The American Spectator

p>The night before Deborah Jean Palfrey took a length of nylon rope and stepped into her mother’s garden shed in a trailer park in Florida to hang herself, I went to see a production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Shakespeare Theatre of Washington. Among that play’s memorable lines, you will remember, are those of Cleopatra’s resolution on the death of Antony who, having been defeated in battle by Octavius Caesar, falls on his own sword rather than allow himself to fall into the hands of his enemy. “We’ll bury him,” says Cleopatra to her maid-servants, br> /p> blockquote> em>and then, what’s brave, what’s noble, br> Let’s do it after the high Roman fashion, br> And make death proud to take us. /em> /blockquote> br> The rest of the story is well known, and the magnificence of the Shakespearean language continues with her to the end, through br> blockquote> em>Show me, my women, like a queen; go fetch