Cleopatra Character Analysis

[T]he crimes of love which they both committed were not occasioned by any necessity or fatal ignorance, but were wholly voluntary, since our passions are, or ought to be, within our power.

Can any Roman see and know him now,

Thus altered from the lord of half mankind,
Unbent, unsinewed, made a woman’s toy,
Shrunk from the vast extent of all his honours,
And cramped within a corner of the world?

But I have lost my reason, have disgraced
The name of soldier with inglorious ease[.]

And I will leave her; though, Heaven knows, I love
Beyond life, conquest, empire, all but honour;

But I will leave her.

Moderate sorrow
Fits vulgar love, and for a vulgar man;
But I have loved with such transcendent passion,
I soared at first quite out of reason’s view.

[W]e have loved each other
Into our mutual ruin.

But yet the loss was private that I made;
’Twas but myself I lost: I lost no legions;
I had no world to lose, no people’s love.

For I can ne’er be conquered but by love,
And you do all for duty.

Nature meant me
A wife, a silly, harmless, household dove,
Fond without art, and kind without deceit;
But Fortune, that has made a mistress of me,
Has thrust me out to the wide world.

My Queen is dead.
I was but great for her; my power, my empire
Were but my merchandise to buy her love,
And conquered kings, my factors.

Ten years’ love,
And not a moment lost, but all improved
To th’utmost joys: what ages have we lived!
And now to die each other’s; and so dying,
While hand in hand we walk in groves below,
Whole troops of lovers’ ghosts shall flock about us,
And all the train be ours.

Let dull Octavia
Survive to mourn him dead; my nobler fate
Shall knit our spousals with a tie too strong

For Roman laws to break.

[T]he crimes of love which they both committed were not occasioned by any necessity or fatal ignorance, but were wholly voluntary, since our passions are, or ought to be, within our power.

Can any Roman see and know him now,

Thus altered from the lord of half mankind,
Unbent, unsinewed, made a woman’s toy,
Shrunk from the vast extent of all his honours,
And cramped within a corner of the world?

But I have lost my reason, have disgraced
The name of soldier with inglorious ease[.]

And I will leave her; though, Heaven knows, I love
Beyond life, conquest, empire, all but honour;

But I will leave her.

Moderate sorrow
Fits vulgar love, and for a vulgar man;
But I have loved with such transcendent passion,
I soared at first quite out of reason’s view.

[W]e have loved each other
Into our mutual ruin.

But yet the loss was private that I made;
’Twas but myself I lost: I lost no legions;
I had no world to lose, no people’s love.

For I can ne’er be conquered but by love,
And you do all for duty.

Nature meant me
A wife, a silly, harmless, household dove,
Fond without art, and kind without deceit;
But Fortune, that has made a mistress of me,
Has thrust me out to the wide world.

My Queen is dead.
I was but great for her; my power, my empire
Were but my merchandise to buy her love,
And conquered kings, my factors.

Ten years’ love,
And not a moment lost, but all improved
To th’utmost joys: what ages have we lived!
And now to die each other’s; and so dying,
While hand in hand we walk in groves below,
Whole troops of lovers’ ghosts shall flock about us,
And all the train be ours.

Let dull Octavia
Survive to mourn him dead; my nobler fate
Shall knit our spousals with a tie too strong

For Roman laws to break.