PLANCINA
The streets are crazy today. Singing, shouting,
they push one around: jugglers, slaves ...
LIVIA
Don’t talk about it. Help me get up.
I know. I hear and see through this very wall.
My eyes are not too old. I watch the street.
They shout “Germanicus”, “the imperator”,
“the tall captives”, “wild boars”, “bears too”,
– the whole carnival that goes with triumphs –
the strange new names of its great rivers,
his five fine children on the leading float ...
Tiberius has just one ...
[Abruptly] Just see how thick the dust lies: the slaves run amuck,
our whips, they rest too much, in these days ...
why do you sit there saying nothing?
PLANCINA
What I can say
you know yourself, Augusta.
LIVIA
Sits down again; Plancina helps her
Ah, yes, I know.
The one that knows, that’s me, it’s me, the old woman:
how beggars, butchers, cripples, and senators,
the whole stinking populace left the city,
all came streaming out to the twentieth milestone,
came to meet him—good, I know their names.
Treachery is brewing here; the scum is wild,
but scared. Listen: you’re going to Syria. Frightened?
I had your husband recalled by Tiberius, [59]
and he leaves for Syria, as governor,
together with Germanicus ... ha, ha, not always fun
when the man comes home again, huh, Plancina?
But you do love me, and you ... it’s you
that’s sent to Syria. I’ll say more later on.
Today I have brought you a wonderful gift.
PLANCINA
You are too good, Augusta.
LIVIA
You all think she’s old,
and done for, the old bag. She’s still strong enough,
to all those she loves, she give a lot.
Tiberius I made to rule alongside of me.
I’ll keep him there.
But next to us there’s still place for our good friends.
PLANCINA
There’s nothing ... there’s no danger that I would not
take on willingly for you – just name it please;
and your strong friendship ....
LIVIA
Always in a hurry!
Wait. Wait. You’ll have to learn to wait.
What was it now? What was it I had to say?
My dear woman, why do you just sit and sit,
just saying nothing? You’re scared of this old woman!
I want to say this; she’s the one, Agrippina—
she’ll be the toughest nut. Germanicus ...
he’s scared; why else does he not strike today?
PLANCINA
They say she’s pretty tatty, her pride and all ...
those long years in tents and in the field.
LIVIA
You’ll see her too: that’s one of your presents
I want to give today. [Shouting outside]
Just hear them shouting. [60]
Gets up. A servant enters and whispers to her.
Let one of his old cripples limp past here,
and they all shout. It’s seeping, seeping still,
that boil “Germanicus”, and we grow hot.
What was it now? I’ll show us something beautiful:
that red-haired German miss herself, Thusnelda!
PLANCINA
Thusnelda! I saw her in the triumph, thin
and pathetic, with her son.
LIVIA
They say she’s fierce.
I like them fierce. I want to see them fierce and wild;
not always fawning like these dogs in Rome.
Wait, wait. Here it comes.
[Sits down in her chair] Now I am again Augusta.
I commanded that she be brought before me.
Thusnelda enters, accompanied by an officer and guards. Livia looks at her long and curiously
Ah, so, so, white and red, yes, milk and blood ...
Still very young. Nice and soft. Not old and bony
like Livia, the she-wolf of the Caesars.
Not swarthy and small like me.
[Points to herself] This is a ruler!
Does she savvy?
OFFICER
LIVIA
Tame, is she?
And taller than our women ... Stand, Plancina,
and be measured!
Plancina obeys, uncomfortably subservient
Do your men like you to be so tall?
To Officer
You say she speaks. And why do I hear nothing!
How do you like my city? It’s much grander [61]
than a reed-thatched shanty in a gloomy wood?
Or do they have houses?
You sneer, I see. I guess you hate us too.
But know this well: to hate will not help you.
Nothing helps against us. Just learn to grovel now.
THUSNELDA
I am no longer human. I am all hate.
One solid piece of rancid, stone blind hatred.
This you do to us, you shrink all life to this,
you make it narrow, one dark dungeon: hate,
and struggle, breaking-out,
We do not want to hate forever: we are human:
we want to love, have children, care for them ...
LIVIA
Cackling with amusement
Good! She can speak! And who will give you progeny?
I can send a slave to help you on your way
if you feel the urge. Good! A child, she says ...
they all want that, these long slim soft ones.
Well, I can give them that.
THUSNELDA
Astonished, upset
Does hatred do this
to one who was a woman.
Approaches Livia; the apprehensive guards move forward quietly
Are you not afraid?
Hatred bears hatred: with ten, with a hundred children ...
all around you, in your city, no, in your home,
with your own people, hatred looms over you...
have you no fear that it will grab hold of you
and of your house and strangle you?
With you just one is free, impetuous
and half demented from that poison-power,
all others slaves that hate him still.
Points at Plancina [62]
You humbled that woman ... she has bent low:
perhaps she doesn’t yet recognise her hate,
but everyone that bends, grows gangrenous
and spreads the sickness.
With us no man would dare to trample thus
upon a freeborn woman ... do you not fear ...
LIVIA [Laughs]
If we had known such fears, how could we have ruled as Caesars?
I handle fear as you would thread a needle.
Points at Plancina and an Officer
If I tell him to kill her, then he would do it.
He’s afraid.
If I tell her to kill him, then she would do it.
She’s afraid.
But I am above all this fear, I rest
my foot upon it as if it were the floor.
THUSNELDA
Begins calmly, then more heatedly
And I have delved deeper than all fear,
and mole around under your chill paving-stone.
Threaten me with death – see whether I take fright.
Threaten to mutilate my child, tear him to pieces.
make me stand by and see if my cheek grows pale!
We, all that are powerless, lie far below
that fear ... see if your torture-chambe
rs can
terrify or make me tame.
It is no future happening,
as I thought before ... your Empire has fallen down,
lies all before me, powerless, without fright.
LIVIA [Smiles]
Perhaps it’s only in the way one looks:
for I, I think, live, peaceful and happy
in this Empire with this fixed power of ours
on earth – which will stay fixed when you are gone.
Agrippina enters [63]
Welcome, my child, it’s a great day for you.
I had you brought here to render you my praise
with that of Rome and all its populace,
even though you all have forgotten your old gran.
I wish you great joy in the love of all the people
and success in all your years. They love you so,
your husband and children; the house of Caesar
grows stronger through this love and loyalty.
of all your victories in Germany.
But listen, though: you must bring them better tamed,
lest the work seem so ... incomplete ...
AGRIPPINA
I thank you. This woman has suffered much.
She’s noble, lonely; in her spirit broken down,
for days she utters not a word.
LIVIA
She’s learned to speak again,
believe me, and her spirit was made whole
perhaps from being here with Livia.
She has no fear, for I am old and small
and I do not scare her like Agrippina,
the commander’s wife, possibly.
[Abruptly fierce] I must see her, naked, see the breasts
those hips and thighs, those beauties
so beloved by enemies of Rome.
Consternation in all
THUSNELDA
To Agrippina
You were still kind. Save me from this thing,
this horror that says it was a woman ...
send me to the dungeon now with my child ...
please let me die ... just die ... let everything just end,
let all turn black, to black and gloomy rest ...
LIVIA [64]
Ah, ah, so it’s not ended yet. You’re scared! And you
swore just now that you’re below all fear.
AGRIPPINA
Augusta, let her go, please, I ask you now;
today was very hard for her.
LIVIA
Beware, my child,
your husband clearly likes these proud
and arrogant women. He is young.
AGRIPPINA
Livia,
you go too far. I too am of the Caesars,
of that blood. There’s honour too high for you
to take in your mouth and swill around
behind your ancient teeth: Germanicus,
and I – and this woman too.
We are not like those that kneel here in Rome.
Just take me now – and run out in the streets,
stand in the market and call all the men together
and say: “I have taken into custody
Agrippina, on this day, Germanicus’ day,
took her ... for base rebellion”;
say: “She is chaste”, say: “She has sons, Romans,
young Caesars for th’Empire”; and shout, shout it loud:
“She knows danger, armies and battlefields;
she does not sit and plot; she has no guile;
she does not stain your honour with poisoned death
and adultery ...”
the highest houses of the Palatine
will burst in flames as you speak, the temples burn ...
LIVIA [Calmly]
Ah, so, so, you’re talking to my armies?
Far different from the sweet docility you showed before.
AGRIPPINA [65]
More calmly, but furious
Just ask Tiberius Caesar, he who rules,
whether he wants to humble this woman before you
and bring me low like her ... and whether his armies
are now yours.
LIVIA
Tiberius? I shall show you all ... undress her!
I must see her, I must show her to you all.
You mock my old body. You laugh in secret
about these breasts that could not suckle a child
for the great Octavian. You know I was so hungry,
you know I was on heat like a wild animal.
You laugh. Pull off. I must see her now!
OFFICER
Caesar gave command that she be watched,
but strictly said no harm should come to her.
LIVIA
You? Do you refuse?
OFFICER
I have the command of Caesar.
LIVIA
Politics again, as always, sly, with plots –
my jackal-child that trots behind his mother Livia ...
See if my hands can still act for themselves
in Rome where I am ruler. [She tries to do it herself]
THUSNELDA
Please let me just die.
AGRIPPINA
Stands between Livia and Thusnelda
So old, and yet so evil and poisonous.
LIVIA
Suddenly pulls herself together
Take away the woman.
He wants to bring me low.
[To Officer] You’re nothing. [66]
[To Agrippina] And you’re nothing. I could have swept you away,
so, but behind you there sits one
Officer off, leading Thusnelda
sitting behind it all, and glaring forth:
that child of mine, Tiberius; the one that hates me,
hates, hates. He wants to grab the inheritance
that should be mine, Empire, and power, and rule,
– Augustus left the rule to us, us two
alone; nothing to me, my hunger left
as always. Was I not torn with hunger
– hunger even for his stick-like love? Listen!
don’t hide here now and fear that later he
will wreak revenge because your ears were forced
to hear the filth the great Caesars wrought ...
Takes up a little box
see here this letter, Augustus wrote it, see,
Rereads it to herself
his judgement of Tiberius already formed,
he pities the Empire for its dull sour new ruler ...
[Reads] “He’ll chew up the Roman people slowly.”
This I shall read, read it in the market place
and shout out to his senate: “So Augustus sees him ...”
To Agrippina
What did you say? This I shall read and shout!
I’ll show them all who is the ruler now
who strips my honour, all my titles strips away
and me, Augusta, ... help me again, Plancina ...
To Agrippina
You think I fear? I am too old, too near
to dying.
But ere I die, all will be cloven open
down to the cellar reaches of all time
when he still needed a mother to help him grow.
Go! Go! Why prick your ears?
AGRIPPINA [67]
I’ve seen enough of all your toothless hate;
and now think less of all your quiet champions,
your motherly care for Caesar.
I have the loving care of my own husband
and of the armies that love us both. [Agrippina off]
LIVIA
Alone with Plancina
Ah, you seem pale. Don’t you know me yet?
You slink watchfully among the Caesars, but
you still don’t know their ways.
Do you think that I, even in my anger,
forgot that she was hearing wh
at I said?
You don’t know us at all. She’ll sit back now
be less afraid, forget to take care where she treads.
Tiberius ... he hates and tramples me
– quietly careful, yes, when no-one looks,
and courteous – and he offends me, offends me
as if I’m just a female, of the human race.
But he’s my son – then I still could love,
and I screamed, thought I should die, when he
was born. And many nights since then
I wept over him. And I used guile and murder
to clear a path for this quiet, bitter man,
for him to rule. There’s where he will stay – my son.
What was it now? ... [Silence]
You’re going to Syria, you and ... Germanicus.
there may be great work for Empire in the East.
One man will help you, a man that he trusts well:
an old decrepit doctor – he’s old like me
and sly [She cackles again]
just like me. He left my house
with Drusus and Germanicus on campaign,
but not his stars nor all his fragrant herbs
could raise him up, yet he stayed true to me,
dog-like, he watches well, and barks for me [68]
to tell me things. He’ll be your aid ...
but let us think. Time will teach you to decide ...
to be a hand for your weak old sickly friend
if she should need your help.
Scene Six
Palace of Tiberius
A few days later
[69]
Early morning a few days later, Palace of Tiberius, small work room next to his bedroom. A guard, one of Tiberius’ trusted soldiers who campaigned with him, sits on a stool near the door. A nightlight is still burning. Tiberius’ elderly Secretary, a freedman, enters.