The Gender Dynamics of Fortune and Opportunity on
the Renaissance Stage
Joey van der Ham 10361812
Dr. Kristine Johanson
MA Thesis Literary Studies – Literary Culture - English, University of Amsterdam 30th June 2016
Abstract
This thesis discusses how in the early modern plays Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra and The
Duchess of Malfi, Shakespeare and Webster respectively used the complex language and
culture of kairos as a means to explore the complicated gender dynamics in these plays and subsequently to express, subvert and reinforce contemporary attitudes towards women.
The study examines several eminent plays of the English Renaissance theatre, focusing on Jacobean tragedies with powerful and manipulative female characters to highlight how kairos reconfigures the women’s potential for agency, but also how kairos modulates the men’s understanding of the opportune moment. In Macbeth, Shakespeare explores the aspects of kairos specifically through Machiavellianism, of which Macbeth and Lady Macbeth become both advocates and fatal byproducts. Contrastively, in Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare explores kairos through the idleness and the failure of the titular protagonists to act propitiously and correctly interpret the opportune moment. a close reading of Webster’s
The Duchess of Malfi reveals how that playwright navigates kairos-related concerns and
anxieties similar to those of Shakespeare, but places more emphasis on the act of foreseeing and allows its powerful heroine more leniency in regards to the ethical valuation of her character in light of her embodiment as fortune.
The thesis draws on critical readings of these playwright’s Jacobean tragedies, as well as recent scholarly research done on kairos, time and fortune to synthesize a complex model of kairos for the Renaissance stage that further develops an on-going understanding of the early modern gender dynamics in Shakespeare’s and Webster’s plays.
Table of Contents
Introduction……… 4 Chapter 1:“To beguile the time / Look like the time”: Exploring Kairos,
Machiavellianism, and Witchcraft in Macbeth………...12 Chapter 2:The Glass Ceiling of Prophecy: Gendering Fortune and
Opportunity in Antony and Cleopatra………..19 Chapter 3:“Labouring men / Count the clock oftenest”: Time, Witchcraft
and Fortune in The Duchess of Malfi………31 Conclusion………...42 Works Cited………44
Introduction
When Hamlet, in one of the most quoted monologues in the history of English literature, ponders,
To be, or not to be; that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
or take up arms against a sea of troubles (3.1.58-61)
he demonstrates to the audience his great capacity for existential thought, while conversely he also motivates his inability to avenge his father. The more rudimentary inquiry underscoring Hamlet’s quandary in these lines can alternatively be interpreted as to where he should or should not act: will he choose to “take up arms” or will he choose to “suffer” through “outrageous fortune”? Thus, in the dilemma of this soliloquy Hamlet opens up the more basic human question of how one decides when it is the right moment to act or respond to any considerable event in one’s life. In these lines, Shakespeare yokes the question of when to act together with a specific attentiveness to the role of “outrageous fortune”, and in doing so participates in a wider on-going rhetorical examination of the opportune moment during the English Renaissance. This examination is centered on the classical trope of kairos, which denoted the theoretical notion of the opportune moment. This thesis will argue that in the plays Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra and The Duchess of Malfi, Shakespeare and Webster used the complex language of kairos as a means to explore the complicated gender dynamics in these plays and subsequently to express, subvert and reinforce contemporary attitudes towards women.
One of the most important advancements during the Renaissance that re-invested the significance of kairos was the invention of the mechanical clock and the consequential rediscovery of time. Although this development has a strong link to the rapid growth of early capitalism, as clocks provided more efficient means to manage business, many other scholars of horology, such as Quinones in his analysis of Renaissance time, have also concluded that this progress shows a paramount “transformation in the frame and life of a society” (Quinones 5) on a social level. The mechanical clock that allowed for a more accessible and convenient compartmentalization of time renewed a philosophical interest in considering temporality and how people employed their now more visibly limited time that had been more invisible after the classical period and during the medieval period. Primarily, people were urged to make good use of time, and the previously quoted Hamlet soliloquy hints at the pertinent anxiety over the individual doing the opposite – of being idle, hesitating and staying inactive. Indeed,
in his essay on several philosophical texts of Renaissance that concerned themselves with anxiety over the Christian soul to fall into sinful idleness, Kearney notes how writers considered that “idleness [represented a threat] to the individual Christian soul” (Kearney 587). The rhetoric that foregrounds this anxiety over the individual making virtuous use of their time has its roots in the classical Greek concept of kairos – the particular moment that offers a convenient opportunity for doing or not doing something. Renaissance playwrights incorporated this concept in their dramas through various ways, particularly through the language and actions of their characters. The linguistic and figurative inclusion of this trope on the stage, is primarily expressed through the characters giving and seeking counsel to predominantly male figures. Yet, kairos has further complications for the female characters who through their sex are doubly bound to comply with Renaissance rules of decorum and to such an extent, kairos. Another layer that further adds to the complexities and anxieties of kairos is the fact that kairos also represented a moral flexibility; for the individual to achieve their goals, certain writers such as Machiavelli, allowed for a certain ethical looseness that contemporaries saw as problematic. In her own writing on the morality of kairos, Benedikt affirms that kairos leads individuals “toward an even larger ideal for ethical action: the right person doing the right thing at the right time and for the right reasons” (Benedikt 232). Thus, scholarly writing further accentuates kairos by underpinning its impact on Renaissance morality and ethics. In their plays, Shakespeare and Webster used the multifaceted language of kairos and the contemporary anxieties over its ramifications as a means to negotiate how the hetero-social relationships and power structures are affected by contemporary anxieties over propitious behavior.
Understanding Kairos
Such an analysis of the relation between kairos and gender requires an intricate understanding of what kairos means, and consequently requires an outline of its complex history, conceptual density, and mode of expression. From its ancient Greek origins, kairos, in its earliest incarnation, referred to a “favorable moment for archers to loosen their arrows and hit their mark” (Sipiora 3), denoting specifically a “vital or lethal place in the body” (Sipiora 3). However, this meaning rapidly developed more symbolic and temporal connotations. The Oxford English dictionary defines kairos as the “[f]ullness of time; the propitious moment for the performance of an action or the coming into being of a new state” (“kairos, n.”). This modern definition of kairos joins two congruent interpretations of kairos: as the progression of time until something occurs — the proverbial “fullness of time”, and as the moment in which
it is opportune to do or do not do something that change the individual’s lived world, the bringing about “of a new state”; these two definitions showcase that kairos rapidly evolved from its association to archery. Both interpretations are equally germane to the discussion of kairos, however the latter interpretation, which draws attention to role of agency in bringing about change, is especially relevant to this discussion. Indeed, in her seminal article on the importance of kairos in Renaissance political thought, Joanne Paul observes that kairos stood “in opposition [to time] as a rare singularity” ( Paul 46) and worked contrastively against
chronos, a predetermined “linear sense of time” (Paul 46); kairos can thus be understood as
offering its recipients a unique moment in their life to exert their own will or abstain from doing so, manipulating the flow of events and their fate in either case.
However, the multitudinous aspects of kairos defy such a straightforward construction, in part due to its conflation with other concepts and theories. Kairos possesses a semantically loaded connection not only to chronos, but also to decorum, occasio and Fortuna. The meaning of occasio, the Latin word that is part of the origin of the modern occasion, appears synonymous to the meaning of kairos, as the philosopher Cicero understands occasio as “a period of time offering an opportunity for doing or not doing something” (79). Subsequently, the Latin occasio, taking precedence over the Greek kairos as synonym, reduced the actual occurrence of kairos as a word, and most of the artistic representations of kairos had thus become equivalent to the artistic rendering of occasio. Additionally, in their inquiry into kairos or occasio, sophist tracts particularly focused on the role of decorum. The dialogues of these tracts focused on how individuals, can recognize opportunities and when or how to act upon those opportunities, particularly in regards of how to advise rulers to achieve this. In his essay of classical kairos and decorum, Hughes writes how in ancient Greek debates, orators struggled and admired the ability of “sizing up the kairos presented by each performance and then addressing it within the bounds of decorum” (Hughes 128). The admiration these classicists had for striking the balance between admits a close connection between the two concepts. These dialogues also had a tendency to vaguely conclude that counselors should speak out and encourage their ruler to act when it was on a matter they had knowledge, or when they felt urged to speak out, generally arguing against sycophantic placating of rulers as well as silence and most importantly, speaking out of turn or broaching a subject at a wrong time or situation. Accordingly, to act kairotically meant to follow the rules of decorum, to talk or perform something when it is “proper or fitting” (Hughes 129), cementing the intertwining of the two similar concepts.
Fig. 1. Aegidius Sadeler. “Gelegenheid / Occasio”. Engraving of occasio from 1580
showcasing the figure’s key elements such as the ship in the background and the winged ball and the character’s femininity.
Fig. 2. Andrea Alciato. “In Occasionem”. Depiction of occasio from a 1591 emblem book, illustrating the winged feet, forelock, but also the figure’s association with the sea and ships.
Thirdly, Fortuna, connected to chronos or the Latin tempus, referred primarily to the symbol of fortune or fate, and indicated the immutable fate of mankind. Although Fortuna in this sense seems dissimilar to occasio or kairos, Kiefer observes how the two were conflated during the Renaissance, specifically in their iconography. Fortuna was usually depicted in emblem books as blind and/or with her wheel, and acquired the visual characteristics of the depiction of occasio, such as a forelock, a razor, and winged feet. On the previous page I have reproduced two images of occasio from Renaissance emblem books. Figure one illustrates occasio on the winged ball, and its connection to naval imagery. Figure two illustrates how the same figure of occasio was also represented with aspects typical to
Fortuna: instead of being on a ball, occasio now stands on a wheel. Kiefer, in his article on
this symbolic conflation, emphasizes that what underlines the habitual joining of occasio with
Fortuna or fortune was that that latter did not become “powerless, but rather that Fortune is
potentially malleable, that man can, at least sometimes, wrest advantage from her mutability” (Kiefer 8). The suggestion in Kiefer’s interpretation of the symbolic conflation of these two ideas is that the iconic and theoretic conceptualization of Fortuna is intimately linked to kairos. Kairos transplanted the immutability of Fortuna, and subsequently in Renaissance thinking and representation the latter concept came to suggest that the individual might have some power over her and could adjust their own destiny instead of being helpless to change it. Rather than mankind’s fate being immutable, the individual was now viewed as having the potency to slightly manipulate Fortuna/fate in their favor. In his own analysis of decorum and temporality in Renaissance rhetoric, Baumlin, partially responding to Kiefer’s own arguments in these lines, suggests a clear cut divide in the Renaissance understanding of occasio and
Fortuna, writing that “[i]n this sense, the relationship between Occasio and Fortuna can be
charted as cause and effect; Occasio representing that unique moment when an individual’s fortune is “set in motion […]. If occasio provides the means Fortuna suggests the consequences” (155); Again, occasio, and by extension, kairos, can still be understood as the moment when the individual can assert their own will, by observing or interpreting Fortuna’s wheel in motion and acting appropriately – ultimately underscoring the relation between the two. These analyses of the complex links kairos has to different rhetorical and symbolic concepts illustrates the diversity in which ideas concerning the opportune moment for the individual were expressed both in language and in image.
Thus, for the purpose of this thesis, kairos will be understood as this complex chimeric construction that has just been outlined; kairos exists in a wide spectrum of related classical ideas, occasio, Fortuna and chronos, that all centralize the individual’s renewed capacity and
necessity for agency by emphasizing the importance of the opportune moment. To provide a definition on the most basic level, kairos will be understood as the opportune moment for the individual to not do or do something, the moment for the individual to exact their own agency permanently alter the lived-in world. Yet, to fully appreciate the application of kairos and the various interpretations of this trope, including its extension into occasio¸ decorum and
Fortuna will be considered both symbolically and iconographically in Shakespeare’s and
Webster’s writing, in the sense that their writing both refer to these tropes as abstract concepts and use their iconographic imagery in their metaphors. From this point on, I will refer to Fortuna by fortune instead, as this is the most spelling method it in Jacobean drama. This brief but broad framework of kairos has been provided to bear in mind all the different derivatives of this trope, as they will be revisited in the close readings of the next chapters. Shakespeare’s and Webster’s manifestation of kairos includes its dense semantic overload, and thus demands a manifold reading so that no hints or suggestions of kairos through the form of occasio or fortune will slip away in this examination.
Opportunity and Fortune in Renaissance Drama
The conceptualization of kairos is further complicated by its verbal expression on stage and its development during the English Renaissance. Although the previous framework briefly touches on the topic of kairos in the Renaissance period, such as in Baumlin’s analysis, most of this analysis has been provided by the historic development of kairos up until the Renaissance. As a fundamental part of the Renaissance, humanist education included classical thinkers by definition, and thus Renaissance writers and theorists would have doubtlessly encountered the classical philosophical treatises on the subject of kairos and opportunity. Indeed, contemporary Renaissance authors explicitly notes the relevancy of this trope, as one of these period’s authors wrote that “the Image of opportunitie was set up in many places that men might remember to let no occasion slip” (Felippe, 58). Felippe highlights occasio as a reminder of the passing of moments and urges individuals to act and make good use of their time, “to let no occasion slip”, a moral lesson that is pondered in Hamlet’s famous soliloquy. Another aspect that inflects the language of Renaissance authors writing on opportunity is gender, which is auspiciously present in their texts. For example, Machiavelli, who writes in his Discourses that “it is better to be impetuous than cautious, because Fortune is a woman and it is necessary, in order to keep her under, to cuff and maul her” (92). Machiavelli’s violent language reveals an explicit misogynistic tone in its advice, where the symbolic fortune is equated to real women, who both have to be physically
assaulted in order for men to control them. English Renaissance playwrights were undoubtedly aware of Machiavelli’s writing, although the translation of his writing was not yet printed in England, his name had already entered the vernacular in a derogatory sense; a “Machiavel” (3.2.192), as Shakespeare’s Richard III claims himself to be in Henry IV Part 3, carried the sense of a “master of intrigue” (Crystal 271) or a “political schemer” (Crystal 271). This usage thus suggests that Shakespeare would have read or been aware of Machiavelli’s writing and could have potentially, like his contemporary playwrights who shared educational and reading background, have utilized or explored the misogynistic language that pervades this trope.
Furthermore, this thesis will analyze the plays written by the English Renaissance playwrights Shakespeare and Webster, focusing on the female characters and language use in their Jacobean tragedies. In relating kairos to Jacobean drama, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, first published in 1603, has been the forerunner as the object of analysis in various scholarly writing, seen as a landmark play that is the most invested in exploring issues of time and the anxiety of inaction. 1 To further add on the growing corpus of literary analysis of kairos in
light of Renaissance plays, the close readings of this thesis will consist of Shakespeare’s
Macbeth (1606) and Antony and Cleopatra (1607) and Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi
(1614), all critically acclaimed plays that also discuss the topic of kairos at length but have received less critical attention vis-à-vis this trope. These close readings will ultimately emphasize the ubiquitous presence and importance of kairos in Renaissance fiction writing. These first two plays by Shakespeare share a strong thematic overlap: they both include physical manifestations of fortune, the three witches in Macbeth and the soothsayer in Antony
and Cleopatra, which bears a lateral relation to the conceptualization of the opportune
moment through the iconographic conflation of occasio and Fortuna. These two plays, which stand-out in Shakespeare’s Jacobean stagings as containing the most compelling female anti-heroines, also explore female rulership and female Machavellenian or kairotic counsel. Similarly, Webster’s play The Duchess of Malfi also complicates its conceptualization of female rule, power and agency through link between kairos and the titular character of the Duchess. In the close reading of these plays I will primarily attend to the occurrence of words and phrases that hint at the playwrights’ consideration of kairos and any of its conceptual offshoots, such as “fortune”, “season”, “time” and “occasion”. The questions this thesis will 1 For examples of essays analyzing Hamlet through the lens of kairos, see James Baumlin’s “Chronos, Kairos,
Aion: Failures of Decorum, Right-Timing, and Revenge in Shakespeare’s Hamlet” in Rhetoric and Kairos
(Albany: State university of New York Press, 2002) or Sharon Beehler’s “‘Confederate Season’: Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Understanding of Kairos” in Shakespeare Matters: History, Teaching Performance (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2002).
strive to answer are thus: when verbally address the trope of kairos, opportunity or fortune, does the language of Shakespeare’s and Webster’s characters suggest a misogynistic attitude towards women? Do the women in these plays function as a site where men inscribe their opportunities, do they function as a symbolic manifestation of mystical fortune, or do they function as kairotic counselors? What are the consequences of this function for the gender dynamics in these tragedies? And finally, are the female characters in these plays capable or allowed to grasp their own opportune moment, thus suggesting their potential for agency?
The first chapter of this thesis will consist primarily of a close reading of Macbeth, analyzing in particular the relation between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s ambiguous Machiavellianism, the role of the witches’ prophecies and the witches themselves, Macbeth’s gladiatorial language, and the effect of these three themes for the gender dynamic in the play. Consequently, the second chapter will focus on a close reading of Shakespeare’s Antony and
Cleopatra, drawing a comparison between Macbeth’s witches and Antony and Cleopatra’s
soothsayer to reveal a misogynist difference in public prestige. This chapter will continue a comparative reading of this play with Macbeth in comparing Antony’s language to Macbeth’s. A third concern in this chapter is the staging of Cleopatra as the potential embodiment of occasio or Fortune. Lastly, in the final chapter contains a close reading of Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, which will similarly examine the role of prophecy, witchcraft but also the language, concepts and culture that surrounds kairos to further complicate the gender relations on the Jacobean stage.
This thesis shall demonstrate the development of the robust, broad and persuasive argument that in their Jacobean tragedies Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra and The Duchess of
Malfi, Shakespeare and Webster’s manifestation of kairos, including its conceptual density
and subsequent relations to ideas about occasio, fortune and prophesying witchcraft, is strongly affected by the role gender in expressing this trope on stage. Kairos subsequently informs, articulates and reinforces Renaissance contemporary ideas of women while also bringing these ideas into question. Ultimately, this thesis will add to the growing body of work being done to recover the importance of kairos in Renaissance writing by putting a spotlight on several plays and playwrights that have received less critical attention in this regard, while also further developing and adding to the intricate perspective on the complexity of female characters and agency on the Renaissance stage.
Exploring Kairos, Machiavellianism, and Witchcraft in Macbeth
To strike when the iron is hot is a proverb that finds its roots in Middle English, with its earliest written occurrence being when Chaucer wrote “right so as whil that iren is hoot men
sholden smyte” (Chaucer 219). While this maxim may prove perfectly logical to blacksmiths,
who know how to act appropriately when forging a blade, the figurative execution of this saying has necessitated byzantine philosophizing. The quest for finding answers for the questions, when is it the right time to act, how one behaves concordantly with present occasions, and so on, has its origins in an even earlier time. Greek philosophers concerned themselves with exactly these questions, focusing primarily on how they might advise leaders on acting opportunely, or act kairotically. Recently, the academic field has been uncovering the influence of this classical trope of kairos on Renaissance writing and thinking. Shakespeare, with his education at a grammar school and his reputation as a premier playwright, would have been keenly aware of the significance of behaving kairotically. In his play from 1606, Macbeth, Shakespeare sketches a complex outline of his attitude towards the ethical consequences of opportunistic behavior and counseling, an image that is heavily informed by a gender-inflected awareness of kairos.
First of all, Shakespeare posits the titular protagonist of Macbeth as the typical Machiavellian agent that rather than being controlled by fate, controls it himself. Macbeth aligns himself with Machiavelli’s construction of Fortune as the woman who has to be domesticated, as discussed in the introduction. Machiavelli cements the misogynistic overtone of the comparison of Fortune and man with the husband who has to keep his capricious wife in check, “it is better to be impetuous than cautious, because Fortune is a woman and it is necessary, in order to keep her under, to cuff and maul her” (Machiavelli 92). Machiavelli’s violent language showcases the close relation between an ethical attitude towards women and opportunity but also underscores that Renaissance men must, in the fashion of Machiavellianism, act violently when necessary to attain goals. This Machiavellianism resounds throughout Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and the Renaissance gender-inflected overlapping of Fortune, occasio and kairos greatly inform the nature of the individual’s potency for doing the right thing within the play. Macbeth’s relation to Machiavellianism would however be suspect, and would paint him as a villain. As mentioned the introduction, Machiavellianism was during the Renaissance associated with villainy. Yet, in her extensive book covering the role of Machavellenian rhetoric, Victoria Kahn nuances the Renaissance stance towards Machiavelli, writing that “Machiavellianism could also stand for something more complicated [than political antagonism]: the sphere of rhetorical politics in which
monarchy and republicanism, divine right and individual conscience are competing arguments ” (Kahn 133). The distinction Kahn adds to Machiavelli’s role in Renaissance debates showcase that contemporary opinion was more ambivalent rather than entirely antagonistic. Furthermore, Shakespeare's drama is richly packed with commitment to the power of fate and divine providence in its exploration of Machavellenian language. Yet, Shakespeare also plays close attention to the tension between Fortune and kairos in his plays. Macbeth already appears explicitly aware of Fortune as the shrew, who has to be tamed as early as the first scene in Macbeth, when Macbeth’s bravery against the rebellious MacDonald is reported,
And fortune on his damned quarry smiling Showed like a rebel’s whore. But all’s too weak, For Brave Macbeth – well he deserves that name! Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel (…)
Carved out his passage till he faced the slave (1.2.14-20).2
Shakespeare eagerly posits a conception of Fortune akin to that of Machiavelli. “”She has become a wanton woman, “a rebel’s whore”, who has to be ousted by the “Brave Macbeth”. Macbeth, clearly the active agent in this scenario, tames Fortune with his “brandished steel” and carves “out his own path”. While this brief report already highlights a link between Macbeth and Machiavellian philosophy, it also suggests that Macbeth can supplant through his own agency, prefiguring the prominence of kairos in his behavior. Note also that MacDonald, on who Fortune initially smiles, becomes her “slave”. The captain who gives out this report cements this inversion in the final line of the report when he concludes “what he hath lost, noble Macbeth has won” (1.2.67). Shakespeare consistently poses Macbeth as the victor who conquers, combats, or controls fate. However, Shakespeare also nuances this perspective of Macbeth’s aggressive agency by framing his ability to control fate around the “wyrd” sisters, the literal embodiment of fate who have staged Macbeth’s actions from the beginning. In a speech where Macbeth contests Banquo’s claim to the throne, he defiantly proclaims he would “Rather than so, come fate into the list / And champion me to th’utterance” (3.1.72-73). Macbeth further bolsters his agency in the same speech through further violent aggression, stating that he has “filed his mind for Banquo’s issue”(3.1.68), showcasing his now absolute readiness to commit to moral depravity. Shakespeare further nuances this perspective when Macbeth also notes of Banquo that “He hath a wisdom that 2 This quotation from Macbeth, and all the following quotations from that play are taken from The Norton
doth guide his valor / To act in safety”(3.1.56-7). In her close reading of Coriolanus, Kahn gestures towards the appearance of similar Machavellenian language, noticing that “valor” stands for “Machiavelli’s military virtu” (Kahn 121) which “is represented as a response to the threat of the feminine or of theater (fortuna as a woman who requires chameleonlike, theatrical adaptation” (Kahn 121). Thus Kahn observes how this gladiatorial language also stands in direct opposition with fortune as the feminine, the intentionally performed. Again,
Macbeth presents the conflict between Macbeth and fate in gladiatorial language,
underscoring the potency of the former and the malleability of the latter, while also underpinning how this effects the audience’s perception of masculinity and femininity in the play. Subsequently, when Macbeth says he “will advise” (3.1.130) the murderers to assassinate Banquo and his sons, he again subtly underscores the control he exerts over fate,
Acquaint you with the perfect spy o’th’ time, The moment on’t; for ‘t must be done tonight, …
Than is his father’s --- must embrace the fate Of that dark hour. (3.1.131-137)
Although Macbeth states that Banquo, the “father’s” and Fleance, “his”, will have to embrace their fated death; the fact that Macbeth is the one who commands who will or will not embrace his fate suggests his power that he possesses as a controller of fate. Macbeth’s powers are further compounded with his kairotic knowledge, when in these lines Macbeth also he reveals a keen awareness to the “spy o’th’ time”, “the moment”, further suggesting that Macbeth’s agency is empowered by the attention he pays to acting on the right moment within time. All these lines illustrate that Shakespeare constructs Macbeth as an individual with unshakeable purpose and agency, united with a Machiavellian comparison of Fortune as a woman who has to be “cuffed” and “mauled” (Machiavelli 92) in order to be controlled – a misogynistic comparison that will prove itself a tradition in the close reading of the second chapter.
However, Macbeth’s protagonist is also characteristically shown to question whether he should actually act, and consequently finds opportunities and counsel with female figures of the play. When the actual moment arrives when Macbeth has to consider the most pivotal choice in the play, he appears hesitant. When the witches tell Macbeth that he will be “king hereafter” (1.3.48), he responds
This supernatural soliciting Cannot be ill, cannot be good.
(…)
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man that function Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not (1.3.129-141).
Shakespeare’s awareness to kairos as rhetorical trope is most prevalent within this existential moment in the play: he now has to decide whether he will act accordingly to what he reads in the witches’ prophecy, “my thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical” and will eventually choose to murder Duncan as a result. Macbeth’s hesitations to act kairotically on the opportunity further suggest his agency in making his choice. The “fantastical thought” of regicide disturbs Macbeth, and the pressure he feels weighing on him makes him come apart: his “single state of man” is disrupted, and thus splits his sense of individuality – will he chose to make a decision that he initially finds morally reprehensible or not? Beehler, who thoroughly analyzed the role of Kairos in Hamlet, notes how that play’s titular protagonist too “laments the inevitable loss of the other choice in the kairotic moment” (76). Similarly, Macbeth struggles with the potential loss of choice and ultimately fails to act kairotically in these lines, through his constant hesitation over the choice to usurp the throne or not and the consequent meditative idleness, and is consequently berated for his moments of inaction– as Lady Macbeth later insults him, “Infirm of purpose!”. Other academic writers have often posed the witches as the messengers of fate who “act upon” (Langis 3) Macbeth, influencing him to the point where his agency can be brought into question. However, O’Rourke, in his own critique on the agency-fate debate highlights only how the witches temporarily displace agency, and represent a blind “acausal determinism”(O’Rourke 224). Shakespeare, characteristically ambiguous in his writing, puts the position of witches as the arbiters of fate in flux. While the witches in this example may present Macbeth with a prophecy that ultimately proves self-fulfilling, it is no accident that these female witches, bearded though they may be, are and act as the site where Macbeth negotiates the critical choice that defines the rest of the play, especially considering his awareness to the importance of this instance, which he intriguingly labels “supernatural soliciting” – suggesting a subconscious awareness of this moment as kairotically paramount.3 In her own critical writing where she historicizes
the early modern witch, Purkiss notes that in “Macbeth, women’s stories are put to work as part of the more grandiose male narrative of the play; the Third Witch’s tale foregrounds metaphors of rebellion, threats to patriarchy, disorder in nature.” (Purkiss 210). The witches 3 Marguerite Tassi provides a productive and recent reading of the mythological background of the Witches in her essay “The New Gorgon: Eros, Terror, and Violence in Macbeth’ in Shakespeare’s Erotic Mythology and
are consequently, part and parcel of kairos as a powerful disruptive force through which
Macbeth’s “grandiose male narrative” is channeled. Purkiss’s interpretation of the witches’
role allows for a reading of them as instrumental in realizing Macbeth’s kairotic agency, which he could not have expressed with the initial employment of their rebellious metaphors and threats to patriarchal power structure. This reading further solidifies a connection between the gendering of fortune as a female figure as a considerable effective for challenging the hetero-social relations in Macbeth.
Furthermore, to cement this link between women as the locus of negotiating opportunity, Shakespeare juxtaposes Macbeth’s initial hesitation with Lady Macbeth’s immediate resolve. Lady Macbeth’s hotly debated “unsex me here” soliloquy, illustrates her readiness to do what Macbeth would prefer not to do.4 Lady Macbeth implores spirits to
make her “fell purpose” (1.5.44) unshakeable, contrasting starkly with Macbeth’s, who she repeatedly finds infirm of purpose. Lady Macbeth, in wanting to figuratively don Macbeth’s armor and in reprimanding Macbeth for wearing her gown, reveals her anxiety in hitting a proto-typical glass ceiling. Yet, I would rather put the spotlight on the lines just after this famed speech, when Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth, “Thy letters have transported me beyond / This ignorant present, and I feel now / The future in the instant” (1.5.54-56). In these lines, Shakespeare again reveals an acute attentiveness to the concept of kairos. As an idea, kairos, as previously explained, differentiated itself from the linear and insurmountable flow of
chronos. Kairos is the single brief period wherein the individual can assert his agency. Lady
Macbeth’s paradoxical rhetoric compounds thoughts of future and present in realizing kairos as the single moment in time where the individual has the opportunity to assert their own will. She is thinking beyond the present and into the future, but simultaneously the future moves back into the present. Lady Macbeth feels, and pounces on “the instant” immediately, although she does not act immediately, she does reveal to the audience her readiness and opportunistic desire to do so, suggesting her desire to grasp kairos. Consequently, Lady Macbeth recalls an acute awareness of the readiness to act on the moment, an attitude that recalls a sentiment Hamlet urges in his own play, in an equally paramount way, when he states “The readiness is all” (5.2.208). These lines suggest that Shakespeare’s situates his female characters as the locus of negotiating and understanding kairotic behavior. Shakespeare further reinforces a reading of Lady Macbeth as the archetypical kairotic counselor, when she continues by claiming “(…) To beguile the time, / Look like the time;” 4 For a recent example of these debates surrounding Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy, see Diane Purkiss’s “Body Crimes: The Witches, Lady Macbeth and the Relics” in Female Transgressions in Early Modern Britain:
(1.5.61-62). In these lines, Shakespeare baldly reveals Lady Macbeth as being hyper-aware of the necessity and importance of occasio, and to that extent, the easily interchangeable kairos, when she quite literally advises Macbeth to act appropriate to the occasion in order to achieve, as the many characters of Macbeth have urged, purpose. To do otherwise would be, as Lady Macbeth warns him, to be unmanned. Ultimately, Shakespeare Macbeth readjusts his behavior in the spirit of the kairos and Machiavellian behavior the female characters have provided him with, and encouraged him to act on,
Time, thou anticipat’st my dread exploits. The flighty purpose never is o’ertook
Unless the deed go with it. From this moment The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand.
(…)
This deed I’ll do before this purpose cool (4.1.160-170).
Macbeth, when he finds out that Banquo’s son has escaped with his life, seems to re-avow his devotion to acting kairotically, yet straying from the basic tenets Machiavellianism or kairos. He will act not just on the moment, but he will do so impetuously – acting on the firstlings of his hand, and emphasizing again the importance of achieving “purpose” over all else. In these lines Macbeth how he has strayed from his initial kairotic behavior. He completely stops the interpretative process involved in understanding the kairotic moment, and consequently behaves rashly and impulsively, resulting in his fatal end. Thus, Macbeth faultily reclaims the combatant language employed earlier in the play when regarding fate, and these lines illustrate that he desires to grasp it with his hands immediately, as the symbolic forelock might be grasped from fortune, denying himself the necessary contemplative process involved in the act of recognizing and acting on the opportune moment.
Over the course of this chapter, I have suggested that Shakespeare in his tragedy
Macbeth negotiates and outlines the role of kairos in augmenting the free will vs. fate debate
through a close reading of the witches and Lady Macbeth as manifestations and counselors of kairotic behavior and opportunity, as well as through a close reading of the Machavellenian rhetoric that surrounds Macbeth’s titular protagonist. Yet, Shakespeare’s own position within the agency versus fortune debate remains elusive on the whole. Although the importance of acting kairotically is stressed by the Macbeth’s protagonists, the outcome and the role of the Malcolm, Macduff and Banquo within the play problematize a straightforward reading.
is it because of his failure to act kairotically at the end of the play, or is it simply because predetermined fate demanded? At the very least, when the eventual victors of the Scottish game of thrones emerge, Macbeth slyly suggests that perhaps rather than to strike when the iron is hot, good things come to those who wait and do not misinterpret the kairotic moment.
The Glass Ceiling of Prophecy:
In Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, written arguably in the same year as Macbeth or a year thereafter in 1607, the word ‘fortune’ occurs an astounding 43 times – more frequent than in any of his other plays. Scholars have thoroughly scrutinized the frequent occurrence of this word, focusing specifically on how fortune is often repeated in the language of Antony
and Cleopatra’s characters and how this repetition informs the play thematically –
emphasizing that fortune “looms far larger in [this] play than in any other” (Williamson, 433).
5 This chapter will further build on the groundwork these scholars have established, but
instead of focusing on the thematic ramifications of fortune, this chapter will argue that fortune, read as a figure parallel to several characters, further informs a feminist reading of
Antony and Cleopatra. Furthermore, as discussed in the introduction, there is a strong
thematic and semantic overlap between kairos and fortune and consequently, an analysis of these tropes demand an awareness of its intricacies. In light of this, it is noteworthy to point out that the word ‘decorum’, another word linked to kairos via the notion of propitious action, occurs only thrice throughout the entirety of Shakespeare’s plays: once in Measure for
Measure and twice in Antony and Cleopatra. In Measure for Measure, the duke concludes
one of his speeches with the word: “[t]he baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart / Goes all decorum” (1.3.31). The uncommon appearance of the actual word “decorum” in Shakespeare’s writing demands closer inspection thanks to its rarity and because of its connection to kairos. A third point of attention in this chapter is how the characters, primarily the titular ones, are affected by the specificity of fortune as a female figure, and by the different gendered aspects of opportunity – as well as their reaction to opportunity in the sense of timely action. Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra reveals a complex set of ramifications of the gendering of fortune and opportunity that informs how Shakespeare’s audience could have understood the gender dynamics in this play.
Initially, the differences between the witches from Macbeth and the soothsayer from
Antony and Cleopatra illustrate how fortune as an idea informs a reading of gender in
Shakespeare’s plays. Considering that Shakespeare wrote Antony and Cleopatra shortly after
Macbeth, as other critics have suggested, there are ample grounds for examining their
thematic proximities and contrasts.6 There is a telling contrast between these two tragedies
and between the characters who tell others their fortune, specifically the three witches from 5 For a further discussion of fortune’s wide range in Renaissance staging of Antony and Cleopatra plays see Aileen Mallery’s The Changing Face of Fortune in Six English Versions of the Tragedy of Antony and
Cleopatra. Ph.D. dissertation. (New York: City University of New York, 1990).
6 For a productive discussion on the date of Antony and Cleopatra’s composition, see Wilder’s introduction to the third edition of the Arden Antony and Cleopatra (Bloomsbury: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 1995: 69-77).
Macbeth and the soothsayer in Antony and Cleopatra. Indeed, the latter character most freely
repeats ‘fortune’ in all his lines, compared to the other characters of the play. An important distinction that exists between Macbeth’s fortune-telling “weird sisters” (1.3.30) and Antony
and Cleopatra’s fortune-telling soothsayer is their public esteem. Although Macbeth abides
by witches and attends their prophecies, he also clearly reproaches them, primarily because of their appearance, which to Macbeth makes the witches “not like th’inhabitants o’th’ earth” (1.3.39) and disavows their femininity because their “beards forbid me to interpret / That you are so.” (1.3.43-44). in light of the attentiveness characters pay to the outward appearance of the tellers of their fortune, the soothsayer in Antony and Cleopatra, stands remarkably blank in contrast. In both scenes in which he is present, the soothsayer is neither referred to in terms of pronouns nor does he receive the slightest description or even adjective. Indeed, the gender of the soothsayer is only inferred by means of its definition as it ostensibly denotes a male figure, similarly to how witch per definition suggests a female figure. Currently, the Oxford English Dictionary does not note the specificity of the gender of “soothsayer”, but does list its female equivalent as “soothsayeresse”. In a staging of Antony and Cleopatra the soothsayer in Shakespeare’s period would have performed by an actor, further reinforcing a reading of the soothsayer as evidently male. Not only does the unquestioned reception of the male soothsayer showcase the attitude of openly valuing women’s, rather than men’s appearances, it also suggests a difference in the civic prestige between the two figures. An important distinction that allows this reading is the fact that the soothsayer appears to be an integral part of Cleopatra’s court, as he can easily be summoned by its inhabitants, whereas the appearance of the witches are sporadic and exists as a force outside of established human society, as distinctively other; When the soothsayer delivers a cryptic reading to Charmian she immediately retorts, “Out, fool – I forgive thee for a witch” (1.2.35)7, clearly illustrating the
difference between the two fortune tellers: witches can be legally prosecuted whereas soothsayers cannot, though Charmian in this case chooses not to prosecute out of her own volition, still suggesting a general disapproval of witchcraft. As Shakespeare scholars have often remarked, herein Shakespeare clearly reveals this play as a contemporary product of his time period. King James I, the ruling monarch when this play would have been staged, published his own writing, Daemonologie, in which he condemned witchcraft. Shakespeare is clearly participating in a culture James I established. 8 In contrast, the Bible, a source that
7 This quotation, and all future quotations from Antony and Cleopatra are taken from The Norton Shakespeare
Volume 2: Later Plays. 2nd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008).
8 For a few recent examples of concise books and essays that explore the interplay between the Jacobean stages of witchcraft and Jacobean witchcraft laws, see Ian McAdam’s “Magic and Masculinity in Early Modern English drama” in Medieval and Renaissance Literary Studies (Pittsburgh, Duquesne University Press, 2009) or
Shakespeare alludes to in virtually all of his plays, posits soothsayers and witches on an equal level: “Let none be founde among you that maketh his sonne or his daughter to goe thorough the fire, or that vseth witchcraft, or a regarder of times, or a marker of the flying of foules, or a sorcerer, 11 Or a charmer, or that counselleth with spirits, or a soothsaier, or that asketh
counsel at ye dead” (Geneva Bible, Deut. 18:10). Another aspect that further augments the variances between these two prophesying figures is the method in which they conduct their fortune-telling. Whereas the prophecies of the witches in Macbeth are girdled by an abundance of rituals, songs and pomp, the soothsayer in Antony and Cleopatra explicates his abilities plainly: “In nature’s infinite book of secrecy / A little I can read” (1.2.8-9). The soothsayer’s powers are, rather than explicitly otherworldly, an integral part of the natural world of which he humbly suggests, he is but a skilled interpreter.
Contrastively, the source of the witches’ prophecies stems, if any source can be indicated, from Hecate, whom the witches serve, further implying that the soothsayer, unlike the witches, is very much rooted as an inhabitant of the earth. His skill is further underscored by the delivery of his lines, which follows the meter of the “dignified blank verse” (Jones 155), juxtaposing with the witches’ indecorous trochaic tetrameter; although the speech pattern of the witches is decorous in the sense that it fits with the general theatre tradition of giving magical beings disruptive rhythms to accentuate their otherness, it is simultaneously indecorous in the sense that it disrupts the noble iambic pentameter the other characters in Macbeth primarily use. Although the witches and the soothsayer fulfill a categorically equal role – that of informing their respective play’s principal characters of their destiny – there is a clear gendered distinction between the representation of these messengers of fortune in their language and in the manner to which the other characters respond to them: as a result, the masculine becomes a more idealized and allowed space for harboring sorcery, whereas the feminine becomes a demonized, negative space for inhabiting witchcraft.
Moreover, another disparity where fortune configures gender relations in Macbeth and
Antony and Cleopatra is in the language the male characters employ to describe fortune,
consequently expressing their lack of power over fortune. Both the titular protagonists of these two plays, as Wilders points out in his introduction to Antony and Cleopatra, “find themselves in a position in which they must make a choice which has far-reaching consequences both for themselves and their countries” (Wilders 43-4), foregrounding the necessary importance of acting propitiously. Yet unlike his handling of Macbeth, Shakespeare stages Antony, as being subjugated by fortune rather than being its dominator. Analogously to Stephanie Soto’s “Jacobean Witchcraft and Power” in Pacific Coast Philology 45 (2010):53-70.
Malcolm in Macbeth, Caesar in Antony and Cleopatra appears predestined to end as a victor at the close of the play. Antony’s ambassador, when meeting with Caesar to negotiate a capitulation, designates Antony as “Lord of his fortunes” (3.12.11) yet when Caesar rejects Antony’s proposal, proclaims “Fortune pursue thee!” (3.12.24). The title the ambassador gives to Antony is underscored with irony, as the power dynamic between Caesar and Antony has clearly shifted in the former’s favor. The imagery of the remark that “Fortune pursue thee” stands out as peculiar. As outlined in the introductory chapter, fortune, or kairos, as the woman with the forelock is the one who has to be chased and grasped. The image the ambassador creates is a clear inversion of this idea and of fortune as a neutral agent at her wheel, and thus through hyperbole emphasizes the enigmatic allure Caesar has over fortune. Ironically, Cleopatra would later invert the power dynamic between Caesar and fortune, “Tis paltry to be Caesar. / Not being Fortune, he’s but Fortune’s knave, / A minister of her will” (5.2.2-4), which highlights the subversive aspects of fortune’s association with femininity, as well as showcasing Cleopatra’s own control in reading fortune and her servants, “knave”.
Consequently, when Cleopatra reinvigorates Antony, who despairs over his all too imminent loss in the war against Caesar, with new courage he valiantly asserts that “Caesar sits down in Alexandria, where / I will oppose his fate” (3.13.171-2), suggesting that Antony believes he can still make fortune’s wheel turn in his favor. However, Antony’s determination quickly dissolves when, on the eve of battle with Caesar, he remarks that “if fortune be not ours today, / it is because we brave her” (4.4.3-4). Again underpinning a sense of loss of power, because Antony has to provoke Fortune, “brave”, instead of being able to dominate her outright or have her pursue him a she does with Caesar. Although Antony’s gambit does suggest his remaining sense of virility, the fact that Antony cannot meet fortune’s challenge, as he loses the naval battle against Pompey and Caesar, suggests the culmination of Antony’s loss; Fortune is in clear possession of her powers and appears untamable to Antony. Note that in Antony and Cleopatra, the men inveigh no invectives against fortune, again in contrast with
Macbeth’s rich word choices, which further underlines a reading of Antony and Cleopatra’s
male characters as holding fortune in higher regard. The male characters solely reserve the ignominious epithet of prostitute and all its different iterations for Cleopatra and the female members of her court instead. In the end, Antony cannot but conclude indignantly that “Fortune knows / We scorn her most when most she offers blows’ (3.11.74-5). While again Antony uses aggressive speech, “scorn”, the fact that his scorn proves futile when read in light of Antony’s ultimate in the play; Antony becomes like a child throwing a tantrum against a parent. The transposition of power, in contrast to the gladiatorial language of Macbeth,
culminates and reaches a crescendo: it is fortune, the female figure, who physically dominates the men, who inflicts them with her “blows”, suggesting that the female-male power dynamics are if not challenged, at least put under a tense pressure. The “blows” as a metaphor of a damaging fortune also echoes Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, mentioned in the introduction, where similar imagery is deployed,
To be, or not to be; that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And, by opposing, end them (3.1.58-60).
In Hamlet’s soliloquy, fortune too is imagined as painful, insurmountable force and also relies on the image of fortune as the ship “a sea of troubles”.
Although Antony falls out of favor with fortune throughout the play he, amongst many of the other characters in Antony and Cleopatra, appears keenly aware of the rhetoric, moral lessons and iconicity attached to fortune and kairos. When Antony meets with the soothsayer, the icon of fortune with her wheel is conjured; the soothsayer initiates this imagery by subtly speaking about the revolutions of the wheel when he reads Antony’s disastrous fortune, “I see it in my motion; have it not in my tongue” (2.3.13). Although “motion” in this line denotes inward intuition, this word choice also suggests the movement of fortune’s wheel, of which the soothsayer is per definition an interpreter. Antony consolidates this evocation of the icon of fortune at her wheel when he replies “Whose fortunes shall rise higher: Caesar’s or mine?” (2.3.15), connecting to the imagery of fortune as moving, as something that will “rise”, and thus implicitly, something which will also have to fall. Antony is not only aware of fortune as the wheel of fate that indicates man’s destiny, he also reveals a cognizance of man’s own potential to exact an agency within this destiny, by responding timely to opportunity. Indeed, in his own critical reading of fortune in Antony and Cleopatra, Hallett points how Antony is consciously “revising his judgments” (Hallett 8) in accordance with fortune’s wheel, claiming that “the fortune imagery is structural” (Hallett 9) in Antony and Cleopatra, the structural imagery of fortune gains new layers in light of Cleopatra’s speeches, which will be discussed in this chapter shortly. During the banquet where the triumvirate celebrates their reconciliation with Pompey, an inebriated Antony advises Caesar, who appears hesitant in participating in the revels to the same extent as the others, to “[b]e a child o’th’ time” (2.7.94). Although Antony’s counsel carries a more ludic tone, partially because of the setting of the feast, this line recalls Lady Macbeth’s more sinister counsel to Macbeth, “To beguile the
time / look like the time” (1.5.61-62). Both characters, although in different capacities, advocate attentiveness to suiting one’s behavior to the proper occasion in order to achieve one’s goals. While the characters express similar ideas, the different moral tone with which they express their ideas is closely connected to the gender and subsequent power of the speakers. Indeed, in his response to Antony’s counsel, Caesar answers “[p]ossess it, I’ll make answer” (2.7.95), again re-inscribing Caesar who has a strong command over propitious action, juxtaposed with Antony’s failure to do so. The “it” in this line refers to Antony’s “child o’th time”, suggesting that Caesar, like Antony does desire a violent control over time, and thus by extent his own destiny.
However, at the start of Antony and Cleopatra, Antony does conduct himself with a distinct consideration of propitious action. When Caesar, in order to be appeased, instructs Antony to marry his sister Octavia, he immediately agrees. Enobarbus cements a link9
between Antony’s tactical movement and the grasping of kairos when he notes that Antony “married but his occasion here” (2.6.127); Enobarbus explains that Antony’s decision to marry Octavia is motivated purely by its political expediency, invoking kairos through his use of “occasion” in this line. In this usage kairos furthermore denotes a political opportunity but also points an interpretation of the trope in the sense of occasio, as a female figure that can be “married”, or to use another verb – grasped. However, by emphasizing the purely political reason Antony had to marry Octavia, Enobarbus also suggests that Antony has failed to properly read the situation and has made the wrong choice. When Enobarbus senses Antony’s imminent loss against Antony he notes of his commander, in an aside, that “men’s judgements are / A parcel of their fortunes” (3.13.30-31). Even though this line refers to “men’s judgements”, Enobarbus’s target is clearly Antony, whose position on Fortune’s wheel lowers, consistently loses the ability to properly read fortune, and consequently lacks proper “judgements”. Indeed, Muir, in his critical and extensive reading of Antony and Cleopatra notes that Antony’s hubris reveals itself to be his inability to properly recognize the occasion throughout the course of the play. Muir writes that Antony, lamenting the men deserting him as part of his corrupting fortune, fails to acknowledge that “his own defects and mistakes had anything to do with the desertions from his army” (Muir 61). Antony attempts to divest himself from responsibility by piling his faults on to fortune and denying himself agency, not realizing that his disaster is part and parcel of his fatal flaw of misreading the moment and failing to act propitiously. Additionally, through the reflection of Menas and Enobarbus, 9 Note that Enobarbus too, echoes both Lady Macbeth sentiment and anticipates Antony’s, similarly advising that “Every time / serves for the matter that is then born in’t” (2.2.9-10) , advocating a keen awareness to kairos in stating that to act propitiously (“serve the matter”), one has to observe the moment (“time”).
Pompey is suggested to be analogous to Antony in failing to grasp kairos. When Pompey at first rejects Menas’s idea to assassinate the triumvirate, the latter vows in an aside to “never follow thy palled fortunes more. / Who seeks and will not take when once ‘tis offered, / Shall never find it more” (2.7.77-9). In this line “palled” Menas, prematurely concluding that Pompey’s place on the wheel is descending, argues that this is the result of failing to act when the moment necessitates it, concordant with the typical notion of kairos whose forelock, once she passes you by, cannot be grasped again –Pompey shall “never find it more”. Menas further reinforces this interpretation of Pompey’s hubris as failing to grasp kairos when he informs Enobarbus that “Pompey / doth this day laugh away his fortune” (2.6.103-4), to which Enobarbus responds, “If he do, sure he cannot weep’t back again.” (2.6.105). This dialogue reveals an echoing of the sentiment that the descending fortune is a part and parcel of an un-grasped fortuitous moment, which once passed will not come “back again”. All these male figures in Antony and Cleopatra reveal a sharpened alertness to the power of kairos holds over adjusting one’s fortune, and the failure of the play’s primary male character, Antony, to properly attend their own alertness underscores the reduction of their masculinity. The failure to grasp kairos means for Antony that he loses his war with Pompey and Caesar, and most of his followers and soldiers and thus acts as a logical conclusion of Antony’s loss of masculinity which the other characters are already debating at the start of the play.
Furthermore, the gendering of fortune and opportunity and the effect of this gendering manifests itself explicitly in one of Shakespeare’s most complex characters, Cleopatra. The other characters of Antony and Cleopatra overtly associate Egypt’s “wrangling queen” (1.1.50) with witchcraft. An example of this association between Cleopatra and witchcraft arises from Pompey, who wishes that Cleopatra, combining her “charms of love” (2.1.20), and her “witchcraft join[ed] with beauty, lust with both” (2.21). will ensnare Antony into a drunken stupor, “keep his brain fuming” (2.2.24). Pompey’s language reveals that he envisions Cleopatra as a spell-slinging witch, whose enchanting feasts keep in a permanent fugue that will, lead? as Pompey hopes, to a “Lethe’d dullness” (2.2.27). The Egyptian court is thus transformed into the court of an enchantress, into the realm of the mystical. Antony as well establishes a connection between Cleopatra and witchcraft. When Antony reaches his emotional nadir and invokes a mythological comparison, he beseeches Hercules to “subdue my worthiest self. / The witch shall die.” (4.13.47). The witch in these lines, who Antony hopes shall meet her fatal end clearly refers to Cleopatra who “hath sold” (4.13.48) Antony to Caesar; the vilifications that the men thus call up against Cleopatra are often accusations of witchcraft.
Yet, Cleopatra’s reach extends beyond witchcraft, as Antony and Cleopatra also associates her with prophecies. Antony, sensing the imminent defeat at the hands of Caesar and Pompey laments to Cleopatra, “[a]lack, our terrene moon / Is now eclipsed, and it portends alone / The fall of Antony” (3.13.156-157). In this line, Cleopatra is transformed into a lunar symbol, the eclipse of which prophesizes, “portends”, Antony’s downfall. In this transformation Cleopatra effectively becomes analogous to the soothsayer, a diviner of “nature’s infinite book of secrecy”. Several editors and commentators of Antony and
Cleopatra, such as in the Arden and the Norton edition, gloss or note the “terrene moon” as
deliberately referencing Cleopatra herself, building upon a comparison between her and the goddess Isis. For example, Caesar notes that Cleopatra on occasion dresses up “in th’habiliments of the goddess Isis” (3.6.17). Charmian, while using “O Isis!” (3.3.15) uses Isis both as an exclamation of astonishment, but, as she says this directly to Cleopatra, indirectly attaches Isis to her queen. Indeed, Charmian goes on to suggest that Isis is directly on Cleopatra’s side when she assures Cleopatra of Antony’s fidelity “Isis else defend” (3.3.42). These brief examples illustrate that there is a close connection between Cleopatra and Isis, a connection that invests Cleopatra with a supernatural force that would naturally preclude foresight. Even Cleopatra enables a reading of herself as prophetess when Diomedes, reporting to Antony that Cleopatra has fled to her tomb, explains that she “had a prophesying fear / Of what hath come to pass;” (4.15.118-9). This language use suggests an intentional construction on Cleopatra’s side of herself as an almost Cassandra-esque figure, as a female soothsayer who, if not going unheeded as the mythological archetype would require, rather goes consistently misinterpreted by the male figures of the play and leads in particular to Antony’s failure on the battlefield and eventual doom. What further nuances this image however, is that Cleopatra’s prophesying anxiety is a product of her own manipulation, as Antony’s death, as her guilt suggests, could have been a consequence of Cleopatra faking her own death. When Cleopatra prepares her own suicide, she imagines Antony calling from beyond the grave, “Methinks I hear / Antony call” (5.2.282-3). This ghastly toll that Cleopatra seems to hear implies a lingering sense of guilt over Antony’s death. Subsequently, the close ties Cleopatra has to fortune-telling and witchcraft suggest, vis-à-vis the public esteem of the witches in Macbeth, considerably alter how the audience interprets Cleopatra moral status and as a potentially disruptive force of feminine agency.
A second element that further informs the gendered relationship between fortune, kairos and Cleopatra is the latter’s own awareness of her role as a representation of fortune and of Antony and Cleopatra’s representation of Cleopatra as a kairotic figure. There are
several moments when the play showcases a heightened awareness to the direct illustration of Cleopatra as fortune. For example, Cleopatra subtly labels herself as fortune when she instructs the messenger, who is on the verge of communicating Antony’s marriage to Octavia, “[m]ake thee a fortune from me” (2.5.48). The most literal sense in which Cleopatra means “fortune” in this line is of course wealth; she essentially tells the messenger that he will be financially rewarded if he tells her what she wants to hear. On another level, she becomes a stand-in for fortune. If the messenger acts propitiously, responding correctly to what Cleopatra desires to hear, he will reap the reward, “a fortune”, which implicitly includes both Cleopatra and her material wealth. Antony too, underpins this relation between fortune and Cleopatra in the earlier discussed scene where he disavows Cleopatra as a “witch [who] shall die” (4.13.47). Previously in this scene Antony states that “Fortune and Antony part here; even here / Do we shake hands.” (4.13.19-20). Although Cleopatra has yet to enter the scene at this point, the fact that this divorce Antony imagines is the product of him forswearing and abandoning Cleopatra suggests that he imagines her as the selfsame figure of that ruinous fortune. Fortune, like Cleopatra whom Antony previously disavowed, has abandoned him and Antony subsequently decides to move on without her at his side. Antony and Cleopatra further attends to this association through the use of nautical imagery. Camidius, one of Antony’s generals, grieves the fortuitous loss of the battle at sea, “Our fortune on the sea is out of breath, / And sinks most lamentably” (3.10.24-5). The connection between fortune and the sea recalls the conventional icon of occasio as the young woman on the boat whose “sails can capriciously turn with the wind” (Baumlin 148). Fortune and occasio join in these lines in this shared illustration of this seaborne imagery. For an example of this, see figure one and two from the introduction. Antony and Cleopatra transforms Cleopatra into a vessel-like being as well. On the most superficial level, Cleopatra acts as Antony’s vessel, as a representation of the maritime force of Egypt which she provides him. Antony’s commanders fasten onto this idea when Cleopatra abandons them at sea. Scarus expounds that “The breeze upon her, like a cow in June, / Hoists sails and flies” (3.10.13-4). Although the direct transformative insult in Scarus’s complaint is that of a comparison between Cleopatra and a cow, these lines also suggest a representation of Cleopatra as a ship that reduces the men’s agency; the “breeze” becomes, through the elision of explicit pronouns, the agent of the verb “hoists”, thus suggesting a sense of powerlessness in the men who are unable to control Cleopatra, namely, Antony. The fact that Cleopatra flees from the naval battle recalls the image of the lost opportunity, showing the bald side of her hand and inciting despair in the men who failed to grasp her in a timely fashion. Scarus further solidifies this interpretation of
