Sunday, February 18, 2007

Her Infinite Variety

The other day I was watching Peter Egan on television, quoting Shakespeare. These very famous lines reverberated in my mind:

"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. Other women cloy the appetites they feed, but she makes hungry where most she satisfies."

When Shakespeare wrote those immortal lines about Cleopatra, he rendered her immortal. When I was a child, I was convinced that one day I would do something that would make me famous and immortal too. Nowadays, I think I don’t really want to be famous or immortal. I would however like to be indelible from the minds of people I meet. Not because of any one particular ability or charm, but for the same reasons as Cleopatra – because of infinite variety. What does it take to be a woman of infinite variety? How many things constitute the infinite? I have a new fancy every week, and try as hard as possible to dabble in as many things as I can, provided they interest me. Is that enough? Perchance, I already am a woman of infinite variety! Or maybe my variety needs to be enriched by things that I have not hitherto tried or experimented with.

That is my ideal, and if Cleopatra was that woman, I would like to be her. Sans the asp, of course!

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