“….and lighted the little O, the earth”: Antony and

Cleopatra and the Sun

As a tribute to Giordano Bruno, I wrote this paper in the style he often used, a dialogue.

Cesarino: It is said that people sometimes play a game called “hot & cold”. One player

hides something and the others look for it. When someone gets close to the hidden

object the one who has hidden it cries out “hotter!” or “burning hot!” However, when

the seeker gets further away, the hider calls out “colder! Freezing cold”

Trefilo: Indeed, it is an amusing game that I have often played. But why do you bring

up this topic now, during a typhoon?

Cesarino: I have been spending the long rainy day in this old wooden house in the

mountains of Western Japan reading through an amusing text by a famous but dead

Shakespeare scholar named Frank Kermode.

Trefilo: I do recall his name. But how is he connected to the game you mentioned

earlier?

Cesarino: I have been applauding his efforts in an essay on the play Antony and

Cleopatra Sir Frank contributed many years ago to my ancient college textbook, The

Riverside Shakespeare which was published in 1974 (although my edition is the sixth

printing and I bought it in 1984). He perpetually comes so close to the heart of the

matter! When he does, I want to scream out “hot! Burning hot!” But he never manages

to open the lid to get the hidden prize out, though he circles in a meandering way around

the box. It’s very frustrating.

Trefilo: Could you provide an illustration of your thesis?

Cesarino: I’d be obliged to; here on page 1346, let me read it for you

“…when Antony disintegrates in the fourth act, it seems like an age is ending…”

Teofilo: I already know what you will say next.

Cesarino: You know me so well. Shakespeare was so focused on the idea of the planet

Earth turning and turning and going around and around the sun……It is a mesmerizing

image, I agree….A substitute shines brightly as a king until a king be by…..

Teofilo: That particular line, I happen to know, is from The Merchant of Venice. But I

see what you are trying to say.

That substitute, you have told me many times, was coal. The age was the new industrial

age. But we digress from the matter at hand. Did you notice any other hot or cold places

in Kermode’s essay?

Cesarino: Yes. For example, Kermode is again really burning hot when he points out on

page 1344 that “There is the evidence of the opening lines, usually a strong indication of

the moral line to be taken in a Shakespeare play.” That is true again and again in most if

not all of Shakespeare’s plays---and people would have done well to examine the first

lines of Romeo and Juliet more closely with Kermode’s excellent idea as a guide. But

then he reads the opening line of Antony and Cleopatra as evidence that ---I

quote---“Antony’s Egyptian dotage has subdued his Roman virtue”. Why add

complexity to something very simple? Ergo, Kermode gets freezing cold after his

promising start.

Teofilo: Could you expand a bit on the first lines of Antony and Cleopatra?

Cesarino: Looking at the first sentence of the play, which fill line 1 and half of line 2, it

is very simple: “Nay, but this dotage of our general’s overflows the measure.” It is just

that Antony is reaching the end of his life. He is the sun figure---the sun economy---in

the secret allegory buried under the surface of the play, and his situation indeed mirrors

the state of the sun economy in England in the early years of 1600. It was dying and

being replaced by a fossil-fuel-based market economy. “Overflows the measure” is a

very clever turn of phrase. For one thing, the whole play, with its lines that are

measures, is overflowing with sun, moon, star and earth imagery that is connected

especially with Antony. For another, Philo, the character who speaks this line, means to

express impatience and exasperation with Antony. In fact, it is probably true that almost

all people leave the old solar economy as fast as they can when fossil fuels become

available. They are impatient to become wealthy and exasperated by the old and slow

ways.

Teofilo: Can you give me some examples in the play of this “overflowing of

measures”? And, my second question, if I may ask two at once, is why Shakespeare

promised such a thing---an overflowing of poetry about the end of the sun economy---

right from the start?

Cesarino: To answer your second question first, it seems that Shakespeare’s state of

mind by the time he wrote this play may have been ripe for exaggerating or overplaying

the theme. And so, I can provide you with many, many examples in Antony and

Cleopatra of imagery to do with the word “earth” or “heaven” or “world”, and these are

clustered around Antony, either addressed to him or said by him. Cosmic imagery

therefore sticks to him and he is the cosmos, or the cosmic reality of an earth powered

only by the sun. The sun, the heavens that is, the environment surrounding the earth,

was the only provider of heat and light---Giordano Bruno called the sun “the author of

life”---until coal. That relationship is a cosmic and fundamental thing for Shakespeare

and essentially, Antony is the sun and Cleopatra is the material generated by the sun, the

society powered by the sun in this play. When he dies, then she---symbolically the

generated life springing from the sun’s energy---dies too.

For example:

Philo calls Antony “The triple pillar of the world” (I.i.12)

Antony says to Cleopatra “Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth”

(I.i.17)

Antony says “By the fire that quickens Nilus’ slime, I go from hence…” (I.iii.68-9)

It is particularly interesting because it shows the generative effect of the sun, and it is

notable that Antony is swearing by the sun “by the fire…” and recalling the process of

“quickening”, which means life being brought forth. The Nile is often associated with

Cleopatra.

Antony: “O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more…” (IV.xii.18)

Eros will not kill Antony and instead kills himself. Before he dies, however, Eros

suggests that he will obey Antony’s command to kill him, and Eros requests Antony to

“turn from me then that noble countenance wherein the worship of the whole world

lies” (IV.xiv.84-6)

This is a reference to the way that the sun was once a sacred cosmic entity. The use of

“countenance” is very clever since it can mean face but it can also just mean a vaguer

image.

And when Antony dies, there are images of a light going out, a star falling or the sun

burning itself out. Giordano Bruno posited that the sun was simply one of many stars.

When the star that is Antony falls, it is a coded way to reference Bruno’s idea.

2 Guard “The star is fall’n”

1 Guard: And time is at his period. (IV.xiv.107-8)

Cleopatra “O sun, burn the great sphere thou mov’st in! darkling stand the varying shore

of the world” (IV.xv.10-11)

Cleopatra “Our lamp is spent, it’s out” (IV.xv.85)

Or look at the most famous lines of all…..

Cleopatra: His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck

A sun and moon, which kept their course,

and lighted

The little O, the earth. (V.ii.78-9)

And to answer your second question----about why Shakespeare thought from the

beginning that he would fill the play with earth and heaven imagery----remember that

this is a later play, probably from 1606. He had seen coal become more and more

ubiquitous and accepted over his lifetime. So what better way to pay a sad tribute to the

end of the primacy of the sun economy in Britain, honoring it as a noble, generous and

yet attractively humble fallen warrior, than with an barraging poetic salute of sorts? On

page 1344 of the Riverside Shakespeare, Kermode notes with wonder that “the word

world occurs some forty-five times in the play”---it is another place when I thought “oh,

he’s getting hotter and hotter!” But he missed the real significance. The world would

have been nothing without the warmth and energy of the sun.

Teofilo: Speaking of the warmth and energy of the sun, could you tell me if there are

any lines that point to the influence of Bruno’s ideas?

Cesarino: A few lines in Antony and Cleopatra definitely seem to echo Bruno’s great

dialogue The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, which contains many references to the

religion of the ancient Egyptians, including Isis. In one famous line from the play,

Lepidus says to Antony:

Your serpent of Egypt is bred now out of your mud by the operation of your

sun. So is your crocodile. (II.vii.26-8)

This line, of course, directly points to the processes whereby the energy of the sun is

used to generate and sustain life on earth. Bruno notably pointed out this role of the sun

in the introduction of The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast when he calls the sun “the

father of substances, the author of life”1. Bruno’s idea, though vague, is scientific from

our standpoint. He means the processes of what we now call photosynthesis and the

circulation of energy through a system through the life forms. Shakespeare, in this line,

meant exactly the same thing.

Furthermore, look at this line in The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast:

From this you can infer how the wisdom of the Egyptians, which is lost,

worshiped (sic.) not only the earth, the moon, the sun, and other stars of the

heaven but also crocodiles, lizards and serpents.2

Both this sentence and Lepidus’ lines contain the words “serpent”, “crocodile”, “sun”,

and “Egypt” and they are referencing similar ideas. Moreover, the way that the sun is

1 The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast by Giordano Bruno (1585). Translated by Arthur D. Imerti. Published by U. Nebraska Press (1969, reprinted 1992). Page 69.2 Ibid. page 241.

referred to as one of the stars of the heavens is something echoed in the line in Antony

and Cleopatra about Antony being a ‘fallen star’.

Teofilo: But are Shakespeare and Bruno really referencing similar ideas here? Bruno

seems to be talking about religion, while Shakespeare seems to be talking about

thermodynamics.

Cesarino: For you to understand the connection, it is necessary for me to present the

whole passage leading up to the lines in The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast. It is a

bit long, but nevertheless I will read it to you:

So then, that God, as an absolute, has nothing to do with us except

insofar as he communicates with the effects of Nature and is more

intimate with them than Nature herself. Therefore, if he is not Nature

herself, he is certainly the soul of Nature, and is the Soul of the world, if

he is not the Soul herself. However, according to the special reasons that

they wanted to accommodate to themselves before him in the manner of

ordered species, just as he who wants bread goes to the baker, he who

wants wine goes to the cellarer, he who longs for fruit goes to the

gardener, he who wants instruction goes to the master, and the same

applies to all other things. Likewise, one Goodness, one Happiness, one

Absolute Principle of all riches and fortunes, contracted into various

laws, pours forth gifts according to the exigencies of particular beings.

From this, you can infer how the wisdom of the Egyptians, which is lost,

worshipped not only the earth, the moon, the sun, and other stars of the

heaven but also crocodiles, lizards, serpents, onions.3

Teofilo: I understand. I have heard, indeed, that one of Bruno’s heresies was a concept

of religion as “immanence”.

Cesarino: Where exactly did you hear it? Can you point to a book and a page number?

Teofilo: Well, I, ummm.

Cesarino: Allow me to quote from the Editor’s introduction of The Expulsion of the

3 Pages 240-241

Triumphant Beast; this section is entitled ‘The Heretical Premises of Lo Spaccio’

Certainly, the most heretical aspect of Bruno’s philosophy in Lo spaccio is his

concept of a religion of nature, derived from his doctrine of “immanence”.

In developing his concept of “Immanence,” Bruno establishes the premise

that “animals and plants are the living effects of Nature,” which, he declares,

is nothing else but God in things,” or expressed in other terms, “natura est

deus in rebus.” This, according to Bruno, the universe is an emanation of the

Deity within it. Referring to Bruno’s universe, Spaventa declares that it is not

the tomb of dead divinity,” but rather “the seat of the living divinity….the

true and only life of God.” Bruno’s divinity, since he is the substance of all

things, cannot limit or divorce himself from his infinite universe; for,

according to Cassirer, in Bruno’s universe, “the one and infinite substance

cannot but help reveal itself, in an infinity of effects.” Consequently, potency

and act coincide in the Deity; and he is one and the same with the reality that

emanates from him.4

Teofilo: I see. Thermodynamics and photosynthesis---two of these acts---are not

different from the Bruno’s idea of a Deity. The strong possibility arises that Shakespeare

shared the idea. The operation of the sun is not different from the religion of nature

which includes this operation.

Now, let me add something a bit unusual, but since we both live in Japan, does not this

religious notion sound similar to Shinto, a nature religion enormous yet unifying in its

scope?

Cesarino: You may be right. But it is an unnecessary digression.

Teofilo: My apologies.

Cesarino: Looking again at the line where Eros requests Antony to “turn from me then

that noble countenance wherein the worship of the whole world lies” (IV.xiv.84-6)---

Shakespeare was very aware of the sun as a focus in nature religions that were a

previous social force in Europe and elsewhere. His view of the sun was many faceted:

religious and cosmic entity, scientific provider of sustenance, shaper of societies and

4 Page 45

economies.

Returning to Lepidus’ line again, Lepidus uses the colloquialism “your” as he addresses

Antony: “your crocodile”, “your sun”, your serpent” and so forth. Once again, these

animals, and the sun, and so forth, get associated with Antony through this play on

language.

Teofilo: Getting back to the notion of different kinds of economies, how about lines in

Antony and Cleopatra that seem to indicate coal?

Cesarino: Those are the very saddest lines in the play!! Moreover, in early plays, like

Othello, Shakespeare needed a coal figure, in the case of that play, Iago, who embodied

poison, darkness and smoke. Rosaline in Romeo and Juliet is another. But it seems to

me as though he no longer needed a coal figure by the time he wrote Antony and

Cleopatra. He had gone beyond the simpler allegories he first created. Probably he

developed in a way that was closer to Bruno’s unifying vision.

Therefore it is entirely appropriate that Antony, the voice of the cosmos as the sun

economy passes away or gives way to the coal economy, speaks the lines that are about

clouds and vapors and darkness:

Antony: Eros, thou yet behold’st me?

Eros: Ay, noble lord.

Sometimes we see a cloud that's dragonish;

A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,

A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock,

A forked mountain, or blue promontory

With trees upon't, that nod unto the world,

And mock our eyes with air: thou hast seen

these signs;

They are black vesper's pageants.

Antony : Sometimes we see a cloud that's dragonish;

A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,

A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock,

A forked mountain, or blue promontory

With trees upon't, that nod unto the world,

And mock our eyes with air: thou hast seen

these signs;

They are black vesper's pageants.

Eros: Ay, my lord.

Antony: That which is now a horse, even with a thought

The rack dislimns and makes it indistinct as water is in water.

Eros: It does, my lord.

Antony: My good knave Eros, now thy captain is

Even such a body. Here I am Antony,

Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave. (IV.xii.1-14)

Teofilo: I see. The economy based on the sun just dissolved and slowly disappeared.

Night falls on the sun. Black vesper’s pageants.

Cesarino: Just so.

Teofilo: And Cleopatra? She dies too.

Cesarino: In the allegory, she is the “life quickened in the Nile”, the society that lived

with the sun. It died as well.

Teofilo: I notice that after she dies, Charmian says:

…Downy windows, close,

And golden Phoebus never be beheld

Of eyes again so royal! (V.ii.316-8)

The view of the sun must have changed slowly.

Cesarino: Indeed, and speaking of changes, Bruno himself put forth the concept of

vicissitudes, a universe in constant flux.

Finally, in light of the idea of looking up at light in the sky and of the idea of change, it

is interesting to notice that one great scholar of Bruno has noted that “Bruno’s symbol

of philanthropy was the dolphin---that most gentle of creatures that swims through an

ocean of infinitely changing waters, while constantly attempting to reach the light of a

sky it can only occasionally glimpse.”5

Teofilo: And are there any dolphins in Antony and Cleopatra?

Cesarino: There is the term “dolphin-like” to describe Antony. It is used in some lines

of Cleopatra’s which underline Antony’s cosmic function and identity. It is just possible

that the term “dolphin-like” may be a small salute to Bruno’s own positive cosmic

vision:

His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear'd arm

Crested the world: his voice was propertied

As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;

But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,

He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,

There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas

That grew the more by reaping: his delights

Were dolphin-like; they show'd his back above

The element they lived in: in his livery

Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were

As plates dropp'd from his pocket. (V.ii.82-92)

The End

5 Essays on Giordano Bruno by Hilary Gatti. “How a Tranquil Universal Philosophy Ended in a Fire”. Page 321.