英語美文賞析 埃及豔后克莉奧帕卓傳奇故事

這是一位歷史上最享盛名的神祕女子：她廣播的豔名，她與愷撒、安東尼的兩段戀情，她的豐功偉業與遠大的政治報負，還有她結束於蛇吻的傳奇一生。究竟埃及豔后的真面目如何？她不朽於世的奧祕在哪裏？

　　Three centuries later, shortly before the birth of Christ, Egypt was still ruled by a living goddess, Cleopatra, a Greek descended from one of Alexander’s generals. She looked back to the Golden Age of Alexander’s world empire and was determined to do even better herself.

Alexander died at the age of 32. By the time Cleopatra was 23, she had gone ever further than Alexander making her entrance into Rome as Queen of Egypt and consort of Julius Caesar, the most powerful man in the world.

These were complex times. To keep your throne, you had to be adaptable, ruthless, intelligent and a great politician. Cleopatra had all these traits which is why history has provided us with lots of interpretations of Cleopatra. Renaissance poets saw her as a heroine dying for love. And painters alluded to her eroticism in their bare breasted portrayals of the dying queen. Hollywood reinforced the image of Cleopatra as a vamp starting with Theda Bara’s seductive portrayal in 1917.

But who was the real Cleopatra? What did she really look like?

We’re in Berlin because this is the best portrait of Cleopatra in the world. There are very few ancient sculptures that are existing. So this is probably as close as we’re ever going to get to how she really looked. She’s rather plain looking, isn’t she? Look at her hair. It’s tied up in a simple bun. It’s a classical Greek hairstyle. It’s practical but not exactly designed to captivate a Roman general.

We know from ancient sources that her hair was a reddish color, wavy. But look at her nose. It’s a little bit too long and hooked at the end. And her mouth, is not exactly sensual. She’s not wearing any jewelry. There are no earrings, no necklace. This is not the portrait of a femme fatale.

The ancient sources tell us she was intelligent, witty, charming, a linguist and along with this, she had a tremendous determination. It was this amazing combination of abilities that made Cleopatra the most famous woman in history. It wasn’t her beauty.

Women in Egypt had always been powerful: Queen Hatshepsut, Nefertiti and now Cleopatra. But during the era of the Ptolemy’s, the role of Greek women had changed. They gained an identity apart from that of their husbands or families. Women participated in the arts and civic life and marriage became a union of two people, not just two houses. The portraits of the women of this period show strong individuals looking back at you with confidence. They’re almost haunting. Women would not have this power again until the 20th century. Cleopatra was well educated, strong minded with ideas of her own and a female.

As a intellectual, Cleopatra would have been heartbroken: when during fighting between Egyptians and Caesar’s Roman troops, there occurred one of the greatest tragedies of the ancient world - the burning of the library of Alexandria. It’s sad to think about what was lost in the fire at Alexandria. There are the missing manuscripts of Aristotle and Plato. They were probably there. There was an entire room with editions of Homer. Maybe even there were early manuscripts of the Old Testament, which could probably help settle Biblical questions today.

Cleopatra was eventually able to replace 200,000 of the manuscripts. Books were very important to her. It’s ironic that today everybody knows her for her beauty, but it was her intelligence that was most important asset she had.



　　耶穌誕生的三百年後，埃及依然在克莉奧帕卓女王的統治下，她是亞歷山大大帝手下一名將領的後代。她一面追懷着亞歷山大帝國的黃金時期，一面決意自己做得更出色。

亞歷山大於32歲駕崩，當時埃及豔后僅23歲，她遠行得疆界比亞歷山大更遠，她以埃及王后和世界上最有權力的人——朱利安·愷撒情人的身份走進羅馬。

當時局面非常複雜。要保住王位則必須是一名靈活，無情、機智兼出色的政客。這些特點埃及豔后全部具備，這也解釋了爲什麼我們會從歷史上看到關於她的多種不同說辭。文藝復興時期的詩人將她視成爲愛情獻身的女英雄。畫家們把她描繪爲裸胸垂死的貪慾的女王。好萊塢的電影強化了她的蕩婦形像——第一部始於桑德·芭拉在1917年媚人的扮演。

可是埃及豔后究竟是什麼樣的人？她的外貌是怎樣的呢？

於是我們來到了柏林，這兒有全世界最好的埃及豔后的肖像。現在僅存的古代雕像已是鳳毛麟角，所以這一尊也許能幫助我們盡多地瞭解她的外貌。她長得挺平常的，是不是？看看他的頭髮，結的是個簡單的髻。這是希臘古典髮型。風格樸實，並非特別設計來俘獲羅馬將領的愛情。

我們從古代資料瞭解到她的頭髮是淺紅色的，有波紋的。可瞧她的鼻子，是稍有點長的鷹鉤鼻。嘴也算不上性感。她不飾帶任何珠寶。沒有耳環，沒有項鍊。這並非一個性感尤物的相貌。

古代資料還告訴我們，她聰明、詼諧、迷人、精通多種語言，而且，她還具有說囊懍ΑＵ羌狹蘇庵種植嘔齜敲爛玻攀溝冒＜把蘚蟪晌飛獻罡菏⒚吶浴?

過去，埃及婦女的勢力向來不弱，如：哈特謝普蘇特女王、奈費爾提蒂女王，以及想在這位克莉奧帕卓女王。但在托勒密王朝時期，希臘婦女的角色改變了。她們取得獨立於丈夫和家庭外的身份，參與到藝術和市民生活中，並以兩個個人而不是兩家人的名義締結婚姻。這一時期的婦女形象表現除了強烈的個性與自信。那令人印象深刻。21世紀以前婦女們都沒有再擁有過這種權力。埃及豔后便是受過良好教育、意志堅強、有自己思想的一位女性。

在埃及人與愷撒的羅馬軍隊作戰期間發生了古代一大慘劇——亞歷山大圖書館的焚燬。作爲一位知識人士，這一悲劇定曾讓埃及豔后爲之哀慟不已。要說亞歷山大圖書館在那次火災中的損失是令人傷心的。遺失的亞里土多德和伯拉圖手稿估計就在其中。有一整個房間裏放的是荷馬的作品。如果《聖經舊約》的早期文稿沒有在那時遺失的話，也許今日我們對《聖經》的許多疑惑已經解開了。

埃及豔后最後找回了二十萬冊文稿。書籍對她太重要了。諷刺的是她以美貌蜚聲於今日世界，而其實智慧纔是她最最可貴的資產。