Winter's Tale Act 3 Scene 2

In class we were only able to watch of act 3 scene 2, but that was enough to spark my interest to the skilled use of interpretations different than I’d imagined myself. I was immediately interested in the depiction of Leontes at Hermione’s trial, instead of being impassioned about his opening to the trial, as I’d imagined, he seemed either to morose or to senile to even be able to remember his opening speech. Instead, it was written on a piece of paper which he produce and read a in a monotone voice with no emotion what so ever. Leontes’ Speech:

“This sessions, to our great grief we pronounce,
Even pushes 'gainst our heart: the party tried
The daughter of a king, our wife, and one
Of us too much beloved. Let us be clear'd
Of being tyrannous, since we so openly
Proceed in justice, which shall have due course,
Even to the guilt or the purgation.
Produce the prisoner.”

You would think these words would be spoken with passionate remorse rather than read from a sheet of paper. I think the reading could even lead us to believe that Leontes was not even the original author of his speech. This interpretation of Leontes gives me the impression that he no longer cares for Hermione, which I believe he further proves by his condemnation of her even after higher authority has disproved him. It is ironic that in his speech he states there will be justice, “Even to the guilt or the purgation”, however when her purity is proven he goes back on this statement.

The way Hermione is depicted in this scene is also someone different than I’d imagined her at this point. She is brought into court in rags and shackles; she is also obviously quite sore, which leads us to believe she has just had the baby. Her hair is frazzled, and she looks about as far as royalty as she could get. I think this interpretation immediately leads us to sympathize with her, and further turns us against the obvious callousness of Leontes. Also quite opposite of her husband, Hermione’s speech is passionate and obviously sincere. She pleaded that she was “not guilty”; her reasoning and appeals were clearly found moving by the rest of the court, but not Leontes. We see her misery most clearly after profession of innocence when Leontes still threatens her life, and she says she wishes for death. “Sir, spare your threats:/ The bug which you would fright me with I seek./ To me can life be no commodity:”

After Hermione’s death we see Paulina’s character spring to life. Her closeness to Hermione is clear in grief and rage upon her death. She seems so out of it that she assaults the king, throwing him to the ground, despite our conceived assumptions of protocol in court. She says what the audience has been thinking about Leontes’ behavior all along, “Thy tyranny/ Together working with thy jealousies,/ Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle/ For girls of nine, O, think what they have done/ And then run mad indeed, stark mad!”. She is portrayed as strong and brash, unafraid to speak her mind even to the king, who is obviously in the wrong.

The Power of a Woman

Cleopatra embodies the east, she is mysterious, extravagant, sensual, and beyond compare. While Cleopatra is the east, the Antony of old is the west. Before reading Shakespeare’s Antony, we have the pre-conceived notion of a warrior, strong and able. Shakespeare acknowledges Antony’s past glory in Caesar’s lines in act 1 scene 4,

“Antony,
Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once
Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st
Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel
Did famine follow; whom thou fought'st against,
Though daintily brought up, with patience more
Than savages could suffer: thou didst drink
The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle
Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then did deign
The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;
Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets,
The barks of trees thou browsed'st; on the Alps
It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,
Which some did die to look on: and all this--
It wounds thine honour that I speak it now--
Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek
So much as lank'd not.”

However, this is the Antony of the past, Shakespeare’s Antony seems to have gone soft, and is no longer this capable soldier Caesar describes. Antony seems a slave to his love for Cleopatra, he follows her everywhere, be to Egypt or fleeing from battle. He also indulges her constant desire to be told how much he loves her, or how beautiful she is, he obeys her every wish.

This change in Antony makes us feel that either Rome is not as masculine and powerful as it once was, or that Antony is not as Roman as he was in the past. Cleopatra seems to have stripped him of the qualities he was most glorified for in his past. Shakespeare gives us a vivid image of her actually stripping away his manhood in act 2 scene 5, “Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst / I wore his sword Philippan.”, where she is literally recalling taking and wearing his clothes and sword. While Antony is becoming more feminine Cleopatra is becoming more masculine. She is in control of their relationship, and she is even braver in her suicide than Antony was.

I think this sense of a more powerful, leading woman is something that distinguishes between east and west. In the east Cleopatra is queen, she controls her country, she loves who she pleases, and governs her own decisions. In the west however, women are treated as commodities to be traded and bartered. Octavia’s freedom and empowerment is non-existent when compared to Cleopatra’s independence. We see Roman men using their women to cement their own alliances, as illustrated by Antony’s marriage to Octavia in act 2 scene 2.

“To hold you in perpetual amity, / To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts / With an unslipping knot, take Antony / Octavia to his wife”

Octavia tolerates this role, but when Caesar means to use Cleopatra for his own means she rebels. She refuses tolerate being drug into Rome as a trophy, or to made a mockery of. Instead of standing by and accepting her fate, as it seems a roman woman would, she kills herself. She views death as a happier alternative than to be a pawn of men.

It is clear that there are many differences between the Egyptian east and the Roman west. These differences are especially clear in the roles and characteristics of women in the east versus the west. Eastern women have more power and independence, while Roman women seem weak and tolerant by comparison. Perhaps Antony was so easily stripped of his strength and masculinity because he was not used to such strong natured women as Cleopatra.