CAESAR. On your knees, woman: am I also a child that you dare trifle with me? (He points to the floor at Cleopatra’s feet. Ftatateeta, half cowed, half savage, hesitates. Caesar calls to the Nubian) Slave. (The Nubian comes to him.) Can you cut off a head? (The Nubian nods and grins ecstatically, showing all his teeth. Caesar takes his sword by the scabbard, ready to offer the hilt to the Nubian, and turns again to Ftatateeta, repeating his gesture.) Have you remembered yourself, mistress?
Ftatateeta, crushed, kneels before Cleopatra, who can hardly believe her eyes.
FTATATEETA (hoarsely). O Queen, forget not thy servant in the days of thy greatness.
CLEOPATRA (blazing with excitement). Go. Begone. Go away. (Ftatateeta rises with stooped head, and moves backwards towards the door. Cleopatra watches her submission eagerly, almost clapping her hands, which are trembling. Suddenly she cries) Give me something to beat her with. (She snatches a snake-skin from the throne and dashes after Ftatateeta, whirling it like a scourge in the air. Caesar makes a bound and manages to catch her and hold her while Ftatateeta escapes.)
CAESAR. You scratch, kitten, do you?
CLEOPATRA (breaking from him). I will beat somebody. I will beat him. (She attacks the slave.) There, there, there! (The slave flies for his life up the corridor and vanishes. She throws the snake-skin away and jumps on the step of the throne with her arms waving, crying) I am a real Queen at last — a real, real Queen! Cleopatra the Queen! (Caesar shakes his head dubiously, the advantage of the change seeming open to question from the point of view of the general welfare of Egypt. She turns and looks at him exultantly. Then she jumps down from the step, runs to him, and flings her arms round him rapturously, crying) Oh, I love you for making me a Queen.
CAESAR. But queens love only kings.
CLEOPATRA. I will make all the men I love kings. I will make you a king. I will have many young kings, with round, strong arms; and when I am tired of them I will whip them to death; but you shall always be my king: my nice, kind, wise, proud old king.
CAESAR. Oh, my wrinkles, my wrinkles! And my child’s heart! You will be the most dangerous of all Caesar’s conguests.
CLEOPATRA (appalled). Caesar! I forgot Caesar. (Anxiously) You will tell him that I am a Queen, will you not? a real Queen. Listen! (stealthily coaxing him) let us run away and hide until Caesar is gone.
CAESAR. If you fear Caesar, you are no true Queen; and though you were to hide beneath a pyramid, he would go straight to it and lift it with one hand. And then — ! (He chops his teeth together.)
CLEOPATRA (trembling). Oh!
CAESAR. Be afraid if you dare. (The note of the bucina resounds again in the distance. She moans with fear. Caesar exalts in it, exclaiming) Aha! Caesar approaches the throne of Cleopatra. Come: take your place. (He takes her hand and leads her to the throne. She is too downcast to speak.) Ho, there, Teetatota. How do you call your slaves?
CLEOPATRA (spiritlessly, as she sinks on the throne and cowers there, shaking). Clap your hands.
He claps his hands. Ftatateeta returns.
CAESAR. Bring the Queen’s robes, and her crown, and her women; and prepare her.
CLEOPATRA (eagerly — recovering herself a little). Yes, the Crown, Ftatateeta: I shall wear the crown.
FTATATEETA. For whom must the Queen put on her state?
CAESAR. For a citizen of Rome. A king of kings, Totateeta.
CLEOPATRA (stamping at her). How dare you ask questions? Go and do as you are told. (Ftatateeta goes out with a grim smile. Cleopatra goes on eagerly, to Caesar) Caesar will know that I am a Queen when he sees my crown and robes, will he not?
CAESAR. No. How shall he know that you are not a slave dressed up in the Queen’s ornaments?
CLEOPATRA. You must tell him.
CAESAR. He will not ask me. He will know Cleopatra by her pride, her courage, her majesty, and her beauty. (She looks very doubtful.) Are you trembling?
CLEOPATRA (shivering with dread). No, I — I — (in a very sickly voice) No.
Ftatateeta and three women come in with the regalia.
FTATATEETA. Of all the Queen’s women, these three alone are left. The rest are fled. (They begin to deck Cleopatra, who submits, pale and motionless.)
CAESAR. Good, good. Three are enough. Poor Caesar generally has to dress himself.
FTATATEETA (contemptuously). The Queen of Egypt is not a Roman barbarian. (To Cleopatra) Be brave, my nursling. Hold up your head before this stranger.
CAESAR (admiring Cleopatra, and placing the crown on her head). Is it sweet or bitter to be a Queen, Cleopatra?
CLEOPATRA. Bitter.
CAESAR. Cast out fear; and you will conquer Caesar. Tota: are the Romans at hand?
FTATATEETA. They are at hand; and the guard has fled.
THE WOMEN (wailing subduedly). Woe to us!
The Nubian comes running down the hall.
NUBIAN. The Romans are in the courtyard. (He bolts through the door. With a shriek, the women fly after him. Ftatateeta’s jaw expresses savage resolution: she does not budge. Cleopatra can hardly restrain herself from following them. Caesar grips her wrist, and looks steadfastly at her. She stands like a martyr.)
CAESAR. The Queen must face Caesar alone. Answer “So be it.”
CLEOPATRA (white). So be it.
CAESAR (releasing her). Good.
A tramp and tumult of armed men is heard. Cleopatra’s terror increases. The bucina sounds close at hand, followed by a formidable clangor of trumpets. This is too much for Cleopatra: she utters a cry and darts towards the door. Ftatateeta stops her ruthlessly.
FTATATEETA. You are my nursling. You have said “So be it”; and if you die for it, you must make the Queen’s word good. (She hands Cleopatra to Caesar, who takes her back, almost beside herself with apprehension, to the throne.)
CAESAR. Now, if you quail — ! (He seats himself on the throne.)
She stands on the step, all but unconscious, waiting for death. The Roman soldiers troop in tumultuously through the corridor, headed by their ensign with his eagle, and their bucinator, a burly fellow with his instrument coiled round his body, its brazen bell shaped like the head of a howling wolf. When they reach the transept, they stare in amazement at the throne; dress into ordered rank opposite it; draw their swords and lift them in the air with a shout of HAIL CAESAR. Cleopatra turns and stares wildly at Caesar; grasps the situation; and, with a great sob of relief, falls into his arms.
ACT II
Alexandria. A hall on the first floor of the Palace, ending in a loggia approached by two steps. Through the arches of the loggia the Mediterranean can be seen, bright in the morning sun. The clean lofty walls, painted with a procession of the Egyptian theocracy, presented in profile as flat ornament, and the absence of mirrors, sham perspectives, stuffy upholstery and textiles, make the place handsome, wholesome, simple and cool, or, as a rich English manufacturer would express it, poor, bare, ridiculous and unhomely. For Tottenham Court Road civilization is to this Egyptian civilization as glass bead and tattoo civilization is to Tottenham Court Road.
The young king Ptolemy Dionysus (aged ten) is at the top of the steps, on his way in through the loggia, led by his guardian Pothinus, who has him by the hand. The court is assembled to receive him. It is made up of men and women (some of the women being officials)