 90, 150, 160 Castiglione, Baldassare, Il libro del cortegiano 64fn25, 87, 109, 139fn92

Catullus, G.V., Carmina 26fn20, 185 Charmian-Charmion (Cherimonia) 117-118, 119–120, 123, 131fn63, 142, 218, 245, 254, 264 Chaucer, Geoffrey 18 Legend of Good Women 20, 52-53, 54-56 The Monk’s Tale 52 The Parlement of Foulys 52 Chernaik, Warren 183fn47, 231, 232fn100, 244fn145 Cicero on Antony 24 De inventione 60 De oratore 60 De Republica 68fn46, 124 Orator 60 Philippics 24 Pro Rabirio 29fn34 Stoic Paradoxes 187fn62 Circe, as Cleopatra’s alter ego 187 classical world, medievalised 75–76 Cleopatra Aeneid 33–34, 36 Al-Mas’udi on 43–44 and ancient historians 23–40 in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso 77-78, 81 avarice 56–57 beauty 61–62, 207 blonde hair 47, 48 in Boccaccio’s Amorosa Visione 48–49 De casibus virorum illustrium 50 De mulieribus claris 50–51 Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta 49-50 Esposizioni sopra la Comedia 51 Filocolo 48 in Brandon’s The Virtuous Octavia 203-205 in Cary’s The Tragedie of Mariam 206–207 in Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women 52-56 The Parlement of Foulys 52 children 23, 100, 110–111, 139, 170, 192-193 Circe, alter ego of 187 in Dante’s Inferno 46 Paradiso 46 De viris illustribus (anon) 42 death 23, 28, 42, 43, 44, 54–55, 56 Accolti’s Cleopatra Unici 251–252 Barca’s El mayor monstruo del mundo 254–255 Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio 170-171 Daniel’s Cleopatra 194–195, 252–253 De Cesari’s Cleopatra Tragedia 115 Giraldi’s Cleopatra tragedia 99–101 Pistorelli’s Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra 140–142 Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra 250–251, 253-254

Index

denigration of Brandon’s The Virtuous Octavia 204-205 Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Iudaeorum 208–209 Dido, comparison 36-37 Dolce’s Marianna 81 elusiveness 266 epitaph 62–63 feminist criticism of 246–247 and Fortune 49–50, 50, 90–91, 109–110 Gower’s Confessio Amantis 56 as heroine of love 53 historical figure 23, 25-28, 29-31 Horace on 34 inscrutability 247 intertextual analogies 249–250 Isis, association 30 Juliet, comparison 246 language proficiency 31 late plays about 265–266 Laura, comparison 181 lineage 29–30 Lucan on 38–39, 196 lustfulness 42, 46 Medea, comparison 35 Octavian, final letter 62 portrait (attrib) 69, 70 positive view of 43, 45, 61–62, 66 Propertius on 35–36 regnal dates 23 Semiramis, comparison 35 in Spenser’s Faerie Queene 80 theatrical antecedents 249 tragedic plays on 64 triumph theme 257–258 Venus as alter ego 247–248 Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio, anon (Aldini codex) 18, 50, 55, 68, 118fn26, 119, 131fn63, 139, 160fn149, 214, 218, 221, 234fn112, 237, 240, 245fnn150&154, 257 Antony 158, 163-164, 167, 170 chorus of nymphs 151 Cicero’s ghost 24fn9, 150, 154, 157fn140 Cleopatra 164-169, 170-171 and poisons 168-170 dances 151 dressing up 160 invented details 161–164 jewellery references 159 metatheatricality 157, 221 metre 150 prose monologues 150 Baccus 159 Hercules 35 Mars 158–159 Mercury 154fn135, 157 sonnet 155–157 sources 173 stage directions 154–155

303 structure 149–150 triumph theme 257 Colie, Rosalie 222fn54, 223fnn58-62, 233fn105, 234fn111 Collina, Beatrice 79fn75 Cox, Virginia 67, 79fn75, 88fn121, 90fn124, 94fn136, 139fn91, 173fn173, 203fn117 Cremante, Renzo 82fn88, 83, 90fn125 Curran Brian 61fnn12-13, 64fn24 Daniel, Samuel 18, 21, 88, 142, 179 A Letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius 201–202 Philotas 200 The Tragedie of Cleopatra 119, 257 aging theme 193–194 Arius/Philostratus philosophical dialogue 189–190 Caesarion 37, 142, 190-191 Cleopatra 30, 32, 48fn31, 96fn140, 193–195, 250–253 common burial 102 dedication to Mary Sidney 186–187 Egypt’s downfall 191, 195–196 empires, rise and fall 189 epic features 199 Fortune 109, 191 imagery 225 metatheatricality 222 mother-love motif 110-111, 192–193 Nile/Tiber choral ode 197–198 Octavian 196–197 publishing history 199–200 regret, keynote 193 revisions 199–200 Seleucus/Rodon scene 190–192 sources 197, 219 as supplement to Sidney’s Antonius 189 verse features 198–199 Dante Alighieri 18, 51, Inferno 35, 46, 121, 123, 132, 135, 177 Purgatorio 89, 123, 139 Paradiso 46 De Cesari, Cesare 18, 106 Cleopatra Tragedia Cleopatra beauty in death 39, 116–117 daughter 111–113 death 102, 115 disdain 117, 124, 194 political role 114, 125 pride 108, 117 rhetorical duel with Octavian 114–115 children 110–111 chorus 108–109 debate about suicide 101fn149, 167 Dolabella 120–121 Egypt 217

304 

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Fortune 109–110 ghostly atmosphere 122 metatheatricality 221–222 opening monologue 106–107, 118 religious references 123–124 structure 106, 118 style 107, 121-122, 144 subsidiary persons 118–121 triumph theme 257 Romilda 105 Scilla 105 De viris illustribus (anon) 41-42 Delany, Sheila 54fn64, 57fn78 Dido 36-38, 46, 56, 66, 78, 85fn104, 95fn139, 130, 137-138, 140fn96, 148, 163, 177fn11, 249 Di Maria, Salvatore 68fnn45&47, 82fn87, 87fn116, 94fn135, 101fn150, 121 Dio, Cassius, Roman History 27, 28fn38, 35fn.67, 62, 65, 87, 97, 100, 102fn.152, 129, 141,145fn108, 197, 218 Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 234 Dionysus 30-31 Antony as 215 desertion of Antony 228–229 Dolabella 120–121, 194, 197, 263 Dolce, Ludovico 127, 142, 173 Didone 126, 137, 140fn83 Ifigenia 132fn65 Marianna 81, 160fn146 Doran, Madeleine 225, 262 Dryden, John All for Love, 19, 173fn172, 209fn127, 230fn92, 241fn130, 242fn134, 243fn138, 245fnn151&153, 251fn180, 253fn185, 265 Du Plessis Mornay, Philippe, Discours de la vie et de la mort 180, 181 Durand G. 66 the East blurred boundaries of 29 perceived decadence 29 Ecira (Eras, Ira, Iras) 118-121, 122, 131fn63, 151–153, 251, 258fn204, 259, 261fn219 Egypt as anti-Rome 215 downfall 195–196, 217 Egyptian revival, Renaissance 61 Elizabeth I, Queen of England 57, 67, 79fn75, 81, 171fn167, 180, 187–188, 203fn117 Enobarbus 223, 224, 230–232, 245, 250, 262 Erickson, Peter 229 Eros (Ero) 132, 136, 173, 205, 218, 227, 237, 238, 243, 258 Euripides Alcestis 152, 115fn17, 145 Children of Heracles 142 Hecuba 153, 142, 192 Helen 153–154 Iphigenia at Aulis 66 Iphigenia among the Taurians 132, 142

Orestes 152 Trojan Women 142 Fazio degli Uberti, Il Dittamondo 46 feminisation, of Hercules by Omphale 37, 187–188, 206 Ferguson, Margaret 59fn1, 138fn88, 206fn121, 208 Ficino, Marsilio 61 Fitz, L.T. 230fn92, 235fn117, 244fnn142&145, 245, 246, 247fn163 Florus, Epitomae de Tito Livio 26, 29, 37, 49, 129, 197 Flutre Louis Ferdinad 55fn73, 77fn67-68 Fortune and Cleopatra 49–50, 50, 90–91, 109–110 Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso 92 Boccaccio’s Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta 49-50 Daniel’s Cleopatra 191 De Cesari’s Cleopatra Tragedia 106, 108, 109–110, 118 Garnier’s Marc Antoine 177 Giraldi’s Cleopatra tragedia 90–91 Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio, (Aldini codex) 50, 168 Frank, Robert Worth 53fnn55-56 Fulgentius, De aetatibus mundi et hominis 44, 71, 141, 254 Garnier, Robert 18, 21 Marc Antoine 35, 37, 47, 55, 64, 171fn167, 177-178, 180-186, 189-191, 193, 195, 197-198, 215-216, 242 Antony 176–177, 236-237, 240 Cleopatre 177, 193, 254 Fortune 177 love and death 102 redemption 177 Sidney’s Antonius, comparison 183–186 see also Sidney, Mary Gascoigne, George, Poem about Cleopatra 63 Gherardi da Prato, Paradiso degli Alberti 47, 61 Giraldi Cinthio, Giambattista 18, 82, 83, 127, 154-156 Cleopatra 84, 85, 86,103fn154, 128, 136, 257 Antony 86, 102, 226-228, 237–241, 245, Ariosto’s influence 92–93 clemency debate 86–88 Cleopatra conditional stature of 94-95, 124, 128 death 99–101, 250-251 faked death 163 faults 94–95 freedom 99 destiny 89-89 didacticism 85–86, 88 Fortune 90–91

Index

love and death, association 102 Maecenas’ role 87 metatheatricality 86, 222 metrical simplicity 93 Octavian 101–102 Octavian leaves Cleopatra 96–97 Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, comparison 226–228 staging of 103 subsidiary persons 172, 216, 230 triumph theme 257 De Ferraria et Atestinis Principibus commentariolum 88 Didone 84 Discorso over Lettera 93, 103fn156, 150 on female tragic characters 93–94 on history in tragedy 160 innovations in tragicomedies 83–84 Giudizio 92 Lettera sulla tragedia 19, 82, 213–214 Orbecche 82, 94, 142, 148, 157 Seneca’s influence on 83 style 92-93 Goddard, Harold C. 235fn119, 244, 246fn157, 262, 263 Golding, Arthur, Metamorphose, 60 Gower, John Confessio Amantis 18, 56 Greville, Fulke 188 Letter to an Honourable Lady 202 Guarini, Giambattista, Pastor Fido 84, 156, 261 Gurr, Andrew 219fnn3-4&7-9, 212fn8 Gurval, Robert Alan 28fn27, 34fn63, 35fn64, 36fn74 Hall, Joan Lord 226fn77, 262fn224 Hall, Kim F. 206, 209fn127 Hall, Michael 247fn160, 256 Hannay, Margaret P. 178fnn13&15, 179, 189fn69, 200, 209fn128 Hannay, M., N. Kinnamon , and M. Brennan 180fnn22&25, 181fn32 Harris, Jonathan Gil 244fn145 Hecuba 65, 192 Hercules 29, 31 desertion of Antony 228-229 feminisation by Omphale 35fn65, 37, 79fn73, 80, 150, 160, 187–188, 206, 242, 255 Hermes Trimegistus 61 Herrick, Marvin T. 103, 106fn4, 128, 226-227 Hill, James 224fn146, 249 Hill, Timothy 68fn46, 48, 37fn75 Hillman, David 69fn50, 212fn5, 221, 232fn103, 244fn146, 246fn158, 248fn169, 250fn176, 260, 261fn222 Hillman, Richard 180fn26, 183fn47 homegrown English drama 212, 214 Horace 17, 197 Ars poetica 60 Odes and Epode, 33-37, 257fn198

305 Horapollo, Hieroglyphica 61 Horne, P.R. 85fnn103-104, 86, 87fn110, 88fn121, 101, 102fn153, 103fnn154-155, 175–176 Hughes-Hallett, Lucy 20fn5, 28fn30, 43fn8, 134fn75 Hume, Robert 224fn63, 262fnn223& 227 Ingram, Angela 184fn49, 216fn25, 218fn34, 243fn139, 249, 259fnn206-207 imitation, doctrine of 60 Iras see Ecira Jehan de Tuim, Histoire de Jules César 55 Caesar’s love for Cleopatra 77 Jehan Le Févre Livre de Leesce 45 Jodelle, Étienne, Cleopatre captive 21, 35, 96fn140, 127, 146-148, 175-176, 217fn31, 237fn127 John, Bishop of Nikiu, Chronicle 18, 43, 44, 54 Josephus Jewish Antiquities 28fn31, 30fn41 Juno Cleopatra’s prayer to 137–139 protector of Alexandria 138 Justius Lipsius De Constantia 236–237 Kahn, Coppelia 68fn46, 69fn50, 215fn21, 216fn28, 236, 241fn132, 259fn206 Kirkpatrick, Robin 46fnn22-23, 59, 70fn51, 71fn59, 77fn69, 80fn77, 84fn96, 160fn145, 218fnn36-37, 219, 229, 261fn218 Kiser, Lisa 53fn59, 54fn67 Knox, John, First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstruous Regiment of Women 187 Kolve, V.A. 53fn58, 75fn63 Lamb, Mary Ellen 179fnn18&20, 181, 184–185 Landi, Giulio Vita di Cleopatra, Reina d’Egitto 64–66, 97, 120, 129fn55, 134fn76, 136fnn81-82, 145fn108, 148fn117, 172fn171, 216 Lanyer, Aemilia Salve Deus Rex Iudaeorum 208–209 Leavenworth, Russell 188fn67, 196-197, 198fn90, 199fn91, 200fn100, 219, 253fn185 Liber de viris illustribus (anon) 28fn27, 41-42 Libro della Regina Ancroia (anon) 78fn71, 129fn58 Li Fet des Romains (anon) 55, 76 Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 24 London acting companies 211–212 theatre growth 211 Loomba, Ania 43fn11, 215fn20, 218fn38, 220fn45, 236fn121, 247fn164, 254fn186, 256 Lotman, Juri 45fn18, 59fn2 Lucan 39 Farsalia 29fn35, 38, 47fn28, 74, 76, 169, 196, 197, 215 Lucretius 37, 248fn168 Lumley, Jane, Iphigenia in Aulis 66

306 

Cleopatr a in Italian and English Renaissance Dr ama

Lydgate, John 18 Fall of Prences 52, 56 minor poems 57 Temple of Glas 57 Lyne, Raphael 22, 33fn59, 82fn87, 219fn41, 221 MacMullan, Katherine 254fn187, 225 Mairet, Jean, Le Marc-Antoine ou la Cleopatre 94fn136, 202fn112 Mann, Jill 53fn58, 54fn63 Marino, Giovanni Battista, Galleria, Cleopatra in 203 Markels, Julian 216fn29, 221fn51, 222fn54, 224fn64, 235, 244, 245fnn148&152, 259 Mason, Harold Andrew 219fn42, 223fn55, 256fn195 McDonald, Russ 224, 229fn86, 263fn229 metatheatricality Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio (Aldini codex) 157 Daniel’s The Tragedie of Cleopatra 222 De Cesari’s Cleopatra Tragedia 221–222 Giraldi’s Cleopatra 86fn106, 222 Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra 221, 258-261-263 Michelangelo Buonarotti, Cleopatra’s Head 71, 73 Miles, Margaret M. 28fn27, 30fn42, 61fn12 Mills, L.J. 244, 246 misogyny ancient Greece 30 Renaissance 67 Montreux, Nicolas de, Cleopatre tragedie 96fn140, 121, 177, 178fn14 Mooney, Michael 231, 242fn153, 244, 260fn212, 261fn220 Morrison, Mary 20, 63, 64fn24, 65, 86, 87fn113, 88fn121, 97, 99fn144, 103fn154, 117fn22, 120, 121, 165fn160, 257 Mussini Sacchi, Maria Pia 63fn22, 93fnn132133, 105fn2, 108fnn7-8, 117fn21, 121fn35 Nile Landi’s Vita di Cleopatra 216 literary characteristics 215–216 Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra 216 Spenser’s Faerie Queene 216 Tiber, apposition 197–198 North, Thomas, see Plutarch Octavia 202fn112 Brandon’s The Virtuous Octavia 202, 203–205, 206 Daniel’s Letter from Octavia to M. Antonius 201-202 Lanyer, Salve Deux Rex Iudaeorum 208 Sidney’s Antonius 182 Octavian (Ottavio, Augusto, Augustus) Aeneas as projection of 37 Autobiography 24

Cleopatra e Marc’Antonio 151, 171 Daniel’s Cleopatra 196-197 De Cesari’s Cleopatra 114, 117-118, 124 Garnier’s Marc’Antoine 176 Giraldi’s Cleopatra tragedia 101–102 historical figure 23fn4, 28, 29, 31-32, 37, 101fn151, 215 Landi’s Vita 97 Pistorelli’s Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra 129, 131, 148 Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra 224, 231-233 Olimpio (Olympus) 151, 164–169, 171, 190 Omphale, feminisation of Hercules see Hercules Ornstein, Robert 231, 236, 245, 263 Orosius, Historiae adversus paganos 41, 42, 172 Ovid Ars amandi 37 Heroides 62, 132fn68, 201fn101, 249fn173 Fasti 29fn35, 33fn58, 53fn59 Methamorphoses 33fn61, 37, 53fn59, 60, 192fn78 Tristia 33fn58 Pacatus, Panegiryc 42 Pelling, Christopher 28fn29, 31fn47, 172fn171, 190fn73, 202fn108, 205fn199, 219fn42, 244fn144 Percival, Florence 52fn51, 53fnn58-59, 56fn76 Petrarch (Petrarca, Francesco) 18, 68, 173, 226 Canzoniere (RVF) 47, 93, 117fn21, 121, 145, 257fn200 Triumphi 26, 35, 46-47, 49, 93, 121, 181, 194 Petrarchism, influence on Renaissance Cleopatra plays 47, 144–145 Philostratus 195 and Arius, philosophical dialogue 189–190 Piero di Cosimo, Portrait of a Woman, identified as Cleopatra 69, 70 Pistorelli, Celso 18, 106fn4, 125 Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra 125-132 Actium (Battle) 134 Alexandria/Venice comparison 131 Antony 37-38, 128, 130–134, 136, 139, 238–241 Ariosto quotes 129 Cleopatra death 140–142, 251 prayer to Juno 137–140 death of Antillo and Cesarione 142-143 Egypt 217 Eros (Ero) 132, 136 Fortune 91 multiple viewpoints 130 Octavian 131 original features 128 Petrarchan influences 144–145

Index

prefatory letter 126-127, 187 prophetic dreams 132–136 religious pervasiveness 136–137 Seleucus 145-149 sources 129, 160 structure 127-128 subsidiary persons 119, 190 style 132fnn65-66, 144-145 triumph theme 257-258 Plautus, T. M., Amphitruo 154fn135 Pliny the Elder, Natural History 28fnn27-28, 51fn42, 169 Plutarch 30fn43 Life of Antony 24-27, 29, 55, 60, 65, 100, 102, 117, 120, 139, 141, 143fn104, 145, 148fn117, 151fn130, 161, 163-164, 172-173, 177fn11, 182, 190, 202, 205, 219-220, 223, 228, 232, 234, 235fn118, 236-237, 240-241, 244, 248fn171, 261 Isis and Osiris 30fn43,32fn54 Life of Alexander 163 Life of Brutus 218 North’s translation 60, 182fn41, 197, 218-219, 230, 261fn219, 262 Polissena (anon) 53fn59 Pollio, History of the Civil War 27 Portrait of Elizabeth Raleigh as Cleopatra (anon) 74–75, 74 Portrait of a Woman as Cleopatra (anon) 75, 76 Propertius, Elegies 17, 33, 35-36, 197 prose in comedies 150–151 in tragedies 150 Pulci, Luca, Pistole 62, 145fn108 Quintilian, Istitutionis oratoriae 60 Raber, Karen 178-179, 180, 186fn59, 191fn76, 203fn115, 231 Rabirius, C., Bellum Actiacum 38 Raleigh, Elizabeth, portrait, as Cleopatra 74– 75, 74 Rees, Joan 121, 147, 186fn59, 190, 191, 194fn81, 198fn89, 200–201, 202fnn106&109 Renaissance doctrine of imitation 60 Egyptian revival 61 misogyny 67 tragicomedies, Giraldi’s innovations 83–84 variants of 59 Renaissance tragedy female protagonists 66 influence of Aristotle’s Poetics 82 Seneca 59–60, 82–83 and suicide 68 Res Gestae Divi Augusti 24 Rhetorica ad Herennium (anon) 60

307 Rodon, Seleucus, scene, Daniel’s Cleopatra 190–192 Rose, Mary Beth 66fn35, 94fn136, 171fn167, 187fn61, 234fn12 Rosenberg, Marvin 232fn104, 253fn105, 246 Rossi, Elisabetta 149fnn121-124, 150fnn127&129, 151, 153, 156fn138, 158fnn141142, 159fn144, 171, 173 Rozett, Martha 241, 245fn155, 262fn226 Rucellai, Giovanni, Rosmunda 101fn149 Sachs, Hans, Die Königin Cleopatra mit Antonio dem Römer 214fn17 Sampson, Helen, Lucy 192fn77, 199fn92, 200fn94, 253fn185 Sampson, Lisa 67fn39, 68fn49, 78fn72, 84fn97, 90fn124, 125, 151fn131, 156fn139 Schalkwyk, David 230, 270fn214 Seleucus 128, 142, 145–148, 262 Rodon, scene, in Daniel’s Cleopatra 190–192 Semiramis 46-47fn26, 78, 203fn117 Cleopatra, comparison 35 Seneca 18, 21, 39, 68, 82-83, 86, 103, 112, 127, 142, 144, 149, 155, 177, 212, 217, 222, 226, 231fn93, 232, 248 Agamemnon 91 De clementia 86, 87, 114n16 Hercules on Oeta 67 Oedipus 89 [Octavia] 224 Renaissance tragedy 59–60, 82–3, 120-121, 132, 189, 203, 209, 211, 214-215, 221 Thiestes 132, 137nf83, 142 Servius, Vergilii Carmina Commentarii 33 Shakespeare, William Antony and Cleopatra analogues 218 Antony character 235–237 death 236–237 as hero 234–236, 249-250 and mythical characters 242–243 Cleopatra character 243-247 death 250-255 as Venus 247-249 and mythical characters 242, 255 related characters 249-250 clown, purpose 262 Cydnus scene 250 and Coriolanus 218, 235 and Cymbeline 219fn40 Egypt as anti-Rome 215 Enobarbus, role 230–232 episodic structure 215 genre issues 256–257 Giraldi’s Cleopatra, comparison 226–228 and Hamlet 249, 260fn216, 262, 263

308 

Cleopatr a in Italian and English Renaissance Dr ama

and Henry V 235 and Henry VI, p2, and p3 249 historical sources 219 illusion and seeming 263–264 imagery 224–225 influence on later plays 219 and Julius Caesar 218, 223, 234 and King John 249 and King Lear 249, 262 knowledge of Daniel’s works 200-201 language 222–230 and Love’s Labour’s Lost 218 metatheatricality 221 258-261, 263 and Midsummer Night’s Dream 218 and Much Ado about Nothing 218, 247 multiple perspectives 217, 220 myth, role of 242 number of roles 214 Octavian ambiguity 232–233 as Apollo 215 and Othello 218, 235-236, 249, 261 rhetorical techniques 222–224 and Richard III 249 as Romance epic 256 and Romeo and Juliet 218–219, 263 as tragicomedy 217, 221, 259–262 sexual innuendo 226 Sonnets 213, 229, 260 and The Tempest 263, 264 and Timon of Athens 218, 235 and Troilus and Cressida 218 and Venus and Adonis 213, 229-230, 247-248 Sidney, Mary, Countess of Pembroke 21, 208, 250 Antonius, 178, 181-182 Cleopatra/Laura comparison 180-181 death, obsession with 181, 183 Garnier’s Marc Antoine, comparison 182–186, 242fn134 metre and rhyme 181–182 motivations 179-180 dedication of Daniel’s Cleopatra 186– 187, 189 Petrarch’s Triumph of Death 181 religious fervour 183-186 Sidney, Philip 186 Defence of Poetry 179, 217 Solario, Andrea, Death of Cleopatra 71, 72 Solimano, Giannina 87fnn111,114&117, 88fnn118-119, 89 Sowerby, Robin 59fn2, 230fn89, 248fn167 Sophocles Electra 102fn152, 132fn65 Ajax 140fn96 Spenser, Edmund, Faerie Queene 80-81, 188 Speroni, Sperone, Canace 141, 217fn33 Statius, Sylvae 38fn81 Stoppino, Nora 80fn81, 94fn136

Strabo, Geography 28fn27 Straznicki, Marta 179fn19, 188fn68, 202fn110, 209fn128 Suetonius, Life of Augustus 24-25, 32, 129, 142fn101, 190fn73, 223fn61 suicide 36-37, 71, 124 Antony’s suicide 236-241 Cleopatra’s suicide 246, 250-255 in Daniel’s Cleopatra 189 in De Cesari’s Cleopatra 118 in Italian Renaissance tragedy 68, 101fn149 in Tertullian’s Ad Martyras 18, 42-43 Stoic view 68, 140, 167, 181 Syme, Ronald 23fn4, 24fn6 Tacitus, Annals 39fn89, 60fn4 Tasso, Torquato Gerusalemme liberata 78-79 Discorso dell’arte poetica 132 Discorso della virtù feminile e donnesca 88fn121 Tertullian Ad martyras 18, 42, 43, 68, 140 Ad nationes 42 Theodosius, Emperor 42 theology, and astrology, coexistence 89 Thomas, Vivian 219fn42, 233–234, 244, 246fn157, 256fn196 Tiber, Nile apposition 197–198 tragicomedy Brandon’s Virtuous Octavia as 203 Giraldi’s tragedy with a happy ending 83-84 Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra 217, 221, 259–262 translation imitation, blurred distinction 178 as suitable female activity 178–179 Trebellius, Pollio, Tyranni triginta 31fn47 Trissino, Gian Giorgio 126 Sophonisba 82, 89, 90-91, 101fn149, 102, 106, 115fn17, 127, 132, 140, 144-145 L’Italia liberata da’ Goti 80fn80, 126 La quinta e sesta divisone della poetica 81fn85 Vasari, Giorgio, Lives 70 Velleius Paterculus, Compedium 24, 172 Venice, heir to Roman values 126 Venus, Cleopatra’s alter ego 247–248 Vincent, Barbara 256fn193, 259fn208, 261fn218 Virgil 17, 69, 173, 197 Aeneid 30, 33-34, 36fnn73-74, 37-38, 66, 137, 138fn88, 139, 140fn96, 249 Eclogues 32fn54 Watson, Curtis Brown 68, 124fn37, 140fn95, 194fn84, 221fn48 Weller, Barry 182, 183fn47, 186fn55, 242fn134

309

Index

Williamson, Marylin L. 20, 21fn7, 45, 57fn80, 61fn10, 82fn89, 87fn111, 94fn137, 106fn5, 114fnn14-15, 117fn23, 118, 124fn38, 129fnn5152, 130fnn60-61, 133–134, 143fn105, 175fn2, 178fn12, 182fn39, 189fn72, 191, 194fn82, 195fn86, 200, 202fn109, 203fn116, 214fn17, 246, 257

Witherspoon, Alexander 182, 189fn71, 199fn93 Wolf, William D. 250fn177, 254fn189, 256 women and political power 30, 94, 187 Worthen, W.B. 235fn120, 241fn131 Wyke, Maria 30fn39, 31fn50, 35fn64 Zanker, Paul 32fn58, 35fn65