At first I had not heard two men approaching. They were chatting and, after they saw me, they used their lamps to read the inscription on the wall. Then they started to shout. By now I’ve heard the story of that meeting told a thousand times. I can imagine clearly, I can see and hear that before they saw me, the two friends were exchanging laughs and teasing phrases about the endless party they were returning from so late at night. They were Philostratus and Crinagoras of Rhodes. But they had not a drop of wine in their veins, for they had been dining at the austere table of Olympus, the sage who has since become my doctor, and who now, in this final hour, remains faithful to me. They had sat in the open air, their only light the pale starshine, but they had spoken and listened their fill. Around this table pranced neither musicians nor dancers, neither comedians nor poets. They wore no garlands and reclined on no cloth of gold. They had only the herb garden of Olympus and his secretaries and students, men who clad themselves in coarse white wool, the plain dress of shepherds. In all this, there had been a gentle, moving simplicity, even though a student, who was not of their number but was studying mathematics, an arrogant youth with the long curly hair of a child — years later he would give himself out to be a prophet — had irritated them with his impertinent questions and his drinking of wine. They were making fun of his drunkenness and his questions at the time they bumped into me. On seeing me, Philostratus exclaimed, “There’s another drunk, and this one’s female! What kind of milk are mothers giving their children nowadays that they grow up with such feeble bones? One cup of wine and they fall over and talk drivel!”
But in spite of chiding me with his first glance, he spoke to me in a softer tone, perhaps because he felt compassion for my near-nakedness and my pregnant condition. “Little girl! Where are you going? May we accompany you?”
“Don’t talk to her! Let’s get out of here,” Crinagoras said to him. “Can’t you see what’s she’s written here and how provocatively she’s showing off her. . Let’s beat it. Look what she’s written. Find out who she is.”
“She didn’t write that!”
“She’s got a sharp piece of metal in her hand.”
“But she isn’t the one. Don’t you remember the poem?
The man whose dust lies in this deep-dug hole
Toiled as a slave while he was here on earth,
Yet earned he merit of an equal worth
To royal Darius, by his honest soul.
It’s by Anyte. From ’The Tomb of the Slave.’ Anyte, the one Meleager called ’the Homer among women.’ It was going a bit far to say that, don’t you think?”
Crinagoras hastened to reply, “Love for poets always does go too far, oversteps the limits, and with Anyte being a woman — well, she had twice the reason to overdo it.”
Quoting Anyte, they had forgotten me. I too had forgotten myself, sinking deeper and deeper into that cauldron of grief where everything rang loudly and glittered sharply. I hadn’t seen or heard them until Philostratus, remembering me, dried my tears with the edge of his rough, woolen cloak. Only then did I become aware of them there in front of me.
“Why did you scratch that up there?” he snarled. “You’re asking for trouble, you know. You’re endangering your child and everything. And for what? To travesty a poet who’s been dead for hundreds of years.”
“I didn’t scratch anything on the wall,” I said, without checking my tears.
“Why are you crying, pretty girl? You’re about to have a child. You have life and happiness ahead of you. Have you quarreled with your husband?” Raising my face, he said to Crinagoras, “This woman’s no beggar. Just look at her face. Where do you live? Calm yourself.”
I could not calm myself. My face, beneath the edge of his cloak, felt that it was breaking asunder in every slightest part of itself, that Antony had obliterated it, exhausted it, robbed all its features of definition. How could he have done that to me? Had I imagined it all, that we had loved the way we had loved? Had I meant nothing to him? Had it happened only inside my head, in my imagination, for me alone? Did his Octavia have what Antony needed? Why didn’t I have it? I wanted to die.
“What’s the matter, little girl? Love troubles, eh? You’re lovesick. Is that it?”
What made him think that? Was it so obvious?
“What else could hurt a woman like you, with such strong features? Look at her. She has a really striking face, with so much character. Any painter would want to paint her portrait.”
A voice from behind then spoke up. “They’ve already painted her, man.”
Did I know him? Had I met him before?
“She’s still crying.”
“You two, you better not touch her. Get out of here. Everybody knows that’s Cleopatra.”
Philostratus and Crinagoras swung round to the man who addressed them.
“It’s you!”
“Yes. Have you sobered up yet? We were just talking about you before we found her,” Philostratus said to him.
“Sure you were. I was right behind you. What you were saying sobered me up. You made me feel ashamed of myself. You’re right. I was impertinent.”
“How do you know it’s Cleopatra?”
“For God’s sake. Everybody in Alexandria knows it. Crinagoras, Philostratus, you only need to live near the Nile to know it.”
“Let’s take her to Olympus’s house. He’ll look after her. We’re not going to leave her here.”
“What makes you think it could be Cleopatra?” Crinagoras asked nervously. “All by herself? Half-naked?”
“Are you our wise queen?” Philostratus asked me, without ceasing to wipe away the endless flow of tears that poured from my eyes, now loaded with even more feelings, shame, humiliation, anger, rage, gratitude, surprise. .
I admitted I was. How could I deny it?
I don’t know what the old man said to me but it had an extraordinary effect and calmed me down. If I could recall his words, he would be saying, “And do you weep over Antony? I have to tell you: forget him. You are the most desirable woman in the kingdom. You were Caesar’s woman. You are not a Roman. Your customs are beyond their understanding. The legend of Egypt is yours. If he is not here with you, if he happens to be with another, it is because he is inferior to you. Let him go. I do not know if there is another Caesar for you, but if there is, it is not Antony. Stop worrying about being left alone. Surely some god will come down from the heavens to spend his nights with you.”
I know Philostratus did not actually say that to me, but it was what I was hoping to hear. But he did tell me what I needed to calm me down, and he took me to spend the night in the house of Olympus.
Prudent and serene, they sent a servant to station himself at the palace gate, to advise the guards of the whereabouts of Cleopatra as soon as day dawned, or before, if he heard any sign of alarm. They sat down at my side, prepared to stay awake with me if I did not fall asleep. But I stayed awake and spent the night in what proved to be a refreshing cure for me, owing to their conversation and a long skein of anecdotes.
By my side, without a pause, Olympus, Philostratus, and Crinagoras spoke on and on, tackling one subject after another, seamlessly. I imagine that over the table they had so lately left, they must have discussed other subjects, the abstruse topics over which wise men bother their heads. With me, however, they shared stories and fables, a lifetime’s collection of incidents, like three nurses intent on soothing their child to sleep with a lullaby of words.
The nightlong talk those three sages bestowed on me finally cured me of the pain of Antony’s desertion.
As a consequence, I included them in my court. When Antony returned, they learned how to appreciate his mind and gave him their genuine loyalty. Olympus is still my doctor and is the one living soul who now visits me. Where Crinagoras of Rhodes has ended up, I don’t know. In my isolation here, shortly before the dying Antony arrived, I was told of the fate of Philostratus, my poet. The Romans cruelly humiliated him in the streets. They stripped him of his clothes and forced him to walk down the street on all fours, like a dog. They made him eat, like a dog, the manuscripts of poems dedicated to me that he kept in his house. “Gobble down your Cleopatra,” the centurions bellowed. “All she’s good for is to be food for dogs like you.” Then they made him swallow cattle dung till he could swallow no more. “Gobble down your Cleopatra, dog,” they kept chanting, chanting, chanting. “Gobble her down, gobble her down, gobble her down.”