Antony and Cleopatra

Antony and Cleopatra begins two years after Julius Caesar. Mark Antony was supposed to be in Egypt to conduct government affairs on behalf of the Roman Empire. Instead, he fell in love with the beautiful Queen Cleopatra, became her lover, and abandoned his duties to his wife and country. A messenger arrives bearing news that Antony's wife and brother are dead after attempting to kill Octavius Caesar, and one of Caesar's generals, Pompey, is gathering an army against the Roman leaders. Mark Antony has no choice but to return to Rome. When Antony returns to the capital, he argues with Caesar over his loyalty to the empire and the other triumvirs. The only way that Antony can prove his fidelity to Caesar is to marry his sister, Octavia. The news of this marriage makes its way back to Egypt and its queen. The play was published in 1606 after the great success of Macbeth. This Standard Ebooks edition is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wright's 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe edition. Perfect for readers who crave epic tales of passion, power, and political intrigue, this timeless Shakespearean masterpiece delivers unforgettable characters caught between love and duty. Experience one of literature's greatest tragic romances as it unfolds against the backdrop of crumbling empires and shifting loyalties. Shakespeare's poetic genius brings ancient history to vivid life in this essential drama that continues to captivate audiences four centuries later. The source for this public-domain ebook is Standard Ebooks (standardebooks.org). Ebooks from other sources often have typos, inconsistent spelling, missing accent marks, and missing punctuation. Ebooks from Standard Ebooks are proofread line by line against a scan of the original printed pages, then proofread again from cover to cover. They are also formatted and typeset following a professional-grade style manual, resulting in new editions supporting state-of-the-art ereader technology: automatic hyphenation, popup footnotes, complete and consistent metadata, high-resolution and scalable vector graphics, and ereader-compatible tables of contents. All of this makes the finished ebooks accurate, functional, and beautiful, a pleasure to read. (Waking Lion Press is not affiliated with or endorsed by Standard Ebooks.)