Both Uses of
Cleopatra
in
Moby Dick
- Like Mark Antony, for days and days along his green-turfed, flowery Nile, he indolently floats, openly toying with his red-cheeked Cleopatra, ripening his apricot thigh upon the sunny deck.†
Chpt 52-54 *
- Towards noon whales were raised; but so soon as the ship sailed down to them, they turned and fled with swift precipitancy; a disordered flight, as of Cleopatra's barges from Actium.†
Chpt 82-84
Definition:
last Pharaoh of ancient Egypt; beautiful and charismatic queen; mistress of Julius Caesar and later of Mark Antony; killed herself to avoid capture by Octavian (69-30 BC)