THE REAL CLEOPATRA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8472, 24 January 1891, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE REAL CLEOPATRA.

ROW THE EGYPTIAN QUEEN LOOKS

ON HER COINS. Cleopatra being now a good deal before the public as a topic'of theatrical interest, the Egyptian coins struck in her reign which are in the numismatic department of the National Library are greatly run upon there. They show her when she was respectively wife and Queen regnant. One sees her at all ages, from her early teens to almost the close of her reign. Cleopatra, on these coins and medals, is far nearer to Sarah Bernhardt than to Mrs". Lang try. She is almost spare in figure when young, and at all times lithe. The neck remained young to the last. Had she lived to 80 she might have looked a little like Prince Napoleon, the mouth and chin having a Mother Hubbard tendency to meet. The full, luscious lips, resembling those of a Somali woman's, do not mitigate the hardness of the physiognomy. It is a strange countenance, and one easy to read. The forehead bulges out at the eyes. Its prominence here gives ib singular irregularity, producing the effect almost of a smaller head growing out of a larger one. Jove was represented by Greek sculptors with such a forehead, but on a more massive scale. The eye is greatly in shadow, and almost sinister, it having the expression of a snake's when a bird is to be charmed. The aquiline curve of the nose is at once strong and delicate, and the nostril is'well open and finely curved. Taken with the lips, it gives an impression of a woman prone to sensual joys, cynical, fond of a cruel joke, and contemptuous. Her firmly moulded and advancing chin shows volition. She was wilful to the last degree, and not to bo turned from any purpose. The hair is dressed in tho Greek manner, and twisted up in a small knot on the nape of the neck. She is bad and bewitching. AH the men she fascinated saw through her, but were too intoxicated by her charms to break away from her. She wore a royal diadem, which is represented on some of the coins.—London Truth.