 | Julia Domna |  |
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ACT III.
Next day. The same room. Geta's body has been laid out on a couch in the centre. Pylades is bowed over it. Fadilla watches.FADILLA.
(Touching him.)
O Pylades, but it is morning now,
Morning with outspread light that cannot enter
The form we love. Your cheeks are wan as his
We watch the dawn on, hopeless. Go and bathe,
Take food and then return.
(Pylades shakes his head & does not stir. Papinian enters: he & Fadilla salute silently.)
. . . The livelong night
She held her murdered son upon her bosom,
Fondling the bright hair with her chin; sometimes
She groaned from depths of cold.
I chronicle,
I chronicle all this. I am too aged
To weep, I cannot; but I saw. At dawn
She rose up from her sorrow as from sleep
To make the last couch ready and herself
Washed off the crust of blood from Geta's limbs.
Then she departed
To bring his relics forth. I did not help;
I am too old, I watched her and let be.
How can she face that fierce Ausonian Beast
The murderer of his brother?
PAPINIAN.
If that moment
Should pass her in its passing and not slay
Indomitable she will face the years.
I know her stubborn: 'tis not Rome will lose her—
The stars, the poets. Oh, she was a lamp,
A lamp to Homer!
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He cannot know his peril weeping Geta.
What fool's devotion in a Greek, a dancer,
A creature of the boards.
(Fadilla speaks low to Papinian; he turns to Pylades with bowed head.)
I find you noble,
Worthy to be in peril.
(There is sound of footsteps without: Caracalla throws open the door. He wears the purple & a crown of gold rays. Soldiers follow him, but he advances into the room alone.)
CARACALLA.
Ha, not here!
Where is my mother? I assumed my empire
An hour ago. Where is she? Has she fled?
Is she in hiding? By the gods of death,
Give me reply. Where is she?
PAPINIAN.
Only now
She went within to bring the relics forth
Of her dead son for laying on his bier.
She will return.
CARACALLA.
Away, gone on his business!
The Senate at my disposition gathered
Before the dawn, yet still she is not ready,
Not waiting me. And this her preparation!
(He points to the bier.)
Sallow he looks and ancient as the wax
That moulds us our forefathers. I could laugh—
Is it not pitiful, this farce of hers?
(With a shudder he casts the purple off his shoulders on the corpse.)
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(To Fadilla.)
You weep—
What are you weeping?
FADILLA.
Geta.
CARACALLA.
You shall mourn
Your present death; the palace-gates are locked.
FADILLA.
Then no more tears.
CARACALLA.
This wailing when I triumph,
This emptiness about the air!
(Perceiving Pylades.)
His Leda
By the dead swan—
A Titan has prevailed,
And Jove is out of greatness now; go seek him
Among the wailing Stygian reeds of Dis.
You have no further part to play. A chorus
Of blood shall sweep up to your ears—interpret
That music as you list.
For you, Papinian,
There is a task, a privilege. Convoke
Your gifts, raise my apology to heaven
For this my deed, establishing my honour,
As Seneca embodied Nero's deed
Into a temple that is yet his fame.
Wait death or inspiration.
PAPINIAN.
Death will come.
Death is the inspiration of the gods
To flagging mortals; it will stead me now.
(To Fadilla.)
Farewell, O honoured! Emperor, farewell.
(Exit.)
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Where is she? Heaven and Earth,
She thinks that I shall stoop to summon her?
It is the dead we call to—call their names.
(Pausing a moment before the bier.)
She shall not dare—
That soft note in her voice, not that between;
Nothing between us any more. Where is she,
That she inflicts this beggary of empire,
Turning my palace to a gulf where phantoms
Have nothing for their grasp? I grow distraught—
That waxwork and no hostess in the house.
(To Pylades.)
Get up; you dog, get up from off the ground,
Summon Augusta to my feet.
(Pylades moves to the door as Julia Domna enters in white mourning.)
FADILLA.
Behold.
CARACALLA.
Not here when I arrive—
JULIA DOMNA.
(Faintly, holding out the relics.)
Fadilla, take them,
Place them. No, I myself. Help, Pylades.
This massy cloak—who put it down on him?
PYLADES.
The emperor.
JULIA DOMNA.
Ha!
FADILLA.
His brother.
JULIA DOMNA.
Lift it up;
Cast it away.
His first small flute; and here
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Of yesterday in couple with his voice.
This on his heart. . . . His sword!
Oh, the keen favourite left behind, his sword,
His sword, his sword!
(She lays Geta's hand on the hilt, as if arming him, then without turning to Caracalla she shows the body.)
There, there!
CARACALLA.
But he is dead,
Stone-dead. He does not know you at his side.
As for his funeral, he shall have pomp,
Deification, the loosed eagle's wafture,
Be rated as a god, be anything
Sublime, immortal, since he is alive
No longer, but shut from us in condition
That holds against assault of love or hatred,
(Coming close to the corpse.)
Ay, of despair—stone-dead, without a tremor,
Like the more human instrument that you
Or I could strike to vibrance on his bosom.
He is closed up in stone, but you—you live,
Nor can you make blank metal of your vision;
Your eyes have seen me, I have caught their look
In act; they could not guard you from encounter,
I changed the pathway of your breath; you own
The subtilty of common life between us,
Though you are turned away. It is pretence
That you ignore my nearness. He is dead;
Jove of the Capitol, you are not!
(He comes close.)
JULIA DOMNA.
Go!
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From you? Is that your sentence? You forget
I take no bidding now, nor will I leave you
Revering thus a corpse, when I have hands
Supple and envious to reach your hands,
A voice that travels to your open ears.
Answer—you think to give the burial-flames
All of your love, to live indifferent
To me and hug the ashes, while a heat
And promptitude of unavailing love
Are wasted round you, love you lit yourself?
Speak, for I will not suffer hollowness
To haunt between us: we must signify
Some truth to one another. Speak that truth.
What are you, what am I?
(Julia Domna remains silent.)
Speak, dumbness, speak!
And let me hear a human voice among
These clashings in my head of phantasms
And dreams I cannot wake from. When your son
Pursues me, and I call upon my father,
His spirit answers nothing. . . . You reply
Nothing. What shall I do? Fierce beasts are answered
By their fierce kind. Alone, alone with phantoms
At freedom on the wind, no call returning . . .
(With a shriek.)
Mother!
JULIA DOMNA.
(Moving forward.)
My son.
CARACALLA.
Love me, O light of day!
You have a dead face for the dead; but now
It breaks from death.
(With clasped hands.)
Love me!
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(Inclining towards the corpse as if drawn back.)
He dares to ask . . .
CARACALLA.
Because you named the name that seals my right,
Vouchsafing me your love, as to the nurture
Of earth the plant is destined of the earth.
Your love estates me—there is sanctuary
Of nature's closest. If you now deny it
I shall become as Nero in my passion
And aim a deed at you.
JULIA DOMNA.
(With closed eyes.)
O Caracalla,
The sword you threaten you have used already,
And you have pierced your mother. What beyond
You still could do against me were as nothing.
(Suddenly fixing him with her eyes.)
I made the life
That you destroyed: you struck me there . . . Ah, there
You struck me, Caracalla!
CARACALLA.
Not my mother,
Gods of my native earth, not mine! O gods,
I have not slain her; she has called me son
Upon her living lips.
(Laying hold of her robe.)
Is that your substance,
That tawny marble? Am I not your flesh
The substance of your substance and the truth
Of your donation to the earth and air?
I am not an inanity, abjured
To lurk in mortuary urn and blast you
Sterile with ashes. Would you bury me,
Or sink me from the light? But I myself,
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Your motherhood into your face as dust
Of scattering fire. You touch and kiss a corpse,
Then I will be a corpse and be restored,
So, to your hands and lips.
(He draws his dagger.)
JULIA DOMNA.
(Her hand on his wrist.)
You may not die.
More sacred is the pity for the dead
Than any other—it has rites, an altar,
The pouring forth of tears that would not flow
For you, deep garlands that your curse would wither,
Honey you shall not drink.
But we remain
Upon this desert earth a son and mother.
Unheard you do not cry; and yet I know not
If you have cried to something holy, or
A canker foul and impious in my blood,
That I should have no valour to be deaf;
That I should turn from my dead son to you,
O wretched one, the living.
CARACALLA.
You are mine.
JULIA DOMNA.
Your mother.
CARACALLA.
Say I am your only son.
JULIA DOMNA.
Who breathes, who is alive.
CARACALLA.
You love me?
JULIA DOMNA.
Love—
With a wild anguish Earth the Mother sanctions,
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(She draws back from him.)
CARACALLA.
You cannot touch nor kiss
Your living son? You stand
And waver from one spot, as if a spirit
Holding the ground and flaming like a flame.
Can we not join? Am I alone for ever?
JULIA DOMNA.
It is because you live and by your life
I love you, by a spell that is your own,
My present and my future. Desolate,
My first-born; I am with you to the end.
I live for you, I kiss you.
CARACALLA.
(Embracing her.)
And the years
Begin afresh, wide-swept of rivalry.
Hence with the past; burn it or deify,
Hack, murder, silence it! We have no past—
Mother and only son as on the day
You gave me birth. So we begin, nor sunder
On wrong you do me any more. Your crime
Lies there encased in prison, soon to crumble
In the flames' pure flagration. All who fostered
My rival's cause shall perish.
(Julia Domna raises her hands.)
No entreaty,
No boon to-day! There must be sacrifice;
For my propitiation blood must flow.
The servants of the dead shall serve him yonder,
Faithful among the fuming shoals. There, Geta—
JULIA DOMNA.
Peace, peace!
CARACALLA.
Shall have dominion, for such empire
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When we must meet again let him beware,
And dread annihilation. The white field-flowers
Will nod to shrieking spirits in that conflict,
And tumult roar through hell.
I am not mad . . .
This is bare reason, to have washed our love
Clean in his blood, my kingdom in the bloodshed
Of all his lovers, all his parasites.
Swift I send forth obliteration, dropping
Its mandate on the past. Earth groans with fuel
Waiting the death-fires.
(Throwing his golden wreath at her feet.)
Imperatrix, hail!
(Exit.)
JULIA DOMNA.
(To Fadilla & Pylades.)
Hence, hide yourselves.
FADILLA.
We are already chosen;
We go to Geta's kingdom.
JULIA DOMNA.
I would save you
And cannot; for these billows rage across
A vessel that is sinking in the main.
(Going up to the bier.)
I can invoke no gods: but, see, his beauty!
Praise him a little. . . . Ah, you have no voices;
You both are dead—and yet I found this child
More wonderful and gracious than a god,
Gentler to smile on . . . and there is no praise.
A PASSING VOICE.
(Without.)
The soldiers' glaives were naked.
ANOTHER VOICE.
Flee!
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We cannot;
The palace-doors are bolted.
JULIA DOMNA.
Massacre!
But he can make the earth a ball of blood—
And I have let him pass.
But hear, but listen!
The shrieks begin, begin far off, begin
In Geta's palace.
FADILLA.
Calm yourself: the sound
Is far away. Here there will be no sound.
Comfort your dead.
(Distant cries & shrieks.)
JULIA DOMNA.
But listen, for the air
Is shaking with a tremor,
Like the tremor of an earthquake. Far away!—
You cannot hear . . . It knocks against the heart.
Will he destroy all room?
Oh listen, listen!
This mighty wave of blood must break before me,
Break in my sight . . . The little interval,
The pause is cruellest . . . But now the clamour
Is walking fast nor halts. Where is Papinian?
(Cries & shrieks roll closer down the passages.)
A VOICE.
(Without.)
Not one of them escapes! Strike them all down,
All Geta's friends!
JULIA DOMNA.
That is Tarantus' voice,
Not his!
(Drawing Fadilla to her.)
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To one who is accursed.
PYLADES.
While I am in my blood,
Before I break to thee in Hades, Geta—
(He kisses his hands.)
No more to dance to thee; in the lone reeds
To wander with thee and be still for ever,
For ever to be still and wandering!
(He rises & meets Tarantus & the Centurions as they rush in.)
TARANTUS.
The pantomime!
CENTURION.
Where is he?
TARANTUS.
(Pointing to Pylades.)
Quick!
(They stab him: he falls dead at Geta's feet: then they turn hissing toward Fadilla. But, at their approach, with a deep sigh she drops down, through Julia Domna's arms, to the ground.)
JULIA DOMNA.
Refrain!
For death has taken her himself. Behold!
Oh, stay a little, for my ears are stunned;
Do reverence to this dead—Aurelius' daughter.
Oh, stay!
I cannot bear the fume, the noise—
It is enough.
TARANTUS.
Swift! Is Papinian slain?
Seek all the far apartments.
(Exeunt. Julia Domna buries her face in her hands.)
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. . . But my ears
Are crushed and trampled on; they are as wounds
That hear o'erhead the tramp of cavalry,
And do not feel the hoof . . .
There are no cries.
The wave of blood laps now upon the shore,
All its peace riding past . . . it soaks the sand,
It can no more accumulate, no more
Go rolling on, no more arrest itself
Stony, o'erhanging ere it ebb away.
It cannot!
It is spread down, away. Deliverance!
(She sits by Geta abstractedly, as if by his grave.)
O blessing, blessing!
How you fall blessing on me! Here is all
The source of the quiet.
And I must not drink,
Though it is close beside me.
(After a while she raises herself, startled. Caracalla re-enters, staggering, & uncertain: he reels toward his mother.)
CARACALLA.
I am ill.
The sun has struck me—in the streets
The sun has struck me . . . I am sated now,
Giddy from slaughter . . . Mother, you must rule,
I am too spent.
I must take sleep. I am heavy
With one gigantic dream. You must give me rest,
Or else there is no ruler in the world;
Chaos has drowned it all.
(He falls drunkenly at her feet by the crown.)
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You have need of sleep.
My son, my living son, you are weary now . . .
And the lids close so soft! Ye blessed gods,
To see him fall asleep, my living son.
THE END
| Julia Domna | |