“From my lips?” asked Cleopatra.

“There are none that can speak better, whether by the Nile or the Ilissus.”

“What do you want of me?”

“I—­of you?”

“Certainly, for you do not speak so prettily unless you want something.”

“But I have already told you!  I want to hear you say something wise, something witty, something soul-stirring.”

“We cannot call up wit as we would a maid-servant.  It comes unbidden, and the more urgently we press it to appear the more certainly it remains away.”

“That may be true of others, but not of you who, even while you declare that you have no store of Attic salt, are seasoning your speech with it.  All yield obedience to grace and beauty, even wit and the sharp-tongued Momus who mocks even at the gods.”

“You are mistaken, for not even my own waiting-maids return in proper time when I commission them with a message to you.”

“And may we not to be allowed to sacrifice to the Charites on the way to the temple of Aphrodite?”

“If I were indeed the goddess, those worshippers who regarded my hand-maidens as my equals would find small acceptance with me.”

“Your reproof is perfectly just, for you are justified in requiring that all who know you should worship but one goddess, as the Jews do but one god.  But I entreat you do not again compare yourself to the brainless Cyprian dame.  You may be allowed to do so, so far as your grace is concerned; but who ever saw an Aphrodite philosophizing and reading serious books?  I have disturbed you in grave studies no doubt; what is the book you are rolling up, fair Zoe?”

“The sacred book of the Jews, Sire,” replied Zoe; “one that I know you do not love.”

And you—­who read Homer, Pindar, Sophocles, and Plato—­do you like it?” asked Euergetes.

“I find passages in it which show a profound knowledge of life, and others of which no one can dispute the high poetic flight,” replied Cleopatra.  “Much of it has no doubt a thoroughly barbarian twang, and it is particularly in the Psalms—­which we have now been reading, and which might be ranked with the finest hymns—­that I miss the number and rhythm of the syllables, the observance of a fixed metre—­in short, severity of form.  David, the royal poet, was no less possessed by the divinity when he sang to his lyre than other poets have been, but he does not seem to have known that delight felt by our poets in overcoming the difficulties they have raised for themselves.  The poet should slavishly obey the laws he lays down for himself of his own free-will, and subordinate to them every word, and yet his matter and his song should seem to float on a free and soaring wing.  Now, even the original Hebrew text of the Psalms has no metrical laws.”