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Nevertheless, the condition of women in the Pagan world, even with all the influences of civilization, was unfavorable to that sentiment which is such a charm in social life. The Pagan woman belonged to her husband or her father rather than to herself. As more fully shown in the discussion of Cleopatra, she was universally regarded as inferior to man, and made to be his slave.
Written throughout in the best prose of the Elizabethan period, North's version will always have another and very special interest as the store house from which Shakespeare obtained his knowledge of antiquity. It has been asserted that to this book we really owe the existence of "Julius Cæsar," "Coriolanus," and "Antony and Cleopatra."
It is, however, admitted that in female dignity and discretion, as well as in beauty, she far surpassed Cleopatra. She administered the government of her empire with such admirable prudence and policy, and in particular with such strict justice toward all classes of her subjects, that she was beloved by her own people, and respected and feared by the neighboring nations.
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.
The next day, Antony invited Cleopatra to come and return his visit; but, though he made every possible effort to provide a banquet as sumptuous and as sumptuously served as hers, he failed entirely in this attempt, and acknowledged himself completely outdone. Antony was, moreover, at these interviews, perfectly fascinated with Cleopatra's charms.
No other dramatist, no other poet, has given the world anything that can for a moment be taken into consideration as equal to these tragedies; and Shakespeare himself left us nothing equal to any one of them, taken as a whole and in detail; although there are some parts of other late plays "Macbeth," "Antony and Cleopatra," "Troilus and Cressida," and "The Tempest" which, in their grandeur of imagination and splendor of language, bear the stamp of this great period.
He found, however, that he could not bear even a temporary absence from Cleopatra. His mind dwelled so much upon her, and upon the pleasures which he had enjoyed with her in Egypt, and he longed so much to see her again, that he was wholly unfit for the discharge of his duties in the camp. He became timid, inefficient, and remiss, and almost every thing that he undertook ended disastrously.
She was eighteen years old when her father left the throne, as it was screwed down to the dais, and died. He left the kingdom to Cleopatra, in partnership with Ptolemy, her brother. Ptolemy, in 51 B. C., deprived her of the throne, leaving Cleopatra nothing but the tidy.
Only a few however, for the doors of thyia wood leading into the banqueting hall itself, presently opened, and the king with his friends came forward to meet Cleopatra. "How were we to expect you so early?" cried Philometor to his wife. "Is it really still early?" asked the queen, "or have I only taken you by surprise, because you had forgotten to expect me?"
In a certain sense, the legend of Antony and Cleopatra is chiefly an antifeminist legend, intended to reinforce in the state the power of the masculine principle, to demonstrate how dangerous it may be to leave to women the government of public affairs, or follow their counsel in political business. The people believed the legend; posterity has believed it.
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