Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 01.djvu/322

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SHAKESPEARE'S MAIDENS AND WOMEN.
Cleo. His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear'd arm Crested the world: his voice was propertied As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends; But when he meant to quail and shake the orb, He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty, There was no winter in 't, an autumn 'twas, That grew the more by reaping: His delights Were dolphin-like; they show'd his back above The element they lived in: In his livery Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were As plates diopp'd from his pocket "[1]

For Cleopatra is—a woman. She loves and betrays at the same time. It is a mistake to believe that women when they betray us have ceased to love. They only follow their inborn nature; and if they will not empty the forbidden cup, they like at least a sip from it, or lick the brim, just to see what poison tastes like. Next to Shakespeare, no one has sketched this fact so well as old Abbé Prevost in his novel "Manon Lescaut." The intuition of the greatest poet here coincides with the sober observation of the coldest writer of prose.

Yes, this Cleopatra is a woman in the blessedest and cursedest sense of the word! She reminds me of that saying of Lessing, "When God made woman He took clay of too fine a quality!" The extreme tenderness of His material does not agree with the requirements of life. This creature is at

  1. ↑ Antony and Cleopatra, act v. sc. 2.
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