“I feared to displease him.”
Cleopatra, swelling with indignation, took her sister by the shoulders, and looking her full in the face, spoke thus to her:
“How now! You are the Queen, the people’s goddess! Half the world belongs to you; all that Rome does not rule is yours; you reign over the Nile and the entire ocean. You even reign over the heavens, since you are nearer to the ear of the Gods than anyone, and yet you cannot reign over the man you love!”
“Reign . . . reign!” said Berenice, hanging her head. “That’s easy to say, but, look you, one does not reign over a lover as if dominating a slave.”
“And why not, pray?”
“Because . . . But you cannot understand! To love, is to prefer the happiness of another to that which we formerly selfishly desired before meeting the loved one. Should Demetrios be content, so likewise would I be, even weeping and far from his side. I wish for no delight that is not his, and all I bestow on him gives me great joy.”
“You know not how to love,” said the young lass.
Berenice smiled sadly, then she stretched her two arms stiffly on either side of her couch, as she jutted out her breasts and arched her loins.
“Ah, little presumptuous virgin!” she sighed. “When for the first time you’ll swoon in loving conjunction, then only will you understand why one is never the queen of a man who causes you thus to lose your senses.”
“A woman can always be a queen should she so will it.”