Favorite Historical Femme Fatale?

[SiobhanClancy]

Poll question: Favorite Historical Femme Fatale?

I'm really bored tonight.
No quibbling about definitions:)

[mikehiggins]

1. She knew what she wanted

and she knew how to get it. A brilliant, brilliant woman in a world totally dominated by men.

I think she won Caesar over by her audacity and brains.

Anthony? Ehhh, the man was a dog.

[jfxgillis]

2. No quibbling?!?!?

Then what the heck will the subsequent 80 posts refer to?

[SiobhanClancy]

3. lol...

Just because I SAY no quibbling doesn't mean there won't be any...nobody listens to me:)

[greatauntoftriplets]

10. I voted for Eleanor of Aquitaine because she won.

Though (like you) I have a fondness for Anne Boleyn. Felt a real something when I stood where she had been beheaded at the Tower of London.

[SiobhanClancy]

12. Yes,Eleanor was an amazing woman...

Of course,she wasn't English:)
I'll never forget standing by the site of the scaffold at the Tower and being chased by that raven...he(or she!) tried to bite me!

[joeybee12]

21. Went with Eleanor--know of any books about her? I only found one

and I can't recall the title. She was fascinating, especially for the time she lived in.

[CBHagman]

25. There are plenty of books about Eleanor of Aquitaine

I don't know if it's still in print, but there's "Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings." Okay, history buffs, who are the four kings of the title?

I also think Antonia Fraser or someone like that has done a biography of her.

There are at least two novels about Eleanor of Aquitaine, including the recent "Book of Eleanor," which I didn't much care for, and E.L. Konigsburg's "A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver," which I DO recommend. The latter is a novel in which Eleanor is up in heaven, waiting for her second husband to be released from purgatory and join her in the next life.

[joeybee12]

27. Thanks

[joeybee12]

30. Four Kings? Easy! Peter O'Toole, Anthony Hopkins, Nigel Terry and

Timothy Dalton!

[supernova]

31. Timothy Dalton?

Wasn't he a bit young for Lion in Winter?

That's easy: Louis of France, Henry II of England, John I of England, and Richard The Lionhearted who was never home b/c of the Crusades and whom Eleanor raised up enough ransom money to get his ass out of jail in Germany on the way home.

[terrya]

26. There's a biography of Eleanor of Aquataine by Alison Weil.

I believe that's how the author's name is spelled.

The book is quite good. Very scholarly, but an entertaining read.

[joeybee12]

29. Thanks--that might be the one I read--it's been a while

Couldn't find much in a search of the database of the library.

[mitchum]

4. went with the face that launched a thousand ships

[supernova]

5. Eleanor of Aquitaine

The Hillary of the 12th Century! :D

How many women get to not only trade one crown for another, but gain a younger man in the process?

She road everybody .... HARD!! }(

[jobycom]

6. Eleanor! Was married to the king of France, got pissed at him

left him for the King of England and took half his country with her. She's got my vote.

Though you could have included Alexandra Romanov, too. Her relationship, though probably platonic, with Rasputin helped bring down that empire.

[Rowdyboy]

9. Alexandra Romanov was too middle-class,

family dominated, flat out boring to be a decent "femme fatale". She was dense and gave HORRIBLE advice which her weakling of a husband usually took-to his destruction.

[dolo amber]

7. All good choices, BUT`

Lucrezia Borgia (supposedly) had that really cool poison ring...it was like a medieval James Bond gadget! :bounce:

[Rowdyboy]

8. Eleanor of Aquitane....

Though the Lion in Winter was fictionalized, the lines ring true...

"Of course he has a knife. We all have knives. Its 1183 and we're all barbarians"

"Hush, dear, mother's fighting"

"Fragile, I am not. Affection is a pressure I can bear!"

I must see this movie again!

[Kenneth ken]

11. that is a great film

incredibly good script!

[Aristus]

23. How about:

"Good, good Louis. If I had managed sons for him instead of all those little girls, I'd still be stuck with being Queen of France, and we would not have known one another. Such, my angels, is the role of sex in history."

Eleanor had it goin' ON!

[terrya]

24. A magnificent film and play.

"I'd hang you from the nipples, but it would shock the children"

"How dear of you to let me out of jail"

"I continually marvel at the quickness of your mind"

[CBHagman]

32. We practically need a "Lion in Winter" thread.

That is one of the most quotable movies around, and it's SO APPROPRIATE for the holidays. Frankly, I think internecine squabbles and the outing of one's gay son are COMPLETELY appropriate themes for this season.

Another quote:

On greeting arriving family at Christmas: "What shall we hang, the holly or each other?"

[Tredge]

13. I abstain! And not sexually, but from this vote!

Really what I want to know is, what's a "Femme Fatale?" I get the feeling there are people here who know but are hiding the truth.

[Kenneth ken]

15. femme fatale

Definition: a woman who is considered to be dangerously seductive

Synonyms: Delilah, enchantress, siren, temptress

See Also: adult female, woman

[The Magistrate]

14. Catherine The Great

One of the best things to ever happen to Mother Russia.

[Kenneth ken]

16. I finally decided

on Cleo.

for the other curious, I looked up Nell Gwynn:
Nell Gwynn was born in 1650. Grew up as a true child of the London streets. "At the age of 15 was an excellent singer and dancer. Although illiterate, she became a leading actress at the age of 18 and the mistress of King Charles II. She persuaded the King to name her son by him as the Duke of St. Albans. Nell Gwynn was beloved by the public and died in Chelsea in 1687."

[SiobhanClancy]

18. The supposed last words of Charles II...

"Don't let poor Nelly starve":)

[DivinBreuvage]

17. Here are two great ones, both forgotten today, alas

Honoria (sister of the late Roman emperor Valentinian III). She fell in love with the palace steward and may have become pregnant by him. When the affair was discovered the steward was killed and Honoria was shut away. Somehow she managed to get her ring smuggled to Attila the Hun, requesting him to take her side. He treated this as a marriage proposal and demanded half the Western Roman Empire for his dowry, consequently invading with an absolutely enormous army and destroying the cities of Rheims, Mainz, Strasbourg, Cologne, Worms and Trier before being defeated and forced to withdraw at Châlons, one of the most decisive battles in history as it saved Western European culture from Barbarian annihilation!

My personal favorite is a mythological figure (though probably based on a real woman) tied to the Trojan war, but it is not Helen: it is her sister Clytemnestra (or Klytaimnestra), wife of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. Agamemnon abandoned her for ten years to fight the Trojan war for his brother Menelaus, who was married to Helen. The age being what it was, it wasn't Agamemnon's abandonment or sleeping with enslaved Trojan women that bothered Clytemnestra so much (though she was so furious when he dared to bring home the beautiful bedslave and former Trojan princess Cassandra that she killed her). In fact Clytemnestra herself took a lover, Aegisthus (the brother of her first husband, who was killed by Agamemnon). She did, however, have a real problem when Agamemnon sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia to secure a fair wind for Troy. In revenge, she and Aegisthus plotted to kill Agamemnon when he got back. Then Clytemnestra was murdered by her children Orestes and Electra. Orestes went crazy and Aeschylus got to milk three of literature's greatest plays out of the whole sad mess.

So we see there is truly nothing new under the sun. Even the ancient Greeks had their soap operas.

Here are two others, from the Bible:

1. Jael the Kenite woman, who invited the Canaanite commander Sisera, the scourge of the Hebrews, into her tent as he was fleeing from defeat on the battlefield. She comforted and cared for him until he fell asleep, then she got a hammer and drove a tent-stake through his head!

2. Judith of Bethulia, who captured the heart (or another organ) of the Assyrian general Holofernes (another scourge of the Jews) and, after he got drunk at a banquet, chopped off his head! (the big one, I presume.)

Francoise

[Rowdyboy]

19. Then there's Lorena Bobbitt...

:scared:

[Loonman]

20. Cleopatra - the teen queen who seduced an empire. Twice.

Man, if I had a time machine.......

[Drifter]

22. What !?!?! - no Suzie CreamCheese ?

"Is another ploy to to memorialize Frank Zappa of the 10 anniversary of his Final Tour"

Cheers
Drifter

[supernova]

28. Does every thread have to have a

Frank Zappa reference?