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Caesar and Cleopatra

George Bernard Shaw

Book Overview: 

Caesar and Cleopatra, a play written by George Bernard Shaw, was first staged in 1901 and first published with Captain Brassbound's Conversion and The Devil's Disciple in his 1901 collection, Three Plays for Puritans. Shaw wants to prove that it was not love but politics that drew Cleopatra to Julius Caesar. He sees the Roman occupation of ancient Egypt as similar to the British occupation that was occurring during his time. Caesar understands the importance of good government, and values these things above art and love. (Summary by Wikipedia)

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .She stands like a martyr.)

CAESAR. The Queen must face Caesar alone. Answer "So be it."

CLEOPATRA (white). So be it.

CAESAR (releasing her). Good.

A tramp and tumult of armed men is heard. Cleopatra's terror increases. The bucina sounds close at hand, followed by a formidable clangor of trumpets. This is too much for Cleopatra: she utters a cry and darts towards the door. Ftatateeta stops her ruthlessly.

FTATATEETA. You are my nursling. You have said "So be it"; and if you die for it, you must make the Queen's word good. (She hands Cleopatra to Caesar, who takes her back, almost beside herself with apprehension, to the throne.)

CAESAR. Now, if you quail—! (He seats himself on the throne.)

She stands on the step, all but unconscious, waiting for death. The Roman soldiers troop in tumultuously through the corridor, headed by their ensign with his eagle, and their bucinator, a burly fellow wi. . . Read More

Community Reviews

This play written in 1898 was first performed in England at a time when the British Empire was at its zenith. I couldn't help but notice how Julius Caesar seemed to be presented as an external benevolent colonial force coming to bring order to the political chaos in Egypt. Caesar is portrayed as a w

Cleopatra can't arrange a meeting with Caesar, so she rolls herself up in a large rug, and has herself delivered as a present. Security must have been really basic in those days.

There was a period when I was working for a boss who was never available during office hours. Either he wasn't there at a

Lovely play but I was at a loss to imagine a successful staging. This is vast and epic while insistently self aware, emplacing it’s own sense of history upon a lineage we believe to know from another play by that one guy.

The characterization of Cleopatra as a petulant teen was remarkable—especially

Bernard Shaw's funny, sad prequel to Shakespeare.

Caesar and Cleopatra is a play of vivid pictures and superb effects: in the desert at night an old Roman general speaks to a small Sphinx, oblivious to the child-woman asleep between its paws; the child-woman Cleopatra chooses the old general as her protector, against Caesar “who eats children,” not

ثيودوتس : إن مكتبة الإسكندرية تحترق
قيصر : أهذا كل شئ !؟
ثيودوتس : (كل شئ؟!)!! .. أتقول عنك الأجيال المقبلة يا قيصر أنك كنت جنديا متبربرا يجهل قيمة الكتب !؟
قيصر : يا ثيودوتس أنا نفسي مؤلفا و اقول لك أنه لمن الأفضل للمصريين أن يحيوا حياتهم بدلا من أن يضيعوها في الأحلام بفضل الكتب
ثيودوتس : قيصر ان العا

Shaw's masterpiece
2 August 2014

The problem I face when I approach this play is that there is so much in it I simply do not know where to start. There is the character of Julius Caesar that Shaw seems to capture perfectly, from the wise and kind leader to the man who would repetitively show mercy to

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