SOURCE: "'The Choice of Hercules' in 'Antony and Cleopatra'," in Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakespearian Study and Production, Vol. 31, 1978, pp. 45-52.

In the following essay, Coates considers parallels between the Renaissance story of "The Choice of Hercules" and Antony and Cleopatra.

The importance of the 'Choice of Hercules' in the art of the Renaissance has been made clear by the work of Erwin Panofsky [Hercules am Scheidewege] and its role in the culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has been illustrated by Edgar Wind [in Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance]. From a simple story in Xenophon's Memorabilia, which coalesced with Scipio's dream in the Punica of Silius Italicus, neo-Platonist philosophy fashioned a richly-textured, highly sophisticated allegory. This allegory touched on the most vital moral question of the time: the attainment of human wholeness, perhaps the central concern of the Renaissance. My object is to explore...