Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 2, August 1852

by Various

His helmet, embossed with golden sculptures, rested on the ground at the foot of the low bed, its lofty crest of snow-white horse-hair dancing in the light air which found its way into the chamber, and casting its wavering shadows upon the features of the dead; the elaborately ornamented corslet, which still rested on the massive chest, was stained in several places with broad plashes of gore; but if blood had stained the face or the bare neck, it had been washed off with a care which had removed every sign of violence, every symptom of death.

Perfumes had been liberally sprinkled upon the crisp, auburn locks, censers were steaming with the smoke of musk and ambergris, and garlands of the freshest flowers were cast like fragrant fetters over the cold limbs of the sleeper. But what were all these to a single tear drop from the mourner who sat beside his bed, gazing with a cold, unmeaning gaze on the features of him whom she had loved so mightily—betrayed so madly!

Her hair, the uncurled raven hair of Ethiopia, fell to her very feet in strange profusion, not in the undulating flow of ringlets free from restraint, but in straight, shadowy masses, such as we have sometimes seen, and known not whether to praise or censure, in some sacred painting of the Italian school. Her lineaments of the Coptic cast, chiseled in their flowing lines of majesty and softness, were such as men are constrained to admire despite their judgment; but her form, her limbs, her swan-like neck, her swelling bust, the rounded outlines, the wavy motion, were of a loveliness which, while they baffled every attempt at description, explained at once and justified the passionate adoration of Julius, the frantic devotion of the wild triumvir.

It was Cleopatra who sat there, mourning in desolate despair over him whom alone she had loved. Him, strange it is to say, she had loved for himself, for himself alone. No delusion of vanity, no pride of boasting a second ruler of the universe her slave, had mingled with her deep, indomitable passion.

The conqueror had been merged in the man, the man in the lover. In peace or war, in triumph or defeat, absent or at her side, in the flush of health or in the frail humility of sickness, he had been ever the chosen idol of her heart; and never perhaps had she loved him more entirely, or more fervently, than at the very moment of that desertion of his cause, in the hour of his utmost need, which had terminated in the downfall of his honor and her happiness.

Dark, indeed, and incomprehensible are the mysteries of a woman’s heart, impenetrable her motives, unfathomable the sources of her hatred or affection; often most tender in the heart when coldest in the semblance; most passionate when most unmoved, most faithful when most insincere.

It might have been from mere womanish caprice, from a desire of probing the depth of her lover’s feelings, from curiosity to learn and look upon the conduct of a baffled conqueror; or more likely yet from jealousy—jealousy that his love of honor and empire should interfere with his devotion to her beauty, that she had so fatally betrayed him.

She might have overlooked, in the moment of action, the consequences of her flight—she might have fancied the victory gained, and her desertion a matter of no moment—a desertion that would wring the heart, without affecting the cause, of him whom she adored the most, when she most trifled with his peace of mind.

She might have fancied the defeat, should defeat ensue, not irreparable—the empire lost to-day recoverable on the morrow—she might have hoped so to teach the proud triumvir by this reverse, that, when the government of the world should be conquered by their joint forces, the world were the gift of Cleopatra.

It might have been one of these motives singly; it might have been the result of all united—felt, perhaps, but not analyzed even by herself, that had spurred her on till retreat was impossible and hope desperate. Still it was love that caused her to betray him, as it was love that caused her to proclaim herself dead already, ere she had yet thought of dying, in order to mollify his indignation and awaken his sympathies; as it was love that now led her to curse the day when she was born, born to be the fate of Antony.