Margaret George - The Memoirs of Cleopatra

for

CLEOPATRA

QUEEN , GODDESS , SCHOLAR , WARRIOR

6930 B.C.

andALISON,

MY CLEOPATRA SELENE ,

andPAUL

A BIT OF CAESAR , ANTONY , AND ESPECIALLY OLYMPOS

ALL IN ONE

To Isis, my mother, my refuge, my compassionate companion and keeper all the days of my life, from their beginning until it pleases you that they come to their end, I commit these writings, a record of my days on earth. You, who granted them to me, will guard and preserve them, and look kindly and with favor upon their author, your daughter. For as you gave me the formless daysand I marked them with my deeds, and thereby am truly their ownerso I have recorded my life that I might offer it entire and without falsehood to you. You must judge all the works of my hand and the worthiness of my heartboth the outer deeds and the inner being.

I submit them to you, praying you to be merciful, saving my accomplishments, and the very memory of them, from the destruction of my enemies.

I am the seventh Cleopatra of the royal house of Ptolemy, the Queen, the Lady of the Two Lands, Thea Philopator, the Goddess Who Loves Her Father, Thea Neotera, the Younger Goddess; the daughter of Ptolemy Neos Dionysus, the New Dionysus.

I am mother to Ptolemy Caesar, Alexander Helios, Cleopatra Selene, and Ptolemy Philadelphos.

I was wife to Gaius Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius.

Preserve my words, and grant them sanctuary, I beseech you.

My thanks to:

My editor, Hope Dellon, who, with insight and humor, helps fashion the potters clay of first drafts into finished works; my father, Scott George, who introduced me to the Principle of the Ninety-Nine Soldiers; my sister, Rosemary George, who has Antonys high sense of fun; Lynn Courtenay, who patiently scours obscure references in search of classical tidbits; Bob Feibel, who helped me refight the Battle of Actium; Erik Gray, for his help in the mysteries of Latin usage (any remaining errors are mine); and our old pet snake, Julius, who for sixteen years has taught me the way of serpents.

Warmth. Wind. Dancing blue waters, and the sound of waves. I see, hear, feel them all still. I even taste the sting of the salt against my lips, where the fine, misty spray coats them. And closer even than that, the lulling, drowsy smell of my mothers skin by my nose, where she holds me against her bosom, her hand making a sunshade across my forehead to shield my eyes. The boat is rocking gently, and my mother is rocking me as well, so I sway to a double rhythm. It makes me very sleepy, and the sloshing of the water all around me makes a blanket of sound, wrapping me securely. I am held safely, cradled in love and watchfulness. I remember. I remember

And thenthe memory is torn apart, upended, overturned, as the boat must have been. My mother gone, and I tumbling through the air, caught by other arms, rough ones that grip so hard around my middle that I can hardly breathe. And the splashingI can still hear the splashing, hear the brief, surprised cries.

They say I could not possibly, that I was not yet three years old when my mother drowned in the harbor, terrible accident, and on such a calm day, how did it ever happen? was the boat tampered with? did someone push? no, she just tripped and fell in while trying to stand up, and you know she couldnt swim, no, we didnt know that, until it was too late, why then did she go out on the water so often? She liked it, poor soul, poor Queen, liked the sound and the colors

A bright blue ball seems to envelop all that terror, that thrashing and the arcs of water flying all over, a sweeping circle, and the screams of the ladies on the boat. They say that someone dived over to help and was dragged down, too, and that two died instead of one. They also say that I clawed and kicked and tried to fling myself after my mother, screaming in fear and loss, but my strong-armed nurse, who had caught me, held me fast.

I remember being pushed onto my back and being held flat, staring up at the underside of a canopy where dazzling blue water was reflected, and unable to throw off my captors hands.

No one comforts me, as one would expect someone to do for a frightened child. They are too concerned with preventing me from escaping. They say I cannot remember that either, but I do. How exposed I feel, how naked on that boat bench, torn from my mothers arms and now forcibly held down, as the boat hurries for shore.

Some days later I am taken to a large, echoing room, where light seems to come in from all sides and wind sweeps through, too. It is a room, but it feels as if it is also outdoorsa special sort of room, the room for someone who is not a person but a god. It is the temple of Isis, and the nurse is leading me to a huge statuepulling me, rather. I remember digging in my heels and having to be almost dragged across the shiny stone floor.

The base of the statue is enormous. I can barely see over the top of it, to where two white feet seem to be, and a figure standing above it. The face is lost in shadow.

Put your flowers at her feet, the nurse is saying, tugging at my fist with the flowers I am clutching.

I dont want to let go of them, dont want to put them there.

This is Isis, the nurse says gently. Look at her face. She is watching you. She will take care of you. She is your mother now.

Is she? I try to see the face, but it is so high and far away. It does not look like my mothers face.

Give her the flowers, the nurse prompts.

Slowly I lift my hand and put my little offering on the pedestal at the end of my reach. I look up again, hoping to see the statue smile, and I imagine that I do.

So, Isis, it is thus, and on that day, I became your daughter.

My mother the late Queens name was Cleopatra, and I was proud to bear her name. But I would have been proud of it in any case, for it is a great name in the history of our family, going all the way back to the sister of Alexander the Great, to whom we Ptolemies are related. It means Glory to her Ancestry, and all my life and reign I have tried to fulfill that promise. All that I have done, I have done to preserve my heritage and Egypt.

All the women in our line were named Cleopatra, Berenice, or Arsinoe. Those names, too, went all the way back to Macedonia, where our family had its origins. Thus my two older sisters received the names of Cleopatra (yes, there were two of us) and Berenice, and my younger sister the name of Arsinoe.

Younger sisterthere were others after me. For the King needed to marry again, and soon after the untimely death of his Queen Cleopatra, he took a new wife, and she straightway produced my sister Arsinoe. Later she gave birth to the two little boys to whom I was briefly married. Then she died, leaving Father a widower again. This time he did not remarry.

I did not care for my fathers new wife, nor for my sister Arsinoe, who was only a little more than three years younger than I. From her earliest days she was sly and deceitful, a whiner and complainer. It did not help that she was also quite beautifulthe kind of child that everyone exclaims over, and asks, And where did she come by those eyes? and not merely out of politeness. It gave her an arrogance from the cradle, as she saw it not as a gift to be appreciated but as a power to be used.