_A room in the palace. Enter NERO and TIGELLINUS with a drawn sword_
(R.).
_Ner._ Fury and Hell! Murder me, would he! A plot,
A damnable hellish plot! Stab me! by God,
Arrest him and fetch him hither. 1950
_Tig._ Bethink you, Cæsar,
Now of Epicharis.
_Ner._ Ah, true, by heaven!
The impudent drab: she knew it all. Send straight
To the prison, and have her questioned. Rack and fire:
Torture truth from her.
_Tig._ I will. Whist! Cæsar, I see
The man himself.
_Ner._ Come out! he may be armed.
We’ll close the doors upon him and shut him in,
Till we have got assistance. [_Exeunt hastily_ (L.).
_Enter Scevinus and Quintian_ (R.).
_SCEVINUS._
How the sun shines to-day, Quintian! Great Phœbus,
The Python-slayer, smiles upon my deed.
_QUINTIAN._
Hush! walls have ears.
_Sce._ When the gods favour a man,
They set his mind at ease: he disregards
Your fearful chances. Think you, Quintian,
’Tis the April air intoxicates me so,
And floats my head with birdlike confidence?
Is it the April morning air? Ah, no;
’Tis the air of the eve of liberty.—Is that
Not poetry, good fellow?
_Qu._ Well, they say
Occasion makes a poet of any man.
_Sce._ It pleases me to walk about the palace,
And count the columns: with my eye I measure
The carven friezes and gold roofs, and say
All this is thine, Scevinus: stretch but forth
Thy hand and take it from its master: give it
Back to the world. These busts, Hellenic statues,
All these are thine, Scevinus! Let us go 1975
To the western court, where we may gaze on Rome.
_Qu._ Ay, if you will.
_Sce._ All this is thine, Scevinus!
Open the door!
_Qu._ ’Tis closed.
_Sce._ (_trying it_). Shut fast! ’Tis strange.
I never knew this door shut up before.
_Qu._ We can go back the same way we came in,
And round by the north corridor.
_Sce._ We will. (_Going hurriedly back to first door._)
By God, ’tis closed too: fast. We are locked in.
_Qu._ What can it mean?
_Sce._ (_going again to the second door_). They both are fast.
_Qu._ I hear
Footsteps without.
_Sce._ Here, here! my dagger: take it.
_Qu._ Nay, curse thee, I’ll not have it.
_Sce._ They will search me.
_Qu._ Throw it out of the window.
_Sce._ (_throwing_). So!
_Qu._ They are coming.
_Sce._ By God, Quintian, I forgot. It was the dagger
That should have pierced my heart, if I was taken.
_Qu._ Brave it out. I know nothing.
_Re-enter Nero and Tigellinus preceded by Guards_ (L.).
_Ner._ Ha! Quintian too, my feathery Quintian.
(_To Tig._) What of him, master?
_Tig._ (_to Ner._). Send him out.
_Ner._ Begone, sir:
And thank thy littleness.
_Qu._ I am Cæsar’s slave. [_Exit._
_Ner._ Now, sir, we have thee; we know all: go down,
Fall on thy knees. (_Sce. kneels._) Confess, and tell me first
Why in the temple of Capitoline Jove
Thou didst present and dedicate a sword.
_Tig._ This sword, sir, sharpened too, and tempered freshly.
_Sce._ Most mighty Cæsar, I know not on oath
Why I am treated thus. What of this sword?
_Ner._ Is it not thine?
_Sce._ Pray let me see it near. 2000
_Tig._ I’d like to put it, sir, where thou couldst feel
More than thou saw’st of it. Dost see it now?
_Sce._ ’Tis mine. O sacred heirloom of my house,
Left to my father by my grandfather....
_Ner._ Invoke not thy curst ancestors to me.
_Sce._ It hath been stolen from me: some slave, Cæsar,
Knowing the store I set by it, hath purloined it.
_Tig._ One of those thieves whom thou three days ago
Didst liberate,—when thou mad’st thy will—? We know.
Why didst thou that?
_Sce._ It is the time of year
I fix my household, and reward my servants.
And for my will, it is my habit oft
To change the disposition of my goods,
As they change, and my friends.
_Ner._ Thou hast changed thy friends,
Say’st thou, of late! As for thy change of will,
Thy little damnèd will, the estate of felons
Passes to Cæsar at their execution.
_Tig._ And why, sir, shouldst thou lay up in thy house
A store of bandages, styptics and drugs
Good for fresh wounds?
_Sce._ I did not: I pray you, Cæsar,
Who hath informed against me?
_Ner._ Question me,
Wilt thou?
_Tig._ He hath been seen, sire, with Natalis.
_Sce._ Never, I know him not.
_Ner._ Get up, sir.—Take him
To torture, till he tell.
_Sce._ Cæsar, I pray
Have me not tortured. I am innocent. 2025
_Ner._ Villain, I’ll have thee drawn out limb from limb;
And thou shalt taste at leisure from this sword
What stabbing is. Take him away.
_Sce._ Nay, Cæsar,
Have me not tortured. I am innocent.
_Tig._ Take him off, guards.
_Sce._ Indeed I am innocent.
Cæsar, Oh Cæsar! [_Exeunt Guards carrying off Scevinus._
_Tig._ The informer Milichus, Scevinus’ slave,
Saith he was with Natalis, Piso’s man:
Shall I seize Piso?
_Ner._ Not yet, no, I am safe
Here in the palace. Have the city guarded,
And go first to the prison: look thyself
To the torture of Epicharis: from her
Learn all, and bring it to me here. A woman
Is delicately nerved: use thy full art
Most exquisitely.
_Tig._ She hath confessed by this:
I sent at once.
_Ner._ Return then soon.
_Tig._ I shall. [_Exit._
_Ner._ A plot! and this contemptible Scevinus
I could almost forgive; that woman never.
She fooled me to my face, laughed as she fooled me:
A Common woman! Cæsar! me! on the eve
Of being the ridicule of history:
My wisdom a mockery,—my insight,—to the end of time
Schoolboys to laugh at turning of my page,
The favourite tale to spice their dreary task.
Nero! and I who, when my very mother,
She who upraised me, dared to plot against me,
Scrupled not, I, for my world-reaching schemes
And absolute power, I scrupled not to hide
Sonship in Cæsardom: yes, and for that
Have oped my soul-gates to the powers of hell,
And daily face spectres of horror, ghostly
Environments, the blue upbraiding lips
Of shadowy forms, that kiss in mockery,
And poison peace upon the paths of sleep.
To have borne in vain the murderer’s scaring plague,
To be by a common woman—killed: I doubt not,
Had but occasion served, she would have done it.
Have laughed to do it, laughed on when ’twas done.
Ah! by that lately-laughing, cherruping mouth
Shall all her damned conspirators be snared:
Yes, and a thousand times shall she scream truth,
Ere I will hear; a thousand times shriek forth
The names of those her shrieks shall shriek to hell,
Ere she go after them. (_Re-enter Tigellinus._) What, Tigellinus!
What saith Epicharis?
_Tig._ Nothing.
_Ner._ Nothing?
_Tig._ Nothing.
Cæsar will never get a word from her.
_Ner._ Thou hast not killed her, fool?
_Tig._ Nay, Cæsar: but no corpse
Keeps better silence.
_Ner._ Where’s thy art, man? Use
Rack, redhot pincers, the slow fire ...
_Tig._ Not all together make her give a sound.
_Ner._ Persist.
_Tig._ They do; but ’tis beyond our power
To match the first pangs; and they moved her not.
I came to say we had forgot Senecio.
_Ner._ True: take him.
_Tig._ And to torture?
_Ner._ Rack him well.
But make this woman speak. Use better art. 2080
_Tig._ I found the torturers sitting round their task:
Their zest had cooled. Without a cry or scream
’Tis a dull sport.
_Ner._ She is a Christian, then.
_Tig._ The Christians never plot: I think in that,
Cæsar, you wrong them.
_Ner._ I? Thou know’st them little:
They are the time’s worst plague. I do not care
If they burned Rome or no: were they all burned
’Twould richly compensate the world. Hark, friend!
The people might be masters; what they lack
This Christ provides. Were I to prophesy,
I’d say that should their cursed doctrines spread,
They would one day drown all, learning and beauty,
Wisdom and rule and art. For that I hate them,
And love to destroy them. I AM THEIR ANTI-CHRIST.