Bernard Shaw

“ Will you desert us because we are a parcel of fools? I mean no harm by killing: I do it as a dog kills a cat, by instinct. We are all dogs at your heels; but we have served you faithfully.
CAESAR (relenting) . Alas, Rufio, my son, my son: as dogs we are like to perish now in the streets.
APOLLODORUS (at his post behind Cleopatra’s seat) . Caesar, what you say has an Olympian ring in it: it must be right; for it is fine art. But I am still on the side of Cleopatra. If we must die, she shall not want the devotion of a man’s heart nor the strength of a man’s arm. ”

“ CAESAR. What! Rome produces no art! Is peace not an art? is war not an art? is government not an art? is civilization not an art? All these we give you in exchange for a few ornaments. You will have the best of the bargain. (Turning to Rufio) And now, what else have I to do before I embark? (Trying to recollect) There is something I cannot remember: what can it be? Well, well: it must remain undone: we must not waste this favorable wind. Farewell, Rufio.
RUFIO. Caesar: I am loth to let you go to Rome without your shield. There are too many daggers there. ”

“ FTATATEETA. I took care that some honest woman should be at hand whilst you were with her.
POTHINUS. Now by the gods——
FTATATEETA. Enough of your gods! Caesar’s gods are all powerful here. It is no use you coming to Cleopatra: you are only an Egyptian. She will not listen to any of her own race: she treats us all as children.
POTHINUS. May she perish for it!
FTATATEETA (balefully) . May your tongue wither for that wish! Go! send for Lucius Septimius, the slayer of Pompey. He is a Roman: may be she will listen to him. ”

“ BRITANNUS. But your honor—the honor of Rome——
CAESAR. I do not make human sacrifices to my honor, as your Druids do. Since you will not burn these, at least I can drown them. (He picks up the bag and throws it over the parapet into the sea.)
BRITANNUS. Caesar: this is mere eccentricity. Are traitors to be allowed to go free for the sake of a paradox?
RUFIO (rising) . Caesar: when the islander has finished preaching, call me again. I am going to have a look at the boiling water machine. (He goes into the lighthouse.) ”

“ BELZANOR. Faugh! This rule of women will be the ruin of Egypt.
THE PERSIAN. Let it rather be the ruin of Rome! Caesar grows old now: he is past fifty and full of labors and battles. He is too old for the young women; and the old women are too wise to worship him.
BEL AFFRIS. Take heed, Persian. Caesar is by this time almost within earshot.
PERSIAN. Cleopatra is not yet a woman: neither is she wise. But she already troubles men’s wisdom.
BELZANOR. Ay: that is because she is descended from the river Nile and a black kitten of the sacred White Cat. ”

“ CLEOPATRA (vehemently) . Listen to me, Caesar. If one man in all Alexandria can be found to say that I did wrong, I swear to have myself crucified on the door of the palace by my own slaves.
CAESAR. If one man in all the world can be found, now or forever, to know that you did wrong, that man will have either to conquer the world as I have, or be crucified by it. (The uproar in the streets again reaches them.) Do you hear? These knockers at your gate are also believers in vengeance and in stabbing. You have slain their leader: it is right that they shall slay you. ”

“ Shall we leave Rome behind us—Rome, that has achieved greatness only to learn how greatness destroys nations of men who are not great! Shall I make you a new kingdom, and build you a holy city there in the great unknown?
CLEOPATRA (rapturously) . Yes, yes. You shall.
RUFIO. Ay: now he will conquer Africa with two legions before we come to the roast boar.
APOLLODORUS. Come: no scoffing, this is a noble scheme: in it Caesar is no longer merely the conquering soldier, but the creative poet-artist. Let us name the holy city, and consecrate it with Lesbian Wine. ”

“ The death cry of a man in mortal terror and agony answers them. Appalled, the men set down their glasses, and listen. Silence. The purple deepens in the sky. Caesar, glancing at Cleopatra, catches her pouring out her wine before the god, with gleaming eyes, and mute assurances of gratitude and worship. Apollodorus springs up and runs to the edge of the roof to peer down and listen.
CAESAR (looking piercingly at Cleopatra) . What was that?
CLEOPATRA (petulantly) . Nothing. They are beating some slave.
CAESAR. Nothing!
RUFIO. A man with a knife in him, I’ll swear. ”

“ BEL AFFRIS (stepping between them) . Listen, cousin. Man to man, we Egyptians are as gods above the Romans.
THE GUARDSMEN (exultingly) . Aha!
BEL AFFRIS. But this Caesar does not pit man against man: he throws a legion at you where you are weakest as he throws a stone from a catapult; and that legion is as a man with one head, a thousand arms, and no religion. I have fought against them; and I know.
BELZANOR (derisively) . Were you frightened, cousin?
The guardsmen roar with laughter, their eyes sparkling at the wit of their captain. ”

“ BELZANOR. He says that the Roman Julius Caesar, who has landed on our shores with a handful of followers, will make himself master of Egypt. He is afraid of the Roman soldiers. (The guardsmen laugh with boisterous scorn.) Peasants, brought up to scare crows and follow the plough. Sons of smiths and millers and tanners! And we nobles, consecrated to arms, descended from the gods!
PERSIAN. Belzanor: the gods are not always good to their poor relations.
BELZANOR (hotly, to the Persian) . Man to man, are we worse than the slaves of Caesar? ”

“ My great-grandmother’s great-grandmother was a black kitten of the sacred white cat; and the river Nile made her his seventh wife. That is why my hair is so wavy. And I always want to be let do as I like, no matter whether it is the will of the gods or not: that is because my blood is made with Nile water.
CAESAR. What are you doing here at this time of night? Do you live here?
CLEOPATRA. Of course not: I am the Queen; and I shall live in the palace at Alexandria when I have killed my brother, who drove me out of it. When I am old enough I shall do just what I like. ”

“ Was the Fate that forced us to fight for the mastery of the world, of our making? Am I Julius Caesar, or am I a wolf, that you fling to me the grey head of the old soldier, the laurelled conqueror, the mighty Roman, treacherously struck down by this callous ruffian, and then claim my gratitude for it! (To Lucius Septimius) Begone: you fill me with horror.
LUCIUS (cold and undaunted) . Pshaw! You have seen severed heads before, Caesar, and severed right hands too, I think; some thousands of them, in Gaul, after you vanquished Vercingetorix. Did you spare him, with all your clemency? ”

“ RUFIO. What! Not when the trumpet sounds and all our lives depend on Caesar’s being at the barricade before the Egyptians reach it? Eh?
CLEOPATRA. Let them lose their lives: they are only soldiers.
CAESAR (gravely) . Cleopatra: when that trumpet sounds, we must take every man his life in his hand, and throw it in the face of Death. And of my soldiers who have trusted me there is not one whose hand I shall not hold more sacred than your head. (Cleopatra is overwhelmed. Her eyes fill with tears.) Apollodorus: you must take her back to the palace. ”

“ CENTURION (as the sentinel makes an angry demonstration) . Peace there. Cleopatra. I must abide by my orders, and not by the subtleties of this Sicilian. You must withdraw into the palace and examine your carpets there.
CLEOPATRA (pouting) . I will not: I am the Queen. Caesar does not speak to me as you do. Have Caesar’s centurions changed manners with his scullions?
CENTURION (sulkily) . I do my duty. That is enough for me.
APOLLODORUS. Majesty: when a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty. ”

“ CAESAR. What, ablaze already! Impossible!
RUFIO. Yes, five good ships, and a barge laden with oil grappled to each. But it is not my doing: the Egyptians have saved me the trouble. They have captured the west harbor.
CAESAR (anxiously) . And the east harbor? The lighthouse, Rufio?
RUFIO (with a sudden splutter of raging ill usage, coming down to Caesar and scolding him) . Can I embark a legion in five minutes? The first cohort is already on the beach. We can do no more. If you want faster work, come and do it yourself?
CAESAR (soothing him) . Good, good. Patience, Rufio, patience. ”

“ CAESAR (buoyantly) . Is it not, my only son? (He claps his hands. The slaves hurry in to the table.) No more of this mawkish reveling: away with all this stuff: shut it out of my sight and be off with you. (The slaves begin to remove the table; and the curtains are drawn, shutting in the colonnade.) You understand about the streets, Rufio?
RUFIO. Ay, I think I do. I will get through them, at all events.
The bucina sounds busily in the courtyard beneath.
CAESAR. Come, then: we must talk to the troops and hearten them. You down to the beach: I to the courtyard. ”

“ APOLLODORUS (gallantly) . Beautiful Queen: I am Apollodorus the Sicilian, your servant, from the bazaar. I have brought you the three most beautiful Persian carpets in the world to choose from.
CLEOPATRA. I have no time for carpets to-day. Get me a boat.
FTATATEETA. What whim is this? You cannot go on the water except in the royal barge.
APOLLODORUS. Royalty, Ftatateeta, lies not in the barge but in the Queen. (To Cleopatra) The touch of your majesty’s foot on the gunwale of the meanest boat in the harbor will make it royal. (He turns to the harbor and calls seaward) Ho there, boatman! ”

“ The Queen is only a child.
CAESAR. Just so: that is why we must not disappoint her. What is the present, Apollodorus?
APOLLODORUS. Caesar: it is a Persian carpet—a beauty! And in it are—so I am told—pigeons’ eggs and crystal goblets and fragile precious things. I dare not for my head have it carried up that narrow ladder from the causeway.
RUFIO. Swing it up by the crane, then. We will send the eggs to the cook; drink our wine from the goblets; and the carpet will make a bed for Caesar.
APOLLODORUS. The crane! Caesar: I have sworn to tender this bale of carpet as I tender my own life. ”

“ Caesar divines the news in a flash.
RUFIO. What news?
CAESAR (with an elate and buoyant energy which makes Cleopatra sit up and stare) . What news! What news, did you say, my son Rufio? The relief has arrived: what other news remains for us? Is it not so, Lucius Septimius? Mithridates of Pergamos is on the march.
LUCIUS. He has taken Pelusium.
CAESAR (delighted) . Lucius Septimius: you are henceforth my officer. Rufio: the Egyptians must have sent every soldier from the city to prevent Mithridates crossing the Nile. There is nothing in the streets now but mob—mob! ”

“ APOLLODORUS. Well, Centurion; and has not the lighthouse been within the Roman lines since Caesar landed there?
CLEOPATRA. Yes, yes. Answer that, if you can.
CENTURION (to Apollodorus) . As for you, Apollodorus, you may thank the gods that you are not nailed to the palace door with a pilum for your meddling.
APOLLODORUS (urbanely) . My military friend, I was not born to be slain by so ugly a weapon. When I fall, it will be (holding up his sword) by this white queen of arms, the only weapon fit for an artist. ”

“ FTATATEETA (interrupting him—wrangling) . Ay; that it might be ruled by you and your crew in the name of Ptolemy.
POTHINUS. Better me, or even you, than a woman with a Roman heart; and that is what Cleopatra is now become. Whilst I live, she shall never rule. So guide yourself accordingly. (He goes out.)
It is by this time drawing on to dinner time. The table is laid on the roof of the palace; and thither Rufio is now climbing, ushered by a majestic palace official, wand of office in hand, and followed by a slave carrying an inlaid stool. ”

“ RUFIO (seizing him) . You are mad. You shall not.
CAESAR. Why not? Can I not swim as well as he?
RUFIO (frantic) . Can an old fool dive and swim like a young one? He is twenty-five and you are fifty.
CAESAR (breaking loose from Rufio) . Old!!!
BRITANNUS (shocked) . Rufio: you forget yourself.
CAESAR. I will race you to the galley for a week’s pay, father Rufio.
CLEOPATRA. But me! me!! me!!! What is to become of me?
CAESAR. I will carry you on my back to the galley like a dolphin. Rufio: when you see me rise to the surface, throw her in: I will answer for her. ”

“ POTHINUS. Our first gift to you, as your galley came into the roadstead, was the head of your rival for the empire of the world. Bear witness, Lucius Septimius: is it not so?
LUCIUS. It is so. With this hand, that slew Pompey, I placed his head at the feet of Caesar.
CAESAR. Murderer! So would you have slain Caesar, had Pompey been victorious at Pharsalia.
LUCIUS. Woe to the vanquished, Caesar! When I served Pompey, I slew as good men as he, only because he conquered them. His turn came at last.
THEODOTUS (flatteringly) . The deed was not yours, Caesar, but ours—nay, mine ”

“ At all events, Caesar might have won his battles without being wiser than Charles XII or Nelson or Joan of Arc, who were, like most modern “self-made” millionaires, half-witted geniuses, enjoying the worship accorded by all races to certain forms of insanity. But Caesar’s victories were only advertisements for an eminence that would never have become popular without them. Caesar is greater off the battle field than on it. ”

“ CLEOPATRA. But if you go away, I shall not be Queen.
CAESAR. I shall not go away until you are Queen.
POTHINUS. Achillas: if you are not a fool, you will take that girl whilst she is under your hand.
RUFIO (daring them) . Why not take Caesar as well, Achillas?
POTHINUS (retorting the defiance with interest) . Well said, Rufio. Why not?
RUFIO. Try, Achillas. (Calling) Guard there.
The loggia immediately fills with Caesar’s soldiers, who stand, sword in hand, at the top of the steps, waiting the word to charge from their centurion, who carries a cudgel. ”

“ Well, we shall now know who your foes are. The name of every man who has plotted against you since you crossed the Rubicon may be in these papers, for all we know.
CAESAR. Put them in the fire.
BRITANNUS. Put them— (he gasps) !!!!
CAESAR. In the fire. Would you have me waste the next three years of my life in proscribing and condemning men who will be my friends when I have proved that my friendship is worth more than Pompey’s was—than Cato’s is. O incorrigible British islander: am I a bull dog, to seek quarrels merely to shew how stubborn my jaws are? ”