la dous ki vyen

Age cannot wither her

Plutarch, in the “Life of Antony” written a century after the great romance, said of Cleopatra: “Her actual beauty, it is said, was not in itself so remarkable that none could be compared with her. But the contact of her presence, if you lived with her, was irresistible; the attraction of her person, joining with the charm of her conversation, and the character that attended all she said or did, was something bewitching. It was a pleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice with which, like an instrument of many strings, she could pass from one language to another…”

But it is Shakespeare who describes her best:

“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale

Her infinite variety. Other women cloy

The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry

Where most she satisfies. For vilest things

Become themselves in her, that the holy priests

Bless her when she is riggish.”

Shakespeare
(Antony and Cleopatra)

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 12th, 2008 at 9:22 am. It is filed under musings, poetry and tagged with cleopatra, plutarch, poetry, shakespeare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.