THE PERSONALITY OF CLEOPATRA VII essays

THE PERSONALITY OF CLEOPATRA VII essays Cleopatra VIIs personal abilities, such as her apparent intellectual ease for learning and her political awareness along with her personal attributes, such as her suggested beauty or captivating presence led her to be viewed in equally positive and negative ways in both the Roman and Hellenistic worlds. Her background, social position and status, and rise to prominence also helped generate the idea that she was a woman who could threaten many men around her. Many people (especially the Romans) did not like her because she, being Queen of Egypt, presented a danger to the Roman Empire. Cleopatra was one of the most powerful leaders of that time, so unavoidably people either held her in esteem or disliked her intensely. The relevance of Cleopatras background is significant when attempting to understand her personality and her rise to prominence. Firstly, she belonged to the Ptolemy Family, a royal family notorious for incest and vicious infighting. It may be the supposedly unstable nature implied of the Ptolemy family that can be held responsible for the fact that some people did not trust her and saw her as an unstable and therefore unpredictable ruler. It can also be said that because the Ptolemies were often viewed as particularly inept and poor specimens of humanity it may have damaged her rule before it had even begun as people may have thought the same of her. Rather paradoxically, Cleopatra was believed to be highly regarded socially unlike her family was. Famous historian Plutarch says that she was to be of a rather exalted position. Knowing several languages, being very intelligent and being able to captivate her listeners when she spoke would have intimidated the Romans because she had the ability to influence Rome s men and use them for her benefit. Appian once said in his Civil Wars that when Cleopatra met Mark Antony (he) was amazed at her wit as well as her good looks a...

Thanking in French - Merci et Les Autres Remerciements

Thanking in French - Merci et Les Autres Remerciements You all know â€Å"merci†. But there are different ways to say thank you in French, as well as different meanings to the word. Merci: The Common Way of Saying Thank You in French â€Å"Merci† is ‘thank you’. Its pronounced â€Å"mair see† with an open ‘ay’ sound not a closed ‘ur’ sound. You can make it stronger by saying â€Å"merci beaucoup† – ‘thank you very much’. Note that the very is included, you cannot say â€Å"merci trà ¨s beaucoup†. To say ‘a thousand thanks’ we say â€Å"mille mercis† or â€Å"merci mille fois†. It’s pretty common in French as it is in English. You usually accompany a vocal â€Å"merci† with a smile, and it implies that you accept whatever is being offered to you. However, if you want to refuse something, you could say â€Å"non merci†, or even just say â€Å"merci† with a hand gesture, showing your palm to the person in front of you in a kind of stop gesture.  You make shake your head â€Å"no† at the same time. You may smile or not, depending on how firm you want the  refusal to be. When you thank someone, they may answer merci toi / vous - in English, youd say thank YOU, with the emphasis on the you, meaning I am the one thanking you. Je Vous/Te Remercie Pour... I Thank You For in French Another way to say ‘thank you’ is to use the verb â€Å"remercier†. â€Å"Remercier†, ‘to thank’ is followed by a direct object (so it will take the pronouns me, te, le, la, nous, vous, les), and then by â€Å"pour† ‘for’, just as it is in English. Je vous/te remercie pour ce dà ©licieux dà ®ner. I thank you for this delicious dinner meal. Note that the verb â€Å"remercier† has a stem in â€Å"i†, so the final sound will often be a vowel, just like the verb â€Å"à ©tudier†. Je vous/te remercie pour les fleurs – I thank you for the flowers.Je voulais vous/te remercier pour votre/ta gentillesse – I wanted to thank you for your kindness. Using â€Å"remercier† is very formal in French, much less common than using â€Å"merci†. Click here for more ways of expressing gratitude in French. Les Remerciements - The Thanks When talking about the thanks, the noun, you’d use the noun â€Å"le/les remerciement(s)†, usually used in the plural. Tu as les remerciements de Susan – you have Susan’s thanks.Je voudrais lui adresser mes remerciements – I would like to send him/her my thanks. No Thanksgiving in France Thanksgiving  is not a French holiday at all, and most French people have never heard of it. They may have seen some Thanksgiving dinner on a sitcom on TV, but probably discarded the info. There is no Black Friday sale in France either.   In Canada, Thanksgiving is called â€Å"l’Action de Grà ¢ce(s)† with or without an S and is celebrated pretty much in the same fashion as in the US, but on the second Monday of October. Thank You  Notes in France Its somewhat less common in France to write une carte de remerciement. I mean, its not uncommon, and its very polite, but its not like in the Anglo-Saxon countries  where Thank You cards are a huge market. If youve been treated to something really special, you can absolutely send a thank you card or a handwritten note, but dont expect your French friend to necessarily reciprocate. Its not rude of them, its just not that deeply rooted in our politeness.