Seductress (58 page)

190
She defiled the . . . :
Quoted ibid., 238 and 176.

190
George Eliot compared . . . :
Quoted ibid., 228. See her fictionalization in Brontë’s
Villette,
ed. Geoffrey Tillotson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971), Chapter 23, 216-27.

190
When she was . . . :
Quoted in Richardson,
Rachel,
xi.

190
Perhaps in her . . . :
Quoted ibid., 60.

191
The passions aroused . . . :
See a discussion of the scholars who advance this theory of the indelibility of these ancient rites on the subpsyche in Goodrich,
Priestesses,
9. Ernst Cassirer, for example, claims that a ritual act is “based upon such strong emotion that its underlying meaning seizes [people] in an unforgettable vise of common experience.” Goodrich also cites Mircea Eliade, Carl Jung, and Jean Seznec.

191
With the artist’s . . . :
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,
Creativity
(New York: HarperPerennial, 1996), 59.

193
This work, by . . . :
Baudrillard,
Seduction,
1 and 69.

195
As John Knox . . . :
Quoted in Fraser,
Warrior Queens,
204.

196
Men of course . . . :
Several authors specifically discuss this male dread of female political authority. See Lederer, “On Queens and Amazons,”
Fear of Women,
99-106; Hays, “The Serpent of the Nile,”
Dangerous Sex,
159-67; and Virginia M. Allen, “The
Machtweib,
”
The Femme Fatale
(Troy, N.Y.: Whitston Publishing Company, 1983), 15-37.

197
In a culture . . . :
See more about Cleopatra’s “authority of a goddess,” in Guy Weill Goudchaux, “Cleopatra’s Subtle Religious Strategy,”
Cleopatra of Egypt from History to Myth,
ed. Susan Walker and Peter Higgs (London: British Museum Press, 2001), 129, and Michael Grant,
Cleopatra
(New York: Barnes & Noble, 1972), 118.

197
Contrary to her . . . :
Ernle Bradford,
Cleopatra
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972), 267.

197
She looked more . . . :
Few contemporary portraits, except a handful of coins, survive. Archaeologists adduce on the basis of contemporary aristocratic female mummies that she was small of stature—under five feet—and full-bodied. See Goudchaux, “Was Cleopatra Beautiful?,”
Cleopatra of Egypt from History to Myth,
210-214.

198
With her brother’s . . . :
See Goudchaux for a good summary of the decline of the empire. In less than fifty years the borders of the Egyptian empire had been steadily eroded by the Roman proconsuls, 18-19.

198
As the “living . . .”:
Quoted in Edith Flamarion,
Cleopatra: The Life and Death of a Pharaoh,
trans. Alexandra Bonfante-Warren (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997), 32.

198
But Cleopatra “spellbound” . . . :
Quoted in Bradford,
Cleopatra,
69.

198
Captivated by her . . . :
Flamarion,
Cleopatra,
34, and quoted ibid., 36.

199
“I am Isis . . .”:
Quoted in Baring and Cashford,
Myth of the Goddess,
268-69.

199
Cleopatra’s grand opera . . . :
Bradford,
Cleopatra,
152.

199
Eight dinners were . . . :
Plutarch, “Mark Antony,”
Makers of Rome,
trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert (New York: Penguin, 1965), 295, and Bradford,
Cleopatra,
116.

200
She practiced a . . . :
Plutarch, “Mark Antony,” 296.

200
Even Antony’s general . . . :
Quoted in Grant,
Cleopatra,
180 and 195.

201
Loathed by the . . . :
Ibid., 178.

201
Even a feminist . . . :
Betty Millan,
Monstrous Regiment: Women Rulers in Men’s Worlds
(Berks, U.K.: Kensal Press, 1982), 31.

201
Antony fell on . . . :
William Shakespeare,
The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra,
ed. Barbara Everett (New York: Signet, 1964), act II, scene ii, line 190, and quoted in Judith Thurman, “The Queen Himself,”
New Yorker
(May 7, 2001), 75.

201
“I know I . . .”:
Quoted in Paul Johnson,
Elizabeth I
(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974), 320.

201
Brought to the . . . :
Quoted in “Elizabeth I of England,”
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Macropedia (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1997), vol. 18, 244.

202
Every move was . . . :
Guida M. Jackson,
Women Who Ruled
(New York: Barnes & Noble, 1990), 63.

202
Early on she learned . . . :
Ibid., 63.

202
“God hath raised . . .”:
Quoted in Anne Somerset,
Elizabeth I
(New York: St. Martin’s, 1991), 58 and 60.

202
Cut to the cleavage . . . :
Quoted in Alison Weir,
The Life of Elizabeth I
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1998), 35 and 237.

202
During the procession . . . :
Quoted in Somerset,
Elizabeth I,
71.

202
Confronting unprecedented hostility . . . :
Quoted in
The Horizon Book of the Elizabethan World,
ed. Richard M. Ketchum and Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. (New York: American Heritage Publishing, 1967), 77.

203
“Flirtation was her . . .”:
Weir,
Life of Elizabeth I,
18.

203
Elizabeth astutely safeguarded . . . :
Quoted ibid., 26.

203
She put men . . . :
Quoted in
Horizon Book,
77.

203
Elizabeth’s much-touted virginity . . . :
There is some speculation that they consummated the relationship or came close to it since Elizabeth, believing herself to be on her deathbed during a smallpox attack, swore “nothing improper” passed between them but left a lavish pension to the servant who slept in the room. See Elizabeth Jenkins’s account in
Elizabeth the Great
(New York: Coward McCann & Geoghegan, 1958), 99-100.

204
“I will have . . .”:
Quoted in Neville Williams,
The Life and Times of Elizabeth I
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972), 70.

204
Christopher Hatton, her . . . :
Ibid., 114 and 115.

204
All the while . . . :
Johnson,
Elizabeth I,
117.

204
“To have seen . . .”:
Quoted in Williams, 40.

204
She actively traded . . . :
Quoted in Weir,
Life of Elizabeth,
30.

205
They said she . . . :
Quoted in Mrs. Jameson,
Memoirs of Celebrated Female Sovereigns
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1839), 225.

205
After dethroning her husband . . . :
Quoted in Millan,
Monstrous Regiment,
207.

205
Eighteenth-century Russia, with . . . :
Marija Gimbutas retrieved many of the female cult figurines from Georgia near the Black Sea, the seedbed of the worship of the fertility deities. See her
The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe,
passim, and Fraser’s discussion of its impact on Russian female rulers,
Warrior Queens,
168-71 and 254-55.

205
Only the
Machtweib
’s . . . :
Quoted in Gamaliel Bradford,
Daughters of Eve
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1928), 166.

205
She endured ordeals, . . . :
Quoted in Vincent Cronin,
Catherine: Empress of All the Russias
(New York: William Morrow, 1978), 77.

206
Her mother disliked . . . :
Henri Troyat,
Catherine the Great,
trans. Joan Pinkham (New York: Berkley Books, 1980), 3.

206
Retaining her brio . . . :
Joan Haslip,
Catherine the Great
(New York: Putnam’s, 1977), 17. Catherine’s exact words were “I was never beautiful but I pleased,” quoted 19.

206
In stylish male . . . :
Ian Grey,
The Horizon History of Russia,
ed. Wendy Buehr (New York: American Heritage, 1970), 197.

206
Warm, gay, and funny . . . :
Quoted in Cronin,
Catherine,
75.

206
Robustly sexed, she . . . :
Ibid., 213.

206
There was the debonair . . . :
Quoted in Cliffe Howe,
Lovers and Libertines
(New York: Ace, 1958), 87.

207
She called herself . . . :
Robert Bly and Marion Woodman,
The Maiden King
(New York: Henry Holt, 1998), 41, and see the discussion of these Russian goddesses, 35-70 and passim.

207
“Creation,” she announced . . . :
Quoted in Cronin,
Catherine,
199.

207
An adept ego . . . :
Quoted ibid., 197.

207
Rather than direct confrontation . . . :
Quoted ibid., 197.

208
Yet, all told . . . :
Quoted in Troyat,
Catherine the Great,
183, and quoted in Fraser,
Warrior Queens,
255.

208
After Catherine decommissioned . . . :
Quoted in Howe,
Lovers and Libertines,
90.

208
Insisting on her right . . . :
Quoted ibid., 90.

208
She refused to . . . :
Quoted in Troyat,
Catherine the Great,
252.

208
Her last was . . . :
Quoted, ibid., 353.

208
On her deathbed . . . :
Quoted in Cronin,
Catherine,
299.

208
She was a multiple . . . :
Troyat,
Catherine the Great,
285.

208
“Autocracy,” she said . . . :
Quoted in
A Picture History of Russia,
ed. John Stuart Martin (New York: Bonanza Books, 1968), 103.

208
As Voltaire put . . . :
Italics mine. Quoted in Troyat,
Catherine the Great,
183.

209
Thereafter Inanna, the . . . :
Wolkstein and Kramer,
Inanna,
105 and 156, and Baring and Cashford,
Myth of the Goddess,
205.

209
The only true parts . . . :
Edward Gibbon,
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(New York: Modern Library, n.d.), vol. 2, 474.

209
She was the left . . . :
Quoted in Roberts,
Whores in History,
48.

210
According to tradition . . . :
Procopius,
The Secret History,
trans. G. A. Williamson (Middlesex, U.K.: Penguin, 1966), 86.

210
He was then forty, . . . :
Charles Diehl,
Theodora: Empress of Byzantium,
trans. Samuel R. Rosenbaum (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1972), 29.

210
Beautiful and fine-boned . . . :
Gibbon,
Decline and Fall,
481.

210
And she “knew . . .”:
Charles Diehl,
Byzantine Empresses,
trans. Harold Bell and Theresa Kerpely (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), 48.

210
She percolated with . . . :
Diehl,
Theodora,
30.

210
When he assumed . . . :
Ibid., 35. Also see Gibbon for a description of the vast magnitude and wealth of this empire.
Decline and Fall,
492-93.

210
Her resplendent apartments . . . :
Diehl,
Theodora,
47.

210
When she “wished . . .”:
Ibid., 12.

210
She paired “consummate . . .”:
Diehl,
Byzantine Empresses,
50.

211
“My dear sir,” she . . . :
Quoted in Diehl,
Theodora,
60.

211
“Mistress Eagle,” she . . . :
Quoted in Meador,
Inanna,
119.

211
With a “feel . . .”:
Diehl,
Theodora,
90.

211
“If flight,” she . . . :
Quoted in Gibbon,
Decline and Fall,
491.

212
Throughout their twenty-five . . . :
Diehl,
Theodora,
30.

212
As heiress of . . . :
Quoted in Meador,
Inanna,
148, and Robert Browning,
Justinian and Theodora
(New York: Praeger, 1971), 259.

212
But she, per . . . :
Quoted in Meador,
Inanna,
136.

212
He made members . . . :
Procopius,
Secret History,
90.

212
Throughout the Middle Ages . . . :
Desmond Seward,
Eleanor of Aquitaine
(New York: Barnes & Noble, 1978), 7, and quoted in Amy Kelly,
Eleanor of Aquitaine
(New York: Vintage, 1950), 127.

212
Known as the “woman . . .”:
Quoted in Regine Pernoud,
Eleanor of Aquitaine
(London: Collins, 1967), 266.

212
She was born . . . :
Quoted in Alison Weir,
Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England
(London: Pimlico, 2000), 7.

213
Schooled in the . . . :
Kelly,
Eleanor of Aquitaine,
10.

213
Nothing like Eleanor’s . . . :
Quoted in Seward,
Eleanor of Aquitaine,
34 and 35.

213
Her face paint . . . :
Quoted in Kelly,
Eleanor of Aquitaine,
28.