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+The Project Gutenberg EBook Cleopatra, by Georg Ebers, Volume 9.
+#43 in our series by Georg Ebers
+
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+Title: Cleopatra, Volume 9.
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5481]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 21, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLEOPATRA, BY GEORG EBERS, V9 ***
+
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+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
+file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
+entire meal of them.  D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+
+CLEOPATRA
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+Volume 9.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+After accompanying Dion to the harbour, the architect had gone to the
+Forum to converse with the men he met there, and learn what they feared
+and expected in regard to the future fate of the city.
+
+All news reached this meeting-place first, and he found a large number of
+Macedonian citizens who, like himself, wished to discuss passing events
+in these decisive hours.
+
+The scene was very animated, for the most contradictory messages were
+constantly arriving from the fleet and the army.
+
+At first they were very favourable; then came the news of the treason,
+and soon after of the desertion of the cavalry and foot soldiers.
+
+A distinguished citizen had seen Mark Antony, accompanied by several
+friends, dashing down the quay.  The goal of their flight was the little
+palace on the Choma.
+
+Grave men, whose opinion met with little opposition, thought that it was
+the duty of the Imperator--now that Fate had decided against him, and
+nothing remained save a life sullied by disgrace--to put himself to death
+with his own hand, like Brutus and so many other noble Romans.  Tidings
+soon came that he had attempted to do what the best citizens expected.
+
+Gorgias could not endure to remain longer in the Forum, but hastened to
+the Choma, though it was difficult to force his way to the wall, where a
+breach had been made.  He had found the portion of the shore from which
+the promontory ran densely crowded with people--from whom he learned that
+Antony was no longer in the palace--and the sea filled with boats.
+
+A corpse was just being borne out of the little palace on the Street of
+the King and, among those who followed, Gorgias recognized one of
+Antony's slaves.  The man's eyes were red with weeping.  He readily
+obeyed the architect's sign and, sobbing bitterly, told him that the
+hapless general, after his army had betrayed him, fled hither.  When he
+heard in the palace that Cleopatra had preceded him to Hades, he ordered
+his body-slave Eros to put an end to his life also.  The worthy man drew
+back, pierced his own breast with his sword, and sank dying at his
+master's feet; but Antony, exclaiming that Eros's example had taught him
+his duty, thrust the short sword into his breast with his own hand.  Yet
+deep and severe as was the wound, it did not destroy the tremendous
+vitality of the gigantic Roman.  With touching entreaties he implored the
+bystanders to kill him, but no one could bring himself to commit the
+deed.  Meanwhile Cleopatra's name, coupled with the wish to follow her,
+was constantly on the lips of the Imperator.
+
+At last Diomedes, the Queen's private secretary, appeared, to bring him,
+by her orders, to the mausoleum where she had taken refuge.
+
+Antony, as if animated with fresh vigour, assented, and while being
+carried thither gave orders that Eros should have a worthy burial.  Even
+though dying, it would have been impossible for the most generous of
+masters to permit any kindness rendered to pass unrequited.
+
+The slave again wept aloud as he uttered the words, but Gorgias hastened
+at once to the tomb.  The nearest way, the Street of the King, had become
+so crowded with people who had been forced back by Roman soldiers,
+between the Theatre of Dionysus and the Corner of the Muses, that he had
+been compelled to reach the building through a side street.
+
+The quay was already unrecognizable, and even in the other streets the
+populace showed a foreign aspect.  Instead of peaceful citizens, Roman
+soldiers in full armour were met everywhere.  Instead of Greek, Egyptian,
+and Syrian faces, fair and dark visages of alien appearance were seen.
+
+The city seemed transformed into a camp.  Here he met a cohort of fair-
+haired Germans; yonder another with locks of red whose home he did not
+know; and again a vexil of Numidian or Pannonian horsemen.
+
+At the Temple of the Dioscuri he was stopped.  A Hispanian maniple had
+just seized Antony's son Antyllus and, after a hasty court-martial,
+killed him.  His tutor, Theodotus, had betrayed him to the Romans, but
+the infamous fellow was being led with bound hands after the corpse of
+the hapless youth, because he was caught in the act of hiding in his
+girdle a costly jewel which he had taken from his neck.  Before his
+departure for the island Gorgias heard that the scoundrel had been
+sentenced to crucifixion.
+
+At last he succeeded in forcing a passage to the tomb, which he found
+surrounded on all sides by Roman lictors and the Scythian guards of the
+city, who, however, permitted him, as the architect, to pass.
+
+The numerous obstacles by which he had been delayed spared him from
+becoming an eye-witness of the most terrible scenes of the tragedy which
+had just ended; but he received a minute description from the Queen's
+private secretary, a well-disposed Macedonian, who had accompanied the
+wounded Antony, and with whom Gorgias had become intimately acquainted
+during the building of the mausoleum.
+
+Cleopatra had fled to the tomb as soon as the fortune of war turned in
+favour of Octavianus.  No one was permitted to accompany her except
+Charmian and Iras, who had helped her close the heavy brazen door of the
+massive building.  The false report of her death, which had induced
+Antony to put an end to his life, had perhaps arisen from the fact that
+the Queen was literally in the tomb.
+
+When, borne in the arms of his faithful servants, he reached the
+mausoleum, mortally wounded, the Queen and her attendants vainly
+endeavoured to open the heavy brazen portal.  But Cleopatra ardently
+longed to see her dying lover.  She wished to have him near to render the
+last services, assure him once more of her devotion, close his eyes, and,
+if it was so ordered, die with him.
+
+So she and her attendants had searched the place, and when Iras spoke of
+the windlass which stood on the scaffold to raise the heavy brass plate
+bearing the bas-relief of Love conquering Death, the Queen and her
+friends hastened up the stairs, the bearer below fastened the wounded man
+to the rope, and Cleopatra herself stood at the windlass to raise him,
+aided by her faithful companions.
+
+Diomedes averred that he had never beheld a more piteous spectacle than
+the gigantic man hovering between heaven and earth in the agonies of
+death and, while suffering the most terrible torture, extending his arms
+longingly towards the woman he loved.  Though scarcely able to speak, he
+tenderly called her name, but she made no reply; like Iras and Charmian,
+she was exerting her whole strength at the windlass in the most
+passionate effort to raise him.  The rope running over the pulley cut her
+tender hands; her beautiful face was terribly distorted; but she did not
+pause until they had succeeded in lifting the burden of the dying man
+higher and higher till he reached the floor of the scaffolding.  The
+frantic exertion by which the three women had succeeded in accomplishing
+an act far beyond their strength, though it was doubled by the power of
+the most earnest will and ardent longing, would nevertheless have failed
+in attaining its object had not Diomedes, at the last moment, come to
+their assistance.  He was a strong man, and by his aid the dying Roman
+was seized, drawn upon the scaffolding, and carried down the staircase to
+the tomb in the first story.
+
+When the wounded general had been laid on one of the couches with which
+the great hall was already furnished, the private secretary retired, but
+remained on the staircase, an unnoticed spectator, in order to be at hand
+in case the Queen again needed his assistance.  Flushed from the terrible
+exertion which she had just made, with tangled, dishevelled locks,
+gasping and moaning, Cleopatra, as if out of her senses, tore open her
+robe, beat her breast, and lacerated it with her nails.  Then, pressing
+her own beautiful face on her lover's wound to stanch the flowing blood,
+she lavished upon him all the endearing names which she had bestowed on
+their love.
+
+His terrible suffering made her forget her own and the sad fate
+impending.  Tears of pity fell like the refreshing drops of a shower upon
+the still unwithered blossoms of their love, and brought those which,
+during the preceding night, had revived anew, to their last magnificent
+unfolding.
+
+Boundless, limitless as her former passion for this man, was now the
+grief with which his agonizing death filled her heart.
+
+All that Mark Antony had been to her in the heyday of life, all their
+mutual experiences, all that each had received from the other, had
+returned to her memory in clear and vivid hues during the banquet which
+had closed a few hours ago.  Now these scenes, condensed into a narrow
+compass, again passed before her mental vision, but only to reveal more
+distinctly the depth of misery of this hour.  At last anguish forced even
+the clearest memories into oblivion: she saw nothing save the tortures of
+her lover; her brain, still active, revealed solely the gulf at her feet,
+and the tomb which yawned not only for Antony, but for herself.
+
+Unable to think of the happiness enjoyed in the past or to hope for it in
+the future, she gave herself up to uncontrolled despair, and no woman of
+the people could have yielded more absolutely to the consuming grief
+which rent her heart, or expressed it in wilder, more frantic language,
+than did this great Queen, this woman who as a child had been so
+sensitive to the slightest suffering, and whose after-life had certainly
+not taught her to bear sorrow with patience.  After Charmian, at the
+dying man's request, had given him some wine, he found strength to speak
+coherently, instead of moaning and sighing.
+
+He tenderly urged Cleopatra to secure her own safety, if it could be done
+without dishonour, and mentioned Proculejus as the man most worthy of her
+confidence among the friends of Octavianus.  Then he entreated her not to
+mourn for him, but to consider him happy; for he had enjoyed the richest
+favours of Fortune.  He owed his brightest hours to her love; but he had
+also been the first and most powerful man on earth.  Now he was dying in
+the arms of Love, honourable as a Roman who succumbed to Romans.
+
+In this conviction he died after a short struggle.
+
+Cleopatra had watched his last breath, closed his eyes, and then thrown
+herself tearlessly on her lover's body.  At last she fainted, and lay
+unconscious with her head upon his marble breast.
+
+The private secretary had witnessed all this, and then returned with
+tearful eyes to the second story.  There he met Gorgias, who had climbed
+the scaffolding, and told him what he had seen and heard from the stairs.
+But his story was scarcely ended when a carriage stopped at the Corner of
+the Muses and an aristocratic Roman alighted.  This was the very
+Proculejus whom the dying Antony had recommended to the woman he
+loved as worthy of her confidence.
+
+"In fact," Gorgias continued, "he seemed in form and features one of the
+noblest of his haughty race.  He came commissioned by Octavianus, and is
+said to be warmly devoted to the Caesar, and a well-disposed man.  We
+have also heard him mentioned as a poet and a brother-in-law of Maecenas.
+A wealthy aristocrat, he is a generous patron of literature, and also
+holds art and science in high esteem.  Timagenes lauds his culture and
+noble nature.  Perhaps the historian was right; but where the object in
+question is the state and its advantage, what we here regard as worthy of
+a free man appears to be considered of little moment at the court of
+Octavianus.  The lord to whom he gives his services intrusted him with a
+difficult task, and Proculejus doubtless considered it his duty to make
+every effort to perform it--and yet----If I see aright, a day will come
+when he will curse this, and the obedience with which he, a free man,
+aided Caesar  But listen.
+
+"Erect and haughty in his splendid suit of armour, he knocked at the door
+of the tomb.  Cleopatra had regained consciousness and asked--she must
+have known him in Rome--what he desired.
+
+"He had come, he answered courteously, by the command of Octavianus, to
+negotiate with her, and the Queen expressed her willingness to listen,
+but refused to admit him into the mausoleum.
+
+"So they talked with each other through the door.  With dignified
+composure, she asked to have the sons whom she had given to Antony--not
+Caasarion--acknowledged as Kings of Egypt.
+
+"Proculejus instantly promised to convey her wishes to Caesar, and gave
+hopes of their fulfilment.
+
+"While she was speaking of the children and their claims--she did not
+mention her own future--the Roman questioned her about Mark Antony's
+death, and then described the destruction of the dead man's army and
+other matters of trivial importance.  Proculejus did not look like a
+babbler, but I felt a suspicion that he was intentionally trying to hold
+the attention of the Queen.  This proved to be his design; he had been
+merely waiting for Cornelius Gallus, the commander of the fleet, of whom
+you have heard.  He, too, ranks among the chief men in Rome, and yet he
+made himself the accomplice of Proculejus.
+
+"The latter retired as soon as he had presented the new-comer to the
+hapless woman.
+
+"I remained at my post and now heard Gallus assure Cleopatra of his
+master's sympathy.  With the most bombastic exaggeration he described how
+bitterly Octavianus mourned in Mark Antony the friend, the brother-in-
+law, the co-ruler and sharer in so many important enterprises.  He had
+shed burning tears over the tidings of his death.  Never had more sincere
+ones coursed down any man's cheeks.
+
+"Gallus, too, seemed to me to be intentionally prolonging the
+conversation.
+
+"Then, while I was listening intently to understand Cleopatra's brief
+replies, my foreman, who, when the workmen were driven away by the
+Romans, had concealed himself between two blocks of granite, came to me
+and said that Proculejus had just climbed a ladder to the scaffold in the
+rear of the monument.  Two servants followed, and they had all stolen
+down into the hall.
+
+"I hastily started up.  I had been lying on the floor with my head
+outstretched to listen.
+
+"Cost what it might, the Queen must be warned.  Treachery was certainly
+at work here.
+
+"But I came too late.
+
+"O Dion!  If I had only been informed a few minutes before, perhaps
+something still more terrible might have happened, but the Queen would
+have been spared what now threatens her.  What can she expect from the
+conqueror who, in order to seize her alive, condescends to outwit a
+noble, defenceless woman, who has succumbed to superior power?
+
+"Death would have released the unhappy Queen from sore trouble and
+horrible shame.  And she had already raised the dagger against her life.
+Before my eyes she flung aloft her beautiful arm with the flashing steel,
+which glittered in the light of the candles in the many-branched
+candelabra beside the sarcophagi.  But I will try to remain calm!  You
+shall hear what happened in regular order.  My thoughts grow confused as
+the terrible scene recurs to my memory.  To describe it as I saw it, I
+should need to be a poet, an artist in words; for what passed before me
+happened on a stage--you know, it was a tomb.  The walls were of dark
+stone-dark, too, were the pillars and ceiling--all dark and glittering;
+most portions were smoothly polished stone, shining like a mirror.  Near
+the sarcophagi, and around the candelabra as far as the vicinity of the
+door, where the rascally trick was played, the light was brilliant as in
+a festal hall.  Every blood-stain on the hand, every scratch, every wound
+which the desperate woman had torn with her own nails on her bosom, which
+gleamed snow-white from her black robes, was distinctly visible.  Farther
+away, on the right and left, the light was dim, and near the side walls
+the darkness was as intense as in a real tomb.  On the smooth porphyry
+columns, the glittering black marble and serpentine--here, there, and
+everywhere--flickered the wavering reflection of the candlelight.  The
+draught kept it continually in motion, and it wavered to and fro in the
+hall, like the restless souls of the damned.  Wherever the eye turned it
+met darkness.  The end of the hall seemed black--black as the anteroom of
+Hades--yet through it pierced a brilliant moving bar; sunbeams which
+streamed from the stairway into the tomb and amid which danced tiny
+motes.  How the scene impressed the eye!  The home of gloomy Hecate!  And
+the Queen and her impending fate.  A picture flooded with light, standing
+forth in radiant relief against the darkness of the heavy, majestic forms
+surrounding it in a wide circle.  This tomb in this light would be a
+palace meet for the gloomy rule of the king of the troop of demons
+conjured up by the power of a magician--if they have a ruler.  But where
+am I wandering?  'The artist!'  I hear you  exclaim  again, 'the  artist!
+Instead of rushing forward and interposing, he stands studying the light
+and its effects in the royal tomb.'  Yes, yes; I had come too late, too
+late--far too late!  On the stairs leading to the lower story of the
+building I saw it, but I was not to blame for the delay--not in the
+least!
+
+"At first I had been unable to see the men--or even a shadow; but I
+beheld plainly in the brightest glare of the light the body of Mark
+Antony on the couch and, in the dusk farther towards the right, Iras and
+Charmian trying to raise a trapdoor.  It was the one which closed the
+passage leading to the combustible materials stored in the cellar.  A
+sign from the Queen had commanded them to fire it.  The first steps of
+the staircase, down which I was hastening, were already behind me--then--
+then Proculejus, with two men, suddenly dashed from the intense darkness
+on the other side.  Scarcely able to control myself, I sprang down the
+remaining steps, and while Iras's shrill cry, 'Poor Cleopatra, they will
+capture you!' still rang in my ears, I saw the betrayed Queen turn from
+the door through which, resolved on death, she was saying something to
+Gallus, perceive Proculejus close behind her, thrust her hand into her
+girdle, and with the speed of lightning--you have already heard so--throw
+up her arm with the little dagger to bury the sharp blade in her breast.
+What a picture!  In the full radiance of the brilliant light, she
+resembled a statue of triumphant victory or of noble pride in great deeds
+accomplished; and then, then, only an instant later, what an outrage was
+inflicted!
+
+"Like a robber, an assassin, Proculejus rushed upon her, seized her arm,
+and wrested the weapon from her grasp.  His tall figure concealed her
+from me.  But when, struggling to escape from the ruffian's clutch, she
+again turned her face towards the hall, what a transformation had
+occurred!  Her eyes--you know how large they are--were twice their usual
+size, and blazed with scorn, fury, and hatred for the traitor.  The
+cheering light had become a consuming fire.  So I imagine the vengeance,
+the curse which calls down ruin upon the head of a foe.  And Proculejus,
+the great lord, the poet whose noble nature is praised by the authors on
+the banks of the Tiber, held the defenceless woman, the worthy daughter
+of a brilliant line of kings, in a firm grasp, as if it required the
+exertion of all his strength to master this delicate embodiment of
+charming womanhood.  True, the proud blood of the outwitted lioness urged
+her to resist this profanation, and Proculejus--an enviable honour--made
+her feel the superior strength of his arm.  I am no prophet, but Dion, I
+repeat, this shameful struggle and the glances which flashed upon him
+will be remembered to his dying hour.  Had they been darted at me, I
+should have cursed my life.
+
+"They blanched even the Roman's cheeks.  He was lividly pale as he
+completed what he deemed his duty.  His own aristocratic hands were
+degraded to the menial task of searching the garments of a woman, the
+Queen, for forbidden wares, poisons or weapons.  He was aided by one of
+Caesar's freedmen, Epaphroditus, who is said to stand so high in the
+favour of Octavianus.
+
+"The scoundrel also searched Iras and Charmian, yet all the time both
+Romans constantly spoke in cajoling terms of Caesar's favour; and his
+desire to grant Cleopatra everything which was due a Queen.
+
+"At last she was taken back to Lochias, but I felt like a madman; for
+the image of the unfortunate woman pursued me like my shadow.  It was
+no longer a vision of the bewitching sovereign nay, it resembled the
+incarnation of despair, tearless anguish, wrath demanding vengeance.
+I will not describe it; but those eyes, those flashing, threatening eyes,
+and the tangled hair on which Antony's blood had flowed-terrible,
+horrible!  My heart grew chill, as if I had seen upon Athene's shield the
+head of the Medusa with its serpent locks.
+
+"It had been impossible for me to warn her in time, or even to seize the
+traitor's arm--I have already said so--and yet, yet her shining image
+gazed reproachfully at me for my cowardly delay.  Her glance still haunts
+me, robbing me of calmness and peace.  Not until I gaze into Helena's
+pure, calm eyes will that terrible vision of the face, flooded by light
+in the midst of the tomb, cease to haunt me."
+
+His friend laid his hand on his arm, spoke soothingly to him, and
+reminded him of the blessings which this terrible day--he had said so
+himself--had brought.
+
+Dion was right to give this warning; for Gorgias's bearing and the very
+tone of his voice changed as he eagerly declared that the frightful
+events had been followed by more than happy ones for the city, his
+friend, and Barine.
+
+Then, with a sigh of relief, he continued: "I pursued my way home like a
+drunken man.  Every attempt to approach the Queen or her attendants was
+baffled, but I learned from Charmian's clever Nubian that Cleopatra had
+been permitted, in Caesar's name, to choose the palace she desired to
+occupy, and had selected the one at Lochias.
+
+"I did not make much progress towards my house; the crowd in front of the
+great gymnasium stopped me.  Octavianus had gone into the city, and the
+people, I heard, had greeted him with acclamations and flung themselves
+on their knees before him.  Our stiff-necked Alexandrians in the dust
+before the victor!  It enraged me, but my resentment was diminished.
+
+"The members of the gymnasium all knew me.  They made way and, ere I was
+aware of it, I had passed through the door.  Tall Phryxus had drawn my
+arm through his.  He appears and vanishes at will, is as alert as he is
+rich, sees and hears everything, and manages to secure the best places.
+This time he had again succeeded; for when he released me we were
+standing opposite to a newly erected tribune.
+
+"They were waiting for Octavianus, who was still in the hypostyle of
+Euergetes receiving the homage of the epitrop, the members of the
+Council, the gymnasiarch, and I know not how many others.
+
+"Phryxus said that on Caesar's entry he had held out his hand to his
+former tutor, bade him accompany him, and commanded that his sons should
+be presented.  The philosopher had been distinguished above every one
+else, and this will benefit you and yours; for he is Berenike's brother,
+and therefore your wife's uncle.  What he desires is sure to be granted.
+You will hear at once how studiously the Caesar distinguishes him.  I do
+not grudge it to the man; he interceded boldly for Barine; he is lauded
+as an able scholar, and he does not lack courage.  In spite of Actium and
+the only disgraceful deed with which, to my knowledge, Mark Antony could
+be reproached--I mean the surader of Turullius--Arius remained here,
+though the Imperator might have held the friend of Julius Caesar's nephew
+as a hostage as easily as he gave up the Emperor's assassin.
+
+"Since Octavianus encamped before the city, your uncle has been in
+serious danger, and his sons shared his peril.  Surely you must know the
+handsome, vigorous young Ephebi.
+
+"We were not obliged to wait long in the gymnasium ere the Caesar
+appeared on the platform; and now--if your hand clenches, it is only what
+I expect--now all fell on their knees.  Our turbulent, rebellious rabble
+raised their hands like pleading beggars, and grave, dignified men
+followed their example.  Whoever saw me and Phryxus will remember us
+among the kneeling lickspittles;  for had we remained standing we should
+certainly have been dragged down.  So we followed the example of the
+others."
+
+"And Octavianus?" asked Dion eagerly.
+
+"A man of regal bearing and youthful aspect; beardless face of the finest
+chiselling, a profile as beautiful as if created for the coin-maker; all
+the lines sharp and yet pleasing; every inch an aristocrat; but the very
+mirror of a cold nature, incapable of any lofty aspiration, any warm
+emotion, any tenderness of feeling.  All in all, a handsome, haughty,
+calculating man, whose friendship would hardly benefit the heart, but
+from whose enmity may the immortals guard all we love!
+
+"Again he led Arius by the hand.  The philosopher's sons followed the
+pair.  When he stood on the stage, looking down upon the thousands
+kneeling before him, not a muscle of his noble face--it is certainly that
+--betrayed the slightest emotion.  He gazed at us like a farmer surveying
+his flocks and, after a long silence, said curtly in excellent Greek that
+he absolved the Alexandrians from all guilt towards him: first--he
+counted as if he were summoning individual veterans to reward them--from
+respect for the illustrious founder of our city, Alexander, the conqueror
+of the world; secondly, because the greatness and beauty of Alexandria
+filled him with admiration; and, thirdly--he turned to Arius as he spoke
+--to give pleasure to his admirable and beloved friend.
+
+"Then shouts of joy burst forth.
+
+"Every one, from the humblest to the greatest, had had a heavy burden
+removed from his mind, and the throng had scarcely left the gymnasium
+when they were again laughing saucily enough, and there was no lack of
+biting and innocent jests.
+
+"The fat carpenter, Memnon--who furnished the wood-work for your palace--
+exclaimed close beside me that formerly a dolphin had saved Arius from
+the pirates; now Arius was saving marine Alexandria from the robbers.  So
+the sport went on.  Philostratus, Barine's first husband, offered the
+best butt for jests.  The agitator had good reason to fear the worst; and
+now, clad in black mourning robes, ran after Arius, whom but a few months
+ago he persecuted with the most vindictive hatred, continually repeating
+this shallow bit of verse:
+
+          "'If he is a wise man, let the wise aid the wise.'
+
+"Reaching home was not easy.  The street was swarming with Roman
+soldiers.  They fared well enough; for in the joy of their hearts many a
+prosperous citizen who saw his property saved invited individual
+warriors, or even a whole maniple, to the taverns or cook-shops, and the
+stock of wine in Alexandrian cellars will be considerably diminished to-
+night.
+
+"Many, as I have already said, had been quartered in the houses, with
+orders to spare the property of the citizens; and it was in this way
+that the misfortune with which I commenced my narrative befell the
+grandmother.  She died before my departure.
+
+"All the gates of the city will now stand open to you, and the niece of
+Arius and her husband will be received with ovations.  I don't grudge
+Barine the good fortune; for the way in which your noble wife, who had
+cast her spell over me too, flung aside what is always dear to the
+admired city beauty and found on the loneliest of islands a new world in
+love, is worthy of all admiration and praise.  For yourself, I dread new
+happiness and honours; if they are added to those which Fate bestowed
+upon you in such a wife and your son Pyrrhus, the gods would not be
+themselves if they did not pursue you with their envy.  I have less
+reason to fear them."
+
+"Ungrateful fellow!" interrupted his friend.  "There will be numerous
+mortals to grudge you Helena.  As for me, I have already felt many a
+slight foreboding; but we have already paid by no means a small tribute
+to the divine ones.  The lamp is still burning in the sitting-room.
+Inform the sisters of their grandmother's death, and tell them the
+pleasant tidings you have brought us, but reserve until the morning a
+description of the terrible scenes you witnessed.  We will not spoil
+their sleep.  Mark my words!  Helena's silent grief and her joy at our
+escape will lighten your heart."
+
+And so it proved.  True, Gorgias lived over again in his dreams the
+frightful spectacle witnessed the day before; but when the sun of the
+2d day of August rose in full radiance over Alexandria and, early in
+the morning, boat after boat reached the Serpent Island, landing first
+Berenike and her nephews, the sons of the honoured philosopher Arius,
+then clients, officials, and friends of Dion, and former favourite guests
+of Barine, to greet the young pair and escort them from the refuge which
+had so long sheltered them back to the city and their midst, new and
+pleasant impressions robbed the gloomy picture of a large portion of its
+terrors.
+
+"Tall Phryxus" had rapidly spread the news of the place where Dion and
+Barine had vanished, and that they had long been happily wedded.  Many
+deemed it well worth a short voyage to see the actors in so strange an
+adventure and be the first to greet them.  Besides, those who knew Barine
+and her husband were curious to learn how two persons accustomed to the
+life of a great capital had endured for months such complete solitude.
+Many feared or expected to see them emaciated and careworn, haggard or
+sunk in melancholy, and hence there were a number of astonished faces
+among those whose boats the freedman Pyrrhus guided as pilot through the
+shallows which protected his island.
+
+The return of this rare couple to their home would have afforded an
+excellent opportunity for gay festivities.  Sincerely as the majority of
+the populace mourned the fate of the Queen, and gravely as the more
+thoughtful feared for Alexandria's freedom under Roman rule, all rejoiced
+over the lenient treatment of the city.  Their lives and property were
+safe, and the celebration of festivals had become a life habit with all
+classes.  But the news of the death of Didymus's wife and the illness of
+the old man, who could not bear up under the loss of his faithful
+companion, gave Dion a right to refuse any gay welcome at his home.
+
+Barine's sorrow was his also, and Didymus died a few days after his wife,
+with whom he had lived in the bonds of love for more than half a century
+--people said, "of a broken heart."
+
+So Dion and his young wife entered his beautiful palace with no noisy
+festivities.  Instead of the jubilant hymenaeus, the voice of his own
+child greeted him on the threshold.
+
+The mourning garments in which Barine welcomed him in the women's
+apartment reminded him of the envy of the gods which his friend had
+feared for him.  But he often fancied that his mother's statue in the
+tablinum looked specially happy when the young mistress of the house
+entered it.
+
+Barine, too, felt that her happiness as wife and mother in her
+magnificent home would have been overwhelming had not a wise destiny
+imposed upon her, just at this time, grief for those whom she loved.
+
+Dion instantly devoted himself again to the affairs of the city and his
+own business.  He and the woman he loved, who had first become really
+his own during a time of sore privation, had run into the harbour and
+gazed quietly at the storms of life.  The anchor of love, which moored
+their ship to the solid earth, had been tested in the solitude of the
+Serpent Island.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+The fisherman and his family had watched the departure of their beloved
+guests with sorrowful hearts, and the women had shed many tears, although
+the sons of Pyrrhus had been dismissed from the fleet and were again
+helping their father at home, as in former times.
+
+Besides, Dion had made the faithful freedman a prosperous man, and given
+his daughter, Dione, a marriage dowry.  She was soon to become the wife
+of the captain of the Epicurus, Archibius's swift galley, whose
+acquaintance she had made when the vessel, on several occasions, brought
+Charmian's Nubian maid to the island.  Anukis's object in making these
+visits was not only to see her friend, but to induce him to catch one of
+the poisonous serpents in the neighbouring island and keep it ready for
+the Queen.
+
+Since Cleopatra had ascertained that no poison caused a less painful
+death than the fangs of the asp, she had resolved that the bite of one of
+these reptiles should release her from the burden of life.  The clever
+Ethiopian had thought of inducing her friend Pyrrhus to procure the
+adder, but it had required all Aisopion's skill in persuasion, and the
+touching manner in which she understood how to describe the Queen's
+terrible situation and severe suffering, to conquer the reluctance of the
+upright man.  At last she succeeded in persuading him to measure a queen
+by a different standard from a woman of the people, and inducing him to
+arrange the manner and time of conveying the serpent into the well-
+guarded palace.  A signal was to inform him when the decisive hour
+arrived.  After that he was to be ready with the asp in the fish-market
+every day.  Probably his service would soon be claimed; for Octavianus's
+delay was scarcely an indication of a favourable decision of Cleopatra's
+fate.
+
+True, she was permitted to live in royal state at Lochias, and had even
+been allowed to have the children, the twins, and little Alexander sent
+back to her with the promise that life and liberty would be granted them;
+but Caesarion--whose treacherous tutor Rhodon lured him from the journey
+southward back to Alexandria by all sorts of representations, among them
+the return of Barine--was held prisoner in his father's temple, where he
+had sought refuge.  This news, and the fact that Octavianus had condemned
+to death the youth who bore so striking a resemblance to Caesar, had not
+remained concealed from the unhappy mother.  She was also informed of the
+words in which the philosopher Arius had encouraged Caesar's desire to
+rid himself of the son of his famous uncle.  They referred to the Homeric
+saying concerning the disadvantage of having many rulers.
+
+Everything which Cleopatra desired to know concerning events in the city
+reached her ears; for she was allowed much liberty-only she was closely
+watched day and night, and all the servants and officials to whom she
+granted an audience were carefully searched to keep from her all means of
+self-destruction.
+
+True, it was very evident that she had closed her account with life.  Her
+attempt to take no food and die of starvation must have been noticed.
+Threats directed against the children, through whom she could be most
+easily influenced, finally induced her to eat again.  Octavianus was
+informed of all these things, and his conduct proved his anxiety to keep
+her from suicide.
+
+Several Asiatic princes vied with each other in the desire to honour Mark
+Antony by a magnificent funeral, but Octavianus had allowed Cleopatra to
+provide the most superb obsequies.  In the time of her deepest anguish it
+afforded her comfort and satisfaction to arrange everything herself, and
+even perform some offices with her own hands.  The funeral had been as
+gorgeous as the dead man's love of splendour could have desired.
+
+Iras and Charmian were often unable to understand how the Queen--who,
+since Antony's death, had suffered not only from the wounds she had
+inflicted upon herself in her despair, but also after her baffled attempt
+at starvation from a slow fever--had succeeded in resisting the severe
+exertions and mental agitation to which she had been subjected by
+Antony's funeral.
+
+The return of Archibius with the children, however, had visibly
+reanimated her flagging energy.  She often went to Didymus's garden,
+which was now connected with the palace at Lochias, to watch their work
+and share whatever interested their young hearts.
+
+But the gayest of mothers, who had understood how to enter so thoroughly
+into her children's pursuits, had now become a sorrowful, grave monitor.
+Though the lessons she urged upon them were often beautiful and wise,
+they were little suited to the ages of Archibius's pupils, for they
+usually referred to death and to questions of philosophy not easily
+understood by children.
+
+She herself felt that she no longer struck the right key; but whenever
+she tried to change it and jest with them as usual, she could endure the
+forced gaiety only a short time; a painful revulsion, frequently
+accompanied by tears, followed, and she was obliged to leave her
+darlings.
+
+The life her foe granted her seemed like an intrusive gift, an oppressive
+debt, which we desire to pay a troublesome creditor as soon as possible.
+She seemed calmer and apparently content only when permitted to talk with
+the companions of her youth concerning bygone days, or with them and Iras
+of death, and how it would be possible to put an end to an unwelcome
+existence.
+
+After such conversations Iras and Charmian left her with bleeding hearts.
+They had long since resolved to share the fate of their royal mistress,
+whatever it might be.  Their common suffering was the bond which again
+united them in affection.  Iras had provided poisoned pins which had
+speedily destroyed the animals upon which they had been tried.  Cleopatra
+knew of their existence, but she herself preferred the painless death
+bestowed by the serpent's bite, and it was long since her friends had
+seen the eyes of their beloved sovereign sparkle so brightly as when
+Charmian told her that away had been found to obtain the uraeus serpent
+as soon as it was needed.  Put it was not yet imperative to adopt the
+last expedient.  Octavianus wished to be considered lenient, and perhaps
+might still be prevailed upon to grant the Queen and her children a
+future meet for their royal birth.
+
+Cleopatra's reply was an incredulous smile, yet a faint hope which saved
+her from despair began to bud in her soul.
+
+Dolabella, an aristocratic Roman, a scion of the noble Cornelius family,
+was in the Caesar's train, and had been presented to the Egyptian Queen.
+In former years his father was a friend of Cleopatra; nay, she had placed
+him under obligations by sending him, after the murder of Julius Caesar,
+the military force at her command to be used against Cassius.  True, her
+legions, by messengers from Dolabella himself, were despatched in another
+direction; but Cleopatra had not withdrawn her favour from Dolabella's
+father on that account.  The latter had known her in Rome before the
+death of Caesar, and had enthusiastically described the charms of the
+bewitching Egyptian sovereign.  Though the youth found her only a
+mourning widow, ill in body and mind, he was so strongly attracted and
+deeply moved by her beauty, her brilliant intellect, her grace of
+bearing, her misfortunes and sufferings, that he devoted many hours to
+her, and would have considered it a happiness to render her greater
+services than circumstances permitted.  He often accompanied her to the
+children, whose hearts had been completely won by his frank, cheerful
+nature; and so it happened that he soon became one of the most welcome
+guests at Lochias.  He confided without reserve every feeling that
+stirred his soul to the warm-hearted woman who was so many years his
+senior, and through him she learned many things connected with Octavianus
+and his surroundings.  Without permitting himself to be used as a tool,
+he became an advocate for the unfortunate woman whom he so deeply
+esteemed.
+
+In intercourse with her he made every effort to inspire confidence in
+Octavianus, who favoured him, enjoyed his society, and in whose
+magnanimity the youth firmly believed.
+
+He anticipated the best results from an interview between the Queen and
+the Caesar; for he deemed it impossible that the successful conqueror
+could part untouched, and with no desire to mitigate her sad fate, from
+the woman who, in earlier years, had so fascinated his father, and whom
+he himself, though she might almost have been his mother, deemed peerless
+in her bewitching and gracious charm.
+
+Cleopatra, on the contrary, shrank from meeting the man who had brought
+so much misfortune upon Mark Antony and herself, and inflicted upon her
+insults which were only too well calculated to make her doubt his
+clemency and truth.  On the other hand, she could not deny Dolabella's
+assertion that it would be far less easy for Octavianus to refuse her in
+person the wishes she cherished for her children's future than through
+mediators.  Proculejus had learned that Antony had named him to the Queen
+as the person most worthy of her confidence, and more keenly felt the
+wrong which, as the tool and obedient friend of Octavianus, he had
+inflicted upon the hapless woman.  The memory of his unworthy deed, which
+history would chronicle, had robbed the sensitive man, the author and
+patron of budding Roman poetry, of many an hour's sleep, and therefore he
+also now laboured zealously to oblige the Queen and mitigate her hard
+fate.  He, like the freedman Epaphroditus, who by Caesar's orders watched
+carefully to prevent any attempt upon her life, seemed to base great
+hopes on such an interview, and endeavoured to persuade her to request an
+audience from the Caesar.
+
+Archibius said that, even in the worst case, it could not render the
+present state of affairs darker.  Experience, he said to Charmian, proved
+that no man of any feeling could wholly resist the charm of her nature,
+and to him at least she had never seemed more winning than now.  Who
+could have gazed unmoved into the beautiful face, so eloquent in its
+silent suffering, whose soul would not have been deeply touched by the
+sorrowful tones of her sweet voice?  Besides, her sable mourning robes
+were so well suited to the slight tinge of melancholy which pervaded her
+whole aspect.  When the fever flushed her cheeks, Archibius, spite of the
+ravages which grief, anxiety, and fear had made upon her charms, thought
+that he had never seen her look more beautiful.  He knew her thoroughly,
+and was aware that her desire to follow the man she loved into the realm
+of death was sincere; nay, that it dominated her whole being.  She clung
+to life only to die as soon as possible.  The decision which, after her
+resolve to build the monument, she had recognized in the temple of
+Berenike as the right one, had become the rule of conduct of her life.
+Every thought, every conversation, led her back to the past.  The future
+seemed to exist no longer.  If Archibius succeeded in directing her
+thoughts to approaching days she occupied herself wholly with her
+children's fate.  For herself she expected nothing, felt absolved from
+every duty except the one of protecting herself and her name from
+dishonour and humiliation.
+
+The fact that Octavianus, when he doomed Caesarion to death, permitted
+the other children to return to her with the assurance that no harm
+should befall them, proved that he made a distinction between them and
+his uncle's son, and had no fears that they threatened his own safety.
+She might expect important results in their favour from an interview with
+Octavianus, so she at last authorized Proculejus to request an audience.
+
+The Imperator's answer came the very same day.  It was his place to seek
+her--so ran the Caesar's message.  This meeting must decide her fate.
+Cleopatra was aware of this, and begged Charmian to remember the asp.
+
+Her attendants had been forbidden to leave Lochias, but Epaphroditus
+permitted them to receive visitors.  The Nubian's merry, amusing talk had
+made friends for her among the Roman guards, who allowed her to pass in
+and out unmolested.  On her return, of course, she was searched with the
+utmost care, like every one who entered Lochias.
+
+The decisive hour was close at hand.  Charmian knew what she must do in
+any event, but there was still one desire for whose fulfilment she
+longed.  She wished to greet Barine and see her boy.
+
+To spare Iras, she had hitherto refrained from sending for Dion's wife.
+The sight of the mother and child might have reopened wounds still
+unhealed, and she would not inflict this sorrow upon her niece, who for a
+long time had once more been loyally devoted to her.
+
+Octavianus did not hasten to fulfil his assurance.  But, at the end of a
+week, Proculejus brought the news that he could promise a visit from the
+Caesar that afternoon.  The Queen was deeply agitated, and desired before
+the interview to pay a visit to her tomb.  Iras offered to accompany her,
+and as Cleopatra intended to remain an hour or longer, Charmian thought
+it a favourable opportunity to see Barine and her boy.
+
+Dion's wife had been informed of her friend's wish, and Anukis, who was
+to take her to Lochias, did not wait long for the mother and child.
+
+Didymus's garden--now the property of the royal children--was the scene
+of the meeting.  In the shade of the familiar trees the young mother sank
+upon the breast of her faithful friend, and Charmian could not gaze her
+fill at the boy, or weary of tracing in his features a resemblance to his
+grandfather Leonax.
+
+How much these two women, to whom Fate had allotted lives so widely
+different, found to tell each other!  The older felt transported to the
+past, the younger seemed to have naught save a present rich in blessing
+and a future green with hope.  She had good news to tell of her sister
+also.  Helena had long been the happy wife of Gorgias who, however, spite
+of the love with which he surrounded the young mistress of his house,
+numbered among his most blissful hours those which were devoted to
+overseeing the progress of the work on the mausoleum, where he met
+Cleopatra.
+
+Time flew swiftly to the two women, and it was a painful surprise when
+one of the eunuchs on guard announced that the Queen had returned.  Again
+Charmian embraced her lover's grandson, blessed him and the young mother,
+sent messages of remembrance to Dion, begged Barine to think of her
+affectionately when she had passed from earth and, if her heart prompted
+her to the act, to anoint or adorn with a ribbon or flower the tombstone
+of the woman who had no friend to render her such a service.
+
+Deeply moved by the firmness with which Charmian witnessed the approach
+of death, Barine listened in silence, but suddenly started as the sharp
+tones of a well-known voice called her friend's name and, as she turned,
+Iras stood before her.  Pallid and emaciated, she looked in her long,
+floating black robes the very incarnation of misery.
+
+The sight pierced the heart of the happy wife and mother.  She felt as if
+much of the joy which Iras lacked had fallen to her own lot, and all the
+grief and woe she had ever endured had been transferred to her foe.  She
+would fain have approached humbly and said something very kind and
+friendly; but when she saw the tall, haggard woman gazing at her child,
+and noticed the disagreeable expression which had formerly induced her to
+compare her to a sharp thorn, a terrible dread of this woman's evil eye
+which might harm her boy seized the mother's heart and, overwhelmed by an
+impulse beyond control, she covered his face with her own veil.
+
+Iras saw it, and after Barine had answered her question, "Dion's child?"
+in the affirmative, with a glance beseeching forbearance, the girl drew
+up her slender figure, saying with arrogant coldness "What do I care for
+the child?  We have more important matters on our hearts."
+
+Then she turned to Charmian to inform her, in the tone of an official
+announcement, that during the approaching interview the Queen desired her
+attendance also.
+
+Octavianus had appointed sunset for the interview, and it still lacked
+several hours of the time.  The suffering Queen felt wearied by her visit
+to the mausoleum, where she had implored the spirit of Antony, if he had
+any power over the conqueror's heart, to induce him to release her from
+this torturing uncertainty and promise the children a happy fate.
+
+To Dolabella, who had accompanied her from the tomb to the palace, she
+said that she expected only one thing from this meeting, and then won
+from him a promise which strengthened her courage and seemed the most
+precious boon which could be granted at this time.
+
+She had expressed the fear that Octavianus would still leave her in
+doubt.  The youth spoke vehemently in Caesar's defence, and closed with
+the exclamation, "If he should still keep you in suspense, he would be
+not only cool and circumspect--"
+
+"Then," Cleopatra interrupted, "be nobler, be less cruel, and release
+your father's friend from these tortures.  If he does not reveal to me
+what awaits me and you learn it, then--you will not say no, you cannot
+refuse me--then you, yes, you will inform me?"
+
+Promptly and firmly came the reply: "What have I been able to do for you
+until now?  But I will release you from this torture, if possible."  Then
+he hastily turned his back, that he might not be compelled to see the
+eunuchs stationed at the palace gate search the garments of the royal
+captive.
+
+His promise sustained the failing courage of the wearied, anxious Queen,
+and she reclined upon the cushions of a lounge to recover from the
+exhausting expedition; but she had scarcely closed her eyes when the
+pavement of the court-yard rang under the hoofs of the four horses which
+bore the Caesar to Lochias.  Cleopatra had not expected the visit so
+early.
+
+She had just been consulting with her attendants about the best mode of
+receiving him.  At first she had been disposed to do so on the throne,
+clad in her royal attire, but she afterwards thought that she was too ill
+and weak to bear the heavy ornaments.  Besides, the man and successful
+conqueror would show himself more indulgent and gracious to the suffering
+woman than to the princess.
+
+There was much to palliate the course which she had pursued in former
+days, and she had carefully planned the defence by which she hoped to
+influence his calm but not unjust nature.  Many things in her favour were
+contained in the letters from Caesar and Antony which, after her
+husband's death, she had read again and again during so many wakeful
+nights, and they had just been brought to her.
+
+Both Archibius and the Roman Proculejus had counselled her not to receive
+him entirely alone.  The latter did not express his opinion in words, but
+he knew that Octavianus was more readily induced to noble and lenient
+deeds when there was no lack of witnesses to report them to the world.
+It was advisable to provide spectators for the most consummate actor of
+his day.
+
+Therefore the Queen had retained Iras, Charmian, and some of the
+officials nearest to her person, among them the steward Seleukus, who
+could give information if any question arose concerning the delivery of
+the treasure.
+
+She had also intended, after she had somewhat recovered from the visit to
+the tomb, to be robed in fresh garments.  This was prevented by the
+Caesar's unexpected arrival.  Now, even had time permitted, she would
+have been unable to have her hair arranged, she felt so weak and yet so
+feverishly excited.
+
+The blood coursed hotly through her veins and flushed her cheeks.  When
+told that the Caesar was close at hand, she had only time to raise
+herself a little higher on her cushions, push back her hair, and let
+Iras, with a few hasty touches, adjust the folds of her mourning robes.
+Had she attempted to advance to meet him, her limbs would have failed to
+support her.
+
+When the Caesar at last entered, she could greet him only by a wave of
+her hand; but Octavianus, who had uttered the usual salutations from the
+threshold, quickly broke the painful silence, saying with a courteous
+bow:
+
+"You summoned me--I came.  Every one is subject to beauty--even the
+victor."
+
+Cleopatra's head drooped in shame as she answered distinctly, yet in a
+tone of modest denial: "I only asked the favour of an audience.  I did
+not summon.  I thank you for granting the request.  If it is dangerous
+for man to bow to woman's charms, no peril threatens you here.  Beauty
+cannot withstand tortures such as those which have been imposed on me--
+barely can life remain.  But you prevented my casting it from me.  If you
+are just, you will grant to the woman whom you would not permit to die an
+existence whose burden will not exceed her power to endure."
+
+The Caesar again bowed silently and answered courteously:
+
+"I intend to make it worthy of you."
+
+"Then," cried Cleopatra impetuously, "release me from this torturing
+uncertainty.  You are not one of the men who never look beyond to-day and
+to-morrow."
+
+"You are thinking," said Octavianus harshly, "of one who perhaps would
+still be among us, if with wiser caution--"
+
+Cleopatra's eyes, which hitherto had met the victor's cold gaze with
+modest entreaty, flashed angrily, and a majestic: "Let the past rest!"
+interrupted him.
+
+But she soon mastered the indignation which had stirred her passionate
+blood, and in a totally different tone, not wholly free from gentle
+persuasion, she continued:
+
+"The provident intellect of the man whose nod the universe obeys grasps
+the future as well as the present.  Must not he, therefore, have decided
+the children's fate ere he consented to see their mother?  The only
+obstacle in your path, the son of your great uncle--"
+
+"His doom was a necessity," interrupted the conqueror in a tone of
+sincere regret.  "As I mourned Antony, I grieve for the unfortunate boy."
+
+"If that is true," replied Cleopatra eagerly, "it does honour to the
+kindness of your heart.  When Proculejus wrested the dagger from my grasp
+he blamed me because I attributed to the most clement of conquerors
+harshness and implacability."
+
+"Two qualities," the Caesar protested, "which are wholly alien to my
+nature."
+
+"And which--even if you possessed them--you neither could nor ought to
+use," cried Cleopatra, "if you really mean the beautiful words you so
+often utter that, as the nephew and heir of the great Julius Caesar, you
+intend to walk in his footsteps.  Caesarion--there is his bust--was the
+image in every feature of his father, your illustrious model.  To me, the
+hapless woman now awaiting my sentence from his nephew's lips, the gods
+granted, as the most precious of all gifts, the love of your divine
+uncle.  And what love!  The world knew not what I was to his great heart,
+but my wish to defend myself from misconception bids me show it to you,
+his heir.  From you I expect my sentence.  You are the judge.  These
+letters are my strongest defence.  I rely upon them to show myself to you
+as I was and am, not as envy and slander describe me.--The little ivory
+casket, Iras!  It contains the precious proofs of Caesar's love, his
+letters to me."
+
+She raised the lid with trembling hands and, as these mementoes carried
+her back to the past, she continued in lower tones:
+
+"Among all my  treasures  this  simple little coffer has been for half a
+lifetime my most valued jewel.  He gave it to me.  It was in the midst of
+the fierce contest here at the Bruchium."
+
+Then, while unfolding the first roll, she directed Octavianus's attention
+to it and the remainder of the contents of the little casket, exclaiming:
+
+"Silent pages, yet how eloquent!  Each one a peerless picture, the
+powerful thinker, the man of action, who permits his restless intellect
+to repose, and suffers his heart to overflow with the love of youth!
+Were I vain, Octavianus, I might call each one of these letters a trophy
+of victory, an Olympic garland.  The woman to whom Julius Caesar owned
+his subjugation might well hold her head higher than the unhappy,
+vanquished Queen who, save the permission to die--"
+
+"Do not part with the letters," said Octavianus kindly.  "Who can doubt
+that they are a precious treasure--"
+
+"The most precious and at the same time the advocate of the accused,"
+replied Cleopatra eagerly; "on them--as you have already heard--rests my
+vindication.  I will commence with their contents.  How terrible it is to
+make what is sacred to us and intended only to elevate our own hearts
+serve a purpose, to do what has always been repugnant to us!  But I need
+an advocate and, Octavianus, these letters will restore to the wretched,
+suffering beggar the dignity and majesty of the Queen.  The world knows
+but two powers to which Julius Caesar bowed--the thrall of the pitiable
+woman on this couch, and of all-conquering death.  An unpleasant
+fellowship--but I do not shrink from it; for death robbed him of life,
+and from my hand--I ask only a brief moment.  How gladly I would spare
+myself my own praises, and you the necessity of listening to them!  Yes,
+here it is: 'Through you, you irresistible woman,' he writes, 'I learned
+for the first time, after youth was over, how beautiful life can be.'"
+
+Cleopatra, as she spoke, handed Caesar the letter.  But while she was
+still searching hastily for another he returned the first, saying:
+
+"I understand only too well your reluctance to allow such confidential
+effusions to play the part of defender.  I can imagine their purport, and
+they shall influence me as if I had read them all.  However eloquent they
+may be, they are needless witnesses.  Is any written testimony required
+in behalf of charms whose magic is still potent?"
+
+A bewitching smile, which seemed like a confirmation of the haughty young
+conqueror's flattering words, flitted over Cleopatra's face.  Octavianus
+noticed it.  This woman indeed possessed enthralling charms, and he felt
+the slight flush that suffused his cheeks.
+
+This unhappy captive, this suffering supplicant, could still draw into
+her net any man who did not possess the cool watchfulness which panoplied
+his soul.  Was it the marvellous melody of her voice, the changeful
+lustre of her tearful eyes, the aristocratic grace of the noble figure,
+the exquisite symmetry of the hands and feet, the weakness of the
+prostrate sufferer, strangely blended with truly royal majesty, or the
+thought that love for her had found earth's greatest and loftiest men
+with indissoluble fetters, which lent this fragile woman, who had long
+since passed the boundaries of youth, so powerful a spell of attraction?
+
+At any rate, however certain of himself he might be, he must guard his
+feelings.  He understood how to bridle passion far better than the uncle
+who was so greatly his superior.
+
+Yet it was of the utmost importance to keep her alive, and therefore to
+maintain her belief in his admiration.  He wished to show the world and
+the Great Queen of the East, who had just boasted of conquering, like
+death, even the most mighty, its own supremacy as man and victor.  But he
+must also be gentle, in order not to endanger the object for which he
+wanted her.  She must accompany him to Rome.  She and her children
+promised to render his triumph the most brilliant and memorable one which
+any conqueror had ever displayed to the senate and the people.  In a
+light tone which, however, revealed the emotion of his soul, he answered:
+"My illustrious uncle was known as a friend of fair women.  His stern
+life was crowned with flowers by many hands, and he acknowledged these
+favours verbally and perhaps--as he did to you in all these letters--with
+the reed.  His genius was greater, at any rate more many-sided and
+mobile, than mine.  He succeeded, too, in pursuing different objects at
+the same time with equal devotion.  I am wholly absorbed in the cares of
+state, of government, and war.  I feel grateful when I can permit our
+poets to adorn my leisure for a brief space.  Overburdened with toil,
+I have no time to yield myself captive, as my uncle did in these very
+rooms, to the most charming of women.  If I could follow my own will, you
+would be the first from whom I would seek the gifts of Eros.  But it may
+not be!  We Romans learn to curb even the most ardent wishes when duty
+and morality command.  There is no city in the world where half so many
+gods are worshipped as here; and what strange deities are numbered among
+them!  It needs a special effort of the intellect to understand them.
+But the simple duties of the domestic hearth!--they are too prosaic for
+you Alexandrians, who imbibe philosophy with your mothers' milk.  What
+marvel, if I looked for them in vain?  True, they would find little
+satisfaction--our household gods I mean--here, where the rigid demands of
+Hymen are mute before the ardent pleadings of Eros.  Marriage is scarcely
+reckoned among the sacred things of life.  But this opinion seems to
+displease you."
+
+"Because it is false," cried Cleopatra, repressing with difficulty a
+fresh outburst of indignation.  "Yet, if I see aright, your reproach is
+aimed only at the bond which united me to the man who was called your
+sister's husband.  But I will I would gladly remain silent, but you force
+me to speak, and I will do so, though your own friend, Proculejus, is
+signing to me to be cautious.  I--I, Cleopatra, was the wife of Mark
+Antony according to the customs of this country, when you wedded him to
+the widow of Marcellus, who had scarcely closed his eyes.  Not she, but
+I, was the deserted wife--I to whom his heart belonged until the hour of
+his death, not the unloved consort wedded--"  Here her voice fell.  She
+had yielded to the passionate impulse which urged her to express her
+feelings in the matter, and now continued in a tone of gentle
+explanation:  "I  know that you  proposed this alliance solely for the
+peace and welfare of Rome--"
+
+"To guard both, and to spare the blood of tens of thousands," Octavianus
+added with proud decision.  "Your clear brain perceived the true state
+of affairs.  If, spite of the grave importance of these motives, you--
+But what voices would not that of the heart silence with you women!  The
+man, the Roman, succeeded in closing his ears to its siren song.  Were it
+otherwise, I would never have chosen for my sister a husband by whom I
+knew her happiness would be so ill-guarded--I would, as I have already
+said, be unable to master my own admiration of the loveliest of women.
+But I ought scarcely to boast of that.  I fear that a heart like yours
+opens less quickly to the modest Octavianus than to a Julius Caesar or
+the brilliant Mark Antony.  Yet I may be permitted to confess that
+perhaps I might have avoided conducting this unhappy war against my
+friend to the end under my own guidance, and appearing myself in Egypt,
+had I not been urged by the longing to see once more the woman who had
+dazzled my boyish eyes.  Now, in my mature manhood, I desired to
+comprehend those marvellous gifts of mind, that matchless sagacity--"
+
+"Sagacity!" interrupted the Queen, shrugging her shoulders mournfully.
+"You possess a far greater share of what is commonly called by that name.
+My fate proves it.  The pliant intellect which the gods bestowed on me
+would ill sustain the test in this hour of anguish.  But if you really
+care to learn what mental power Cleopatra once possessed, relieve me of
+this terrible burden of uncertainty, and grant me a position in life
+which will permit my paralyzed soul to move freely once more."
+
+"It depends solely on yourself," Octavian eagerly responded, "to make
+your future life, not only free from care, but beautiful."
+
+"On me?"  asked Cleopatra in astonishment.   Our weal and woe are in your
+hands alone.  I am modest and ask nothing save to know what you intend
+for our future, what you mean by the lot which you term beautiful."
+
+"Nothing less,"  replied the Caesar quietly, "than what seems to lie
+nearest to your own heart--a life of that freedom of soul to which you
+aspire."
+
+The breath of the agitated Queen began come more quickly and, no longer
+able to contr the impatience which overpowered her, she exclaimed, "With
+the assurance of your favour on your lips, you refuse to discuss the
+question which interests, me beyond any other--for which, if any you must
+have been prepared when you came here--"
+
+"Reproaches?" asked Octavianus with we feigned surprise.  "Would it not
+rather be my place to complain?  It is precisely because I am thoroughly
+sincere in the friendly disposition which you read aright from my words,
+that some of your measures cannot fail to wound me.  Your treasures were
+to be committed to the flames.  It would be unfair to expect tokens of
+friendship from the vanquished; but can you deny that even the bitterest
+hatred could scarcely succeed in devising anything more hostile?"
+
+"Let the past rest!  Who would not seek in war to diminish the enemy's
+booty?" pleaded the Queen in a soothing tone.  But as Octavianus delayed
+his answer, she continued more eagerly: "It is said that the ibex in the
+mountains, when in mortal peril, rushes upon the hunter and hurls him
+with it down the precipice.  The same impulse is natural to human beings,
+and praiseworthy, I think, in both.  Forget the past, as I will try to
+do, I repeat with uplifted hands.  Say that you will permit the sons whom
+I gave to Antony to ascend the Egyptian throne, not under their mother's
+guardianship, but that of Rome, and grant me freedom wherever I may live,
+and I will gladly transfer to you, down to the veriest trifles, all the
+property and treasures I possess."
+
+She clenched her little hand impatiently under the folds of her robe as
+she spoke; but Octavianus lowered his eyes, saying carelessly: "In war
+the victor disposes of the property of the vanquished; but my heart
+restrains me from applying the universal law to you, who are so far above
+ordinary mortals.  Your wealth is said to be vast, though the foolish war
+which Antony, with your aid, so greatly prolonged, devoured vast sums.
+In this country squandered gold seems like the grass which, when mowed,
+springs up anew."
+
+"You speak," replied Cleopatra, more and more deeply incensed, with proud
+composure, "of the treasures which my ancestors, the powerful monarchs of
+a wealthy country, amassed during three hundred years for their noble
+race and for the adornment of the women of their line.  Parsimony did not
+accord with the generosity and lofty nature of an Antony, yet avarice
+itself would not deem the portion still remaining insignificant.  Every
+article is registered."
+
+While speaking, she took a manuscript from the hand of Seleukus and
+passed it to Octavianus who, with a slight bend of the head, received it
+in silence.  But he had scarcely begun to read it when the steward, a
+little corpulent man with twinkling eyes half buried in his fat cheeks,
+raised his short forefinger, pointed insolently at the Queen, and
+asserted that she was trying to conceal some things, and had ordered him
+not to place them on the list.  Every tinge of colour faded from the lips
+and cheeks of the agitated and passionate woman; tortured by feverish
+impatience and no longer able to control her emotions, she raised herself
+and, with her own dainty hand, struck the accuser--whom she had lifted
+from poverty and obscurity to his present high position--again and again
+in the face, till Octavianus, with a smile of superiority, begged her,
+much as the man deserved his punishment, to desist.
+
+The unfortunate woman, thus thrown off her guard, flung herself back on
+her couch and, panting for breath, with tears streaming from her eyes,
+sobbed aloud, declaring that in the presence of such unendurable insult,
+such contemptible baseness, she fairly loathed herself.  Then pressing
+her clenched hands upon her temples, she exclaimed "Before the eyes of
+the foe my royal dignity, which I have maintained all my life, falls from
+me like a borrowed mantle.  Yet what am I?  What shall I be to-morrow,
+what later?  But who beneath the sun who has warm blood in his veins can
+preserve his composure when juicy grapes are held before his thirsting
+lips to be withdrawn, as from Tantalus, ere he can taste them?  You came
+hither with the assurance of your favour; but the flattering words of
+promise which you bestowed upon the unhappy woman were probably only the
+drops of poppy-juice given to soothe the ravings of fever.  Was the
+favour which you permitted me to see and anticipate for the future merely
+intended to delude a miserable--"
+
+But she went no further; Octavianus, with dignified bearing and loud,
+clear tones, interrupted "Whoever believes the heir of Caesar capable of
+shamefully deceiving a noble woman, a queen, the object of his
+illustrious uncle's love, insults and wounds him; but the just anger
+which overmastered you may serve as your apology.  Ay," he added in a
+totally different tone, "I might even have cause to be grateful for this
+indignation, and to wish for another opportunity to witness the outbreak
+of passion though in its unbridled fierceness--the royal lioness is
+scarcely aware of her own beauty when the tempest of wrath sweeps her
+away.  What must she be when it is love that constrains the flame of her
+glowing soul to burst into a blaze?"
+
+"Her glowing soul!"  Cleopatra eagerly repeated, and the desire awoke
+to subjugate this man who had so confidently boasted of his power of
+resistance.  Though he might be stronger than many others, he certainly
+was not invincible.  And aware of her still unbroken sway over the hearts
+of men, her eyes sparkled with the alluring radiance of love, and a
+bewitching smile brightened her face.
+
+The young Imperator's heart began to chafe under the curb and to beat
+more quickly, his cheeks flushed and paled by turns.  How she gazed at
+him!  What if she loved the nephew as she had once loved the uncle who,
+through her, had learned what bliss life can offer?  Ay, it must be
+happiness to kiss those lips, to be clasped in those exquisite arms, to
+hear one's own name tenderly spoken by those musical tones.  Even the
+magnificent marble statue of Ariadne, which he had seen in Athens, had
+not displayed to his gaze lines more beautiful than those of the woman
+reclining on yonder pillows.  Who could venture to speak in her presence
+of vanished charms?  Ah, no!  The spell which had conquered Julius Caesar
+was as vivid, as potent as ever.  He himself felt its power; he was
+young, and after such unremitting exertions he too yearned to quaff the
+nectar of the noblest joys, to steep body and soul in peerless bliss.
+
+So, with a hasty movement, he took one step towards her couch, resolved
+to grasp her hands and raise them to his lips.  His ardent gaze answered
+hers; but surprised by the power which, though so heavily burdened with
+physical and mental suffering, she still possessed over the strongest and
+coldest of men, she perceived what was passing in his soul, and a smile
+of triumph, blended with the most bitter contempt, hovered around her
+beautiful lips.  Should she dupe him into granting her wishes by feigning
+love for the first time?  Should she yield to the man who had insulted
+her, in order to induce him to accord the children their rights?  Should
+she, to gratify her lover's foe, relinquish the sacred grief which was
+drawing her after him, give posterity and her children the right to call
+her, instead of the most loyal of the loyal, a dishonoured woman, who
+sold herself for power?
+
+To all these questions came a prompt denial.  The single stride which
+Octavianus had made towards her, his eyes aflame with love, gave her the
+right to feel that she had vanquished the victor, and the proud delight
+of triumph was too plainly reflected in her mobile features to escape the
+penetrating, distrustful gaze of the subjugated Caesar.
+
+But he had scarcely perceived what threatened him, and remembered her
+words concerning his famous uncle's surrender only to her and to death,
+when he succeeded in conquering his quickly kindled senses.  Blushing at
+his own weakness, he averted his eyes from the Queen, and when he met
+those of Proculejus and the other witnesses of the scene, he realized the
+abyss on whose verge he stood.  He had half succumbed to the danger of
+losing, by a moment's weakness, the fruit of great sacrifices and severe
+exertions.
+
+His expressive eyes, which had just rested rapturously upon a beautiful
+woman, now scanned the spectators with the stern glance of a monarch and,
+apparently wishing to moderate an excess of flattering recognition which
+might be misinterpreted, he said in an almost pedagogical tone:
+
+"Yet we would rather see the noble lioness in the majestic repose which
+best suits all sovereigns.  It is difficult for a calm, deliberate nature
+like mine to understand an ardent, quickly kindling heart."
+
+Cleopatra had watched this sudden transition with more surprise than
+disappointment.  Octavianus had half surrendered to her, but recovered
+his self-command in time, and a man of his temperament does not readily
+succumb twice to a danger which he barely escaped.  And this was well!
+He should learn that he had misunderstood the glance which fired his
+heart; so she answered distantly, with majestic dignity:
+
+"Misery such as mine quenches all ardour.  And love?  Woman's heart is
+ever open to it, save where it has lost the desire for power and
+pleasure.  You are young and happy, therefore your soul still yearns for
+love--I know that--though not for mine.  To me, on the contrary, one
+suitor only is welcome, he with the lowered torch, whom you keep aloof
+from me.  With him alone is to be found the boon for which this soul has
+longed from childhood--painless peace!  You smile.  My past gives you the
+right to do so.  I will not lessen it.  Each individual lives his or her
+own life.  Few understand the changes of their own existence, far less
+those of a stranger's.  The world has witnessed how Peace fled from my
+path, or I from hers, and yet I see the possibility of finding the way.
+I am safe from the only things which would debar me from those joys
+--humiliation and disgrace."  Here she hesitated; then, as if in
+explanation, continued in the sweetest tones at her command: "Your
+generosity, I think, will guard from these two foes the woman whom just
+now--I did not fail to see it--you considered worthy of a more than
+gracious glance.  I shall treasure it among memories which will never
+fade.  But now, illustrious Imperator! tell me, what is your decision
+concerning me and the children?  What may we hope from your favour?"
+
+"That  Octavianus will  be more  and  more warmly animated by the desire
+to accord you and yours a worthy destiny, the more firmly you expect that
+he will attest his generosity."
+
+"And if I fulfil this desire and expect from you everything that is great
+and noble--the condition is not difficult--what proofs of your
+graciousness will then await us?"
+
+"Paint them with all the fervour of that vivid power of imagination which
+interpreted even my glance in your favour, and devised the marvels by
+which you rendered the greatest and most brilliant man in Rome the
+happiest of mortals.  But--by Zeus!--it is the fourth hour after
+noonday!"
+
+A glance from the window had caused the exclamation.  Then, pressing his
+hand upon his heart, he continued in a tone of the most sincere regret
+"How gladly I would prolong this fascinating conversation, but important
+matters which, unfortunately, cannot be deferred, summon me--"
+
+"And your answer?" cried Cleopatra, panting for breath and gazing at him
+with eyes full of expectation.
+
+"Must I repeat it?" he  asked with  impatient haste.  "Very well, then.
+In return for implicit confidence on your part, favour, forgiveness,
+cordiality, every consideration which you can justly desire.  Your heart
+is so rich in warmth of feeling, grant me but a small share of it and ask
+tangible gifts in return.  They are already bestowed."  Then greeting her
+like a friend who is reluctant to say farewell, he hastily left the
+apartment.
+
+"Gone--gone!" cried Iras as the door closed behind him.  "An eel that
+slips from the hand which strives to hold him."
+
+"Northern ice," added Cleopatra gloomily as Charmian aided her to find a
+more comfortable position.  "As smooth as it is cold; there is nothing
+more to hope."
+
+"Yes, my royal mistress, yes," Iras eagerly protested.  "Dolabella is
+waiting for him in the Philadelphus court-yard.  From him--you have his
+promise--we shall learn what Octavianus has in store for you."
+
+In truth, the Caesar did find the youth at the first gate of the palace,
+inspecting his superb Cyrenean horses.
+
+"Magnificent animals!"  cried Octavianus; "a gift from the city!  Will
+you drive with me?--A remarkable, a very remarkable woman!"
+
+"Isn't she?" asked Dolabella eagerly.
+
+"Undoubtedly," replied the Caesar.  "But though she might almost be your
+mother, an uncommonly dangerous one for youths of your age.  What a
+melting voice, what versatility, what fervour!  And yet such regal grace
+in every movement!  But I wish to stifle, not to fan, the spark which
+perhaps has already fallen into your heart.  And the play, the farce
+which she just enacted before me in the midst of most serious matters!"
+
+He uttered a low, short laugh; but Dolabella exclaimed expectantly:
+"You rarely laugh, but this conversation--apparently--excites your mirth.
+So the result was satisfactory?"
+
+"Let us hope so.  I was as gracious to her as possible."
+
+"That is delightful.  May I know in what manner your kindness and wisdom
+have shaped her future?  Or, rather, what did you promise the vanquished
+Queen?"
+
+"My favour, if she will trust me."
+
+"Proculejus and I will continue to strengthen her confidence.  And if we
+succeed--?"
+
+"Then, as I have said, she will have my favour--a generous abundance of
+favour."
+
+"But her future destiny?  What fate will you bestow on her and her
+children?"
+
+"Whatever the degree of her confidence deserves."
+
+Here he hesitated, for he met Dolabella's earnest, troubled gaze, which
+was blended with a shade of reproach.
+
+Octavianus desired to retain the enthusiastic admiration of the youth,
+who perhaps was destined to lofty achievements, so he continued in a
+confidential tone: "To you, my young friend, I can venture to speak more
+frankly.  I will gladly grant the most aspiring wishes of this
+fascinating and, I repeat, very remarkable woman, but first I need her
+for my triumph.  The Romans would have cause to reproach me if I deprived
+them of the sight of this Queen, this peerless woman, in many respects
+the first of her time.  We shall soon set out for Syria.  The Queen and
+her children I shall send in three days to Rome.  If, in the triumphal
+procession there, she creates the sensation I anticipate from a spectacle
+so worthy of admiration, she shall learn how I reward those who oblige
+me."
+
+Dolabella had listened in silence.  When the Caesar entered the carriage,
+he requested permission to remain behind.
+
+Octavianus drove alone eastward to the camp where, in the vicinity of the
+Hippodrome, men were surveying the ground on which the suburb of
+Nikopolis--city of victory--was to be built to commemorate for future
+generations the victory of the first Emperor over Antony and Cleopatra.
+It grew, but never attained any great importance.
+
+The noble Cornelius gazed indignantly after his sovereign's fiery steeds;
+then, drawing up his stately figure to its full height, he entered the
+palace with a firm step.  The act might cost him his life, but he would
+do what he believed to be his duty to the noble woman who had honoured
+him with her friendship.  This rare sovereign was too good to feast the
+eyes of the rabble.
+
+A few minutes later Cleopatra knew her impending ignominy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+The next morning the Queen had many whispered conversations with
+Charmian, and the latter with Anukis.  The day before, Archibius's
+gardener had brought to his master's sister some unusually fine figs,
+which grew in the old garden of Epicurus.  This fruit was also mentioned,
+and Anukis went to Kanopus, and thence, in the steward's carriage, with a
+basket of the very best ones to the fish-market.  There she had a great
+deal to say to Pyrrhus, and the freedman went to his boat with the figs.
+
+Shortly after the Nubian's return the Queen came back to the palace from
+the mausoleum.  Her features bore an impress of resolution usually alien
+to them; nay, the firmly compressed lips gave them an expression of
+actual sternness.  She knew what duty required, and regarded her
+approaching end as an inevitable necessity.  Death seemed to her like a
+journey which she must take in order to escape the most terrible
+disgrace.  Besides, life after the death of Antony was no longer the
+same; it had been only a tiresome delay and waiting for the children's
+sake.
+
+The visit to the tomb had been intended, as it were, to announce her
+coming to her husband.  She had remained a long time in the silent hall,
+where she had garlanded the coffin with flowers, kissed it, talked to the
+dead man as if he were still alive, and told him that the day had come
+when what he had mentioned in his will as the warmest desire of his
+heart--to rest beside her in the same tomb--would be fulfilled.  Among
+the thousand forms of suffering which had assailed her, nothing had
+seemed so hard to bear as to be deprived of his society and love.
+
+Then she had gone into the garden, embraced and kissed the children, and
+entreated them to remember her tenderly.  Her purpose had not been
+concealed from Archibius, but Charmian had told him the menace of the
+future, and he approved her decision.  By the exertion of all his innate
+strength of will, he succeeded in concealing the grief which rent his
+faithful heart.  She must die.  The thought of seeing her adorn the
+triumphal procession of Octavianus was unbearable to him also.  Her
+thanks and entreaties to be an affectionate guardian to the children were
+received with an external calmness which afterwards seemed to him utterly
+incomprehensible.
+
+When she spoke of her approaching meeting with her lover, he asked
+whether she had entirely abandoned the teachings of Epicurus, who
+believed that death absolutely ended existence.
+
+Cleopatra eagerly assented, saying: "Absence of pain has ceased to appear
+to me the chief earthly blessing, since I have known that love does not
+bring pleasure only, since I have learned that pain is the inseparable
+companion of love.  I will not give it up, nor will I part from my lover.
+Whoever experiences what fate has allotted to me has learned to know
+other gods than those whom the master described as dwelling happily in
+undisturbed repose.  Rather eternal torture in another world, united to
+the man I love, than painless, joyless mere existence in a desolate,
+incomprehensible, unknown region!  You will be the last to teach the
+children to yearn for freedom from pain--"
+
+"Because, like you," cried Archibius, "I have learned how great a
+blessing is love, and that love is pain."
+
+As he spoke he bent over her hand to kiss it, but she took his temples
+between her hands and, bending hastily, pressed her lips on his broad
+brow.
+
+Then his self-control vanished, and, sobbing aloud, he hurried back to
+the children.
+
+Cleopatra gazed after him with a sorrowful smile, and leaning on
+Charmian's arm, she entered the palace.
+
+There she was bathed and, robed in costly mourning garments, reclined
+among her cushions to take breakfast, which was usually served at this
+hour.  Iras and Charmian shared it.
+
+When dessert was carried in, the Nubian brought a basket filled with
+delicious figs.  A peasant, she told Epaphroditus, who was watching the
+meal, had given them to her because they were so remarkably fine.  Some
+had already been snatched by the guards.
+
+The Queen and her companions ate a little of the fruit, and Proculejus,
+who had come to greet Cleopatra, was also persuaded to taste one of the
+finest figs.
+
+At the end of the meal Cleopatra wished to rest.  The Roman gentlemen and
+the guards retired.  At last the women were alone, and gazed at each
+other silently.
+
+Charmian timidly lifted the upper layer of the fruit, but the Queen said
+mournfully:
+
+"The wife of Antony dragged through the streets of Rome behind the
+victor's chariot, a spectacle for the populace and envious matrons!
+"Then, starting up, she exclaimed: "What a thought!  Was it too great for
+Octavianus, or too petty?  He who so loudly boasts his knowledge of
+mankind expects this impossibility from the woman who revealed her inmost
+soul to him as fully as he concealed his from her.  We will show him how
+small is his comprehension of human nature, and teach him modesty."
+
+A contemptuous smile flitted over her beautiful lips as, with rapid
+movements, she flung handful after handful of figs on the table, till she
+saw some thing stirring under the fruit, and with a sigh of relief
+exclaimed under her breath:
+
+"There it is!" as with hasty resolution she held out her arm towards the
+asp, which hissed at her.
+
+While gazing intently at the movements of the viper, which seemed afraid
+to fulfil the dread office, she said to her attendants:
+
+"I thank you-thank you for everything.  Be calm.  You know, Iras, it will
+cause no pain.  They say it is like falling asleep."  Then she shuddered
+slightly, adding: "Death is a solemn thing; yet it must be.  Why does the
+serpent delay?  There, there; I will keep firm.  Ambition and love were
+the moving forces of my life.  Men shall praise my memory.--I follow you,
+Mark Antony!"  Charmian bent over the left arm of her royal mistress,
+which hung loosely at her side, and, weeping aloud, covered it with
+kisses, while Cleopatra, watching the motions of the asp still more
+closely, added:
+
+"The peace of our garden of Epicurus will begin to-day.  Whether it will
+be painless, who can tell?  Yet--there I agree with  Archibius--life's
+greatest joy--love--is blended with pain, as yonder branch of exquisite
+roses from Dolabella, the last gift of friendship, has its sharp thorns.
+I think you have both experienced this.  The twins and my little darling
+--When they think of their mother and her end, will not the children--"
+
+Here she uttered a low cry.  The asp had struck its fangs into the upper
+part of her arm like an icy flash of lightning, and a few instants later
+Cleopatra sank back upon her pillows lifeless.
+
+Iras, pale but calm, pointed to her, saying "Like a sleeping child.
+Bewitching even in death.  Fate itself was constrained to do her will and
+fulfil the last desire of the great Queen, the victorious woman, whom no
+heart resisted.  Its decree shatters the presumptuous plan of Octavianus.
+The victor will show himself to the Romans without thee, thou dear one."
+
+Sobbing violently, she bent over the inanimate form, closed the eyes, and
+kissed the lips and brow.  The weeping Charmian did the same.
+
+Then the footsteps of men were heard in the anteroom, and Iras, who was
+the first to notice them, cried eagerly:
+
+"The moment is approaching!  I am glad it is close at hand.  Does it not
+seem to you also as if the very sun in the heavens was darkened?"
+Charmian nodded assent, and whispered, "The poison?"
+
+"Here!"  replied Iras calmly, holding out  a plain pin.  "One little
+prick, and the deed will be done.  Look!  But no.  You once inflicted the
+deepest suffering upon me.  You know--Dion, the playmate of my childhood
+--It is forgiven.  But now--you will do me a kindness.  You will spare my
+using the pin myself.  Will you not?  I will repay you.  If you wish, my
+hand shall render you the same service."
+
+Charmian clasped her niece to her heart, kissed her, pricked her arm
+lightly, and gave her the other pin, saying:
+
+"Now it is your turn.  Our hearts were filled with love for one who
+understood how to bestow it as none other ever did, and our love was
+returned.  What matters all else that we sacrificed?  Those on whom the
+sun shines need no other light.  Love is pain," she said in dying, "but
+this pain--especially that of renunciation for love's sake--bears with it
+a joy, an exquisite joy, which renders death easy.  To me it seems as if
+it were merely following the Queen to--Oh, that hurt!"  Iras's pin had
+pricked her.
+
+The poison did its work quickly.  Iras was seized with giddiness, and
+could scarcely stand.  Charmian had just sunk on her knees, when some one
+knocked loudly at the closed door, and the voices of Epaphroditus and
+Proculejus imperiously demanded admittance.
+
+When no answer followed, the lock was hastily burst open.
+
+Charmian was found lying pale and distorted at the feet of her royal
+mistress; but Iras, tottering and half stupefied by the poison, was
+adjusting the diadem, which had slipped from its place.  To keep from her
+beloved Queen everything that could detract from her beauty had been her
+last care.
+
+Enraged, fairly frantic with wrath, the Romans rushed towards the women.
+Epaphroditus had seen Iras still occupied in arranging Cleopatra's
+ornaments.  Now he endeavoured to raise her companion, saying
+reproachfully, "Charmian, was this well done?"  Summoning her last
+strength, she answered in a faltering voice, "Perfectly well, and worthy
+a descendant of Egyptian kings."  Her eyes closed, but Proculejus, the
+author, who had gazed long with deep emotion into the beautiful proud
+face of the Queen whom he had so greatly wronged, said: "No other woman
+on earth was ever so admired by the greatest, so loved by the loftiest.
+Her fame echoed from nation to nation throughout the world.  It will
+continue to resound from generation to generation; but however loudly men
+may extol the bewitching charm, the fervour of the love which survived
+death, her intellect, her knowledge, the heroic courage with which she
+preferred the tomb to ignominy--the praise of these two must not be
+forgotten.  Their fidelity deserves it.  By their marvellous end they
+unconsciously erected the most beautiful monument to their mistress; for
+what genuine goodness and lovableness must have been possessed by the
+woman who, after the greatest reverses, made it seem more desirable to
+those nearest to her person to die than to live without her!"
+
+     [The Roman's exclamation and the answer of the loyal dying Charmian
+     are taken literally from Plutarch's narrative.]
+
+The news of the death of their beloved, admired sovereign transformed
+Alexandria into a house of mourning.  Obsequies of unprecedented
+magnificence and solemnity, at which many tears of sincere grief flowed,
+honoured her memory.  One of Octavianus's most brilliant plans was
+frustrated by her death, and he had raved furiously when he read the
+letter in which Cleopatra, with her own hand, informed him of her
+intention to die.  But he owed it to his reputation for generosity to
+grant her a funeral worthy of her rank.  To the dead, who had ceased to
+be dangerous, he was ready to show an excess of magnanimity.
+
+The treatment which he accorded to Cleopatra's children also won the
+world's admiration.  His sister Octavia received them into her own house
+and intrusted their education to Archibius.
+
+When the order to destroy the statues of Antony and Cleopatra was issued,
+Octavianus gave his contemporaries another proof of his disposition to be
+lenient, for he ordered that the numerous statues of the Queen in
+Alexandria and Egypt should be preserved.  True, he had been influenced
+by the large sum of two thousand talents paid by an Alexandrian to secure
+this act of generosity.  Archibius was the name of the rare friend who
+had impoverished himself to render this service to the memory of the
+beloved dead.
+
+In later times the statues of the unfortunate Queen adorned the places
+where they had been erected.
+
+The sarcophagi of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, by whose side rested Iras
+and Charmian, were constantly heaped with flowers and offerings to the
+dead.  The women of Alexandria, especially, went to the tomb of their
+beloved Queen as if it were a pilgrimage; but in after-days faithful
+mourners also came from a distance to visit it, among them the children
+of the famous lovers whom death here united--Cleopatra Selene, now the
+wife of the learned Numidian Prince Juba, Helios Antony, and Alexander,
+who had reached manhood.  Their friend and teacher, Archibius,
+accompanied them.  He taught them to hold their mother's memory dear, and
+had so reared them that, in their maturity, he could lead them with head
+erect to the sarcophagus of the friend who had confided them to his
+charge.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Pain is the inseparable companion of love
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLEOPATRA, BY GEORG EBERS, V9 ***
+
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