And more explicitly in the Marcus Antonius:

(Antony) cast his coate armor (which was wonderfull rich and sumptuous) upon Brutus bodie, and gave commaundement to one of his slaves infranchised to defray the charge of his buriall.

By means of these additions and displacements Shakespeare shows the young Octavius with his tenacity and self-control already superseding his older and more brilliant colleague. We see in them the beginning as well as the prophecy of the end.

are

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

CHAPTER I

POSITION OF THE PLAY AFTER THE GREAT
TRAGEDIES. SHAKESPEARE'S INTEREST
IN THE SUBJECT

It may be taken as certain that Shakespeare did not at once set about continuing the story which he had brought to the end of one of its stages in Julius Caesar and of the future progress of which he had in that play given the partial programme. Antony and Cleopatra belongs to a different phase of his development.

Though not published, so far as we know, till it appeared in the Folio Edition of 1623, there is not much difficulty in finding its approximate date; and that, despite its close connection with Julius Caesar in the general march of events and in the reemployment of some of the characters, was some half-dozen years after the composition of its predecessor. The main grounds for this opinion, now almost universally accepted, are the following:

1. We learn from the Stationers' Register that the publisher, Edward Blount, had entered a "booke called Antony and Cleopatra" on May 20th, 1608. Some critics have maintained that this could not be Shakespeare's in view of the

that in November, 1623, license was granted

not

to the same Blount and the younger Jaggard, with whom he was now co-operating, to include in the collected edition the Shakespearian piece among sixteen plays of which the copies were formerly entered to other men." But the objection hardly applies, as the previous entry was in Blount's favour, and, though he is now associated with Jaggard, he may not have thought it necessary, because of a change of firm as it were, to describe himself as "another man." Even, however, if the authorship of the 1608 play be considered doubtful, its publication is significant. For, as has often been pointed out, it was customary when a piece was successful at one theatre to produce one on a similar subject at another. The mere existence, then, of an Antony and Cleopatra in the early months of 1608, is in so far an argument that about that time the great Antony and Cleopatra was attracting attention.

2. There is evidence that in the preceding years Shakespeare was occupied with and impressed by the Life of Antony.

(a) Plutarch tells how sorely Antony took to heart what he considered the disloyalty of his followers after Actium.

He forsooke the citie and companie of his frendes, and built him a house in the sea, by the Ile of Pharos, upon certaine forced mountes which he caused to be cast into the sea, and dwelt there, as a man that banished him selfe from all mens companie; saying he would live Timons life, bicause he had the like wrong offered him, that was affore offered unto Timon: and that for the unthankefulnes of those he had done good unto, and whom he tooke to be his frendes he was angry with all men, and would trust no man.

In reference to this withdrawal of Antony's to the Timoneon, as he called his solitary house, Plutarch inserts the story of Timon of Athens, and there is reason to believe that Shakespeare

made his contributions to the play of that name just before he wrote Macbeth, about the year 1606.1

(5) In Marberà itself he has utilised the Marcus Antonius probably for one passage and certainly for another. In describing the scarcity of food among the Roman army in Parthia. Plutarch says:

In the ende they were compelled to Eve of erbes and rootes, but they found few of them that men doe commonly eate of, and were enforced to tast of them that were never eaten before: among the which there was one that killed them, and made them out of their witts. For he that had once eaten of it, his memorye was gone from him, and he knewe no manner of thing.

Shakespeare is most likely thinking of this when after the disappearance of the witches, he makes Banquo exclaim in bewilderment:

Were such things here as we do speak about?

Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner.

(1. iii. 83-)

In any case Macbeth contains an unmistakable reminiscence of the soothsayer's warning to Antony.

He... told Antonius plainly, that his fortune (which of it selfe was excellent good, and very great) was altogether bleamished, and obscured by Caesars fortune: and therefore he counselled him utterly to leave his company, and to get him as farre from him as he could. "For thy Demon,” said he (that is to say, the good angell and spirit that kepeth thee), "is affraied of his, and being coragious and high when he is alone, becometh fearefull and timerous when he commeth neere unto the other."

Shakespeare was to make use of this in detail when he drew on the Life for an independent play.

O Antony, stay not by his side:

Thy demon, that's thy spirit which keeps thee, is
Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable

Where Caesar's is not; but, near him, thy angel
Becomes a fear, as being o'erpower'd: therefore
Make space enough between you.

1 See Bradley, Shakespearian Tragedy.

(11. iii. 18.)

But already in Macbeth it suggests a simile, when the King gives words to his mistrust of Banquo:

There is none but he

Whose being I do fear: and, under him,

My Genius is rebuked; as, it is said,
Mark Antony's was by Caesar.1

(III. i. 54.)

More interesting and convincing is a coincidence that Malone pointed out in Chapman's Bussy d'Ambois, which was printed in 1607, but was probably written much earlier. Bussy says to Tamyra of the terrors of Sin:

So our ignorance tames us, that we let
His 2 shadows fright us: and like empty clouds
In which our faulty apprehensions forge
The forms of dragons, lions, elephants,
When they hold no proportion, the sly charms
Of the Witch Policy makes him like a monster.

Compare Antony's words:

Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish:
A vapour sometimes like a bear or lion.

Here I am Antony :

(III. i. 22.)

Yet cannot hold this visible shape. (IV. xiv. 2 and 13.)

It is hard to believe that there is no connection between these passages, and if there is Shakespeare must have been the debtor; but as Bussy d'Ambois

1 I have said nothing of other possible references and loans because they seem to me irrelevant or doubtful. Thus Malone drew attention to the words of Morose in Ben Jonson's Epicoene: "Nay, I would sit out a play that were nothing but fights at sea, drum, trumpet and target." He thought that this remark might contain ironical allusion to the battle scenes in Antony and Cleopatra, for instance the stage direction at the head of Act III., Scene 10: "Canidius marcheth with his land army one way over the stage and Taurus, the lieutenant of Caesar the other way. After their going in is heard the noise of a sea-fight." But even were this more certain than it is, it would only prove that Antony and Cleopatra had made so much impression as to give points to the satirist some time after its performance: it would not help us to the date. For Epicoene belongs to 1610, and no one would place Antony and Cleopatra so late.

2i.e. Sin's.