Summary
The play opens with a preface outlining the liberties that Dryden, the playwright, will take with the familiar story of Antony and Cleopatra. Act 1, Scene 1 takes place in the Temple of Isis, where Serapion and Myris, priests of Isis, are discussing recent portents of doom, most notably the flooding of the Nile, whirlwinds, and various storms, that have brought sea creatures onto the land.
Alexas, Cleopatra's eunuch, enters and asks if Serapion has only imagined these things, but he insists they are real. "A foolish dream,/Bred from the fumes of indigested feasts,/And holy luxury," says Alexas, dismissively. The men discuss the fact that Antony has been disgraced by his defeat at the hands of Octavius in the Battle of Actium. Alexas, Serapion, and Myris are all worried that Cleopatra is losing favor with Antony.
Serapion describes the ways that Antony and Cleopatra's union has benefited the nation: "If he be vanquished,/Or make his peace, Egypt is doomed to be/A Roman province; and our plenteous harvests/Must then redeem the scarceness of their soil./While Antony stood firm, our Alexandria/Rivalled proud Rome (dominion's other seat),/And fortune striding, like a vast Colossus,/Could fix an equal foot of empire here."
We learn that Antony has locked himself away in hopes that solitude will cure him of his love for Cleopatra, which is why Alexas is worried about the fate of their relationship.
Ventidius, one of Antony's generals, enters and speaks to one of Antony's gentlemen about Antony's state. The gentleman tells him that Antony is not eating, sleeping, or drinking. Even after the priests and the gentlemen have left, Ventidius dares to stay and speak with the reclusive Antony, who has insisted on receiving no visitors. Serapion calls on the Egyptians to throw Antony a feast for his birthday, in order to strengthen the union between him and Cleopatra.
Antony enters in despair, without seeing Ventidius, and mourns his loss at Actium, and his floundering reputation. Suddenly, Ventidius makes himself known to Antony, and Antony is mad that Ventidius would visit him at this time. Ventidius compliments him, and tries to convince Antony that he is still powerful and can achieve greatness once again.
Ventidius tells Antony that there is an army of 12 legions waiting for him in Syria that have remained loyal to him. Antony requests that the armies come to him in Egypt, but Ventidius tells him that they are only willing to fight on his behalf if he ends his affair with Cleopatra. They feel that he is being disloyal to the Roman cause by staying in Egypt.
Eventually, Ventidius restores Antony's spirit and convinces him to leave Egypt and join his army. Antony says to Ventidius, "Oh, thou hast fired me; my soul's up in arms,/And mans each part about me: Once again,/That noble eagerness of fight has seized me;/That eagerness with which I darted upward/To Cassius' camp: In vain the steepy hill/Opposed my way; in vain a war of spears/Sung round my head, and planted on my shield;/I won the trenches, while my foremost men/Lagged on the plain below."
Analysis
John Dryden takes on very well-known source material for his play All For Love: the affair between Antony and Cleopatra. As the story of Antony and Cleopatra already served as inspiration for Shakespeare's play at the beginning of the 17th century, Dryden was undertaking less to tell a new story than to tell it with his own spin. In his preface, he outlines the fact that he will be telling a different kind of story, introducing new characters and focusing on a specific part of the story.
The play opens with Serapion and Myris, two Egyptian priests, and Alexas, Cleopatra's eunuch, discussing dramatic omens that have been cropping up lately. They discuss the fact that the turmoil taking place politically and romantically in Egypt is manifesting in the natural world. Dryden drops the audience into the middle of the drama, rather than building up to the dramatic conflict of the play. This is one element that sets his rendering of the story apart from Shakespeare's.
From the start, the romantic and erotic connection between Antony and Cleopatra is framed as explicitly political. The fact that Antony has shacked up with Cleopatra in Egypt has had major repercussions on his career as a general, and the characters, in speaking about him, frame him as having not only been seduced by Cleopatra herself, but by Egypt as a nation. His affair, the distraction of his erotic relationship with Cleopatra, is what has led to his political downfall.
Thus, it is his general Ventidius' obligation to convince him not only to believe in himself more and fight for his reputation, but to leave his love affair with Cleopatra behind. When he visits Antony, Ventidius speaks to him about the 12 legions that have remained loyal to him, but are only willing to fight with him if he denounces his love for Cleopatra and no longer fights on behalf of Egypt. He outlines the explicitly political ramifications of their affair when he says, "Why should they fight indeed, to make her conquer,/And make you more a slave? to gain you kingdoms,/Which, for a kiss, at your next midnight feast,/You'll sell to her? Then she new-names her jewels,/And calls this diamond such or such a tax;/Each pendant in her ear shall be a province."
Antony is defined several times—first in the preface by Dryden and then by Ventidius—as a good and virtuous man who is often misguided and gets off track. When talking to a gentleman of Antony's, Ventidius says, "Virtue's his path; but sometimes 'tis too narrow/For his vast soul; and then he starts out wide,/And bounds into a vice, that bears him far/From his first course, and plunges him in ills." In this, we see that Antony is defined by his "vast soul," his boldness and his bravery, but also by the ways that he is inconsistent.
