Antony and Aeneas

Shakespeare’s Antony is an Aeneas who refuses to act piously by leaving his Dido and moving on to found Rome. Hence, in pursuit of Cleopatra he leaves Empire to Octavius, and Aeneas is split between the two of them. But Antony is also an Aeneas who will never be separated from his Dido, who will never suffer the pangs of seeing her retreat to her former husband. At least, so he hopes, and Cleopatra too, whose suicide is not an act of Roman honor but of Egyptian love.