Plutarch, in the “Life of Antony” written a century after the great romance, said of Cleopatra: “Her actual beauty, it is said, was not in itself so remarkable that none could be compared with her. But the contact of her presence, if you lived with her, was irresistible; the attraction of her person, joining with the charm of her conversation, and the character that attended all she said or did, was something bewitching. It was a pleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice with which, like an instrument of many strings, she could pass from one language to another…”
But it is Shakespeare who describes her best:
“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies. For vilest things
Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
Bless her when she is riggish.”
Shakespeare
(Antony and Cleopatra)
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