Mark Antony (Shakespeare)

Antony, Mark, Roman general and, after Caesar’s death, one of the triumvirs in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and the hero of Antony and Cleopatra. Constructing his play around events in Roman history, Shakespeare presented Antony as a loyal friend and noble subject in Julius Caesar. Antony’s funeral oration for Caesar begins with the oft-quoted line “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.” By the end of this speech, his passion and eloquence have delivered a subtle but stinging condemnation of Caesar’s murderers, Brutus and the other senators. (Click here to hear Herbert Beerbohm Tree declaiming Antony’s “O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth” speech [Act III, scene 1, line 256] from Julius Caesar.)

In Antony and Cleopatra Shakespeare looks at the mature Roman soldier, casting Antony as a tragic figure reluctant to abandon the voluptuous pleasures of Egypt and Cleopatra even as events at home threaten his political position and his very life. Shakespeare examines the forces that can cause a once-inspired leader to lose his energy, his will, and his judgment.