Introduction to the play
Antony and Cleopatra dramatizes a major event in world history: the founding of the Roman Empire. The future first emperor, Octavius Caesar (later called Augustus Caesar), cold-bloodedly manipulates other characters and exercises iron control over himself.
At first, he shares power with Mark Antony, Rome’s preeminent military leader, and the weaker Lepidus. Caesar needs Antony to fend off other Roman strongmen like Pompey; he even offers his sister Octavia to him as a bride, despite Antony’s reputation as a libertine and his past rivalry with Caesar. Once Caesar defeats Pompey, however, he needs no allies. He brings charges against Lepidus, denies Antony his spoils from Pompey’s defeat, and seizes cities in the eastern Roman colonies that Antony rules.
The play’s emphasis, however, is on those whom Caesar defeats: Antony and his wealthy Egyptian ally, Queen Cleopatra. The play does not sugarcoat Antony and Cleopatra’s famous love affair, including her calculated attempts to seduce Antony from his duties and his rage when he thinks she has betrayed him to Caesar. Nonetheless, the lovers find such sensual and emotional satisfaction that Caesar’s world conquest seems smaller than what they find in each other.
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… We have kissed away
Kingdoms and provinces.
—Scarus
Act 3, scene 10, lines 9–10
Give me my robe. Put on my crown. I have
Immortal longings in me.
—Cleopatra
Act 5, scene 2, lines 335–336
Antony and Cleopatra in our collection
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Essays and resources from The Folger Shakespeare
Antony and Cleopatra
Learn more about the play, its language, and its history from the experts behind our edition.
About Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra
An introduction to the plot, themes, and characters in the play
Reading Shakespeare’s Language
A guide for understanding Shakespeare’s words, sentences, and wordplay
An Introduction to This Text
A description of the publishing history of the play and our editors’ approach to this edition
Textual Notes
A record of the variants in the early printings of this text
A Modern Perspective
An essay by Cynthia Marshall
Further Reading
Suggestions from our experts on where to learn more
Shakespeare and his world
Learn more about Shakespeare, his theater, and his plays from the experts behind our editions.
Shakespeare’s Life
An essay about Shakespeare and the time in which he lived
Shakespeare’s Theater
An essay about what theaters were like during Shakespeare’s career
The Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays
An essay about how Shakespeare’s plays were published
Related blog posts and podcasts
Convivial Cleopatra
An examination of Cleopatra’s racialized and sexualized queenship through the twinned theoretical frameworks of indigenous and queer conviviality
Farah Karim-Cooper on The Great White Bard
Can we love Shakespeare and be antiracist? Farah Karim-Cooper’s new book explores the language of race and difference in plays such as Antony and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus, and The Tempest.
Adapting Shakespeare's 'Antony and Cleopatra' for opera
Get an insider’s look at adapting a Shakespeare play for opera with this blog post by the dramaturg and libretto consultant for the new John Adams opera of “Antony and Cleopatra.”
Teaching Antony and Cleopatra
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Early printed texts
Antony and Cleopatra was printed for the first time in the 1623 First Folio, and that text is the source for all later editions of the play.
