It had not been possible always to appear before him in the guise in which we would fain be seen by those whom we love.
"Even now, when your skilful hands have served me--there is the mirror--the image it reflects--seems to me like a carefully preserved wreck--" "O my royal mistress," cried Iras, raising her hands beseechingly, "must I again declare that neither the grey hairs which are again brown, nor the few lines which Olympus will soon render invisible, nor whatever else perhaps disturbs you in the image you behold reflected, impairs your beauty?
Unclouded and secure of victory, the spell of your godlike nature--" "Cease, cease!" interrupted Cleopatra.

"I know what I know.

No mortal can escape the great eternal laws of Nature.

As surely as birth commences life, everything that exists moves onward to destruction and decay." "Yet the gods," Iras persisted, "give to their works different degrees of existence.

The waterlily blooms but a single day, yet how full of vigour is the sycamore in the garden of the Paneum, which has flourished a thousand years! Not a petal in the blossoms of your youth has faded, and is it conceivable that there is even the slightest diminution in the love of him who cast away all that man holds dearest because he could not endure to part, even for days or weeks, from the woman whom he worshipped ?" "Would that he had done so!" cried Cleopatra mournfully.