THE TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION SCENE ONE (Before the Capitol; to the right a house marked Quintiliani, to the left one marked Pertinax. Condianus, Virginia, and slaves carry in furniture.)

VIRGINIA The gods have brought you back to our ancestral hearth, dear brother, you. See, without you we were so grave, for from its nest the great eagle had flown away.

CONDIANUS And now, my dearest, embracing again the hearts for which this heart beats, I have forgotten even the perils of my road.

VIRGINIA See, mother begged heaven so to give her back at once her stolen all, and heaven heard that prayer, and the sigh of sorrow your coming has driven before it.

CONDIANUS Oh, my dearest, how many long, long months I did not taste the Eden of this circle — but let my house’s Lares forgive me, I brought my homeland an offering.

VIRGINIA You are right, brother, you speak well; the homeland outweighs your household gods, and do not listen to the weak woman’s voice when she grieves that her heart breaks on it; do not let me set a snare in your road with my tear, the road that leads toward heaven.

CONDIANUS Speak then, my Virginia, what joy has dawned on the fair sky of your life, what cloud of sorrow has gathered enviously upon it, since I, in the gentle land of the Greeks, adoring the temples of the Muses, won treasures for my homeland’s altars. Everything that touches you, that troubles you, brings my heart too its joy and its grief.

VIRGINIA You are a good brother; hear my secret then; but do not abuse it, as is the way. Three days ago, when I was walking with mother through Rome’s bright streets, up and down, then coming home at that darker street corner a handsome youth looked at us, and we at him. He stood motionless, like a stone statue, and fixed his eyes on us unceasingly. When at the other end of the street I looked back, quite by chance, I still saw him standing there turned to stone. Next day it happened again, and I do not know how it came, I went that way twice that day, and the second time the youth addressed me.

CONDIANUS Go on, I beg you, Virginia.

VIRGINIA He addressed me, then, and the word was so sweet, as if from his heart the flower of feeling had grown up. He is a Gallic warrior, his name Hilar; what a sweet name it is, brother, is it not? But you are so grave, you are not even listening to me; what would such a great breast care for a lady’s frailty like this?

CONDIANUS I am listening — yes, indeed — only go on.

VIRGINIA He told of the curses of his fate, and by our Lares begged that we take him in for a few days under our roof. Man’s heart is not stone, you know, and one forsaken fellow-man moves it. We took him in; Hilar is among us; he is so gentle, so good, and we love him — but we love him only as one forsaken. Will you always grow graver?

CONDIANUS My Virginia, you know, then the sky gleams, and flatteringly lures the flower, when it is about to bring the orphaning frost of night. You are a frail flower, and if the frost strikes you down, you will not bloom again with the flowers of spring. There is but one summer; it takes you, and the winter is eternal.

VIRGINIA Brother, what a manner is this! You frighten me, brother; what wrong have I done, speak, oh?

CONDIANUS Nothing, nothing at all; see, in the human heart such heavy suspicions stir, but these suspicions are only dreams; the dream is foolish, the dream flies away.

VIRGINIA What suspicion troubles you on my account? Tell me, oh, tell me, tell me the hidden place of your heart; see, the sailor cannot avoid the reef he does not know. Speak, my dearest, and I will smile the cloud from your face.

CONDIANUS Do you know Commodus?

VIRGINIA How should I know him? I was still a child when he left Rome.

CONDIANUS (Aside.) It is just three days that he has been lurking in our city, awaiting his army for the triumph, and they arrived today — but no, this cannot be. (To Virginia.) You are so kind, a frail skiff on this world’s sea among the wild waves; your salvation is in your breast, and if it is lost, it will not return. Take care of yourself, fair Virginia! The frail plant grown under the careful gardener’s hands the south wind soon withers. Now, then, may my gods bless you; I will come to you at once, and you, like the sun, will conquer my heart’s gloom. If the procession comes this way, will you come out, perhaps?

VIRGINIA If I have seen your dear face more cheerful. (Exit.)

CONDIANUS Dark suspicions follow one another in the night of my breast, and everywhere Commodus, and Hilar is the image from which I hide in horror. And if it truly were so, then, my Virginia, Rome, we are lost; oh, if you knew on what edge of an awful chasm we stand, you would step back shuddering, and your heart would break with your anguish. MAXIMUS (Coming out.) Brother, why do you grieve, why are you so grave; no smile comes to your dear lips. Oh! Confess to me, confess to your loving brother, who has no joy if he cannot share it with you, for whom the sun has drowned in dark gloom if he does not see it shine back in your eyes.

CONDIANUS Oh, brother, a double dagger rages on the strings of my heart, but the cause of my sorrow do not ask; that I cannot tell.

MAXIMUS Do not so cruelly break the rose-bands of trust that have bound us together since our tender years. See, joined we devised our childhood games, together we tasted their joys. And when you were so ill that you had already given up your life, our whole house was sunk in mourning; the smile flew from the lips of the boy Maximus too, and in its place the crystal pearl of grief sat there. At the foot of your bed your loving brother brooded, and with your returning life his spirit came back too. How often did the dawn find the wild boy on his knees, adoring the god of Orcus, that, sparing our house’s hope, they take me instead — and see, even then I still loved my life very, very much, for my all was only this foolish course.

CONDIANUS Brother, you were always so very good.

MAXIMUS See, brother, is the burden not lighter for two to bear than for one to carry its whole weight? Is it not a balm when we pour the brimming measure of our sorrow into a kindred breast? Bring back our father’s dear memory into your heart, who on his deathbed, blessing us and leading me into your arms, said: love one another, Maximus, follow your brother, for his road will be only the road of virtue. And then I pressed you to my breast, dropping tears on our father’s cold hand, swearing to be faithful unto death. CONDIANUS Do not long to know my secret, brother! You still live in the rose-time of life; you have many days yet to live out, amid pleasure and joy. If the poison already rages in one heart, is it not better, if it sinks forever into the grave with that one, than that it poison another heart? This sorrow is inexhaustible, like life in the universe.

MAXIMUS I see, you do not love me; I feel it, and I do not know my fault. Oh, how it hurts the heart, when cast off, not to know its sin. But though you cast me off, like your faithful hound, who with importunate flattery — though you trample me like a worm of the earth, I will still turn toward you in the dust of your foot. Oh! I, wretched, I! I owe you so much already; all that I am, you made me that, and to repay you for it I cannot. All I have, all this heart holds, is my love; and even this is despised.

CONDIANUS I armed myself against you with every weapon of my obstinacy, and the grim foe stands conquered before your tender weapon. Then hear, and pity me, if you can pity. (Lucius and several youths come out of the baths singing.)

LUCIUS Go on, friends, I will follow you later. (All exit; Maternus steps forward, gravely.)

MATERNUS (Aside.) These are the pillars of the ancient homeland; so the blood of Rome has degenerated, then? But, slave, you dare to feel, to speak — choke your feeling back into your broken breast.

LUCIUS Has your brother’s ill humor already caught you, Maximus? You merry lad, the heart’s bitterness does not suit you well. (Commodus comes out, listening.) And you, Condianus, what otherworldly schemes are you hatching, which will crumble to dust here. CONDIANUS Lucius, you are in strange high spirits today.

MATERNUS When there is most cause, perhaps, to grieve.

LUCIUS Ah! And you here, Maternus? Rejoice together, all of you, then, for today the gods will bless Rome again with an emperor. Long live Commodus! And whoever does not say it after me is no patriot, no blood of Rome. Let us rejoice, then, for joy belongs to the social life, and the more breasts share it, the greater it grows.

COMMODUS (Stepping forward.) Citizen, how do you mean this? The gods bless Rome with an emperor?

MAXIMUS (To Commodus.) And you here, Hilar? We did not even notice.

LUCIUS How do I mean it? Only thus, that the more emperors Rome has, the more it wearies of its tyrant, and perhaps one day, its darkening sky clearing, freedom breaks out over it with its rays of light.

CONDIANUS (Whispering.) By the gods, no further!

COMMODUS A pretty fable, indeed — only let not your blood paint its dawn.

LUCIUS By Hercules, you are a strange one, whoever you may be. As I see, your speech matches your servant’s dress; you please me for your sullen face, which shows something like my house-watchdog — though I would not like to give that up for you. Ha, ha!

COMMODUS The watchdog, if it is not on the chain, will yet attack its own master. (Exit.)

MATERNUS (In fury.) You slave! Knave! You cursed bailiff! What traitor’s breed are you, you dog, for Rome could not have borne such a son! (Recollecting himself.) Hah, but I too am only a slave here, and the slave is a coward, the slave is homeless.

LUCIUS Maternus, and you are in such a fire? You took flame at the homeland’s altars — truly, a flame struck up from the heart!

MATERNUS Though the gods did not grant me to find a homeland in my homeland, though my heart has nothing but its chains, only the grim gloom in the night of my mind, in the slave’s breast a sacred fire burns, in my veins the old blood of Rome seethes. The cliff flares when the iron clashes in the calm sea’s lap with death.

LUCIUS (Whispering.) Maternus, I have recognized you; my hand to you, and my heart I give. Though cloth of gold surrounded me as a child, and you from a slave mother were born a slave, fortune merely plays with us, pouring two kindred hearts into two forms.

MATERNUS You are good, one among the many spiteful. (Exit.)

LUCIUS Away, friends, with cares now; let the dice and wine drive them off, that is the fashion now.

CONDIANUS Lay your right hand on your heart, Lucius. You make yourself out for the water of Lethe; beneath this light, wanton glaze a nobler heart beats toward the homeland. Oh, confess, Lucius, that I may press you to my heart; confess, that I may love two in you: my friend, and a son of my sacred homeland. LUCIUS I did not know you so, and when, turning from me in the street, you could not look on my wanton deeds, then my heart burned still greater, and I longed for you as my friend; yes, Condianus, my prayer is the homeland; I adore it even before my Marcia. But the world is so strange, oh, my friend, and I hid from her the holiest of my passions, for she would laugh, for knowing it she would ruin my plan. And I loathe all my companions, those slaves of pleasure and delight. The one I revere with love, besides you, is Maternus alone, this slave, this churl a free noble, lofty in his chains, and a patriot, while the citizen has become a vile slave amid splendor. (The people gather.)

MAXIMUS The procession draws near. My mother and our Virginia are curious to see it; I will go for them. (The procession comes. Virginia, Condianus, and Lucius withdraw into a corner; Commodus mounts the tribunal, the praetorians surround him, the senate stands before him.)

MAXIMUS What is this — Hilar and Commodus one?

CONDIANUS What I trembled at is fulfilled.

PERTINAX (In the name of the senate.) I greet you in the name of the senate and of Rome, Commodus! The Seven Hills still stand in mourning for your father’s death. But you have come to wipe from their eyes the bitter tears of grief. You came to us as a comforter, to heal the wounds of the homeland. Proudly Rome fixed her eyes on her son, when like Hercules you fought at the ancestral Danube, beseeching that time which leads you with your laurels into our midst, to give the homeland here —

MATERNUS The final deathblow! (Murmuring, astonishment.) LUCIUS The reckless man!

THE PEOPLE Death, death upon him! An evil omen.

COMMODUS What slave is this, who so disturbs the sacred festival? But, reckless one, pay for it!

MANY Maternus, it is he who howls, only the cowardly slave.

COMMODUS What he deserves, I leave to you, senators — he who, not even knowing my rule yet, thus already insults his sovereign.

SENATE Death, death!

COMMODUS What can you bring in your defense — speak, you too, that I may refute your lying word.

MATERNUS How? You are bound to hear me out.

COMMODUS And this too? But then, your defense —

MATERNUS There is none, and were there one, I would keep silent of it, for you are strong; take my life, if my death can profit you. Each man does as much as he is able to do, not as much as he has the right to. Do you desire my life? Take it, mighty lord! For if you desire it, in whatever color you dress your sin, the final boundary can only be death; and if you do not destroy me now, it is only because you do not yet do it, so that, gaining trust, you may slay more later, when the poor lamb stands beneath your knife. I have finished.

COMMODUS Die, then! But whose slave are you? PERTINAX Mine — and to plead for him I cannot.

COMMODUS Is there none, then, who would beg for him?

MATERNUS Who would beg for this wretched slave’s life? To put one’s own life in danger is worth it only as long as one can be of use; afterward he is no man, and the slave may perish. And even then they speak of doing him good; for death unbinds his heavy chains; and the slave, as he dies, if he has bent into the dust, still groans out words of thanks for the deed.

VIRGINIA (At Commodus’s feet.) I beg for him, by all that is sacred, and I beg for him, falling into the dust thus: a Quintiliana kneels in the dust, begging for a life that is not yours, Lord, over which the powers of the earth have no right; for it is the gift of heaven alone; you can take, but you can give not even a moment more. When the past has flown into gloom, I see for death a shining temple, but the home of death caves in, and the temple, fallen into the dust, is gone. Oh, is the world not wholly life, is it not the life of our gods’ commands? Do not break it, and I will bless your being; give me that which to take is a sin for you. Forgive, oh, this slave, and be gracious on your first day already, in which you command the dear sacred homeland — not to kill, but only to make it blessed. I do not beg of Commodus — what would I beg? Commodus is great, I am small — but I beg him for the gentle, good Hilar, with whom we brought libation to our Lares. What is he to you? You are so mighty a lord; he, clinking with his chains, remains a slave. Even through your guards the dagger finds him in robbers’ hands; but your holiest rampart will be the people’s love. Forgive him, oh, sovereign lord!

COMMODUS He for whom the Graces themselves are advocates, who would pronounce death on his head? Now rise, then, for begged shall be my good sisters, burning with longing. (Senators. Commodus greets his followers.) PRAETORIANS Long live Commodus, the emperor. (All exit, save Maternus, Condianus, Virginia, and Julia.)

MATERNUS I stood near the night of my grave, at the boundary where my chains would fall, and a heavenly rescuing voice spoke down to me now, and commanded me to bear my chains. The slave does not know whether to thank or curse his gods, who made him only to endure here; but what should I thank you for, noble lady, for your deed? The slave’s feeling is already burned out; he tears off, alas, the ornaments of the deed in shame, if a slave begins to praise it. I wish your life’s rose-dawn never be troubled by storm; but you are too good for this world; in its grim circle you can never be happy, and when the storm comes upon your frail skiff, the slave will step before you with his chains; he will be your defender, for even in chains his gratitude beats; and if many who now hover about the rosebush fly further off before the winter frost, only I shall be the one who stands firm with the feeling of his hardened heart. (He kneels.) See, I kneel, what I have never done, before neither man nor woman; see, tears spring on the gloom of my eyes, and all these are not feelings of gratitude, but the outpourings of grief, that I, a churl, cannot repay you. Oh, heavenly being! In this age, in Rome, you alone feel among the homeland’s daughters, who, unfeeling, abandon their mothers. You are the only one who, scorning every foolish, witless oath, finds rest in your heaven, which is in your heart. (He rushes off.)

VIRGINIA Poor Maternus, truly I pity him.

CONDIANUS And I honor the patriot in the slave.

SCENE TWO (A hall. Commodus, Lucilla, Fadilla, Arrius, Claudius, retinue.)

COMMODUS Lucilla, since our absence you have sacrificed at the rose-altars of Hymen; I wish these roses to bloom thornless to your late grave, which to doubt your choice does not allow, since from the senate’s fair garland it knew how to seek out the fairest flower of the Roman senate.

CLAUDIUS Though your honor has fallen on one unworthy, yet to deserve this trust let it be the chief aim of my life.

COMMODUS How? And does your word so disagree with your deed, when you do not even present your sister, Marcia, famed for her beauty? And you too, Fadilla, since my absence your son must have grown well, and one is not permitted to see him just as your brother?

FADILLA Forgive me, brother, I did not wish to occupy the emperor on the first day of his rule with anything but the good of the homeland.

CLAUDIUS I too answer only this, my lord; but I withdraw, to bring them before you. (Exit.)

COMMODUS (Laughing.) The good of the homeland — what a foolish phrase this is; is the good of the homeland not dear to us for our own good’s sake?

CLAUDIUS What is this?

ARRIUS Were Arrius not convinced that your speech is only jest, my lord, it would be your brother-in-law who would contradict you. It is a dangerous and so grave a jest, my lord, to which the ear grows accustomed too soon.

CLAUDIUS And from a foolish word a grave truth may come. (Arrius and Claudius exit.)

COMMODUS This took me aback; the word was heavy, but true, true; I have greatly sinned. LUCILLA (Laughing.) So fame deceived me, then, who proclaimed you a champion. A womanish senator’s blow halved your heart’s sacred promptings.

COMMODUS Hah, let the reckless man pay for it — yes, Lucilla, he shall pay.

FADILLA Brother, your father on his deathbed gave you Arrius as your second father, and when, blessing you, his eyes brimmed with tears, and his love froze on his cold lips in death, you promised that you would heed Arrius; he smiled, and this was his last smile. As a man you promised, as a son — and the sovereign will keep his word.

COMMODUS You speak truth, Fadilla; you are a faithful sister, drawing me back now from a wrong step.

LUCILLA Naturally, Fadilla understands so well how to defend her husband in virtue’s cause.

COMMODUS True, and therefore she cannot be a judge. (Claudius, Arrius, Marcia, and Lucius come in.)

ARRIUS Here stands my son, sovereign lord, in whose heart the love of the homeland burns.

LUCILLA (Aside.) Hah, cursed case. (To Commodus.) And since you are one hope of the homeland, with Rome I feel for you.

COMMODUS Gloriously you speak, and if I am not mistaken, we have already met; but let us leave this now. You, aged Arrius, you bring rebellion yet on your gray head.

ARRIUS Sovereign lord, I do not understand you. COMMODUS Recall your deeds of today; I give you time; but then what else would the father of such a son be, if he learned his principles from you.

ARRIUS My lord! In the roll of my deeds I find no sin. Or is he perhaps a rebel before you who leads to the true road of right, as I wish him to be, that your realm may flourish? I do not ask the emperor whether I have done well. My heart keeps silent, and so does not sin. But you, who dare to speak against your liegeman —

COMMODUS Forgive me, Arrius, I have indeed erred; I acknowledge my fault, and I will mend it too. But see, have patience with me; the champion is not yet accustomed to sit upon the throne. This, then, is your son. (Aside.) — I would he were another. (Aloud.) Claudius Pompeius, you too have brought your fair sister, and rumor was a liar when it cried her praise, for it did not say that she is a heavenly goddess. But, fair Marcia, may we hope that you will come more often to the sky of our court, this day to clear its bright dawn, in which every other constellation pales?

MARCIA You are very gracious, sovereign lord! It is the frail ivy’s lot to rejoice, when a noble oak becomes its protector.

COMMODUS As gracious as you are fair, like the sun’s rays; to be a slave in such a prison is delight. Until then, until we see your radiant adornment renewed in new colors, only hope shortens my long minutes, for see, it is so hard to forget the Elysium once tasted, when it is lost to us. Pompeius, you are richer than I, for such a treasure no other earthly man possesses.

CLAUDIUS And one thing only is now lacking to the health of my salvation: that I give the frail dove into the strong eagle’s protection, and while it brings libation to the Lares, the other fights in the heavens with the fires that brood upon the bright sky of its homeland. COMMODUS A fair dream this; only let not the eagle to whom you entrust the dove tear it apart.

CLAUDIUS Lucius shall have my Marcia; they are the common hope of their kindred-hearted parents, and under such protection my dove need not tremble.

COMMODUS So? (Aside.) By the heavens! He shall not have her. [Aloud.] We wish to be alone. Sisters, you two remain here. (All exit, save Commodus, Lucilla, Fadilla.) On my first day here I had a strange adventure. There is a noble house in Rome, that of the Quintiliani. You know it, perhaps? A member of this house is Virginia, a comely girl, so gentle, so charming. A feeling kindled in me toward her, such as I could not imagine a man capable of feeling. That, rapt into heaven, this churl could be capable of despising all, forgetting all that is not heaven itself. And shall the emperor renounce this girl forever, because he wears the purple — shall he be robbed of heaven’s salvation? And so it is, so it is — I cannot have her.

LUCILLA Sovereign brother, you speak so? Can a lion not have a frail roe? Where would there be a girl who would resist?

COMMODUS Yes, yes, but her grim brothers, those austere, sealed-breasted heroes; I shudder when I think of them; to them virtue is a god. Virtue, I say; they defy their earthly lords, and laughing, firm, they despise its chains. I know them, and such men I cannot endure; I will not struggle with them, no, I fear them. And such men I know more of; both my brothers-in-law are such. I loathe them, for they are enemies of all my whims. I blush, I would wish to hide from their gaze, for one word whispers in my heart that virtue is more than a mere idea, and if it is more, then they are great men, and a degenerate their emperor.

LUCILLA The emperor, into whose hand the gods have given their thunderbolts, fears a wretched dog if it dares to bark at him? Every man has something in which he holds his glory, his all. The wretched slave, who has nothing in this earthly circle, the idea of virtue is his, and in the beyond a happier reality. But you are mighty, and what would you need more?

COMMODUS If this were true, oh, Lucilla! But I feel it is not so, and this voice too often haunts me. I start up from it, fleeing, fleeing from myself like the beast of the wilderness. But you may be right; it is only the remnant of my early childhood, which my old teachers hammered into my head.

LUCILLA Naturally — like one who has as much right as he is able to enforce, no more, no less. Examine the whole of nature, and everything in it whispers only this law. Does the little worm not claim as much right as with its strength it can enforce; the worm the little bird eats, and the little bird counts everything as its own that is weaker. But the eagle comes, before it the little bird too is a slave. You are the eagle, above you no one stands to check your deed; you may do what you are able to do.

FADILLA Yes, you are mighty, brother; on the homeland you may bring wretchedness and heavenly rays; but grasp well, oh, how sacred is this name, the homeland. The gods gave a homeland into your hand, that you be its servant, only the slave of the common good; your people set you apart from your fellows; the people are not for your sake, but you are for your people’s, and the judges of the beyond will demand a reckoning for every life. And you will not be able to give back even one life. The curse you scattered on your people will alight on your heart. You will seek escape, a path from your mind’s terror, but the dark waves of the ocean will close over you, and you will be lost.

LUCILLA My good sister, your otherworldly censure would be fine for the people to hear, but we, who know that with our life our existence is gone.

COMMODUS Lucilla, and truly, this may be guessed at. Lucilla, tell me you wish to deceive, and I forgive. But if this is true, only conceivable, then, ah, what would our earthly being be, what would hold us back from doing what would cause inaction in our fellows? Why then would sin not be one with virtue? But now I can hear no more; I must rest, must put out the terrors of my mind, that I may wake without a thought, for to be without a thought is so glorious a thing. (Exit.)

FADILLA Brother, this I did not suppose of you. He has already gone so far that to step back is impossible. Oh, Rome, with my brother I shall mourn you, who was the sacred hope of the homeland.

LUCILLA (laughing) Go on, he went so gloriously, as if you had declaimed it from Zeno; only it is a pity that the happy age is past, when one was sated with such things.

FADILLA What I trembled at has come to pass. In vain would I howl in this hall like wild shades over their evil offspring, where with virtue contentment has passed forever, where on the holy seat of the god of right has sat the proud spectral shape of spite. Good, I go, let her not hear my voice — the sacred word of virtue — the altar of right, where only blood will flow. Withdrawn, I too can weep for the homeland and for my brother, who has gone down with it into the grave, for the homeland is the life of him who leads it, and his fall brings it death. Heaven be with you, brother; I wish that your word’s foundation may be your heart, as mine was only its love, and that your heart may whisper to you with its innermost voice that you always dealt well with your brother. (Exit.)

LUCILLA (With scorn.) I wished only to be rid of you; now I no longer fear for the success of my plan; my husband is yet one of those who heap obstacles in my path. But there are ways to blind him, and Arrius runs into his open grave. But Commodus comes. (She weeps.)

COMMODUS (Entering.) What is this? Who dared to hurt Lucia? Hah, cursed one! Let him pay me for it.

LUCILLA Oh, do not pronounce your judgment so soon; you would come to regret it.

COMMODUS By Jupiter, no, never! But speak.

LUCILLA Promise first that you will forgive him.

COMMODUS Because you ask, so be it.

LUCILLA Fadilla and I were speaking of you; I took fire in your defense; she maintained that you were coarse, brutalized, I that, as with the eagle you soar to heaven, so dovelike you are gentle in this earthly circle. She argued, what a pity that a woman cannot share in the sacred power of the throne’s purple. But no, I will not say more of my sister’s disgrace.

COMMODUS By the gods, Lucilla, if you still love me!

LUCILLA Of these things, then, we spoke; she rebuked me. And undeservedly reviling me yet more, finally, mad with rage, she ran out from here.

COMMODUS Hah, Fadilla, this was your smooth speech, then! Never step before my throne, lest I break my sacred promise of pardon. My Lucilla, you are the only one who loves me faithfully.

LUCILLA Oh, brother, what a fair reward this recognition is for my sufferings. (Exit. Perennis has meanwhile come in.)

COMMODUS Ah, Perennis, you come just in time. What do you think — what shall we do about Virginia? You know of whom I have already spoken to you. PERENNIS Sovereign lord! I feel the worth of this honor, which admits me to your confidence. But I would advise that we begin with gentle means — to beg, to dazzle first, then to chastise, and later what the stronger may do.

COMMODUS And the people, when they begin to murmur that their emperor has turned brigand, who stole their fairest treasures —

PERENNIS We will give the people occupation; that people which has business with itself does not think that it might be free. The proud man pulls a handsome yoke better; let us spread luxury among them, then, and luxury will become the apple of discord; it drains their strength, and from the immoral, luxurious people a soft slave is made; let us build them halls of splendor, and let us not fear that they break out against us; only let the watchdog now and then get a flattery and bone enough to keep it just alive, and it remains the most faithful night-watchman.

COMMODUS True; do what you judge best; my hope lives in you. (Exit.)

PERENNIS And of the rest I will take care. We must dazzle first, and adjust our feelings to others’, until they think they feel as one with us, and believe they see their own will in ours; and then to lead them to what we wish is easy already. A man must make himself necessary to others, and then he can have himself begged for what he himself also wishes. (Laughing.) A sovereign who commands peoples becomes their base servant, their slave.

SCENE THREE (Atrium at Pertinax’s; on the altar of the Lares a sacrificial fire burns.)

PERTINAX My homeland, see, again I sacrifice on your altar, and my hope flames high like the flame of your altar. Oh, do not deceive, you gods, the prompting of this sacred hope; do not mock the glorious dreams of a whole homeland! On one man rests, on a single grain of dust, existence; one man turns the wheel of fate over nations, and this man is so mortal, so frail, as his fellow slaves. He is the slave of his heart’s storms, and a single whim of his causes a thousand perils. A nation’s fate rests in such a skiff as is driven by the roar of a thousand winds, hurled from one reef to another, until at last all is shattered to pieces. Oh, send down then upon his heart, you gods, whoever you may be, who let the homeland flourish, your holy grace; let virtue guide the paths of his life, and the path will be glorious on which he travels. The sun’s ray brings me anguish, the storm of night torments this breast, and so many years I have nursed this serpent! But henceforth to bear it I cannot. (Calling out.) Maternus, Cleander, come! (Both enter.) Is it not true, I never dealt with you as with my other slaves, but as far as I could, I raised you up to myself. But how should I not have done this with my own children? The beast does not cast off its young, does not thrust it into the foul yoke; and I, a man, should have done this?

CLEANDER How?

MATERNUS What is this?

PERTINAX See, this storm-broken heart too had its feelings; it was not always so dark, so empty; but it burned and hoped, longing to find salvation here, amid this sad world. Only a thousand storms could make it what it now is, tearing out all that is sacred, all fire. Vinegar, then, is this heart, but this feeling was no born wretch of this world. Amid the clank of chains I saw the fairest bud of virtue, of grace, bloom — unmarveled, unadored, for over its worth only the lash and the fetter were painted. This slave-girl was the image of my salvation; my all I found in this slave- girl, that which many a mighty lord seeks in vain amid the foolish splendor. And I lived my present Elysium, for I did not yet think of the sad future. Two children were the pledge of our love, and the slave-girl from the depth of her wretchedness held them up to me — held them up and departed, where, her earthly chains fallen away, she could laugh at this earth’s judgment. But I remained here, and her memory lived in my two sons. I adored them, for I saw her shining back in them; oh, but the world did not so judge my deeds, nor so the woman to whom I had sworn faith, nor so judged my deeds, for the world is so hard, so harsh; it does not know the holier feeling. And because it does not know it, it does not esteem it. And my two children, loved though as my own life, remained slaves, and these are you, I, your accursed father; here on his knees he begs for pardon. Ah, but I see, there can be no pardon where the grim parent has thus sunk so low. You are the foolish offerings of shame, and this can never be undone.

MATERNUS Father, (embracing him) oh, see, what then is man? A helpless weak piece of flesh, but in him already lives the rich spark of holy godhead, living in all, in king — and slave too. Man is his own god; he builds a world from his heart, he builds Tartarus and Elysium, and what he becomes, he himself has made himself. You gave life, bearing for your child as sweet a care as a thousand eyes; you gave a heart, a mind, and feeling; what more would your son beg? Oh, Pertinax, now it rests on me to win my brightness, and the self-won brightness is so glorious; while that descending from our forefathers upon us alone becomes foolish smoke, behind which lurks ugliness; only he boasts of his birth who finds in himself nothing praiseworthy. I was born a slave, and so long shall I remain, until Rome speaks of my brightness. The lords cloaked in splendor call me a slave, and my spirit, laughing, looks on these splendid chains. Father! You make your son so happy, if your heart’s bitterness breaks upon him. (Exit.)

PERTINAX You are a good son; may heaven bless you for it.

CLEANDER I accept, father, the fair gift of your heart, and accepting it, its sacred aim will be my life — my gratitude. This word, "father," let it strengthen my heart’s feeling, to defy the storm on the paths of my life.

PERTINAX Oh! How long I renounced the joy of calling two such noble hearts my sons. Calmly I can look toward the heavens, since my slave-children have forgiven me, and have not despised the spiteful father! I have few days left now to live through; let me live them through in peace; one false step in the dawn of life’s road makes a long life wretched. But I rejoice that I was punished, for greater grief still is to feel oneself guilty, without suffering for one’s guilt. (Exit.)

CLEANDER So we are your children, and while you, honored, amid splendor, spend your useless, long days, we, your children, scorned, are to live as slaves in the dark, for the sake of the senseless world’s prattle? You are right, Pertinax, if it must be, my father! You have not many life- moments left now. Make way yourself too; do you not see, on this earth everything makes way? You uselessly occupy your place like a weed, on which already wait so many new sprouts. And if you give way, am I still to share even this place? Hey, Maternus, this cannot be so.

MATERNUS (Entering.) Why are you so grave, Cleander? I thought this day had brought you a ray of joy.

CLEANDER Ah, brother, when every joy must be paid for so dearly, and the bought joy loses its Eden, nothing is perfect in this world.

MATERNUS Speak, brother, what spoils your spirits?

CLEANDER Do not ask; why should I sadden your heart.

MATERNUS Brother, if you pity, if you love me, by the gods, speak! Why do you grieve?

CLEANDER Whether I love you? Oh, yes! And just this saddens me, Maternus. Our father is so cruel; after his death he wishes to leave me free, to enrich me with gifts, and you — but no, I cannot say it — MATERNUS And do you think that the worst could surprise me? Speak, I beg you; my heart has grown hardened enough to hear anything under the weight of the chain.

CLEANDER I will speak, then, though my heart breaks. He leaves you in the heavy night of slavery, since you scorned his offer of favor. But this cannot be so; I too will share your heavy lot with you, but to see my brother so I cannot bear. I pity you, and my pity, like a heavy cloud, covers the bright sky of my life, and from it the thought strikes down like lightning, and the cliff breaks beneath it, if it is too strong to bend.

MATERNUS And is this the only cause of your grief, brother, that the slave Maternus does not win treasure, splendor, titles? Ah, then this sorrow is in vain; my burned-out breast has learned to bear the iron hand of fate; the world of splendor is already dust to me, and in my heart there is only one image, which lives and forever will live in it, this my father cannot tear away: my treasure, my all is this, and my hall of splendor is great nature itself. Farewell, live, rejoice in these earthly goods; you are happy if they radiate joy to you; I in my chains am not so happy. (Exit.)

CLEANDER This did not succeed. I did not imagine a mortal could be so senseless still; but you will not escape Cleander’s daggers; you are fearful to me, I too will be that to you. I will not soil my hand with your blood; be your own gravediggers. Father, already you do not enjoy your goods, your pleasures; leave them to your son. Maternus, be no rival to me, and let your heart’s noble fire put out your life. (The curtain falls.)

THE TYRANT AND HIS COURT

SCENE ONE (A hall. Commodus, Lucilla, Perennis, Claudius, Arrius, and many others around tables. At the back, dancers, musicians, and the rest display themselves.)

COMMODUS Say what you will, she shall be mine. You are useless bells of morality, who summon men to aid and, ringing, yourselves give no aid. My Lucilla, she may be mine by right, is it not so?

LUCILLA Why not, my good brother? They chose you as their lord; let them feel, then, that they have a lord. A Quintiliana may rejoice, if Commodus smiles his favor upon her.

COMMODUS Yes, yes; take my command, then, and go, Pertinax, win her for me; the reward of your labor, you know, will be great.

PERTINAX I know that the least labor of the great Commodus is lofty; but my most glorious reward is recognition.

ARRIUS (Springing up.) So far you have gone already, accursed ones, who have no god in the sin-filled depth of your accursed breasts? What god would whisper your monstrous crime? Do you think there is in your hearts no sacred voice of virtue? You deceive yourselves; you close your eyes to the light that shines from there, that you may not see the monstrous spectres in your breasts’ brown night. You have killed with your sins the bud of virtue, which the gods set in every heart. (The dance stops; confusion.) You good-for-nothing dogs, who cannot say the alphabet, since for the second letter you will not, out of flattery, do a single thing. You wretches, among whom man, if doomed to live, would forget that man exists. You spoiled that noble seed-filled breast which was the homeland’s glorious hope, and perhaps for this deed too you have some name of virtue. In the emperor’s name you suck out the homeland’s blood, and this blood, in the people’s eyes, falls on Commodus; but for you too will come your last day, and the spectre that hid behind him, when he falls, will step forth with a curse. Here is my last day, I know, for the truth that unaccustomed ears are not used to hearing is poisoned by my words; but I rejoice that I have spoken what lay on my heart. I wish, lords, that in your last days you may look as bravely on death as I have done. Commodus, may their honeyed words be as good as they are bright. For mine were despised. (Going out.)

CLAUDIUS I can only weep in mute silence!

ARRIUS Do not think your guilt is less, you who feel and will not act; cursed is the son who, seeing his parent starve, prays and does not hasten to act. Is it not so — when the sea roars, the storm chastises the bald peaks; but the people roar, and let their tyrant tremble. We shall see whether before the grim winter the many birds do not fly away. (Exit.)

COMMODUS (Recollecting himself.) What is this, a madman? Or a rebel? After him, then, seize him quickly! (Some go after him with Perennis.)

LUCILLA Here it is, did I not say, is it not so, that it is your own blood that longs to cast you down? (With scorn.) But the gentle Fadilla knows nothing of it, when her husband rises in rebellion against you.

COMMODUS Do not mention her, do not rouse me to anger; she is my sister, and shall I strangle this one too, like a monster? No, speak no further. LUCILLA (Toward the dancers.) Go on, go on; what is this, you are resting already? Merrily, lords, for Virginia’s sake, wine for us! (Claudius rises.)

COMMODUS Claudius, where do you hasten; how dare you leave our festival?

CLAUDIUS Forgive me, oh, my lord, I am unwell.

COMMODUS You must remain here, for I command it. Have you anything to answer? So, on then. Wine, wine for me, to kill in it my terrible fancies; how happy man is then, if he does not look back. But where, then, is your old cheer, lords? Merrily, friends — to live while we may!

LUCILLA To the fair Virginia and Marcia.

COMMODUS (Half drunk.) Yes, yes then, to Marcia’s good; now it comes to my mind, Claudius, that she pleases me, and I wish her always to be about me; only she is lacking in the fair garland of my lady-friends. You understand? No answer; from today this hall will be her home.

CLAUDIUS Oh, sovereign lord! She is my sister; no, this cannot be so.

COMMODUS It must be, I say. Have I not the strength, have I not the power for this?

LUCILLA Have you not the right? How fine it is in a sovereign, when from among his servants he so notices each one.

CLAUDIUS Commodus, your breast has soon been dulled by flattery; hear me nonetheless, and if a thousandth spark of a man yet burns among the ashes, I know you will judge well. You are not wicked, but a frail instrument in vile hands; you only strayed into such a wilderness, from which to come out is perhaps even impossible. But leave me my Marcia, kill me, and this storm-broken heart will bless you.

COMMODUS Lucilla has already spoken, and her saying is sacred. Servants, go! (Servants exit.)

CLAUDIUS At last I both beg and command. Commodus, she is Claudius’s sister; cease, or my curse reaches into the heavens! (To Lucilla.) And you, woman, you, already unworthy of contempt, I am your husband, the husband will speak now, and never yet came a word from my mouth that did not at once become a deed.

COMMODUS (Springing up.) Provoke me no further; by my god, I will it, and what I will, must be; Elysium is the sweeter, you know, when through forbidden perils we reach it. (Noise without; Perennis comes.) What do they howl out there toward me, the starving dogs?

CLAUDIUS It is your people, who bless your deeds and howl a sacred prayer to the heavens. This will alight on your head, woman, on yours too, and dreadful then will be your curse; you are a member of the gentler sex, the peaceful genius of virtue, and a monster would avoid you in the wilderness, if it felt the poison of your breath. The people demand their sacred right, my lord, and the people’s prayer reaches into the heavens. (Exit.)

COMMODUS They demand their rights — and have the people, then, rights too? Besides the paying of taxes?

PERENNIS They believe so, but it does not hold, my lord.

COMMODUS Ah, and if nevertheless, Perennis, what shall we do? (Lucilla exits.)

PERENNIS I have already given orders to throw down the heads of a few lictors who carried out your gracious commands; the people will vent their vengeance on the cowardly instrument.

COMMODUS And are these few heads enough for so many lives? Perennis, help, you did all this. Help, or I strangle you. (The noise outside ceases.)

PERENNIS See, the noise has ceased, sovereign lord! We are saved already.

COMMODUS Lead me away, then; I am going to rest. Hah, accursed people, pay for this deed of yours; let your blood paint your wretched tunics to purple, that you may die in splendor. (Noise again without.) Hah, do they howl again? Perennis, they demand my life, and besides my life I have nothing.

PERENNIS Do not fear, my lord, the people are like a whirlwind; their passion lifts it high, it soon vanishes and falls into dust.

COMMODUS Lead me away, then; howl on, howl on; your emperor does not hear, for your howling has already lulled him to sleep.

LUCILLA (Entering.) We are near the goal; only one step more, and before my day, Commodus, yours will set. A thousand hearts await my commands from me, and the occasion too is best; when you come home at night, in the hall of the baths let my greeting await you! And who, after all, would suspect me? The murderer gets poison beforehand from my hand, and the grave does not yet open its door. If it succeeds well, I am the heroine. Yes, yes, all goes so gloriously. (Claudius enters.) CLAUDIUS Could you cast off every nobler quality that makes a woman a woman? Jupiter sees my heart; I have done what I could, now it is your turn, and the more the string is drawn taut, the more swiftly the arrow will shoot, and then you will know yourself, when on mute graves spectral shades suck out your blood. (Exit. Lucilla, laughing, after him. Servants bring in Marcia; Lucius breaks through them; they withdraw.)

LUCIUS Aside, churls; in the sovereign’s hall I wish, a suppliant, to go; who forbids me this? I honor the good sovereign; let him blame himself for me, if he is afraid. Hah, and he is not here, he avoids my dagger again. Commodus, come forth, Commodus, a subject of yours demands an accounting, you owe him a reckoning. Here stands one who entrusted to you his happiness, his all, that he might sleep in peace while you keep watch for him; now he asks of you his heart’s possession. No answer; my dull tones tremble away, the voice of grief dies in your imperial hall. (He forces the doors.) You have shut yourself in, guards stand everywhere about you; can you hide from your own conscience? (He kneels.) Hear my curse, you gods! Here I beg, see, before your sacred seat. I am Commodus’s accuser, I accuse the emperor; for I know, before you he is only a coward of a man. He robbed me of father, of mother, stole my life’s last possession, stripped my heart, for my Marcia became his. Oh, rend, heaven, crush the world, that such horrors befall foolishly; annihilate everything, giving peace thus, only take my Marcia up among your stars; for I can no longer protect her. (He sinks down; Marcia bends over him.)

MARCIA Lucius! Lucius! Oh, you gods! Lucius, oh, wake! See, I, see, never had I such need of you as just at this moment, and now would you leave me, my dear?

LUCIUS My Marcia, ah! That you should vanish. MARCIA He has gone mad, and I am left alone, comfort and aid, bereft of hope, cast out as prey to the wild beasts, hoping nothing in the future’s gloom. But I will avenge you, brother, my dear, and let the after-world tremble at a woman’s vengeance. Now, Lucius, may heaven be with you; the dove too defends its young. (Exit.)

LUCIUS I will storm into your heaven, I will strip her down; not a thousand guards will protect her from me. I see you, see you, you smile at me; I am ready to act. (Exit.)

SCENE TWO (Night before the Capitol. Maternus.)

MATERNUS My mother was a slave; with my birth I inherited all she had, and her possession was only wretchedness. The slave-son’s first deed was murder. Scorned, cast down, my life from men, and my heart, which to love them was created, learned to hate them. Each single man I scorned, for each single man scorned me; one prayer of mine was the homeland, which did not let me out of its arms, loving me equally with its other children. The injustices that I suffered, it did not strike upon my head, but my fellow-men. My portion, besides wretchedness, was a breast of bronze, to endure my heavy pains. I grew calm, and shut my blessed love of homeland into my breast, that the absurd judgment of men should not defile it. I saw this world’s whole wretchedness, the starving slave in his chains, and the accursed tyrant fattened on blood, lying in his drunkenness on his bright throne. I saw the homeland’s hopes on a frail skiff tossed by a sea, and murderers cast dice over sacred temples. And I no longer believed the gods, who are said to govern this world; every feeling burned out in me, and in this I was happy. I saw Virginia, and in the slave’s heart a fire arose, which is the gods’ own stolen property. From the clear sky her smile beamed toward me, her smile on this earth’s rose-dawn; the frail zephyr whispered only her name into my ear, the dreadful storm howled her name, and where she was, there heaven too existed; I dreamed her, the dream flew away, and my grief was she. She was the star that guided my rosy path, she was the star that burned on stormy nights over my broken ship. She was the god who lives everywhere, where nothing else, only the grief in my breast. And if on temples’ cold marble, weeping, I knelt, and my prayer was Virginia, who is as measureless as the universe, and in my chains I can never have her, for so fate has ordained, that I should be what I am. (He leans on a stone; Commodus comes by the corridors of the baths; two murderers fall upon him.)

FIRST MURDERER This Lucilla sends; here is her greeting.

SECOND MURDERER Die, bloodthirsty tyrant, the measure of your sins is already full! (Commodus, wounded, falls.)

COMMODUS Hah, accursed ones! Help! Help! I die, Lucilla, ah, she could not have done this! (Perennis comes with some armed men, fighting the murderers; one, wounded, slips away, the other is caught.)

ROBBER What an accursed case, oh, pardon!

COMMODUS You are my guardian angel. But what brought you to this quarter at such an hour?

PERENNIS I came for Virginia, and the gods so brought us together; but how are you, my good lord?

COMMODUS I feel my wound is not mortal; I have still strength to go home; lift me up. So, I bleed no longer. Fare well, and you, traitor, you are in the eagle’s talons. Forward, men. (Exit with some armed men and the prisoner; Perennis bangs at the door.) PERENNIS In the name of Commodus, open the door. (Enters.)

MATERNUS (Stepping forward.) Hah, what will come of this? There is noise within, a woman’s shriek, and in Commodus’s name has the emperor come to guard his child? (He forces the locked door.) You gods, if you are in the heavens, help me. Ah, my Virginia, help! Help! But my voice dies in the distant air. Hah, I cannot get in, and this I must hear while alive. Help, by the gods, here too, then, it is the stronger’s cause to conquer, the weak everywhere only trampled, the cunning one reaches the goal over roads of blood. My Virginia, I promise you, the slave keeps his word unbroken, though the mighty break it unpunished. (He breaks in.) Hah, accursed ones! (After a while Perennis carries Virginia out and off; his bailiffs fight their way out with Condianus and Maternus; finally Julia.)

JULIA Hah, you slaves! Give me my child, my Virginia, or my curse reaches into the heavens. Has the mother no hope, then, since you crush hearts for wretched hire. Do you not hear the voice of nature; has the tyrant’s breast already closed forever to it? I am a frail woman, I cannot act, and my prayer, the one thing I still have, tremblingly dies in silence. (Maternus, wounded, falls; the bailiffs withdraw, followed by Condianus.)

MATERNUS Hah, accursed ones! That struck well.

JULIA Carry her away, my gentle dove; hide her under wild towers; the mother’s heart will find her even there, crying out: tyrant! Give me her, my child. Up then, my voice, to the splendor of your throne, and at my voice your throne will tremble.

MATERNUS My Virginia! For you I die, for you my heart breaks; my reward here is in any case an icy breast; there, frozen, I will find peace. Life nature gave; you taught me to live my life; if I give it for you, I only repay your property. (Condianus returns.)

CONDIANUS The vile mercenaries have carried her off, but do not think, Commodus, that you hold her in peace; in the drunkenness of your Eden I will howl your sin into your ear; you are a man like your fellow-men; it is the people who made you their head, and the people cast down from his ship the bad helmsman, for it was the people who hired him, to lead them over its sea.

MATERNUS You were a lord in your cradle, accursed one, plucking unpunished the gray beards of the people’s old men; and then I saw how wretched is man’s lot; but what am I saying, I, a slave? For my father too bent into the yoke, and with his bloodied face earned the treasures for his lord, which the wanton wasted away.

JULIA Oh, does man hold heaven only for this, that its loss brings him grief?

CONDIANUS Mother, my dagger awaits; take comfort; his armor is not so strong that it cannot pierce through. And then, when his splendor falls and he sees his own monstrous self, he will shudder, and this will be his hell, when his own heart starts up at itself, and the dull music can no longer deaden the voice of his soul.

JULIA What avails it, when the autumn wind has already withered the rose’s leaves; the tyrant’s blood will not wake it again. (Lucius comes out.)

LUCIUS What is this clamor? They have robbed you of your dear ones, robbed you of your life’s star; I saw, yes, when the eagle flew off with your dove, and I told the eagle to fly, for after it flies the arrow. Carried off? Ha, ha! They carried off mine too, but I may not speak, for my emperor did it, and to him all is permitted. He holds the law in his hand, he is himself above the law, and so the law’s weight does not bind him. Do you gaze at my long sword? See, I need such a long one, for high sits that eagle I would stab down, and I am such a speck of dust.

CONDIANUS A madman, poor man. Lucius, do you know me?

LUCIUS I knew you, but that was so long ago, still under Saturn’s golden age, and you know, since then everything is lost; I remember you, but then you were a patriot; now hasten, then, and kill the hydra, which, look, look, will soon swallow you. It will swallow, I say, a whole homeland, and our graveyard’s accursed maw it will be. Kill him!

CONDIANUS So we must see one another again? This is cruel, and because it is cruel, just so true. If it were sweet, we would dream it through in one short moment.

LUCIUS It is dark, Condianus, the sun has clouded over, and its rose- dawn will not break again. Winter is endurable because in its womb spring already glows, but I have no hope; this kills me. Consider: he tore my heart from my breast, and his foul breath rose to the sky, and the sky clouded, it is dark, and in this dark I am buried.

CONDIANUS Will you not come in with me to rest a little, and let our common grief kill one another?

LUCIUS No, for me it cannot be; I must hasten to kill the spectre. Ah, such grief, when we are only seen to laugh, and there is no man to share our sorrow.

CONDIANUS May heaven be merciful, then, with us. LUCIUS Ah, but heaven is so hard, my friend; to it the churl’s grief does not reach; its voice dies away on the far horizon, and only the cliff has mercy on it, giving back its sorrowful cry. (Exeunt together.)

MATERNUS And I cannot move from my place, accursed case; but good, very good, the morning will find me here, and from here I will howl up his disgrace; here let Rome see how glorious is her emperor, and my death will be his death. What a delight. (Perennis comes with soldiers.)

PERENNIS One of the murderers, wounded, got away; he must be lying near here. Hey, who lies here?

MATERNUS I.

PERENNIS So, my fine bird, we have caught you! You coward, nightly cutthroat, you vile rebel.

MATERNUS Nothing of what you say am I.

PERENNIS Here is the sign of it, you reckless liar.

MATERNUS A cutthroat, I tell you, I am not; the charge is a lie, not I, on my honor.

PERENNIS The headsman’s axe will show that later.

MATERNUS Maybe. You are strong enough for it, and scoundrel enough too. This my mouth says, though my head roll into the dust of your foot, and even there I would not change places with you, base wretch, such as every tailor cuts for himself. (He is led off.) SCENE THREE (A hall at Pertinax’s. Pertinax, Claudius, Arrius.)

PERTINAX We must act; this cannot remain so.

ARRIUS I have spoken what lay on my heart; now may the gods have mercy on Rome.

CLAUDIUS You are right, Arrius, but, alas, we still cannot leave the court, for unbridled the sin would rule there, if fear of us no longer held it back.

ARRIUS Happy is he who can so reckon his steps, but he does not feel the whole of the sacred cause. I have spoken what lay on my heart, and for this I have lost a homeland! But this is a small price for me, which I dedicated to my conviction.

PERTINAX May the gods guide us, then; hope is the star that leads us, and the dawn is already near. (Pompeius, Arrius exit. Cleander comes.) Why are you so grave, Cleander?

CLEANDER Ah, father, a heavy sorrow withers the feeling of my heart. Maternus — but no, this cannot be. Why should I sadden you; it is only a foolish notion.

PERTINAX Maternus, what did you mean to say of him? I beg you, I wish it, tell me, my son.

CLEANDER No, no, father! He was your hope; we loved him so, and he showed himself so virtuous, and he is virtuous, surely; not a word more; my heart whispers it, though everything points against him. PERTINAX By the gods, speak then, Cleander!

CLEANDER See, father, grant your child his first request, and do not wish me to say more; he surely is not so wicked as the whole world calls him.

PERTINAX I, as your father, beg and wish it: speak everything; I am ready to hear, even my deepest hell, but thus the doubt is more withering than the rain falling in daylight.

CLEANDER What a hard duty it is for a brother to speak against his own blood. But you wish it, so be it; only do not judge hastily.

PERTINAX Speak, speak, quickly!

CLEANDER You remember, do you not, when Maternus said that he himself would win adornment for his head? A fair aim, but he chose its means badly. He scorns the favor of a good father, keeping to his word, but ah, my heart breaks. In the name of the senate and of Lucilla, whose hireling he was, he sought treacherously to kill Commodus; this the world says, and a thousand outward signs. I do not say it.

PERTINAX Silence, silence, do not speak, truly. He did not do this; his honor did not allow it. Cleander, oh, you play a cruel jest with me. But say that you jest, and your father will forgive. By the gods, Cleander, speak quickly.

CLEANDER I wish it were a jest, my good father; he was so good, so modest, and his measureless ambition in the other scale perhaps did not weigh as much as his virtues. PERTINAX His ambition! Oh, truly, what countless victims this Charybdis has already swallowed. Cleander, and do you truly know that this report is true? Oh, do not speak; the tongue would look flatteringly on the father; your face shows you know enough. Cursed, then, the evildoer, forever and irrevocably; cast down, let him perish from his fellow-men; let him not perish, but live amid wretchedness, that his one friend be death, and that this one friend too forsake him. In such a measure let him be cursed as he was wicked toward me. Now, Cleander, you alone are my one son. The happy father had two sons, like two genii sent down from the heavens, for comfort on grim roads. Two shoots on the old oak’s hollowed root, and the one is stripped from me; one of my crutches has fallen into the deep. Ah, to live through such grief! Has this old heart lived through heavy years, then, to bend beneath them and break on its last day’s gloom. (Exit.)

CLEANDER Brother, farewell, you are already on the right road; and you, father, with you we will reckon later. (The curtain falls.)

THE PEOPLE’S CURSE SCENE ONE (Before Commodus’s hall. The Christians pass by in groups, singing single chords; the people storm the gates and make an uproar.)

PEOPLE Bread, Commodus! Bread for us!

SOME Here are the godless ones; may the plague fall on them.

CHRISTIANS Curse, curse!

PEOPLE They brought the plague upon us; kill them all. Do you not hear how they call down curses?

CHRISTIANS Curse, curse! (They pass on, pelted with stones.)

PEOPLE Bread, Commodus! Blood, blood, death! (The Christians come again.)

FIRST CHRISTIAN Kill us, and we are freed from under your yoke. From a long road we only return to our sweet homeland. Do you not feel the curse that lies upon your city? It is the curse of heaven. Do you not see how men avoid one another like bloodthirsty beasts; the seed of the plague is in them. Do you not see your kin dying of hunger, and for their saving you cannot give them one piece of dry bread, while up there pleasure and delight rule in abundance. Curse, curse!

SOME The unbeliever speaks truth. PEOPLE Commodus, blood for blood! Commodus, bread! (The fury of the people grows from point to point.)

FIRST CHRISTIAN Do you not see the halls of the ruined temples, in which death exhales toward you, and no one goes into them to worship his god, for everyone loves his life better. We have no temples destroyed, for our temple is the bosom of nature, which never dies out. We do not fear to die, for our life is death; we do not despair, for our hope is endless, like the great godhead. — Men! The sun goes down, that it may shine again in a more glorious light; become harmonious brothers, and the sacred day of freedom will brighten your gloomy souls. — Curse, curse! (The Christians exit.)

LUCIUS (Stepping forward.) What is this? Aha! They want to forestall me in my glorious work, but nothing will come of that, nothing, I say. I will kill him. Men, what has he done to you, that you want to strangle him? You do not answer. Or are you ashamed to confess it, seeing me, from whom he stole one salvation, and even this from a sovereign I bear in peace. (The people roar with the greatest fury; the music sounds still more merrily from the hall.) What is this? Is it so? Yes, this is the echo of the people’s grief. But what does the people grieve for? Hey, fathers! Do you grieve that your son breathes out his soul wretchedly, that your wife was carried off by the sovereign, and your brother’s blood paints red each day the sacrificing sun, which turns away from your disgrace? Laugh instead; your child will not be a slave; kill them yourselves. With your wives you make yourselves agreeable to your lord; you are good vassals. And when your brother dies, the greater will be your portion. Ha, ha, ha! Commodus, be merry, your people make only your night-music. (The people break in through the gate; Julia rushes forward.)

JULIA Tyrant! My child! My beloved child! The day of vengeance has come; now I howl your sin into your ear, and before the beggar mother fall into the dust! (She collapses.)

LUCIUS Do you hear! Do you hear, good mother, heaven howls that your word is true. Come then with me to the blood-feast! (He lifts her up.)

FADILLA (Coming forward.) You thrust your sister from you, Commodus, in the fairer dawn of your life, and the sister departed, for you had no need of her; but now, when the storm howls over your head, and forsaken you turn in vain to your false friends, who like frail grass-blades vanished in the first frosty night, the cast-off sister steps forward, to save you, or to fall with you. Now you must act; the word is only a foolish sound, and flies away, like your false friends. Ah, heaven! My son, my son, and this too he did! He — and shall I help him?

LUCIUS You were a mother, I know, my good, my glorious mother! Your breast gave so sweet a resting-place that my brow, on the storm-tossed skiff, broke out in sweat; but now this is past. This woman seeks her child, I my mother; I will be her child; she will love me, for she knows what it is to be unfortunate. You go, then, bid the whale that the sea is drying up; I will not drown, I have tried it with my tears.

FADILLA Oh, heaven, how heavy your judgment! Oh, break, heart; take, God, the light of my mind; I do not know what to do. (The uproar of the people is heard.) Brother, son, may heaven keep you! (She rushes off.)

LUCIUS Let us go too, for we come late to the feast. (He drags Julia off.) SCENE TWO (A hall, a feast, music; now and then the revolt and assault are heard. Arrius, Commodus, Claudius, Marcia, guests.)

COMMODUS Here, dear Marcia! Here, pour me wine; from your hands it will be twice as sweet. (Perennis comes.)

MARCIA And you can drink, while outside the people rage, hurling curses toward you?

COMMODUS Let them rage! The British dogs began the revolt, but their voices die away in the corridors before they reach me. (Lucilla comes.) Dear, my Lucilla, you love me, is it not so? Are you sorry I was wounded?

LUCILLA And you can ask this? When you know that my life lives in you!

COMMODUS So? I believe it, yes, I believe it, Lucilla! And I have reason to believe it. But why do you turn so pale? What ails you?

LUCILLA It saddens me that you doubt my love even for a moment. Had I only the chance to prove it!

COMMODUS You shall. Perhaps this very day you will have the chance, my dear. I do not doubt the brilliant success. But no more of this. My Marcia, pour more; I must drive off my memories. I have such grave dreams and fancies on long nights. Perennis, what does this mean? I dreamed that my crown grew great as a world, while I remained a frail man, and its weight crushed me; I cried for help, looked about, and saw that the figures I had thought my friends were only my own shadows, which vanished with my sun. — And so darkly my father’s blood-spirit smiled at me, and I awoke. So gravely, so tremblingly. Wine! PERENNIS A dream, a foolish phantom; you will be happy, my lord.

COMMODUS Do you think so? And you, my Marcia?

MARCIA This dream means a great sovereign, whom the splendor surrounding him stuns, and whom the weight of his crown crushes, if he is not Hercules —

COMMODUS From today let everyone name me Hercules, if he is no rebel!

ALL Long live Hercules, the god! (Fadilla rushes in.)

FADILLA Hah, and you still make merry? Amid accursed drunkenness and foolish splendor, while outside the people howl their blessing toward you! With the music of your feast do you mean to kill it? Up, Commodus, let your better part awake! Drive off these false friends! Turn back! And the orphaned people will again take you as a father. Now you must act, men; who will share the peril with us? (At these words all withdraw, save Arrius and Claudius; Marcia remains at the table.) Faugh, threefold shame on your heads, foul dogs; still in your bellies Commodus’s wine, still on your lips the cheer you cried to him, on your shoulders the cloak you received from him, and thus you forsake him, accursed rebels! So we are lost.

COMMODUS Fadilla, by the gods, do not say this; does the people desire my death, then? Dreadful! I die, I die, and there is no help. I was wicked, very wicked; I did not believe in God and men. I repent all this, I will mend, I will mend; only this once now save me, my gods! Lucilla! Perennis! You led me to all this; help me! — Away, away from my sight, I say, I cannot bear to see you, foul devils. (He drives the courtiers off with his sword.) Perennis! Lucilla! Give me counsel! By the gods, do not forsake me! Do you hear the people? They come already! They will kill me, I die — help! help! PERENNIS Ha! ha! ha! Perish, accursed one, your day declines, and mine dawns — All this is too late now; you are all lost. (At the window.) We hear you, Rome! And the door opens before you. Take him! Kill the traitor emperor; we give him into your hands. (He goes toward the door with several.)

LUCILLA Follow, Commodus, Perennis’s counsel at the first uprising, and we are all saved!

COMMODUS (Stabbing Perennis down.) We send the instrument of our will to hell, and the people are content, is it not so? Ha, ha, ha! You pronounced the sentence on yourself. Cast his corpse to the people. (It is done; the people grow quiet.) Hungry wolves, here, feast well!

FADILLA The storm has grown quiet; heaven be with you! And let me not have to come again!

COMMODUS Stay, Fadilla! See, I owe you so much. And you, dogs, vile whelps! Good-for-nothing bastards! Out of my sight, out, I say, or one after another I will strangle you all, and set you up as a show in defiance of mankind, that you were men. (All hurry off.)

LUCILLA Now we shall be two, Commodus, who like a careful mother will love and guard you!

COMMODUS Two, Lucilla? Two! And for this your face turned pale? Hey, guards, guards, in with the accused. Hah, accursed, smooth viper, deny your deed; for your shameless face does not blush! (Maternus, guard; Lucilla sinks into a chair.)

FIRST GUARD One of the murderers gave up his soul in dreadful agonies, showing signs of poisoning, and his last word cursed Lucilla.

COMMODUS Enough! I meant to crush you, serpent, just when you flattered me most. Away with her, to death! She must perish.

LUCILLA Ah, you gods, if you are in the heavens! Mercy, only not this, oh, only not this! To die and vanish, to vanish forever, dreadful! A curse upon you, may pestilence alight on your breasts. (She is dragged off.) My husband is the guilty one, he talked me into it!

COMMODUS Away, away, with her husband too! The husband consented with his wife; away, I say, the price of treason against majesty is death! And let Rome shudder, when to her prayers the mute grave answers.

CLAUDIUS Innocent! But bravely I await death. My homeland, I share your grave; glorious is this great burial. My Marcia, away, away from my neck. Until a fairer meeting! Where the tyrant’s jewel falls into dust, in the dust you too will be glorified in victory. My Marcia — the gods be with you! (He is led off.)

MARCIA Brother, I will follow you soon; my heart breaks with its grief. Commodus, the sister too knew of the plot; have me carried to prison, kill me too.

COMMODUS You remain, pour wine, fair Marcia!

MARCIA Hah! Is there then no more mercy in your heart, that you would give a gracious deathblow to my broken heart? Drink death, damnation into yourself, and all those curses you scattered among your children out of this wine, sovereign!

COMMODUS Your beauty grows in your anger; I never saw you so before! MARCIA Base wretch! That I had to be fair! (Exit.)

FADILLA I see that here I am superfluous! I have nothing left but to weep on the days of disaster. (Exit.)

ARRIUS Commodus! Let me speak a few words, and this will be my last word. You are weak to resist the impression of the moment. You are not so wicked as your deeds, but you do not see the baseness of the circle that leads you; we do not see the air we breathe, but he sees it who stands afar. I know that they call your cruelties austere love of right, your wastefulness generosity, your pride noble self-esteem. Oh, where then would there be a sin on which one could not smear some glaze of virtue? Pliant was your heart, and with it they drowned the homeland’s sacred hope in the bog of sin, that they might draw the profit, while the disgrace stays on you. And the homeland’s good has become the plaything of a few good-for-nothings. This it was my duty to say; this sacred duty the gods gave, which on you, you cowardly tyrant, breaks! But for this I render no further reckoning.

COMMODUS Hah! No further, base wretch. Past are the times when you were my master! Away with the rebel! Stop his mouth, away, away!

MATERNUS How long must I still await your gracious sentence of death?

COMMODUS Take him away. The deed is certain, the wound is witness enough; away, away with him!

MATERNUS I thank you that you keep me waiting no longer. (Exit.)

COMMODUS In with the rest, Lucilla, Fadilla, Arrius, Claudius; all have forsaken me, cast down I stand, raging within myself, now that I have rooted out my ancestral nest. But it is well; I will show that, standing alone too, I defy the whole world. Defy I must, kill, shed blood, that with my death my name too may not vanish, which in no single loving breast will find an echo. With blood I must water my grave-flowers, which not a single tear nourishes. I owe nothing to the world; every smile, every embrace I pay for, and the bought maiden-love is so cold, so joyless. And shall I love the world that loathes me, and shall I love when all hate me? No, my accursed fate is to rage — and at last — to vanish.

CLEANDER (Entering.) Forgive, God, Hercules, that a churl dares step before your face, but I have great secrets to reveal, on which the good of a homeland depends.

COMMODUS Speak!

CLEANDER Pertinax, sovereign lord, whose slave I am, with several companions has conspired against your life; I should have kept silent. Ah, but my sovereign’s and my homeland’s good I valued above my master’s. I have finished.

COMMODUS Slave, if you speak not truth!

CLEANDER Then may Rome’s gods beat me forever; my reward from my master will now be death anyway, but so be it; for your good, great emperor, this too I will suffer.

COMMODUS So they too have conspired, good! Swear, all of you! Let the whole world swear, I laugh at you! (Noise.) What is this? You demand a consul! So be it, Cleander, the churl has become consul. Now, guards, away; bring Pertinax bound before me; let him conspire then and clink his chains, while I look down from my throne and laugh, ha ha! Go, Cleander, not a word more; come again later. (Cleander exits. Condianus, Virginia, guard enter.)

CONDIANUS They dared, my lord, your hireling slaves dared to lie, that by your command the peaceful citizens were torn from their nests. But I did not believe it, and, as I see, you have already punished the reckless robber, Perennis.

COMMODUS Yes, yes, but how dared you too draw your sword against my men; this deserves punishment! And you, fair Virginia, for thus fate plays you into my hand, will stay with me. We already know each other, not so withdrawn, my dear.

CONDIANUS No, emperor, she will not stay with you! By the gods, this stain of shame a Quintiliana will not suffer on herself! Can so much happen already, great gods! And you do not hurl your thunderbolts upon this world!

COMMODUS And if nevertheless it happened? If right inclined to the stronger?

CONDIANUS Then my curse would startle your people from their sleep, and I would howl until, numbed, they shook the weight of your throne from their shoulders.

COMMODUS And if your curse died among bare walls, and none heard it but the hissing serpent and the flat toad? What then?

CONDIANUS Then in your heart a voice would wake, on your deathbed, that would kindle a hell in the night of your breast; and if I then left you to yourself, my bloody vengeance would be fulfilled.

COMMODUS Gloriously you speak. And you, gentle little turtledove, do you weep? Are you angry that I adore you? Is the sun angry, when a thousand flowers receive life from it? Or do you not know me? VIRGINIA My curse on you, traitor! Oh, I know you! Would the gods had granted that I had never known you. Into our house you crept, and on the forsaken warrior our hearts had mercy; with sweet words you sought to stun the frail women, who, not knowing the false, gilded whirlpools of the outer world, sought their own integrity in every heart, whose feelings stood open, unsuspecting, to all, for under the rosebush they did not know the serpent breeds. And for all this, tearing down our Lares’ altars, which together we poured libation to our gods, you draw me from our happy family circle. Oh, be ashamed, great emperor! With your subject women you wage war, while your homeland’s enemies rest in peace!

COMMODUS Hah, reckless one! Take her to the deepest dungeon, whence not even the pitying zephyr carries her sighs toward the outer world! Away, away with her! (Marcia enters.) What is this again? Come, good girl! Come to my breast; from here only death shall snatch you.

MARCIA By my gods, Commodus! Do not dare to hurt her! Be ashamed of yourself; have not enough yet fallen as victims at your feet? Do not tremble, girl, I will protect you!

CONDIANUS Oh, my Virginia! Thus to die is a double death! I am ready for it — to live or to die is one to me! But you! But you! Defenseless dove in the eagle’s talons!

VIRGINIA Oh, brother, I am strong! Even in the storm I found a heart that shares my lot. And nature gave the frail woman too weapons, strength to defend herself. Brute force may rob us of everything, and even then there remains our one faithful friend, the quieting death.

THE JUDGMENT OF GOD SCENE ONE (The circus. Gladiators.)

FIRST GLADIATOR It was fine to watch, comrade, when the hungry lion rushed at Claudius, so that the hair stood up on whoever saw it; calmly Claudius waited, and tore out its tongue, throwing it into the dust for the monster, so that the ground frothed up.

SECOND GLADIATOR And the people were not content; they demanded his death?

FIRST GLADIATOR The people were silent, and anxiously fixed their eyes on Commodus.

SECOND GLADIATOR And Commodus?

FIRST GLADIATOR He gave the sign of death — and the people murmured; and that is rare, that the people should murmur, even if their best friend must perish for their amusement. They loosed a tiger on him.

THIRD GLADIATOR And the tiger does not have the lion’s great spirit; it bleeds from the side, it does not attack from the front.

FIRST GLADIATOR And between its claws the good Claudius gave up his great spirit, even in death holding fast in his teeth the monster’s leg, so that it could hardly shake him off.

SECOND GLADIATOR And Commodus?

FIRST GLADIATOR He laughed. Today he fights again. THIRD GLADIATOR Whom does he pick out for his victim? For he gives his opponent a lead weapon to defend himself. Often the guilty man gives his opponent a lead weapon, if he is mighty, and his victory is still a victory. So they do with the peoples too; they put lead weapons in their hands.

SECOND GLADIATOR He gives it out of kindness, only to make the more certain his gracious thrust.

THIRD GLADIATOR And when the heads of the two Condiani were struck off —

FIRST GLADIATOR That happened in the dungeon; the emperor did not dare have it done in the open, for he feared he might come to see how ugly his deed was.

SECOND GLADIATOR The people loved them; that he feared.

THIRD GLADIATOR Already 734 times has Commodus fought as a secutor, and the bled-out retiarius with his lead weapon kissed the dust of his foot in gratitude, while his heart’s blood flowed.

FIRST GLADIATOR It is a special mercy for every retiarius to fall under an emperor’s hand.

SECOND GLADIATOR A glorious mercy from a sovereign, but I do not greatly long for it.

THIRD GLADIATOR And on his monuments he everywhere has Hercules inscribed; so he has himself named.

SECOND GLADIATOR He may do it, he is the emperor. Who contradicts him, who does not want to disturb the agreement of head and neck. FIRST GLADIATOR True, for he is the guardian of justice, and so is not under it.

SECOND GLADIATOR For him, to conquer even a lead-armed opponent is a virtue — for he is the emperor!! (Lucius comes.)

LUCIUS Men, men! If you are men!

FIRST GLADIATOR What fine bird is this? He looks strange indeed.

LUCIUS Commodus will fight, hey, yes — or yes — answer me then, and I beg you, if there is human feeling in you — take me in as a comrade. I want to fight with Commodus — I must fight with him, men! See, have mercy on me, poor as I am — I ask no prize, let my prize be yours. — Only let me fight once.

SECOND GLADIATOR You do not please me, man. You would do better to question him than he would have the mind to answer you. You cannot fight with him.

LUCIUS Ah, men, see, I sought mercy in the halls of splendor, among mighty lords. Everywhere they cast me out, like a dog. They threw me out, I find mercy nowhere. Now I have come among the gladiators, to seek a man — and a man I find not here either.

FIRST GLADIATOR Poor man, I pity him. Let us let him fight; what can he do with his lead weapon?

LUCIUS I will fight. Oh, hail, oh, life, oh! But has virtue, then, moved into so base a shape? Yes, I remember, when they still called me Lucius, and my father was virtue, and my mother too was it, and they showed themselves to men; those cried out, down with the splendid robe, the beggar’s coat on your necks, virtue — and vice laughed on its throne, and I, I do not know what I did. I only know that I fell from heaven, and on a hard cliff that the devil named the heart of mankind, I broke my head — since then it constantly aches, good men, mine!! (Trumpet.)

FIRST GLADIATOR Hush, the people come. To your places, all of you. (They withdraw; Lucius stands aside by the barriers; the people take their places, Pertinax comes.)

PERTINAX I had to deny the light of my mind, deny that which makes man man — for the keeping of my wretched life. I hid the fire of my life, which heaven kindled in our minds. Oh, Commodus, you brought me to this. With it I bought one life, one wretched life, which is the only aim of our life. But let it not be in vain, this life so dearly redeemed; I must show that my life deserved to be life. But up with my mask; hide behind the foul face, human feeling, that man may not see your existence. — I am not alone. Good day, you upturned fork, what do you do here, where there is no roast for you among men?

LUCIUS How do you mean that? If I wanted to spit beef, I would not need to go far! But then, you well-fed philosopher, you wonder of the world, you windbag, who give back pain as it is blown into your ear, what do you seek here among so many men, where the pestilence steams so foully. The leaf yellows, for one man sees in another only his enemy, and fears to pour his feelings into another’s breast, for every breast is as much a windbag as you.

PERTINAX Ah, here I have found a madman. Oh, heaven, take my mind too thus, that I may not grasp the whole of my pain, and I am happy. But, my friend, what is your name? What sorrow has reached you, oh, poor lad, that presses down your breast with such power? LUCIUS (Aside.) Poor madman, I must escape him. [Aloud.] You say you are my friend? You are mistaken, I am your enemy, yes, your enemy, you old philosopher, you dog, you man. Men have greatly deceived me, and such smooth faces it was! But you are the one who made men believe that pain is not pain, that evil and good are one, you who make my fellows insensible with your endlessnesses to the finite wretchedness. I know you, hydra, and you are an ignorant dog, you do not know my pain, which is as endless as nothingness, ha, ha, ha! (Trumpet. Commodus, Marcia, Cleander appear in the spectators’ place, the people make an uproar. Lucius points to Marcia.) Look, look, do you see that heavenly genius? Do not believe her, a demon is in her; beware, do not look there, her gaze kills. I too once looked at her, and her gaze burned out my mind. Good morning, fair Marcia. Are you Jupiter’s Iphigenia?

MARCIA Ah, break not, my heart! This trial is so hard. And so slowly creeps the time that hides nemesis in its night. (Maternus and Virginia are brought out, each bound to an altar. Julia comes.)

COMMODUS What do you say, Marcia?

MARCIA Sovereign lord — I can endure it no longer. Ah, I beg you, be ashamed before a woman, and forgive Virginia. See, let her not be more patient than you indulgent, and do not fear that men will call you a coward. Oh, no, they will forget in this deed your dark sins. Commodus! I will love you, I will esteem you, the murderer of my brother, of my dear one. But monster! Thus, how can I look at you, how can you embrace me with hands defiled by a sister? Cowardly bloodsucker.

COMMODUS Foolish talk. You know I love you, you abuse it. To the matter, then. JULIA And you, my Virginia, are so mute, calm resolve over your whole being; you shame your mourning mother, who will soon weep out her life’s stars. I thought I would be strong enough. I, a frail woman, trusted so much in myself! And here, cast down, I stand speechless. Ah, my daughter, you are happier than I.

LUCIUS Look, look, you bag of skin. This will be fine to watch, how Commodus will show his right, with such reasons as no one answers.

PERTINAX Poor, good lad. Must I see him thus, the victim of spite! Commodus, have mercy; he is as innocent, as good, as the rising sunbeam.

LUCIUS Like the rising sunbeam? Then not so very innocent; it peeps in at every fair one’s window.

MATERNUS Hah, brother, there you watch your younger brother’s death-struggle, there you watch, like the hopping hoopoe chattering of your splendor, while the arrow-wounded eagle breathes out its soul to the sky, and its dimming gaze breaks upon it! Only take care, brother, that his death-throe does not strike you down. I do not rail at you for taking my life, for betraying me, painting me in black colors to the tyrant, that to my father, in place of his son, you painted a spectre, and my father in grief cast me off. Oh, not for this; for this my own conscience answers, and my avengers are your dreams. But my father’s life I beg of you, and my word reaches the heavens, on which the father’s blood reddens against you.

PERTINAX Oh, good lad. Is there in the heavens so endless a grace as can forgive this to me? I cannot forgive it to myself.

COMMODUS Pay no heed, Cleander, to the wretched slave’s barking. He will fly off, though his last breath too is poison. MARCIA Commodus, by the gods, save Virginia.

COMMODUS Be silent, you are a woman, you understand nothing of this. Your craft is the kiss, nothing more.

MARCIA Hah, dreadful! So let heaven be your aid. But let not so much blood flow unpunished.

LUCIUS See, see, how the genius speaks. Ah, alas, the serpent’s tongue is so smooth, and in so glittering a color, when it is in the sun.

MATERNUS Commodus, do you still delay long to give the sign of death? Do you wish to prolong my agony? Beware, emperor, lest with our agony you add to your own! You make law, and you are the law’s servant. Oh, how happy the oppressed would be without your laws, for united they could defend their right; they could cast you down, trample you, monster. But the law commands, and one must submit. For the law is you.

COMMODUS Be silent, slave; rather prepare for death!

MATERNUS How can I better prepare for it than by cursing hell yet more upon your head with my last words. You may oppress the people, base wretch, kill in it that which makes the people what it is, but against the success of your oppression there will be a counter-oppression, and dreadful will be the avenging rising ray. Ah, my Virginia, only for you does the agony slay me, for you I would wish to live, and to howl his sin then into his ear, when it grows dark, and the splendor no longer hides his spectral shape. Hah, my Virginia, we must die, and our blood, mingled, begs for vengeance, vengeance, vengeance!

MARCIA Commodus, how do you like this? By the gods, forgive Virginia! Commodus, be human! LUCIUS A fine jest! Ha, ha, ha! In this world always one’s grief amuses his fellows.

PERTINAX Hah, in this poor man every feeling has burned out, and then he can laugh when the cliff would weep.

LUCIUS What are you saying, philosopher? Hey, one sees your belly is full. Do you not know, then, that he holds the world to be merry who is happy, and sad he who is unhappy? And since one says it is not merry, the other that it is not grave, therefore it is nothing, and we are nothing, nothing, nothing. Ha, ha, lord nobody, the gods be with you!

VIRGINIA I am dreaming, but no. All is real. Farewell, you once fair, so fair, glorious world. Marcia, I see you weep. Do not, I know your good heart, and this is enough for me. — Commodus! I thank you, good Hilar, that thus you reward our hospitality, giving me back that homeland where again, undisturbed, I shall possess all I loved. — But ah, no, my mother still grieves here in this world; her measure of grief is not yet full.

JULIA My child, ah, heaven, my good child, this I can endure no longer. (She falls into Pertinax’s arms.)

VIRGINIA Mother! God — and I die, there will be no one left to love, mother! She will be an orphan, for I die. Ah, Commodus, see, I beg for my life, for my mother lives too.

MARCIA Commodus, for the last time I beg you, forgive them.

COMMODUS On then, the beasts on them!! JULIA (Recollecting herself.) What is this? Away, away from me, murderers! Where is my daughter? Heaven, give her to me! My daughter, Jupiter, ha, ha, ha! Howl, you winds! Away, away from me, for I tell you, I will strangle you! I thought my heart strong enough to defy a storm that moves the poles of the earth. But hell I did not expect. — Where is the emperor? Bring him here to me, let the mother bereft of her child strangle him!

COMMODUS Carry her off, carry her off quickly, she has gone out of her mind. (The people make an uproar; Julia is carried off.) Hah, it is meant for me, and my heart leaps up, but it does not conquer, it does not conquer me! Ha, ha! To the matter, quickly!

VIRGINIA Mother, dear good mother! And you, Commodus, would compel me to love, you, my murderer; endless is love, like God and the love of God; love is the bond on this world’s soul, which holds together this world’s powers, love it is, which in every ray, in every life smiles toward us, and which is a torch in the storm, a star to the strayed ship, which is almighty, and to whose power all bows, the spark of our divine origin and our hope in the future’s darkness. — To this would you compel me, you churl, you nothing! Oh, your power breaks upon the frail woman; she goes to die, and under the axe laughs only at you.

COMMODUS Dreadful; for the last time I say it, base is he who dares to beg.

MATERNUS Hah, Virginia! Commodus! You gods, I have no strength! I must die, must see my life die while alive. Oh, help, heaven! Stone, cliff, human feeling, help me! (The lictors come; Lucius leaps in.)

LUCIUS The jest goes too far now! Away, mercenaries, accursed dogs, after the wild beasts; here, here a man lived, longing for far-off freedom! Nothing more, live with it. Here is a magic wand, under which the world groans, which brings right; hasten! Ha, ha! Do you rejoice in nothing? (He unbinds Maternus and Virginia, giving him a sword; the people make an uproar; the lictors leap up. Commodus stares, Marcia claps, Maternus, taking up Virginia, rushes off fighting.)

COMMODUS Hah, accursed case; this happened to me. After them, men! And as much gold as his head weighs is the prize, and cut this reckless one to pieces. My command still unfulfilled! Knaves, rebel, whoever does not cut him down!!!

LUCIUS What do you stare at me for? Hungry dogs, here, devour me! Bastards, I am the king of beasts. (Pointing to Marcia.) And this here is the bat that cheats!!!! Now, do you still delay; do you not hear that Commodus said: heaven thunders, and the blind man’s lightning must strike.

MARCIA Commodus, take back your command; on a madman you cannot take vengeance! Men, leave him, for he is mad!

LUCIUS Hurrah, the demon too begins to feel. From water flame wells up. The stone weeps tears, and you men do not feel; the world perishes, the world perishes. I told you that long ago, and you did not believe, that my salvation was lost. (A coffin is brought in, in it Arrius.) Here too they bring food for him, to death’s bright table; worms, rejoice, when he goes to you with a fattened belly; do not mind if he begged here too. Better than the tyrant withered by conscience’s gnawings, for he, here or there, will beg mercy of you.

FIRST GLADIATOR Sovereign lord, we went to Arrius’s dungeon, as you commanded, to strangle him; he raised his chain-laden hands and with his heavy fetters beat in his head. His last word was: tell Commodus that with his chains he gave at once the means into my hand to escape them. His last breath was this: Rome, with you I go down to the grave! And with a smile he passed into another existence. (The people murmur.) COMMODUS He has escaped my just vengeance, but not wholly.

LUCIUS (Falling upon him.) My father, ah, you dear good father! Yes, my father you were. And now nothing, nothing, nothing on this earth. You loved me, my father, and now this heart is so cold, there is no life in it, no son nor Rome’s memory in it. All, all has burned out already. And you can watch, men, watch how your father, your protector, so wretchedly perished in chains, and his chains still press his cold corpse, there is no life in them to raise them against you, you tyrant, you good-for-nothing, and yet in fetters! Oh, heaven, fall down, earth, heaven, hell, God, demon, serpent, all, all perish, and do one dreadful mercy. You virtuous woman, be a procuress, be a good-for-nothing, deal out your kisses for hire.

MARCIA Ah, God! How heavy your judgment.

LUCIUS You patriot, sell your homeland. You child, kill your father, that you may inherit!

CLEANDER Again! This horror! Nowhere can I escape!

LUCIUS All, all, all, kill one another, men! Only the brutes live in peace, all, all, all! For there is no reward, no reward, no God’s punishment. — Ah, my good father, you died with your son, and there is no one to avenge them. Man is a stone, from which your pain rebounds, falling twice upon yourself. (He raises his father, pointing around.) Look, men, his silver locks are bloody. What a fair, good father he was, and he is lost. He loved you, he perished for you, and you do not weep one drop of blood for him. After me! We storm into heaven, we wring it from him, after me! (He rushes off; meanwhile the people have risen in revolt, great confusion; Commodus flees already during the speech, all exit.) SCENE TWO (Before Commodus’s hall; the people are in the greatest confusion. Pertinax paces up and down at the front, Lucius comes gravely and sits silent on a stone, now and then uttering single laughs, or "Marcia," or "my father, dear good father"; Maternus is brought in raised into the air amid cries of joy.)

PEOPLE Arrius to us! The lives of the two Quintilians! Tyrant! Claudius’s blood cries out against you! Our children! Our brother! Our mother to us! Accursed tyrant! Your life’s sun has set, you are doomed! Now we call you to account!

MATERNUS Citizens! If we leave our work half done, we are all lost! (Greater uproar.)

PERTINAX The graves are opened, the dead speak, and then fear, Commodus — if you fear to look back. My son speaks, my glorious and despised son; to step before him his father is ashamed. Farewell, my son, may heaven bless your every step. (Exit. Commodus appears at the window.)

PEOPLE Cast stones at him! Down with the dog! We need no emperor! No longer is the deputy needed, the people have come of age enough.

MATERNUS Let us hear him too! The adversary too must be heard by the judge; and the judge here is the people. Silence! Let us hear him!

PEOPLE Defend yourself, dog! Down with him, let us hear him!

COMMODUS I have sinned, I acknowledge it.

PEOPLE Die, then! COMMODUS I have sinned, but my heart was not corrupt. I meant to make Rome happy, only I did not know the way. I give into your hands him who drove me to all this; punish him, and I promise by the gods that my aim from today will be your happiness, and pardon to all who turn back! Maternus, to you too, with all your followers. (Cleander is thrust out; the people surround and torment him.)

PEOPLE Long live Commodus! Long live the emperor, down with the traitor!

MATERNUS Away, citizens! Do not torment him, let it not be said that, blind as cattle, fury led us in our vengeance. Let our leader be reason and its divine voice.

PEOPLE We give him over to you, Maternus, judge him, avenge in him us too; yes, yes, judge him.

MATERNUS Ah, he is my brother, false, wicked betrayer of a sacred homeland, and yet my brother; thus I cannot judge him. — But as a patriot, why not? Why? The brother too can be deaf before the patriot judge. Cleander, forth!

CLEANDER Brother, I know your vengeance will be bloody, your vengeance will be just. I too saw you suffer, and did not help you. But, brother, consider, ah, my brother, have mercy, I beg you, by your gods!

MATERNUS My gods are virtue, right; the judge is deaf as the cliff; he does not hear Maternus either.

CLEANDER Ah, gods, where then shall I find mercy, if my brother lets me die? What then of the rest of men! MATERNUS Seek mercy in your heart, wretched instrument, who at once will cease to be a person, a man. Your defense —

CLEANDER My defense, oh, my defense, only the brotherly heart. Brother, have mercy, have mercy on me. Ah, this I cannot endure, so dreadful is the dark, and am I to die, hah! I have not yet even reckoned with myself. I shudder, brother, mercy, be noble!

MATERNUS Now you have pronounced your own sentence! Mercy with the homeland — noble it is, sacrificing my own blood for the common cause. You must die.

CLEANDER Can it be, then? I die! My hopes, my life, all! A curse on you! Curse, curse! (He falls under many thrusts.)

LUCIUS Look down, god of right, here brother slew brother, as an offering to you, ha, ha!

MATERNUS Rest in peace, brotherly breast! I loved you best then, when I drove my dagger into the hiding-place of your life. But, citizens, the blind tool has fallen; now let the tyrant bleed. I have sacrificed my brother for you; now you sacrifice a tyrant for the homeland.

PEOPLE He will mend, he has given his promise; it would be needless; this one caused all the wrong. We are content. (All.) Long live Commodus! (They withdraw.)

MATERNUS Cowardly people, I scorn you, accursed! Shame on your head. You were born for the yoke, your head bent into the yoke when you first saw the light of day; I want nothing more with you. Forsaken I stand, my followers nowhere. Oh, why did I trust in them? The tyrant grins at me, Rome is dazzled by the foolish glitter. And my Virginia, my one life, in my arms begs for help. Brother, may my gods give you rest; I follow you, but until then I must act, must endure. You are already happy in nothingness, I amid the promptings of my own conscience. (Exit.)

PERTINAX Here lies a corpse, a deathly sore; there is no life in it, not a drop more, and this was my son.

LUCIUS Not true, he was my dear one, this is the ruin of my hope.

PERTINAX He was my son, a rebel, my traitor son; heaven’s punishment fell on him; the gods know, not by my curse. But by that sacred law by which in the end the good conquers.

LUCIUS A country’s blood fattened him; now it is fitting that he too fatten the noble guests, which pay tribute to no one, and are yet the swift servants of lame justice.

PERTINAX Your mind brews no more schemes, your heart a thousand intrigues no more; you suffer so calmly every condition, every injustice. And what was the cause of your ruin? That the smallest part too holds itself for the whole, for the final boundary. This holds the tyrant, the sage, the poet, the reveler, the priest, everyone, and his fellow he regards only as incidental. Leave undisturbed a place for every one of your fellow-men; be willing to be what you are, and the heavenly peace will descend on your hearts. Do not demand a right to that to which you have no right. Every man is his own, and God’s creatures are the gods’, it was not a fellow-man who gave you life, he has no right to it; and if you follow this, mankind will become human, and the coming centuries will look with horror on our blood-painted years, for their age will be a fair, pure light, in which men will know one another all as men, as brothers. (Exit. Marcia comes.)

MARCIA Lucius! LUCIUS Aha, you call me to die, good soul, or have you come up from your grave only to frighten, to torment me? See, let me, see, I have suffered enough already.

MARCIA Ah, his mind’s fair light so darkened! Lucius, I am your Marcia; do you not know me?

LUCIUS I know you. In a fairer, better childhood I knew you. But this is past now; now there is only blood everywhere. You were my Marcia, now my dear one is death.

MARCIA Lucius, oh, do not thrust me from you. I love you, I love you even now, Lucius! As man can love man, with all his life’s strength. I became the victim of force, the victim of a hard fate, I, but there is still another life, and in it undisturbed forever we possess each other. Lucius, believe me, love, and hope in the future.

LUCIUS What do you tell me of the future life? Foolish dust, ah, my hope breaks on the grave. Look, look, my Marcia, the empty streets, death’s breath everywhere, the whitening skulls; take them up and smell them and look how they swarm, and speak to me of the hope that beyond the grave awaits us. This is not real to me. You deceived me, cruelly, deceived me.

MARCIA I love you, always, forever I loved you, Lucius, believe my word, my Lucius, my sweet all.

LUCIUS You jest, you want to deceive me, but I know you are Commodus’s Iphigenia. Do not think that I am perhaps deranged in my mind, as the stupid men say. I know well, I see well, that no one loves me, not even nature itself, for it denies my one prayer, which is death. MARCIA Ah, heaven, forsake me not! Come, my Lucius, here in a safer place let us speak! I love you, I will avenge you, the frail woman will avenge you, and her reward will be your love. Lucius, do not look so gravely at me, I am your old loving Marcia. Will you come, my dear?

LUCIUS If you want to do something for a reward, leave it; I have nothing. Nothing in this world but my grief, for it is as great as the universe. I have no love either. My breast has burned out, and its dark is so empty, so deadly, as nothingness. (Exeunt arm in arm.)

SCENE THREE (A dungeon. Condianus.)

CONDIANUS Bare walls about me, mute silence! And shut in, I, my heart with the fiery feelings that burned on the homeland’s altars, and with the sacred homeland too they perished. — The homeland in graves, and I have lived through it! I lived through weeping out my life’s stars, howling over the homeland’s grave its foul tyrant’s curses. But you did not perish, oh, my homeland, I feel it, you live in my heart; in this breast you bloom on, and when one day the blinded race of man wakes from its night to dawn, and the rising sun too cries vengeance on its bloodred rays, my homeland, it will consecrate to your grave whoever feels — and all will feel in that age already; reason will be the lamp on shaggy nights, not fear, only the clank of fetters. And when the rusted lock falls, the chain clatters, and the slave-people rush out of their dungeons, seize the saber, show their wound, and howl up toward heaven’s vault, it shudders, falls upon you, and under it, crushed to dust, you. Tremble before the people that has become free within itself; when day dawns, there is no power left to conjure up night. — The gods’ command lives; you may indeed stifle it with the dungeon’s night, but to kill it you have no power. — But what if in our earthly life our existence has already passed, and the grave kills by annihilating, if we are torn from our dear ones, and every hope of seeing them again is lost, then, then, why did I give my life, my salvation, my happiness, for a foolish smoke, which is the homeland? Why did I sacrifice myself to this foolish phantom, which is virtue? — Yes, but then would this be so dreadful; we do not shudder that we were nothing, and shall we tremble that we again become nothing? Do we not thus too reach the goal that frees from every earthly grief? Do we not reach the goal that makes us all equal? It is not such a horror not to be, as men suppose. And how foolish, then, our bright memories would be, if beneath them the heart should vanish! Having tasted this life, only to feel its loss. How foolish it would be, if, giving all to my homeland — my road’s flowers, my life — if, binding my fate to its cause, together we descended into annihilation. If man were nothing but a corpse after death, a stinking bone, that in the midst of our revels would howl: it will not be thus forever! That in our dear one’s embrace would press a kiss on our brow. And these earthly agonies of ours would only perish with us, and the virtuous man and the dreadful monster would lie in one grave, giving their lives to one plant, which plant perhaps later would pour poison into virtue’s cup of bitterness. — No, this cannot be; we will live, we must live. (Maximus comes in.)

MAXIMUS Brother!

CONDIANUS Brother, what brought you to this dreadful place, where my only companions are the hissing serpents? Or did Commodus do this too, the accursed dog, that I might part more painfully from my life! He is mistaken; he finds me ready.

MAXIMUS No, oh, Marcia arranged this for me. Brother, I came with one request, and do not refuse your loving brother’s last request. Promise it!

CONDIANUS What still lies in my power, in these few life-moments, I gladly dedicate to you.

MAXIMUS See, I came unrecognized, wrapped up, past the guards. I will stay, you go; by the gods, go, Condianus, save yourself! For you I die.

CONDIANUS Ah, brother, this I could expect of you! But no, I am called guilty, I die. You live! For you so few days yet dawn; I have already tasted these earthly joys, with all their bitterness. Now to me death brings only redemption.

MAXIMUS Brother! Consider, if I had been at home, would I not have done what you did? Think of our mother, of Virginia, brother, for God’s sake, hasten! Let me die instead!

CONDIANUS Ah, brother, and do you suppose of me that I would accept your plan? No, no, this of you, this of your love I cannot suppose. What life would it be that we bought with our brother’s blood? What kind of peace, which our brother yielded to us under the axe? How could we send a prayer to heaven, while our brother’s spirit grinned at us? See, often one can keep this churlish life, if with disgrace we cast away the weapon.

MAXIMUS Brother, hear me out! The hour flies, and it will soon be too late.

CONDIANUS Do you think, perhaps, that I fear death? Oh, do not believe it! Did not my birth already sentence me to death? And then we did not shudder; and now, before the threshold that separates this world from the beyond, where none even knows what hides in the gloom, now shall I tremble like a cowardly woman? Condianus has not learned to bend.

MAXIMUS You have a breast in which the homeland’s hope lies. And avoid this dreadful grim place, which breathes death. Live happily, but I beg you, hasten! Flee, go quickly! CONDIANUS A happy life! What is this? What is good and evil? There is no difference between them, oh, brother. The dungeon is good compared to dishonor, bad compared to the halls of splendor. Death is bad for those who tremble at themselves, and fear the future’s gloom. Good for those who, weary of this earthly wretchedness amid their chains, soar in spirit to the lofty heavens. What is this dungeon to me, in which my tyrant shuts my body? My soul is free, and soars to the heavens. And the marks of the fetters hurt, but pleasant they are compared to the weight of those fetters.

MAXIMUS Imagine our mother, then, if for your own sake you do nothing! Our poor mother, who would despair if she heard that you had died under the headsman’s axe. That like a beast you were galled in the yoke under wild towers. Oh, her heart would break with your agony.

CONDIANUS Is it not in my power to put an end to my agonies? But no, I do not tremble at them. I take it bravely, come what may. Twice dies the fearful, for not death itself is so dreadful as the preparation. I see even in death a hope fulfilled, and to me even that is to be desired. Look, brother, the worm cocoons itself, ceases to be a worm, and gloriously from its ruins the butterfly soars up. And would you mourn it — weakness! I am strong, and remain so. Farewell! My strengthener is the dear consciousness.

MAXIMUS You stay? And shall I survive you? No, brother, I will die with you! (Julia comes in.)

JULIA Oh, my glorious children! My children, I say, and if your heads still bloodily kiss one another, this I will be proud to say. CONDIANUS, MAXIMUS Mother, dear good mother!

JULIA I had two children, so fair, so good, so glorious children, that heaven and the world looked on with envy. And I lived again in my children, and my salvation, my hope, my all was in their eyes. So I guarded them, like a world full of hope, and in my arms so gloriously they grew. And the old fence calmly looked toward its grave, for in its place here were two fair flowers.

CONDIANUS Do not think of this, my good mother. Lost is the fair age irrevocably. To others not even that was granted.

JULIA When the buds of my hope bloomed most fairly, then, ah, then, the storm tore them from my heart. No, when in the childish breasts the childish feeling still slept, when my hope was still only a fair dream, and my heart did not yet break, did not yet sink under the storm. For of her heroic children their mother was proud.

CONDIANUS Mother, do not pity me! For your grief would soften me.

JULIA No, my children, for I am strong. But see, there once lived a great man, lived, to scatter the darkness that spread over this earth, and into men’s hearts he poured the heavenly grace. He taught men to live their lives so as to remember to die, and so to die as still to hope to live. He taught defiance with a strong heart against the storm, and to live humbly in splendor. He taught that men are brothers, the beloved children of one father, one God, who must love one another as you love one another. And everywhere blessing followed him among the peoples, for his faith was divine. Even he became the victim of blind tyranny’s rage. He passed away, his divine tongue passed, but among us remained the seeds of his word, which into eternity will raise their glorious flowers. — No longer will men sacrifice a fellow-man to their gods, in appeasement; they will not believe that man can be debased to a beast for the sake of a few men. And their death will be as smiling, as calm, as his was. I believe his teachings, and into your hearts I pour his grace. This strengthened me on my life’s stormy sea. This kept up my ship from sinking. My children! The one God’s grace be with you! (She pours water on their heads and faints.)

MAXIMUS Mother, glorious mother, ah, again a blow!

CONDIANUS Your great soul too bent with your agony. (Marcia, Virginia.)

VIRGINIA Mother, ah, heaven — my dear sister and brothers!

CONDIANUS My Virginia, so everything comes together still today, to break down my manly defiance! To see this, and to go to die, ah, what agony!

MAXIMUS Our mother has sunk into a quiet sleep. Shall I wake her?

CONDIANUS Let her rest. Awake she has so little pleasure anyway. Asleep at least she forgets her agonies.

MAXIMUS And you, my good Virginia, how are you, my dear?

VIRGINIA Much, very much I have endured since I saw you. And I have learned to loathe my life. An unbearable burden it would be to me, if to bear it the good Marcia did not help.

CONDIANUS Good girl, take my warm gratitude in place of the deed. Otherwise I can do nothing now.

MARCIA Only he knows what a duty it is to help, who himself, forsaken, was driven into peril.

VIRGINIA But now I have forgotten all I suffered, for in your circle here is salvation. (Bailiffs come.)

CONDIANUS You came for me? Good, I stand ready. Mother, God be with you. Rest in peace, long, long rest, since the waking will be grief. You good, glorious mother, I cannot speak; Marcia, you good, noble lady, to you I give over my all; take here Virginia from my hand, guard her, guard her like the gentle, inexperienced little dove. Heaven will repay your deed. To you we owe even these few moments, which once more brought into our hearts our life’s sweets. — My Virginia, now I must go to die. May God bless your steps. Do not weep, I only change to a glorious homeland, and in the new homeland too the old Condianus remains. I cast down here these earthly chains, to laugh at the earth’s grim tyrants. Every drop of blood soars toward heaven, to redden my homeland’s dawn. Take cheer, your brother only goes ahead, dear lady. After him you too will come one day. And then undisturbed we shall possess one another on the rays of light.

JULIA (Dreaming.) My good child, do you forsake me, then? Cast down I stand here, and so forsaken!

MAXIMUS Even her dream is of us; even asleep you have no peace, good mother!

CONDIANUS Heaven, then, be with you all! But that is already in your own hearts. And if those hours which you conjured before me heaven will repay me, then one salvation is too little. My Virginia, mother, God be with you! My homeland! Up to a new homeland now! (Maximus exits with Condianus.)

VIRGINIA The gods — can it be, then! (She faints.)

MARCIA You heroic lads! Thus to die may be salvation. SCENE FOUR (A Christian assembly in the underground vault. Julia sits there madly, her eyes almost wept out. For a while deep silence.)

JULIA They carried her off, snatched the turtledove from my breast, the kite stole her, you tore the flower in its bud, and the bare little garden is so forsaken, so grave. But good, only let her robbers come, I will strangle, I will kill them, by my God! Accursed ones, come! If heaven stands so high that the churl’s prayer of vengeance reaches it not, here let the embittered mother, robbed of her all, fulfill her vengeance.

AGED ONE My friends, my brothers, my fellow-men, adore God, that he have mercy on this unhappy woman; the Lord took the light of her mind; the measure of her grief is full already; may gracious heaven give her now peace.

JULIA Dark night is before my eyes, dark, dark, as in my heart; I have wept out my eyes’ stars, I have no tears now, and my grief is yet so great! I cannot see the sun’s beneficent light, which the Lord gave to all his creatures. I do not see this once glorious world, which gave so much trouble, so much grief. Oh, God! — but I thank you, thank you, heavenly one father, who forsake me not, that you took the light of my eyes. At least I do not see the spectres, the tyrant, the monsters that sucked out my heart’s blood. (Maternus rushes in, bringing Virginia.)

MATERNUS Men, men, they seek me, they want to kill me. They want to steal away my fair Virginia, the accursed oath-breakers. What is oath-breaking to them; is there no one above them to reckon their sins? — I heard that you are merciful, good people, who help your fellow-man because he is a fellow-man. Guard this girl, give her back to her mother. See how the roses of her face have paled, like the shroud of death. By your God I beg you, by that, in short, which is sacred to you, guard her; my greatest treasure I give over to you, my all is this; guard her; for me to die will be no loss. Rest, fair, heavenly genius, rest after so many perils.

AGED ONE Speak more fully, then! Who are you? What has happened? Not that we need to know it to give our aid; for that we know enough — that you are an unfortunate man. Since we know so little of our worldly affairs, our world being only the beyond. Speak!

MATERNUS I was a coward, who nursed enough foolish notions in his breast about the people; I trusted in it, in its honor, in its grief I trusted my all, everything, the whole good of our homeland. Oh, but whoever has hope in the people, all are deceived in it; their hope, a pile of branches caught up by a whirlwind, which, when the wind ceases, whispers only of past perils. I had nothing left but my self-respect, and the people’s judgment. The people’s judgment, I say, ah, and what a judgment it is, patriot God! Its leader is happy still, if, unhappy, he is a rebel in revolt. With as much joy the people watches him soar up with laurel garlands as bleed under the headsman’s axe, for it gives them amusement. The fire of life has not yet returned to his divine eyes, and he is yet so fair, so glorious, so lofty, as dead nature, which even in its death exalts and shakes the feeling. (Bailiffs rush in and seize the Christians without resistance.) Hah, and I have not one wretched dagger. My Virginia, how can I have mercy on you? Even from under the earth you dig them out, wretches! Ah, heaven, ah, my Virginia! (They are led off.) SCENE FIVE — THE FINAL SCENE (A hall of splendor, a feast, night. Commodus, Marcia, and so on.)

COMMODUS Come, my Marcia, come, pour me wine! To the people’s health, ha, ha, ha! In whose blood I would wish to wade, that their marrow might spurt up to the sky, that they are so restless. But no matter, I root the life out of them, and then on the corpse I can easily rule.

MARCIA Commodus, and will this be glory, if your throne stands on the ridges of a people’s grave? The grave caves in, death’s home, and your throne collapses.

COMMODUS Woman’s talk! Let it not disturb me. You are a bird of death, who always prophesy ill, and thank your fair self that you do not pay for it. What a sublime thought, lords, and you do not laugh at my fine comparison? I am the emperor. (All laugh.)

FIRST COURTIER A sublime thought.

SECOND COURTIER One could not think of a finer.

THIRD COURTIER Of this let the whole city speak tomorrow.

FOURTH COURTIER And whoever does not laugh is either a fool or a rebel.

FIRST COURTIER He would have to be a block of wood, who was not wholly carried away. (They laugh.)

COMMODUS And yet I would like to know, do you hear, who is the greater among us, you, Nigricius, or I? Let us measure. You be the judge, Micilius. (They measure, but the courtier now stretches up, now shrinks down.) Micilius, who is the greater?

SECOND COURTIER My lord, sovereign lord, it is very hard to decide. COMMODUS Quickly.

NIGRICIUS What does your majesty think, which of us is greater?

COMMODUS I think, you — not yet — (Nigricius stretches fully up.)

MICILIUS No question of it! By how much! A good span, sovereign lord. Nigricius is the greater.

COMMODUS Accursed, that anyone should be greater than his emperor. Did you measure well, Micilius? Or, by my gods, pay for this yet!

MICILIUS Pardon, exalted emperor, if you would deign to measure again, for against our will, Nigricius stood on a higher place than you, Augustus — here, this torn-up people’s right was under his feet. (He picks up a piece of writing.)

COMMODUS Quickly, then, and take good heed! (Nigricius shrinks fully down.)

MICILIUS Beyond question, what a dreadful difference. Oh, blind human eye, that you did not notice this long ago; your majesty is far the taller!

THIRD COURTIER Naturally.

FOURTH COURTIER Beyond doubt.

MARCIA Oh, wretched knaves, base ones, you betray him and the homeland! COMMODUS But truly, is Paulus the best fighter among our gladiators? Henceforth I will have myself called Paulus. Let it be made known to the people, and on my memorial columns let this too be inscribed; let the whole senate cry 626 times: Long live Paulus, the glorious emperor. Whoever omits one cry is a rebel, a traitor.

ALL Long live Paulus, the glorious emperor!

COMMODUS But since I am so gracious as to let the people too share in the viewing of my imperial combats, let a new tax be laid on them, the revenue of which will be mine, as a gladiator’s.

MARCIA Commodus! I hope you do not speak truly in earnest, or has it already gone so far that the emperor lays a tax for this — that the sovereign has become a comedian?

COMMODUS You just prepare me a cup of cooling drink; do not think of the tax.

MARCIA (Preparing it at a table in front.) (Aside.) I am preparing it, tyrant, to cool your fire forever. Drink in with it the incurable venom of death. Let your thoughts pass away from it, which you so wish to drive off, and from the dark spectres let it be so empty, for that will be the dark of nothingness. — I cast off every womanly feeling, I become a monster among men, and let woman’s vengeance be dreaded by all who still have feeling for dread. But it must be; you know, my gods, that it must be; I am only the instrument of your power here. [Aloud.] Commodus, drink!

COMMODUS So, my Marcia. If in your love too you dealt out the sweetness as abundantly as in the drink, then I would be happy. But I hope already every disobedience will be at an end. (A servant comes.)

MARCIA I hope so too, that very few of your requests I will now refuse, my lord. (Exit.)

SERVANT The prisoners. (Exit. Maternus, Virginia.)

COMMODUS Let them come. Let the mother stay outside, I do not like to hear virtue from old women. The Christians too, I give them over; let the king of beasts judge them. Fair Virginia, how do you feel here, with us!? Grow used to this place, my dear, here will be your home.

VIRGINIA My home is the grave; I defy you, tyrant, I also despise your power, I will shame you, that you may blush before a frail woman you could not conquer. There is not a nail, a pin, a hard wall and chain, with which I cannot put an end to my life. And I die calmly, for I only go home, while to you I leave here my bloody ghost, to torment you by night, by day, at the feast, in love, everywhere.

COMMODUS Eh, fair girl, what a heroine you have become! So lightly would you leave your life? I scarcely believe it.

VIRGINIA You do not believe it, Commodus, for you fear death, for to you it is only horror. I too once loved my life, for my all was in this life, but now, when you have made me loathe it, when my all has departed to the beyond, there to cast off their earthly chains, where you, tyrant, cannot disturb them, since then I too do not hold death so dreadful; rather, longingly I await the delivering day. You do not grasp this, do you, and do not believe it. For unhappy you never were, and you do not know the blessings of stepping down. And because your sins will stand like spectres at the boundary.

COMMODUS Foolish, absurd talk. But I will soften you yet today; gladly you will fall about my neck. Away, take her off, where in place of me her companions will be serpents.

VIRGINIA And do you think they are not dearer companions to me than you, that their hissings are not pleasanter than the arms of your lying tongue? Ungrateful scorpion. — Maternus, my protecting genius, good man, my God be with you. I have no thanks, I am so poor. Take all I have, and this, the tear of pity; if we part forever, let it serve in place of parting; if we see one another again, we will wipe away our sorrow’s tears. (Exit.)

MATERNUS Ah, my Virginia, I feel I have seen you for the last time. (He drinks off the half-emptied poison-cup.) See, tyrant, I drink your curse from this cup, your curse on your head, in the name of mankind. To you I dedicate this cup, gods of Orcus. Send down on his head such a measure of your curse as he sent his curse on his fellows’ heads. Let the pestilence wither his breast, let the marrow burn out of his skull, wretchedly, senselessly, let him howl his sins through this whole world, while in pain he gnaws his own flesh, and so let men have mercy on him, as he had mercy on them.

COMMODUS Away, away with him quickly, by the gods, I cannot hear him. (He is carried out.)

MATERNUS May the hour of your death, I wish, be as long as an eternity, and may your agony with it slay your breast. (Exit.)

COMMODUS Go, my friends, I need rest. (The courtiers exit.) It so burns my mind, so gnaws my entrails, as if the curse were being fulfilled. But what is the curse, then? The curse is a word, and the word flies away. — So weak I am, my eyes are dark, dark — help, my Marcia — ha, ha, dark. (He sinks onto a cushion.) (Lucius comes in, mad, with a cord.)

LUCIUS So I have luckily reached the lion’s den; now on, on. Where is he? Here, here lies the emperor. Truly, will he not be angry, if with so common a cord I strangle him, and not a golden one? Let us try. Yes, only quickly. — Look, heaven and earth, it is done, it has happened, the lord of the world is dead, and the sun does not darken, the stars do not fall, nor does even a wretched planet wither for his sake. And he held his neck so calmly to the hempen cord as before to the golden chain. Ha, ha, ha, look, men, he is dead, dead, I say. There is not one drop of life left in him, and this a man did, a useless wretched dog. Ha, ha, men! Men, dogs, stones, cliffs, men!!! (Marcia enters.) Aha, the fair Marcia has heard already, or smelled the corpse. When the horse perishes, at once the ravens caw over it.

MARCIA Lucius, oh, dear, beloved Lucius, look, I have done it, it is done, the homeland is free and Marcia’s heart too.

LUCIUS But mine is not free. With my father they laid it in the grave. I thank you, girl, for your heart. For it I can give no heart; as for this shattered hourglass, I must best know that every grain has run down, ha, ha, ha. Even now the jewel is on his neck, so gentle, so little ambitious, that he suffers it on himself, and you think he would kiss you, if you went to him, or kill me? Oh, no, he is now innocent.

MARCIA God, how little one death was to you, if so many hearts still endure your curse. (At the window.) Roman citizens, Commodus is dead. He has paid the price of his sins. Long live Pertinax, the emperor! (Cries of joy without.) LUCIUS What do you say, you fair demon? He has paid for his sins? And if a good man dies, he is freed from earthly evil, a fine remedy against all. Would it perhaps cure for me too the hollow of my heart? Ah, then give me death too, I will love you, bless you. (Virginia is brought in on a coffin.) What do I see? My Virginia, you kept your word, the tyrant did not triumph over you. In two places your bloody marble brow. Do not believe him, he feigns, he will bite, if you go near —

MATERNUS (Rushing in.) True, then, oh, heaven, her lips are closed, the lips that once could breathe life into a world, now extinct, her eyes closed, heaven shut in them. Now I believe in gods, for her soul has passed over; her I adore, her I love as one now. Her breast is mute, not one drop of motion in it, nothing, nothing. She is wholly dead, and still I live.

MARCIA For you too, you happy one, only a few moments of your life remain. You drank of Commodus’s wine. Only I am the one whose fate it was not given to die, and with whom even his eternal grief lives.

MATERNUS I feel it, feel it already in the depth of my breast, and I rejoice in it, in nothingness. My Virginia, world, from all this I forever depart. My Virginia, the slave breathes out his life at your feet. He loved you, I thank you — for the poison — to my father — I forgive. — My homeland! Happy — Virgi — —

MARCIA Rest, you great soul. You have cast off your chains. You are happy in the reunion; I may be happy in hope.

LUCIUS A strange man this was, was he not? He forgave his father. His father he forgave, ha, ha, in this world he forgave. I too forgive, then, the fair Marcia, who robbed me too of only an eternal life.

JULIA (Coming.) The tyrant is dead, and I have my daughter again! The dungeon has opened, and in shone, they say, the sun of freedom. I cannot see, for I wept out the light of my eyes. I shall have my good daughter.

MARCIA Poor mother, your daughter is no longer of this earth.

JULIA Lead me to her, I know well that she is here. Do not torment me, men, for it was only for my daughter that I left the home of death.

MARCIA Good woman, your daughter is dead. Here she lies.

JULIA (Bending over her.) My Virginia, my daughter, my sweet all! Was I dragged up from death for this, that a second time I should feel death? Ah, you are so heartless, men; my daughter, only once more say: Mother! Then together we will calmly die. — My voice dies. My grief I cannot pour out. It chokes in my breast, and my breast is so heavy. —

LUCIUS You may wait, good woman, till she answers you. In this hall everyone is so proud that for all the world he cannot speak.

MARCIA In such a scene even bronze breaks. (Pertinax comes with Fadilla.)

PERTINAX Thus a hall of splendor became death’s home, and the tyrant in it a victim. Around it the bloody witnesses of his deeds, outside the homeland, which, bleeding, asks for aid. My son, my glorious great son, here you lie in the dust, with your heavenly plans, and a little grave will be enough to take you in, shut out from every sacred hope. You became the victim of treachery. Oh, forgive your father, if you can. — How many a heart has become the victim of recognition and misunderstanding. Yours has already finished its suffering. Blessed be your ashes, and light the earth on your bones. I have no time here yet; on the gloomy roads of my life still one noble duty rays down on me from the heavens, and this: to heal the sacred homeland’s wounds. — Noble ladies, you are both the victims of the homeland’s good. No greater reward can be yours than the sacred self-respect, which in time will bring balm to your wounds. Now to the homeland’s altars! Let this be my first step, the homeland’s good the first of my deeds. And let the better posterity look with horror on this scene, where such victims of tyranny will be no more. The End