SOURCE: "The Common Liar: Tradition as Source in Antony and Cleopatra," in The Common Liar: An Essay on Antony and Cleopatra, Yale University Press, 1973, pp. 53-101.

In the following excerpt, Adelman examines parallels to the myth of Venus and Mars in Antony and Cleopatra, commenting that "[the significance of the mythological allusions in [the play] is not in their number but in their use: the gods are generally adduced as analogues for the protagonists."]

Yet have I fierce affections and think
 What Venus did with Mars.
                                             (1.5.17-18)

It is at first hardly startling to find a great many allusions to mythological personages and events in Antony and Cleopatra: the play deals, after all, with classical matter in a high style to which Thetis, Bacchus, Hercules, Venus, Mars, Juno, Jove, and the rest are most appropriate. But if we look at Julius Caesar, a play dealing with essentially the...