Prolonged analysis is not needed. A point
of seeming difference between them establishes their identity. Cleopatra
is beautiful, "a lass unparalleled," as Charmian calls her, and
accordingly we can believe that all emotions became her, and that when
hopping on the street or pretending to die she was alike be-witching;
beauty has this magic. But how can all things become a woman who is not
beautiful, whose face some say "hath not the power to make love groan,"
who cannot even blind the senses with desire? And yet the "dark lady" of
the sonnets who is thus described, has the "powerful might" of
personality in as full measure as Egypt's queen. The point of seeming
unlikeness is as convincing as any likeness could be; the peculiarities
of both women are the same and spring from the same dominant quality.
Cleopatra is cunning, wily, faithless, passionately unrestrained in
speech and proud as Lucifer, and so is the sonnet-heroine. We may be
sure that the faithlessness, scolding, and mad vanity of his mistress
were defects in Shakespeare's eyes as in ours; these, indeed, were "the
things ill" which nevertheless became her.
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