Life, 1928-09-06 · page 29 of 44
Life — September 6, 1928 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **Coca-Cola advertisement** disguised as literary satire. The page quotes Shakespeare's *Antony and Cleopatra* (Act II, Scene 2)—Enobarbus's famous description of Cleopatra: "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety." The ad's joke: Shakespeare was unknowingly praising Coca-Cola, not Cleopatra. The copy claims the famous line applies equally well to the "Coca-Cola girl"—the attractive woman featured in the company's advertising campaigns. The illustration shows costumed figures (appearing to represent Antony and Cleopatra) alongside modern characters drinking Coke, visually collapsing the ancient world into contemporary America. The satire is gentle and self-aware: by yoking high literature to commercial product promotion, Life mocks both Shakespeare-worship and advertising's absurd claims. The final stat ("8 million a day") grounds the literary flourish in sales figures—profit, not poetry, is the real story.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
What Shakespeare says about Coca-Cola *“‘Agecannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety”? ~ Speaking through Mr. Enobarbus, Mr. Shakespeare spoke high, wide and hand- some. Yet he was only saying in poetry what you can hear any day in good United States prose about the Coca-Cola girl—the fair one you see everywhere so temptingly suggesting that you “refresh yourself.” fay Pigeon 8 million— a day IT HAD TO BE GOOD TO GET WHERE IT 1S ecm The Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta, Ga. comicbooks.com