



Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.










FAMOUS AFFINITIES OF HISTORY


THE ROMANCE OF DEVOTION


BY

LYNDON ORR



VOLUME I OF IV.





CONTENTS


  THE STORY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
  ABELARD AND HELOISE
  QUEEN ELIZABETH AND THE EARL OF LEICESTER
  MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND LORD BOTHWELL
  QUEEN CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN AND THE MARQUIS MONALDESCHI
  KING CHARLES II. AND NELL GWYN
  MAURICE OF SAXONY AND ADRIENNE LECOUVREUR
  THE STORY OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD STUART




THE STORY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


Of all love stories that are known to human history, the love story of
Antony and Cleopatra has been for nineteen centuries the most
remarkable. It has tasked the resources of the plastic and the graphic
arts. It has been made the theme of poets and of prose narrators. It
has appeared and reappeared in a thousand forms, and it appeals as much
to the imagination to-day as it did when Antony deserted his almost
victorious troops and hastened in a swift galley from Actium in pursuit
of Cleopatra.

The wonder of the story is explained by its extraordinary nature. Many
men in private life have lost fortune and fame for the love of woman.
Kings have incurred the odium of their people, and have cared nothing
for it in comparison with the joys of sense that come from the
lingering caresses and clinging kisses. Cold-blooded statesmen, such as
Parnell, have lost the leadership of their party and have gone down in
history with a clouded name because of the fascination exercised upon
them by some woman, often far from beautiful, and yet possessing the
mysterious power which makes the triumphs of statesmanship seem slight
in comparison with the swiftly flying hours of pleasure.

But in the case of Antony and Cleopatra alone do we find a man flinging
away not merely the triumphs of civic honors or the headship of a
state, but much more than these--the mastery of what was practically
the world--in answer to the promptings of a woman's will. Hence the
story of the Roman triumvir and the Egyptian queen is not like any
other story that has yet been told. The sacrifice involved in it was so
overwhelming, so instantaneous, and so complete as to set this
narrative above all others. Shakespeare's genius has touched it with
the glory of a great imagination. Dryden, using it in the finest of his
plays, expressed its nature in the title "All for Love."

The distinguished Italian historian, Signor Ferrero, the author of many
books, has tried hard to eliminate nearly all the romantic elements
from the tale, and to have us see in it not the triumph of love, but
the blindness of ambition. Under his handling it becomes almost a
sordid drama of man's pursuit of power and of woman's selfishness. Let
us review the story as it remains, even after we have taken full
account of Ferrero's criticism. Has the world for nineteen hundred
years been blinded by a show of sentiment? Has it so absolutely been
misled by those who lived and wrote in the days which followed closely
on the events that make up this extraordinary narrative?

In answering these questions we must consider, in the first place, the
scene, and, in the second place, the psychology of the two central
characters who for so long a time have been regarded as the very
embodiment of unchecked passion.

As to the scene, it must be remembered that the Egypt of those days was
not Egyptian as we understand the word, but rather Greek. Cleopatra
herself was of Greek descent. The kingdom of Egypt had been created by
a general of Alexander the Great after that splendid warrior's death.
Its capital, the most brilliant city of the Greco-Roman world, had been
founded by Alexander himself, who gave to it his name. With his own
hands he traced out the limits of the city and issued the most
peremptory orders that it should be made the metropolis of the entire
world. The orders of a king cannot give enduring greatness to a city;
but Alexander's keen eye and marvelous brain saw at once that the site
of Alexandria was such that a great commercial community planted there
would live and flourish throughout out succeeding ages. He was right;
for within a century this new capital of Egypt leaped to the forefront
among the exchanges of the world