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CAESAR
 AND
CLEOPATRA
 by
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
 A Penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication
 
Caesar and Cleopatra
by George Bernard Shaw
 
is a publication of the Pennsylvania State Univer-sity. This Portable Document file is furnished free and without any charge of any kind. Anyperson using this document file, for any purpose, and in any way does so at his or her own risk.Neither the Pennsylvania State University nor Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, nor anyone associatedwith the Pennsylvania State University assumes any responsibility for the material containedwithin the document or for the file as an electronic transmission, in any way.
Caesar and Cleopatra
by George Bernard Shaw
 ,
the Pennsylvania State University,
 Electronic Classics Series
, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 18202-1291 is a Portable Document Fileproduced as part of an ongoing student publication project to bring classical works of literature,in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them.Cover Design: Jim Manis; bust of Julius Caesar, from the British Museum from The Art of theRomans by H. P. Walters (1911); painting by Jean Andre Rixens (1846-1924): The Death of Cleopatra.Copyright © 2003 The Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University is an equal opportunity university.
 
3Caesar and Cleopatra
CAESAR  ANDCLEOPATRA 
by 
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW 
 ACT I
A
N
O
CTOBER
 
NIGHT
on the Syrian border of Egypt towardsthe end of the XXXIII Dynasty, in the year 706 by Romancomputation, afterwards reckoned by Christian computa-tion as 48 B.C. A great radiance of silver fire, the dawn ofa moonlit night, is rising in the east. The stars and thecloudless sky are our own contemporaries, nineteen anda half centuries younger than we know them; but you wouldnot guess that from their appearance. Below them are twonotable drawbacks of civilization: a palace, and soldiers.The palace, an old, low, Syrian building of whitened mud,is not so ugly as Buckingham Palace; and the officers inthe courtyard are more highly civilized than modern En-glish officers: for example, they do not dig up the corpsesof their dead enemies and mutilate them, as we dug upCromwell and the Mahdi. They are in two groups: one in-tent on the gambling of their captain Belzanor, a warrior offifty, who, with his spear on the ground beside his knee, isstooping to throw dice with a sly-looking young Persian re-cruit; the other gathered about a guardsman who has justfinished telling a naughty story (still current in English bar-racks) at which they are laughing uproariously. They areabout a dozen in number, all highly aristocratic young Egyp-tian guardsmen, handsomely equipped with weapons andarmor, very unEnglish in point of not being ashamed ofand uncomfortable in their professional dress; on the con-trary, rather ostentatiously and arrogantly warlike, as valu-ing themselves on their military caste.Belzanor is a typical veteran, tough and wilful; prompt,
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