ed in her royal robes, and one of
her two women, which was called Iras, dead at her feet: and her other
woman, called Charmion, half dead, and trembling, trimming the diadem
which {12} Cleopatra ware upon her head. One of the soldiers, seeing
her, angrily said unto her: "Is that well done, Charmion?" "Very
well," said she again, "and meet for a princess descended from the race
of so many noble kings." She said no more, but fell down dead hard by
the bed.

(_Plutarch's Lives_.)

SIR WALTER RALEGH 1552-1618

THE VANITY OF GREATNESS

By this which we have already set down is seen the beginning and end of
the three first monarchies of the world; whereof the founders and
erecters thought, that they could never have ended. That of Rome,
which made the fourth, was also at this time almost at the highest. We
have left it flourishing in the middle of the field, having rooted up
or cut down all that kept it from the eyes and admiration of the world.
But after some continuance, it shall begin to lose the beauty it had;
the storms of ambition shall beat her great boughs and branches one
against another; her leaves shall fall off, her limbs wither, and a
rabble of barbarous nations enter the field and cut her down.

Now these great kings and conquering nations have been the subject of
those ancient histories which have been preserved and yet remain among
us; and withal of so many tragical poets, as in the persons of powerful
princes and other mighty men have complained against {13} infidelity,
time, destiny, and most of all against the variable success of worldly
things and instability of fortune. To these undertakings these great
lords of the world have been stirred up, rather by the desire of fame,
which plougheth up the air and soweth in the wind, than by the
affection of bearing rule, which draweth after it so much vexation and
so many cares. And that this is true, the good advice of Cineas to
Pyrrhus proves. And certainly, as fame hath often been dangerous to
the living, so it is to the dead of no use at all, because separate
from knowledge. Which were it otherwise, and the extreme ill bargain
of buying this lasting discourse understood by them which are
dissolved, they themselves would then rather have wished to have stolen
out of the world without noise, than to be put in mind that they have
purchased the report of their actions in the world by rapine,
oppression, and cruelty, by giving in spoil the innoc