University of Virginia Library

ACT II.

The same apartment belonging to the Empress. In the background Julia Maesa stands by Papinian, who is instructing her daughters Soemias & Mamaea. Julia Domna, in a magnificent dress, sits on a low seat in front.
JULIA DOMNA.
O heavenly Leda, did'st thou mourn thy sons
Alternate, day by day, one at thy side,
One mortal and removed?
(To Julia Maesa who advances.)
You cannot feel—
You have your children in your sight.

JULIA MAESA.
Ay, daughters.
Envy me not.

JULIA DOMNA.
I am the bar between
Two snarling captives, not the lioness
Spreading her rich caresses on her cubs.

JULIA MAESA.
What would you do, annulling your own deed?
You have your sons in Rome.

JULIA DOMNA.
But Antioch
Was as my Geta's bride;
And in the poignancy of expectation
I drew him back.

JULIA MAESA.
He gives you no reproach,
He is most duteous?

JULIA DOMNA.
More, most lovable,
And yet exacting as the dying are,
And jealous of my passing in and out.
He speaks no more of Homer and the ways
Of the far-travelled heroes; but contests
Fiercely each emblem of authority,
As he were guarding his own monument.

JULIA MAESA.
Nay, but you have a son, I think by Mars;
Yield me the secret.

JULIA DOMNA.
Praise him, Julia,
Praise him—my Caracalla! Generous
You are, and ever you have praised my sons.

JULIA MAESA.
Should not a woman praise him! He infuses—
Even as the burning lava lures the vine
To venture to its rosy parapets—
Such promptness and such vigour in the women
He takes into his counsel they prevail,
They govern Rome. Worship your Hercules,
Then reign a widow Empress o'er the world.

JULIA DOMNA.
Reign o'er the world, when my beloved no more
Can feel the spur to rule! I have caged my bird,
And his drooped pinions are to me Death's wings. . .
Guardians of Rome and fellow-gods, and gladness
Of all the earth—I have two emperors:
They must reign side by side, and in my sight.

JULIA MAESA.
Ay, there the thunder nods!

JULIA DOMNA.
I have united
The continents; I must unite my sons:
So shall my Geta
Feel he has place and sovereignty, once more
Taking the common homage. I must plead . . .
And yet I cannot! There are voices in me
That thrust me quite aside, and silences
Too sluggish for my will. You have no sons—
To learn their manhood quells you even more
Than God's dim sovereignty; it is so close,
Too close to meddle with. I stood apart
When Caracalla first struck Geta down;
I saw it as one sees a mountain crush
The city at its foot.

JULIA MAESA.
But I have seen
How you can make that cruel mouth of his
A bed of balmy flowers.

JULIA DOMNA.
It is my dread
Corrupts my deeper love; and I am mortal
Unless he condescend. His jealousy
Girds round his love as a dark sea, and flows
So threateningly no craft can traverse it.
Give me no hope, and yet restrain me not,
For I am destined, and I go to him
As one who walks asleep and with no aim
That will not startle from me when I wake.
I go to him.

JULIA MAESA.
No, you command him here.
Papinian, I beseech you, as you love
Our sovereign lady, seek her elder son.

PAPINIAN.
(Rising and advancing.)
In the Arena?

JULIA MAESA.
Wheresoe'er he is.

JULIA DOMNA.
(Leaning on her sister's shoulder.)
And bid him instant to me, say I count
The moments till he come, say carefully
I am alone.
(Exit Papinian.)
Now all of you must leave me,
For even the shadow of a form beside
Is fatal. (Kissing her sister.)

Julia, you will pray the gods.
(Exit Julia Maesa with her daughters.)
O Queen of Heaven, thou close,
Thou closest breather with me of my days,
By that last sorrowing of my womb and all
The tenderness that clung about my life
Being delivered of a second son,
Preserve him, hide my secret, put away
The passion in my thoughts, and give me cunning
To cope with the great tempest that I love
To lay asleep, that now I must unloose.
(Turning to the door.)
He is my god to punish and afflict me;
He is my god and the one favouring boon
I press on him he grants me or I die.
He comes: how quick a tread, how hurrying . . . .
(Enter Caracalla, with the net and trident of a retiarius.)
Dear son, O Caracalla!

CARACALLA.
I am swift
To thank you for this favour, for that word
You wanted me alone and for my sake.

JULIA DOMNA.
I wanted you—

CARACALLA.
My thanks.
Now the parched Afric wind, the sharper onslaught
Of my galled adversary o'er the sand
Are noteless, you so buoy me with this grace.
But tell me of thy health.

JULIA DOMNA.
A little weary
With this ill-wind, dejected—

CARACALLA.
Are these dark eyes rimmed dark for lack of me?
Have you kissed Geta?
(She shakes her head.)
Not to find him here!
We had such kisses those three years before
You set him up against me.

JULIA DOMNA.
Nay, but Juno
Gave me that other son, and of her sanction
I love you both unlimited, with love
Entire as light or air to star and star.
The gods are parents to us all, and love
Of mortal parents to their children should
Be as the gods in balance.
O my son . . . .

CARACALLA.
You are most beautiful when you look up,
My very deity; but even a goddess
Protects one hero on the field, accepts
One homage.
(He casts his net on the floor.)
Here I lie down at your feet
Adoring you. In me you have the world.
My father gave you nothing: our true gifts
We offer to ourselves. You dote on empire,
You dreamed it, and you bore me, Bassianus,
Crowned Antonine, me with no other fondness
Than in your smile. Through me,
Colossal in my love,
And subject as a slave, to your caprice,
So that I have you all, you sway the world.
So that I have you all,
So that it matters not what life I take,
What beasts I slaughter. Be indifferent
To your sister, to your women, to your son,
Indifferent as to the spouse you sat
And smiled beside and watched me while I plotted
To put him from you. You are not a fool
As other women to be bound by names,
You know there is a good in life, essential
As blood to ghosts, and whoso proffers it
With him you must be sovereign.

JULIA DOMNA.
Bassianus,
Why do you ask what you have ever taken,
And what I never shall deny?

CARACALLA.
As wine
I have flushed your face. Are you so weary now
And so dejected? But your very raiment
Shines in my presence and casts off a dust
Of little stars.
Weary beside my father,
Gentle with Geta—that is weariness—
With Julia Maesa you are poignant, fine
In wit and sally. Am I tyrannous?
I am not: every creature that enhances
Your beauty blesses me as favouring sun
The orchard of my fruits.
(He rises & fronts her.)
What is the boon?

JULIA DOMNA.
What boon?—I had forgot.

CARACALLA.
But I will grant it,
I must in this great prodigy of joy
To find you thus, to give you health again
Simply by breathing near you. Majesty,
No son, but Hercules I think in me
Has pulled at Juno's breasts again. I smack
The flavour still of those first draughts. Beloved,
If you would ease my reeling brain, confer
Some labour on me, some attempt; for you
I would disjoint the hills.

JULIA DOMNA.
Nay, of myself
And for myself I cannot heave a wish.

CARACALLA.
But for your greater honour—a fresh palace,
Baths of more tempered coolness, any jewel
That the East buries . . . .

JULIA DOMNA.
For my greater honour
And pride of glory! But there is a thing . . . .
Come to me, for you cannot understand
Unless I speak it close.

(She stretches her arms to Caracalla & whispers to him.)
CARACALLA.
Rise from your knees.

JULIA DOMNA.
I am not kneeling,

(Caracalla is silent, Julia Domna turns away terrified.)
CARACALLA.
(With a slow smile.)
But there is a power
I may myself invoke.

JULIA DOMNA.
(Turning to him.)
O Caracalla,
Your daemon, the low voice of your own soul.

CARACALLA.
You cannot name the power.
(After a pause, with a deep inclination.)
When least you hope,
Your prayer is heard. Lo, I extinguish strife
With Geta, in your presence meet him here,
Within your room; and we will give this palace
One hearth, one board, one audience-chamber, one
Glad-smiling Lar—for we will be as one,
And rule as one. You shall embrace him even
Before my eyes. Go, fetch him out of exile;
Bring him to me.

JULIA DOMNA.
If from your soul you speak . . . .

CARACALLA.
By Vesta's Sacred Relics.

JULIA DOMNA.
You will meet him?

CARACALLA.
Within the hour.

JULIA DOMNA.
And will become as one?

CARACALLA.
Ay, as one son.
(Julia Domna, still keeping her eyes on him, goes out.)
(Snapping his thumb.)
The Syrian bitch, what guile!
(Calling into the ante-room as the sound of her footsteps ceases.)
Tarantus, heigh!
(Tarantus enters. Caracalla feels the muscles of his arms.)
This arm—a sea of waves
Has not more flow of power. It strikes where'er
I bid it—ay, Tarantus?

TARANTUS.
(Biting his own arm.)
Oath of blood!

CARACALLA.
Geta is coming hither, by that door—
He must not pass that way again, or forth.

TARANTUS.
I slay your brother.

CARACALLA.
There are many names
To every man. I strike my enemy,
My rival, my supplanter . . .
(Motioning Tarantus to the door.)
Romulus,
By the one blow thou gavest to the brother
Deriding thy possession, aid me now!

TARANTUS.
(Returning.)
I cannot, single-handed—

CARACALLA.
Fetch my guard.
Swift, O my swordsman in the game I love.
(Exit Tarantus.)
Geta! His name at whisper in my ear,
The boon for him . . . My passion of repugnance
Must have an act: she shall be drawn to me,
Concentrate as a blood-hound on the trail,
By her own Geta's blood.
'Tis she I strike—
Geta is nothing. If he hated me
He might be precious; hatred in his nature
Is but new vintage he is frantic with;
And mine—
The seasoned treasure of the long, black years!
My hatred must be mated with her love,
Since she can breed no hate for me. She wants me:
She will, when I have made her lonesome. Nothing
Left in your place when you would come to it,
That is destruction, that is victory!
(Re-enter Tarantus with soldiers.)
Crouch there; stir not a muscle. When I say
“Geta Augustus, we are reconciled,”
Rush from concealment, do the work of peace.
Tarantus, from to-day I make you free,
But not from the arena. Guards, to-morrow
A largesse pours on you from half the world.
(Looking round.)
Is there escape? The vestibule, the stairs—
Lock all the palace, bar the windows up;
And I will send you more—in every corner,
(Clearing spaces.)
Behind this broidery frame, this instrument,
These milky coils, behind her throne. . . . With speed,
And hush and rush and speed encounter him.

(Exit.)
(The soldiers & Tarantus hide behind a curtain.)
VOICES.
(From the ante-room.)
Peace!

ANOTHER VOICE.
Is the palace closed?

ANOTHER VOICE.
No exit here.

(Soldiers steal from the ante-room, across the audience-chamber to a small inner room.)
A SOLDIER.
(Turning to the curtain as he passes.)
Who strikes the blow?

VOICE.
(From the curtain.)
His brother.

THE SOLDIER.
Who will strike?

ANOTHER SOLDIER.
Tread down that curtain; as a frightened horse
It shudders in the gale.

VOICE OF TARANTUS.
Hist! Will you stir?

(The wind falls for a moment.)
(Re-enter Caracalla; he looks round, then nods.)
CARACALLA.
All quiet!
Even sirocco sleeps!
(With a sudden movement.)
Swing, swing, your lamps!
And let him see them rocking! . . . I must flee!

(Exit.)
SOLDIER.
(From behind the throne.)
You saw?

SECOND SOLDIER.
He will undo us.

FIRST SOLDIER.
Patience; this
Dull air is not for action. Was 't a ghost
Or shadow moved him?

SECOND SOLDIER.
If he fears . . .

TARANTUS.
(From behind the curtain.)
Be still!
Strike only when I strike. The victim comes.

A VOICE.
It is the wind.

ANOTHER VOICE.
No, no, a noise. . . . 'Tis footsteps.

SOLDIER.
(From the inner room.)
Hark!

VOICE.
(From the curtain.)
Again
It is the wind.

TARANTUS.
He comes beyond the wind.

(After a while re-enter Julia Domna with Geta.)
GETA.
No one is here, and we are quite alone.
Where then is Caracalla?

JULIA DOMNA.
But he swore,
Here in this room he swore . . . and he is here.
Is it not changed? Some preparation
That they have made!

GETA.
They have not set two thrones.
He comes attended—
If there is preparation.

JULIA DOMNA.
No. My lute
Has fallen: it is the wind. The veil
I wrought is thrust aside. . . . It is the wind.
Draw closer to the hearth; he swore by Vesta,
By Vesta's Relics.

GETA.
Peace, he comes fraternal;
If not, then I am here
To put my hand into my enemy's
As in a cleft of honey. . . . But no matter!

JULIA DOMNA.
(Looking steadily at the door.)
He will be with us straight.

GETA.
You tickled me
From my drowsed lair; you need the huge diversion
Of drawing us to growl about your skirts
And do no harm, restrained by pact and vow:
The Empress has her will, and we are friends
As friendly licking dogs that lick to snarl.
Remember, mother, in my heart to him
There is imprisoned rancour every instant.

(He turns from the hearth.)
JULIA DOMNA.
(Following him.)
Have pity, I could live no more without you,
I shuddered when I woke and when I slept. . . .
Sudden, maternal,
I sent for you, with gasping at my breath,
As I recalled you from your foster-nurse,
When you were in the country and my heart
Trembled to feel you mine.

GETA.
He does not come.

JULIA DOMNA.
He does, he must . . . Geta, the little statue
Of Victory, placed in your brother's chamber,
I lay alternate in your own: the gods
Salute that statue.

GETA.
Then the gods are men.
Mother, you crowned me once—I was a child,
You led me softly to your little garden,
Winnowed by summer butterflies, and twined me
A wreath of violets, calling me your Cæsar
With purple round my head. It fooled me then;
It does not fool me now. There is one part
For each of us to play, one part alone—
Mine is a little part, an inch, an ell,
As I had died in childhood. You are weeping?
Would I had died!

JULIA DOMNA.
A dove upon my bosom,
Though all the softness of my life were gone.
(Rousing herself.)
Geta, you must imprison in your heart
All that might turn to quarrel with your brother.
If you affront him—

GETA.
(Entangling his feet in the net on the floor and kicking it away.)
Is he often here?

JULIA DOMNA.
I sent for him.

GETA.
And with these bloody toils he visits you?
But it is monstrous he should keep me thus
Dallying his pleasure as I were not Cæsar,
But some rich freedman with a suit, a bribe.
(He whistles and moves restlessly about.)
Can we not bribe him to come down to us?
(Suddenly he returns to his mother.)
Something is crouching there.

(He points to the throne.)
JULIA DOMNA.
(Drawing him closer.)
. . . No, no; the door is wide,
The air is free . . .

GETA.
You bade me leave my sword,
You hurried me along.

JULIA DOMNA.
. . . No, no! And if there were,
You are protected; you are safe
As you were wrapt within my womb: I hear
My breath above you.
(Caracalla's steps advance.)
Do not touch me, Geta,
Not touch me! I am equal peace-maker.
(Re-enter Caracalla.)
See, Caracalla, we are here.

CARACALLA.
My welcome.
(To Geta.)
Long may you stay! So Geta, you are come.
It is most wise to listen to your mother,
Well-timed to yield a visit.

GETA.
I have yielded
Nothing to you, but all her will to her.

CARACALLA.
We love her. She is aging with our strife.

GETA.
Let it be ended.

CARACALLA.
Yea, there shall be peace.

JULIA DOMNA.
May Heaven and Earth establish it! My joy
Becomes full harvest.

CARACALLA.
That you house for rats
Unless I cherish Geta.

GETA.
She has said—
Only if we are friends.
(Julia Domna and Geta with one accord draw close to each other.)
And will maintain
There is no happiness unless you prosper,
And no content unless I give you love.
She must embrace you while my eyes applaud,
Shine on your demi-kingdom, wait complaisant
While you engage the lyre, making her paean
She bore Apollo in the flesh; for hours
Must talk with you of Homer's verse, of Plato,
While I am sought for moments of such issue
As war and finance sharpen.

JULIA DOMNA.
Caracalla!

GETA.
Are you refusing peace?

CARACALLA.
She must be free
To greet you first when there is morning sun,
Me when sirocco howls, to swiftly laugh
If I depart and leave you side by side . . .
You say her health requires such ease, her years,
Her happiness: and this is my reply.
Geta Augustus, though I hate your name,
Though you have stolen away half of my earth,
Though you annulled my birthright and made strait
My mother's earlier love, though you corrupted
My father's justice, turned from me the brilliance
Of every favouring star upon my chart,
All competence and all prerogatives
The sky could weave, laid on my life a curse,
Upon my palace, on the food I eat,
The wine I drink, the couch on which I sleep,
The ways that I would journey down, although
You have withstood my heart, withstood my will,
Yet as an answer to your mother's prayer,
In answer to your prayer I make reply—
Geta Augustus, we are reconciled.
Now—the great peace!

(Tarantus & soldiers rush out from hiding.)
GETA.
O mother, treason, treason!
My sword . . . O mother!
(He wrings his hands.)
Now you must succour.

JULIA DOMNA.
Geta, you are safe,
Your shield!
(She throws herself before him.)
No altar of the living gods
Is more secure.

TARANTUS.
(To the Soldiers, who recoil.)
Kill, kill!
Do not regard her, kill!

(The soldiers close in round Geta, on either side; she turns back & folds him in her arms.)
GETA.
Save me!

JULIA DOMNA.
Drive off these tigers—Caracalla!
Traitor, traitor . . . No, no! Caracalla,
So many swords—and one is at my heart.

(Geta falls back dead in her arms from a stroke given by Caracalla, who has seized Tarantus' sword.)
JULIA DOMNA.
Ha, never, never, never!
(She shrieks & moans.)
Geta! I cannot hold him any more,
He pulls me to the earth.
(She sinks down, then lays him on the floor & gazes at him, her arms stretched wide out.)
Dead—in the daylight—
A corpse!
(Tarantus & the soldiers go out. Julia Domna remains with wide arms & fixed eyes; suddenly she cries out in a small wailing voice.)
Back to my lap, my bosom, Geta, Geta!
They cast him back to me, back to his mother.
I cannot lull or warm him any more.
(In a toneless voice, as if heard from a distance.)
I am a childless woman.
(Caracalla drops his sword & flies.)
(Moving Geta's body.)
Oh, this weight!
Not childless yet while I can carry it:
But barren for all days to come. The wheels,
The wheeling of the firmament go round
Within my head, the rivers of deep gorges
Roar through my ears . . . Let me not ever see him,
Touch him again, or call, or recollect.
Oh!

(Re-enter Julia Maesa with Fadilla. As she perceives them she struggles to speak, then bows, swooning, over the body. They strive to recover her, speaking in whispers.)
FADILLA.
(With softly raised voice.)
Princely Geta!
Why did he strike his brother?

JULIA DOMNA.
(In a harsh murmur.)
He was murdered,
You snake!

FADILLA.
Peace, Julia, peace. I fondly love him.
The soldiers gave the story.

JULIA DOMNA.
He was murdered;
He fell between my breasts, and I am red
Behold, from throat to feet. My Geta's blood!
No, do not staunch it, it is all I have,
And I can hear it crying. I am now
No mother to him, for the cry is warm,
And I am cold. I am the ice-cold Earth
For him to lie against, and so his mother
As nature is—a clod of clay to wrap him,
But fierce as nature
To take him to myself, to be the earth,
And hear his blood cry up.
I love the cry, I love to nurse the vengeance.
There is in this
Something eternal. Ever on my bosom
He will be laid for the great gods to see.