And when the rugs were unbound in the palace, behold! within them was the fairest girl on all the earth--ay, and the most witty and the most learned.

And she seduced the great Caesar--even his weight of years did not avail to protect him from her charms--so that, as a fruit of his folly, he wellnigh lost his life, and all the glory he had gained in a hundred wars." "The fool!" I broke in--"the fool! Thou callest him great; but how can the man be truly great who has no strength to stand against a woman's wiles?
Caesar, with the world hanging on his word! Caesar, at whose breath forty legions marched and changed the fate of peoples! Caesar the cold! the far-seeing! the hero!--Caesar to fall like a ripe fruit into a false girl's lap! Why, in the issue, of what common clay was this Roman Caesar, and how poor a thing!" But Sepa looked at me and shook his head.

"Be not so rash, Harmachis, and talk not with so proud a voice.

Knowest thou not that in every suit of mail there is a joint, and woe to him who wears the harness if the sword should search it out! For Woman, in her weakness, is yet the strongest force upon the earth.

She is the helm of all things human; she comes in many shapes and knocks at many doors; she is quick and patient, and her passion is not ungovernable like that of man, but as a gentle steed that she can guide e'en where she will, and as occasion offers can now bit up and now give rein.