“And you shall see in him / The triple pillar of the world transformed / Into a strumpet’s fool.”
The play begins in the middle of the affair between Antony and Cleopatra. Antony is in Egypt and here, Philo predicts what will happen if he stays with Cleopatra. Philo sees Antony's relationship with Cleopatra as a regression that will eventually lead to his "fall" from a powerful member of the Roman triumvirate to a mere play thing for the Egyptian queen.
"My salad days, / When I was green in judgement, cold in blood."
Here, Cleopatra makes one of many references throughout the play to her younger self, the same young woman who had a famous affair with Julius Caesar. The term "salad days" emphasizes the greenness and youth of her former self, who enjoyed life with pleasure and decadence and with little care for others.
"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety. Other women cloy / The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry / Where most she satisfies.”
Perhaps one of the most famous Shakespearean quotations, this description of Cleopatra by Enobarbus emphasizes her ever-changing and capricious personality. This "infinite variety" stands in stark contrast to Roman order and predictability, and is one of the reasons – Enobarbus argues – that Cleopatra is so enticing to Roman generals and officials.
"Celerity is never more admired / Than by the negligent.”
Here, Cleopatra argues that swiftness and agility are admired most by lazy men. This quotation is famous as a type of aphorism that, within the play, is actually an insult that Cleopatra lodges at the Roman army when they are surprised to hear their enemy has traveled a long distance so quickly.
"I found you as a morsel cold upon / Dead Caesar’s trencher."
This is not the only time in the play that someone refers to Cleopatra as a "morsel," and this language underscores the Roman obsession with her decadence and sensuality. It also alludes to Julius Caesar, Cleopatra's earlier lover from her younger days, as Antony suggests that he saved Cleopatra from despair after Caesar's death.
"The odds is gone / And there is nothing left remarkable / Beneath the visiting moon."
Cleopatra utters these words just after Antony dies. In a dramatic declaration that the world has essentially ended along with Antony's life, she argues that there is nothing worth living for anymore. Antony's death thus foreshadows Cleopatra's suicide as she realizes she can no longer enjoy life without him.
“Antony / Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see / Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness / I’th’posture of a whore.”
One of the most famous passages from the play, Cleopatra argues that if she does not commit suicide, she will be captured and mocked. This particular quotation is itself meta-theatrical, because Cleopatra argues that her legacy will be reenacted by a young boy on stage – which, in early modern England, was precisely the case; female characters in Shakespeare's plays were played by boys or young men while their voices were still high enough ("squeaking") to feign femininity.
“Now boast thee, death, in thy possession lies / A lass unparalleled.”
Much like Cleopatra laments Antony's death by exclaiming that the world has lost all remarkable features, here her maid Charmian laments Cleopatra by telling death that he can "boast" of "possessing" Cleopatra. Charmian highlights both her dedication to the queen and Cleopatra's own unparalleled nature that is celebrated throughout the play.
“Give me my robe. Put on my crown. I have / Immortal longings in me."
When Cleopatra dies, she does so with a decadent show: she asks for her queenly regalia so that she can enter "immortality" still a queen. This quotation emphasizes Cleopatra's strength and autonomy as she refuses to craft a legacy for herself that is anything other than powerful and unrivaled.
“She shall be buried by her Antony, / No grave upon the earth shall clip in it / A pair so famous.”
As the play concludes, order is restored despite the deaths of both Antony and Cleopatra. Here, Caesar celebrates the couple for their unparalleled fame, vowing to protect their union forever.
