hing looks and smells like
Aphrodite's tiring-room; and now I have a longing to hear a few good
words before supper-time comes."

"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