Golden Girl Project: Cleopatra

Golden Girl Project: Cleopatra

This is a new research study I'm going to do for my blog. It's called the Golden Girls Project, a study of the reality, myth and spiritual meanings of famous historical beauties. These Golden Girls capture the imagination. They've inspired people for decades, centuries and millenia. They are figures of love, fantasy, romance, myth and legend. These Golden Girls are daughters of love and light, daughters of the sun, earth and moon.

The first of the Golden Girls Project is about Queen Cleopatra.

First of all I was introduced to Queen Cleopatra in a magazine. I was only a kid. There was a drawing of a lady with brown ringlets, wearing a coronet, dressed in a blue Grecian gown, and sat among white pillars. This was the first image I'd seen of Cleopatra. There was a description of her, from saying she was the queen of Egypt, who bathed in milk, loved Julius Ceaser and Mark Anthony, and died from snake venom. It was very simple and fresh.

After this, on TV was a game show featuring actors dressed up as fallen figures of history. Among them was Cleopatra, who was dressed in a gold headdress and whose lips were painted gold. I became fascinated by Cleopatra then. I saw her as a possible role model, after Madonna! Then I watched her appear in "Carry on Cleo," a 60's comedy satire. Amanda Barrie portrayed Cleopatra as girlish and funny. Then I saw a very serious take on the Egyptian queen in the popular film "Cleopatra" starring Elizabeth Taylor. So from then on I realised Cleopatra had to look Egyptian instead of ancient Greek as the girls mag drew her. I was just a kid and learning a lot. When I was 15 years old, I bought a book on Cleopatra, with illustrations and details of he life. It was very academic. I haven't taken an interest in Shakespear so I've never studied Cleopatra in theatre.

So who was she really? Did she look like the Cleopatra queens from all the films? Why is she popular? What does it all mean when people in this day and age still obsess over a woman from centuries passed.

The Real Cleopatra

There's a lot of misunderstandings about Cleopatra. First of all, she wasn't actually an Egyptian. She was the queen of Egypt who ruled over Egyptians, following the rituals of the Egyptian pharaohs. Cleopatra was a Greek from Macedonia. Macedonia was once part of the Roman Empire, and sat in a region which is now near northern modern Greece, Albania and Bulgaria.

What did she look like? Many people assume she must've looked Egyptian and had dark eyes with bob cut hair and bangs. Looking at the earliest images of her, from the statues, ancient coins and wall art, she appears to resemble a Greek or Roman.  Some of the coins deliberately show her as an unflattering woman. Did she look like that? It might've been a stab at her by the Romans who disapproved of her.Who is to say she wasn't beautiful?

Did she bathe in milk? This is probably not true. The Romans made this up and they know that bathing in milk is quite foul because milk goes off quickly. It smells bad when it's off. Adding a little milk to soap substances and oils could've been likely as some women from Rome did this. Cleopatra would've preferred clean scented water, not smelly asses milk. Don't believe these Roman propaganda lies! I also doubt she was as unattractive as the Romans made out. The Romans themselves were full of gossip and bitching. They hated Cleopatra and demonised her a bit to the point of making her out to be so bloody awful.


Cleopatra in Films

From the beginning of cinema, Cleopatra was a favourite subject. Theda Bara played Cleopatra and portrayed her as being very ornumented, heavily adorned in jewels and trinkets, looking like a belly dancer. The make-up of the time gave her this spooky almost gothic Cleopatra. Claudet Colbert was a modern 30's Cleopatra in long sleek gowns and simple jewellery. Vivien Leigh made Cleopatra seem like abarbarian queen with the Germanic style clothes. Now Elizabeth Taylor was very ancient Egyptian in style as Cleopatra, with a touch of 60's glamour. There hasn't been anything quite like that last film about Cleopatra. No other Cleopatra has outdone Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra. In the future there will have to be more Cleopatra films and other Cleopatras played by different actresses. There is a plan for a new Cleopatra film that will star Angelina Jolie but how will she portray Cleopatra?

There is outcry at the moment about this. People don't want another Cleopatra with fair skin and pale blue eyes. They think Cleopatra was black. Cleopatra wasn't black, she was of Indo-European descent. She's always been a part of Western culture and art for more than two thousand years.
            
Who was Cleopatra? She was the grand daughter of Alexander the Great's general Ptolemy. The romance about Cleopatra might've been fictional. Mark Anthony had a fling with Cleopatra, then he murdered her sister, before returning to Rome to be with his wife! He remarried to a different woman. Then he returned to Egypt and gave Cleopatra children. Cleopatra married her brother.  

Did Cleopatra die from a snake bite on her breast? Cleopatra didn't die from grief that Mark Anthony was dead. She was afraid of being humiliated further by the Romans and decided to end her life. It seems there was a lot of many complications to her life. Plutarch made this assumption that an asp bit her breast and we don't know if there was any truth to it. However, there was a snake bite found on her arm.

She was Cleopatra VII of Egypt. Born in 69BC, Cleopatra had brothers and sisters. When she became a queen at age 17, her siblings plotted to kill her. From this time on Cleopatra's life has been involved with Julius Ceaser and Mark Anthony, who ath fathered her children.

There is a lot of myth surrounding Cleopatra. She seems to be one of those figures that is timeless. She is someone who people want her to be. They would like her to look a certain way, be a certain way and adhere to the beautiful legend from ancient  Egypt. The only thing is she isn't really from Egypt's most ancient past but the latter stage of Egypt's power. She was the last queen of Egypt. 

Cleopatra's suicide - Discovery news
Cleopatra

Image at the top is "Cleopatra" by J. E. Bowser. Visit the artists site.

A poem inspired by the Supermoon

This poem was composed by myself after the Supermoon event last weekend.

Waiting, Starving
by Rayne a.k.a. "She Wolf Night"

The days will be,
extremely gloomy.
He is still far away.
Alone, across the sea,
I don't know where...
where he could be.
It was a lonesome moon,
that perigee disc,
amidst the gloom
and twilight whisk.
From here to now.
My presence here in this hall
of curses and wolfbane,
and dying weeds cascading the wall.
I can't imagine,
how deep I bit.
I can't remember
where I hit.
I can't be that...
creature who is me
At fullest moon beams.
A howl, a scream,
then my body is no longer mine.
I howl, rampaging, lost.
Looking for my dearest love.
I seek him at the coastline.
I wander along the shore
from dusk until early morning light.
I've trodden on bones.
Trodden on leaves.
Scratched by thorns and prickly cacti.
I leave my castle door...
following, his trail of incense that vanishes to the beach.
As a wolf, I remember him.
As a woman, I know him.
I've been hungry.
I ate so little.
Starved of nutrients, I leave it there,
exposed to flies and air.
Bread, fruit, cake and porridge I've let go untouched,
It makes me sick to touch.
I feed at the full moon,
only when I am the she-wolf.
And I live off scraps too,
whatever, I don't remember being human.
I've fed upon wild beasts,
Eggs, berries, rubbish bin crap.
I've licked off dirt from my paws.
I can't remember.
I don't want to either.
I miss him. I long for his touch.
Where is he now?
When's he coming home to me?
Where's he gone?
I wait for the man.
Waiting and starving.

Exploring the Wilderness

The National Trust set out a list of 50 things a child "should be doing before they reach eleven years old". I read this in one of the national papers and the outline says children should be doing all of this before aged 11 things without adult supervision! Huh? A lot of the activities they listed need plenty of adult supervision with trained professionals there also. Kids mustn't be doing this on their own.

Here is the list of 50 things that kids should be doing before 11 years of age. I highlighted in bold text the activities without much health and safety, that could be viewed as dangerous, a menace to the environment, quite cruel to the animals and endangering wildlife:

1. Climb a tree
2. Roll down a really big hill
3. Camp out in the wild
4. Build a den
5. Skim a stone
6. Run around in the rain
7. Fly a kite
8. Catch a fish with a net
9. Eat an apple straight from a tree
10. Play conkers
11. Throw some snow
12. Hunt for treasure on the beach
13. Make a mud pie
14. Dam a stream
15. Go sledging
16. Bury someone in the sand
17. Set up a snail race
18. Balance on a fallen tree
19. Swing on a rope swing
20. Make a mud slide
21. Eat blackberries growing in the wild
22. Take a look inside a tree
23. Visit an island
24. Feel like you’re flying in the wind
25. Make a grass trumpet
26. Hunt for fossils and bones
27. Watch the sun wake up
28. Climb a huge hill
29. Get behind a waterfall
30. Feed a bird from your hand
31. Hunt for bugs
32. Find some frogspawn
33. Catch a butterfly in a net
34. Track wild animals
35. Discover what’s in a pond
36. Call an owl
37. Check out the crazy creatures in a rock pool
38. Bring up a butterfly
39. Catch a crab
40. Go on a nature walk at night
41. Plant it, grow it, eat it
42. Go wild swimming
43. Go rafting
44. Light a fire without matches
45. Find your way with a map and compass
46. Try bouldering
47. Cook on a campfire
48. Try abseiling
49. Find a geocache
50. Canoe down a river

Okay, you might think it's a wonderful idea. People overlook that there are some very odd things in that list, including straying out at night in the countryside!

First of all we must teach children never to pick wild berries, fruits and even apples off trees or bushes. It must be said that this is because the fruits would likely be toxic. Children can't be sure what's edible and what isn't. Apples and plums might be good from the local supermarket but on wild trees in the countryside, they might have turned very sour and filled with parasites. Symbolically it's considered theft just to pick wilf fruit, and perhaps it encourages kids to take things for granted. An adult should always advise children what's okay to eat without picking berries.

Snow White ate the poisonous apple because she didn't realise that it could be bad. Well apples can be harmful. It's unwise of the National Trust to tell children they should pick wild fruits and just eat them like sweets. Look at Hansel and Gretal. They were unsupervised kids left to their own devises. They ate a house in the forest because it looked so delicious. The met a nasty old witch that was only interested in hurting them. This is a story about the daring nature of children. Berries look nice but most of them are deadly. So I think the National Trust were very irresponsible to tell kids to do that.

I tell children that they must always be with an adult if they want to do anything daring and adventurous. Maybe I'm too cynical? Everything mentioned on that list is going to cause aggro for the wildlife. Some kids won't just keep snails and butterflies. They might torment the creatures. A whole range of problems could happen if children interfered with the nests of insects. All of that on the list needs total adult supervision.

What I've taken part in personally before I was eleven was:

Rolled down a hill, camped in the wild, ran in the rain, snowball fights, played on rope swings, visited an island, grass trumpet making and I even raised a butterfly.

Now not mentioned on the list but sounding similar to it are things I did as a child:  

Walked through a forest, built a spaceship out of sand and bits from an old car, made sandcastles, found crabs in pools (I never touched them), watched the sun set, made lots of daisy chains, made ornuments with shells, seen wild animals in parks and zoos, held an eagle (trained adult was present), been to farms, ect.

I also liked boardgames, computer games and reading books! Mind and body. However it's not just the thrill seeking of the outdoors that should be emphasised but the mastering of the outdoors. Join the guides, scouts, cubs, brownies or go on Summer Camps to do these things with adult guidance.

It's important for kids to learn about nature and how to enjoy being out in it.

Links of interest:

50 Things National Trust
Nature Net Learning
Woodland Trust - Kids
Big Learning
Nature Explore