All For Love

by

John Dryden

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on All For Love makes teaching easy.

Cleopatra Character Analysis

Cleopatra is the queen of Egypt and the lover of Antony. She is famously beautiful and charismatic, and by her own account has received many marriage proposals. But although she has been involved with other men before—most notably Julius Caesar, before the events of the play—she is unshakably loyal to Antony, whom she regards as her great love. For instance, although she toys with the possibility of flirting with Antony’s friend Dollabella in order to make Antony jealous, she ultimately can’t go through with it because she loves Antony too much. She is jealous of Antony’s legal wife, Octavia, and frequently laments her socially degraded status as Antony’s mistress. She is tempestuous, passionate, and self-dramatizing. For example, she alternatively rages and cries in order to stop Antony from leaving Egypt. And she is theatrical to the end of her life, when she commits suicide dressed in her crown and royal robes. She dies in order to avoid humiliating capture by Octavius, demonstrating her pride in her royal lineage as well as her romantic devotion to Antony. Seeing that he is dead, she declares that her life is no longer living. She hopes they will meet in heaven and be waited on by many loving couples—demonstrating that she sees herself as a great success as a romantic heroine, if not as a ruler.

Cleopatra Quotes in All For Love

The All For Love quotes below are all either spoken by Cleopatra or refer to Cleopatra. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Honor vs. Love Theme Icon
).
Preface Quotes

[T]he crimes of love which they both committed were not occasioned by any necessity or fatal ignorance, but were wholly voluntary, since our passions are, or ought to be, within our power.

Related Characters: Antony, Cleopatra
Page Number: 32
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1 Quotes

Can any Roman see and know him now,

Thus altered from the lord of half mankind,
Unbent, unsinewed, made a woman’s toy,
Shrunk from the vast extent of all his honours,
And cramped within a corner of the world?

Related Characters: Ventidius (speaker), Antony, Cleopatra
Related Symbols: Cleopatra’s Ruby Bracelet
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 52
Explanation and Analysis:

But I have lost my reason, have disgraced
The name of soldier with inglorious ease[.]

Related Characters: Antony (speaker), Cleopatra, Ventidius, Octavius
Page Number: 58
Explanation and Analysis:

And I will leave her; though, Heaven knows, I love
Beyond life, conquest, empire, all but honour;

But I will leave her.

Related Characters: Antony (speaker), Cleopatra, Ventidius
Page Number: 58
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2 Quotes

Moderate sorrow
Fits vulgar love, and for a vulgar man;
But I have loved with such transcendent passion,
I soared at first quite out of reason’s view.

Related Characters: Cleopatra (speaker), Antony
Page Number: 64
Explanation and Analysis:

[W]e have loved each other
Into our mutual ruin.

Related Characters: Antony (speaker), Cleopatra, Octavius
Page Number: 73
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3 Quotes

But yet the loss was private that I made;
’Twas but myself I lost: I lost no legions;
I had no world to lose, no people’s love.

Related Characters: Dollabella (speaker), Antony, Cleopatra
Page Number: 89
Explanation and Analysis:

For I can ne’er be conquered but by love,
And you do all for duty.

Related Characters: Antony (speaker), Cleopatra, Octavia
Page Number: 93
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 4 Quotes

Nature meant me
A wife, a silly, harmless, household dove,
Fond without art, and kind without deceit;
But Fortune, that has made a mistress of me,
Has thrust me out to the wide world.

Related Characters: Cleopatra (speaker), Antony, Octavia
Page Number: 102-103
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 5 Quotes

My Queen is dead.
I was but great for her; my power, my empire
Were but my merchandise to buy her love,
And conquered kings, my factors.

Related Characters: Antony (speaker), Cleopatra, Ventidius
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 131
Explanation and Analysis:

Ten years’ love,
And not a moment lost, but all improved
To th’utmost joys: what ages have we lived!
And now to die each other’s; and so dying,
While hand in hand we walk in groves below,
Whole troops of lovers’ ghosts shall flock about us,
And all the train be ours.

Related Characters: Antony (speaker), Cleopatra
Page Number: 135
Explanation and Analysis:

Let dull Octavia
Survive to mourn him dead; my nobler fate
Shall knit our spousals with a tie too strong

For Roman laws to break.

Related Characters: Cleopatra (speaker), Antony, Octavia
Page Number: 136
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire All For Love LitChart as a printable PDF.
All For Love PDF

Cleopatra Quotes in All For Love

The All For Love quotes below are all either spoken by Cleopatra or refer to Cleopatra. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Honor vs. Love Theme Icon
).
Preface Quotes

[T]he crimes of love which they both committed were not occasioned by any necessity or fatal ignorance, but were wholly voluntary, since our passions are, or ought to be, within our power.

Related Characters: Antony, Cleopatra
Page Number: 32
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1 Quotes

Can any Roman see and know him now,

Thus altered from the lord of half mankind,
Unbent, unsinewed, made a woman’s toy,
Shrunk from the vast extent of all his honours,
And cramped within a corner of the world?

Related Characters: Ventidius (speaker), Antony, Cleopatra
Related Symbols: Cleopatra’s Ruby Bracelet
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 52
Explanation and Analysis:

But I have lost my reason, have disgraced
The name of soldier with inglorious ease[.]

Related Characters: Antony (speaker), Cleopatra, Ventidius, Octavius
Page Number: 58
Explanation and Analysis:

And I will leave her; though, Heaven knows, I love
Beyond life, conquest, empire, all but honour;

But I will leave her.

Related Characters: Antony (speaker), Cleopatra, Ventidius
Page Number: 58
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2 Quotes

Moderate sorrow
Fits vulgar love, and for a vulgar man;
But I have loved with such transcendent passion,
I soared at first quite out of reason’s view.

Related Characters: Cleopatra (speaker), Antony
Page Number: 64
Explanation and Analysis:

[W]e have loved each other
Into our mutual ruin.

Related Characters: Antony (speaker), Cleopatra, Octavius
Page Number: 73
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3 Quotes

But yet the loss was private that I made;
’Twas but myself I lost: I lost no legions;
I had no world to lose, no people’s love.

Related Characters: Dollabella (speaker), Antony, Cleopatra
Page Number: 89
Explanation and Analysis:

For I can ne’er be conquered but by love,
And you do all for duty.

Related Characters: Antony (speaker), Cleopatra, Octavia
Page Number: 93
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 4 Quotes

Nature meant me
A wife, a silly, harmless, household dove,
Fond without art, and kind without deceit;
But Fortune, that has made a mistress of me,
Has thrust me out to the wide world.

Related Characters: Cleopatra (speaker), Antony, Octavia
Page Number: 102-103
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 5 Quotes

My Queen is dead.
I was but great for her; my power, my empire
Were but my merchandise to buy her love,
And conquered kings, my factors.

Related Characters: Antony (speaker), Cleopatra, Ventidius
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 131
Explanation and Analysis:

Ten years’ love,
And not a moment lost, but all improved
To th’utmost joys: what ages have we lived!
And now to die each other’s; and so dying,
While hand in hand we walk in groves below,
Whole troops of lovers’ ghosts shall flock about us,
And all the train be ours.

Related Characters: Antony (speaker), Cleopatra
Page Number: 135
Explanation and Analysis:

Let dull Octavia
Survive to mourn him dead; my nobler fate
Shall knit our spousals with a tie too strong

For Roman laws to break.

Related Characters: Cleopatra (speaker), Antony, Octavia
Page Number: 136
Explanation and Analysis: