Caesar and Cleopatra
By Bernard Shaw
Cover: Cleopatra and Caesar (1866), oil sketch on panel by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (artist died 1904)
Julius Caesar, a middle-aged man of dry wit, finds the sixteen-year-old Cleopatra hiding between the paws of the Sphinx and teaches her to rule while Alexandria is under siege. Shaw's history play asks what a wise man really sees in a dazzling and cruel girl.
Summary written with Claude Sonnet 5.5.