Four Tragedies and Octavia (25 page)

SENECA
:                                        Rather be loved.

NERO
: Fear is a subject's duty.

SENECA
:                                  Duties irk.

NERO
: We order, they obey.

SENECA
:                              Then give just orders –

NERO
: I shall decide.

SENECA
:                    – approved by their consent.

NERO
: The sword will win consent.

SENECA
:                                           May heaven forbid!

NERO
: Am I to tolerate conspiracy

Against my life, and make no retribution?

To suffer their contempt, and in the end

Be overthrown? Has banishment put down

Plautus and Sulla? From remotest exile

Their unrepentant zeal has furnished arms

To agents of their plot to murder me.

If absent outlaws' hopes can be sustained

By the enduring favour they command

Here in the city, nothing but the sword

Can rid me of suspected enemies.

My wife is one of them, and she must die,

Like her dear brother. What stands high, must fall.

SENECA
: Yet to stand high among the eminent,

To guard the commonwealth, to show compassion

To the unfortunate, to sheathe the sword,

To make an end of strife, bring to an age

Tranquillity, and peace to all the world –

Is not this good? It is the highest good.

It is the way to heaven. By this way

Augustus, our first
pater patriae
,

Ascended to the stars, and has his temples

In which we worship his divinity.

Yet he had been some time the sport of Fortune

In many grievous accidents of war

On land and sea, until he had brought down

His father's enemies; on you the goddess

Has with a willing and a bloodless hand

Bestowed her sovereignty; placed in your grasp

The reins of government, made earth and sea

Your subjects. Then all jealous rivalry

Ceased, overruled by dutiful accord.

The zeal of senators and knights was kindled

To serve you; common people in their prayers

And senators in proclamations named you

Giver of peace. Of all the human race

Elected arbiter, you rule a world

In peace and hope, the Father of our Country.

That you may ever keep this name, Rome prays,

While she commits her people to your hand.

NERO
: 'Tis true I owe it to the bounteous gods,

That Rome and senate are my willing servants;

Also that by the fear they have of me

The tongues of the unwilling can be trained

To humble prayers and speeches of submission.

But to preserve the lives of citizens

Whose birth-proud arrogance is an offence

To state and throne, what madness that would be,

When by a word I can command a death

Wherever I see danger. Did not Brutus

Unsheathe the sword to take his master's life,

To whom he owed his own? And on that day

Caesar, the conqueror of all the world,

Invincible in battle, crowned with honours

Rising from height to height until he stood

Beside the seat of Jupiter, fell dead,

Assassinated by his countrymen.

Then how much Roman blood was Rome to see

Poured out from her so often wounded body!

How many lives did your divine Augustus,

Whose virtues won his way to heaven, destroy!

How many noble Romans young and old,

Sought out in every corner of the world

When fear of slaughter by triumvirate swords

Had driven them from homeland, were proscribed

In lists for death; how many severed heads

Exposed upon the rostra, for the eyes

Of suffering senators to weep at – nay,

Weeping had been proscribed; no man might mourn

The fate of his departed sons; the forum

Stank with corruption and its floor was fouled

With putrid gore that dripped from rotting faces.

Nor was the tale of bloodshed ended there;

Philippi's fatal fields remained long after

A place for birds and beasts to batten on.

Sicilian seas engulfed the wrack of ships

And carcases of men who fought their brothers.

The world was shaken by the embattled powers

Of its two leaders, till the vanquished fled,

In ships provided for his flight, to Egypt,

There soon to die. Thus for the second time
¹

A Roman general's blood watered the soil

Of that lascivious land; where now they lie,

Two unsubstantial ghosts; and there was buried

The long-drawn infamy of civil war.

At last the weary victor sheathed the sword

That battle-blows had blunted; fear sufficed

To hold his power secure; the armed allegiance

Of soldiers was his shield. Divinity

Was given to him by his faithful son;

And when death came, his soul was sanctified

And temples consecrated to his name.

A place in heaven shall await me too,

If I fail not to use a ruthless sword

To rid me of whatever enemies

Stand in my way, and found a royal house

With offspring that are worthy of our line.

SENECA
: There is a daughter of the royal blood

Of Claudius the Divine, to fill your house

With heavenly progeny – a second Juno,

Permitted to be consort to her brother.

NERO
: Daughter of an adulteress – that blood

Is no more to be trusted; nor was she

Ever a wife to me in heart and soul.

SENECA
: Fidelity cannot be judged in youth,

When modesty conceals the flame of love.

NERO
: With that fond thought I too deceived myself,

Despite the warning of her loveless face

And unresponsive heart, which plainly told

The measure of her hatred; and at length

My own resentment thirsted for revenge.

Another consort I have found, of breed

And beauty worthier to share my bed,

With whom the wife of Jove cannot compare,

Nor Venus, nor the Goddess armed for war.

SENECA
: A wife's fidelity, honour, purity,

And goodness, should be all her husband's joy.

Only the virtues of the mind and heart

Are everlasting, indestructible.

The flower of beauty withers day by day.

NERO
: But there is one in whom the gods have joined

All excellent virtues; and for me alone

The Fates have willed that excellence to be.

SENECA
: Love must be gently humoured, or you lose him.

NERO
: Love? The most potent tyrant in the heavens,

Whose power the Thunderer cannot take away –

Whose presence rules the anger of the sea

And the dark realm of Dis – who can command

The gods above to walk this earth below.

SBNECA
: It is the error of mankind
¹
that makes

The airy sprite of love a ruthless god,

The son of Venus, by the seed of Vulcan,

As they suppose, a god with bow and arrows

Grasped in immortal hands. Love is not that;

It is a powerful motive in the mind,

A pleasant warmth of soul; its seed is youth,

Its nourishment is ease and soft indulgence

Amid the benefits of kindly Fortune.

If once you cease to feed and cherish him,

Love wilts, soon loses all his power, and dies.

NERO
: To my mind, Love, which is the cause of pleasure,

Must be the giver of life; he cannot die.

What other force sustains the human race

But the sweet law of love? Wild beasts obey it.

So may the torches of the God of Love

Shine out to lead Poppaea to my bed!

SBNECA
: The scruples and abhorrence of the people

Will give that marriage bond no countenance;

Nor does the law of sanctity permit it.

NERO
: Am I forbidden to do what all may do?

SENECA
: From high rank high example is expected.

NERO
: Well, we shall see if I have strength enough

To break and crush this reckless partisanship.

SENECA
: Better, with grace bow to your subjects' wishes.

NERO
: Fine government, when subjects rule their masters!

SENECA
: Their rage has cause, if all their prayers are fruitless.

NERO
: And where prayers fail, are they to win by force?

SENECA
: Denial is hard.

NERO
:                            To force a king is sinful.

SENECA
: Then let him yield.

NERO
:                                    And be reputed beaten?

SENECA
: Repute is nothing.

NERO
:                                   Yet it often scars.

SENECA
: It fears the great.

NERO
:                                But bites them none the less.

SENECA
: It is not hard to silence rumour's tongue.

Let the known virtues of your sainted father

And your young wife's good name and purity

Prevail to turn your mind.

NERO
:                                    Enough of that;

You plead beyond my patience. Let me do,

For once, something which Seneca condemns.

Indeed, I am too slow in making good

The event for which my people pray; tomorrow

I shall be wedded with my bride, whose body

Already bears the token of our union

And part of my own blood.

*

GHOST OF AGRIPPINA
: Through opened earth from Tartarus I come.

My bleeding hands infernal torches bring

To greet this impious marriage; by their light

My son shall wed Poppaea; these bright flames

The avenging hands of his infuriate mother

Shall turn to funeral fires. Among the dead

The memory still lives of my foul murder,

The infamous offence for which my ghost

Still cries for vengeance – when a ship of death

Was my reward for service to my country,

And for imperial honours I was given

A night of shipwreck and bereavement; tears

I would have shed for my companions' deaths,

My own son's crime; but ere my tears could fall,

He wrought a second and more monstrous crime.

Barely escaped from death by sea, a sword

And hideous mutilation took my life

In my own house, and there I rendered up

My tortured spirit. Yet did not my blood

Suffice to clean the hatred from the heart

Of my inhuman son. His mother's name

Was an abomination to the tyrant;

He would have all my honours blotted out,

All images and records of my acts

Destroyed – such was his fear – throughout the world;

That world which, for my punishment, my hand

And my mistaken love had made his kingdom.

And now my hated husband from the grave

Makes war upon my spirit, brandishing

Torches of vengeance in my guilty face.

With instant threats proclaiming me the cause

Of his own death, he asks me for the life

Of his son's murderer.… Be patient, husband,

And you shall have it soon, ay, very soon.

The avenging Fury has a death prepared,

Meet for his crimes, for this obnoxious tyrant;

A scourge will fall upon him, ignominy

Attend his flight, and tortures shall be his

More terrible than the thirst of Tantalus,

The toil of Sisyphus, the agony

Of Tityos devoured by the birds,

The wheel on which Ixion's limbs are racked.

Let his proud majesty build marble halls

And roof his courts with gold, let armed battalions

Stand guard upon his gates, let all the world

Exhaust her infinite wealth to do him service,

Let suppliant Parthians seek his bloody hand

To offer him their treasure and their kingdoms –

The time will come, the day will surely come

When he will pay with his own poisoned life

The forfeit of his crimes; the day when he,

Ruined, abandoned, naked to the world,

Will bow his neck beneath his enemy's sword.

Alas, my labours and my prayers all lost!

Can this extremity, son, to which your fate

And your infatuate folly have condemned you,

Be such that in the face of all this evil

Your stricken mother's anger should be silent,

Whom in your wickedness you killed? Not so.

Would that wild beasts had torn my womb to pieces

Ere I had brought into the light that child

Or held him to my breast! You would have died,

Unknowing, innocent, exempt from sin;

You would have died all mine, flesh of my flesh;

You would have known the everlasting rest

Of those that live no more, you would have found

Your father, and his fathers, all that line

Of noble name; whose portion now remains,