Asterix and Cleopatra (comic)

Asterix and Cleopatra (French original title: Astérix et Cléopâtre ) is a comic from the Asterix series by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo . In it, the heroes Asterix and Obelix travel to Egypt together with the druid Miraculix to help the builder of Queen Cleopatra with the completion of a new palace that is the subject of a bet with Caesar . It was first published in 1963 in the comic magazine Pilote as a one- to two-page sequel and in 1965 as an album. In German, this album is not the sixth, but the second volume, contrary to the French count.

action

The Roman ruler Julius Caesar tries to make it clear to Cleopatra that her people have now become decadent and must therefore be ruled by the Romans. This angered the Egyptian queen so much that she offered him a bet: within three months she would let Caesar build a magnificent palace in Alexandria . Sitting on her falcon throne, she commissioned the architect Numerobis to build this palace. She promises to shower him with gold if he is successful, but threatens him with a cruel death by crocodiles if he does not meet the deadline.

Numerobis then went to Gaul in the middle of winter to seek advice from his old friend Miraculix. He is ready to go to Egypt with Asterix and Obelix and to assist Numerobis. Obelix smuggles his dog Idefix in a travel bag on board the Egyptian ship, even though Asterix has refused to take the dog along, pointing out that Egypt is the land of cats. On the way, the Gauls meet the pirates, as they often do, but this time they prefer to sink their ship themselves to save themselves a few blows. After passing the Pharos lighthouse , the travelers arrive in Alexandria, where Cleopatra repeats her threat to the crocodiles.

When they arrived at the Numerobi's house, they realized that he really needed help: the building had numerous construction errors. This is also evident when Numerobis' main competitor Pyradonis appears. He offers to participate in the project, which Numerobis refuses. Angry, Pyradonis climbs back down the stairs, stumbles on the uneven and crooked steps and falls, whereupon a stone block falls from the ceiling on his head.

A little later, Pyradonis came to the palace construction site and incited the Egyptian workers to go on strike . But after Miraculix has prepared and distributed a pot of magic potion, work on the palace is made much easier and faster.

Pyradonis then sends his subordinate Schraubzieris to the quarries to prevent further stone deliveries for Numerobis' construction site. The leader of the ship's platoon goes into screwzieris' bribery, but is interrogated by Obelix with such resounding methods that he quickly confesses. Thereupon the Gauls decide to check the quarries for themselves. On the way they visit the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx . While trying to look at the view from the head of the Sphinx, Obelix breaks off its nose.

After Miraculix had himself portrayed by a souvenir dealer, the three Gauls followed the request of the screw ornaments, disguised as a tourist guide, to visit one of the pyramids from the inside. Obelix promises Idefix a bone if he is waiting for him outside. Screw ornaments can lock the Gauls in a chamber of the pyramid. Although Obelix can smash the slammed stone door thanks to the magic potion, but they can no longer find their way in the labyrinth. Eventually, however, they are tracked down by Idefix, who did not want to wait any longer, and led out of the pyramid.

While they are visiting Luxor , Schraubzieris reports to his master that the Gauls have escaped from the pyramid. Pyradonis then sends Cleopatra a poisoned cake that allegedly came from the Gauls. They have the cake checked by their taster , who immediately shows clear symptoms of poisoning. Thereupon the Gauls are arrested and locked in a dungeon. Miraculix brews an antidote , with which he succeeds in convincing Cleopatra that the cake was actually okay and only the taster was indisposed, whereupon Cleopatra dismisses her taster, which has been cured by the antidote.

Returning to the construction site, the Gauls must learn that Numerobis has disappeared. They find him wrapped in mummy bandages in a sarcophagus in Pyradonis' basement and then take Pyradonis and Schraubzieris prisoner and take them to their construction site as workers.

Caesar is surprised by the progress the construction is making and sends his spy Ginfiz to the construction site. The latter reports to him that the three indomitable Gauls are on site and are supplying Numerobis' workers with magic potions, whereupon Caesar seals off the construction site with legionnaires and has it shot at with onagers . Now the Gauls instruct secretaries to write a letter to Cleopatra about these events. Obelix insists that Idefix should deliver this message, but the latter does not understand what is being asked of him and only makes males before his master. In order to reconcile the exasperated Obelix, Asterix finally carries the dog to Cleopatra's palace, where he repeats his trick and is rewarded with a bone that the new taster checks first. The enraged Cleopatra then rushes to the construction site and makes bitter reproaches to Caesar, so that Caesar meekly promises to remove the damage caused by the catapult balls as quickly as possible.

The construction deadline can finally be met. Numerobis is showered with gold and is reconciled with Pyradonis. The Gauls return home on the Egyptian ship. On return, the traditional banquet will be held.

However, the trip has a small aftermath: Obelix now hacks his menhirs in the shape of an obelisk, which Chief Majestix dislikes very much.

Remarks

Historical background

Cleopatra is shown in the comic as an Egyptian , her outward appearance is North African. In relation to Caesar, she also emphasizes the size and cultural achievements of the Egyptian people to which she feels she belongs. In fact, the historical Cleopatra was not an Egyptian, but a Greek from the ancient Macedonian nobility. She belonged to the thin Hellenistic upper class that ruled the land on the Nile after the death of Alexander the Great . Greek was also the language at court, in administration and in the military. At that time Egypt was part of the Hellenistic cultural area, but the Greeks continued many of the Egyptian cults, and Egyptian and Greek ideas were also merged, for example in the form of the god Serapis . The Egypt of the comic in its representation corresponds more to traditional Egypt than to Roman times, so there are no references to the presence of Greek culture.

Cleopatra goes to the construction site in a cart that is being pulled by black-skinned Nubians . In fact, the Nubians were often portrayed as slaves in Egypt, but in reality they were not. Rather, they often served as soldiers and even provided the six pharaohs of the 25th Dynasty (around 750–657 BC).

Pearls dissolved in vinegar are named as Cleopatra's favorite food. This goes back to a report by Pliny the Elder in the ninth volume of his Naturalis historia , which, however, is based on a legend, since pearls do not dissolve in vinegar.

Allusions

In 1962 the monumental film Cleopatra with Liz Taylor , Richard Burton and Rex Harrison was shot. The comic quotes this film in several places; He takes over the representation of the throne of the Egyptian queen from the film as well as the car shown on p. 33. The cover picture of the comic, which was used until 2002, quoted the poster for the monumental film and alluded to the immense costs of the movie with its listing of the materials used for the band (in addition to various drawing utensils and 67 liters of beer).

A running gag in this volume is the allusion to Cleopatra's “pretty nose” - it alludes to a statement by Blaise Pascal : Le nez de Cléopâtre: s'il eût été plus court, toute la face du monde aurait changé. ( Cleopatra's nose: if it had been shorter, the entire face of the world would have changed. )

When Numerobis arrives with the Gauls, Asterix and Miraculix are playing a game of dice and Obelix predicts that the game 421 - which is very popular in France today - will never catch on.

Miraculix introduces Numerobis to the villagers as " Alexandrians ", which is a play on words. On the one hand he is saying that this is from Alexandria, on the other hand he means the meter of the sentence spoken by Numerobis in greeting ("I am, my dear friend, very happy to see you!").

Secretaris, the scribe of Numerobis, is a caricature of the seated scribe in the Louvre . From his perspective, he describes the languages now considered to be dead languages as living languages. During the interrogation of the skipper, he acts as a simultaneous translator; the hieroglyphs in the speech bubble of the interrogated person are actually an address to Osiris , which has actually been preserved in this form. In the speech bubbles of the Egyptians mostly pseudo hieroglyphs can be seen, only the texts that are directly necessary for understanding the action are shown in a "synchronized" version.

The broken nose of the Sphinx (in the comic by Obelix) causes all souvenir dealers to deface their knickknacks too. When visiting the pyramids, Miraculix quotes Napoleon's saying of July 21, 1798 " forty centuries look down on you ", but of course does not speak of 40 centuries, but of 2000 years.

During the tour of Luxor, Asterix declares the idea of erecting an obelisk in the village square to be ridiculous. Today the Luxor Obelisk , which was once in front of the Temple of Amun , stands on the Place de la Concorde in Paris.

On the way to Pyradonis' house, Asterix and Obelix pass an Egyptian-styled modern pedestrian crossing complete with a street sign. Pyradonis reads the " Pharaoh's Express" written on papyrus when they surprise him.

When saying goodbye to Cleopatra, Asterix recommends turning to his compatriots if she is planning a monumental building project, and mentions a connection between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. He is alluding to the Suez Canal and its French builder Ferdinand de Lesseps .

Anachronisms

The Egyptian ship is anachronistically equipped with an engine telegraph.

The south side of the Cheops pyramid with the well-known breach ( Vyse's Hole ) is also anachronistic in the comic . This was of course only blown into the building in 1837 by the British pyramid researcher Howard Vyse .

publication

Astérix et Cléopâtre was originally published from December 5, 1963 in 41 episodes in issues 215 to 257 of the comic book Pilote . Astérix et Cléopâtre first appeared as a single album in 1965 by Dargaud , from 1966 it was reprinted as the sixth volume in the series, and in 1999 a new edition was published by Hachette (now Groupe Lagardère ). The first German edition was published by Ehapa on January 15, 1969 ; it is number 2 in the series. Since 2002 the volume has been published with a different cover picture. Asterix and Cleopatra is one of the most successful Asterix volumes with more than 2.4 million German-language copies sold.

The comic served as a template for the cartoon Asterix and Cleopatra , released in 1968, and for the real- life film Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra , released in 2002 .

Web links