and in
her bosom she had put all the letters that his father had sent her. When,
after this, Caesar entered, she hastily arose, blushing, and said: "Hail,
master, Heaven has given joy to you and taken it from me. But you see
with your own eyes your father in the guise in which he often visited me,
and you may hear how he honored me in various ways and made me queen of
the Egyptians. That you may learn what were his own words about me, take
and read the missives which he sent me with his own hand."

As she spoke thus, she read aloud many endearing expressions of his. And
now she would lament and caress the letters and again fall before his
images and do them reverence. She kept turning her eyes toward Caesar, and
melodiously continued to bewail her fate. She spoke in melting tones,
saying at one time, "Of what avail, Caesar, are these your letters? ," and
at another, "But in the man before me you also are alive for me." Then
again, "Would that I had died before you! ," and still again, "But if I
have him, I have you!"

Some such diversity both of words and of gestures did she employ, at the
same time gazing at and murmuring to him sweetly. Caesar comprehended her
outbreak of passion and appeal for sympathy. Yet he did not pretend to do
so, but letting his eyes rest upon the ground, he said only this: "Be of
cheer, woman, and keep a good heart, for no harm shall befall you." She
was distressed that he would neither look at her nor breathe a word about
the kingdom or any sigh of love, and fell at his knees wailing: "Life for
me, Caesar, is neither desirable nor possible. This favor I beseech of you
in memory of your father,--that since Heaven gave me to Antony after him,
I may also die with my lord. Would that I had perished on the very instant
after Caesar's death! But since this present fate was my destiny, send me
to Antony: grudge me not burial with him, that as I die because of him, so
in Hades also I may dwell with him."

[-13-] Such words she uttered expecting to obtain commiseration: Caesar,
however, made no answer to it. Fearing, however, that she might make away
with herself he exhorted her again to be of good cheer, did not remove
any of her attendants, and kept a careful watch upon her, that she might
add brilliance to his triumph. Suspecting this, and regarding it as worse
than innumerable deaths, she began to desire really to die and begged
Caesar frequently that she might be allowed to perish in some way, a