Throughout the play, Cleopatra is likened to a cat or a kitten via the use of extended metaphor. In Acts 1 through 3, during which Cleopatra is younger and more naive, she is referred to several times as a kitten. Caesar even uses the word as a term of endearment for her, as in this passage from Act 2:
CLEOPATRA: Work! what nonsense! You must remember that you are a king now: I have made you one. Kings don't work.
CAESAR: Oh! Who told you that, little kitten? Eh?
Once Cleopatra has grown more into her power and adulthood, this term of endearment falls away, and she is portrayed as more cat-like: fickle in termperament and jealous with the objects of her affection. She is even descended from a cat, revealing this to Caesar in the course of their discussion during Act 1:
CLEOPATRA: My great-grandmother's great-grandmother was a black kitten of the sacred white cat; and the river Nile made her his seventh wife.
Cleopatra's cat-like nature marks her cunning, though it is cunning not well-received by Caesar, her mentor. Cleopatra's transition from kitten to cat over the course of the play signals her maturation in parallel with her moral decline.
Throughout the play, Cleopatra is likened to a cat or a kitten via the use of extended metaphor. In Acts 1 through 3, during which Cleopatra is younger and more naive, she is referred to several times as a kitten. Caesar even uses the word as a term of endearment for her, as in this passage from Act 2:
CLEOPATRA: Work! what nonsense! You must remember that you are a king now: I have made you one. Kings don't work.
CAESAR: Oh! Who told you that, little kitten? Eh?
Once Cleopatra has grown more into her power and adulthood, this term of endearment falls away, and she is portrayed as more cat-like: fickle in termperament and jealous with the objects of her affection. She is even descended from a cat, revealing this to Caesar in the course of their discussion during Act 1:
CLEOPATRA: My great-grandmother's great-grandmother was a black kitten of the sacred white cat; and the river Nile made her his seventh wife.
Cleopatra's cat-like nature marks her cunning, though it is cunning not well-received by Caesar, her mentor. Cleopatra's transition from kitten to cat over the course of the play signals her maturation in parallel with her moral decline.
In Act 2, Caesar takes mercy on Ptolemy, advising the young boy to flee and join his friends. Caesar then metaphorically compares himself to a lion, stating to Ptolemy that he will be "in the lion's mouth" if he does not leave:
PTOLEMY: [to Caesar, drawing his hand away from Rufio] Is he turning me out of my palace?
RUFIO: [grimly] You are welcome to stay if you wish.
CAESAR: [kindly] Go, my boy. I will not harm you; but you will be safer away, among your friends. Here you are in the lion's mouth.
Throughout the play, Caesar is referred to with this same metaphor. Notably, Cleopatra—Caesar's protegee and foil—is often compared to a cat: she is a younger, less capable version of Caesar, whom she considers her mentor. Despite wishing to rule without his influence by the end of the play, she still needs him and relies on him. It is fitting that both characters should share a feline likeness.
Interestingly, Caesar assigns himself the role of lion but chooses not to act as a predator might in his interactions with Ptolemy. He recognizes that the boy is young and shows him mercy, something Cleopatra would be unlikely to do.
In Act 4, Caesar promises Cleopatra that he will send Mark Antony to Egypt for her benefit. Cleopatra romanticizes Antony to an extreme, unwilling to hear a single negative comment about him from Caesar, going so far as to metaphorically and hyperbolically deify him:
CAESAR: [Mark Antony] is in excellent condition—considering how much he eats and drinks.
CLEOPATRA: Oh, you must not say common, earthly things about him; for I love him. He is a god.
Cleopatra's deification of Mark Antony as her lover through a hyperbolic metaphor is an important element of Antony and Cleopatra, the Shakespeare play for which Caesar and Cleopatra serves as a prequel. Shaw's choice to include this deification is consistent with Shakespeare's interpretation of her character as an older woman.
If one considers this play in the context of its genre—being, of course, both a history play and a satire—this passage provides interesting commentary on the pervasive romanticization of historical figures. Cleopatra would prefer to picture Antony in her mind as the ideal man: a person without mundane vices that ordinary citizens indulge in. In the preface Shaw wrote to the play, he notes that the vice of lustful overindulgence—which Shakespeare portrays as Antony's fatal flaw in Antony and Cleopatra—is neither grand nor noble but rather something that any person could suffer from. Antony's struggle marks him as ordinary, not extraordinary. Cleopatra resists this imposed mundanity on her romanticized image of Antony, as do the writers of history plays for their respective subjects.
In the following passage from Act 2, Caesar uses metaphor to contradict Theodotus, who claims that Caesar owes the Egyptians a debt for killing Pompey on his behalf:
CAESAR: But harken, Theodotus, teacher of kings: you who valued Pompey's head no more than a shepherd values an onion, and who now kneel to me, with tears in your old eyes, to plead for a few sheepskins scrawled with errors. I cannot spare you a man or a bucket of water just now; but you shall pass freely out of the palace. Now, away with you to Achillas; and borrow his legions to put out the fire.
Caesar compares the value of his former soldier—in the eyes of Theodotus—to the value of an onion in the eyes of a shepherd. Clearly, despite the fact that Pompey fought against Caesar, Caesar mourns the event of his death and despises those who would call it a boon. Despite the fact that he cannot stand Theodotus's devaluing of Pompey's life, he still spares Theodotus and allows him to leave and save the library of Alexandria. This passage reveals a great deal about Caesar's personal values: he cares deeply about human life, even the lives of those who despise and oppose him. Despite his ruthlessness, he is gracious and not unnecessarily cruel.
In Act 3, Britannus, Apollodorus, Rufio, and Caesar discover Cleopatra's hiding place in a rolled-up rug, which she uses to smuggle herself to the island where Caesar and his army have taken up residence. Initially, the men confuse Cleopatra's movement for that of a serpent, establishing a metaphorical connection between her and the notorious reptile:
BRITANNUS: [drawing his sword] It is a serpent.
APOLLODORUS: Dares Caesar thrust his hand into the sack where the serpent moves?
RUFIO: [turning on him] Treacherous dog —
CAESAR: Peace. Put up your swords. Apollodorus: your serpent seems to breathe very regularly. [He thrusts his hand under the shawls and draws out a bare arm]. This is a pretty little snake.
In Western literature, snakes are commonly associated with manipulation and deceit. By comparing Cleopatra to a serpent in the above passage, Shaw establishes such traits as elements of her character. Notably, Shakespeare often likens Cleopatra to a snake in Antony and Cleopatra, where the metaphor is used by other characters to emphasize her role as a seductress or moral corruptor in relation to Marc Antony. Though Shaw writes a young Cleopatra as manipulative, that manipulation is not necessarily sexual in nature—and neither, crucially, is Caesar and Cleopatra's relationship.
In Act 4, Caesar bemoans the drudgery of his people, using metaphor to compare the Romans to a swarm of bees, set on performing the same tasks of war and conquest day in and day out:
CAESAR: The gods forbid he should ever learn! Oh, this military life! this tedious, brutal life of action! That is the worst of us Romans: we are mere doers and drudgers: a swarm of bees turned into men. Give me a good talker—one with wit and imagination enough to live without continually doing something!
This passage reveals an interesting nuance in Caesar's character: namely, that he despises the banality of wartime but thrives as a leader, working toward the downfall of his enemies and thereby furthering the project of empire. Caesar criticizes the uniformity of thought that his soldiers exhibit, but without that bee-like hive mentality, he would not be able to establish and maintain power. Caesar is critical of the tedium and drudgery of this system; nonetheless, it is a system he himself works within.
This passage also provides a critical perspective on military conquest and empire, both of which tend to be heavily romanticized in historical dramas. This criticism is especially warranted given Shaw's own experience living as a citizen of the British Empire. Viewing his own time period through a critical lens leads Shaw to extend that same lens to history. Alternatively, those who romanticize the past tend to approach current events uncritically.
