Octavia is Antony’s wife and Octavius’s sister. She is regarded as very beautiful and a model of virtuous Roman womanhood, but Antony nonetheless abandons her and their young children for his lover Cleopatra—a decision that sets off a power struggle between Antony and Octavius.

He is Antony’s rival for power in Rome and is described as young, ambitious, and strongly competitive in his quest for rule of “half the world.” He is also proud and quick to take offense at perceived insults to his honor and his family—as indicated by his protectiveness of his sister, Octavia, Antony’s wife.

Alexas is Cleopatra’s eunuch, and the closest thing the play has to an antagonist. Throughout the play, he conspires to keep Cleopatra and Antony together while also protecting himself, which leads to chaos and tragedy.

Enobarbus dies of a broken heart, thus fulfilling the drama’s tragedy. Throughout the play, Antony behaves too ignobly, irresponsibly, and inconsistently to provoke a tragic tear.

She married again, this time to Mark Anthony, who as a member of the Second Triumvirate was a ruler of the state together with Octavian and the Roman patrician Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. One of the reasons for this marriage was to reduce the growing tensions between Octavian and Antony.

Act 1. The play opens with the discussion of some citizens of Egypt. Serapion tells his fellows about the queer supernatural incidents that he witnessed last night. Alexas, the eunuch, who is in the service of Cleopatra comes to them and scolds Serapion for telling his cooked dreams to others and warns him of doing so.

THEME: The poem All for Love is about how one can not depend on past achievements because they lose their value over time. The poem reveals that getting pure and real love is the best achievement.

In All for Love, John Dryden expresses the theme of love by demonstrating what love is not. Antony and Cleopatra seem more focused on themselves and their lust than on each other, and their love is illicit and deceptive because Antony is married. Antony’s wife, Octavia, gives up on her husband and returns to Rome.

All for Love dramatizes the clash between the forces of authority in the world and the desire for personal freedom. The former is represented by Rome under the new emperor Octavius, with its strict laws, military power, and strong central government.

Today, it is Dryden’s best-known and most performed play. It is a tragedy written in blank verse and is an attempt on Dryden’s part to reinvigorate serious drama. It is an acknowledged imitation of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, and focuses on the last hours of the lives of its hero and heroine.

Alexas is Cleopatra’s servant and one of her close advisors. He often acts as Cleopatra’s messenger to Antony: for instance, he is the one who brings Antony Cleopatra’s ruby bracelet and persuades him to see her one last time, thus preventing his departure from Egypt.

If one were to take the play at face value, Antony is the play’s protagonist, and Octavius, his military rival, the antagonist. The conflict, then, is the military threat to Egypt, as well as the threat to Antony’s love affair with Cleopatra.

The significance of the title lies in that sacrificing “all” for love is a tragic mistake. The play has been interpreted as advice to Dryden’s patron, Thomas Osborne, the earl of Danby, to moderate his passion for his French-Catholic mistress, the Duchess of Portsmouth.

“All for love” on its own really doesn’t have a specific meaning, and as the title of a song, one could infer that it means that every action the artist takes is done because of the love he has for someone.

The messenger says that Octavia is “low-voiced,” and Cleopatra interprets this as meaning that she is “dull of tongue.” She then asks the messenger if there is “majesty in her gait,” and he replies, “She creeps.” Cleopatra is pleased by this description, and she compliments his “good judgment.”

Mark Antony and Cleopatra The queen gave birth to twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, but Antony was forced to return to Rome to deal with the aftermath of his wife and brother-in-law’s failed rebellion against Octavian.

In Egypt, Cleopatra learns of Antony’s marriage and flies into a jealous rage. However, when a messenger delivers word that Octavia is plain and unimpressive, Cleopatra becomes confident that she will win Antony back. This news angers Antony, as do the rumors that Caesar has been speaking out against him in public.

Antony sends Octavia back to Rome to try to renew peace. Antony himself goes on to Egypt to raise an army with Cleopatra. Caesar, disgusted by Antony’s abandonment of Octavia, declares war on Antony and Cleopatra. Despite Enobarbus’s advice, Antony decides to fight at sea at Actium.

Honor, Loyalty, and Betrayal Antony and Cleopatra takes place at a time of serious political turmoil and civil strife, with leaders rising and falling, as Fulvia, Pompey, Lepidus, Octavius, Antony, and Cleopatra all jostle for political power.

Antony and Cleopatra (First Folio title: The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The play was first performed, by the King’s Men, at either the Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe Theatre in around 1607; its first appearance in print was in the Folio of 1623.

The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra details the affair between Antony of Roman fame and Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, and the ensuing complications that arise from the triumvirate that was formed after the assassination of Julius Caesar.

Cleopatra first began her legendary love affair with the Roman general Mark Antony in 41 B.C. Their relationship had a political component—Cleopatra needed Antony to protect her crown and maintain Egypt’s independence, while Antony needed access to Egypt’s riches and resources—but they were also famously fond of each …