Cleopatra and Shakespeare’s characters’ ability to surprise

If asked to pick the greatest line in Shakespeare, I would go with “I was adored once too.” Virginia Woolf also thinks that when Sir Andrew says that line in Twelfth Night, “we feel that we hold him in the hollow of our hands; a novelist would have taken three volumes to bring us to that pitch of intimacy.”

Just five words completely change our perception of Sir Andrew. 

Also in Twelfth Night, Shakespeare does something brilliant with Malvolio: Malvolio first comes across as self-satisfied, holier-than-thou, and insufferable, so we laugh along when other characters play a prank on him, but then the prank goes too far and turns into something much darker and crueller, and as we see Malvolio abused and beaten and humiliated, we not only feel sorry for him but also feel complicit in the humiliation of the pitiful man.

It is excellent, and Jane Austen later does something similar with Miss Bates in Emma.

When people talk about Shakespeare’s understanding of human nature and powers of characterisation, they understandably talk about Iago and Othello, together with Hamlet, Macbeth, Rosalind…, but the most surprising character in Othello is Emilia. For a large part of the play, Emilia comes across as ordinary and earthy, contrasting with the saintliness and naïve childlikeness of Desdemona, but in the final scene, she is transfigured. Iago has seen through everything and manipulated everyone, but Emilia’s love and self-sacrifice and fearlessness is the one thing he has not anticipated. 

“EMILIA […] Thou hast not half that power to do me harm

As I have to be hurt…” 

(Act 5 scene 2) 

The intensity! The rage! It is Emilia who defends Desdemona’s honour, who exposes Othello, who brings down Iago. It is a powerful scene—she is transfigured. 

But there’s nothing like the surprise of Cleopatra, the infinite variety of Cleopatra. A. C. Bradley thinks that in Shakespeare, there are four characters that are inexhaustible: Hamlet, Falstaff, Iago, and Cleopatra.

For a large part of Antony and Cleopatra, she is depicted as lascivious and tempestuous and dramatic and manipulative and shallow and an irresponsible ruler, and yet in the final Act, she is transformed. In the large part of the play, Antony and Cleopatra, both irresponsible rulers and in some ways very ordinary people, are both turned into quasi-mythological beings. It’s largely Cleopatra who mythologises Antony and herself. 

“CLEOPATRA Think you there was or might be such a man 

As this I dreamt of? 

DOLABELLA Gentle madam, no. 

CLEOPATRA You lie, up to the hearing of the gods, 

But if there be nor ever were one such, 

It’s past the size of dreaming; nature wants stuff 

To vie strange forms with fancy, yet t’ imagine

As Antony were nature’s piece ’gainst fancy, 

Condemning shadows quite.” 

(Act 5 scene 2) 

Her death is one of the most striking, unforgettable deaths in Shakespeare (and in literature in general). But unlike the death of Desdemona or Cordelia, it doesn’t feel tragic—instead, there’s a strange beauty and nobility in Cleopatra’s death. 

“CLEOPATRA Give me my robe, put on my crown, I have 

Immortal longings in me. Now no more 

The juice of Egypt’s grape shall moist this lip,

Yare, yare, good Iras; methinks I hear 

Antony call; I see him rouse himself

To praise my noble act. I hear him mock

The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men

To excuse their after wrath. Husband, I come:

Now to that name my courage prove my title! 

I am fire, and air; my other elements

I give to baser life…” 

(ibid.) 

How does a pleasure-seeking, manipulative, and essentially shallow woman like Cleopatra transform into such a quasi-mythological being in the last Act of the play? How does Shakespeare do it? I don’t know—I’ve reread the play recently and still don’t know. It’s miraculous.