Question 1 Report
This question is based on ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
Cleopatra:
O, wither'd is the garland of the war,
The soldier's pole is fall'n: young boys and girls
Are level now with men; the odds is gone,
And there is nothing left remarkable
Beneath the visiting moon.
What is Cleopatra lamenting in this passage?
In this passage from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra is lamenting the death of Antony.
Her imagery makes the subject unmistakable. "Wither'd is the garland of the war" means that the great warrior - Antony, who was the ornament and glory of the military world - is gone. "The soldier's pole is fall'n" uses "pole" to mean the standard or banner around which soldiers rally; with Antony dead, that standard has fallen.
The lines "young boys and girls / Are level now with men" mean that without Antony, the distinction of greatness among people has vanished. Everyone is reduced to the same ordinary level because the one truly extraordinary man is dead. "The odds is gone" reinforces this: all difference, all superiority, has disappeared. "And there is nothing left remarkable / Beneath the visiting moon" completes the thought: with Antony gone, nothing in the world is worthy of notice any longer.
Cleopatra is not lamenting the fall of Rome (Rome endures after Antony's death), the destruction of her kingdom (Egypt's political fate is not the subject of this speech), or the death of a son (Caesarion is not referenced here). Every image in the passage points to the loss of one singular man whose greatness, in Cleopatra's eyes, gave the world its meaning.
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