Sardou's Cleopatra — page 98: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

5 SARDOU’S CLEOPATRA, 83 neat the broad window was a couch, covered with embroidered cushions, for Cleopatra always pre- ferred reclining to sitting, knowing full well that the former attitudelent itself more readily to pic- turesque poses, At intervals, upon brackets fixed to the walls, were busts of the greatest Greek philosophers and poets, and side by side hung the tragic and the comic mask, for the queen was passionately fond of theatrical. repre- sentations of every description. Above the couch were the busts of Sappho, the ill-fated poetess of Lesbos, and Aspasia, the brilliant friend of Pert- cles. Cleopatra lay among the silken cushions, attended by Charmian, and surrounded by men all eminent in their various callings. Near by, were slaves holding architectural and astronomi- » cal instruments. As Iras entered, her uncle, Serapion, the grand priest of Isis, was reading aloud from a sacred book, supported upon the back of an acolyte of the temple. — “Athyr is chaos, profound darkness, the bed beneath the waters where the world awoke. Pirami is day, the radiant spirit. Kneph is the creator, the father of all the gods. Phtah, his =} comicbooks