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Net, .50 Postage or Express, Extra BRENT ANO'S Fifth Avenue and 27th Street New York C/ESAR AND CLEOPATRA A PAGE OF HISTORY By BERNARD SHAW NEW YORK BRENTANO'S 1913 CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA ACT I An October night on the Syrian border of Egypt towards the end of the XXXIII Dynasty, in the year 706 by Roman computation, afterwards reckoned by Christian computation as 48 B.C. A great radiance of silver fire, the dawn of a moonlit night, is rising in the east. The stars and the cloudless sky are our own contemporaries, nineteen and a half centuries younger than we know them; but you would not guess that from their ap- pearance. Below them are two notable drawbacks of civiliza- tion: a palace, and soldiers. The palace, an old, low, Syrian building of whitened mud, is not so ugly as Buckingham Palace; and the officers in the courtyard are more highly civilized than modern English officers: for example, they do not dig up the corpses of their dead enemies and mutilate them, as we dug up Cromwell and the Mahdi. They are in two groups: one intent on the gambling of their captain Belzanor, a warrior of fifty, who, with his spear on the ground beside his knee, is stooping to throw dice with a sly-looking young Persian recruit; the other gathered about a guardsman who has just finished telling a naughty story (still current in English barracks) at which they are laughing uproariously. They are about a dozen in number, all highly aristocratic young Egyptian guardsmen, handsomely equipped with weapons and armor, very unEnglish in point of not being ashamed of and uncomfortable in their professional dress; on the contrary, rather ostentatiously and arrogantly war- like, as valuing themselves on their military caste. Belzanor is a typical veteran, tough and wilful; prompt, capable and crafty where brute force will serve; helpless and 6 Caesar and Cleopatra ACT I boyish when it will not: an effective sergeant, an incompetent general, a deplorable dictator. Would, if influentiatty connected, be employed in the two last capacities by a modern European State on the strength of his success in the first. Is rather to be pitied just now in view of the fact that Julius Caesar is invading his country. Not knowing this, is intent on his game with the Persian, whom, as a foreigner, he considers quite capable of cheating him. His subalterns are mostly handsome young fellows whose interest in the game and the story symbolizes with tolerable com,' pleteness the main interests in life of which they are conscious. Their spears are leaning against the walls, or lying on the ground ready to their hands. The corner of the courtyard forms a triangle of which one side is the front of the palace, with a doorway, the other a wall with a gateway. The storytellers are on the palace side: the gamblers, on the gateway side. Close to the gateway, against the wall, is a stone block high enough to enable a Nubian sentinel, standing on it, to look over the wall. The yard is lighted by a torch stuck in the watt. As the laughter from the group round the storyteller dies away, the kneeling Persian, winning the throw, snatches up the stake from the ground. BELZANOR. By Apis, Persian, thy gods are good to thee. THE PERSIAN. Try yet again, O captain. Double or quits ! BELZANOR. No more. I am not in the vein. THE SENTINEL (poising his javelin as he peers over the wall). Stand. Who goes there ? They all start, listening. A strange voice replies from without. VOICE. The bearer of evil tidings. BELZANOR (calling to the sentry). Pass him. THE SENTINEL (grounding his javelin). Draw near, O bearer of evil tidings. BELZANOR (pocketing the dice and picking up his spear). Let us receive this man with honor. He bears evil tidings. The guardsmen seize their spears and gather about the gate, leaving a way through for the new comer. ACT I Caesar and Cleopatra 7 PERSIAN (rising from his knee). Are evil tidings, then, so honorable ? BELZANOR. O barbarous Persian, hear my instruction. In Egypt the bearer of good tidings is sacrificed to the gods as a thank offering; but no god will accept the blood of the mes- senger of evil. When we have good tidings, we are careful to send them in the mouth of the cheapest slave we can find. Evil tidings are borne by young noblemen who desire to bring themselves into notice. (They join the rest at the gate.) THE SENTINEL. Pass, O young captain; and bow the head in the House of the Queen. VOICE. Go anoint thy javeh'n with fat of swine, O Black- amoor; for before morning the Romans will make thee eat it to the very butt. The owner of the voice, a fairhaired dandy, dressed in a different fashion to that affected by the guardsmen, but no less extravagantly, comes through the gateway laughing. He w somewhat battlestained; and his left forearm, bandaged, comes through a torn sleeve. In his right hand he carries a Roman sword in its sheath. He swaggers dotvn the courtyard, the Per- sian on his right, Belzanor on his left, and the guardsmen crowd- ing down behind, him. BELZANOR. Who art thou that laughest in the House of Cleopatra the Queen, and in the teeth of Belzanor, the captain of her guard ? THE NEW COMER. I am Bel Affris, descended from the gods. BELZANOR (ceremoniously). Hail, cousin! ALL (except the Persian). Hail, cousin! PERSIAN. All the Queen's guards are descended from the gods, O stranger, save myself. I am Persian, and descended from many kings. BEL AFFRIS (to the guardsmen). Hail, cousins! (To the Persian, condescendingly) Hail, mortal! BELZANOR. You have been in battle, Bel Affris; and you are a soldier among soldiers. You will not let the Queen's women have the first of your tidings. g Caesar and Cleopatra ACT I BEL AFFRIS. I have no tidings, except that we shall have our throats cut presently, women, soldiers, and all. PERSIAN (to Belzanor). I told you so. THE SENTINEL (who has been listening). Woe, alas! BEL AFFRIS (calling to him). Peace, peace, poor Ethiop: destiny is with the gods who painted thee black. (To Belza- nor) What has this mortal (indicating the Persian) told you ? BELZANOR. He says that the Roman Julius Caesar, who has landed on our shores with a handful of followers, will make himself master of Egypt. He is afraid of the Roman soldiers. (The guardsmen laugh with boisterous scorn.) Peasants, brought up to scare crows and follow the plough. Sons of smiths and millers and tanners! And we nobles, consecrated to arms, descended from the gods! PERSIAN. Belzanor: the gods are not always good to their poor relations. BELZANOR (hotly, to the Persian). Man to man, are we worse than the slaves of Caesar ? BEL AFFRIS (stepping between them). Listen, cousin. Man to man, we Egyptians are as gods above the Romans. THE GUARDSMEN (exultingly). Aha! BEL AFFRIS. But this Caesar does not pit man against man : he throws a legion at you where you are weakest as he throws a stone from a catapult; and that legion is as a man with one head, a thousand arms, and no religion. I have fought against them; and I know. BELZANOR (derisively). Were you frightened, cousin? The guardsmen roar with laughter, their eyes sparkling at the wit of their captain. BEL AFFRIS. No, cousin; but I was beaten. They were frightened (perhaps) ; but they scattered us like chaff. The guardsmen, much damped, utter a growl of contemptuous disgust. BELZANOR. Could you not die ? BEL AFFRIS. No: that was too easy to be worthy of a de- scendant of the gods. Besides, there was no time : all was over in a moment. The attack came just where we least expected it. ACT I Cfiesar and Cleopatra 9 BELZANOR. That shews that the Romans are cowards. BEL AFFRIS. They care nothing about cowardice, these Romans: they fight to win. The pride and honor of war are nothing to them. PERSIAN. Tell us the tale of the battle. What befell ? THE GUARDSMEN (gathering eagerly round Bel Affris) . Ay : the tale of the battle. BEL AFFRIS. Know then, that I am a novice in the guard of the temple of Ra in Memphis, serving neither Cleopatra nor her brother Ptolemy, but only the high gods. We went a journey to inquire of Ptolemy why he had driven Cleopatra into Syria, and how we of Egypt should deal with the Roman Pompey, newly come to our shores after his defeat by Caesar at Pharsalia. What, think ye, did we learn? Even that Caesar is coming also in hot pursuit of his foe, and that Ptolemy has slain Pompey, whose severed head he holds in readiness to present to the conqueror. (Sensation among the guardsmen.) Nay, more: we found that Caesar is already come; for we had not made half a day's journey on our way back when we came upon a city rabble flying from his legions, whose landing they had gone out to withstand. BELZANOR. And ye, the temple guard! did ye not with- stand these legions ? BEL AFFRIS. What man could, that we did. But there came the sound of a trumpet whose voice was as the cursing of a black mountain. Then saw we a moving wall of shields coming towards us. You know how the heart burns when you charge a fortified wall; but how if the fortified wall were to charge you ? THE PERSIAN (exulting in having told them so). Did I not say it? BEL AFFRIS. When the wall came nigh, it changed into a line of men common fellows enough, with helmets, leather tunics, and breastplates. Every man of them flung his jave- lin: the one that came my way drove through my shield as through a papyrus lo there! (he points to the bandage on his left arm) and would have gone through my neck had I not 10 Caesar and Cleopatra ACT I stooped. They were charging at the double then, and were upon us with short swords almost as soon as their javelins. When a man is close to you with such a sword, you can do nothing with our weapons : they are all too long. THE PERSIAN. What did you do ? BEL AFFRIS. Doubled my fist and smote my Roman on the sharpness of his jaw. He was but mortal after all: he lay down in a stupor; and I took his sword and laid it on. (Draw- ing the sword) Lo! a Roman sword with Roman blood on it! THE GUARDSMEN (approvingly). Good! (They take the sword and hand it round, examining it curiously.) THE PERSIAN. And your men ? BEL AFFRIS. Fled. Scattered like sheep. BELZANOR (furiously). The cowardly slaves! Leaving the descendants of the gods to be butchered! BEL AFFRIS (with acid coolness). The descendants of the gods did not stay to be butchered, cousin. The battle was not to the strong; but the race was to the swift. The Romans, who have no chariots, sent a cloud of horsemen in pursuit, and slew multitudes. Then our high priest's captain rallied a dozen descendants of the gods and exhorted us to die fighting. I said to myself: surely it is safer to stand than to lose my breath and be stabbed in the back; so I joined our captain and stood. Then the Romans treated us with respect; for no man attacks a lion when the field is full of sheep, except for the pride and honor of war, of which these Romans know nothing. So we escaped with our lives; and I am come to warn you that you must open your gates to Caesar; for his advance guard is scarce an hour behind me; and not an Egyptian warrior is left stand- ing between you and his legions. THE SENTINEL. Woe, alas! (He throws down his javelin and flies into the palace.) BELZANOR. Nail him to the door, quick ! (The guardsmen rush for him with their spears; but he is too quick for them.) Now this news will run through the palace like fire through stubble. ACT I Csesar and Cleopatra 11 BEL AFFRIS. What shall we do to save the women from the Romans? BELZANOR. Why not kill them ? PERSIAN. Because we should have to pay blood money for some of them. Better let the Romans kill them: it is cheaper. BELZANOR (awestruck at his brain power). O subtle one! O serpent! BEL AFFRIS. But your Queen ? BELZANOR. True: we must carry off Cleopatra. BEL AFFRIS. Will ye not await her command ? BELZANOR. Command! a girl of sixteen! Not we. At Memphis ye deem her a Queen: here we know better. I will take her on the crupper of my horse. When we soldiers have carried her out of Caesar's reach, then the priests and liie nurses and the rest of them can pretend she is a queen again, and put their commands into her mouth. PERSIAN. Listen to me, Belzanor. BELZANOR. Speak, O subtle beyond thy years. THE PERSIAN. Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy is at war with her. Let us sell her to him. THE GUARDSMEN. O subtle one! O serpent! BELZANOR. We dare not. We are descended from the gods; but Cleopatra is descended from the river Nile; and the lands of our fathers will grow no grain if the Nile rises not to Vvater them. Without our father's gifts we should live the lives of dogs. PERSIAN. It is true: the Queen's guard cannot live on its pay. But hear me further, O ye kinsmen of Osiris. THE GUARDSMEN. Speak, O subtle one. Hear the serpent begotten! PERSIAN. Have I heretofore spoken truly to you of Caesar, tvhen you thought I mocked you ? GUARDSMEN. Truly, truly. BELZANOR (reluctantly admitting it}. So Bel Affris says. PERSIAN. Hear more of him, then. This Caesar is a great lover of women: he makes them his friends and coun- sellors. 12 Caesar and Cleopatra ACT 1 BELZANOR. Faugh ! This rule of women will be the ruin of Egypt. THE PERSIAN. Let it rather be the ruin of Rome! Caesar grows old now: he is past fifty and full of labors and battles. He is too old for the young women; and the old women are too wise to worship him. BEL AFFRIS. Take heed, Persian. Caesar is by this time almost within earshot. PERSIAN. Cleopatra is not yet a woman: neither is she wise. But she already troubles men's wisdom. BELZANOR. Ay: that is because she is descended from the river Nile and a black kitten of the sacred White Cat. What then? PERSIAN. Why, sell her secretly to Ptolemy, and then offer ourselves to Caesar as volunteers to fight for the overthrow of her brother and the rescue of our Queen, the Great Grand- daughter of the Nile. THE GUARDSMEN. O serpent! PERSIAN. He will listen to us if we come with her picture in our mouths. He will conquer and kill her brother, and reign in Egypt with Cleopatra for his Queen. And we shall be her guard. GUARDSMEN. O subtlest of all the serpents! O admira- tion! O wisdom! BEL AFFRIS. He will also have arrived before you have done talking, O word spinner. BELZANOR. That is true. (An affrighted uproar in the palace interrupts him.} Quick: the flight has begun: guard the door. (They rush to the door and form a cordon before it with their spears. A mob of women-servants and nurses surges out. Those in front recoil from the spears, screaming to those behind to keep back. Belzanor's voice dominates the dis- turbance as he shouts) Back there. In again, unprofitable cattle. THE GUARDSMEN. Back, unprofitable cattle. BELZANOR. Send us out Ftatateeta, the Queen's chief nurse. ACT I Caesar and Cleopatra 13 THE WOMEN (calling into the palace). Ftatateeta, Ftata- teeta. Come, come. Speak to Belzanor. A WOMAN. Oh, keep back. You are thrusting me on the spearheads. A huge grim woman, her face covered with a network of tiny wrinkles, and her eyes old, large, and wise; sinewy handed, very tall, very strong; with the mouth of a bloodhound and the jaws of a bulldog, appears on the threshold. She is dressed like a person of consequence in the palace, and confronts the guardsmen insolently. FTATATEETA. Make way for the Queen's chief nurse. BELZANOR (ivith solemn arrogance). Ftatateeta: I am Bel- zanor, the captain of the Queen's guard, descended from the gods. FTATATEETA (retorting his arrogance with interest). Bel- zanor: I am Ftatateeta, the Queen's chief nurse; and your divine ancestors were proud to be painted on the wall in the pyramids of the kings whom my fathers served. The women laugh triumphantly. BELZANOR (with grim humor). Ftatateeta: daughter of a long-tongued, swivel-eyed chameleon, the Romans are at hand. (A cry of terror from the women: they would fly but for the spears.) Not even the descendants of the gods can resist them; for they have each man seven arms, each carrying seven spears. The blood in their veins is boiling quicksilver; and their wives become mothers in three hours, and are slain and eaten the next day. A shudder of horror from the women. Ftatateeta, despising them and scorning the soldiers, pushes her way through the crowd and confronts the spear points undismayed. FTATATEETA. Then fly and save yourselves, O cowardly sons of the cheap clay gods that are sold to fish porters; and leave us to shift for ourselves. BELZANOR. Not until you have first done our bidding, O terror of manhood. Bring out Cleopatra the Queen to us and then go whither you will. FTATATEETA (with a derisive laugh). Now I know why 14 Caesar and Cleopatra ACT I the gods have taken her out of our hands. (The guardsmen start and look at one another?) Know, thou foolish soldier, that the Queen has been missing since an hour past sun down. BELZANOR (furiously). Hag: you have hidden her to sell to Caesar or her brother. (He grasps her by the left wrist, and drags her, helped by a few of the guard, to the middle of the courtyard, where, as they fling her on her knees, he draws a -murderous looking knife.) Where is she? Where is she? or (He threatens to cut her throat.) FTATATEETA (savagely). Touch me, dog; and the Nile will not rise on your fields for seven times seven years of famine. BELZANOR (frightened, but desperate). I will sacrifice: I will pay. Or stay. (To the Persian) You, O subtle one: your father's lands lie far from the Nile. Slay her. PERSIAN (threatening her with his knife). Persia has but one god; yet he loves the blood of old women. Where is Cleopatra ? FTATATEETA. Persian: as Osiris lives, I do not know. I chid her for bringing evil days upon us by talking to the sacred cats of the priests, and carrying them in her arms. I told her she would be left alone here when the Romans came as a punishment for her disobedience. And now she is gone run away hidden. I speak the truth. I call Osiris to witness THE WOMEN (protesting officiously). She speaks the truth, Belzanor. BELZANOR. You have frightened the child: she is hiding. Search quick into the palace search every corner. The guards, led by Belzanor, shoulder their way into the palace through the flying crowd of women, who escape through the courtyard gate. FTATATEETA (screaming'). Sacrilege! Men in the Queen's chambers! Sa (Her voice dies away as the Persian puts his knife to her throat.) BEL AFFRIS (laying a hand on Ftatateeta's left shoulder). Forbear her yet a moment, Persian. (To Ftatateeta, very ACT I Csesar and Cleopatra 15 significantly) Mother: your gods are asleep or away hunt- ing; and the sword is at your throat. Bring us to where the Queen is hid, and you shall live. FTATATEETA (contemptuously). Who shall stay the sword in the hand of a fool, if the high gods put it there? Listen to me, ye young men without understanding. Cleopatra fears me; but she fears the Romans more. There is but one power greater in her eyes than the wrath of the Queen's nurse and the cruelty of Caesar; and that is the power of the Sphinx that sits in the desert watching the way to the sea. What she would have it know, she tells into the ears of the sacred cats; and on her birthday she sacrifices to it and decks it with poppies. Go ye therefore into the desert and seek Cleopatra in the shadow of the Sphinx; and on your heads see to it that no harm comes to her. BEL AFFRIS (to the Persian). May we believe this, O subtle one? PERSIAN. Which way come the Romans? BEL AFFRIS. Over the desert, from the sea, by this very Sphinx. PERSIAN (to Ftatateeta). O mother of guile! O aspic's tongue! You have made up this tale so that we two may go into the desert and perish on the spears of the Romans. (Lifting his knife) Taste death. FTATATEETA. Not from thee, baby. (She snatches his ankle from under him and flies stooping along the palace wall, vanishing in the darJcness within its precinct. Bel Affrw roars with laughter as the Persian tumbles. The guardsmen rush out of the palace with Belzanor and a mob of fugitives, mostly carrying bundles.) PERSIAN. Have you found Cleopatra? BELZANOR. She is gone. We have searched every corner. THE NUBIAN SENTINEL (appearing at the door of the palace). Woe! Alas! Fly, fly! BELZANOR. What is the matter now? THE NUBIAN SENTINEL. The sacred white cat has been stolen. 16 Caesar and Cleopatra ACT I ALL. Woe! Woe! (General panic. They all fly with cries of consternation. The torch is thrown down and extin- guished in the rush. Darkness. The noise of the fugitives dies away. Dead silence. Suspense. Then the blackness and stillness breaks softly into silver mist and strange airs as the windswept harp of Memnon plays at the dawning of the moon. It rises full over the desert; and a vast horizon comes into relief, broken by a huge shape which soon reveals itself in the spreading radiance as a Sphinx pedestalled on the sands. The light still clears, until the upraised eyes of the image are distinguished looking straight forward and upward in infinite fearless vigil, and a mass of color between its great paws defines itself as a heap of red poppies on which a girl lies motionless, her silken vest heaving gently and regularly with the breathing of a dreamless sleeper, and her braided hair glittering in a shaft of moonlight like a bird's wing. Suddenly there comes from afar a vaguely fearful sound (it might be the bellow of a Minotaur softened by great distance) and Memnon's music stops. Silence: then a few faint high-ringing trumpet notes. Then silence again. Then a man comes from the south with stealing steps, ravished by the mystery of the night, all wonder, and halts, lost in contemplation, opposite the left flank of the Sphinx, whose bosom, with its burden, is hidden from him by its massive shoulder.') THE MAN. Hail, Sphinx: salutation from Julius Caesar! I have wandered in many lands, seeking the lost regions from which my birth into this world exiled me, and the com- pany of creatures such as I myself. I have found flocks and pastures, men and cities, but no other Caesar, no air native to me, no man kindred to me, none who can do my day's deed, and think my night's thought. In the little world yonder, Sphinx, my place is as high as yours in this great desert; only I wander, and you sit still; I conquer, and you endure; I work and wonder, you watch and wait; I look up and am dazzled, look down and am darkened, look round and am puzzled, whilst your eyes never turn from looking out out of the ACT I Caesar and Cleopatra 17 world to the lost region the home from which we have strayed. Sphinx, you and I, strangers to the race of men, are no strangers to one another: have I not been conscious of you and of this place since I was born? Rome is a madman's dream : this is my Reality. These starry lamps of yours I have seen from afar in Gaul, in Britain, in Spain, in Thessaly, sig- nalling great secrets to some eternal sentinel below, whose post I never could find. And here at last is their sentinel an image of the constant and immortal part of my life, silent, full of thoughts, alone in the silver desert. Sphinx, Sphinx: I have climbed mountains at night to hear in the distance the stealthy footfall of the winds that chase your sands in forbidden play our invisible children, O Sphinx, laughing in whispers. My way hither was the way of destiny; for I am he of whose genius you are the symbol : part brute, part woman, and part God nothing of man in me at all. Have I read your riddle, Sphinx ? THE GIRL (ivho has wakened, and peeped cautiously from her nest to see who is speaking). Old gentleman. CESAR (starting violently, and clutching his sword). Im- mortal gods! THE GIRL. Old gentleman: don't run away. CESAR (stupefied). "Old gentleman: don't run away!!!" This! to Julius Caesar! THE GIRL (urgently). Old gentleman. CAESAR. Sphinx: you presume on your centuries. I am younger than you, though your voice is but a girl's voice as yet. THE GIRL. Climb up here, quickly; or the Romans will come and eat you. CESAR (running forward past the Sphinx's shoulder, and see- ing her). A child at its breast! a divine child! THE GIRL. Come up quickly. You must get up at its side and creep round. CAESAR (amazed). Who are you? THE GIRL. Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. CESAR. Queen of the Gypsies, you mean. CLEOPATRA. You must not be disrespectful to me, or the 18 Caesar and Cleopatra ACT I Sphinx will let the Romans eat you. Come up. It is quite cosy here. CESAR (to himself). What a dream! What a magnificent dream! Only let me not wake, and I will conquer ten conti- nents to pay for dreaming it out to the end. (He climbs to the Sphinx's flank, and presently reappears to her on the pedestal, stepping round its right shoulder.) CLEOPATRA. Take care. That's right. Now sit down: 3 7 ou may have its other paw. (She seats herself comfortably on its left paw.) It is very powerful and will protect us; but (shivering, and with plaintive loneliness) it would not take any notice of me or keep me company. I am glad you have come: I was very lonely. Did you happen to see a white cat any- where ? C..ESAR (sitting slowly down on the right paw in extreme won- derment). Have you lost one? CLEOPATRA. Yes: the sacred white cat: is it not dreadful? I brought him here to sacrifice him to the Sphinx; but when we got a little way from the city a black cat called him, and he jumped out of my arms and ran away to it. Do you think that the black cat can have been my great-great-great-grand- mother? CAESAR (staring at her). Your great-great-great-grand- mother! Well, why not? Nothing would surprise me on this night of nights. CLEOPATRA. I think it must have been. My great-grand- mother's great-grandmother was a black kitten of the sacred white cat; and the river Nile made her his seventh wife. That is why my hair is so wavy. And I always want to be let do as I like, no matter whether it is the will of the gods or not : that is because my blood is made with Nile water. CESAR. What are you doing here at this time of night? Do you live here ? CLEOPATRA. Of course not: I am the Queen; and I shall live in the palace at Alexandria when I have killed my brother, who drove me out of it. When I am old enough I shall do just what I like. I shall be able to poison the slaves and see them ACT I Caesar and Cleopatra 19 wriggle, and pretend to Ftatateeta that she is going to be put into the fiery furnace. CESAR. Hm! Meanwhile why are you not at home and in bed? CLEOPATRA. Because the Romans are coming to eat us all. You are not at home and in bed either. CESAR (with conviction). Yes I am. I live in a tent; and I am now in that tent, fast asleep and dreaming. Do you sup- pose that I believe you are real, you impossible little dream witch? CLEOPATRA (giggling and leaning trustfully towards him). You are a funny old gentleman. I like you. CAESAR. Ah, that spoils the dream. Why don't you dream that I am young? CLEOPATRA. I wish you were ; only I think I should be more afraid of you. I like men, especially young men with round strong arms; but I am afraid of them. You are old and rather thin and stringy; but you have a nice voice; and I like to have somebody to talk to, though I think you are a little mad. It is the moon that makes you talk to yourself in that silly way. CESAR. What! you heard that, did you ? I was saying my prayers to the great Sphinx. CLEOPATRA. But this isn't the great Sphinx. CAESAR (much disappointed, looking up at the statue). What! CLEOPATRA. This is only a dear little kitten of the Sphinx. Why, the great Sphinx is so big that it has a temple between its paws. This is my pet Sphinx. Tell me : do you think the Romans have any sorcerers who could take us away from the Sphinx by magic ? CAESAR. Why? Are you afraid of the Romans? CLEOPATRA (very seriously). Oh, they would eat us if they caught us. They are barbarians. Their chief is called Julius Caesar. His father was a tiger and his mother a burning mountain; and his nose is like an elephant's trunk. (Caesar involuntarily rubs his nose.) They all have long noses, and ivory tusks, and little tails, and seven arms with a hundred arrows in each; and they live on human flesh. 20 Csesar and Cleopatra ACT I CAESAR. Would you like me to show you a real Roman ? CLEOPATRA (terrified). No. You are frightening me. C.ESAR. No matter: this is only a dream CLEOPATRA (excitedly). It is not a dream: it is not a dream. See, see. (She plucks a pin from her hair and jabs it repeatedly into his arm.) CAESAR. Ffff Stop. (Wrathfully) How dare you? CLEOPATRA (abashed). You said you were dreaming. (Whimpering) I only wanted to shew you CESAR (gently) . Come, come : don't cry. A queen mustn't cry. (He rubs his arm, wondering at the reality of the smart.) Am I awake? (He strikes his hand against the Sphinx to test its solidity. It feels so real that he begins to be alarmed, and says perplexedly) Yes, I (quite panicstricken) no: impos- sible: madness, madness! (Desperately) Back to camp to camp. (He rises to spring down from the pedestal.) CLEOPATRA (flinging her arms in terror round him). No: you shan't leave me. No, no, no: don't go. I'm afraid afraid of the Romans. CJESAR (as the conviction that he is really awake forces itself on him). Cleopatra: can you see my face well? CLEOPATRA. Yes. It is so white in the moonlight. CAESAR. Are you sure it is the moonlight that makes me look whiter than an Egyptian? (Grimly) Do you notice that I have a rather long nose? CLEOPATRA (recoiling, paralyzed by a terrible suspicion). Oh! C^SAR. It is a Roman nose, Cleopatra. CLEOPATRA. Ah ! (With a piercing scream she springs up; darts round the left shoulder of the Sphinx; scrambles down to the sand; and falls on her knees in frantic supplication, shrieking) Bite him in two, Sphinx: bite him in two. I meant to sacrifice the white cat I did indeed I (Ccesar, who has slipped down from the pedestal, touches her on the shoulder) Ah! (She buries her head in her arms.) GSSAR. Cleopatra: shall I teach you a way to prevent Caesar from eating you ? ACT I Caesar and Cleopatra 21 CLEOPATRA (clinging to him piteously). Oh do, do, do. I will steal Ftatateeta's jewels and give them to you. I will make the river Nile water your lands twice a year. CESAR. Peace, peace, my child. Your gods are afraid of the Romans: you see the Sphinx dare not bite me, nor prevent me carrying you off to Julius Caesar. CLEOPATRA (in pleading murmurings). You won't, you won't. You said you wouldn't. C/ESAR. Csesar never eats women. CLEOPATRA (springing up full of hope). What! CAESAR (impressively). But he eats girls (she relapses) and cats. Now you are a silly little girl; and you are descended from the black kitten. You are both a girl and a cat. CLEOPATRA (trembling). And will he eat me ? CAESAR. Yes; unless you make him believe that you are a woman. CLEOPATRA. Oh, you must get a sorcerer to make a woman of me. Are you a sorcerer ? C^SAR. Perhaps. But it will take a long time; and this very night you must stand face to face with Csesar in the palace of your fathers. CLEOPATRA. No, no. I daren't. C.ESAR. Whatever dread may be in your soul howevet terrible Csesar may be to you you must confront him as a brave woman and a great queen; and you must feel no fear. If your hand shakes: if your voice quavers; then night and death ! (She moans.) But if he thinks you worthy to rule, he will set you on the throne by his side and make you the real ruler of Egypt. CLEOPATRA (despairingly). No: he will find me out: he will find me out. C^SAR (rather mournfully). He is easily deceived by women. Their eyes dazzle him; and he sees them not as they are, but as he wishes them to appear to him. CLEOPATRA (hopefully). Then we will cheat him. I will put on Ftatateeta's head-dress; and he will think me quite an old woman. 22 Csesar and Cleopatra ACT I GaasAR. If you do that he will eat you at one mouthful. CLEOPATRA. But I will give him a cake with my magic opal and seven hairs of the white cat baked in it; and CESAR (abruptly). Pah! you are a little fool. He will eat your cake and you too. (He turns contemptuously from her.) CLEOPATRA (running after him and clinging to him). Oh, please, please! I will do whatever you tell me. I will be good! I will be your slave. (Again the terrible bellowing note sounds across the desert, now closer at hand. It is the bucina, the Roman war trumpet.) CESAR. Hark! CLEOPATRA (trembling). What was that? CESAR. Caesar's voice. CLEOPATRA (pulling at his hand). Let us run away. Come. Oh, come. CAESAR. You are safe with me until you stand on your throne to receive Caesar. Now lead me thither. CLEOPATRA (only too glad to get away). I will, I will. (Again the bucina.) Oh, come, come, come: the gods are angry. Do you feel the earth shaking? CESAR. It is the tread of Caesar's legions. CLEOPATRA (drawing him away). This way, quickly. And let us look for the white cat as we go. It is he that has turned you into a Roman. CESAR. Incorrigible, oh, incorrigible! Away! (He fol- lows her, the bucina sounding louder as they steal across the desert. The moonlight wanes: the horizon again shows black against the sky, broken only by the fantastic silhouette of the Sphinx. The sky itself vanishes in darkness, from which there is no relief until the gleam of a distant torch falls on great Egyptian pillars supporting the roof of a majestic corri- dor. At the further end of this corridor a Nubian slave ap- pears carrying the torch. Ccesar, still led by Cleopatra, follows him. They f .ome down the corridor, Ccesar peering keenly about at the strange architecture, and at the pillar shadows between which, as the passing torch makes them hurry noise- lessly backivards, figures of men with wings and hawks' heads, ACT I Csesar and Cleopatra 23 and vast black marble cats, seem to flit in and out of ambush. Further along, the watt turns a corner and makes a spacious transept in which Caesar sees, on his right, a throne, and behind the throne a door. On each side of the throne is a slender pillar with a lamp on it.) CAESAR. What place is this? CLEOPATRA. This is where I sit on the throne when I am allowed to wear my crown and robes. (The slave holds his torch to sheiv the throne.) CESAR. Order the slave to light the lamps. CLEOPATRA (shyly). Do you think I may? CESAR. Of course. You are the Queen. (She hesitates.) Go on. CLEOPATRA (timidly, to the slave). Light all the lamps. FTATATEETA (suddenly coming from behind the throne). Stop. (The slave stops. She turns sternly to Cleopatra, who quails like a naughty child.) Who is this you have with you; and how dare you order the lamps to be lighted without my permission ? (Cleopatra is dumb with apprehension.) C.ESAR. Who is she? CLEOPATRA. Ftatateeta. FTATATEETA (arrogantly). Chief nurse to CAESAR (cutting her sliort). I speak to the Queen. Be silent. (To Cleopatra) Is this how your servants know their places? Send her away; and do you (to the slave) do as the Queen has bidden. (The slave lights the lamps. Mean- while Cleopatra stands hesitating, afraid of Ftatateeta.) You are the Queen : send her away. CLEOPATRA (cajoling). Ftatateeta, dear: you must go away just for a little. CAESAR. You are not commanding her to go away: you are begging her. You are no Queen. You will be eaten. Farewell. (He turns to go.) CLEOPATRA (clutching him). No, no, no. Don't leave me. CAESAR. A Roman does not stay with queens who are afraid of their slaves. 24 Csesar and Cleopatra ACT 1 CLEOPATRA. I am not afraid. Indeed I am not afraid. FTATATEETA. We shall see who is afraid here. (Mena- cingly) Cleopatra CAESAR. On your knees, woman : am I also a child that you dare trifle with me ? (He points to the floor at Cleopatra's feet. Ftatateeta, half cowed, half savage, hesitates. Caesar calls to the Nubian) Slave. (The Nubian comes to him.) Can you cut off a head ? ( The Nubian nods and grins ecstatically, show- ing all his teeth. Casar takes his sword by the scabbard, ready to offer the hilt to the Nubian, and turns again to Ftatateeta, re- peating his gesture.) Have you remembered yourself, mistress ? Ftatateeta, crushed, kneels before Cleopatra, who can hardly believe her eyes. FTATATEETA (hoarsely). O Queen, forget not thy servant in the days of thy greatness. CLEOPATRA (blazing with excitement). Go. Begone. Go away. (Ftatateeta rises with stooped head, and moves back- wards towards the door. Cleopatra watches her submission eagerly, almost clapping her hands, which are trembling. Sud- denly she cries) Give me something to beat her with. (She snatches a snake-skin from the throne and dashes after Ftata- teeta, whirling it like a scourge in the air. Coesar makes a bound and manages to catch her and hold her while Ftatateeta escapes.) CESAR. You scratch, kitten, do you? CLEOPATRA (breaking from him). I will beat somebody. I will beat him. (She attacks the slave.) There, there, there ! ( The slave flies for his life up the corridor and vanishes . She throws the snake-skin away and jumps on the step of the throne with her arms waving, crying) I am a real Queen at last a real, real Queen! Cleopatra the Queen! (Ccesar shakes his head dubiously, the advantage of the change seeming open to question from the point of view of the general welfare of Egypt. She turns and looks at him exultantly. Then she jumps down from the step, runs to him, and flings her arms round him rapturously, crying) Oh, I love you for making me a Queen. ACT I Caesar and Cleopatra 25 CESAR. But queens love only kings. CLEOPATRA. I will make all the men I love kings. I will make you a king. I will have many young kings, with round, strong arms; and when I am tired of them I will whip them to death; but you shall always be my king: my nice, kind, wise, good old king. CAESAR. Oh, my wrinkles, my wrinkles! And my child's heart! You will be the most dangerous of all Caesar's con- quests. CLEOPATRA (appalled). Caesar! I forgot Caesar. (Anx- iously) You will tell him that I am a Queen, will you not ? a real Queen. Listen! (stealthily coaxing him) let us run away and hide until Caesar is gone. C/ESAR. If you fear Caesar, you are no true Queen; and though you were to hide beneath a pyramid, he would go straight to it and lift it with one hand. And then ! (He chops his teeth together.) CLEOPATRA (trembling). Oh! CAESAR. Be afraid if you dare. (The note of the bucina resounds again in the distance. She moans with fear. Caesar exults in it, exclaiming) Aha! Caesar approaches the throne of Cleopatra. Come: take your place. (He takes her hand and leads her to the throne. She is too downcast to speak.) Ho, there, Teetatota. How do you call your slaves ? CLEOPATRA (spiritlessly, as she sinks on the throne and cowers there, shaking). Clap your hands. He claps his hands. Ftatateeta returns. CAESAR. Bring the Queen's robes, and her crown, and her women; and prepare her. CLEOPATRA (eagerly recovering herself a little). Yes, the crown, Ftatateeta: I shall wear the crown. FTATATEETA. For whom must the Queen put on her state ? CAESAR. For a citizen of Rome. A king of kings, Tota- teeta. CLEOPATRA (stamping at her). How dare you ask ques- tions? Go and do as you are told. (Ftatateeta goes out with a grim smile. Cleopatra goes on eagerly, to Caesar) Caesar 20 Csesar and Cleopatra ACT I will know that I am a Queen when he sees my crown and robes, will he not ? CESAR. No. How shall he know that you are not a slave dressed up in the Queen's ornaments? CLEOPATRA. You must tell him. CAESAR. He will not ask me. He will know Cleopatra by her pride, her courage, her majesty, and her beauty. (She looks very doubtful.) Are you trembling? CLEOPATRA (shivering with dread). No, I I (in a very sickly voice) No. Ftatateeta and three women come in with the regalia. FTATATEETA. Of all the Queen's women, these three alone are left. The rest are fled. (They begin to deck Cleopatra, who submits, pale and motionless.) CSSAR. Good, good. Three are enough. Poor Caesar generally has to dress himself. FTATATEETA (contemptuously). The Queen of Egypt is not a Roman barbarian. (To Cleopatra) Be brave, my nurs- ling. Hold up your head before this stranger. CESAR (admiring Cleopatra, and placing the crown on her head) . Is it sweet or bitter to be a Queen, Cleopatra ? CLEOPATRA. Bitter. CESAR. Cast out fear ; and you will conquer Caesar. Tota : are the Romans at hand ? FTATATEETA. They are at hand; and the guard has fled. THE WOMEN (wailing subduedly). Woe to us! The Nubian comes running down the hatt. NUBIAN. The Romans are in the courtyard. (He bolts through the door. With a shriek, the women fly after him. Ftatateeta's jaw expresses savage resolution: she docs not budge. Cleopatra can hardly restrain herself from following them. C him: he makes friends with everyone as he does with dogs and children. His kindness to me is a wonder: neither mother, father, nor nurse have ever taken so much care for me, or thrown open their thoughts to me so freely. POTHINUS. Well: is not this love? CLEOPATRA. What! When he will do as much for the first girl he meets on his way back to Rome? Ask his slave, Britannus: he has been just as good to him. Nay, ask his very horse! His kindness is not for anything in m e : it is in his own nature. POTHINUS. But how can you be sure that he does not love you as men love women? ACT IV Csesar and Cleopatra 83 CLEOPATRA. Because I cannot make him jealous. I have tried. POTHINUS. Hm! Perhaps I should have asked, then, do you love him? CLEOPATRA. Can one love a god ? Besides, I love another Roman: one whom I saw long before Caesar no god, but a man one who can love and hate one whom I can hurt and who would hurt me. POTHINUS. Does Caesar know this? CLEOPATRA. Yes. POTHINUS. And he is not angry. CLEOPATRA. He promises to send him to Egypt to please me! POTHINUS. I do not understand this man? CLEOPATRA (with superb contempt). You understand Caesar! How could you? (Proudly) I do by instinct. POTHINUS (deferentially, after a moment's thought). Your Majesty caused me to be admitted to-day. What message has the Queen for me? CLEOPATRA. This. You think that by making my brother king, you will rule in Egypt, because you are his guardian and he is a little silly. POTHINUS. The Queen is pleased to say so. CLEOPATRA. The Queen is pleased to say this also. That Caesar will eat up you, and Achillas, and my brother, as a cat eats up mice; and that he will put on this land of Egypt as a shepherd puts on his garment. And when he has done that, he will return to Rome, and leave Cleopatra here as his viceroy. POTHINUS (breaking out wrathfutty). That he will never do. We have a thousand men to his ten; and we will drive him and his beggarly legions into the sea. CLEOPATRA (with scorn, getting up to go). You rant like any common fellow. Go, then, and marshal your thousands; and make haste; for Mithridates of Pergamos is at hand with reinforcements for Caesar. Caesar has held you at bay with two legions: we shall see what he will do with twenty. 84 Caesar and Cleopatra ACT IV PoTHnsrus. Cleopatra CLEOPATRA. Enough, enough: Caesar has spoiled me for talking to weak things like you. (She goes out. Pothinus, with a gesture of rage, is follmving, when Ftatateeta enters and stops him.) POTHINUS. Let me go forth from this hateful place. FTATATEETA. What angers you? POTHINUS. The curse of all the gods of Egypt be upon her! She has sold her country to the Roman, that she may buy it back from him with her kisses. FTATATEETA. Fool: did she not tell you that she would have Caesar gone? POTHINUS. You listened? FTATATEETA. I took care that some honest woman should be at hand whilst you were with her. POTHINUS. Now by the gods FTATATEETA. Enough of your gods ! Caesar's gods are all powerful here. It is no use you coming to Cleopatra: you are only an Egyptian. She will not listen to any of her own race: she treats us all as children. POTHINUS. May she perish for it! FTATATEETA (balefully). May your tongue wither for that wish! Go! send for Lucius Septimius, the slayer of Pompey. He is a Roman: may be she will listen to him. Begone! POTHINUS (darkly). I know to whom I must go now. FTATATEETA (suspiciously). To whom, then? POTHINUS. To a greater Roman than Lucius. And mark this, mistress. You thought, before Caesar came, that Egypt should presently be ruled by you and your crew in the name of Cleopatra. I set myself against it FTATATEETA (interrupting him wrangling). Ay; that it might be ruled by you and your crew in the name of Ptol- emy. POTHINUS. Better me, or even you, than a woman with 'a Roman heart; and that is what Cleopatra is now become. Whilst I live, she shall never rule. So guide yourself ac- cordingly. (He goes out.) ACT IV Caesar and Cleopatra 85 It is by this time drawing on to dinner time. The table is laid on the roof of the palace; and thither Rufio is now climb- ing, ushered by a majestic palace official, wand of office in hand, and followed by a slave carrying an inlaid stool. After many stairs they emerge at last into a massive colonnade on the roof. Light curtains are drawn between the columns on the north and east to soften the westering sun. The official leads Rufio to one of these shaded sections. A cord for pulling the curtains apart hangs dawn between the pillars. THE OFFICIAL (bowing). The Roman commander will await Caesar here. The slave sets down the stool near the southernmost column, and slips out through the curtains. RUFIO (sitting down, a little blown). Pouf! That was a climb. How high have we come? THE OFFICIAL. We are on the palace roof, O Beloved of Victory! RUFIO. Good! the Beloved of Victory has no more stairs to get up. A second official enters from the opposite end, walking backwards. THE SECOND OFFICIAL. Caesar approaches. Ccesar, fresh from the bath, clad in a new tunic of purple silk, comes in, beaming and festive, followed by two slaves carrying a light couch, which is hardly more than an elabo- rately designed bench. They place it near the northmost of the two curtained columns. When this is done they slip out through the curtains; and the two officials, formally bowing, follow them. Rufio rises to receive Caesar. C^SAR (coming over to him). Why, Rufio! (Surveying his dress with an air of admiring astonishment) A new baldrick! A new golden pommel to your sword! And you have had your hair cut! But not your beard ? impossible! (He sniffs at Rufio's beard.) Yes, perfumed, by Jupiter Olympus! RUFIO (growling). Well: is it to please myself? C.ESAR (affectionately). No, my son Rufio, but to please me to celebrate my birthday. 86 Caesar and Cleopatra ACT IV RUFIO (contemptuously). Your birthday! You always have a birthday when there is a pretty girl to be flattered or an ambassador to be conciliated. We had seven of them in ten months last year. CAESAR (contritely). It is true, Rufio! I shall never break myself of these petty deceits. RUFIO. Who is to dine with us besides Cleopatra? C^SAR. Apollodorus the Sicilian. RUFIO. That popinjay! CAESAR. Come! the popinjay is an amusing dog tells a story; sings a song; and saves us the trouble of flattering the Queen. What does she care for old politicians and camp- fed bears like us? No: Apollodorus is good company, Rufio, good company. RUFIO. Well, he can swim a bit and fence a bit: he might be worse, if he only knew how to hold his tongue. CAESAR. The gods forbid he should ever learn! Oh, this military life! this tedious, brutal life of action! That is the worst of us Romans: we are mere doers and drudgers: a swarm of bees turned into men. Give me a good talker one with wit and imagination enough to live without con- tinually doing something! RUFIO. Ay! a nice time he would have of it with you when dinner was over! Have you noticed that I am before my time? C^SAR. Aha! I thought that meant something. What is it? RUFIO. Can we be overheard here? CESAR. Our privacy invites eavesdropping. I can rem- edy that. (He claps his hands twice. The curtains are drawn, revealing the roof garden with a banqueting table set across in the middle for four persons, one at each end, and two side by side. The side next Caesar and Rufio is blocked with golden wine vessels and basins. A gorgeous major-domo is superintending the laying of the table by a staff of slaves. The colonnade goes round the garden at both sides to the further end, where a gap in it, like a great gateway, leaves the view ACT IV Caesar and Cleopatra 87 open to the sky beyond the western edge of the roof, except in the middle, where a life size image of Ra, seated on a huge plinth, towers up, with hawk head and crown of asp and disk. His attar, which stands at his feet, is a single white stone.) Now everybody can see us, nobody will think of listening to us. (He sits down on the bench left by the two slaves.) RUFIO (sitting down on his stool). Pothinus wants to speak to you. I advise you to see him: there is some plotting going on here among the women. CAESAR. Who is Pothinus? RUFIO. The fellow with hair like squirrel's fur the little King's bear leader, whom you kept prisoner. CAESAR (annoyed). And has he not escaped? RUFIO. No. CAESAR (rising imperiously). Why not? You have been guarding this man instead of watching the enemy. Have I not told you always to let prisoners escape unless there are special orders to the contrary ? Are there not enough mouths to be fed without him? RUFIO. Yes; and if you would have a little sense and let me cut his throat, you would save his rations. Anyhow, he won't escape. Three sentries have told him they would put a pi In in through him if they saw him again. What more can they do? He prefers to stay and spy on us. So would I if I had to do with generals subject to fits of clemency. CAESAR (resuming his seat, argued down). Hm! And so he wants to see me. RUFIO. Ay. I have brought him with me. He is waiting there (jerking his thumb over his shoulder) under guard. CAESAR. And you want me to see him? RUFIO (obstinately). I don't want anything. I daresay you will do what you like. Don't put it on to me. CAESAR (with an air of doing it expressly to indulge Rufio). Well, well: let us have him. RUFIO (calling). Ho there, guard! Release your man and send him up. (Beckoning) Come along! 88 Csesar and Cleopatra ACT IV Pothinus enters and stops mistrustfully between the two, looking from one to the other. CAESAR (graciously). Ah, Pothinus! You are welcome. And what is the news this afternoon? POTHINUS. Caesar: I come to warn you of a danger, and to make you an offer. C.ESAR. Never mind the danger. Make the offer. RUFIO. Never mind the offer. What's the danger? POTHINUS. Caesar: you think that Cleopatra is devoted to you. CAESAR (gravely). My friend: I already know what I think. Come to your offer. POTHINUS. I will deal plainly. I know not by what strange gods you have been enabled to defend a palace and a few yards of beach against a city and an army. Since we cut you off from Lake Mareotis, and you dug wells in the salt sea sand and brought up buckets of fresh water from them, we have known that your gods are irresistible, and that you are a worker of miracles. I no longer threaten you Runo (sarcastically). Very handsome of you, indeed. POTHINUS, So be it: you are the master. Our gods sent the north west winds to keep you in our hands; but you have been too strong for them. CAESAR (gently urging him to come to the point). Yes, yes, my friend. But what then? RUFIO. Spit it out, man. What have you to say? POTHINUS. I have to say that you have a traitress in your camp. Cleopatra THE MAJOR-DOMO (at the table, announcing) . The Queen ! (Caesar and Rufio rise.) Runo (aside to Pothinus}. You should have spat it out sooner, you fool. Now it is too late. Cleopatra, in gorgeous raiment, enters in state through the gap in the colonnade, and comes down past the image of Ra and past the table to Caesar. Her retinue, headed by Ftata- teeta, joins the staff at the table. C&sar gives Cleopatra his seat, which she takes. ACT IV Cassar and Cleopatra 89 CLEOPATRA (quickly, seeing Pothinus). What is h e doing here? CAESAR (seating himself beside her, in the most amiable of tempers). Just going to tell me something about you. You shall hear it. Proceed, Pothinus. POTHINUS (disconcerted). Caesar (He stammers.) C.ESAR. Well, out with it. POTHINUS. What I have to say is for your ear, not for the Queen's. CLEOPATRA (with subdued jeroctiy). There are means of making you speak. Take care. POTHINUS (defiantly) . Caesar does not employ those means. CAESAR. My friend: when a man has anything to tell in this world, the difficulty is not to make him tell it, but to prevent him from telling it too often. Let me celebrate my birthday by setting you free. Farewell: we shall not meet again. CLEOPATRA (angrily). Caesar: this mercy is foolish. POTHINUS (to Caesar). Will you not give me a private audience ? Your life may depend on it. (Ccesar rises loftily.) RUFIO (aside to Pothinus). Ass! Now we shall have some heroics. C.ESAR (oratorically). Pothinus RUFIO (interrupting him). Caesar: the dinner will spoil if you begin preaching your favourite sermon about life and death. CLEOPATRA (priggishly). Peace, Rufio. I desire to hear Caesar. RUFIO (bluntly). Your Majesty has heard it before. You repeated it to Apollodorus last week; and he thought it was all your own. (Coesar's dignity collapses. Much tickled, he sits down again and looks roguishly at Cleopatra, who is furious. Rufio calls as before) Ho there, guard! Pass the prisoner out. He is released. (To Pothinus) Now off with you. You have lost your chance. POTHINUS (his temper overcoming his prudence). I will speak. 90 Cassar and Cleopatra ACT IV CESAR (to Cleopatra). You see. Torture would not have wrung a word from him. POTHINUS. Caesar: you have taught Cleopatra the arts by which the Romans govern the world. CESAR. Alas! they cannot even govern themselves. What then? POTHINUS. What then? Are you so besotted with her beauty that you do not see that she is impatient to reign in Egypt alone, and that her heart is set on your departure ? CLEOPATRA (rising). Liar! CESAR (shocked). What! Protestations! Contradictions! CLEOPATRA (ashamed, but trembling with suppressed rage). No. I do not deign to contradict. Let him talk. (She sits down again.) POTHINUS. From her own lips I have heard it. You are to be her catspaw: you are to tear the crown from her broth- er's head and set it on her own, delivering us all into her hand delivering yourself also. And then Caesar can return to Rome, or depart through the gate of death, which is nearer and surer. CESAR (calmly). Well, my friend; and is not this very natural ? POTHINUS (astonished). Natural! Then you do not resent treachery ? CESAR. Resent! O thou foolish Egyptian, what have I to do with resentment? Do I resent the wind when it chills me, or the night when it makes me stumble in the darkness? Shall I resent youth when it turns from age, and ambition when it turns from servitude? To tell me such a story as this is but to tell me that the sun will rise to-morrow. CLEOPATRA (unable \o contain herself). But it is false false. I swear it. C^SAR. It is true, though you swore it a thousand times, and believed all you swore. (She is conmdsed with ymotion. To screen her, he rises and takes Pothinus to Rufio, saying) Come, Rufio: let us see Pothinus past the guard. I have * word to say to him. (Aside to them) We must give the ACT IV Cassar and Cleopatra 91 Queen a moment to recover herself. (Aloud) Come. (He takes Pathinus and Rufio out with him, conversing with them meanwhile.) Tell your friends, Pothinus, that they must not think I am opposed to a reasonable settlement of the country's affairs (They pass out of hearing.) CLEOPATRA (in a stifled whisper). Ftatateeta, Ftatateeta. FTATATEETA (hurrying to her from the table and petting her). Peace, child: be comforted CLEOPATRA (interrupting her). Can they hear us? FTATATEETA. No, dear heart, no. CLEOPATRA. Listen to me. If he leaves the Palace alive, never see my face again. FTATATEETA. He ? Poth CLEOPATRA (striking her on the mouth). Strike his life out as I strike his name from your lips. Dash him down from the wall. Break him on the stones. Kill, kill, kill him. FTATATEETA (shewing all her teeth). The dog shall perish. CLEOPATRA. Fail in this, and you go out from before me for ever. FTATATEETA (resolutely). So be it. You shall not see my face until his eyes are darkened. Caesar comes back, with Apollodorus, exquisitely dressed, and Rufio. CLEOPATRA (toFtatateet a). Come soon soon. (Ftatateeta turns her meaning eyes for a moment on her mistress; then goes grimly away past Ra and out. Cleopatra runs like a gazelle to Cassar) So you have come back to me, Caesar. (Caressingly) I thought you were angry. Welcome, Apollo- dorus. (She gives him her hand to kiss, with her other arm about Cossar.) APOLLODORUS. Cleopatra grows more womanly beautiful from week to week. CLEOPATRA. Truth, Apollodorus? APOLLODORUS. Far, far short of the truth! Friend Rufio threw a pearl into the sea: Caesar fished up a diamond. C^SAR. Caesar fished up a touch of rheumatism, my friend. Come: to dinner! to dinner! (They move towards the table.) 92 Caesar and Cleopatra ACT TV CLEOPATRA (skipping like a young fawn). Yes, to dinner. I have ordered s u c h a dinner for you, Caesar! C.*:SAR. Ay? What are we to have? CLEOPATRA. Peacocks' brains. C^SAR (as if his mouth watered}. Peacocks' brains, Apollodorus! APOLLODORUS. Not for me. I prefer nightingales' tongues. (He goes to one of the two covers set side by side.) CLEOPATRA. Roast boar, Rufio! RUFIO (gluttonously) . Good! (He goes to the seat next Apollodorus, on his left.) CAESAR (looking at his seat, which is at the end of the table, to Ra's left hand). What has become of my leathern cushion? CLEOPATRA (at the opposite end). I have got new ones for you. THE MAJOR-DOMO. These cushions, Caesar, are of Maltese gauze, stuffed with rose leaves. CAESAR. Rose leaves! Am I a caterpillar? (He throws the cushions away and seats himself on the leather mattress underneath.) CLEOPATRA. What a shame! My new cushions! THE MAJOR-DOMO (at Caesar's elbow). What shall we serve to whet Caesar's appetite? CAESAR. What have you got? THE MAJOR-DOMO. Sea hedgehogs, black and white sea acorns, sea nettles, beccaficoes, purple shellfish CAESAR. Any oysters? THE MAJOR-DOMO. Assuredly. CESAR. British oysters ? THE MAJOR-DOMO (assenting). British oysters, Csesar. C^SAR. Oysters, then. (The Major-Domo signs to a slave at each order; and the slave goes out to execute it.) I have been in Britain that western land of romance the last piece of earth on the edge of the ocean that surrounds the world. I went there in search of its famous pearls. The British pearl was a fable; but in searching for it I found the British oyster. ACT IV Caesar and Cleopatra 93 APOLLODORTTS. All posterity will bless you for it. (To the Major-Domd) Sea hedgehogs for me. RUFIO. Is there nothing solid to begin with? THE MAJOR-DOMO. Fieldfares with asparagus CLEOPATRA (interrupting). Fattened fowls! have some fattened fowls, Rufio. RTJFIO. Ay, that will do. CLEOPATRA (greedily). Fieldfares for me. THE MAJOR-DOMO. Caesar will deign to choose his wine ? Sicilian, Lesbian, Chian RUFIO (contemptuously). All Greek. APOLLODORUS. Who would drink Roman wine when he could get Greek? Try the Lesbian, Caesar. CAESAR. Bring me my barley water. RUFIO (with intense disgust). Ugh! Bring me my Fal- ernian. (The Falernian is presently brought to him.) CLEOPATRA (pouting). It is waste of time giving you dinners, Caesar. My scullions would not condescend to your diet. CESAR (relenting). Well, well: let us try the Lesbian. (The Major-Domo fills Caesar's goblet; then Cleopatra's and Apollodorus's.) But when I return to Rome, I will make laws against these extravagances. I will even get the laws carried out. CLEOPATRA (coaxingly). Never mind. To-day you are to be like other people: idle, luxurious, and kind. (She stretches her hand to him along the table.) C^SAR. Well, for once I will sacrifice my comfort (kissing her hand) there! (He takes a draught of wine.) Now are you satisfied? CLEOPATRA. And you no longer believe that I long for your departure for Rome? C.ESAR. I no longer believe anything. My brains are asleep. Besides, who knows whether I shall return to Rome? RUFIO (alarmed). How? Eh? What? CAESAR. What has Rome to shew me that I have not seen already? One year of Rome is like another, except 94 Caesar and Cleopatra ACT IV that I grow older, whilst the crowd in the Appian Way is always the same age. APOLLODORUS. It is no better here in Egypt. The old men, when they are tired of life, say "We have seen every- thing except the source of the Nile." CacsAR (his imagination catching fire). And why not see that? Cleopatra: will you come with me and track the flood to its cradle in the heart of the regions of mystery? Shall we leave Rome behind us Rome, that has achieved great- ness only to learn how greatness destroys nations of men who are not great! Shall I make you a new kingdom, and build you a holy city there in the great unknown? CLEOPATRA (rapturously). Yes, yes. You shall. RUFIO. Ay: now he will conquer Africa with two legions before we come to the roast boar. APOLLODORUS. Come: no scoffing. This is a noble scheme: in it Caesar is no longer merely the conquering sol- dier, but the creative poet-artist. Let us name the holy city, and consecrate it with Lesbian wine. CAESAR. Cleopatra shall name it herself. CLEOPATRA. It shall be called Caesar's Gift to his Beloved. APOLLODORUS. No, no. Something vaster than that something universal, like the starry firmament. CESAR (prosaically). Why not simply The Cradle of the Nile? CLEOPATRA. No: the Nile is my ancestor; and he is a god. Oh! I have thought of something. The Nile shall name it himself. Let us call upon him. (To the Major- Domo) Send for him. (The three men stare at one another; but the Major-Domo goes out as if he had received the most matter-of-fact order.) And (to the retinue) away with you all. The retinue withdraws, making obeisance. A priest enters, carrying a miniature sphinx with a tiny tripod before it. A morsel of incense is smoking in the tripod. The priest comes to the table and places the image in the middle of it. The light begins to change to the magenta purple of the Egyptian sunset, as if the god had brought a strange colored ACT IV Caesar and Cleopatra 95 shadow with him. The three men are determined not to be impressed; but they feel curious in spite of themselves. CAESAR. What hocus-pocus is this? CLEOPATRA. You shall see. And it is n o t hocus-pocus. To do it properly, we should kill something to please him; but perhaps he will answer Caesar without that if we spill some wine to him. APOLLODORUS (turning his head to look up over his shoulder at Ra). Why not appeal to our hawkheaded friend here? CLEOPATRA (nervously}. Sh! He will hear you and be angry. RUFIO (phlegmatically) . The source of the Nile is out of his district, I expect. CLEOPATRA. No: I will have my city named by nobody but my dear little sphinx, because it was in its arms that Caesar found me asleep. (She languishes at Coesar; then turns curtly to the priest) Go. I am a priestess, and have power to take your charge from you. (The priest makes a reverence and goes out.) Now let us call on the Nile all together. Perhaps he will rap on the table. CAESAR. What! table rapping! Are such superstitions still believed in this year 707 of the Republic? CLEOPATRA. It is no superstition: our priests learn lots of things from the tables. Is it not so, Apollodorus? APOLLODORUS. Yes: I profess myself a converted man. When Cleopatra is priestess, Apollodorus is devotee. Pro- pose the conjuration. CLEOPATRA. You must say with me "Send us thy voice, Father Nile." ALL FOUR (holding their glasses together before the idot). Send us thy voice, Father Nile. The death cry of a man in mortal terror and agony answers them. Appalled, the men set down their glasses, and listen. Silence. The purple deepens in the sky. Ccesar, glancing at Cleopatra, catches her pouring out her wine before the god, with gleaming eyes, and mute assurances of gratitude and worship. Apollodorus springs up and runs to the edge of the roof to peer down and listen. 96 Caesar and Cleopatra ACT IV CAESAR (looking piercingly at Cleopatra). What was that? CLEOPATRA (petulantly). Nothing. They are beating some slave. CESAR. Nothing! RUFIO. A man with a knife in him, I'll swear. CESAR (rising). A murder! APOLLODORUS (at the back, waving his hand for silence). S-sh! Silence. Did you hear that? CAESAR. Another cry? APOLLODORUS (returning to the table). No, a thud. Some- thing fell on the beach, I think. RUFIO (grimly , as he rises) . Something with bones in it, eh ? C.-ESAR (shuddering). Hush, hush, Rufio. (He leaves the table and returns to the colonnade: Rufio following at his left elbow, and Apollodorus at the other side.) CLEOPATRA (still in her place at the table). Will you leave me, Caesar? Apollodorus: are you going? APOLLODORUS. Faith, dearest Queen, my appetite is gone. CESAR. Go down to the courtyard, Apollodorus; and find out what has happened. Apollodorus nods and goes out, making for the staircase by which Rufio ascended. CLEOPATRA. Your soldiers have killed somebody, per- haps. What does it matter? The murmur of a crowd rises from the beach below. Casar and Rufio look at one another. CESAR. This must be seen to. (He is about to follow Apollodorus when Rufio stops him with a hand on his arm as Ftatateeta comes back by the far end of the roof, with dragging steps, a drowsy satiety in her eyes and in the corners of the bloodhound lips. For a moment Casar suspects that she is drunk with wine. Not so Rufio: he knows well the red vintage that has inebriated her.) RUFIO (in a low tone). There is some mischief between those two. FTATATEETA. The Queen looks again on the face of her servant. ACT IV Caesar and Cleopatra 97 Cleopatra looks at her for a moment with an exultant re- flection of her murderous expression. Then she flings her arms round her; kisses her repeatedly and savagely; and tears off her jewels and heaps them on her. The two men turn from the spectacle to look at one another. Ftatateeta drags herself sleepily to the altar; kneels before Ra; and remains there in prayer. Caesar goes to Cleopatra, leaving Rufio in the colon- nade. C^SAR (with searching earnestness). Cleopatra: what has happened ? CLEOPATRA (in mortal dread of him, but with her utmost cajolery). Nothing, dearest Caesar. (With sickly sweetness, her voice almost failing) Nothing. I am innocent. (She approaches him affectionately) Dear Caesar: are you angry with me? Why do you look at me so? I have been here with you all the time. How can I know what has happened ? CAESAR (reflectively). That is true. CLEOPATRA (greatly relieved, trying to caress him). Of course it is true. (He does not respond to the caress.) You know it is true, Rufio. The murmur without suddenly swells to a roar and sub- sides. RUFIO. I shall know presently. (He makes for the altar in the burly trot that serves him for a stride, and touches Ftata- teeta on the shoulder.) Now, mistress : I shall want you. (He orders her, with a gesture, to go before him.) FTATATEETA (rising and glowering at him). My place is with the Queen. CLEOPATRA. She has done no harm, Rufio. C^SAR (to Rufio). Let her stay. RUFIO (sitting down on the altar). Very well. Then my place is here too; and you can see what is the matter for yourself. The city is in a pretty uproar, it seems. C,ESAR (with grave displeasure). Rufio: there is a time for obedience. RUFIO. And there is a time for obstinacy. (He folds his arms doggedly.) 98 Caesar and Cleopatra ACT IV CAESAR (to Cleopatra). Send her away. CLEOPATRA (whining in her eagerness to propitiate him). Yes, I will. I will do whatever you ask me, Caesar, always, because I love you. Ftatateeta: go away. FTATATEETA. The Queen's word is my will. I shall be at hand for the Queen's call. (She goes out past Ra, as she came.) RUFIO (following her). Remember, Caesar, your body- guard also is within call. (He follows her out.) Cleopatra, presuming upon Caesar's submission to Rufio, leaves the table and sits down on the bench in the colonnade. CLEOPATRA. Why do you allow Rufio to treat you so? You should teach him his place. CAESAR. Teach him to be my enemy, and to hide his thoughts from me as you are now hiding yours. CLEOPATRA (her fears returning). Why do you say that, Caesar? Indeed, indeed, I am not hiding anything. You are wrong to treat me like this. (She stifles a sob.) I am only a child ; and you turn into stone because you think some one has been killed. I cannot bear it. (She purposely breaks down and weeps. He looks at her with profound sad- ness and complete coldness. She looks up to see what effect she is producing. Seeing that he is unmoved, she sits up, pre- tending to struggle with her emotion and to put it bravely aivay.) But there: I know you hate tears: you shall not be troubled with them. I know you are not angry, but only sad; only I am so silly, I cannot help being hurt when you speak coldly. Of course you are quite right: it is dreadful to think of any- one being killed or even hurt; and I hope nothing really serious has (Her voice dies away under his contemptuous penetration.) CAESAR. What has frightened you into this ? What have you done? (A trumpet sounds on the beach below.) Aha! that sounds like the answer. CLEOPATRA (sinking back trembling on the bench and cov- ering her face with her hands). I have not betrayed you, Caesar: I swear it. ACT IV Caesar and Cleopatra 99 CAESAR. I know that. I have not trusted you. (He turns from her, and is about to go out when Apollodorus and Britan- nus drag in Lucius Septimius to him. Rufio follows. Caesar shudders.) Again, Pompey's murderer! RUFIO. The town has gone mad, I think. They are for tearing the palace down and driving us into the sea straight away. We laid hold of this renegade in clearing them out of the courtyard. CESAR. Release him. (They let go his arms.) What has offended the citizens, Lucius Septimius? Lucius. What did you expect, Caesar? Pothinus was a favorite of theirs. CESAR. What has happened to Pothinus ? I set him free, here, not half an hour ago. Did they not pass him out ? Lucius. Ay, through the gallery arch sixty feet above ground, with three inches of steel in his ribs. He is as dead as Pompey. We are quits now, as to killing you and I. CESAR (shocked). Assassinated! our prisoner, our guest! (He turns reproachfully on Rufio) Rufio RUFIO (emphatically anticipating the question). Whoever did it was a wise man and a friend of yours (Cleopatra is greatly emboldened) ; but none of u s had a hand in it. So it is no use to frown at me. (Caesar turns and looks at Cleo- patra.) CLEOPATRA (violently rising). He was slain by order of the Queen of Egypt. I am not Julius Caesar the dreamer, who allows every slave to insult him. Rufio has said I did well: now the others shall judge me too. (She turns to the others) This Pothinus sought to make me conspire with him to betray Caesar to Achillas and Ptolemy. I refused; and he cursed me and came privily to Caesar to accuse me of his own treachery. I caught him in the act; and he in- sulted me -me, the Queen! to my face. Caesar would not avenge me: he spoke him fair and set him free. Was I right to avenge myself? Speak, Lucius. Lucius. I do not gainsay it. But you will get little thanks from Caesar for it. 100 Caesar and Cleopatra ACT IV CLEOPATRA. Speak, Apollodorus. Was I wrong? A?OLLODORTJS. I have only one word of blame, most beautiful. You should have called upon me, your knight; and in fair duel I should have slain the slanderer. CLEOPATRA (passionately}. I will be judged by your very slave, Caesar. Britannus: speak. Was I wrong? BRITANNUS. Were treachery, falsehood, and disloyalty left unpunished, society must become like an arena full of wild beasts, tearing one another to pieces. Caesar is in the wrong. CAESAR (with quid bitterness}. And so the verdict is against me, it seems. CLEOPATRA (vehemently). Listen to me, Ctesar. If one man in all Alexandria can be found to say that I did wrong, I swear to have myself crucified on the door of the palace by my own slaves. CAESAR. If one man in all the world can be found, now or forever, to know that you did wrong, that man will have either to conquer the world as I have, or be crucified by it. (The uproar in the streets again reaches them.) Do you hear? These knockers at your gate are also believers in vengeance and in stabbing. You have slain their leader: it is right that they shall slay you. If you doubt it, ask your four counsellors here. And then in the name of that right (he emphasizes the word with great scorn) shall I not slay them for murdering their Queen, and be slain in my turn by their countrymen as the invader of their fatherland? Can Rome do less then than slay these slayers too, to shew the world how Rome avenges her sons and her honor? And so, to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honor and peace, until the gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand. (Fierce uproar. Cleopatra becomes white with terror.) Hearken, you who must not be insulted. Go near enough to catch their words: you will find them bitterer than the tongue of Pothi- nus. (Loftily wrapping himself up in an impenetrable dig- nity.) Let the Queen of Egypt now give her orders for ACT IV Caesar and Cleopatra 101 vengeance, and take her measures for defence; for she has renounced Caesar. (He turns to go.) CLEOPATRA, (terrified, running to him and falling on her knees) . You will not desert me, Caesar. You will defend the palace. CAESAR. You have taken the powers of life and death upon you. I am only a dreamer. CLEOPATRA. But they will kill me. CESAR. And why not? CLEOPATRA. In pity Pity! What! has it come to this so suddenly, that nothing can save you now but pity? Did it save Pothi- nus? She rises, wringing her hands, and goes back to the bench in despair. Apollodorus shews his sympathy with her by quietly posting himself behind the bench. The sky has by this time become the most vivid purple, and soon begins to change to a glowing pale orange, against which the colonnade and the great image show darkher and darklier. RUFIO. Caesar: enough of preaching. The enemy is at the gate. CAESAR (turning on him and giving way to his wrath). Ay; and what has held him baffled at the gate all these months? Was it my folly, as you deem it, or your wisdom? In this Egyptian Red Sea of blood, whose hand has held all your heads above the waves? (Turning on Cleopatra) And yet, when Caesar says to such an one, "Friend, go free," you, clinging for your little life to my sword, dare steal out and stab him in the back? And you, soldiers and gentlemen, and honest servants as you forget that you are, applaud this as- sassination, and say "Caesar is in the wrong." By the gods, I am tempted to open my hand and let you all sink into the flood. CLEOPATRA {with a ray of cunning hope). But, Caesar, if you do, you will perish yourself. Caesar's eyes blaze. RUFIO (greatly alarmed). Now, by jreat Jove, you filthy 102 Caesar and Cleopatra ACT IV little Egyptian rat, that is the very word to make him walk out alone into the city and leave us here to be cut to pieces. (Desperately, to Caesar) Will you desert us because we are a parcel of fools ? I mean no harm by killing: I do it as a dog kills a cat, by instinct. We are all dogs at your heels; but we have served you faithfully. CAESAR (relenting), Alas, Rufio, my son, my son: as dogs we are like to perish now in the streets. APOLLODORUS (at his post behind Cleopatra's seat). Caesar, what you say has an Olympian ring in it: it must be right; for it is fine art. But I am still on the side of Cleopatra. If we must die, she shall not want the devotion of a man's heart nor the strength of a man's arm. CLEOPATRA (sobbing). But I don't want to die. CAESAR (sadly). Oh, ignoble, ignoble! Lucius (coming forward between Caesar and Cleopatra). Hearken to me, Caesar. It may be ignoble; but I also mean to live as long as I can. CJSSAR. Well, my friend, you are likely to outlive Caesar. Is it any magic of mine, think you, that has kept your army and this whole city at bay for so long? Yesterday, what quarrel had they with me that they should risk their lives against me ? But to-day we have flung them down their hero, murdered; and now every man of them is set upon clearing out this nest of assassins for such we are and no more. Take courage then; and sharpen your sword. Pompey's head has fallen; and Caesar's head is ripe. APOLLODORUS. Does Caesar despair? GaESAR (with infinite pride). He who has never hoped can never despair. Caesar, in good or bad fortune, looks his fate in the face. Lucius. Look it in the face, then; and it will smile as it always has on Caesar. G/ESAR (with involuntary haughtiness). Do you presume to encourage me? Lucius. I offer you my services. I will change sides if you will have me. ACT IV Caesar and Cleopatra 103 C.ESAR (suddenly coming down to earth again, and looking sharply at him, divining that there is something behind the offer). What! At this point? Lucius (firmly). At this point. RUFIO. Do you suppose Caesar is mad, to trust you? Lucius. I do not ask him to trust me until he is victorious. I ask for my life, and for a command in Caesar's army. And since Caesar is a fair dealer, I will pay in advance. CESAR. Pay ! How ? Lucius. With a piece of good news for you. Caesar divines the neivs in a flash. RUFIO. What news? CAESAR (with an elate and buoyant energy which makes Cleopatra sit up and stare). What news! What news, did you say, my son Rufio? The relief has arrived: what other news remains for us ? Is it not so, Lucius Septimius ? Mith- ridates of Pergamos is on the march. Lucius. He has taken Pelusium. CESAR (delighted). Lucius Septimius: you are henceforth my officer. Rufio: the Egyptians must have sent every sol- dier from the city to prevent Mithridates crossing the Nile. There is nothing in the streets now but mob mob! Lucius. It is so. Mithridates is marching by the great road to Memphis to cross above the Delta. Achillas will fight him there. CAESAR (all audacity). Achillas shall fight Caesar there. See, Rufio. (He runs to the table; snatches a napkin; and draws a plan on it with his finger dipped in wine, whilst Rufio and Lucius Septimius crowd about him to watch, all looking closely, for the light is now almost gone.) Here is the palace (pointing to his plan): here is the theatre. You (to Rufio) take twenty men and pretend to go by t h a t street (pointing it out); and whilst they are stoning you, out go the cohorts by this and this. My streets are right, are they, Lucius? Lucius. Ay, that is the fig market CAESAR (too much excited to listen to him). I saw them the day we arrived. Good! (He throws the napkin on the table 104 Caesar and Cleopatra ACT IV and comes down again into the colonnade.) Away, Britannus: tell Petronius that within an hour half our forces must take ship for the western lake. See to my horse and armor. (Britannus runs out.) With the rest, 7 shall march round the lake and up the Nile to meet Mithridates. Away, Lucius; and give the word. Lucius hurries out after Britannus. RTJFIO. Come: this is something like business. CESAR (buoyantly). Is it not, my only son? (He claps his hands. The slaves hurry in to the table.) No more of this mawkish revelling: away with all this stuff: shut it out of my sight and be off with you. ( The slaves begin to remove the table; and the curtains are draivn, shutting in the colonnade.) You understand about the streets, Rufio? RUFIO. Ay, I think I do. I will get through them, at all events. The bucina sounds busily in the courtyard beneath. CAESAR. Come, then: we must talk to the troops and hearten them. You down to the beach: I to the courtyard. (He makes for the staircase.) CLEOPATRA (rising from her seat, where she has been quite neglected all this time, and stretching out her hands timidly f& him). Caesar. C^KSAR (turning). Eh? CLEOPATRA. Have you forgotten me? CAESAR (indulgently). I am busy now, my child, busy. When I return your affairs shall be settled. Farewell; and be good and patient. He goes, preoccupied and quite indifferent. She stands with clenched fists, in speechless rage and humiliation. RUFIO. That game is played and lost, Cleopatra. The woman always gets the worst of it. CLEOPATRA (haughtily). Go. Follow your master. RUFIO (in her ear, with rough familiarity). A word first. Tell your executioner that if Pothinus had been properly killed i n the throa t he would not have called out. Your man bungled his work. ACT IV Csesar and Cleopatra 105 CLEOPATRA (enigmatically). How do you know it was a man? RUFIO (startled, and puzzled). It was not you: you were with us when it happened. (She turns her back scornfully on him. He shakes his head, and draws the curtains to go out. It is now a magnificent moonlit night. The table has been removed. Ftatateeta is seen in the light of the moon and stars, again in prayer before the white altar-stone of Ra. Rufio starts; closes the curtains again softly; and says in a law voice to Cleopatra) Was it she? with her own hand? CLEOPATRA (threateningly). Whoever it was, let my ene- mies beware of her. Look to it, Rufio, you who dare make the Queen of Egypt a fool before Caesar. RUFIO (looking grimly at her). I will look to it, Cleo- patra. (He nods in confirmation of the promise, and slips out through the curtains, loosening his sword in its sheath as he goes.) ROMAN SOLDIERS (in the courtyard below). Hail, Caesar! Hail, hail! Cleopatra listens. The bucina sounds again, followed by several trumpets. CLEOPATRA (wringing her hands and catting). Ftatateeta. Ftatateeta. It is dark; and I am alone. Come to me. (Silence.) Ftatateeta. (Louder.) Ftatateeta. (Silence. In a panic she snatches the cord and pulls the curtains apart.) Ftatateeta is lying dead on the altar of Ra, with her throat cut. Her blood deluges the white stone. END OF ACT IV. ACT V High noon. Festival and military pageant on the esplanade before the palace. In the east harbor Caesar's galley, so gor- geously decorated that it seems to be rigged with flowers, is along- side the quay, dose to the steps Apollodorus descended when he embarked with the carpet. A Roman guard is posted there in charge of a gangway, whence a red floorcloth is laid down the middle of the esplanade, turning off to the north opposite the central gate in the palace front, which shuts in the esplanade on the south side. The broad steps of the gate, crowded with Cleo- patra's ladies, all in their gayest attire, are like a flower garden. The facade is lined by her guard, officered by the same gallants to whom Bel Affris announced the coming of Caesar six months be- fore in the old palace on the Syrian border. The north side is lined by Roman soldiers, with the townsfolk on tiptoe behind them, peering over their heads at the cleared esplanade, in which the officers stroll about, chatting. Among these are Belzanor and the Persian; also the Centurion, vinewood cudgel in hand, battle worn, thick-booted, and much outshone, both socially and deco- ratively, by the Egyptian officers. Apollodorus makes his way through the townsfolk and calls to the officers from behind the Roman line. APOLLODORUS. Hullo! May I pass? CENTURION. Pass Apollodorus the Sicilian there! (The soldiers let him through.) BELZANOR. Is Caesar at hand ? APOLLODORUS. Not yet. He is still in the market place. I could not stand any more of the roaring of the soldiers ! Af- ter half an hour of the enthusiasm of an army, one feels the need of a little sea air. PERSIAN. Tell us the news. Hath he slain the priests? ACT V Caesar and Cleopatra 107 APOLLODORUS. Not he. They met him in the market place with ashes on their heads and their gods in their hands They placed the gods at his feet. The only one that was worth looking at was Apis : a miracle of gold and ivory work. By my advice he offered the chief priest two talents for it. BELZANOR (appalled) . Apis the all-knowing for two talents ! What said the chief priest? APOLLODORUS. He invoked the mercy of Apis, and asked for five. BELZANOR. There will be famine and tempest in the land for this. PERSIAN. Pooh! Why did not Apis cause Caesar to be vanquished by Achillas? Any fresh news from the war, Apollodorus ? APOLLODORUS. The little King Ptolemy was drowned. BELZANOR. Drowned! How? APOLLODORUS. With the rest of them. Caesar attacked them from three sides at once and swept them into the Nile- Ptolemy's barge sank. BELZANOR. A marvelous man, this Caesar! Will he come soon, think you ? APOLLODORUS. He was settling the Jewish question when I left. A flourish of trumpets from the north, and commotion among the townsfolk, announces the approach of Caesar. PERSIAN. He has made short work of them. Here he comes. (He hurries to his post in front of the Egyptian lines.) BELZANOR (following him). Ho there! Caesar comes. The soldiers stand at attention, and dress their lines. Apollo- dorus goes to the Egyptian line. CENTURION (hurrying to the gangway guard). Attention there! Caesar comes. Caesar arrives in state with Rufio: Britannus following. The soldiers receive him with enthusiastic shouting. CAESAR. I see my ship awaits me. The hour of Caesar's farewell to Egypt has arrived. And now, Rufio, what remains to be done before I go? 108 Csesar and Cleopatra ACT V RUFIO (at his left hand). You have not yet appointed a Roman governor for this province. C.ESAR (looking whimsically at him, but speaking wtih perfect gravity). What say you to Mithridates of Pergamos, my re- liever and rescuer, the great son of Eupator ? RUFIO. Why, that you will want him elsewhere. Do you forget that you have some three or four armies to conquer on your way home ? CAESAR. Indeed! Well, what say you to yourself ? RUFIO (incredulously). I! la governor! What are you dreaming of? Do you not know that I am only the son of a f reedman ? CAESAR (affectionately). Has not Caesar called you his son? (Calling to the whole assembly) Peace awhile there; and hear me. THE ROMAN SOLDIERS. Hear Caesar. CAESAR. Hear the service, quality, rank and name of the Roman governor. By service, Caesar's shield; by quality, Caesar's friend; by rank, a Roman soldier. (The Roman sol- diers give a triumphant shout.) By name, Rufio. (They shout again.) RUFIO (kissing Caesar's hand). Ay: I am Caesar's shield; but of what use shall I be when I am no longer on Caesar's arm ? Well, no matter (He becomes husky, and turns away to recover himself.) CAESAR. Where is that British Islander of mine? BRITANNUS (coming forward on Casar's right hand). Here, Caesar. CESAR. Who bade you, pray, thrust yourself into the battle of the Delta, uttering the barbarous cries of your native land, and affirming yourself a match for any four of the Egyptians, to whom you applied unseemly epithets? BRITANNUS. Caesar: I ask you to excuse the language that escaped me in the heat of the moment. G