The conference deteriorates into a dispute, with the Egyptians threatening military action. Caesar's solution is acceptable to none and his concern for Ptolemy makes Cleopatra fiercely jealous. However, the rivalry exists because, even though the two are siblings and already married in accordance with the royal law, they detest each other with a mutual antipathy no less murderous for being childish. As an inducement, Caesar says he will settle the dispute between the claimants for the Egyptian throne by letting Cleopatra and Ptolemy reign jointly. Caesar greets all with courtesy and kindness, but inflexibly demands a tribute whose amount disconcerts the Egyptians. In a hall on the first floor of the royal palace in Alexandria, Caesar meets King Ptolemy (aged ten), his tutor Theodotus (very aged), Achillas (general of Ptolemy's troops), and Pothinus (his guardian). She sobs in relief, and falls into his arms.Īct II. When the Roman guards arrive and hail Caesar, Cleopatra suddenly realizes he has been with her all along.
Cleopatra reluctantly agrees to maintain a queenly presence, but greatly fears that Caesar will eat her anyway. Caesar urges bravery when she must face the conquerors, then escorts her to her palace. She, not recognizing Caesar, thinks him a nice old man and tells him of her childish fear of Caesar and the Romans. At first Caesar imagines the sphinx is speaking in a girlish voice, then, when Cleopatra appears, that he is experiencing a dream or, if he is awake, a touch of madness. Cleopatra wakes and, still unseen, replies. Caesar, wandering lonely in the desert night, comes upon the sphinx and speaks to it profoundly.
(The film version of the play, made in 1945, used the Alternative Prologue rather than the original one.)Īct I opens with Cleopatra sleeping between the paws of a Sphinx. They try to locate her, but are told by Cleopatra's nurse, Ftatateeta, that she has run away. The guards, knowing of Caesar's weakness for women, plan to persuade him to proclaim Cleopatra-who may be controllable-Egypt's ruler instead of Ptolemy. A Nubian watchman flees to Cleopatra's palace and warns those inside that Caesar and his armies are less than an hour away. The messenger warns that Caesar's conquest is inevitable and irresistible.
A messenger appears to warn the captain of Cleopatra's guard that Caesar has landed and is invading Egypt. In "An Alternative to the Prologue", we find Cleopatra has been driven into Syria by her brother, Ptolemy, with whom she is vying for the Egyptian throne. Ra recounts the conflict between Caesar and Pompey, their battle at Pharsalus, and Pompey's eventual assassination in Egypt at the hands of Lucius Septimius. The gods favored Caesar, according to Ra, because he "lived the life they had given him boldly". He says that Pompey represents the old Rome and Caesar represents the new Rome. The prologue consists of the Egyptian god Ra addressing the audience directly, as if he could see them in the theater (i.e., breaking the fourth wall). The play has a prologue and an "Alternative to the Prologue".
The play was produced in New York in 1906 and in London at the Savoy Theatre in 1907. It was first performed in a single staged reading at Newcastle upon Tyne on 15 March 1899, to secure the copyright. It was first published with Captain Brassbound's Conversion and The Devil's Disciple in Shaw's 1901 collection Three Plays for Puritans. Gertrude Elliott and Johnston Forbes-Robertson in Caesar and Cleopatra, New York, 1906Ĭaesar and Cleopatra is a play written in 1898 by George Bernard Shaw that depicts a fictionalized account of the relationship between Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.
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