嗅覺是人類身體認知世界的五種基本感官之一。在西方文化中,氣味有著特殊的文化意義,特別是香氣能激起夢幻、幻想和渴望等美好意味。而在莎士比亞的時代,香水及香氣不但是人們日常生活中的使用物品,同時在舞臺表演中也是一種重要道具。在悲劇《安東尼與克莉奧佩特拉》中,莎士比亞通過埃及艷后的"異香"探討了香氣所代表的身體政治,暗示出克莉奧佩特拉異國芳香的女性身體特質與伊麗莎白一世的相似性,同時也表明香氣在戲劇中重要而復雜的文化意義。

Olfaction is one of the five basic human senses(sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell) to understand and perceive the world. In the Western culture it contains specific cultural connotations. Perfume, in particular, evokes dreams, fantasies and desires. During the time of Shakespeare, perfume was not only a necessity in daily life, but also a crucial prop on stage. In his tragedy, Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare explores the body politics through the metaphor of Cleopatra’s "Invisible, strange perfume" and implies that Cleopatra’s female body feature of aromatic exotica is quite similar to that of Elizabeth I, thus revealing the important but complex cultural implications of perfume in the play.