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Wednesday, September 21, 2005

The Truth About Cleo

I, like many others, grew up hearing legends about Cleopatra's beauty. The Queen of Egypt was and is still held as the epitome of the "black, dusky beauty" paradigm. I happened to revisit my old copy of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar recently. I have been a fan of Mark Antony since reading the "Friends, romans, countrymen.." speech. I mean, any guy who can muster popular support in one speech must be worth something..:)
Anyways, I'm digressing. All this led me to look up Cleopatra in the wikipedia and suprise: I found Cleopatra was not the "black beauty" she was touted to be. In fact, she was a Greek who had settled in Egypt. Read about her here. Just goes to show how much spin people are capable of to suit their own ends!

18 comments:

Kay said...

Cleopatra Black'aaa Greeek'aaa ????
Onnum mattum kandipuma theriyuthu ava kudumbathula ekka chakka confusion nadanthu iruku nu.
Alaga Nalla rasikanum, aaaaraya kooodathunu naaan ninaikiren :)

Agnibarathi said...

Cleopatra...I only know one Cleopatra! Elizabeth Taylor!!! :D

Gnana Kirukan said...

Agni - ennaku athu kuda theriyathu :p

Agnibarathi said...

But coming to the actual character, I was impressed by the strength of Cleopatra...especially in the movie after Caesar dies and she begins her affair with Antony!

Gnana Kirukan said...

Agni - that's the spirit (of cleopatra ;) ) - and that's one main reason y she is famous like us - lol

TJ said...

Wow! It was just a week before, i met one of my school friends and discussed elaborately abt JC, starting from the feast of lupercalia to the end.

Wanted to watch it in the Globe theater here, but they whenever i check, they keep playing Merchant of Venice only :(

Cleo doesnot appear much in JC, apart from Act1.
tch, me getting nostalgic...

Aatma said...

Subha the same link says that there is a race debate between whether she was black or not. Why do u make the assumption that she is white and not black.

Is there any other page from which you make the claim

Aatma said...

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcleopatra.html

No evidence whatsoever on whether she was black or white - It will never be known ;)

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Liked the new catch green links :-D

Jeevan said...

Any body saw Cleopatra in real they only know she is black or not. nice:)

Anonymous said...

Changed the template?
Looks good :-)

Rags said...

Good shocking info...

Anonymous said...

Looks like our Woman/Man is more confusing than Black or White :)

http://www.hindu.com/2005/09/26/stories/2005092602162000.htm

Damn I should have studied history.

-vijay

Anonymous said...

oops got the link wrong.


http://www.hindu.com/2005/09/26/stories/2005092602162000.htm

-vijay

Anonymous said...

okay... this comment box is playing tricks.

add .htm to the links specified above .. or

better refer to International section in Hindu (Monday 26th September) for the news on our Wo/Man.

-vijay

Krish said...

Actually many of the Roman/Greek names can be traced to Sanskrit roots and Cleopatra is one such. The term "patra" is clearly Sanskrit in origin and I have come across many such examples that give credence to the theory that Sanskrit was not just the mother of all Indian languages but perhaps all of the world's languages.

Anonymous said...

You look very different in your new picture, like a totally different person.

Anonymous said...

Subhashini...mudinja intha pakkam vaa..

http://ramseth.multiply.com

hehehehe another start..