The Woman of Andros and The Ides of March

by Thornton Wilder

  XXIII

  Caesar’s Journal – Letter to Lucius Mamilius Turrinus on the Island of Capri.

  [About August 18.]

  942. [On Cleopatra and her visit to Rome.]

  Last year the Queen of Egypt began requesting permission to pay a visit to Rome. I finally granted it and have offered her for residence my villa across the river. She will stay at least a year in Italy. The whole matter is still a secret and will not be announced to the City until the very eve of her arrival. She is now approaching Carthage and should be here in about a month.

  I confess that I look forward to this visit with much pleasure and not only for the reason which first leaps to the mind. She was a remarkable girl. Even at twenty she knew the loading capacity of each of the major wharves of the Nile; she could receive a deputation from Ethiopia and refuse all of its requests and make the refusals appear to be benefits. I have heard her scream at her ministers’ stupidity during a discussion of the royal tax on ivory and she was not only right, but right with a wealth of detailed and ordered information. Indeed, she is one of the few persons I have known who have a genius for administration. She will have become a still more remarkable woman. Conversation, conversation will be a pleasure again. I shall be flattered, understood and flattered, in a realm where few are capable of understanding my achievements. What questions she asks! There are few pleasures equal to that of imparting to a voracious learner the knowledge that one has grown old and weary in acquiring. Conversation will be a pleasure again. Oh, oh, oh, I have sat holding that catlike bundle on my lap, drumming my fingers on ten brown toes and heard a soft voice from my shoulder asking me how to prevent banking houses from discouraging the industry of the people and what are the just wages of a chief of police relative to those of the governor of a city. Everyone in our world, my Lucius, everyone is lazy in mind except you, Cleopatra, this Catullus, and myself.

  And yet she is lying, intriguing, intemperate, indifferent to the essential well-being of her people, and a lighthearted murderess. I have been receiving a series of anonymous letters warning me of her propensity to murder. I have no doubt that the lady is not long separated from a beautifully wrought cabinet of poisons; but I know also that at her table I need no taster. The prime object of her every thought is Egypt and I am its first security. If I should die, her country would fall a prey to my successors – patriots without practical judgment or administrators without imagination – and this she knows well. Egypt will never recover its greatness; but Egypt, for what it is, lives by me. I am a better ruler over Egypt than Cleopatra; but she shall learn much. During her stay in Rome I shall open her eyes to things that no Egyptian ruler has ever conceived of.

  946. [Again, on Cleopatra and her visit to Rome.]

  Cleopatra can never do a thing without pomp. She asked to be permitted to bring a court of two hundred and a household of a thousand, including a large royal guard. I have cut down these numbers to a court of thirty and a retinue of two hundred, and have told her that the Republic will undertake the responsibility of guarding her person and her party. I have directed, also, that outside of her palace grounds – my villa has already been renamed the Palace of Amenhotep – she may not employ the insignia of royalty except on the two occasions of her official welcome on the Capitoline Hill and of her official leave-taking.

  She informed me that I was to appoint twenty ladies of the highest birth, headed by my wife and my aunt, to constitute for her a company of honour for the illustration of her court. I replied that the women of Rome are free to enter into whatever engagements of this kind they may wish to and I sent her a form of invitation which she might forward to them.

  This did not please her. She replied that the extent of her domains, which are more than six times as large as Italy, her divine descent – which she now traces back, in the greatest detail through two thousand years to the Sun – entitle her to such a court and that it is unbecoming that she request the ladies of Rome to attend her receptions and routs. The matter rests there.

  I have had a part in the formation of these swelling claims. When I first met her, she was proud to state that there was not one drop of Egyptian blood in her veins. This was obviously untrue; descent in the royal house to which she belongs had always been confused by substitutions and adoptions; the effects of consanguineous marriage having been fortunately mitigated by impotence on the part of the Kings and gallantry on the part of the Queens, and by the fact that the beauty of Egyptian women far surpassed that of the descendants of the Macedonian mountain brigands. Moreover, Cleopatra at that time, apart from participation in a limited number of traditional functions, had not deigned to interest herself in the customs of the ancient country over which she ruled. She had never seen the pyramids, nor such temples on the Nile as were farther removed than an afternoon’s journey from her palace at Alexandria. I advised her to make public the fact that her mother’s mother was not only an Egyptian but the true heir of the Pharaohs. I persuaded her to wear Egyptian costume at least half of the time and I took her on a journey to view the monuments of a civilisation that dwarfed, by Hercules, the woven huts of her Macedonian ancestors. My instructions succeeded beyond my reckoning. She is now the true Pharaoh and the living incorporation of the Goddess Isis. All the documents of her court are in hieroglyphs to which she appends, in condescension, a Greek or Latin translation.

  All this is as it should be. The adherence of a people is not acquired merely by governing them to their best interests. We rulers must spend a large part of our time capturing their imaginations. In the minds of the people, Fate is an ever-watching force, operating by magic and always malevolent. To counter its action we rulers must be not only wise but supernatural, for in their eyes human wisdom is helpless before magic. We must be at once the father they knew in their infancy who guarded them against evil men and the priest who guarded them against evil spirits.

  Perhaps I have forgotten to tell you also that I directed that she may bring in her train no child under five years, neither hers nor one belonging to any member of her company.

  XXIV

  Cleopatra, in Alexandria, to her Ambassador at Rome.

  [August 20.]

  Cleopatra, the Everliving Isis, Child of the Sun, Chosen of Ptah, Queen of Egypt, Cyrenaica, and Arabia, Empress of the Upper and Lower Nile, Queen of Ethiopia, etc., etc., to her Faithful Minister.

  Benediction and Favour

  The Queen departs from Alexandria on the morrow for Carthage.

  On this journey she will present herself to her subjects at Parastonium and Cyrene. She will rest at Carthage awaiting your word as to the most suitable time for her arrival in Rome.

  You are directed to send to her at Carthage the following information:

  A list of the Lay Directresses of the Mysteries of the Good Goddess, and

  A list of the votaries of Hesta – both lists with notes as to their family relationships, earlier marriages, etc.

  A list of the personal associates of the Dictator, men and women, particularly those whom he visits or who are visitors to his house for other than official reasons.

  A list of the confidential servants in the Dictator’s house, with their length of service, previous employment, and such details concerning their private lives as you can discover. This study is to be continued by you at all times and the Queen wishes to see further information when she arrives in Italy.

  A list of the children, living or dead, who at any time have been attributed to the Dictator, together with their supposed mothers and all relevant information.

  An account of the previous visits of all Queens to Rome, together with precedents of etiquette, ceremonial, official receptions, gifts, etc.

  The Queen trusts that you have not been negligent in insuring that her apartments will be sufficiently warmed.

  XXV

  Pompeia to Clodia at Baiae.

  [August 24.]

  Dearest Mousie:

  The invitation to dinner has just arrived and
I’m saving it until my husband comes home at dark. I am writing this letter in haste to return by your messenger.

  What I have to say is very very confidential and I hope you’ll destroy it the minute you’ve read it.

  This is the secret: a person from the banks of the Nile is going to spend a long visit in the City. There are certain aspects of that visit that I do not deign to consider or discuss, particularly as the political aspects are of far greater importance and danger than the personal ones. I hope it will never be said of me that I regarded my personal life as of the slightest importance compared to the world-wide considerations which are inextricably bound up with the situation I occupy. I am not sure whether you know that this person has a son whom she claims to be of very high Roman blood indeed. On that claim she bases hopes and ambitions for the future greatness of her country which are, of course, preposterous.

  A Certain Person is, for reasons, completely blind to these dangers, and I have no choice but to be doubly clear-sighted. It may be that on two official occasions I must permit this Egyptian criminal to be presented to me. I shall indicate by my manner that I consider her presence an impertinence and I shall be watchful for an opportunity to humiliate her publicly and if possible to force her to return to her own country. I shall, of course, refuse to put my foot into the residence which has been loaned to her.

  Do write me your thoughts on this matter. My cousin will be returning here from Naples soon after you receive this. Please send word by him.

  Postscript: Everybody knows that she killed her uncle and her husband, and that her brother was her husband which is an Egyptian custom and is an example of what we may expect.

  XXV-A

  Clodia to Caesar’s Wife.

  [From Capua, September 8.]

  Many thanks, my good, good friend, for entrusting the secret to me.

  Your letter is very like you. How wise you are to look at the matter from all sides, and to see all the dangers that lie concealed behind the event you foretell. And how right and noble of you it is not to fly off into passionate indignation as so many other women would do.

  May I make one small suggestion, however, and one which I would only make to you because only you could put it into effect? You might consider approaching this annoying visitor in another way. It occurs to me that if you conducted yourself – as only you can – with all the graciousness compatible with your dignity, how surprised she would be! In that way you could insinuate yourself into this visitor’s circle; you could keep your eye on what is going on; and you could prevent the Other Person in the Case from completely forgetting himself.

  I would not recommend this course to anyone but you, for it requires great skill. You could do it. Do think this over.

  I long to talk to you about it – which will be very soon. In the meantime I send you my admiration and affection and this bottle of Sicilian perfume.

  XXVI

  Clodia, at Baiae, to Catullus in Rome.

  [August 25.]

  My sister tells me I should write you a letter. A number of other people have appointed themselves to be your advocate and have told me that I should write you a letter.

  Here, then is a letter. You and I long since agreed that letters are nothing. Yours tell me what I knew already or could well imagine, and they frequently depart from the rule which we had laid down that a letter should consist principally of facts.

  Here are my facts:

  The weather has been incomparable. There have been many parties on sea and on land. I leave all reunions which have been abandoned to conversation only and for which the host has made no plans for entertainment. It is not necessary to say that conversation is more than usually insupportable in the environment of Baiae.

  I studied astronomy with Sosigenes and am henceforth the enemy of all poets who enlarge upon their own idiotic sentiments in the presence of the stars. I took up the study of the Egyptian language. When I discovered that it sounded like the babbling of infants and that its grammatical structures were at a level with its sounds I gave it up. We did a great deal of amateur theatricals in Greek and Latin. I worked many days with Cytheris. She refused all payment and returned a present I had sent to her. When I insisted that she receive some mark of my indebtedness she asked for a poem of yours in your handwriting. I gave her ‘The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis.’ She refused to take part in any plays, but she declaimed that poem most remarkably, and during my lessons with her she frequently rendered portions of the tragedies. My style is very different from hers but she is absolute mistress of her style. Marc Antony often joined us at the end of my lessons. There is only one pleasing thing about him, his laughter; he laughs all the time and yet it is not tiresome. When she is not talking about her art, Cytheris is tiresome. She has the apathy of happy women. I discovered, though not from her, that she is one of the few persons who are permitted to visit Lucius Mamilius Turrinus on Capri. [Clodia wrote to Turrinus, asking permission to visit him; she was courteously denied.] I know a number of men whom I could love very much, if they were mutilated and blind. I went over Verus’s new book of verses with him.

  I made a number of new enemies. You know that I never lie and that I do not permit people to lie in my presence. I was, as you call it, ‘unfaithful to you’ on a number of occasions. As I am unable to sleep at night, I sometimes arrange companionship for those hours.

  Those are the facts concerning my life this summer and those are the answers to the questions contained in your extremely monotonous letters. On rereading them I find that you have given me very few facts. You have not been writing to me but to that image of me lodged in your head whom I have no wish to confront. The facts about you I have learned from my sister and your other advocates. You have paid visits to my sister and to Manilius and Livia [Torquatus]. You have taught their children how to swim and how to sail. You have taught their children how to train dogs. You have written reams of verses for children, and another poem for a wedding. I tell you again you will lose your poetic gift, if you abuse it. Such verses can only increase the blemish that already mars so much of your work, that resort to colloquial terms and provincial expressions. Many people are already denying that you are even a Roman poet. You and I are agreed that Verus has not the basic talent which you have, but both in his manners and in his verses he has a uniform elegance and taste; while you continue to cultivate a northern uncouthness.

  This letter, like all letters, is totally unnecessary. However, I have two more things to say: on the last day of September, my brother and I are giving a dinner and I hope you will be present. I have asked the Dictator and his wife. (Incidentally, I am told that you have been spitting some more epigrams; why do you not acknowledge that you know nothing and care nothing about politics? What possible satisfaction can you derive from making vulgar little noises in the shadow of that great man?) I have also asked his aunt, Cicero, and Asinius Pollio.

  I am starting north on the eighth. I am bringing a number of friends with me, including Mela and Verus. We shall stop a number of days with Quintus Lentulus Spinther and Cassia at Capua. I suggest that you join us there on the ninth and return with us to the city a few days later.

  Should you decide to come to Capua I beg of you to entertain no expectation of sharing my insomnia. For the tenth time I ask you to consider the nature of friendship, to learn its advantages and to abide within its limits. It makes no claims; it establishes no possession; it is not competitive. I have made some plans for my life during the coming year. It will differ widely from that of the year just passed. The dinner to which I have invited you will give you an idea of its character.

  XXVI-A

  Catullus:

  Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire

  Et quod vides perisse perditum ducas.

  Fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles,

  Cum ventitabis quo puella ducebat,

  Amata nobis quantum amabitur nulla.

  Ibi illa multa tum jocosa fiebant;

  Quae tu volebas nec pue
lla nolebat.

  Fulsere vere candidi tibi soles.

  Nunc iam illa non volt; tu quoque inpotens, noli,

  Nec quae fugit sectare, nec miser vive;

  Sed obstinata mente perfer, obdura.

  At tu, Catulle, destinatus obdura.

  ‘Wretched Catullus, put an end to your raving

  And that which you see to be lost, count it truly lost.

  Radiant were the days that formerly shone upon you

  When you hastened whither the girl led the way –

  She who was loved by you and me as no woman will ever be loved.

  Many then were the delights;

  What you wished for she wished no differently.

  Radiant indeed were the days that shone upon you.

  Now she is of a different mind; you, being helpless, give up your longing;

  Cease to pursue the fleeing and to live in wretchedness;

  But endure with affirmed heart; hold fast.

  You, Catullus, since these things are so, hold fast.’

  XXVI-B

  The Commonplace Book of Cornelius Nepos.

  [This entry is of a later date.]

  ‘Do you not find it extraordinary,’ I asked, ‘that Catullus should let these poems pass from hand to hand? I can think of no precedent for so candid a revelation.’

  ‘Everything there is extraordinary,’ replied Cicero, raising his eyebrows and lowering his voice as though we were being overheard. ‘Have you remarked that he is constantly holding a dialogue with himself? Whose is this other voice that is so often addressing him – this voice that urges him to ‘bear up’ and to ‘pull himself together’? Is that his genius? Is that some other-self? Oh, my friend, I resist this poetry as long as I can. There is something indecorous about it. Either it is the raw experience of life which has not yet sufficiently made its transmutation into poetry or it is a new kind of sensibility. His grandmother, I am told, was from the North Country; perhaps these are the first airs blowing on our literature from the Alps. They are not Roman. Before these verses a Roman does not know where to rest his glance; a Roman blushes. Nor is it Greek. Poets before now have told us of their sufferings, but their sufferings are already half-healed by song. But these! – there is no mitigation. This man is not afraid to acknowledge that he suffers. Perhaps that is because he shares it in dialogue with his genius. But what is this other-self? Have you one? Have I one?’