Résumé
Résumé de Cléopâtre
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
Readers who enjoy ancient Egypt, temple mysteries, tomb adventures and doomed love will find plenty here, along with fans of Cleopatra, Antony and Caesar seen through the eyes of a rival who loves her.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Cleopatra is a historical romance by H. Rider Haggard, the English storyteller who also wrote King Solomon's Mines. He finished it in 1889 and dedicated it to his mother. The book is presented as the confession of Harmachis, an Egyptian prince and priest of Isis, set down on three papyrus rolls that a traveler is said to find in a rock tomb near Abydus.
Harmachis is raised in a temple to free Egypt from the Greek family of the Ptolemies and from the Romans who hover behind them. His task is to enter the court of Queen Cleopatra in Alexandria and kill her. Haggard says in his note that he wanted to suggest an answer to an old puzzle, why Cleopatra and Antony threw away their power at Actium. The novel gives you secret priesthoods, visions of the gods, a magician's tricks, a pyramid treasure and a queen who is hard to hate.
You also get one of the most vivid portraits of Cleopatra in English fiction, seen by the man who loves her and is sworn to destroy her. The story begins before his birth, with a dying mother's prophecy and a king's fear, so that is where we start.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A dying mother's prophecy marks the childFree
- 2Study at Annu and a warning about women
- 3Initiation in the shrine and a secret crowning
- 4Alexandria, a brawl and a clever cousin
- 5The magician at court and the crown of roses
- 6A queen in the tower and a laugh at the wrong time
- 7The price of mercy and a treasure in the pyramid
- 8What the story is really about
- 9How the story is told
Point clé 1 sur 9
A dying mother's prophecy marks the child
The book opens in the voice of Harmachis, a broken man writing in a prison tower beside the temple of Abouthis. He swears by Osiris that he tells the truth, and he names himself a traitor who listened to a woman and forgot his god. Then he goes back to the day of his birth, the same day on which Cleopatra was born, in the temple town where his father Amenemhat is High Priest.
His mother lies dying when the Hathors, the goddesses of fate, fill her with the spirit of prophecy. She takes a golden serpent, the royal uraeus, from an ivory chest and lays it on the baby's brow. She declares him the future Pharaoh who will cleanse the land, and she lays a curse on him should he fail when his hour of trial comes. Then she falls dead across his cradle.
Amenemhat is terrified, because such words are treason against King Ptolemy. He makes everyone in the room swear silence. But the old nurse Atoua cannot hold her tongue, and the secret passes from her daughter to a husband, then to a friend who spies for the king. Ptolemy the Piper, a drunkard who fears the gods in secret, sends Greek guards up the Nile to cut off the child's head.
Their boat sticks on a mudbank, and the frightened eunuch with them blurts out their errand to the villagers on the shore. One farmer runs to the temple house to give warning. Atoua is given a dreadful order and obeys it. She dresses her own grandchild in silk and lays him in the cradle, while she smears the real prince with mud and sets him to play in the yard.
The soldiers kill the wrong boy and ride away with his head, and they almost take the muddy child as well. Harmachis grows up believing he is an adopted son. At seventeen, taunted as a coward, he goes after a lion with a boastful rival, who flees and dies under the beast. Harmachis kills it with a spear. Atoua greets him as Pharaoh, and his father then tells him the truth, that he is the true heir of Egypt's last native kings and must keep himself pure. That night on the temple tower a cold hand places a lotus bud in his palm.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Cléopâtre
What is Cleopatra by H. Rider Haggard about?
It is a historical romance told by Harmachis, an Egyptian prince and priest sent to Alexandria to kill Queen Cleopatra and free Egypt from foreign rule. His mission is complicated by love, jealousy and betrayal.
Is Cleopatra by Rider Haggard a true story?
No. Haggard wrote it in 1889 as fiction. Cleopatra, Antony, Caesar and the events at Actium are real history, but Harmachis, Charmion and the plot to kill the queen are invented to suggest an answer to old historical puzzles.
Who is Charmion?
Charmion is Harmachis's cousin and Cleopatra's lady-in-waiting. She is a secret partner in the conspiracy who plans how Harmachis will enter the palace, and she carries a deep, unspoken love for him.
What is the treasure in the pyramid?
It is the hoard of Pharaoh Menkau-ra, kept inside his own mummy for Egypt's greatest need and guarded by a curse. Harmachis shows it to Cleopatra in the pyramid called Her, after she swears to use it for Egypt.