Page:Charactersevents00ferriala.djvu/61

 e-giving to the ancient romance the significance it had for those that made it and the public that first read it. Archaeologists have discovered upon coins portraits of Cleopatra, and now critics have confronted these portraits with the poetic descriptions given by Roman historians and have found the descriptions generously fanciful: in the portraits we do not see the countenance of a Venus, delicate, gracious, smiling, nor even the fine and sensuous beauty of a Marquise de Pompadour, but a face fleshy and, as the French would say, bouffie; the nose, a powerful aquiline; the face of a woman on in years, ambitious, imperious, one which recalls that of Maria Theresa. It will be said that judgments as to beauty are personal; that Antony, who saw her alive, could decide better than we who see her portraits half effaced by the centuries; that the attractive power of a woman emanates not only from corporal beauty, but also--and yet more--from her spirit. The taste of Cleopatra, her vivacity, her cleverness, her exquisite art in conversation, is vaunted by all.

Perhaps, however, Cleopatra, beautiful or ugly, is of little consequence; when one studies the history of her relations with Antony, there is small place, and that but toward the end, for the passion of love. It will be easy to persuade you