Octavia: 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 princeTheir blood shall quench; and Rome, who bore such men,Shall be bespattered with her people's gore.Yet death is far too light a punishmentFor such atrocities; this impious mobShall suffer worse than death. But she, my wifeAnd 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 homesThe people shall be buried; squalid want,Dire hunger, grief-all these shall they endure.Too fat upon the blessings of our ageHas this vile mob become, and know not howTo bear our clemency and relish peace;But, rash and reckless, are they ever borneBy 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 wifeDare lift again their vulgar eyes. O'erawedBy fear of punishment must they be taughtTo yield obedience to their prince's nod.But here I see the man whose loyaltyHas made him captain of my royal guards.

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 assailMy house with flames, to dictate laws to me,To drag my noble wife from off my bed,And with unhallowed hands and angry threatsTo 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?

Nero: Because thou spar'st my foe.

Nero: If she be criminal.

Nero: The people's rage.

Nero: The one who fanned its flame.

Nero: A woman she, to whom an evil heartHath nature given, a soul to fraud inclined.

Prefect: But not the power to act.

Nero: That she may beWithout the power to act, that present fearMay 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 sailTo some far distant shore and there be slain,That thus at last my fears may be at rest.

Chorus [attached to Octavia]: Oh, dire and deadly has the people'sloveTo many proved, which fills their swelling sailsWith 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 weptHer 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 loveAnd popular renown. And Livius, theeTo equal fate did fickle fortune give,Who found no safety in thy lictors' rods,No refuge in thy home. But grief forbidsTo tell more instances. This hapless girl,To whom but now the citizens decreedThe restoration of her fatherland,Her home, her brother's couch, is dragged awayIn tears and misery to punishment,With citizens consenting to her death!Oh, blesséd poverty, content to hideBeneath the refuge of a lowly roof!For lofty homes, to fame and fortune known,By storms are blasted and by fate o'erthrown!

Octavia: Oh, whither do ye hurry me? What fateHas 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 sufferingsWith death, why does her savage heart begrudgeThat I should die at home? But now, alas,I can no longer hope for life; behold,My brother's bark, within whose treacherous holdHis 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 lifeThe day which most we fear shall come to us.But comfort now thy heart with thought of thoseOf 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 worldIn flaming glory shone, whose teeming wombBrought forth so many hostages of peace:E'en thee did exile wait, and cruel chains,Blows, bitter anguish, and at last a deathOf 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 doWho 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 royaltyMight 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 shadesIs 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, comeAnd bring this tyrant fitting punishment.The death you threaten has no terrors nowFor me. Go, set your ship in readiness,Unfurl your sails, and let your pilot seekThe barren shores of Pandataria.

Chorus: Ye gentle breezes and ye zephyrs mild,Which once from savage Dian's altar boreAtrides' 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.For Aulis is more merciful than Rome,The savage Taurian land more mild than this:There hapless strangers to their gods they feed,But Rome delights to see her children bleed.