I was one of the millions around the world who watched on TV the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Like many others, I was captivated by the glamour of the wedding. In the moments of watching it, I said of Meghan Markle the Cleopatra in Windsor.
I also thought of Prince Harry as one of the virtuous men who would happily meet his late Princess mother in spirit, after a long life in this world.
I imagined that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's love story inspired Britain's monarchy to amend its historical adventure to colonize the rest of the world. The sun never sets in Britain is expressive of that adventure. I would have preferred to use here prospired, instead of inspired, if such a word existed, to express my feeling at the time I was watching the glamourous wedding.
In my limited reading of history, I happened to remember Cleopatra as a legendary Egyptian Pharaoh that shines in history. So, I didn't have any second thought about calling her at the time the Cleopatra in Windsor.
I am also one of the millions around the world who heard about her life experience in Britain after that glamorous wedding and saddened by it. Who wouldn't feel sad for Prince Harry whose Princess mother was taken away from him at that young age, when she was at her prime in her journey of life, and then his wife had to go through the ordeal that made him worry about history repeating itself? Who wouldn't feel sad that even in her darkest days in life, the late Princess Diana had the virtuous imagination of futures for her husband, the monarchy, and herself and that her future was cut short even after that virtuous imagination was expressed and heard?
The recent interview by Oprah Winfrey reminded me of the day of the wedding and made me ask what I might have missed as I watched it.
I did a little more reading about Cleopatra to check what I might have missed. Some suggest she was Egyptian while others suggest she was Greek who lived in Egypt following ancient Egyptian religion and died in Egypt. I also read that her father was the Egyptian Pharaoh Ptolemy. So, I have to ask how Cleopatra was made Greek if her father was an Egyptian Pharaoh. Some appear to agree that he was a Pharaoh who was later elevated to a King, suggesting that the title Pharaoh is less qualified than the title King. That sounded like a Donald Trump supporter saying a King is better than a President.
Reading a little more didn't give me any second thought. It rather reinforced my initial intuition. It even led me to a further historical treasure, especially if I were a researcher of history. One of the historical accounts that Ptolemy was an Egyptian Pharaoh came from a Persian astronomer that used the traditional title Abba. To explain this traditional title using a simple analogy, if X is married to Y and the two give birth to Z as the firstborn child, X would then be known as Abba Z. If I am not mistaken, calling Z Wedi Y is more popular among our Tigrigna speaking community. Using these traditional namings for Prince Harry would be calling him Abba Archie and Wedi Diana, respectively.
I would leave the research of history to students of history. As I do that, I can't stop wondering where in the world a Tulema Egyptologist has been, if the history of Pharaoh Ptolemy reminds him or her of anything about that of Ras Gobana, if the area near Addis Ababa thought to be an ancient source from where humans disbursed, according to a DNA study published several years ago in one of the leading journals Science, arouses him or her for further research. I can only add that it reinforces my metaphoric use of the word Finfinne to refer to that source published in that journal instead of the city.
As a student of science, I pay homage to Isaac Newton as one of the giants of science who happened to have come out of Britain. I would be hardpressed to find any scientist who thinks he wasn't one of the giants of science. Also as a student of science, I would argue that there would be no Isaac Newton without Algebra. I would also be hardpressed to find any scientist who would think that there would be an Isaac Newton without Algebra. I think that even he was in agreement with me on this when he was humble enough to write: "If I have seen further, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants." It suffices to add here that Cleopatra and Algebra were closer to each other in both space and time than Newton was to either of them geographically.
As a student of the English language, I can only respect the works of William Shakespeare. At the same time, I also understand that there are many older languages around the world and that many speakers of those other older languages who happen to be also students of the English language may be able to parse it better than the native English speakers.
As a student of geography, I understand that the British Island is a little fraction of the habitable part of Planet Earth, much of it not as cold as the island.
So, why does the present day monarchy of little Britain feel entitled to insult the rest of the giant world by unleashing its littletons on the Cleopatra in Windsor?