Jean-Léon Gérôme, French
“Surprise, Caesar! I Hid Myself Inside This Carpet You Had Delivered. That Was Actually Plan B, After I Couldn’t Fit in the Domino’s Pizza Box,” 1866
Oil on canvas
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Info about this artist can be found at an earlier blog entry.
/// Youthful Queen stands before Roman geezer.
They’re, of course, Cleopatra and Cæsar.
Julius sees her. He yearns
to induce carpet burns
on bare flesh. Then she let Julius seize her.
/// Cleo poses in just that position
to enhance her breasts on exhibition,
while Calpurnia’s bust
Cæsar never discussed.
Like his wife, they’re above all suspicion.
/// Plutarch wrote this “meet cute” situation,
and the scene’s an erotic sensation.
Cæsar sits stern and smug.
Cleo writhes from a rug.
But, it turns out it’s just mistranslation.
/// The real means by which she was conveyed
was not quite what Gérôme has portrayed.
The Queen didn’t unroll
from a carpet. She stole
from a bag smuggled in by an aide.
/// It was Cæsar who traveled from Rome.
Came to Egypt, across wine-dark foam. .
Cleo’s half in the bag.
Carpet? No. Scalawag!
Shagged the man who invaded her home.
/// Cæsar’s battle tales tended toward preachy,
and his voice when excited got screechy.
Still, she needed his fame,
thus, in Latin, he came,
screeching Veni, Cleo, vedi, vici!