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It’s a great puzzle for readers of Antony and Cleopatra, how Antony – a once fierce and most feared soldier – who ruled the Roman Empire along with Octavius Caesar and Lepidus of whom Cleopatra imagines thus: “His legs bestrid the ocean, his rear’d arm/ Crested the world: his voice was propertied/ As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends:/ But when he meant to quail, and shake the orb,/ He was as rattling thunder.
For his bounty,/ There was no winter in’t: an autumn’t was/ That grew the more by reaping: his delights/ Were dolphin-like, they show’d his back above/ The element they lived in: in his livery/ Walk’d crowns and crownets: realms and islands were/ As plates dropp’d from his pocket” (V, ii, 82-92); could at all transform into a “strumpet’s fool”. As Philo reveals in the very opening scene of the play, is this transformation because of Antony’s infatuation with Cleopatra that “O’erflows the measure”, and the resulting “stream of consciousness” relinquishing the earlier known figure of “plated Mars”?
This, incidentally, reminds us of the dramatic opening lines of the article – Managing Yourself: A Survival Guide for Leaders by Ronald A. Heifetz & Marty Linsky’s (HBR June 2002): “Think of the many top executives in recent years who, sometimes after long periods of considerable success have crashed and burned. Or think of individuals you have known in less prominent positions, perhaps people spearheading significant change initiatives in their organizations, who have suddenly found themselves out of a job…to lead is to live dangerously. While leadership is often depicted as an exciting and glamorous endeavor, one in which you inspire others to follow you through good times and bad, such a portrayal ignores leadership’s dark side: the inevitable attempts to take you out of the game.” |
