Antony and Cleopatra Act 2 Key Quotes, Key Speeches and Scene summaries
Act 2 – Development/Rising Section
2.1 (Pop-up Pompey and the Pirates)
The act opens with Pompey the pirate speaking Menas. Pompey is confident that he will have victory. He has won over many of Caesar’s men and believes Antony is still in Egypt with Cleopatra, until he receives news that Antony is returning to Rome which pushes back his confidence.
‘If the great gods be just, they shall assist/The deeds of justest men.
‘The people love me, and the sea is mine;/My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope/Says it will come to th’full.
‘Salt Cleopatra, soften thy waned lip!’
‘Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,/...Epicurean cooks,/Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite’
‘His soldiership/Is twice the other twain.’
2.2 [Leaders] [Soldiers] (Stand-up sit-down... Barge scene)
Antony and Caesar speak with one another and settle their differences, Lepidus is in the middle encouraging them to reconcile. Agrippa makes the suggestion of Antony marrying Octavia to restore the friendship between the two triumvirs.
‘Let Antony look over Caesar’s head/And speak as loud as Mars.
‘Sit./Sit, sir,/Nay then.’ [They sit]
‘The third o’th’world is yours, which with a snaffle/You may pace easy, but not such a wife’
‘Let me have thy hand/Further this act of grace/... There’s my hand’
The soldiers are left together. Enobarbus, a Roman, gives an Egyptian view of Cleopatra. She is described in her magnificence.
‘When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his upon the river Cydnus.’
‘Purple the sails, and so perfumѐd that/The winds were lovesick with them.’
‘The water which they beat to follow faster,/As amorous of their strokes.
For her own person,/It beggared all description’
‘Other women cloy/The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry/Where most she satisfies.’
2.3 (In the office... Soothsayer... In the east my pleasure lies)
Antony is taken to Octavia by Caesar. He explains that he cannot always be with her
2.1 (Pop-up Pompey and the Pirates)
The act opens with Pompey the pirate speaking Menas. Pompey is confident that he will have victory. He has won over many of Caesar’s men and believes Antony is still in Egypt with Cleopatra, until he receives news that Antony is returning to Rome which pushes back his confidence.
‘If the great gods be just, they shall assist/The deeds of justest men.
‘The people love me, and the sea is mine;/My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope/Says it will come to th’full.
‘Salt Cleopatra, soften thy waned lip!’
‘Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,/...Epicurean cooks,/Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite’
‘His soldiership/Is twice the other twain.’
2.2 [Leaders] [Soldiers] (Stand-up sit-down... Barge scene)
Antony and Caesar speak with one another and settle their differences, Lepidus is in the middle encouraging them to reconcile. Agrippa makes the suggestion of Antony marrying Octavia to restore the friendship between the two triumvirs.
‘Let Antony look over Caesar’s head/And speak as loud as Mars.
‘Sit./Sit, sir,/Nay then.’ [They sit]
‘The third o’th’world is yours, which with a snaffle/You may pace easy, but not such a wife’
‘Let me have thy hand/Further this act of grace/... There’s my hand’
The soldiers are left together. Enobarbus, a Roman, gives an Egyptian view of Cleopatra. She is described in her magnificence.
‘When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up his upon the river Cydnus.’
‘Purple the sails, and so perfumѐd that/The winds were lovesick with them.’
‘The water which they beat to follow faster,/As amorous of their strokes.
For her own person,/It beggared all description’
‘Other women cloy/The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry/Where most she satisfies.’
2.3 (In the office... Soothsayer... In the east my pleasure lies)
Antony is taken to Octavia by Caesar. He explains that he cannot always be with her