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 Cæsar—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.