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And now that she should be accused of giving help to the murderer of her joy! She had execrated and despised Cassius, and now she hated, no less, the man who had wrongfully accused her.

But he was dictator–his summons must be obeyed. She would obey it, but she would humiliate him.

Antony waited at Cilicia on the day appointed, but Cleopatra did not appear. He waited two days–three–and very leisurely, up the river, the galleys of Cleopatra came.

But she did not come as suppliant.

Her curiously carved galley was studded with nails of gold; the oars were all tipped with silver; the sails were of purple silk. The rowers kept time to the music of flutes. The Queen in the gauzy dress of Venus reclined under a canopy, fanned by cupids. Her maids were dressed like the Graces, and fragrance of burning incense diffused the shores.

The whole city went down the river to meet this most gorgeous pageant, and Antony the proud was left at the tribunal alone.

On her arrival Cleopatra sent official word of her presence. Antony sent back word that she should come to him.

She responded that if he wished to see her he should call and pay his respects.

He went down to the riverside and was astonished at the dazzling, twinkling lights and all the magnificence that his eyes beheld. Very soon he was convinced that in elegance and magnificence he could not cope with this Egyptian queen.

The personal beauty of Cleopatra was not great. Many of her maids outshone her. Her power lay in her wit and wondrous mind. She adapted herself to conditions; and on every theme and topic that the conversation might take, she was at home.

Her voice was marvelously musical, and was so modulated that it seemed like an instrument of many strings. She spoke all languages, and therefore had no use for interpreters.

When she met Antony she quickly took the measure of the man. She fell at once into his coarse soldier ways, and answered him jest for jest.

Antony was at first astonished, then subdued, next entranced–a woman who could be the comrade of a man she had never seen before! She had the intellect of a man and all the luscious weaknesses of a woman.

Cleopatra had come hating this man Antony, and to her surprise she found him endurable–and more. Besides that, she had cause to be grateful to him–he had destroyed those conspirators who had killed her Caesar–her King of Kings.

She ordered her retinue to make ready to return. The prows were turned toward Alexandria; and aboard the galley of the Queen, beneath the silken canopy, at the feet of Cleopatra, reclined the great Mark Antony.

* * * * *

The subject is set forth in Byron’s masterly phrase, “Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart; ’tis woman’s whole existence.” Still, I suppose it will not be disputed that much depends upon the man and–the woman.

In this instance we have a strong, wilful, ambitious and masculine man. Up to the time he met Cleopatra, love was of his life apart; after this, it was his whole existence. When they first met there at Cilicia, Antony was past forty; she was twenty-five.

Plutarch tells us that Fulvia, the wife of Antony, an earnest and excellent woman, had tried to discipline him. The result was that, instead of bringing him over to her way of thinking, she had separated him from her.

Cleopatra ruled the man by entwining her spirit with his–mixing the very fibers of their being–fastening her soul to his with hoops of steel. She became a necessity to him–a part and parcel of the fabric of his life. Together they attended to all the affairs of State. They were one in all the games and sports. The exuberant animal spirits of Antony occasionally found vent in roaming the streets of Alexandria at dead of night, rushing into houses and pulling people out of bed, and then absconding before they were well awake. In these nocturnal pranks, Cleopatra often attended him, dressed like a boy. Once they both got well pummeled, and deservedly, but they stood the drubbing rather than reveal their identity.