The aspects of identity to be highlighted here are revealed by way of internal schematic contiguity or external analogue . At II,6 :119-123 , Enobarbus, who before has spoken glowingly of Cleopatra, characterises Octavia as of a holy, cold and still conversation...the sighs of Octavia . And in the very next scene Antony, by now a knowledgeable Egyptologist, haughtily treats the drunken Pompey to a definition of a crocodile as any-animal . The reason for the latter is that the crocodile has an Egyptian status going beyond mere zoological definition--a status already captured in that other Egyptologist Enobarbus's definition of Octavia : the crocodile is holy, a symbol of deity among Egyptians ; cold because a cold-blooded animal ; of a still...conversation--'The Egyptians worship God symbolically in the crocodile, that being the only animal without a tongue, like the Divine Logos, which standeth not in need of speech'(E.Cobham Brewer,Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, re 'Crocodile') ; the sighs--the moan, sigh and hypocritical tears attributed to the crocodile . In sum, Antony and Enobarbus are together schematically and culturally, their allegiance to Egypt being brought to bear with careful allusion or pointed redundance as the Roman referent and listener suit .
Both internal contiguity and external analogue are relevant to Enobarbus's famous description of Cleopatra at Cydnus . A pointer to this characterisation is given in Enobarbus's relation of Cleopatra's infinite variety (II,2 :240-3), which, substituting sacral for Venusian, replicates the effect of Beatrice on Dante in Purgatorio 31 :127-9 . The main thrust is the Cydnus depiction (II,2 :195ff.), for, again substituting sacral Beatrice for Venusian Cleopatra, we witness the Triumph of Cleopatra, itself a replication of the idea of a triumph as an allegory as seen in the pageant of Beatrice ( Purgatorio 29), and later developed by Petrarch in his set of poems, the Trionfi . Cleopatra's Triumph is a self-managed allegorical procession of Venus enthroned, with Cleopatra incarnating the goddess, just as Beatrice incarnates the Eucharist (Purgatorio 29-30), with Dante on the river bank, just as is Antony . Internal contiguity comes in by way of Petrarch's Trionfi, a series of allegorical Triumphs featuring, successively, Love,Chastity, Death, Fame, Time, and Eternity, which was commonly represented on Italian bridal chests . Enobarbus's Cydnus depiction, coming immediately after the betrothal of Antony to Cleopatra, is his purposeful 'bridal gift' for Octavia, and relayed to the proposer of this marriage, Agrippa--a gift intimating Cleopatra's hypostatic quality, with which Octavia must contend to secure Antony . She of holy, cold and still conversation is destined to lose .
The final aspect here is of an identity ascribed by external analogue, and is revealed through events concerning the post-Actium Antony and his followers, with reference to the Christian Passion ;
(1) Thidias is whipt (III,13 :88ff)--Christ is scourged ;
(2) Antony comforts his loyal friends (IV,2)--Christ comforts the apostles
(John 15, esp.15 :5--'I call you not servants...I have called you friends') ,
and each prefaces an impending doom ;
(3) Antony asks that they Tend me tonight two hours (IV,2 :32)--Christ in
Gethsemane, asking 'Could you not watch with me one hour ?' (Matt, 26 :40) ;
(4) Enobarbus's denial, I am none of thine (IV,5 :9) echoes Peter ; his defection
echoes Judas, a correlation corroborated by the handing over, in both cases,
of money : my turpitude Thou dost so crown with gold (IV,6 :33-4) to
Judas's silver pieces ;
(5) Scarus is marked with a 'T', the brand of a thief --Christ is crucified along with
two thieves, one of whom repents his ways and is promised paradise ;
(6) In praising Scarus, Antony says, Behold this man (IV,8 :23)--Pilate's 'Behold
the man' (John 19 :5), of Christ, in whom he finds no fault ;
(7) Enobarbus (IV,9 :13-16) is the very dying Christ :
disponge...upon me--the sponge of gall,
Throw my heart against the flint and hardness--the spear in the side,
That life ...may hang no longer on me--the death on the Cross,
Enobarbus's heart bursting with grief and guilt as does Judas's, in Acts1 :18 .
Clearly in this sequence of parallels, aspects of the Passion are spread around in Antony and Cleopatra , but the composite identity ascribed to Antony's group is an identity with the Redeemer, whose life and life's work are drawing to a close, as are those of the Antony group . That identity with Redeemer is there, however much they may have lost the war with Caesar, and it coincides with the group's rediscovery of the old Roman values of manliness, courage, strength, probity, and Stoic endurance in defeat . Their adopted Egyptian luxuriance and idleness are sloughed off, as their Roman identity re-emerges Redeemed . The Passion sequence climaxes in the wounded Antony being raised up into the Monument to die, hauled there by a Cleopatra who stage-managed Cydnus, and now masterfully stage-manages her own death . This conclusion manifests a convergence of hypostatic identity : Venus with Redeemer ; sweating queen and lover with failed triumvir, soldier and suicide ; woman with man .
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