著者

藤田 博

出版者

宮城教育大学

雑誌

宮城教育大学紀要 (ISSN:13461621)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.41, pp.131-145, 2006

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One of the main themes of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra is a conflict between Rome and Egypt, a clash of sense of value between the Romans and the Egyptians. In order to hold one's own value, they fight against the other. When Antony dies and Cleopatra commits suicide, the play ends with the triumph of Rome. Does this, however, simply mean that the Roman wins and that everything Egyptian has been swallowed up by the things Roman? The play seems to indicate something more tangled: the boundary between the two is blurred, and the play is filled with a sense of uncertainty, of indecisiveness. It is rather in this ambiguity that the play has its meaning. Upon both Antony and Cleopatra, contrastive judgements are given according to from which standpoints they are to be judged. They can be either from the Romans or the Egyptians, or as a historical play or a romance. After Antony's death, Cleopatra, being forced to choose either committing suicide or yielding to Caesar to live further on, takes the former way. In this respect, though the Egyptian tribalism is defeated by the Roman patriarchy, Cleopatra is to win the game with Caesar. Her death makes Cleopatra overwhelm Caesar and subvert him as a winner. Not only Antony but also Cleopatra reaches the point where neither the winner nor the loser can be defined any more. The play represents a world in which nothing can be measured by the general sense. It ends with itself suspended in the air. The scene in which Antony's dying body is hung by a rope from the balcony by Cleopatra and her maids, therefore, represents the play most. This is the symbolic scene that embodies the conflicts of both sides and the sense of indecisiveness throughout the play.