SECRETARY [Fairly loudly]
Is Caesar awake?
GUARD
He hardly slept last night.
Last evening he was very quiet – and restlessly drunk
as seldom before. Smell at the door, smell there.
I heard things crash and break last night.
It stinks of vintage: old dry soldier’s wine.
and cheap – bought by the jar ...
SECRETARY
Ten jars I had carried in last night.
There was talk of Livia and her rages.
GUARD
I heard him all night through: slop, slop, shuffling
up and down, a moment’s rest, then walking round again,
this eternal pacing, and on every hour he came, white
and dreadful, to the door to look at me –
And neither spoke. Now, I think, he has to rest.
SECRETARY
I wish he’d take up with a woman – even several.
GUARD
Could he be scared? He was a great soldier then.
SECRETARY
Not of death nor ambushes! Who knows his heart?
Such loneliness is close to true madness
or has become madness.
Puts papers down on the table, one at a time, still scanning them.
Here is his day’s agenda: [70]
sentencing; his judges pronounce the verdict,
he writes their deaths.
[Looks at a document] The cross is for those slaves
that dared to rebel down in Campania ...
it’s bad; I know some of these names ...
Another document: pleased
the list of all the knights, some senators
that dared to plot with the false Agrippa –
that slave who claimed to be Agrippa,
the grandson of Augustus, landed in Ostia
in secret, all brimming with plans and treachery ...
If you just knew the names I’m reading here!
Yes, of the high, and higher, highest ranks.
That’s good, the gallows, Tiberius and I
we curl our fingers round the finest throats.
Short silence
But he was tough, this slave, we had to oil him
– you know, the nicest oiling – to get him to speak out:
and then, then he spoke the names so sweetly
to his dear friend ... and here, here they are now
awaiting Caesar ...
Germanicus’s coming now.
– He had him called – and Cneius Piso later.
GUARD
There’s one here now.
SECRETARY [Calmly]
Here they have to learn to wait!
GUARD
I fear the general: he is young, the people
They love him ...
SECRETARY
There’s been much treacherous whispering.
The Guard wants to go off
Let him cool his heels; he’s young, hot-headed. [71]
GUARD
They say he’s mournful: even a triumph
and all the city’s adulation don’t cheer him up.
The deaths of a certain Lucius and a Marcus
his most intimate ...
SECRETARY
Ah, yes: a death and – suicide!
And behind each we have a little story
that I know and Tiberius knows ... yes, I do [Guard off]
And what’s his great hurry? ...
The Guard returns with Germanicus. The Secretary, who had sat down at the table, gets up, goes through the inner door and returns after a while. All wait without speaking. Tiberius enters, a large, heavy dark man, and sits down. He speaks slowly, but mostly in a business-like, courteous manner
TIBERIUS
Now the games are done, my boy, and now the weight
of all the world descends on us, the Caesars,
as on every arid day.
[To Secretary and Guard] You wait outside. [They go off]
We Caesars must speak first, alone and grim,
like lions growling over prey – not so, Germanicus,
that’s what Livia would say –
We captured the whole world: it lies and bleeds,
and the imperial predators tear and dole
out pieces bit by bit. You like images ...
GERMANICUS
You’re speaking of people, Caesar
TIBERIUS
Speaking of people? I was speaking just of prey.
[More vehemently] No, rather a marshland where we fall around,
I speak of rancid mud that wells up from the earth
bubbling from a hundred holes and cracks
And where we – you and I – splash in the muck: [72]
close up one hole, it spouts out from another
twenty more; you get the blond Germans pacified,
then the dusky East bubbles and boils over,
or Africa or Spain with its steep cliffs.
Suddenly calm
Just listen, they say you’re clever, I want to ask:
did any one of your six victories up North
bring peace or loyalty in Germany?
GERMANICUS
I don’t believe they did.
TIBERIUS
So you do have some sense.
That very place will see us fall and splash and stumble
deeper into much more filth – till we sink
and the great waters wash slowly over us.
He laughs. Goes into his chamber and returns after a moment. Speaks as if overwhelmed
What was it now ... (that’s what my mother would say)
but before we go under, there still is work,
great work in the East.
[Suddenly sober] Armenia must get a king
from our hands, that’s what they ask – you know, the Caesars
make others king, never themselves. Then there’s
Parthia, Cilicia ... and the Commagenes, they want
to creep in under our tired old imperial wings
and must be organised; and Cappadocia,
Syria and Judea want the Law
– that lean Law that you know – from us, from Rome.
So you must go, for I am old, and stink
in the nostrils of humanity, not so? You go
like the great Agrippa of old: co-regent
Caesar’s own son and Caesar to all kings
to bring them law and order, clear and clean
– after your own heart, not cruel, semi-criminal
the kind that I, the dusky beast, the old Tiberius, [73]
must dole out here day by day.
GERMANICUS
Caesar, I came here to you not on command,
not to gain more might and honour, no,
but to lay my rank and titles in your hand,
lay them down and ask: Allow me please to rest.
Tiberius goes to his chamber and returns with a flask of wine
TIBERIUS
Do you want wine, or do you want to stay sober?
Just listen:
Where all are drunk, to stay stone sober still ...
there lies the madness. To be pure, my Germanicus,
– the husband of one woman, in the beastliness
of this vile city, where day and night the streets
bring on a salver the body’s every vicious lust
– it becomes the night where heart and brain both fornicate.
I’m warning you, my boy.
GERMANICUS
Why can’t you hear!
I see confusion, simple, without end,
inhumanity and hate and violence
that arcs across all that is here. I ask you here:
take away from me the heavy load of have-to-rule.
I lay my general’s mantle at your feet
please let me just be man ...
TIBERIUS
Looking ahead sombrely
You struggle with the a-b-z, can’t yet
spell easily that short syllable “man”.
GERMANICUS
Caesar, we have never talked of this before;
I still must speak of all the bitter things
that pulse here in my throat and make me hate
high empire, the great edifice of our race.
I shudder, fear that it will grasp me too [74]
and change my soul ... to less ... Caesar, I beg you:
allow me to live alone, sent to an island
small and forsaken in the wide, wide sea,
Chios or Corfu with its vineyards, yes,
where you will kindly let me live a man;
or a white hamlet on our farthest quiet coast ...
TIBERIUS
I thought you would say that. I think of you
and care for you – far more than you may know ...
Goes through the doorway and returns immediately. Threateningly
and I see to it that the nations of this vile Empire
enjoy a bitter kind of half-life
rather that than nothing, than dusky death
in endless warring, town with town.
GERMANICUS
I don’t know what your care, Caesar, entails ...
TIBERIUS [Fiercely]
And you want rest? Rest? The Caesars cannot rest.
Around you th’Empire would swell up
and infect all, even if you stayed pure.
Because you are beloved, you cannot rest:
you would be the reproach of Caesar’s filthy hands
in all men’s eyes, all outbursts, every dream
and foolish human quirk would cake round you;
you would be sought and named by every lout,
to use your unsullied hands to grasp what they
filthily desire, and the Empire would tear
once more bogged down in bloody battles, die ...
because one that was so high, would stay pure.
Gets up angrily
This I won’t allow. We are tied down
by Fate in the stinking sewer of this Empire
and the filth of our era washes over all of us.
I shall show you ...
[Goes to the door and calls] Let him come in now! [75]
The slave, Clemens – the “fake Agrippa” – is brought in by the Torturer. He is limp, mutilated. His eyes have been gouged out. Bandages over his face
Do you know this man?
GERMANICUS
That I do not.
TIBERIUS
Look well.
He does not look good. He’s been in cruel hands.
He had to speak to Caesar and was so bashful
that he had no tongue: he needed us to help.
GERMANICUS
This is terrible. Can a human descend to this?
TIBERIUS
You don’t think it’s Agrippa Postumus,
the last grandchild of the great Augustus,
the youngest brother of your wife, the son of Julia?
Look hard. You too will still be Caesar.
GERMANICUS
This isn’t he, no.
TIBERIUS
Agrippa died, oh yes. He could not rule.
This is his slave, that Clemens who long since
began secretly to plot in Ostia, work against us.
His first plan was to save the lascivious young Caesar
to live and rule, mad as he was, in Rome
as only heir and grandson of Augustus;
and – when this Caesar died – his own madness grew
so great that he, the slave, this Clemens, began
to vaunt himself, pretender, as his own master:
quietly, in dark of night, he gathered round
malcontents to rally to his cause – from this house,
from high and noble houses in our Rome –
all those that hate me, also those that would be “pure”
and would not bow before the domination [76]
of the black beast, Tiberius.
Turns to Clemens
And this thing would be Caesar!
Or, more probably, all men would be Caesar.
To the Torturer
Did you speak to him, my friend, this very night –
the way you do – and could he then talk back?
TORTURER
Caesar, not a word! I tried the scalding pincers
the water and the iron pens and all,
and boiling oil: no word, not one filthy word!
Forgive me, Caesar, and please don’t punish me!
This thing plays dumb. He is too tough for me.
Just, when his feet were dipped in boiling oil,
when he cried out, I could almost make out names –
these have been written down, the scribe did that.
Forgive me, Caesar.
TIBERIUS
Picks up the paper from the table
I know these names. And more than’s written here.
But he is strong.
He could have been a servant to Tiberius.
[Laughing] Tell me, Clemens – and now don’t speak to Caesar,
but as a tough man would to a tough old scoundrel –
how could you turn into Agrippa so ... so quietly?
CLEMENS
As quietly as you turned into Caesar.
TIBERIUS
Touché!
If you want truth in Rome, you must ask villains:
The nobles all say what Caesar wants them to.
GERMANICUS
Caesar, please make an end. Let the man die.
In such misery death will now be merciful.
CLEMENS [77]
Someone’s speaking here of mercy, I don’t know who,
and he sounds more than kind, but he sounds Roman.
I won’t have your pity! I spit it out,
I vomit it back onto your clothes.
Torturer tries to drag him out
TIBERIUS
No. Wait.
CLEMENS
I have reached the utter limit of all pain,
you can’t do more, then I shall die and it is over.
Death does not mean mercy, nor is rest from pain
a sign of mercy; your power has reached its utmost
with me, and I lie still as in a womb
cradled in dusky blood, I lie and think.
With my two darkened eyes I see you all:
you, Caesar, will drive madness and all fear
from deed to deed till you have no-one left,
abhorrent to yourself, and you will wish
to be like me, long stilled; and you, the man
who here speaks of mercy – you are young,
it seems to me – probably you don’t know blood;
you can cherish the luxury of your pity
in the rich chamber where you live artistically
and think of bright beauty’s joys, and call
your slaves to bring your food, to read a book,
to make music in your small cosy corner
of this bloodstained, enormous Empire;
if you want to pity, go out, and see
in the slave-sties where we lie stabled,
beast tied to beast, filthy, disgusting, full of hate;
go to your borders where your own people die,
where death takes all, where all that’s free, will die,
where Rome’s long shiny scythe mows all:
for Caesar, honour, and slaves for you, and riches
where you can lie softly, and cherish your bloodless [78]
pity endlessly, you chuck it away on me ...
TIBERIUS [Laughs]
Just see the dust fly up! You’re not shooting straight,
my Clemens, you’re thinking thoughts that won’t move mountains;
now you may prophecy!
CLEMENS
It’s fear, Caesar, it’s fear
making you say those words: that these very eyes
dead as they are, still see more than the truth ...
[To Germanicus] and you – because you were close to Caesar now,
you will die young; he has the lupus, the wolf-disease,
it does not kill him, no, but all will die
that come near him. And before you die, just listen:
take this message with you – if Caesar allows
you to leave this house of doom – take this
to him that we all loved, to Germanicus.
I saw him once, from very far away
in the house of that brute Agrippa; he was young,
yes young as you seem young; he was so mild,
polite even to slaves, friendly, courteous.
I heard him speak of justice and freedom.
I poured his wine and he was very merry;
but suddenly I was free: and I could feel
here was a master, leader for the world,
here I could follow and no longer feel enslaved.
I thought that he would be our next Caesar,
would renew Rome and with it all the earth,
clean and glorious – I would become human too
Tiberius bursts out laughing
and Caesar, when I conspired against you,
then I said: “Tomorrow he will come ...
Germanicus”, then I would kneel before him
and say: “This is your Empire, you lead us all!”
But he ... he swills with them from the selfsame trough.
You take this message: say: “The world, it hates him [79]
and thinks he’s small”.
TIBERIUS
Enough. Take him away now
and silence him. [Clemens is dragged out]
CLEMENS
Your Empire, o Caesar, is dying!
and we, the slaves, infect it secretly ...
TIBERIUS
[To Germanicus, quietly] And you want rest.
Looks at the paper
Here are so many names.
Tears up the paper
Tomorrow they will all cringe before me
and be so friendly.
“Rule” is a joyless word,
and this is what it means: love killing, love –
the least thing that will suit your aim, and know –
know well and always know – : these people are dumb brutes.
You wanted rest. We, Caesars, walk a road
that has no turning back, no stopping and no rest.
The whip cracks over all, Caesars, slaves,
and I, Germanicus, I have no other choice:
I’ve learned to love the whip, I’ve been worn down.
Leans forward over the table
GERMANICUS
The whole world’s cares’ve fallen upon you.
I pity you, Caesar, in your strength and power.
TIBERIUS
Do you know “loneliness”?
My nights are terrible. And the moon
threads a slim loop through my brain ...
He sinks to the ground from his chair
and every day is black, and all is lonely.
Do you know that? The days, the nights, the years,
the streets are empty, Rome is empty, the earth, [80]
my own hands are black and lonely in front of me
where I touch. Now they can walk on me. I lie prostrate.
GERMANICUS
My father and my friend. [Helps him up]
TIBERIUS
You want to rest. And Caesar has his work.
Takes up the papers
This work is for the vulture, for Tiberius, I see;
not work for hands that must stay pure.
Shows Germanicus a document
The slaves of a Silius rebelled against him.
He was a beast to them; and they were beast-like
back at him, but he was master and a Roman.
If I sign here, then a hundred will be crucified.
Read this and weigh:
strong brave men who could no longer bear
to be enslaved, will feel the wind and sun
as they hang on their crosses along the Appian Way
and they’ll die slowly, racked with pain and hate,
but powerless in our hands.
GERMANICUS
The cross is dreadful; and people suffer so.
I am a soldier, blood is not unknown to me,
but my bloodstained trade has its own meaning:
I fought to spread wide the Imperial peace,
to make it greater still, cause it to pour out
blessings over the whole round earth.
But this empire and this blessed peace
rest on foundations made of clay,
the clay of hatred, bitterness of peoples, slaves.
TIBERIUS
If you were truly honest, you would not have fought.
GERMANICUS [Hotly]
That’s true. I have been weak. Yet I must speak out
and Caesar listen. I shape the words: they’re vague [81]
just like my thoughts, but through me speaks humanity,
the voice of those who have no other power
than words. You sit above all earthly powers,
more than a man may ask you have been given.
Grasp this chance once, break this stilted mould,
kneed, kneed the great Empire with its nations
and make them men again, break down this fear
that makes each stumble in its shackling ties;
then no man need listen, spy, snoop and tattle;
break the old hatred ...
TIBERIUS
To fight must be much easier than to think.
GERMANICUS
these slaves here,
they’re people, Caesar, brave and simple;
thousands like these I had to bring to Rome.
What do we turn them into? grant order, rest,
a pattern to the space that borders all humanity.
Is there no other way, must we just kill
until they seize us by the throat? and then
answer hate with death, bring terror to the terrified?
beat till they stagger, beat down those that stagger?
circle round in a bloodstained rink, round
and round; humanity dissolved: in us, in them –
we with our pride, yes, they with their hate ...
TIBERIUS
He thinks a ruler of Empire lies still,
a nucleus, glorious, imperturbable:
his stillness unmoved by all activity.
You saw me crawling darkly on the ground.
You see me here, half-mad, terrible.
He has no idea of what I say. I don’t know you.
Fiercely
This is what to rule becomes, so blind, so pitiless!
GERMANICUS
You do not listen. I call in vain – you’re deaf. [82]
To serve was my ideal. That task you should have given me.
To rule is not for me. I cannot ask, Caesar:
“Bring back their freedom” – that we have lost;
our freedom was cruel, reckless toward underlings;
but I reach out, I’m not sure how, to a clarity,
to a greatness that the Empire can achieve,
and you, you can do this. I can serve you.
TIBERIUS
What I should say and what I should not say
and how this should be said, that I don’t know.
[Suddenly sober] You put it very well:
“The cold wind of Rome has blown at will
– too far – across the thick, white, slippery broth
of each strange nation, stewing in a pan ...”
GERMANICUS
My very words! Spoken in my tent,
in Germany, secretly, to friends alone ...
so the spies of Empire must listen, C
aesar;
so they must listen where hate and fear rule
as one household.
TIBERIUS
Back to the letters of your plain ABC!
Our Empire speaks and while it speaks, it listens.
You are its voice, my boy, I am its ear,
and between us two it screams, confused and frightened
in a dazed dementia against itself ...
You speak of a “beast”, “a swarthy animal in its lair” –
but Caesar is its head, and you’re the claw!
You, me, and the Romans – beauties, riffraff –
our fat senate, our lean black legions,
our slaves and the nations teeming here
in this pauper’s peace – it’s all one.
Each simply does his job: yours, clean; mine, foul ...
He snatches up the paper and signs it [83]
Humanity is dull and wild; cruelty and violence
must keep it at bay.
GERMANICUS
Please don’t sign now, Caesar!
Should you dare? You’re drunk, and wild, you snatch
with hands that aren’t yours, at people,
Such murder rises from a madness, madness now ...
TIBERIUS
It’s glorious, oh, it washes round these hands of mine;
I am a god, I can take them up to mould,
just as I wish, to die or live so happily ...
more, more than human, holy, untouchable ...
More soberly
You are revolted. Your talk’s all of “humanity;”
you shudder at facts about the sombre seeds
of true humanity.
Listen: its cruelty and its lust, they are one;
and pain and lust, also one; they copulate
more horribly and more gloriously than you think.
You’re young; the nation shouts, thinks you’re its pet.
Were you to rule as those men in Germany
would have it, – then “clarity” would be your aim,
so you think now ... Humanity craves for the dark,
locked in its blood, pain-wracked, with urges;
and searching deep for new griefs, too frightful,
each for himself, so many in stark contrast
with the few quiet pure ones such as you ...
[Speaking as if from the depths of his soul]
why name the words that control our lives ...
Osiris is a secret god ...
I rule
in Rome, where there is “silence”, in Clemens’
words ... for you the broad reaches of our East,
of our dear world, for me the kernel, pip,
an almond that shares its bitterness and poison.
I know you have accepted it. [84]
GERMANICUS [Tiredly]
I have accepted it.
I take it as I have accepted death
and all that’s human, as I accept
my heart, which is doomed one day to stop.
Tiberius partly slumps forward over the table and remains leaning on one arm
One thing more, Caesar: Piso’s the governor
in Syria; is he your watchdog then?
He waits, no answer
My friend, Silanus, was dismissed, called back:
Piso, he follows him – or keeps track of me.
I get these warnings, often; there’re messengers and letters
sent on to Piso in my camp.
Caesar! Caesar!
So the ruler of the world hangs in his web
at the quiet centre of his Empire, and rules.
Off. Tiberius sits unmoving. The Secretary enters, whispers something to him, touches his arm
TIBERIUS
No! Say I am ill. Say I am drunk.
I don’t want her here; not right before my eyes.
Tell her I’m lying like the other day
mumbling rot. Just make her go.
Livia, with Plancina following, enters the room hurriedly
LIVIA
Please don’t send him. Let me talk to him ...
SECRETARY
Caesar, it’s not my fault, I couldn’t help ...
TIBERIUS
What right? where do you get the right? How did you ...
pass through the guards I posted?
LIVIA
Don’t send him, please! I beg you! It’s dangerous.
TIBERIUS [85]
Grabs her shoulder, shouts loudly
Quiet! How did you pass by my guards?
Tell me, how did you pass by my guards?
What new plots are here? Why weave them all round me?
LIVIA [frightened]
Forgive me. I had so many fears for you.
TIBERIUS
To Secretary
Go, and find out who all were in the guard,
each one, right up to the door; imprison them!
And post new guards, ones you know well.
[Softly] And call the torturer. I must know all.
Secretary off
Sits down; addresses Livia, more calmly, but bitterly
Pull yourself together and speak intelligibly.
I send such thousands out into the world:
who – do you think – must I not send out now?
LIVIA
Calpurnius Piso! He’s the hand, the tendon
of conspiracy. She, here, has just found out,
his wife. Each night they meet him at his house,
secretly, but all are names well-known to me.
I watch out for you. I commanded her to listen well.
They want the stupid young Caesar to lead
the treachery, to drive us out and re-install
what they call freedom – the republic.
TIBERIUS
Approaches Plancina, takes her under the chin and raises her head
Ah, so. This is the new kind of Roman woman
that loves Caesar more than her own man!
[To Livia] So much they now love us – you speak
of “us” – love the red Caesars, mother, dear,
that women turn against their men. Parents will
rage against their children and for imperial gain
children will turn against parents. And slowly [86]
– we, old Romans – turn into humankind.
You don’t hear well ... or bring your news too slowly.
Looks at her intently
Why then so slowly, Livia? Why only now?
I’ve known long since.
LIVIA
And still you dare to send them?
together they go East: the gold, the grain,
the great legions, all the soft nations
of our East given in their hands –
you say: Here are our Caesar-throats, exposed
bent back for slaughter.
The rabble must just hear
of Agrippina, of Germanicus,
then their thoughts revive Agrippa and great Drusus
and they shout treason and revolt against Tiberius
and against Livia. You dare not do it, you don’t dare!
TIBERIUS
You talk so much of “us”, of “us” that rule.
Perhaps I want to see how they work loose a brick
and pull it out to make the whole wobbling edifice
come crashing down on “our” four ears.
LIVIA
Desperate
Please do not send them! Listen to me and don’t.
Just grab those two now and kill them quietly.
TIBERIUS
Takes another draught
You were the first to mention Piso then,
that first time ...
LIVIA
Tiberius, please don’t drink,
don’t creep down deeper in dementia
and hide your heart from me ...
TIBERIUS [87]
Was it not you
that
first demanded Cneius Piso be sent there?
Your plans always lie in ferment, bubbling up.
I don’t know them. I don’t know them ...
And ... and – let her hear it from me! –
how many lives were taken by your hand?
LIVIA
All just for you! For you I did it all.
I let my hands wallow in the filth,
more filth than any woman should;
I steeled myself to cruelty
and ruined all my latter days.
What thanks do I get? You’re cold, inhuman,
more inhuman yet than I, for ...
Visibly upset
for to me
that am frightful myself, you are too frightful ...
TIBERIUS [Smiling]
You are so old ... otherwise I should have made
a plan, brought you to heel ...
He wants to leave; threateningly
and, mother ... leave my guards alone!
LIVIA
Grasps his knees
Why do you reject me? you were my child.
For you I did it all.
Give me your hands to hold. They were so small.
The fingers were like little grubs, so white.
And do not send! Please don’t send him, my child!
TIBERIUS [At the door]
I’m sending them – together purposely – for only I
can see, can understand through what blind tensions,
whereby each man is knotted tightly,
our Empire maintains its balance still
and holy rest. I see, and therefore I can rule. [88]
He goes off, to his bedchamber
LIVIA [To Plancina]
He’s pitching into madness, and I am old.
I need to save him, soon, before I should die.
Remember the doctor. The surgeon of Germanicus.
I’ll let him know betimes.
Where you must get the poison, you’ll hear it later.
PLANCINA
You are raising something frightful, horrible.
Germanicus is son and friend to Caesar.
LIVIA
I know this Caesar – is he not then my child?
He never speaks straight-out, and those around him,
those who both serve and love him, have to guess,
search deep into his words, watch how his calm clear eyes
flicker; read other, deeper thoughts
in every simple sentence;
from a thousand little gestures we must guess,
and from his silences, guess from his hesitations
what that dark will of Caesar wants.
And then we do it – for we, we are his hands,
which by some quirk are severed wholly from his heart.