Octavian Caesar's Frustration

The sheer silk stockings I had long heard of
were---as she said abruptly---meant for love,
not politics.  She swore her stockinged feet
would never trace the rise of my conceit.
Such prim defiance I will not abide:
make sure her death appears as suicide.

 

Starward

Author's Notes/Comments: 

A minor hypothesis, involving Octavian Caesar and Cleopatra after the Battle of Actium.  Is it, I wonder, a plausible alternative to the traditional interpretation?

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