OFFICER
Any more news? How is he doing now?
SOLDIER
No better than this morning when the pains
subsided slightly; but I don’t think worse.
OFFICER
I am glad. Last night was truly dreadful
as every night has been since we left Petra.
I’ve just come from the city. The populace
raved like easterners. I had to bring them the message
that Caesar had improved – perhaps will live:
they sing, they shout: “He’s alive, we’re saved!”.
In this city, and in the entire East
there is a ripened madness rife
a thing to fear, for I am only Roman;
their wild, dark gods proliferate:
in every town a Baal, a Ba’alat
Ishtar and Ashtoreth and El, you name them.
Have you noticed it? And just like them, the people.
But I have found an amulet for him, and brought it
see here: a scarab beetle – blue enamel
just like those they dig up here in Syria;
something precious to his heart, or as his heart
has now become ...
SOLDIER
Here comes the doctor: you can ask him.
Elderly doctor enters
OFFICER
How is he now?
DOCTOR [105]
I can do nothing. What d’you say?
SOLDIER
D’you think it’s poison?
DOCTOR
Poison?
Who spoke here of poison? Who’s speaking?
Why must everybody cackle all the time?
SOLDIER
The whole army’s saying it. All the people ...
DOCTOR
Who’re all the people? Thousand-and-one heads
and only one who stood in line the day
when brains were handed out. Listen:
each man has his hour. We all must die someday.
SOLDIER
Perhaps it’s only his wife’s wild ...
The door behind him opens. Servants enter with an arm chair; almost immediately after them, Germanicus and Agrippina. He is helped to the couch.
SERVANT
The Caesar complains he’s short of breath;
wants to come outside ...
GERMANICUS
How lovely is the evening
in this dark green valley, rich rows
of olives – and see, right up to my fingertips
it’s green. Don’t bother to bring lights.
You, Marius, what do you have to report?
OFFICER
I delivered your message in the city as you asked,
Caesar. The people, they all love you, but not
like us ... not, let me think ... not ... reasonably.
I must say this: the whole East, and Antioch
scared me with the ravings of its peoples.
When I got there, someone had just reported [106]
that you were dying: they screeched like maniacs,
took to the dark streets, threw stones and torches
at the temples, burned their Baals and precious clothing,
cursed their gods and called up the multitudes of hell,
howling like wild beasts: that you are dying,
that all salvation, master, dies with you.
GERMANICUS
Can it be grief that raves like that? Most grief
runs deep and still, grim and alone ...
OFFICER
When I had brought the message to their city fathers,
that you are better: why then the winds
blew from the opposite direction, yet fanned their flames:
they sang and danced, fell down in a trance;
suddenly all grabbed torches and streamed out,
a flickering entourage making for this place.
ANOTHER VOICE
There I can see the first glow though the plantations.
OFFICER
They must see you, know that you are safe.
STILL ANOTHER VOICE
I can see them come.
GERMANICUS
That is a wicked glow.
VOICE
A stream of fire through the marshes.
OFFICER
And behind it, there
Antioch lies smouldering like a torch.
The red glow from one of the wings grows stronger and stronger
GERMANICUS
Deploy the guard. Let no-one else come close.
An officer goes off
AGRIPPINA [107]
Listening at the opposite side of the stage
Listen: the chink of weapons, there’re soldiers too!
VOICE
The legions are also marching here!
VOICE
Who is expected?
VOICE
No-one!
Officer enters
OFFICER
The eastern legions here in Syria
are marching here! They’re up in arms,
no-one could keep them back: they must see you
and be assured that you are safe.
Rumours that the Caesar’s dying, has been murdered,
shouts of hatred against Piso, who is named,
the name Tiberius plays from mouth to mouth,
[softly] again those shouts of “Marching on to Rome” ...
GERMANICUS
Even my death has become rebellion against Rome.
AGRIPPINA
Please don’t speak of dying. Please, please don’t.
VOICE
The torch-glow’s coming nearer, but it’s still.
Can so many feet tread so without a sound?
Officer enters
OFFICER
Something very strange has happened.
The watch was standing guard
when the vanguard of the dancers arrived.
One of our men – who knows the language –
said that Caesar was sitting here outside
and that he’s weak.
And then those ranks, pale, terrified
subsided like a burned-out flame. [108]
and something, a quiet terrifying prayer
flickered out among all the torches.
They’re lying there before the guardsmen
like dogs that strain against a choke-chain,
and this side stands the legion
in serried ranks, quiet in the darkness.
GERMANICUS
What more do they still want of me?
OFFICER
The people all love you. They want to see you.
They want to send representatives to look,
hurry past in silence and see you alive;
and then they’ll go away.
GERMANICUS
Let us no longer speak of love, no.
We have grown used to a different voice.
They don’t really know why they now mourn,
powerless – these people – against all passions
that call for fulfilment, and against their grief.
They want a ruler and it’s him they love
because he stands mighty above their passions.
They mourn – and don’t know why – for one who’s dying,
one of the diminishing few that stand as watchmen
[Slowly] as guards between themselves and madness.
OFFICER
Your words are bitter – and they really love you;
they think – and we think – it’s strange, incomprehensible
your suffering is for us and them ...
Why must you say these cruel words,
you who were always kind, dear master?
you were a friend to all, even the slightest ...
ANOTHER OFFICER
You could have served this nation and this army
as leader chosen over all.
GERMANICUS [109]
I could have grabbed control, I know.
But I don’t know what it was in me, in me
that would not grab;
and a strange revulsion grips my thoughts.
Deploy the guard! Let no-one now come near.
I was too lucid.
A man should have a muddied mind
to stay human still – or if you want to rule ...
[Softly] tell me, do you know? where is Piso now?
OFFICER
Some say he’s in Seleucia now
where he daily waits for news of you
to hear how you are now, Germanicus.
GERMANICUS
And Piso, where is Piso now?
He’s in Seleucia ... He waits for news of me
to hear how I am now.
OFFICER
Messages fly back and forth in secret
from Antioch right to Seleucia ...
GERMANICUS
And Marius, you have something there for me?
Marius hands it to him
A scarab beetle, blue enamel, Egyptian
and fifteen hundred years it’s old; and here
in Syria. And obscure barbarians
from Babylon, Cynaxa, Ecbatana
have cast their shadows on every inch of ground
in this land Syria, this land that’s fertile
as a furrow filled with cool dark-blue dung;
and all was old even before Rome was born.
It is precious, Marius;
and it is dreadful to see it so ...
and tell me, do you know where Piso is? Piso?
OFFICER [110]
Caesar, Piso’s lying hidden in Seleucia.
A soldier enters carrying something in his hand, wrapped in a cloth
SOLDIER
Someone left it with the guards,
someone – it’s for the Caesar ...
He says it will serve as a sign
GERMANICUS
My sword.
Friends – please leave me alone a while.
I really need it. You too. Yes, and also you.
And let him come.
All off except Germanicus
My sword that I gave away in Germany.
Piso enters. At first he is almost completely muffled. When the soldier who led him inside, has left, he throws off his cloak
Have you come to watch me die? There is danger
in coming here. The people would rend your limbs.
PISO
And are you dying now, and will it now end,
or nearly end, except for Piso, this dying?
first Lucius and then Marcus and now Piso.
– then Agrippina. Tell me: why are we dying,
why must all die who love you so?
why did you drag me to follow after you
till I was weakened to this point?
GERMANICUS
You speak of things that I don’t understand, Piso.
PISO
Don’t understand, yes don’t. Never understood.
Never, never understood with all your clear sight.
For “see” is not foresee, not “grasp”, not understand –
as one man can grasp and hold another. [111]
That you couldn’t do: hold fast and feel and know
even without sight – blindly know because you’re human ...
that you couldn’t do.
And that is why, you, with all your softness, love,
trampled on us and over all of us
who happened on your path, more cruel
than the black beast Tiberius who stayed a man.
And how long must it go on before it finds its end,
before the last drop has been wrung out?
your last child? or where will it still lead?
GERMANICUS
You come here to rail at me where I am dying
and even now rake out old bitter matters
full of uncertainty ...
PISO
And you are stupid.
I have to put it plainly. You were so great:
You were born to such estate and power
that even when you held out your hand
you touched the lot of men. And if you raised your hand
then soldiers had to die – and children wail;
and if this hand devised some new law
then millions had to bend, and some to die
of all those shadowy underlings that lie
too far below for you to see or know.
You were so great that every time you stirred
cracks tore open, and furrows gaped all round;
and, don’t you grasp this, understand?
that even sitting still you were a sabre?
and that is why we all must die. And why
I jeer and jeer as you prepare to die ...
GERMANICUS
Piso, your hatred ... it was a poisoned cup
that poisoned you while it was killing me.
PISO [112]
Hate, hate! He says it again: hate.
That was what you said at our parting, Germanicus:
how I could hate you so.
I loved you in my heart!
I loved you with my heart,
loved you terribly, Germanicus.
Not softly, gently as you loved us all,
my love was different: it tore me up,
each night and every day it gnawed at me,
drove me to silence, made me dry and old.
I saw your youth, and heard your voice;
ignored my seniority to serve with you
as officer. And I prepared a long time
for the time when you would sparkle. Let me speak.
You were for me the be-all and the end-all,
for only you were untainted in this world.
You do not know how cruel such things can be.
A woman’s love – it has a hint of filth,
and yet can comfort; helps a man forget.
But this love: like a lens it concentrates
the intensely focussed, sharpest, whitest flame
just on one spot, burns and glitters still
until I’m blinded, until I see none else
than you, Germanicus, the greatest and most holy,
the only hero left in our once-bright race:
at first when you were young, almost just a boy;
then: lean and pale and high on the triumphal seat.
Oh, Germanicus, Germanicus
you do not know how much you brought me down
when you rejected greatness – when you ... chose tameness
for – my love had ascribed to you such clarity
unmixed with subterfuge.
GERMANICUS
I was not great.
How can a hero be so pale and feeble [113]
so bloodless, as I feel?
PISO
That’s treachery –
You betray me – and all else flees before me
and that is why you die.
Not Livia, not Plancina, but my heart’s love
devotes you unto death. I could have got it all from her,
found out what I needed, how to save you;
More often than only once when I felt weak,
these hands reached out around her throat to feel,
in the silence of the night.
But I’ll be strong still and Germanicus
will die.
I’ll die too, this love of mine will die,
and all the pain,
and our great race will run out in the sand,
and all will flicker out, slowly, slowly.
GERMANICUS
Not you, nor Livia, nor Plancina ...
I'm dying of this time.
It’s best that I should die for my will
is standing still in me, so that I see
all thi
ngs through glass ... or in the glass
immeasurably far, not for me to touch
but to view them happen as before a god.
And we don’t grasp each other’s thoughts.
And yet
I thought of you, before you came just now,
Piso, as if I had something to say ...
it is no matter, for nothing ever really ends,
nothing is rounded off,
and nothing’s whole and flawless on this earth.
PISO [114]
Germanicus.
Agrippina enters
AGRIPPINA
To Piso
Then it was you? I thought I heard your voice.
To her husband. Kneels next to him
How are you? Say how you’re doing? Oh, my fears
come just when I’m alone, oh the fear,
the fear ...
To Piso
What do you want? Have you not had enough?
Did you not all grub into him like worms,
right into his living flesh; till he fell down
and lies like this? And I am what I am now?
Jumps up
No, I shan’t be calm, collected, nor resigned,
bearing it without complaint because they rule
so powerfully, and I so powerless.
No, no, you should not have asked me that.
Piso, I’ll track you down! Pursue you dreadfully,
track, track you as you here assaulted me.
I shall call forth that love the armies had for him
and all the nations too, I’ll call,
turn it to hatred, and track you down
though you might flee, take refuge with Tiberius ...
he’ll throw you away just like he used you
for now you’re tainted, of no more use to him ...
I’ll lie before his house, lie and wait patiently
until he throws you out.
Yes, I too shall die,
but first give birth to my last, dearest child:
this vengeance.
I’ll track you down, Piso!
Track you down I will!
PISO [115]
The hunt will not be long, for I’ll not flee;
your little vengeance small and very poor.
AGRIPPINA
Shall I not fabricate that pain to make you feel?
give flesh to you, add nerves and sinews too
to make you flinch before the knife?
put in your throat a scream for you to shout out?
You may not perish without pain!
not without fear – that would be a dreadful thing;
It’s a cruel thing when someone hates with words alone.
She goes to the door
I’ll call the guard. And the sombre people.
And I shall shout: “Here is Calpurnius Piso!
Have you been looking for him?”
GERMANICUS
No, no.
AGRIPPINA
Don’t hold me back. This is my child, my child.
I must see his thin lips, just once, scream out.
GERMANICUS
Please don’t call them, just don’t.
Come, sit here, dear.
AGRIPPINA
But it is dreadful, thrice dreadful,
all my fears arise again:
my hands and feet tied fast, a hand
held over my mouth, always before me: Livia,
Livia, that dreadful woman.
I’m so afraid – and he sees how much I fear.
GERMANICUS
Go now, please, Piso. This is not really parting.
Piso off.
And now it's time to die, dearest. I loved you
dearly. Let them now carry me inside.
And maybe nothing will be lost. [116]
AGRIPPINA
Marius! Marius!
Marius, the old Doctor, Officers and Servants enter
DOCTOR
By now he’s with the Caesars.
###