{"product_id":"2940011978005","title":"Caesar and Cleopatra","description":"An Excerpt from the book-\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eACT I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn October night on the Syrian border of Egypt towards the end of\u003cbr\u003ethe XXXIII Dynasty, in the year 706 by Roman computation, afterwards\u003cbr\u003ereckoned by Christian computation as 48 B.C. A great radiance of silver\u003cbr\u003efire, the dawn of a moonlit night, is rising in the east. The stars\u003cbr\u003eand the cloudless sky are our own contemporaries, nineteen and a half\u003cbr\u003ecenturies younger than we know them; but you would not guess that from\u003cbr\u003etheir appearance. Below them are two notable drawbacks of civilization:\u003cbr\u003ea palace, and soldiers. The palace, an old, low, Syrian building of\u003cbr\u003ewhitened mud, is not so ugly as Buckingham Palace; and the officers in\u003cbr\u003ethe courtyard are more highly civilized than modern English officers:\u003cbr\u003efor example, they do not dig up the corpses of their dead enemies and\u003cbr\u003emutilate them, as we dug up Cromwell and the Mahdi. They are in two\u003cbr\u003egroups: one intent on the gambling of their captain Belzanor, a warrior\u003cbr\u003eof fifty, who, with his spear on the ground beside his knee, is stooping\u003cbr\u003eto throw dice with a sly-looking young Persian recruit; the other\u003cbr\u003egathered about a guardsman who has just finished telling a naughty\u003cbr\u003estory (still current in English barracks) at which they are laughing\u003cbr\u003euproariously. They are about a dozen in number, all highly aristocratic\u003cbr\u003eyoung Egyptian guardsmen, handsomely equipped with weapons and armor,\u003cbr\u003every unEnglish in point of not being ashamed of and uncomfortable in\u003cbr\u003etheir professional dress; on the contrary, rather ostentatiously and\u003cbr\u003earrogantly warlike, as valuing themselves on their military caste.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBelzanor is a typical veteran, tough and wilful; prompt, capable and\u003cbr\u003ecrafty where brute force will serve; helpless and boyish when it\u003cbr\u003ewill not: an effective sergeant, an incompetent general, a deplorable\u003cbr\u003edictator. Would, if influentially connected, be employed in the two last\u003cbr\u003ecapacities by a modern European State on the strength of his success\u003cbr\u003ein the first. Is rather to be pitied just now in view of the fact that\u003cbr\u003eJulius Caesar is invading his country. Not knowing this, is intent on\u003cbr\u003ehis game with the Persian, whom, as a foreigner, he considers quite\u003cbr\u003ecapable of cheating him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis subalterns are mostly handsome young fellows whose interest in\u003cbr\u003ethe game and the story symbolizes with tolerable completeness the main\u003cbr\u003einterests in life of which they are conscious. Their spears are leaning\u003cbr\u003eagainst the walls, or lying on the ground ready to their hands. The\u003cbr\u003ecorner of the courtyard forms a triangle of which one side is the front\u003cbr\u003eof the palace, with a doorway, the other a wall with a gateway. The\u003cbr\u003estorytellers are on the palace side: the gamblers, on the gateway side.\u003cbr\u003eClose to the gateway, against the wall, is a stone block high enough\u003cbr\u003eto enable a Nubian sentinel, standing on it, to look over the wall. The\u003cbr\u003eyard is lighted by a torch stuck in the wall. As the laughter from the\u003cbr\u003egroup round the storyteller dies away, the kneeling Persian, winning the\u003cbr\u003ethrow, snatches up the stake from the ground.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBELZANOR. By Apis, Persian, thy gods are good to thee.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE PERSIAN. Try yet again, O captain. Double or quits!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBELZANOR. No more. I am not in the vein.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE SENTINEL (poising his javelin as he peers over the wall). Stand. Who\u003cbr\u003egoes there?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey all start, listening. A strange voice replies from without.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVOICE. The bearer of evil tidings.","brand":"qasim idrees","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47078627344624,"sku":"2940011978005","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940011978005_p0.jpg?v=1763551899","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940011978005","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}