Caesar and Cleopatra | Page 4

we dug up Cromwell and the
Mahdi. They are in two groups: one intent on the gambling of their
captain Belzanor, a warrior of fifty, who, with his spear on the ground
beside his knee, is stooping to throw dice with a sly-looking young
Persian recruit; the other gathered about a guardsman who has just
finished telling a naughty story (still current in English barracks) at
which they are laughing uproariously. They are about a dozen in
number, all highly aristocratic young Egyptian guardsmen, handsomely
equipped with weapons and armor, very unEnglish in point of not being
ashamed of and uncomfortable in their professional dress; on the
contrary, rather ostentatiously and arrogantly warlike, as valuing
themselves on their military caste.
Belzanor is a typical veteran, tough and wilful; prompt, capable and
crafty where brute force will serve; helpless and boyish when it will not:
an effective sergeant, an incompetent general, a deplorable dictator.
Would, if influentially connected, be employed in the two last
capacities by a modern European State on the strength of his success in
the first. Is rather to be pitied just now in view of the fact that Julius
Caesar is invading his country. Not knowing this, is intent on his game
with the Persian, whom, as a foreigner, he considers quite capable of
cheating him.
His subalterns are mostly handsome young fellows whose interest in

the game and the story symbolizes with tolerable completeness the
main interests in life of which they are conscious. Their spears are
leaning against the walls, or lying on the ground ready to their hands.
The corner of the courtyard forms a triangle of which one side is the
front of the palace, with a doorway, the other a wall with a gateway.
The storytellers are on the palace side: the gamblers, on the gateway
side. Close to the gateway, against the wall, is a stone block high
enough to enable a Nubian sentinel, standing on it, to look over the
wall. The yard is lighted by a torch stuck in the wall. As the laughter
from the group round the storyteller dies away, the kneeling Persian,
winning the throw, snatches up the stake from the ground.
BELZANOR. By Apis, Persian, thy gods are good to thee.
THE PERSIAN. Try yet again, O captain. Double or quits!
BELZANOR. No more. I am not in the vein.
THE SENTINEL (poising his javelin as he peers over the wall). Stand.
Who goes there?
They all start, listening. A strange voice replies from without.
VOICE. The bearer of evil tidings.
BELZANOR (calling to the sentry). Pass him.
THE SENTINEL. (grounding his javelin). Draw near, O bearer of evil
tidings.
BELZANOR (pocketing the dice and picking up his spear). Let us
receive this man with honor. He bears evil tidings.
The guardsmen seize their spears and gather about the gate, leaving a
way through for the new comer.
PERSIAN (rising from his knee). Are evil tidings, then, honorable?
BELZANOR. O barbarous Persian, hear my instruction. In Egypt the
bearer of good tidings is sacrificed to the gods as a thank offering but
no god will accept the blood of the messenger of evil. When we have
good tidings, we are careful to send them in the mouth of the cheapest
slave we can find. Evil tidings are borne by young noblemen who
desire to bring themselves into notice. (They join the rest at the gate.)
THE SENTINEL. Pass, O young captain; and bow the head in the
House of the Queen.
VOICE. Go anoint thy javelin with fat of swine, O Blackamoor; for
before morning the Romans will make thee eat it to the very butt.
The owner of the voice, a fairhaired dandy, dressed in a different

fashion to that affected by the guardsmen, but no less extravagantly,
comes through the gateway laughing. He is somewhat battlestained;
and his left forearm, bandaged, comes through a torn sleeve. In his right
hand he carries a Roman sword in its sheath. He swaggers down the
courtyard, the Persian on his right, Belzanor on his left, and the
guardsmen crowding down behind him.
BELZANOR. Who art thou that laughest in the House of Cleopatra the
Queen, and in the teeth of Belzanor, the captain of her guard?
THE NEW COMER. I am Bel Affris, descended from the gods.
BELZANOR (ceremoniously). Hail, cousin!
ALL (except the Persian). Hail, cousin!
PERSIAN. All the Queen's guards are descended from the gods, O
stranger, save myself. I am Persian, and descended from many kings.
BEL AFFRIS (to the guardsmen). Hail, cousins! (To the Persian,
condescendingly) Hail, mortal!
BELZANOR. You have been in battle, Bel Affris; and you are a soldier
among soldiers. You will not let the Queen's women have the first of
your tidings.
BEL AFFRIS. I have no tidings, except that