Antony And Cleopatra Quotes

“Give to a gracious message a host of tongues, but let ill tidings tell themselves when they be felt.”
― William Shakespeare

“If it be love indeed, tell me how much.

There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned.

I'll set a bourn how far to be beloved.

Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.”
― William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

“How shall I abide
In this dull world, which in thy absence is
No better than a sty?”
― William Shakespeare

“Her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love; we cannot call her winds and waters, sighs and tears; they are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can report...”
― William Shakespeare

“The April's in her eyes: it is love's Spring,
And these the showers to bring it on..”
― William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

“Not romantic," she disagreed. "To me it would be romantic if Antony properly fell on his sword and kicked the bucket and Cleopatra escaped and lived a lovely life sailing along the Nile without him and his big ideas ruining her kingdom.”
― Jack Gantos, Dead End in Norvelt

“Whoever is born on a day I forget to send a message to Antony will die a beggar. Bring ink and paper, Charmian. Welcome, my good Alexas. Charmian, did I ever love Caesar as much as this?

Oh, that splendid Caesar!

May you choke on any other sentiments like that! Say, “That splendid Antony.”

The courageous Caesar!

By Isis, I’ll give you bloody teeth if you ever compare Caesar with Antony, my best man among men.”
― William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

“It is no surprise that the only woman in antiquity who could be the subject of a full-length biography is Cleopatra. Yet, unlike Alexander, whom she rivals as the theme of romance and legend, Cleopatra is known to us through overwhelmingly hostile sources. The reward of the ‘good’ woman in Rome was likely to be praise in stereotyped phrases; in Athens she won oblivion.”
― Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity

“Give me to drink Mandragora.
Why, madam?
That I might sleep out this great gap of time my Antony is away.”
― William Shakespeare

“Antony shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
I’ th’ posture of a whore.”
― William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

“My nightingale,
We have beat them to their beds. What, girl!
though grey
Do something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha' we
A brain that nourishes our nerves, and can
Get goal for goal of youth. Behold this man;
Commend unto his lips thy favouring hand:
Kiss it, my warrior: he hath fought to-day
As if a god, in hate of mankind, had
Destroy'd in such a shape.”
― William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

“Before the thought of Cleopatra every man is an Antony.”
― Arthur Symons

“It were for me
To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods;
To tell them that this world did equal theirs
Till they had stolen our jewel.”
― William Shakespeare

“The Peacock & The Eagle: Cleopatra's Entry Into Tarsus by Stewart Stafford

Cleopatra arrives, regal and mighty,
From ocean spray as Aphrodite,
Wealthy and waif, yearning for her,
Dared all to defy her possessive aura.

Mark Antony, struck by her sultry gaze,
Lepidus, prisoner in a bureaucrat's maze,
Sees power slipping from a friend’s hand,
Ensnared by a siren from a scorched land.

Lepidus was Caesar's trusted right hand;
A granule falling through hourglass sand,
Antony, headstrong military provocateur;
Funeral orator from bloody crown auteur.

Bargain's scorpion pincers; no longer twain:
Cleopatra was Ceres, promising Rome grain,
Antony was Mars' armed emissary,
Business and pleasure's flood tributary.

Antony: "Barge of emerald, Elysium's onyx!
Beyond counsel words of sage sardonic,
Gliding the Cydnus's silken seam,
This Nile Helen shall be my queen."

Lepidus: "Pleasure vessel of a floating whore,
Yours for a sesterce on the Tiber's shore,
Honour your oath, noble Roman creed,
Lest passion’s shipwreck sets out to sea.”

"This Venus virago on her mirage barge;
Serpent prow, silver oars, rhythmic charge!
What hubris to think she can equal,
The bloody talons of our Roman eagle!"

Antony: "Feast your eyes past peacock's bower,
She speaks Rome's tongue of naked power.
Mark it, that obsidian Sphinx stings -
Human head, lion's body, eagle wings!

"That is the form she takes to the public:
I smell a perfumed alliance for the Republic!
With Plebeians as her tickled cats, they hum,
I crave her beauty and company. Come!"

© 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Our courteous Antony,
Whom ne’er the word of “No” woman heard speak,
Being barbered ten times o’er, goes to the feast,
And, for his ordinary, pays his heart
For what his eyes eat only.”
― William Shakespeare