Antony and Cleopatra Famous Quotes

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety.

Enobarbus describing Cleopatra to Agrippa and Maecenas in Act 2, Scene 2 — Antony's plain-speaking friend is the last person you expect to produce the most lyrical description of her in the play, which is part of why it lands.

The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold.

Enobarbus's account of Cleopatra's arrival at Tarsus in Act 2, Scene 2 — the speech builds one image on top of another until the air and water themselves are involved in her entrance. Shakespeare drew it directly from Plutarch's Lives.

Other women cloy The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies.

Enobarbus continuing his description of Cleopatra in Act 2, Scene 2 — the paradox is the point: other women lose their appeal through familiarity, and Cleopatra does the opposite.

Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch Of the ranged empire fall!

Antony in Act 1, Scene 1, dismissing the messengers from Rome so he can stay in Egypt with Cleopatra — the most complete statement of his choice, made almost before the play has begun.

Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike Feeds beast as man.

Antony to Cleopatra in Act 1, Scene 1, arguing that kingdoms are worth less than love — Rome, its politics, its empire, reduced to the dirt that feeds animals.

The nobleness of life Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair And such a twain can do't.

Antony to Cleopatra in Act 1, Scene 1, embracing her — his claim is that their love, not conquest or empire, is what constitutes a noble life. The play will test this claim for five acts.

There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.

Antony to Cleopatra in Act 1, Scene 1, when she asks how much he loves her — his answer is that love which can be counted is already too small. It is charming and entirely impractical.

Eternity was in our lips and eyes, Bliss in our brows' bent.

Cleopatra confronting Antony in Act 1, Scene 3 about leaving for Rome — she is cataloguing what they have had in order to make his departure feel like a betrayal. The inventory is unanswerable.

If you find him sad, Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report That I am sudden sick.

Cleopatra instructing her servant in Act 1, Scene 3 on how to report her mood to Antony — always the opposite of whatever he is feeling, a strategy of permanent emotional disruption.

I am Antony yet.

Antony in Act 3, Scene 13 after his defeat at Actium, still trying to maintain authority as his world collapses — four words that say everything about a man who has lost but refuses to stop being himself.

I am dying, Egypt, dying; only I here importune death awhile.

Antony dying in Act 4, Scene 15 after a botched suicide, being hoisted up to Cleopatra in her monument — he addresses Egypt (Cleopatra) rather than her name, and his request is to postpone death just long enough to say goodbye.

Unarm, Eros; the long day's task is done, And we must sleep.

Antony to his servant Eros in Act 4, Scene 14, after the false news of Cleopatra's death — he has decided to end his life. The lines reframe suicide as completing a day's work and going to bed.

Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.

Cleopatra preparing to die in Act 5, Scene 2, dressing herself as a queen before applying the asp — her death is staged as a performance, and she knows it. The immortal longings are both spiritual and theatrical.

His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck A sun and moon, which kept their course.

Cleopatra describing Antony to Dolabella in Act 5, Scene 2 — she is already mythologising him, building the image of a man whose scope exceeded the ordinary world. Dolabella gently suggests no such man existed.

My desolation does begin to make A better life.

Cleopatra in Act 5, Scene 2, framing her decision to die as an act of self-determination rather than defeat — paltry to be Caesar's prisoner; better to choose the asp. The line turns loss into agency.