"Empty Space" in Antony and Cleopatra; close reading

Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shalt be shown
In Rome, as well as I mechanic slaves
With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall
Uplift us to the view; in their thick breaths,
Rank of gross diet, shall be enclouded,
And forced to drink their vapour.
Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras: saucy lictors
Will catch at us, like strumpets; and scald rhymers
Ballad us out o' tune: the quick comedians
Extemporally will stage us, and present
Our Alexandrian revels; Antony
Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see
Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
I' the posture of a whore. (Cleopatra; 5.2.203-217)

Cleopatra warns her attendant Iras that if they are to be taken back to Rome their bodies will be “puppet[s]”, “mechan[ical]” objects devoid of self control. Without control over her own body, Cleopatra will merely be a “slave” of the people and she will be forced, among other things, to assume the expected role of the woman: “greasy aprons” and “rules”. Her body as a puppet is further conveyed with the notion of having being “forced to drink [the Romans] vapour” - Cleopatra will not only lose control of her body - she will be forced, perhaps injected, with the “vapour”, or ideology, of Romans. This sexual innuendo further suggests that Cleopatra will lose her ability to make sexual decisions on her own. The extent to which Cleopatra uses bodily imagery and the loss of control of the body in this monologue strengthens the notion of her body as an empty space. She realizes that surrendering her body to Rome will result in the masses forcing their expected, assumed, and fantastical notions of who “Cleopatra” should be in their eyes. At no better point in this monologue does Cleopatra, and ultimately Shakespeare, convey the body as an “empty space” than with the invocation of metatheatre; Cleopatra is worried that she and Iras will be commoditized as “scald rhymers / ballad us out o’tune: the quick comedians / extemporally will stage us…I shall see / some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness / I’the posture of a whore.” Cleopatra realizes that once her body is able to be portrayed however the masses wish it to be (i.e. at a playhouse), she will have lost all individuality and solely be the subject of the peoples’ intents. She will be presented, as she was in act two scene five, before she was aware of her body’s relation to her persona, as “the posture of a whore” - i.e. that which the masses demand her to be portrayed as.

Michael Dacks Milliken
TA Ian Hoch; discussion 1b