Caesar Remix, for ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
artaxastra
Jun. 18th, 2005 04:31 pmselenakA few days ago,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
artaxastra issued a challenge: she offered to write a scene featuring a historical figure, which would then have to be remixed from a differen point of view by the challenger. I picked Gaius Julius Caesar, and she wrote the lovely
"Ave Atque Vale".
Which I urge everyone to read who hasn't already. Incidentally, she also just wrote a great scene featuring one of my all time favourite people in history, Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Now here is my
The Romans killed my oldest sister Berenice, many years ago. Do not mistake me, I am glad she is dead. She took the throne from our father, and even her legitimate sisters were nothing to her. As for those of us who were not born from royal mothers... she hardly recalled our names. She prided herself on her pure Macedon blood, and despised us for our Egyptian mothers.
But she also had a mind as sharp as Cleopatra and an ambition as strong; she, too, carried the gift of ruling with her. She might even have been more worthy to rule than our father, who sold of Egypt to Rome what he could. And yet the Romans deposed her and brought her to her death as easily as children swat out flies. No famous Roman did that, no fearsome general, no second Alexander; it was a young captain named Marcus Antonius, who came and went and left no mark on the Two Lands safe for my sister's death.
And now the Romans are back. My sister Charmiane is talking with their leader on the terrace, matching wits and and words. This one is famous, and our lady and sister Cleopatra has decided to claim him. It frightens me. He frightens me.
"You have the look of her," he tells Charmiane, "you and Iras both," and I would rather he did not recall my name. It is better to remain in the shadows; and in most cases, I do. People look at the three of us, and the Queen is all they see, not Charmiane and myself. They do not see Cleopatra, either. When she was younger, she disguised herself as a handmaiden now and then, and no one ever noticed. It helped her to escape our brother more than once. But this man looks, discerns and sees. There will be no escape if she miscalculates, for none of us.
"Do you believe in pothos, like Alexander?" Charmiane asks him. "Fata, leading you by the hand?"
The other Roman did, the one he pursued to Egypt to kill. Pompeius Magnus. My mistress had considered Pompeius as her champion, for she needs a sword, and she has always loved the stories of Alexander. Pompeius won his fame as a general when he was in his twenties, as Alexander did, and every coin and every bust which carries his image depicts him as Alexander. But by the time he came to our country, he was old. Cleopatra took one look at him and saw the defeat written there as plainly as it ever was on our father's face. Our brother's ministers needed a little longer to decypher it, but when they did, they made him a sacrifice to the man standing on a terrace here. He is only a few years younger than Pompeius, and yet there is no faded lustre about him.
"And does your Mistress wish a second Alexander to swoop down upon her enemies like a plunging falcon? To raise new temples in her honor? A royal wedding and a Caesarid dynasty?" he asks Charmiane.
"You have named it, not I," she replies, and he laughs.
Oh, he is dangerous. They say he grieved for Pompeius when they brought him his head, and yet he made sure not to arrive before Pompeius was dead. Alexander was a creature of passion, and when he killed, he killed for hate; this one does not display hatred towards anyone, and he does not try to mold himself into a legend's image, as Pompeius had done. And yet they say that many villages of Gaul became graveyards for him to build a road to Rome with. What if Egypt becomes another road, and only that?
Charmiane continues to spar with him, as swift as any soldier, but for all his enjoyment in the contest, he does not tell her anything, and at the end, we still do not know what he thinks of our sister the Queen. When he leaves, I step from my hiding place, and see her fair hair fall like silver in the moonlight as she turns her head towards me.
"You are playing with fire, sister," I tell her, and leave unsaid what I have argued many times before. He might defeat our lady's enemies, but not for her. She thinks she can change him, and I fear he might change her. She is the incarnation of Isis; she is Egypt. What will become of Egypt if he makes her into his instrument?
Now it is not just Cleopatra I fear for. Charmiane is still gazing pensively in the night. I think she has forgotten that even in the best of cases, he can never be more than the tool to ensure our sister's reign. If he is not Set the Betrayer, he is Osiris who will depart and rule in another world entirely, the dead, deadly world of the west. It is foolish to consider anything else.
"You like him too well," I accuse.
"Perhaps I do," she says, and confirms all my fears. There are many ways to die. The Romans already killed one of my sisters. Now I fear they may take the rest.
artaxastra issued a challenge: she offered to write a scene featuring a historical figure, which would then have to be remixed from a differen point of view by the challenger. I picked Gaius Julius Caesar, and she wrote the lovely "Ave Atque Vale".
Which I urge everyone to read who hasn't already. Incidentally, she also just wrote a great scene featuring one of my all time favourite people in history, Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Now here is my
The Romans killed my oldest sister Berenice, many years ago. Do not mistake me, I am glad she is dead. She took the throne from our father, and even her legitimate sisters were nothing to her. As for those of us who were not born from royal mothers... she hardly recalled our names. She prided herself on her pure Macedon blood, and despised us for our Egyptian mothers.
But she also had a mind as sharp as Cleopatra and an ambition as strong; she, too, carried the gift of ruling with her. She might even have been more worthy to rule than our father, who sold of Egypt to Rome what he could. And yet the Romans deposed her and brought her to her death as easily as children swat out flies. No famous Roman did that, no fearsome general, no second Alexander; it was a young captain named Marcus Antonius, who came and went and left no mark on the Two Lands safe for my sister's death.
And now the Romans are back. My sister Charmiane is talking with their leader on the terrace, matching wits and and words. This one is famous, and our lady and sister Cleopatra has decided to claim him. It frightens me. He frightens me.
"You have the look of her," he tells Charmiane, "you and Iras both," and I would rather he did not recall my name. It is better to remain in the shadows; and in most cases, I do. People look at the three of us, and the Queen is all they see, not Charmiane and myself. They do not see Cleopatra, either. When she was younger, she disguised herself as a handmaiden now and then, and no one ever noticed. It helped her to escape our brother more than once. But this man looks, discerns and sees. There will be no escape if she miscalculates, for none of us.
"Do you believe in pothos, like Alexander?" Charmiane asks him. "Fata, leading you by the hand?"
The other Roman did, the one he pursued to Egypt to kill. Pompeius Magnus. My mistress had considered Pompeius as her champion, for she needs a sword, and she has always loved the stories of Alexander. Pompeius won his fame as a general when he was in his twenties, as Alexander did, and every coin and every bust which carries his image depicts him as Alexander. But by the time he came to our country, he was old. Cleopatra took one look at him and saw the defeat written there as plainly as it ever was on our father's face. Our brother's ministers needed a little longer to decypher it, but when they did, they made him a sacrifice to the man standing on a terrace here. He is only a few years younger than Pompeius, and yet there is no faded lustre about him.
"And does your Mistress wish a second Alexander to swoop down upon her enemies like a plunging falcon? To raise new temples in her honor? A royal wedding and a Caesarid dynasty?" he asks Charmiane.
"You have named it, not I," she replies, and he laughs.
Oh, he is dangerous. They say he grieved for Pompeius when they brought him his head, and yet he made sure not to arrive before Pompeius was dead. Alexander was a creature of passion, and when he killed, he killed for hate; this one does not display hatred towards anyone, and he does not try to mold himself into a legend's image, as Pompeius had done. And yet they say that many villages of Gaul became graveyards for him to build a road to Rome with. What if Egypt becomes another road, and only that?
Charmiane continues to spar with him, as swift as any soldier, but for all his enjoyment in the contest, he does not tell her anything, and at the end, we still do not know what he thinks of our sister the Queen. When he leaves, I step from my hiding place, and see her fair hair fall like silver in the moonlight as she turns her head towards me.
"You are playing with fire, sister," I tell her, and leave unsaid what I have argued many times before. He might defeat our lady's enemies, but not for her. She thinks she can change him, and I fear he might change her. She is the incarnation of Isis; she is Egypt. What will become of Egypt if he makes her into his instrument?
Now it is not just Cleopatra I fear for. Charmiane is still gazing pensively in the night. I think she has forgotten that even in the best of cases, he can never be more than the tool to ensure our sister's reign. If he is not Set the Betrayer, he is Osiris who will depart and rule in another world entirely, the dead, deadly world of the west. It is foolish to consider anything else.
"You like him too well," I accuse.
"Perhaps I do," she says, and confirms all my fears. There are many ways to die. The Romans already killed one of my sisters. Now I fear they may take the rest.
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-18 02:55 pm (UTC)It's really fascinating to see how it looks from a different perspective, how Iras' character comes across so plainly in her reactions: the more cautious one, the more sharp. I was going to say, less god-haunted, but that's not really true. She's not less god-haunted, just haunted by different gods. If Charmiane is bright Sekhmet, purring Bast, Iras is dark Nepthys, deep as water, deep as grief. Morning and evening.
But they're very alike in some ways. And both loyal to their sister. Though I think that in the years to come both will secretly feel that they're the most loyal, the one who has sacrificed the most.
Disguised as a handmaiden....
Cleopatra as Iras, Iras as Cleopatra, like Amidala and Sabe. And of course it's Iras, not Charmiane. Because Charmiane has blue eyes. She can't pass as the queen at close range, even with the wig and paint.
I love your Iras. Oh I want to see more of her!!!!!
no subject
Date: 2005-06-18 04:35 pm (UTC)More: well, you will just have to write that novel once you've done with Black Ships - the one about the three sisters.*veg*
Disguised as a handmaiden: yes, that was Star Wars inspired.*g* But given Cleopatra's inventiveness with the carpet, I think it's likely.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-18 11:58 pm (UTC)Interesting how in less than three century these Greeks became completely Egyptian...
merci!
Date: 2005-06-19 04:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 12:49 pm (UTC)