Cleopatra: The Queen Who Refuses to Be Defined

Cleopatra is the most mercurial character Shakespeare wrote. Within a single scene she can grieve, threaten, flirt, rage, and forgive without any of it feeling contradictory. Enobarbus says it best: 'Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.' That line is not admiration. It is a man trying to explain something his vocabulary cannot contain.

She is a political operator as much as a lover. Her attachment to Antony is real, but she also sends the false report of her death that prompts his suicide, and she negotiates with Octavius's envoy Proculeius while Antony is still dying. The play does not ask us to judge this. She is a monarch governing under military threat, doing what monarchs do.

Her death in Act 5 Scene 2 is the most controlled thing she does in the entire play. She dresses herself in her royal robes, applies the asp to her breast, and dies before Octavius can display her in his Roman triumph. 'I am fire and air; my other elements I give to baser life.' The performance is her own, and it is flawless.