ABSTRACT
The juice of Egypt's grape has of course played a large role in what one have seen of the love affair of Antony and Cleopatra, so its renunciation now would seem to acquire significance. The myth of Mars and Venus stands pervasively behind the love affair of Antony and Cleopatra. The author proposes that Plutarch's syncretism in the treatise 'On Isis and Osiris' may provide a way of understanding not only Antony and Cleopatra, but additionally these three romances, in which elements of ancient religion are mingled promiscuously with Christian references and in some cases theological ideas drawn from both Protestant and Catholic fonts. So the renunciation of the juice of Egypt's grape, Cleopatra's unknowing paraphrase of the Christ who similarly renounces wine until the kingdom of God has come, becomes part of her assumption of the role of Isis. In death, Janet Adelman suggests, 'Antony achieves the hyperbolical in Cleopatra's vision'.
