Act V

NERO.
[seated in a room of his palace]
Too slow my soldiers' hands, too mild my wrath,
When citizens have dared such crimes as these.
Those torches that they kindled 'gainst their prince
Their blood shall quench; and Rome, who bore such men,
Shall be bespattered with her people's gore.
Yet death is far too light a punishment
For such atrocities; this impious mob
Shall suffer worse than death. But she, my wife
And sister, whom I hate with deadly fear,
For whose sole sake the people rage at me,
Shall give her life at last to sate my grief,
And quench my anger in her flowing blood.
Soon shall my flames enwrap the city's walls,
And in the ruins of her falling homes
The people shall be buried; squalid want,
Dire hunger, grief-all these shall they endure.
Too fat upon the blessings of our age
Has this vile mob become, and know not how
To bear our clemency and relish peace;
But, rash and reckless, are they ever borne
By shifting tides of passion to their hurt.
They must be held in check by suffering,
Be ever pressed beneath the heavy yoke,
Lest once again they dare assail the throne,
And to the august features of my wife
Dare lift again their vulgar eyes. O'erawed
By fear of punishment must they be taught
To yield obedience to their prince's nod.
But here I see the man whose loyalty
Has made him captain of my royal guards.

[Enter Prefect.]

PREFECT.
The people's rage by slaughter of a few,
Who most resistance made is overcome.

NERO.
Is that enough? Was that my word to thee?
"Is overcome?" Where then is my revenge?

PREFECT.
The guilty leaders of the mob are dead.

NERO.
Nay, but the mob itself, which dared to assail
My house with flames, to dictate laws to me,
To drag my noble wife from off my bed,
And with unhallowed hands and angry threats
To affront her majesty--are they unscathed?

PREFECT.
Shall angry grief decide their punishment?

NERO.
It shall--whose fame no future age shall dim.

PREFECT.
Which neither wrath nor fear shall moderate?

NERO.
She first shall feel my wrath who merits it.

PREFECT.
Tell whom thou mean'st. My hand shall spare her not.

NERO.
My wrath demands my guilty sister's death.

PREFECT.
Benumbing horror holds me in its grasp.

NERO.
Wilt not obey my word?

PREFECT.
Why question that?

NERO.
Because thou spar'st my foe.

PREFECT.
A woman, foe?

NERO.
If she be criminal.

PREFECT.
But what her crime?

NERO.
The people's rage.

PREFECT.
But who can check their rage?

NERO.
The one who fanned its flame.

PREFECT.
But who that one?

NERO.
A woman she, to whom an evil heart
Hath nature given, a soul to fraud inclined.

PREFECT.
But not the power to act.

NERO.
That she may be
Without the power to act, that present fear
May break her strength, let punishment at once,
Too long delayed, crush out her guilty life.
Have done at once with arguments and prayers,
And do my royal bidding: let her sail
To some far distant shore and there be slain,
That thus at last my fears may be at rest.

[Exeunt.]

CHORUS.
[attached to Octavia]
Oh, dire and deadly has the people's love
To many proved, which fills their swelling sails
With favoring breeze, and bears them out to sea;
But soon its vigor languishes and dies,
And leaves them to the mercy of the deep.
The wretched mother of the Gracchi wept
Her murdered sons, who, though of noble blood,
Far famed for eloquence and piety,
Stout-hearted, learnéd in defense of law,
Were brought to ruin by the people's love
And popular renown. And Livius, thee
To equal fate did fickle fortune give,
Who found no safety in thy lictors' rods,
No refuge in thy home. But grief forbids
To tell more instances. This hapless girl,
To whom but now the citizens decreed
The restoration of her fatherland,
Her home, her brother's couch, is dragged away
In tears and misery to punishment,
With citizens consenting to her death!
Oh, blesséd poverty, content to hide
Beneath the refuge of a lowly roof!
For lofty homes, to fame and fortune known,
By storms are blasted and by fate o'erthrown!

[Enter Octavia in the custody of the palace guards, who are dragging her roughly out into the street.]

OCTAVIA.
Oh, whither do ye hurry me? What fate
Has that vile tyrant or his queen ordained?
Does she, subdued and softened by my woes,
Grant me to live in exile? Or, if not,
If she intends to crown my sufferings
With death, why does her savage heart begrudge
That I should die at home? But now, alas,
I can no longer hope for life; behold,
My brother's bark, within whose treacherous hold
His mother once was borne; and now for me,
Poor wretch, his slighted sister-wife, it waits.
No more has right a place upon the earth,
Nor heavenly gods. Grim Fury reigns supreme.
Oh, who can fitly weep my evil plight?
What nightingale has tongue to sing my woes?
Would that the fates would grant her wings to me!
Then would I speed away on pinions swift,
And leave my grievous troubles far behind,
Leave these unholy haunts of savage men.
There, all alone, within some forest wide,
Among the swaying branches would I sit,
And let my grieving spirit weep its fill.

CHORUS.
The race of men is by the fates controlled,
And none may hope to make his own secure;
And o'er the ever-shifting ways of life
The day which most we fear shall come to us.
But comfort now thy heart with thought of those
Of thine own house who suffered ill, and ask:
In what has fortune been more harsh to thee?
Thee first I name, Agrippa's noble child,
The famous mother of so many sons,
Great Caesar's wife, whose name throughout the world
In flaming glory shone, whose teeming womb
Brought forth so many hostages of peace:
E'en thee did exile wait, and cruel chains,
Blows, bitter anguish, and at last a death
Of lingering agony. And Livia, thou,
Though fortunate in husband and in sons,
Didst walk the way of sin--and punishment.
And Julia, too, endured her mother's fate;
For, though no evil deed was charged to her,
She fell a victim to the sword at last.
What could not once thy mighty mother do
Who ruled supreme the house of Claudius,
By him beloved, and in her son secure?
Yet she at last was subject to a slave,
And fell beneath a brutal soldier's sword.
For what exalted heights of royalty
Might not our Nero's mother once have hoped?
Mishandled first by vulgar sailors' hands,
Then slain and mangled by the bungling sword,
She lay the victim of her cruel son.

OCTAVIA.
Me, too, the tyrant to the world of shades
Is sending. Why delay? Then speed my death,
For fate hath made me subject to your power.
I pray the heavenly gods--what wouldst thou, fool?
Pray not to gods who show their scorn of thee.
But, O ye gods of hell, ye furies dire,
Who work your vengeance on the crimes of men,
And thou, my father's restless spirit, come
And bring this tyrant fitting punishment.
[To her guards.]
The death you threaten has no terrors now
For me. Go, set your ship in readiness,
Unfurl your sails, and let your pilot seek
The barren shores of Pandataria.

[Exit Octavia with guards.]

CHORUS.
Ye gentle breezes and ye zephyrs mild,
Which once from savage Dian's altar bore
Atrides' daughter in a cloud concealed,
This child of ours, Octavia too, we pray,
Bear far away from these too cruel woes,
And set her in the fane of Trivia.