Читать книгу Cleopatra онлайн

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Whether their eyes had the blue of the heavens, or shone like stars at midnight, whether their noses were long or short, their mouths delicate or voluptuous, all the world-heroines have had burning hearts that touched their lovers' hearts with kindred fire.

If Cleopatra stands above all others it is because she possessed in a higher degree that sovereign gift that transforms the dullness of every-day life and creates an atmosphere of rose and gold.

History shows her as crafty, diplomatic, frivolous, generous; capable of horrible cruelties; coveting the whole world; a prey to ambition, yet flinging it all away for the sake of her lover's kiss. But history gives us only half the picture. Its frame is too narrow to hold it all. It is to Imagination and her winged daughters, Poetry and Legend, that we have to look for the whole.

The asp with which Shakespeare encircled Cleopatra's arm has made her more famous than her own great plan to wipe out Rome and put Alexandria in its place. The noted sonnet, which shows her in her silver trireme, on the waters of the Cydnus,