University of Virginia Library

CAIUS CÆSAR.

I am the monster Caius, loathed of men,—
Him whose foul record women may not read.
In distant Gaul, an altar to the gods
Attests the mother-pangs that brought me forth,
As I should prove a boon to move them thanks.
My father bred me soldierly in camps;
And the small jack-boots gave my childish name
Caligula. That father, in the East,
Sickened with secret poisons. Ye remember
How wild his widow bore the funeral urn,
Landing at Cyprus? Dark Tiberius then
Drew his death-circle slowly round our way.
My mother, struggling longest, fell at last.
Two brothers followed,—one by hunger's woe;
One by his own resolvèd hand escaped
The hangman's noose, and hooks of infamy.
But I, surviving, kept the tyrant's side
So near, he could not spring to strangle me.
Slowly he recognized my crafty soul,
Knew me his master in all shameful arts,
And, having lopped the fair limbs from the tree,
Left me for the blood-blossoms I should bear,
And fruit of death. At first I only aped
His outward fashions; then I learned his thoughts;
Then his malignant madness seized on me,
And made me like him. Dying as he lay,
I forced the cushion 'twixt his gaping jaws,
And sped his flight from earth. That was, at least,
A service. Could I catalogue my deeds,
Thou couldst not stay to hear them. Hell itself
Swoons at the fatal tale, and cries, “Away!”
My royal ways were tapestried with blood;
First my young brother's, followed by a train
Of ghosts that might become imperial race.
I snatched from new-wed souls their nuptial joys,
And flung them back, disfigured to disgust.
So monstrous and unnatural my lusts,
That the dark horror of the Cæsar's name
Banished the blushing rose of modesty,
And set a ghastly pallor in its place.
My victims were not rashly sped to death,
But tickled with such agony of pain
As gave the stab of dissolution price.
These pleasures wearied, when the thirst for gold
Set in, as cruel and more terrible.
I wrung the hand of toil, whose wretched pence
Gained too much honor in my haughty use.
I saw that vice had profit; wherefore then
I planted it, and gave it ministrance,
As one should tend a vine of fiery growth,
To madden others, and enrich one's self.
To coin, coin, coin, from every bosom's life,
Became my master-thought. Nor was there rest
When darkness hid the busy threads that weave
The color and consistence of men's days.
My dreams were brief. I walked the silent halls,
And plotted murder till the morning came
That made it easy. When I clasped a neck
Close to mine own, I whispered, “Love me well,
Since this fair throat is mine to cut or keep.”
All attributions to myself I drew,
All powers, all pleasures, all magnificence.
I clothed in silks and plumes and gems confused.
Now as a woman, now as man, I walked,
Now as a god, with beard of wroughten gold;
And no one chid me,—no one showed a chain,
Or frowned, or threatened as I passed his way.
Beauty was peril,—the fair locks of youth
Were shorn to honor my denuded front.
Where one stood eminent for strength and grace,
I marked him, and the hangman had his word.
Thus did my rivals vanish. All the while,
The slow death ripened in yon treacherous skies,
That looked so blandly, till one burning noon,
All Rome being gathered at the circus sport,
Loosed the swift hand that smote me. As it fell,
A score of poniards, like a shower of stars,
Glittered before me: death was everywhere;
And, hacked and hewed like Julius, I went down.
One shout, the uplifting of a sea of hearts
That praised the gods, was my last sign on earth.
The night before the end of all things came,
I dreamed I sat beside Olympian Jove,
And, reasoning as an equal, blazoned forth
Designs and deeds. “Thus have I done, and thus;
From mine own will, the perfect law of earth.
Hast thou no joy in my magnificence
That goes abroad so glorious, like to thine?
Look at my costly tunic, broidered robe,
Beard of pure gold, and blazing diadem!
Think of my pleasures, boundless as thine own;
My power, like thine, unquestioned, flinging down
Death, and a thousand deaths, for one caprice.
I claim celestial triumph at thine hands:
Here shall they crown me, equal to thyself.”
And in my heart I pondered, “Why not greater?”
Thereat the Immortal's front grew dark with wrath,
And, with one sudden spurning of his foot,
He sent me down to earth, precipitate.
Even on this wise, the morrow showed my fall;
But I am now where lower depth is none,
Nor light of Jove, nor human countenance.
Only a company of crownèd ghosts
Fill up the void with wail that never tires,
Who, with a drunken madness like to mine,
Dreamed they were gods, and, waking, were not men.