Caesar and Cleopatra | Page 9

come and eat
you.
CAESAR (running forward past the Sphinx's shoulder, and seeing her).
A child at its breast! A divine child!
THE GIRL. Come up quickly. You must get up at its side and creep
round.
CAESAR (amazed). Who are you?
THE GIRL. Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt.
CAESAR. Queen of the Gypsies, you mean.

CLEOPATRA. You must not be disrespectful to me, or the Sphinx will
let the Romans eat you. Come up. It is quite cosy here.
CAESAR (to himself). What a dream! What a magnificent dream! Only
let me not wake, and I will conquer ten continents to pay for dreaming
it out to the end. (He climbs to the Sphinx's flank, and presently
reappears to her on the pedestal, stepping round its right shoulder.)
CLEOPATRA. Take care. That's right. Now sit down: you may have its
other paw. (She seats herself comfortably on its left paw.) It is very
powerful and will protect us; but (shivering, and with plaintive
loneliness) it would not take any notice of me or keep me company. I
am glad you have come: I was very lonely. Did you happen to see a
white cat anywhere?
CAESAR (sitting slowly down on the right paw in extreme
wonderment). Have you lost one?
CLEOPATRA. Yes: the sacred white cat: is it not dreadful? I brought
him here to sacrifice him to the Sphinx; but when we got a little way
from the city a black cat called him, and he jumped out of my arms and
ran away to it. Do you think that the black cat can have been my
great-great-great-grandmother?
CAESAR (staring at her). Your great-great-great-grandmother! Well,
why not? Nothing would surprise me on this night of nights.
CLEOPATRA. I think it must have been. 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. I shall be able to
poison the slaves and see them wriggle, and pretend to Ftatateeta that
she is going to be put into the fiery furnace.
CAESAR. Hm! Meanwhile why are you not at home and in bed?
CLEOPATRA. Because the Romans are coming to eat us all. YOU are
not at home and in bed either.
CAESAR (with conviction). Yes I am. I live in a tent; and I am now in

that tent, fast asleep and dreaming. Do you suppose that I believe you
are real, you impossible little dream witch?
CLEOPATRA (giggling and leaning trustfully towards him). You are a
funny old gentleman. I like you.
CAESAR. Ah, that spoils the dream. Why don't you dream that I am
young?
CLEOPATRA. I wish you were; only I think I should be more afraid of
you. I like men, especially young men with round strong arms; but I am
afraid of them. You are old and rather thin and stringy; but you have a
nice voice; and I like to have somebody to talk to, though I think you
are a little mad. It is the moon that makes you talk to yourself in that
silly way.
CAESAR. What! you heard that, did you? I was saying my prayers to
the great Sphinx.
CLEOPATRA. But this isn't the great Sphinx.
CAESAR (much disappointed, looking up at the statue). What!
CLEOPATRA. This is only a dear little kitten of the Sphinx. Why, the
great Sphinx is so big that it has a temple between its paws. This is my
pet Sphinx. Tell me: do you think the Romans have any sorcerers who
could take us away from the Sphinx by magic?
CAESAR. Why? Are you afraid of the Romans?
CLEOPATRA (very seriously). Oh, they would eat us if they caught us.
They are barbarians. Their chief is called Julius Caesar. His father was
a tiger and his mother a burning mountain; and his nose is like an
elephant's trunk. (Caesar involuntarily rubs his nose.) They all have
long noses, and ivory tusks, and little tails, and seven arms with a
hundred arrows in each; and they live on human flesh.
CAESAR. Would you like me to show you a real Roman?
CLEOPATRA (terrified). No. You are frightening me.
CAESAR. No matter: this is only a dream--
CLEOPATRA (excitedly).