BURRUS. Now the Gaul mutters: the Praetorians Sullenly snarl.
SENECA. The Christians privily Conspire.
BURRUS. The legions waver and whisper too.
SENECA. [To PHYSICIAN.] What of the Emperor?
PHYSICIAN. Through Campania He rushes: and distracted to and fro Would fly now here, now there; behind each woe He sees the angered shade of Agrippina. Now hearing that Poppaea sinks toward death. Hither is he fast hurrying.
SENECA. Ah, Poppaea, No sooner Empress made than she must die——
BURRUS. See: she is carried hither.
SENECA. Here to look Her last upon the glory of the earth.
[Exeunt SENECA, BURRUS, and PHYSICIAN.
[POPPAEA enters, supported by handmaids. She takes a long look at Rome, then is assisted down to couch.
POPPAEA. Give me the glass again: beautiful yet! This face can still endure the sunset glow, No need is there for me to sue the shadow, Perfect out of the glory I am going.
MYRRHA. Lady, the mood will pass: still you are young.
POPPAEA. Why comes not Nero near me? O he loathes Sickness or sadness or the touch of trouble,
MYRRHA. Nay, lady; hither he is riding fast, In fury spurring from Campania, And trouble upon trouble falls on him— Misfortune follows him like a faithful hound.
POPPAEA. I snared him, Myrrha, once; let him flutter away! But to relinquish the wide earth at last, And flit a faint thing by a shadowy river, Or yearning without blood upon the bank—— The loneliness of death! To go to strangers— Into a world of whispers——
[Looking at and lifting her hair.
And this hair Rolling about me like a lighted sea Which was my glory and the theme of the earth, Look! Must this go? The grave shall have these eyes Which were the bliss of burning Emperors. After what time, what labour the high gods Builded the body of this beauty up! Now at a whim they shatter it! More light! I'll catch the last of the sun.
Enter SLAVE
SLAVE. Mistress, below The lady Acte stands and asks to see you.
POPPAEA. Come to inspect me fading: I fear not. Even a woman's eyes I need not shun. Bring her. [Exit SLAVE. Now, Myrrha, watch her hungering eyes.
Enter ACTE, ushered by SLAVE
POPPAEA. [Vehemently.] Take Nero! I am dying.
ACTE. Ah, not yet!
POPPAEA. I am dying. But you shall not hold him long—— O, do not think it. Can you queen his heart? Can you be storm a moment, sun the next? A month, a long day under open skies, Would find your art exhausted, ended. I! I was a hundred women in an hour, And sweeter at each moment than them all. Why, I have struck him in the face and laughed.
ACTE. I love him: that concerns not him, nor you. A different goal I would have sought for him, A garment not of purple, but of peace.
POPPAEA. Of peace! Ha, ha!
ACTE. Vain now—I know it, vain. But if your words are true, and death is on you, Let us two at the least be friends at last.
POPPAEA. I bear no rancour—and yet if I dreamed That I was leaving you upon his bosom— But no: let there be peace between us two.
[ACTE comes and kisses her.
Your kiss falls kind upon my loneliness. But, Acte, to let go of glory thus— For I have drunk of empire, and what cup Afterward can you offer to these lips?
ACTE. Of late there has been stealing on my mind A strange hope—a new vision.
POPPAEA. What is this?
ACTE. Do not laugh out at me: a sect despised— The Christians, tell us of an after life, A glory on the other side the grave. If there should be a kingdom not of this world, A spirit throne, a city of the soul!
POPPAEA. I want no spirit kingdom after death. The splendid sun, the purple, and the crown, These I have known, and I am losing them.
ACTE. Yet if the sun, the purple, and the crown Were but the shadows of another sun, Splendider—a more dazzling diadem?
POPPAEA. These can I see at least, and feel, and hear.
ACTE. Yes, with a mortal touch that falters now.
POPPAEA. [Sobbing.] O Acte, to be dumb, and deaf, and blind!
ACTE. Or live again with more transcendent sense, Hearing unchecked, and unimpeded sight. If we who walk now, then should wing the air, Who stammer now, then should discard the voice, Who grope now, then should see with other sight, And send new eyes about the universe.
POPPAEA. O, this is madness!
ACTE. Is it? Is it? Well— Yet have I heard this ragged people speak, And they have stirred me strangely: life they scorn, And yearn for death's tremendous liberty, But I—I cannot speak; yet I believe There is a new air blowing on the world, And a new budding underneath the earth.
POPPAEA. Ah, ah! the sun! The sun! It goeth down, How cold it grows: the night comes down on me. I'll have no lamp: but hold my hand in thine.
ACTE. Sister, forget the world, it passeth.
POPPAEA. [Falling back.] Rome!
PHYSICIAN. The Emperor comes from gazing on Poppaea. What woe may that dead face not work on him, After such rain of dark calamities!
SENECA. Why hath he summoned me?
PHYSICIAN. He knows not why. The infatuate orgies in Campania, Defeat, revolt, have wrought upon his mind, Till it begins to reel—behind each woe He sees the angered shade of Agrippina.
[Enter NERO with tablets, murmuring to himself. He comes to the COUNCILLORS, gazes at them, and retires to parapet.
'Beautiful on her bed Poppaea lay'— I have begun to write her epitaph.
[He again gazes over parapet, murmuring to himself. Then turning
Ah, blow supreme! Ah, ultimate injury! I can no longer write: my brain is barren. My gift, my gift, thou hast left me. Let me die! Ah! what an artist perishes in me.
[He again returns to parapet, gazing and murmuring, and throws his tablets from him.
Dead Agrippina rages unappeased. At night I hear the trailing of a robe, And the slain woman pauses at my door. O! she is mightier having drunk of death; Now hath she haled Poppaea from my arms; Last doth she quench the holy fire within me——
Enter MESSENGER
MESSENGER. Caesar, I bring dark news: Boadicea the British Queen is risen, And like a fire is hissing through the isle, Londinium and Camulodunum In ashes lie; the loosed barbarians In madness rage and ravish, murder and burn.
BURRUS. Caesar, despatch.
[Brings NERO paper.
NERO. Ah, this is still the deed Of Agrippina. Listen! Did ye not hear The rustle of a robe? [Starting up. Ah! thou art come! I—I no order gave! Then did the brine Drop from thy hair: but now blood falls from thee; There, where they struck thee, once did I sleep sound. What shall I do to appease thee? Let me die Rather than see that wonder on thy face, And stare on me of terrible surprise. Thou com'st upon me!
ACTE. Ah! what ails your mind?
NERO. She is gone! The red drops those that fell from her!
ACTE. Lo! I am with thee!
NERO. Thou! And who art thou?
Enter in great haste an OFFICER, followed by OTHERS
OFFICER. Caesar, Rome burns! We cannot fight the fire Which blazes and consumes. How it arose None knows and none can tell. What shall we do?
ANOTHER. It sprung in the Suburra: whether lit By accident, dropped torch, or smouldering brand——
ANOTHER. Or by design——
ANOTHER. Caesar, the Christians, Who hate the human race, have done this thing: They loathe thy rule and would abolish thee, And with thee, Rome.
ANOTHER. They have a prophecy That now the world is ending, and in fire The globe shall shrivel, and this empire fall In cinders.
ANOTHER. And the moon be turned to blood.
NERO. The moon be turned to blood! But that is fine! These Christians have imaginations then! The moon in blood, and burning universe! Why, I myself might have conceived that scene!
Enter OTHERS from the opposite side
OFFICER. Caesar, what shall be done? Still spreads the fire! A quarter of Rome in ashes lies already, And like a blackened corpse: and screaming mothers, Hugging their babes, dash through the fearful flames, And old men totter gasping through the blaze Or fall scorched to the ground. Stifled with smoke The population from their houses reel. Meantime the Christians, prophesying woe And final doom upon a wicked world, Hither and thither run, and with their dark Forebodings madden all the minds of men. To thee they point! To thee, the source of fire, Who has drawn down on them celestial flame.
NERO. Magnificent! The aim of heavenly fire!
ANOTHER. They say the world shall crumble, and the skies Fall, and their God come in the clouds of heaven To judge the earth!
ANOTHER. But we are wasting breath Over the Christians: what now shall be done? To thee, Caesar, to thee, we come: for thou Alone mayst with this conflagration cope.
NERO. Listen! Did ye not hear a wailing then? The wailing of a woman in her grave? Again! A wailing, and I know the voice!
Enter OTHERS hastily
MESSENGER. Caesar, the fire has reached the Palatine! Rome will be ashes soon.
ANOTHER. We have fought fire With water: matched the elements in vain, For the fire triumphs: Caesar, what aid from thee?
Enter ANOTHER
MESSENGER. Caesar, the temple of Jupiter is aflame. The shrine of Vesta next will crash to the earth.
ANOTHER. Open the sluices of the Campus Martius.
ANOTHER. Issue some sudden edict: give command.
NERO. No edict will I issue, or command. Let the fire rage.
CHORUS. O Caesar!
NERO. Let it rage!
ANOTHER. Caesar, 'tis said this fire was lit by thee. That thou wouldst burn old Rome to build a new, A Rome more glorious issuing from the flames: This tale hath maddened all the common folk Who, from their smouldering homes, curse thee aloud.
NERO. This fire is not the act of mortal mind, But is the huge conception of a spirit Dreaming beyond the tomb a mighty thought. She would express herself in burning fire: This is the awful vengeance of the dead; This is my mother Agrippina's deed. I will not baulk the fury of her spirit. No! Let her glut her anger on the city, For only Rome in ashes can appease her, Let the fire rage and purge me of her blood! [The flame flashes upward. Rage! Rage on! See, see! How beautiful! Like a rose magnificently burning! [The flame flashes up. Rage on! Thou art that which poets use, Or which consumes them. Thou art in me! Thou dreadful womb of mighty spirits, And crimson sepulchre of them! [The flame flashes up. Blaze! Blaze! How it eats and eats! How it drinks! What hunger is like unto the hunger of fire? What thirst is like unto the thirst of flame? [The flame flashes up. O fury superb! O incurable lust of ruin! O panting perdition! O splendid devastation! I, I, too, have felt it! To destroy—to destroy! To leave behind me ashes, ashes. [The flame flashes up. Rage! Rage on! Or art thou passion, art thou desire? Ah! terrible kiss! [The flame flashes up. Now hear it, hear it! A hiss as from mighty serpents, The dry, licking, wicked tongues! Wouldst thou sting the earth to death? What a career! To clasp and devour and kill! To dance over the world as a frenzied dancer With whirling skirts of world-wide flame! [The flame flashes up. Blaze! Blaze! Or art thou madness visible, Insanity seizing the rolling heavens. [He points up. Thou, Thou, didst create the world In the stars innumerably smiling. Thou art life, thou art God, thou art I! [The flame flashes up. Mother! Mother! This is thy deed. Hist! Hist! can you not see her Stealing with lighted torch? She makes no sound, she hath a spirit's tread. Hast thou sated thy vengeance yet? Art thou appeased? [The flame flashes up. Be satisfied with nothing but the world, The world alone is fuel for thee. Mother! [The flame flashes up. And I! See what a fire I have given thee, Rome for a funeral couch! Had Achilles a pyre like to this Or had Patroclus? Had they mourners such as I give to thee, Bereaved mothers and babes? Now let the wailing cease from thy tomb, Here is a mightier wail! Now let the haunting trumpet be dumb!
ACTE. Nero!
NERO. Blaze! Rage! Blaze! [The flame flashes up more fervently. For now am I free of thy blood, I have appeased and atoned, Have atoned with cries, with crashings, and with flaming. Thy blood is no more on my head; I am purged, I am cleansed; I have given thee flaming Rome for the bed of thy death! O Agrippina!
[He falls in a swoon—ACTE runs towards him.
*******
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