NERO How hesitantly my mind freezes! Hope on the
one hand, dread on the other:
hope is a dreamer’s
vision
,
fear a Gehenna
.
When my mind goes
back and forth in this dubious way I neither live nor die, but I am unhappy.
Unhappy the man for whom hope and fear thus vacillate! If false hope cheats
me, I am cheated to my unhappiness. How unhappily I dread, lest some true cause
of dread oppress me! How unhappily I die, if my mother does not perish first! A
great business is afoot, I confess. Let it be done featly, I pray. Hurry,
Anicetus, finish it.
Show yourself a man
.
Serve me, and
destroy her
.
Destroy her, or
you are dead. We are both dead: you will have lost your loyalty, I my kingdom,
and ruin will overhang the both of us.
Come, hurry, slay,
beat, rend, stab, do in my mother
,
so that you may
show me a true Caesar. Keep your name of Unconquerable as an unconquered omen.
But she,
rich in influence
,
rich in coin
,
on her guard out of
fear
,
saved by her
servant’s loyalty
,
will sniff this
out and anticipate it in her turn, overturning the scheme, turning it against
me. And she will overturn everything along with me.
The ancient vixen
does not quickly fall into the net
.
Rather this is a
lioness who lays her snares to avoid mine
.
She will surpass
my arts with her art, my violence with her violence, my evil with her own. Will
Pentheus drive Agave from Bacchus’ sacrifices?
Agave will drive
down Pentheus, a sacrifice to Bacchus
.
Thus there is only
one choice: strike or perish.
Strike, Anicetus,
and strike deep
.
Unless she is
stricken, unless she perishes, my cruel quarry will strike us, and our only
choice will be to perish. And thus hope on the one hand, dread on the other, toy
with and shatter me. As a wave first raises up a ship, then casts it down, so my
proud heart leaps up to the heights, now sinks under the weight of its heavy
burden. In either condition it fares poorly, more out of hope and fear than
reality. Here instinct says one thing has been done, hope another, fear a third,
but they do not say what. Anicetus, preserve my hope, do the thing, banish my
fear. But alas, hope flees, fear prevails. I believe what I hope, but what I
fear I believe the more. Evils are the more to be feared, as they come the
quicker. Thus hope on the one hand, fear on the other, become entangled, travel
in new spirals, when great things are awaited. I have hope from Anicetus, but
fear from Agrippina. Only Anicetus can place me in security. (Enter Anicetus).
And see, he has returned.
Tell me, am I an
unhappy dead man
?
Or have I killed
her
?
ANIC. Must it be the
one or the other
?
NERO It must.
ANIC. Then there’s no doubt you must hope for one
of the two
.
NERO No. But since I remain in doubt I seem to be
dying.
ANIC. There’s no delaying
?
NERO No delaying. You speak of death when you speak
of delay.
ANIC. Then I’m speaking of death.
NERO What? Mine?
ANIC. Gods forbid. I am speaking of your murdered
mother.
NERO My mother?
ANIC. Yours.
NERO Murdered?
ANIC. And by this hand.
NERO I praise your hand, I kiss it. But you say
this on your oath?
ANIC. Upon my oath.
NERO What? Her dead? Can I believe this? Or do you
wish
. . .
ANIC. Believe that Anicetus is speaking the truth,
no less than you believe you are alive.
NERO I wish to, and I am unable to believe, thus
great is this good. Nor is it easy to believe such tremendous things. But tell
me the means. But now there is no need to know the means, as long as it
assuredly has been done.
It is a thing
beyond belief, that you have been able to kill her
.
This is a deed
that cannot satisfy me in the hearing. It will not satisfy me unless the eye
happily sees what the ear has heard. In the seeing the eye guarantees the mind’s
security. I want to go and look, if I may do so safely. May I?
ANIC. Why not?
NERO You think her dead?
ANIC. I know it.
NERO You’ve seen?
ANIC. With these eyes.
NERO And by your hands?
ANIC. These very hands.
NERO But —
ANIC. What?
NERO I am afraid, lest she revive. Unless she has
died . . .
ANIC. Look at me.
NERO But if she is still breathing and gains her
health
. . .
ANIC. Have no fear.
NERO Affirmas? Eo
Aut prodis
,
aut me perdis
,
aut prorsus beas
.
Adulatio ad Spem Firmavit
TACITUS
(An. 14.10.2)
Matthew Gwinn
Nero
(1603)
[tr.
Dana Sutton]
E
NOS LARES IUVATE
E NOS LARES IUVATE
E NOS LARES IUVATE
Iulia
Agrippina
Augusta,
Octavia 972/82.
Et praeter hunc Tryphaena
,
omnium feminarum formosissima.
[...] The lines still stood at the ready, and it was plain to be
seen that this would be no everyday affair, when the pilot, with difficulty,
prevailed upon Tryphaena to undertake the office of
herald, and propose a truce; so, when pledges of good faith had been given and
received, in keeping with the ancient precedent she snatched an olive-branch
from the ship's figurehead and, holding it out, advanced boldly to parley.
"What fury," she exclaims, "turns peace to war? What evil deed
Was by these hands committed? Trojan hero there is none
Absconding in this ship with bride of Atreus' cuckold seed
Nor crazed Medea, stained by life's blood of her father's son!
But passion scorned, becomes a power: alas! who courts his end
By drawing sword amidst these waves? Why die before our time?
Strive not with angry seas to vie and to their fury lend
Your rage by piling waves upon its savage floods sublime!"
[...]
Tryphaena, on
the other hand, was seized by her faithful servants [fidelissimi
servi], placed in a skiff, along
with the greater part of her belongings, and saved from certain death [certissimae
morti].
[...] Meanwhile,
accomplishing the decrees of the Fates, the storm stripped the ship of all that
was left; no mast, no helm, not a rope nor an oar remained on board her; she was
only a derelict, heavy and water-logged, drifting before the waves. Some
fishermen hastily put off in their little boats to salvage their booty, but,
seeing men alive and ready to defend their property, they changed their
predatory designs into offers of help.
Petronius,
Satyricon (101, 108, 114)
Death Smiles At Us All
