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Prologue
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Caesar and Cleopatra, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Romanticization of History
Vengeance vs. Mercy
Pragmatism vs. Sentimentality
Empire, Civilization, and Progress
Age, Experience, and Power
Summary
Analysis
It’s an October night on the Syrian border of Egypt. The year is 48 B.C.E., and a dozen Egyptian guards stand guard outside a palace. Half of them listen intently to one of their peers tells a scandalous story. The others watch their captain, Belzanor, throw dice with a young Persian recruit. Belzanor is 50 years old. He’s tough and competent in situations that call for violence, but he's inept and authoritarian otherwise. In addition, the Egyptian guards “are more highly civilized than modern English soldiers,” for it’s only the latter who “dig up the corpses of their dead enemies and mutilate them,” citing the “dug-up” corpses of Cromwell and the Mahdi as examples.
Shaw continues his project of comparing contemporary British culture to ancient Egyptian culture. Here, as Ra does in the prologue, Shaw uses his stage directions to dispel the notion that British culture of the modern era is as advanced or “civilized” than they would like to think. When he accuses English soldiers of “dig[ging] up the corpses of their dead enemies and mutilat[ing] them,” he’s referring to the reinstated King Charles II’s order to exhume and “execute” the remains of Oliver Cromwell, who led the British overthrowing of the monarchy in the 17th century, after the monarchy was restored. Shaw also alludes to an incident from his recent past, when in 1898, British forces destroyed the tomb of the Mahdi, a Sudanese religious leader who led campaigns against occupying British armies in 1885. The British threw his remains into the Nile.
Themes
Suddenly, the Nubian sentinel standing guard at the palace’s gateway hears a rustling and calls out into the darkness. A strange voice replies, claiming to bring “evil tidings.” Belzanor enthusiastically orders his men to receive the mysterious speaker “with honor,” and the guards clear a path for the speaker. Belzanor explains to a confused Persian recruit that Egyptians welcome visitors who bring evil tidings, since no god would accept their sacrificial blood.
The Egyptian guards’ reverence for honor shows that they are a civilization with strong ties to the past and tradition. This places them in conflict with Caesar, who is known for his originality and pursuit of imperialist expansion.
Themes
The stranger staggers clumsily through the gate, laughing as he walks. He’s wounded and carries a Roman sword in one hand. Belzanor demands to know who would dare laugh in House of Cleopatra the Queen and orders the man to identify himself. The man introduces himself as Bel Affris and identifies himself as a descendant of the gods, which signifies that he is an Egyptian. Belzanor and the other Egyptians greet him warmly.
Bel Affris’s wounds and the Roman sword he carries in his hand, combined with the scene-setting Ra provides in the prologue, suggests that Bel Affris has just come from an altercation with Julius Caesar’s approaching Roman army. It’s also interesting to note the way the guards describe Cleopatra and demand such respect for their queen—when Ra shared earlier that Cleopatra is a child, not necessarily an adult woman who demands to be taken seriously.
Themes
Bel Affris, a guard at the temple of Ra in Memphis, warns the Egyptians that Julius Caesar’s Roman army is on its way to conquer Egypt. He explains what happened a few days before. He and some of his men traveled to the boy-king Ptolemy to ask why the King sent Cleopatra to Syria. They also planned to strategize how to handle the Roman officer Pompey, whom Caesar had just defeated and chased into Egypt. When Bel Affris and his men arrived, they discovered that Ptolemy had slain and beheaded Pompey, and that Caesar was already on his way into Egypt. Caesar’s army arrived soon after Bel Affris. Most of Bel Affris’s men fled, but Bel Affris stayed behind and killed a Roman soldier. Afterward, he stood by his captain. The Romans took pity on them and spared their lives.
The Ptolemy to which Bel Affris refers is Ptolemy XIII, Cleopatra’s younger brother. Following the death of their father, Ptolemy XII Auletes, in 51 B.C.E., Cleopatra and her brother took the throne as co-rulers of Egypt but had a fallout that resulted in Pompey exiling Cleopatra to Roman Syria in 48 B.C.E. She returned later that year, backed by an army, to confront Ptolemy and regain control of Egypt, so we can assume that her return to Egypt will occur sometime soon in the play. Caesar’s Roman army’s inclination to spare Bel Affris and his captain their lives suggests something about Caesar’s character, or at least his characteristics as a leader. He seems to have a practical stance on violence and killing. He could have killed Bel Affris and his captain because they are their enemies, but he chose not to because they were outnumbered and didn’t pose a danger to his army.
Themes
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Before anybody can stop him, the Nubian sentinel runs into the palace to warn every one of the approaching army. Bel Affris asks Belzanor how they ought to protect the Egyptian women from the Romans. The Persian suggests that they let the Romans kill the women: it will be cheaper than killing them themselves, which would cost them “blood money.”
The Persian’s casual remark about it costing less to simply let the Roman soldiers kill the Egyptian women illuminates this world’s attitudes toward women. They’re regarded as objects to be bought and sold rather than as human beings whose lives matter beyond their monetary worth. Cleopatra’s guard would rather leave their women to be attacked by the Romans than spare them this fate by killing them themselves, since the latter option would require them to pay their families “blood money,” a compensation the offender pays to the victim’s family.
Themes
Belzanor explains that his men will have to bring Cleopatra to safety. He laughs when Bel Affris asks whether they’ll need Cleopatra’s permission to do so, since Cleopatra is only 16 and isn’t able to give orders. Belzanor conspires to transport Cleopatra out of town to keep her safe from Caesar, after which point everybody can continue the charade that the teenager—rather than her priests and nurses, who put words in her mouth for their own benefit—is in charge.
Belzanor’s remark suggests a direct link between Cleopatra’s age and her inability to rule independently. Her adult caretakers take advantage of her naivete and inexperience, giving advice to the young queen that satisfies their own desires for the Kingdom of Egypt’s future.
Themes
The Persian has a different plan: the Egyptians should sell Cleopatra to her brother, Ptolemy, with whom she is at war. Caesar loves women, but at 50 years old, no young women want him, and no old woman is foolish enough to respect him. The Persian proposes that the Egyptians weaponize Caesar’s love of women against him, manipulating Caesar into falling for Cleopatra, secretly selling Cleopatra to Ptolemy, and then offering their services to “rescue” her for Caesar.
The Persian’s plan to make a deal with Ptolemy reveals an additional change Shaw has made to the conventional tellings of Cleopatra’s story. Instead of Cleopatra being a temptress who uses her looks and sensuality to woo and manipulate Caesar, Shaw suggests that Cleopatra is a blameless pawn who was manipulated by men.
Themes
Literary Devices
Suddenly, frantic female servants and nurses spill out of the palace. Belzanor orders his men to stop them. He calls for Ftatateeta, Cleopatra’s chief nurse. Ftatateeta emerges from the crowd and approaches Belzanor, who introduces himself, haughtily, as “the captain of the Queen’s guard, descended from the gods.” Ftatateeta is unimpressed and tells Belzanor that his “divine ancestors were proud to be painted on the wall in the pyramids of the kings whom [her] fathers served.” Belzanor ignores this and orders Ftatateeta to fetch Cleopatra. Ftatateeta insists that Cleopatra has run away. After the Persian threatens Ftatateeta with his knife, she reluctantly explains that Cleopatra worships sacred cats and has likely run away to the desert to seek refuge with the Sphinx. Just then, the Nubian sentinel emerges from the palace and announces that the sacred white cat is missing. Panic ensues.
Belzanor’s efforts to exert dominance over Ftatateeta by bragging about his position and divine ancestry backfires when Ftatateeta uses these attributes against him. She suggests that his authority makes him not divine and powerful, but complicit in a long history of exploitation and oppression of lower classes like her ancestors, who built the pyramids whose walls immortalized Belzanor’s godly ancestors. Ftatateeta suggests that there is an exploitative underbelly hiding in plain sight behind powerful civilizations. Her comments pertain to ancient Egypt, but Shaw uses her remark to criticize the British Empire of his contemporary Victorian England as well, suggesting that the British Empire’s power and reach is only as powerful and good as the disadvantaged peoples it mistreated to form its colonies.
Themes
