Abstract:The exchange between Antony, Lepidus, and Octavius on the nature of the Nile crocodile is one of the most striking passages of Antony and Cleopatra: on Antony's account, this curious reptile is like unto itself alone. In this essay, I look afresh at the sources and analogs on which Shakespeare may have drawn in scripting Antony's crocodile, and use them as a tool with which to reconsider the apparent collision between the Roman and Egyptian worldviews that shapes so much of the play. The crocodile emerges as a representative of Egypt as a whole, and as a token whose currency is determined by the value assigned to it within the moral and cultural economy of Rome—both before and after Octavius subjects Egypt to Roman dominion. Viewed from here, the play's Egyptian culture is not the mighty opposite of Romanitas, but is the transculturated fantasy of Roman civic and rhetorical doctrine; a fantasy, furthermore, that Cleopatra is willing to exploit in her attempt to assert a measure of political sovereignty. Antony's crocodile helps us to see that rather than an existential struggle between East and West, Actium—like Philippi before it—marks the point at which one Rome triumphs over another.

中文翻译：

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罗马人、埃及人和鳄鱼

摘要：安东尼、雷必达和屋大维之间关于尼罗河鳄鱼性质的交流是安东尼和克利奥帕特拉最引人注目的段落之一：在安东尼看来，这种好奇的爬行动物就像自己一样。在这篇文章中，我重新审视了莎士比亚在编写安东尼的鳄鱼时可能借鉴的来源和类比，并将它们用作重新考虑塑造了该剧大部分内容的罗马和埃及世界观之间明显冲突的工具。鳄鱼作为整个埃及的代表出现，作为一种象征，其货币取决于罗马道德和文化经济中赋予它的价值——无论是在屋大维将埃及置于罗马统治之前还是之后。从这里看，该剧的埃及文化并不是罗马尼塔的强大对立面，而是罗马公民和修辞学说的跨文化幻想；此外，克利奥帕特拉 (Cleopatra) 愿意利用这种幻想来维护一定程度的政治主权。安东尼的鳄鱼帮助我们看到，而不是东西方之间存在主义的斗争，亚克兴——就像之前的腓立比——标志着一个罗马战胜另一个罗马的时刻。