Cleopatra's Supper
"Two only pearles there were together, the fairest and richest that ever have been known in the world; and those possessed at one time by Cleopatra, the last Queen of Egypt, which came into her hands by the means of the great kings of the East, and were left unto her by descent. This princesse, when M. Anthony had strained himself to doo her all the pleasure he possibly could, and had feasted her day by day most sumptuously, and spared for no cost, in the height of her pride and wanton travesie (as being a noble curtesan and queene withal), began to debase the expense and provision of Anthony, and make no reckoning of his costly fare. When he demanded again how it was possible to go beyond this magnificence of his, she answered again that she should spend upon him in one supper 100 hundred thousand sestertii (10 millions).* Anthony, who would needs know how that might be (for he thought it was impossible), laid a great wager with her about it, and she bound it again and made it good. The morrow after, when this was to be tried, and the wager to be either won or lost, Cleopatra made Anthony a supper (because she could not make default and let the day appointed to passe) which was * Ten million sestertii are equal to twenty million pence. Clove sumptuous and royal enough; howbeit there was no extraordinary service seen upon the board: whereat Anthony laughed her to scorne, and by way of mockerie, required to see a bill with the account of the particulars. She againe said, that whatsoever had been served up already, was but the overplus above the rate and proportion in question, affirming still that shee would yet in that supper make up the full summe that she was seezed at ; yea, herself alone would eat above that reckoning, and her own supper should cost 600 hundred thousand sestertii (60 millions), and with that commanded the second service to be brought in. The servitours that waited at her trencher (as they had in charge before) set before her one only cruet of sharpe vinegar, the strength whereof is able to dissolve pearles. Now she had at her eares hanging those two most precious pearles, the singular and onely jewels of the world, and even nature's wonder. As Anthony looked wistfully upon and expected what shee would do, shee took one of them from her eare, steeped it in vinegar, and so soon as it was liquefied, dranke it off. And as she was about to do the like by the other, L. Plancus, the judge of that wager, laid fast hold upon it with his hand, and pronounced withal that Anthony had lost the wager. Whereat the man feli into a passion of anger. There was an end of one pearle; but the fame of the fellow thereof may go with it; for after that this brave Queene, the winner of so great a wager, was taken prisoner, and deprived of her royal estate, that other pearle was cut in twaine, that in memorial of that one half supper of theirs it should remaine unto posteritie, hanging at both eares of Venus at Rome in the temple Pantheon."