One of Haggard's earlier works, Cleopatra is downright sinister in its revelations about human greed, lust, and revenge. Love does not operate other than to fuel lust on the part of Harmachis, greed on the part of Cleopatra, and revenge on the part of Charmion, the frustrated would-be lover of Harmachis who drags Harmachis into destruction with her. Indeed, all are concerned with vengeance in this novel, even the gods and their priests. Never have I read such an ending to any of Haggard's books. He leaves us in Cleopatra without hope for this world or the next, the latter being even more terrible than the brief time spent across our Earthly lifespan.

Otherwise, the book is notable for Haggard's use of archaic language throughout. I'm not sure it's as successful as it could be--often veering into the inauthentic rather than verisimilitude. I have read instances where Haggard salts his characters' speech with archaic words and phrases, and it all works quite well. But it does so because it is sampled and mixed in among the vitality of his present day language. Here, in Cleopatra, its use has the feel of cobwebs sprayed into the set of a haunted castle on a movie set. It feels unreal; it is unreal. And we are left with a carpet of death but no feeling of remorse for anyone. ( )

I won a copy of this book on Library Thing.

This was a neat book. I like that it was taken from a different point of view, another man who was is love with Cleopatra. Book claims to be a translation of a roll of papyrus. ( )

During the reign of Cleopatra, Harmachis, the rightful Pharaoh of Egypt by blood descent, is charged by the priests and Egyptian citizens to assassinate her and take the throne. However, he falls in love with the beautiful and cunning queen, is unable to carry out his mission, betrays Egypt and the goddess Isis, and pretty much brings everything he touches to ruin.

This book was really hard to get through, mainly because of the archaic language. It read like the Bible with all of the "thou hasts" and "thou shalts," etc. On top of that, Harmachis tells us in the first chapter that he's in prison writing his story, so you know what's going to happen from the beginning of the novel. There were some episodes of his story that were glossed over in a few paragraphs and not even worth mentioning, and there were other episodes that rambled on for far more pages than they should have. I'm glad to be done with it and not really looking forward to the other three Haggard novels that are bound in the same book with this one. ( )

In Egypte ontdekt men in een graftombe een eenvoudig graf, dat de overblijfselen van een duidelijk levend begraven man bevat, met drie papyrusrollen die door hem zelf beschreven blijken te zijn. Hoe hij Egypte weer een farao had moeten geven, faalde door de sluwheid en schoonheid van Cleopatra, en hoe hij tenslotte wraak nam. Die wraak woog niet op tegen zijn falen, volgens zijn rechters.

An ancient scroll is discovered wherein in set forth the account of the life of Harmachis. Born of an ancient and royal Egyptian bloodline, he was groomed to become a Pharoah--but to do so the current ruler, Cleopatra, would need to be gotten rid of. Harmachis goes through a lot of training as an Egyptian priest then his supporters put him into a position to take care of Cleopatra. But what they didn't figure on was the power of a woman's charms.
This old-fashioned yarn is full of a lot of adventure and depictions of grandeur. I enjoyed listening to it though I would get lost in the midst of a pompous diatribe every once in a while. Not very historically accurate, I am sure, but fun to read or listen to nonetheless. ( )