Glory and the Lightning

Editorial Review - Kirkus Reviews Like Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, there was Pericles and Aspasia and with a ""dulcitude of nightingales"" along with her usual implementation of period detail, Miss Caldwell tells their story in three parts: Aspasia's from the time when even as a child she had ""myriad eyes, all developed"" as was the rest of her to become a hetaira and one of the reluctant harem wives of the Persian Al Taliph against whom she rebels for her sex (dulcitudinous reverberations of early Women's Lib); and of Pericles, the confident, progressive, expansionist political leader -- ""a formidable man"" the ""least impetuous"" until he meets Aspasia and for him it's ""rapture and ecstasy and beguilements"" and for her ""transports"" even just as she is bearing his son. Less enthralled however with this relationship were the Athenians and Pericles comes under greater and greater attack, he is accused of poisoning his best friend, and lo and verily behold dies ""of grief"" in Aspasia's arms. . . . For all those ""mere mortals"" -- many, many, many.