FIRST ROMAN OFFICER
Now I’ve had a belly-full!
Chuck out and bring me wine, Falernian;
I am a Roman, d’you get it? Roman!
These Nabataeans with their manna-juice
with water – sweet and cloying to the taste,
deserve to be enslaved. I am a Roman.
VOICES
He’s mocking us. Insults us. Bring my weapons.
VOICE
Who dares speak of weapons here where Caesar sits?
Germanicus calls one of his officers (Second Roman Officer) who goes to the protester and motions to him to leave the hall
FIRST ROMAN OFFICER
My only commander’s Cneius Piso.
Imperial Legate;
And not from you – not even from your master.
He looks at Piso, who shakes his head and indicates that the officer should rather comply
All right, I’ll go then.
VOICE AND GENERAL GRUMBLING
Our king has been insulted and our race!
ANOTHER VOICE
We who are free allies of great Rome,
no-one’s slaves! [90]
King makes a pacificatory gesture
GERMANICUS [Softly]
You need to make a stand;
and speak nobly, my Piso, to lift this rudeness,
this idiocy from its settled hinge ...
and show us fair and just before our friends.
PISO [Growling]
He’s stupid. I made him go. They should forget it.
GERMANICUS
Gets up with difficulty
Then in this too I must serve Rome,
and more than Rome – keep myself safe
against assaults on my honour by lesser men.
[Loudly] My allies and my friends, I feel small;
the name of Rome has been made small, besmirched
by a Roman, an officer of mine,
who thought he spoke from pride.
Both Rome and I beg that you will forgive.
His foolish words make me a supplicant
and you the judges. I ask you now, judge more mildly
than his brute foolishness gives you the right.
And ... and ... but why more words? Forgive us.
He sits down tiredly
PISO
I truly think Caesar has said too much.
GERMANICUS
And Cneius Piso said too little, as always.
KING
Those foolish words are long since forgotten,
for Caesar’s grace caught them in their flight
and stopped them before they reached the ears
of all the men of my beloved Nabataea;
but before our feast comes to an end tonight
before the morning stars arise – you leave our city,
this rugged Petra that no Caesars have seen [91]
before, I want to show to you the love
that we all feel for Caesar and for Rome,
and beg that you should tell it all to Caesar
with those few trifles that relate to trade
– of course our myrrh and that precious pitch
and the gray-white manna from our tamarisks
we showed you in our stores two days ago –
But this love is a close-knit tie
that binds Petra and Damascus both to Rome.
Take our greeting thence, take something more from us,
a keepsake to make you think of us always.
He motions to a courtier who brings two golden crowns. Aretas places it on the heads of Agrippina and Germanicus
GERMANICUS
Gets up again
A golden crown is foreign to us Romans,
but never foreign may be thought the thanks
owed you for your love of Rome ...
The effort is clearly taxing his strength, and he sits down again.
KING
Also for the noble governor of Syria
we have a small gift, a humble token
of our love and our regard.
He motions again and the courtier fetches two narrower crowns that Aretas places on the heads of Plancina and Piso. Piso snatches off his and throws it on the ground; Plancina, when she sees this, takes off hers too and puts it down on the table.
PISO
For me no crown;
most hateful of all to any Roman man.
Even Julius refused to wear a golden crown
when it was offered him in Rome – [92]
here is another Caesar and he accepts it
in Petra from a barbarian hand.
But all about him glistens with rich gold;
its scent wafts far to Arabia the Blessed.
GERMANICUS
Enough now, Piso. For me the word “barbaric”
denotes not birth, but what you do.
To greet a fair and friendly offer
with such unasked contumely – that’s barbaric.
PISO
Caesar has a second chance tonight
to repudiate the action of an officer
before these people.
GERMANICUS
Don’t dress your own rudeness,
Piso, in the all-encompassing “Roman man”.
I shall once more tonight try to defend
the Empire’s honour against Roman men
He laboriously attempts to get up
and keep that glorious old pride of ours
from gaining in this world the hateful name
“barbarity”.
KING
Caesar, you are too kind.
Your friendliness, tonight it acts as border –
still restless, bristling with darts, like any border –
between two battling nations.
You, the quiet Caesar, tonight you keep
the hunting hounds of Rome away from their quarry;
we find it strange: insults and contumely
that we incurred were often treated as the crime
for which we then were punished – by Rome,
both plaintiff and the judge that tried us,
that might that mighty powers can display.
But let us not tax your friendly compliance [93]
or wait for strife to curdle a clear case –
perhaps you would then need to judge as Roman.
We should preserve this night’s happy feast.
My friends and I shall go now, take leave of you tomorrow.
Aretas off, together with the Nabataeans; only the Romans remain on stage.
GERMANICUS
Your slight contempt of me, I’ll let that go.
This is not the first, Piso; and it’s different
from your grim honesty and straight man’s talk
of earlier – but your contempt will not be answered.
I must say something of our Empire:
Do you hear the fear in every word, and hate
that grumbles beneath that fear in all that’s said?
how deeply, without thought they mistrust our law,
how they mistrust, despise our justice?
And, Piso, it’s through you and others like you
that trample through this world with oxen-hooves.
This is poor service to the Empire, Piso,
and I shall not allow it! As long as I
Here he again attempts to get up, but cannot rise
have power, fair play will be the nucleus,
perhaps a kernel, small, nearly invisible,
and yet a nucleus of peace within the strife.
Perhaps it won’t be long – but too long
for Piso, so it seems ...
He slumps forward slightly over the table
AGRIPPINA
[Springs forward to help him] Are you ill again?
You should have rested. I should have made you rest..
not keep such late hours. Where is the pain?
GERMANICUS
The pai
n is passing, dear... [Smiles]
And leaves me weaker still
but a ruler of the Empire should be strong. [94]
Yet ... many want to see this hand even more unsteady
AGRIPPINA
If I’d but known!
See how pale, how grey you are!
This long illness, which is close to death,
that never ends and does not bear a name,
no name that I dare say. Are you in pain again?
If I could take the pain for you. Yes, laugh
– or did I see you smiling, Cneius Piso? –
I dare to give this dread disease a name
that for months has gnawed the Caesar’s bowels –
Yes, all must hear! – : someone is feeding it to him,
how I cannot say, but who it is I do know well!
hatred has many links, but it has one ring only
that moors it fast ...
But how? Where? And by which of many servants?
those that hate him, are dark and many-handed.
PISO
There’s poison in this endless search for poison
that search for guilty hands that can distil.
AGRIPPINA
What if we should ask Plancina then
to taste the plates before the Caesar eats?
PLANCINA
She’s accusing me! She’s lying, lying shamelessly.
AGRIPPINA
It’s just a thought – it should taste very nice.
Livia’s dear friend must have knowledge
of many tastes – and strange ones.
[Abruptly] No more jokes. I’m playing around with bitter words
and you’re in pain. It’s bad. And you may die.
GERMANICUS
You’re speaking names that should not be spoken so,
especially not here. This world is not the same.
PLANCINA
I’ll keep in mind these slanders and that name. [95]
She hurts the majesty of Caesar when
she talks about his mother – so;
you know you must go back to Rome again!
AGRIPPINA
Just hear: she speaks of me as going back to Rome.
She speaks of me. She knows that I return alone.
She knows that if you go back, Livia never
will dare to touch me.
The only reason why she and Livia will not
destroy us both, right now, is that they still fear,
that we, though dead, will still speak out so loud,
that all the world will listen – if two should die
together from the imperial house.
PLANCINA
The woman’s mad.
I really do feel bad about your illness, Caesar,
ills that multiply, as she says, and do not end.
Please allow me to go now.
Germanicus nods his permission
GERMANICUS
I must ask all to leave and let me be alone.
All except Piso. And sleep well, all.
There are some things we must discuss.
All off except Germanicus, Piso and Agrippina
AGRIPPINA
Please let me stay. Your life is under threat.
Tonight we heard that most fatal word.
I shudder to leave you in Piso’s company.
He leans on Livia and Tiberius,
and dares do all – let him hear my words...
GERMANICUS
I’m not a king of kings at all
that needs a constant guard ...
Smiling [96]
and when you talk of tasting, remember this –
poison can seep into us some other way
than just through food and drink; from every corner
of our dear earth we feel it seeping into us:
some people it makes mad, and others ill.
You may go now, my child. You stay a child.
Agrippina off
Germanicus remains seated. Piso stands; there is a short pause
Now I can complain, complain to you, Piso;
and make you sit in judgement on yourself:
start with your acts and language this very night,
the way you show yourself so full of spleen.
PISO
Tonight you humiliated an officer of mine,
I’ll say it – before barbarians – that’s what
they are. It is un-Roman.
You humiliated yourself with a golden crown ...
GERMANICUS
What is a crown – it is a ring of gold –
PISO
... and crowned your humiliation with your thanks
for the sly tradesman’s cant the king has uttered.
It is un-Roman. And then you humiliated me
and called me rude, because I dared
in the limp, effete East to show myself as hard.
GERMANICUS
Those are complaints about tonight; I could answer,
if I so wished, and refute each charge
by showing it as false. But this grim grudge –
what shall I say – this close-to-hatred, is old:
it lies and glowers at me months on end.
You grumbled about me to underlings;
that was small-minded, Piso.
You made my soldiers in Syria profligate
and sought to buy their gratitude, [97]
showed them your wife, let them play games
things the old Piso would not stoop to do.
Tonight we heard how they speak now;
and what they say, they have been taught long since.
You, Piso, have dissolved your pride, and I –
you force me to be vicious when I list them.
PISO
And you have changed long since, Caesar.
You’re not the young Germanicus that gleamed
cold and straight like a bright sword over Gaul ...
GERMANICUS
Piso, Piso. I am tired and ill.
PISO
Germanicus, you're young-old, weak and limp.
Here in the East you have gone too soft,
white-fingered you search out every curiosity;
look up each oracle, the holy Apis,
the one that Augustus did not want to see;
you listen to the babble of their priestlings;
drink in old images and pyramids;
I’m sure you dream all night of their old temples
and gape at holy hieroglyphs;
all day you hold a mirror in your hand,
admire fine carpets or blue enamelled work,
the finest made in our Syria – art and playthings.
You're now a dilettante.
GERMANICUS
Dear Piso, no.
PISO
It’s not what we and thousands like us wanted –
the best Romans wanted something else.
GERMANICUS
Romans, Romans. Always that name with pride.
For you all things are simple; and for me
– perhaps I’m simply dull – all is complex, [98]
endlessly filled with possibility and play.
PISO
That’s all we ever get from you: just words,
just talk and playing with what’s possible.
GERMANICUS
And yet I need to tease you with what’s possible:
Look at the East, look at our millions,
the nations that trade here, sell and copulate;
and dance in ecstasy before their gods,
or ponder in deep silences unknown to us –
is this all madness, a simmering of warm air,
decadence and endless mouldering?
or a fertile hotbed, exuding stench and steam,
for a new reality that we do not know?
In human life lies great uncertainty:
death, madness, new birth, and renewed pow
er.
Whoever tries to take a stand in this, Piso,
he either is a god or he is blasphemous.
PISO
Pull yourself loose. Come on and act; to act,
that is the strength of our race.
GERMANICUS
Those are mere words.
I am wounded, and I expect much less
for both Empire and myself and for humanity.
PISO
That’s treachery, Germanicus, against all –
No, that’s too unworthy and too mean.
GERMANICUS
I’m feeling for renewal in this mess ...
I see renewal, humanity shine dimly through ...
maybe “Roman” is not yet the last word.
PISO
One thing is true: we rule in all our greatness.
Our race was cruel and holy on this earth, [99]
strong, cruel, beautiful. We are justice for the world,
we give its laws. We create possibilities
for other nations to live – dumb and brutish –
each in its rotten, destructive festering
when it stands alone without us, but we
bind them all in thraldom, give them life.
Our deaths mean death for them all singly later on.
We dare not die – and yet we die so painfully!
So many of our voices have been stilled
while feeling deep within their bodies the decline
of this late world. This earth we have to cauterise,
burn all its yellow pus from every wound,
we must cleanse the world, make Rome new, rule!
You can, you must, you are the only one who can!
Forgive me for my wild bitterness
– I knew you can, can, can and just won’t do it!
You have all the gold, you have all my legions,
you control the whole great East by yourself ...
you have to grasp this Empire that brings all to one,
that stirs and muddles all, grasp it and break it
and cause the great Roman race to rule alone,
grim and lonely, no-man’s-friend, in single mastery
GERMANICUS
Walks to the window slowly and throws it open
The night lies open right up to the stars.
Look how the milky way streams bright above the whole earth,
unlike its Roman glow. If I should say:
“Look at the stars” – would that answer you,
Piso, and all your politics? your will?
your high aspiration? Would you grasp that?
PISO
No, nothing, not a word.
GERMANICUS
No, you would not understand.
Perhaps my words are stupid, my thinking dulled. [100]
But all is complicated, even to act
is not as you think, simple; and every thought
is triply tied, deeply knotted.
[Abruptly] You, Piso, who are Tiberius’ friend, and,
so they say, were sent to keep me in line
and spy on me – what is it that you want?
PISO
That you strike Tiberius and destroy him –
GERMANICUS
You’re doubly disloyal, Piso?
PISO
Disloyal, disloyal
To this flaccid age! But undivided loyalty
to all that’s glorious on this earth.
My city spread out on its seven hills
– the eternal, the unhappy, the sacred city –
she is the visible image of that great race
there granted to the world to rule ...
You must cleanse her now,
excise the house of Caesar from her womb –
cut out the sickness of the masses
that grows around the Caesars like ripe red canker
so that her foreign senate of Syrians be gone,
and Asian men, their novel tradesmen’s thoughts
be dug out, dug out and burned. A second Sulla,
restore the republic and make it rule
as only lord, so lordly on this earth.
[Agitated] Gods, were those not your very words?
You spoke like that before, and I listened,
thought you meant it, thought that I understood ...
[Vehemently] Go, tell it to Tiberius – you are his serf!
Go, and tittle-tattle! You dare not, dare not –
you think you’re noble, but I dare take you down,
I dare take you down secretly, for I spit
on this exclusive, personal pride. [101]
One thing is my pride – the nobility of my race.
GERMANICUS
For you the world still seems wide, Piso:
that you can have clarity, be simple,
an old Roman. But I know it constricts,
it makes one choke, it takes one so
[Indicates his throat] – and you,
you struggle as I do in words and thoughts,
and shudder in the meshes of this age.
Black ecstasies dance, already twist your brain.
PISO
Can you not understand? Must I strike hard
before you understand: you’re dying, dying now
there where you sit. She guessed it right – the drops
of daily poison drip gram by gram into your veins ...
GERMANICUS
Piso, Piso. You are truly dreadful, Piso.
PISO
If you but act, then this disease will stop!
I can prevent it! I’m exposing myself to you.
I can prevent it, whoever else must die, even she ...
But it will truly end ...
GERMANICUS [Loftily]
Before this I have often said I won’t be dragged
to Rome – not even to rule will I be dragged.
Goes to the door
PISO
You’re dying. You understand? You’re dying!
You can do nothing. It can’t be stopped.
One from your house. Twenty that you really trust,
thirty or forty. Who’s nearest or who’s furthest?
To find that out, you will have to take them out,
all of them. Where? And how? I can prevent it.
I want to do so, whoever else must die, even my wife.
GERMANICUS [102]
Your wife? Your wife?
PISO
I’d even have her tortured,
Have her burned or racked; and she’s not tough, I know her;
she’ll soon talk.
GERMANICUS
Piso, you’re no longer human.
Your thoughts are black and poisoned,
I wish I could get you calm, calm and restful,
and slowly nurture humanity in you,
somewhere inside. And I must search, for everything
that is human, is sick in our dread time,
and I must take care ...
PISO
You can’t prevent it,
you cannot. You’ll die, if not, then you’ll become
great and glorious as you should, as you were
or else you’ll die. And I’m not your murderer;
I’m just abandoning you to die, with great contempt.
Germanicus, these are mighty matters, these:
I could, if I should strive against the Caesars,
strike Augustus down in a stealthy trap, strike down
Tiberius or any of his ilk, without a care ...
another Caesar would rise when the first had gone –
some may be good, and others bad –
but one who gained a brother’s trust from me
in deepest unity and saw the darkening glow
of my thought and could, but would not, be great ...
he passes all comprehension, he is dreadful,
misshapen like a crippled gnome – and dying.
GE
RMANICUS
So we have reached an end. Oh well, this life:
is it really worth so much that a man
must be small-minded – smaller than you see –
to keep this gift intact? [103]
Our friendship, Piso,
I shall now forswear with all ancient rites.
He opens the door and says something to the guard. After a short while his officers enter.
[Still quietly] That hate can so take hold of a man,
and so corrupt him, it still seems strange to me.
PISO [Softly]
Hate, hate, Germanicus ...?
GERMANICUS [Loudly]
Through the power vested in me as Caesar’s regent
and because he rebelled against me, countermanded
my words, I command Cneius Calpurnius Piso
to leave Syria where he is a legate
and also the whole East that is ours.
And Piso,
here before witnesses, as is our ancient custom,
I renounce our friendship.
PISO
Caesar, I’m going [Off]
Germanicus staggers to the table; his officers run forward and grab him before he falls
VOICE
Go, fetch his doctor. Where is his old doctor!
Scene Eight
Daphne, in front of the temple of Apollo
A month later
[104]
About a month later, at sunset. In front of the temple of Apollo at Daphne, four miles from Antioch on the Orontes, capital city of the Roman East. Soldier standing guard. Old officer enters.
Germanicus Page 16