[Seducing Caesar]

Cleopatra: A woman too must make the barren land fruitful. She must make life grow where there was no life. Just as the Mother Nile feeds and replenishes the Earth, I am the Nile. I will bear many sons. Isis has told me. My breasts are full of love and life. My hips are rounded and well apart. Such women, they say, have sons.
Cleopatra: You come before me as a suppliant.

Antony: If you choose to regard me as such.

Cleopatra: I do. You will therefore assume the position of a suppliant before this throne. You will kneel.

Antony: I will *what*?

Cleopatra: On-your-knees!

Antony: You dare ask the Proconsul of the Roman Empire?

Cleopatra: I *asked* it of Julius Caesar. I *demand* it of you!
Antony: Queens. Queens. Strip them naked as any other woman, they are no longer queens.

Rufio: It is also difficult to tell the rank of a naked general. Generals without armies are naked indeed.
Cleopatra: The way to prevent war is to be ready for it!

Sosigenes: Have 300 warships ever been built for war without war?
Agrippa: Well versed in the natural sciences and mathematics. She speaks seven languages proficiently. Were she not a woman one would consider her to be an intellectual.
Marc Antony: Why are you not dead? Why do you live? How do you live? Why do you not lie at the deepest hole of the sea, bloodless, and bloated, and at peace with honorable death?
Marc Antony: Your tongue is old, but sharp, Cicero. Be careful how you waggle it. One day it will cut off your head.
Marc Antony: [his last words] A kiss... to take my breath away...
Julius Caesar: Ah, yes. I seem to recall some mention of an obsession you have about your divinity... Isis, is it not?

Cleopatra: I shall have to insist that you mind what you say. I AM Isis. I am worshipped by millions who believe it. You are not to confuse what I am with the so-called divine origin which every Roman general seems to acquire together with his shield. It was, uh, Venus you chose to be descended from, wasn't it?
Cleopatra: How DARE you and the rest of your barbarians set fire to my library! Play conqueror all you want, Mighty Caesar! Rape, murder, pillage thousands, even millions of human beings! But neither you nor any other barbarian has the right to destroy one human thought!
Cleopatra: I will not be told where I can go and where I cannot go!
Agrippa: Nothing bores me so much as an intellectual!

Julius Caesar: Makes a better admiral of you, Agrippa.
Cleopatra: There are never enough hours in the days of a queen, and her nights have too many.
Julius Caesar: Germanicus! A guard to escort Queen Cleopatra to her apartments.

Germanicus: Guard!

Cleopatra: The corridors are dark gentlemen, but you mustn't be afraid. I am with you.
Julius Caesar: [speaking of the Grand Eunuch] ... a position not acquired without some, shall we say, sacrifices?
Julius Caesar: [after the execution of Pothinus] Return Apollodorus's dagger to him, but clean it first. It has Pothinus all over it.
Germanicus: [in the Senate of Rome] Antony! Stay not too long in Alexandria!

[general laughter from the rest of the Senate]

Caesar Augustus: Germanicus, stay not too long in Rome.

[the Senate laughs even louder as Germanicus leaves]
Julius Caesar: You all look so impressive. Any one of you could be king.

Pothinus: His Majesty King Ptolemy, kindred of Horus and Ra, beloved of Thoth...

Julius Caesar: Et cetera, et cetera; you welcome me. And I, Gaius Julius Caesar, Consul of the Roman Senate, Pontifex Maximus, et cetera, et cetera, thank you.
Agrippa: Was this well done of your lady?

Charmian: Extremely well, befitting the last of so many noble rulers.
Julius Caesar: Why are the eyes of a statue always without life?
Marc Antony: This son of Caesar, does it upset you?

Caesar Augustus: No.

Marc Antony: You were so shut at the mouth just now one would think your words were are precious to you as your gold.

Caesar Augustus: Like my gold, I used them where they are worth most.

Marc Antony: Ah! And your virtue?

[Leans over to him]

Marc Antony: My friend has a friend.

Caesar Augustus: That too.
[to Octavian]

Antony: You know it's possible Octavian that when you die... You will die without ever having been alive.
Julius Caesar: Two hours until dawn. We will hold where we are.

Agrippa: And what happens at dawn?

Julius Caesar: I thought you knew. The sun comes up.
Octavian: Is that how one says it? As simply as that. "Mark Antony is dead. Lord Antony is dead." "The soup is hot; the soup is cold." "Antony is living; Antony is dead." Shake with terror when such words pass your lips, for fear they be untrue and Antony'd cut out your tongue for the lie! And if true, for your lifetime boast that you were honored to speak his name even in death. The dying of such a man, must be shouted, screamed! It must echo back from the corners of the universe. "Antony is dead! Mark Antony of Rome lives no more!"
Cleopatra: Catullus doesn't approve of you. Why haven't you had him killed?

Julius Caesar: Because *I* approve of *him.*
Cleopatra: [admiring his armor] And I find what you're wearing most becoming. Greek, isn't it?

Antony: I have a fondness for almost all Greek things.

Cleopatra: [referring to her Macedonian ancestry] As an almost all-Greek thing, I'm flattered.
Julius Caesar: [to Cleopatra] You, a descendant of generations of inbred, incestuous, mental defectives!
Antony: What has angered you? That I dealt with Octavian however I could, or that I married his sister to do it? Jealousy or politics, which?

Cleopatra: Both! And damn you for not understanding either!

Antony: It would not occur to me to look to you for instruction.

Cleopatra: Which is why you have come back chained to Octavian like a slave. And with such an exquisite set of chains. So softly spoken, so virtuous! She sleeps, I hear, fully-clothed!
[Last lines. Following Cleopatra's suicide]

Agrippa: Was this well done of your lady?

High Priestess: Extremely well. As befitting the last of so many noble rulers.

Narrator: [Repeating the previous lines] And the Roman asked, "Was this well done of your lady?" And the servant answered, "Extremely well. As befitting the last of so many noble rulers."
Cleopatra: [Kicks cushion from throne to Caesar, to get him to kneel] You have such bony knees.
Apollodorus: I've always loved you.

Cleopatra: And I have always known.
[as they begin eating on Cleopatra's barge]

Marc Antony: Fabulous feast.

Cleopatra: One is so limited when one travels by ship.
Cleopatra: [as Marc Antony and his men begin walking out of the throne room without saying anything]

Cleopatra: [loud] You have not been dismissed!

Cleopatra: [Marc Antony and his men stop and face Cleopatra]

Cleopatra: [quiet] You are now... dismissed.
Cicero: It is for the good of Rome that Caesar has stayed so long in Egypt. In his absence, the people have come to worship him as a god. Why should he return, to show himself as mortal as the rest?
Julius Caesar: When can you start?

Canidius: Whenever you say.

Julius Caesar: Then at once. And in Rome, Marc Antony is to speak for Caesar. There is to be no question about his authority to act in my name.

Canidius: His word will be yours. And as always, Caesar's word will be law.

Julius Caesar: Of course. And remind him to keep his legions intact. They make the law legal.
Julius Caesar: I find I can tell more about the quality of merchandise by examining the back side first.
Cleopatra: We've gotten off to a bad start. I've done noting but rub you the wrong way.

Julius Caesar: I'm not sure I want to be rubbed by you at all.
Julius Caesar: Isis herself would surrender her place in heaven to be as beautiful as you.

Cleopatra: You're not supposed to look at me. No one is.

Julius Caesar: Well if they aren't looking, how can they know that I am.
Rufio: We must find the gold to pay them, the wheat to feed them, supplies, ships, armor.

Antony: Where do you suggest we look for all these?

Rufio: I thought perhaps further to the east.

Antony: Syria.

Rufio: Perhaps more to the south.

Antony: Ethiopia.

Rufio: To the north of Ethiopia.

Antony: I forbid you to mention it!

Rufio: I didn't.

Antony: I will not crawl to her, hand held out like a beggar. Why has she not offered her assistance.
Antony: Show me a city and I'll tell you how to take it. Let me face an army, I'll smell out it's weak points and hit them hard where they are. Make me to sit down, talk in whispers of this and that with an emphasis here and a shrug there, and I'm soon confounded and defeated.
Cleopatra: [to Mark Antony after protesting her request to kneel] I asked it of Caesar, I demand it of you!
[first lines]

Narrator: And so it fell out that at Pharsalia, the great might and manhood of Rome met in bloody civil war, and Caesar's legions destroyed those of the great Pompey... So, that now only Caesar stood at the head of Rome. But, there was no joy for Caesar as in his other triumphs... for the dead which his legions counted and buried and burned were their own countrymen.
Apollodorus: All hail Cleopatra, kindred of Horus and Ra... beloved of the moon and sun, daughter to Isis... and of Upper and Lower Egypt, queen.
Rufio: "In obtaining her objectives, she has been known to use torture, poison... and even her own sexual talents, which are said to be considerable. Her lovers, I am told, are listed more easily by number than by name. It is said that she chooses in the manner of a man... rather than wait to be chosen after womanly fashion." Well, there's more reason than we thought... for not wanting to leave you two alone, eh, sir'?

Julius Caesar: I'm sorry, Rufio, I wasn't listening.
Julius Caesar: Trust? Not for a minute. "Trust." The word has always made me apprehensive. Like wine, whenever I've tried it, the aftereffects have not been good.
Julius Caesar: [to Cleopatra] Have you broken out of your nursery, young lady, to come irritate the adults?
Julius Caesar: [to Cleopatra] Daughter of an idiotic flute-playing drunkard who bribed his way to the throne of Egypt. I've had my fill with the smug condescension of you worn-out pretenders, parading on the ruins of your past glories.
Cleopatra's Servant: I taste your food, daughter of Isis... and if there be harm in it, let the harm fall upon me.
Lotos: I taste your drink, daughter of Isis... and if there be harm in it, let the harm fall upon me.
Theodotos: May I speak? You know that Achilles is trapped... between your own legions and the armies of Mithradates. To send His Majesty to fight them may mean his death.

Julius Caesar: An occupational hazard for those who will be king.
Julius Caesar: This is opposition of a different sort. They weave it cleverly, lightly, like a cobweb. You know what happens when cobwebs are not regularly swept away.
Cleopatra: You can do what you want with your time.

Julius Caesar: Everything but make it stand still.
Julius Caesar: Well, there's no such thing as an unimportant war.
Julius Caesar: One lifetime is not enough for such dreams, such ambitions.
Cleopatra: [to Caesar] Your destiny is no longer just yours. It's mine too.
Calpurnia: [to Mark Antony about Caesar marrying Cleopatra] Unhappily, vicious gossip travels even faster than you... and the truth.
Marc Antony: There's not enough gold in Egypt to buy the honor of a Roman senator.

Julius Caesar: More than enough, it seems, to buy his vote.
Cimber: I remember something odd. At one point, Caesar asked of each of us... what manner of death we would choose. And Caesar, when it came to him, looked straight at me and said: "Sudden?"
Marc Antony: My lords Octavian and Agrippa have all the strategic brilliance... of two vestal virgins.
Eiras: Words are wasted on such a man.

Cleopatra: I have wasted so many on so many men.
Cleopatra: How strangely awake I feel. As if living had been just a long dream.

Cleopatra Quotes

Extended Reading

Cleopatra short comments

Theo 2022-03-21 09:02:47

The pictures are magnificent, telling the story of the long history, sometimes it feels like watching a stage play, sometimes it feels like watching a moving oil painting, but it is not like watching a movie. The way of expression is a bit grandiose, not quite in line with the taste of contemporary people, and the length of the film is so long that I feel tired. Knowing that the Queen is an ambitious and demagogic temptress, this film has portrayed her as a stubborn and strong amorous woman, just like Elizabeth Taylor herself?
Chase 2022-03-15 09:01:05

"What a noble monarch, in the end it was nothing more than this." "My life is like a dream, a dream of others. Now I want to dream of my own, a dream that will never wake up."