Germanicus

by Jo-Marie Claassen

SECRETARY [Fairly loudly]

  Is Caesar awake?

  GUARD

  He hardly slept last night.

  Last evening he was very quiet – and restlessly drunk

  as seldom before. Smell at the door, smell there.

  I heard things crash and break last night.

  It stinks of vintage: old dry soldier’s wine.

  and cheap – bought by the jar ...

  SECRETARY

  Ten jars I had carried in last night.

  There was talk of Livia and her rages.

  GUARD

  I heard him all night through: slop, slop, shuffling

  up and down, a moment’s rest, then walking round again,

  this eternal pacing, and on every hour he came, white

  and dreadful, to the door to look at me –

  And neither spoke. Now, I think, he has to rest.

  SECRETARY

  I wish he’d take up with a woman – even several.

  GUARD

  Could he be scared? He was a great soldier then.

  SECRETARY

  Not of death nor ambushes! Who knows his heart?

  Such loneliness is close to true madness

  or has become madness.

  Puts papers down on the table, one at a time, still scanning them.

  Here is his day’s agenda: [70]

  sentencing; his judges pronounce the verdict,

  he writes their deaths.

  [Looks at a document] The cross is for those slaves

  that dared to rebel down in Campania ...

  it’s bad; I know some of these names ...

  Another document: pleased

  the list of all the knights, some senators

  that dared to plot with the false Agrippa –

  that slave who claimed to be Agrippa,

  the grandson of Augustus, landed in Ostia

  in secret, all brimming with plans and treachery ...

  If you just knew the names I’m reading here!

  Yes, of the high, and higher, highest ranks.

  That’s good, the gallows, Tiberius and I

  we curl our fingers round the finest throats.

  Short silence

  But he was tough, this slave, we had to oil him

  – you know, the nicest oiling – to get him to speak out:

  and then, then he spoke the names so sweetly

  to his dear friend ... and here, here they are now

  awaiting Caesar ...

  Germanicus’s coming now.

  – He had him called – and Cneius Piso later.

  GUARD

  There’s one here now.

  SECRETARY [Calmly]

  Here they have to learn to wait!

  GUARD

  I fear the general: he is young, the people

  They love him ...

  SECRETARY

  There’s been much treacherous whispering.

  The Guard wants to go off

  Let him cool his heels; he’s young, hot-headed. [71]

  GUARD

  They say he’s mournful: even a triumph

  and all the city’s adulation don’t cheer him up.

  The deaths of a certain Lucius and a Marcus

  his most intimate ...

  SECRETARY

  Ah, yes: a death and – suicide!

  And behind each we have a little story

  that I know and Tiberius knows ... yes, I do [Guard off]

  And what’s his great hurry? ...

  The Guard returns with Germanicus. The Secretary, who had sat down at the table, gets up, goes through the inner door and returns after a while. All wait without speaking. Tiberius enters, a large, heavy dark man, and sits down. He speaks slowly, but mostly in a business-like, courteous manner

  TIBERIUS

  Now the games are done, my boy, and now the weight

  of all the world descends on us, the Caesars,

  as on every arid day.

  [To Secretary and Guard] You wait outside. [They go off]

  We Caesars must speak first, alone and grim,

  like lions growling over prey – not so, Germanicus,

  that’s what Livia would say –

  We captured the whole world: it lies and bleeds,

  and the imperial predators tear and dole

  out pieces bit by bit. You like images ...

  GERMANICUS

  You’re speaking of people, Caesar

  TIBERIUS

  Speaking of people? I was speaking just of prey.

  [More vehemently] No, rather a marshland where we fall around,

  I speak of rancid mud that wells up from the earth

  bubbling from a hundred holes and cracks

  And where we – you and I – splash in the muck: [72]

  close up one hole, it spouts out from another

  twenty more; you get the blond Germans pacified,

  then the dusky East bubbles and boils over,

  or Africa or Spain with its steep cliffs.

  Suddenly calm

  Just listen, they say you’re clever, I want to ask:

  did any one of your six victories up North

  bring peace or loyalty in Germany?

  GERMANICUS

  I don’t believe they did.

  TIBERIUS

  So you do have some sense.

  That very place will see us fall and splash and stumble

  deeper into much more filth – till we sink

  and the great waters wash slowly over us.

  He laughs. Goes into his chamber and returns after a moment. Speaks as if overwhelmed

  What was it now ... (that’s what my mother would say)

  but before we go under, there still is work,

  great work in the East.

  [Suddenly sober] Armenia must get a king

  from our hands, that’s what they ask – you know, the Caesars

  make others king, never themselves. Then there’s

  Parthia, Cilicia ... and the Commagenes, they want

  to creep in under our tired old imperial wings

  and must be organised; and Cappadocia,

  Syria and Judea want the Law

  – that lean Law that you know – from us, from Rome.

  So you must go, for I am old, and stink

  in the nostrils of humanity, not so? You go

  like the great Agrippa of old: co-regent

  Caesar’s own son and Caesar to all kings

  to bring them law and order, clear and clean

  – after your own heart, not cruel, semi-criminal

  the kind that I, the dusky beast, the old Tiberius, [73]

  must dole out here day by day.

  GERMANICUS

  Caesar, I came here to you not on command,

  not to gain more might and honour, no,

  but to lay my rank and titles in your hand,

  lay them down and ask: Allow me please to rest.

  Tiberius goes to his chamber and returns with a flask of wine

  TIBERIUS

  Do you want wine, or do you want to stay sober?

  Just listen:

  Where all are drunk, to stay stone sober still ...

  there lies the madness. To be pure, my Germanicus,

  – the husband of one woman, in the beastliness

  of this vile city, where day and night the streets

  bring on a salver the body’s every vicious lust

  – it becomes the night where heart and brain both fornicate.

  I’m warning you, my boy.

  GERMANICUS

  Why can’t you hear!

  I see confusion, simple, without end,

  inhumanity and hate and violence

  that arcs across all that is here. I ask you here:

  take away from me the heavy load of have-to-rule.

  I lay my general’s mantle at your feet

  please let me just be man ...

  TIBERIUS

  Looking ahead sombrely

/>   You struggle with the a-b-z, can’t yet

  spell easily that short syllable “man”.

  GERMANICUS

  Caesar, we have never talked of this before;

  I still must speak of all the bitter things

  that pulse here in my throat and make me hate

  high empire, the great edifice of our race.

  I shudder, fear that it will grasp me too [74]

  and change my soul ... to less ... Caesar, I beg you:

  allow me to live alone, sent to an island

  small and forsaken in the wide, wide sea,

  Chios or Corfu with its vineyards, yes,

  where you will kindly let me live a man;

  or a white hamlet on our farthest quiet coast ...

  TIBERIUS

  I thought you would say that. I think of you

  and care for you – far more than you may know ...

  Goes through the doorway and returns immediately. Threateningly

  and I see to it that the nations of this vile Empire

  enjoy a bitter kind of half-life

  rather that than nothing, than dusky death

  in endless warring, town with town.

  GERMANICUS

  I don’t know what your care, Caesar, entails ...

  TIBERIUS [Fiercely]

  And you want rest? Rest? The Caesars cannot rest.

  Around you th’Empire would swell up

  and infect all, even if you stayed pure.

  Because you are beloved, you cannot rest:

  you would be the reproach of Caesar’s filthy hands

  in all men’s eyes, all outbursts, every dream

  and foolish human quirk would cake round you;

  you would be sought and named by every lout,

  to use your unsullied hands to grasp what they

  filthily desire, and the Empire would tear

  once more bogged down in bloody battles, die ...

  because one that was so high, would stay pure.

  Gets up angrily

  This I won’t allow. We are tied down

  by Fate in the stinking sewer of this Empire

  and the filth of our era washes over all of us.

  I shall show you ...

  [Goes to the door and calls] Let him come in now! [75]

  The slave, Clemens – the “fake Agrippa” – is brought in by the Torturer. He is limp, mutilated. His eyes have been gouged out. Bandages over his face

  Do you know this man?

  GERMANICUS

  That I do not.

  TIBERIUS

  Look well.

  He does not look good. He’s been in cruel hands.

  He had to speak to Caesar and was so bashful

  that he had no tongue: he needed us to help.

  GERMANICUS

  This is terrible. Can a human descend to this?

  TIBERIUS

  You don’t think it’s Agrippa Postumus,

  the last grandchild of the great Augustus,

  the youngest brother of your wife, the son of Julia?

  Look hard. You too will still be Caesar.

  GERMANICUS

  This isn’t he, no.

  TIBERIUS

  Agrippa died, oh yes. He could not rule.

  This is his slave, that Clemens who long since

  began secretly to plot in Ostia, work against us.

  His first plan was to save the lascivious young Caesar

  to live and rule, mad as he was, in Rome

  as only heir and grandson of Augustus;

  and – when this Caesar died – his own madness grew

  so great that he, the slave, this Clemens, began

  to vaunt himself, pretender, as his own master:

  quietly, in dark of night, he gathered round

  malcontents to rally to his cause – from this house,

  from high and noble houses in our Rome –

  all those that hate me, also those that would be “pure”

  and would not bow before the domination [76]

  of the black beast, Tiberius.

  Turns to Clemens

  And this thing would be Caesar!

  Or, more probably, all men would be Caesar.

  To the Torturer

  Did you speak to him, my friend, this very night –

  the way you do – and could he then talk back?

  TORTURER

  Caesar, not a word! I tried the scalding pincers

  the water and the iron pens and all,

  and boiling oil: no word, not one filthy word!

  Forgive me, Caesar, and please don’t punish me!

  This thing plays dumb. He is too tough for me.

  Just, when his feet were dipped in boiling oil,

  when he cried out, I could almost make out names –

  these have been written down, the scribe did that.

  Forgive me, Caesar.

  TIBERIUS

  Picks up the paper from the table

  I know these names. And more than’s written here.

  But he is strong.

  He could have been a servant to Tiberius.

  [Laughing] Tell me, Clemens – and now don’t speak to Caesar,

  but as a tough man would to a tough old scoundrel –

  how could you turn into Agrippa so ... so quietly?

  CLEMENS

  As quietly as you turned into Caesar.

  TIBERIUS

  Touché!

  If you want truth in Rome, you must ask villains:

  The nobles all say what Caesar wants them to.

  GERMANICUS

  Caesar, please make an end. Let the man die.

  In such misery death will now be merciful.

  CLEMENS [77]

  Someone’s speaking here of mercy, I don’t know who,

  and he sounds more than kind, but he sounds Roman.

  I won’t have your pity! I spit it out,

  I vomit it back onto your clothes.

  Torturer tries to drag him out

  TIBERIUS

  No. Wait.

  CLEMENS

  I have reached the utter limit of all pain,

  you can’t do more, then I shall die and it is over.

  Death does not mean mercy, nor is rest from pain

  a sign of mercy; your power has reached its utmost

  with me, and I lie still as in a womb

  cradled in dusky blood, I lie and think.

  With my two darkened eyes I see you all:

  you, Caesar, will drive madness and all fear

  from deed to deed till you have no-one left,

  abhorrent to yourself, and you will wish

  to be like me, long stilled; and you, the man

  who here speaks of mercy – you are young,

  it seems to me – probably you don’t know blood;

  you can cherish the luxury of your pity

  in the rich chamber where you live artistically

  and think of bright beauty’s joys, and call

  your slaves to bring your food, to read a book,

  to make music in your small cosy corner

  of this bloodstained, enormous Empire;

  if you want to pity, go out, and see

  in the slave-sties where we lie stabled,

  beast tied to beast, filthy, disgusting, full of hate;

  go to your borders where your own people die,

  where death takes all, where all that’s free, will die,

  where Rome’s long shiny scythe mows all:

  for Caesar, honour, and slaves for you, and riches

  where you can lie softly, and cherish your bloodless [78]

  pity endlessly, you chuck it away on me ...

  TIBERIUS [Laughs]

  Just see the dust fly up! You’re not shooting straight,

  my Clemens, you’re thinking thoughts that won’t move mountains;

  now you may prophecy!

  CLEMENS

  It’s fear, Caesar, it’s fear


  making you say those words: that these very eyes

  dead as they are, still see more than the truth ...

  [To Germanicus] and you – because you were close to Caesar now,

  you will die young; he has the lupus, the wolf-disease,

  it does not kill him, no, but all will die

  that come near him. And before you die, just listen:

  take this message with you – if Caesar allows

  you to leave this house of doom – take this

  to him that we all loved, to Germanicus.

  I saw him once, from very far away

  in the house of that brute Agrippa; he was young,

  yes young as you seem young; he was so mild,

  polite even to slaves, friendly, courteous.

  I heard him speak of justice and freedom.

  I poured his wine and he was very merry;

  but suddenly I was free: and I could feel

  here was a master, leader for the world,

  here I could follow and no longer feel enslaved.

  I thought that he would be our next Caesar,

  would renew Rome and with it all the earth,

  clean and glorious – I would become human too

  Tiberius bursts out laughing

  and Caesar, when I conspired against you,

  then I said: “Tomorrow he will come ...

  Germanicus”, then I would kneel before him

  and say: “This is your Empire, you lead us all!”

  But he ... he swills with them from the selfsame trough.

  You take this message: say: “The world, it hates him [79]

  and thinks he’s small”.

  TIBERIUS

  Enough. Take him away now

  and silence him. [Clemens is dragged out]

  CLEMENS

  Your Empire, o Caesar, is dying!

  and we, the slaves, infect it secretly ...

  TIBERIUS

  [To Germanicus, quietly] And you want rest.

  Looks at the paper

  Here are so many names.

  Tears up the paper

  Tomorrow they will all cringe before me

  and be so friendly.

  “Rule” is a joyless word,

  and this is what it means: love killing, love –

  the least thing that will suit your aim, and know –

  know well and always know – : these people are dumb brutes.

  You wanted rest. We, Caesars, walk a road

  that has no turning back, no stopping and no rest.

  The whip cracks over all, Caesars, slaves,

  and I, Germanicus, I have no other choice:

  I’ve learned to love the whip, I’ve been worn down.

  Leans forward over the table

  GERMANICUS

  The whole world’s cares’ve fallen upon you.

  I pity you, Caesar, in your strength and power.

  TIBERIUS

  Do you know “loneliness”?

  My nights are terrible. And the moon

  threads a slim loop through my brain ...

  He sinks to the ground from his chair

  and every day is black, and all is lonely.

  Do you know that? The days, the nights, the years,

  the streets are empty, Rome is empty, the earth, [80]

  my own hands are black and lonely in front of me

  where I touch. Now they can walk on me. I lie prostrate.

  GERMANICUS

  My father and my friend. [Helps him up]

  TIBERIUS

  You want to rest. And Caesar has his work.

  Takes up the papers

  This work is for the vulture, for Tiberius, I see;

  not work for hands that must stay pure.

  Shows Germanicus a document

  The slaves of a Silius rebelled against him.

  He was a beast to them; and they were beast-like

  back at him, but he was master and a Roman.

  If I sign here, then a hundred will be crucified.

  Read this and weigh:

  strong brave men who could no longer bear

  to be enslaved, will feel the wind and sun

  as they hang on their crosses along the Appian Way

  and they’ll die slowly, racked with pain and hate,

  but powerless in our hands.

  GERMANICUS

  The cross is dreadful; and people suffer so.

  I am a soldier, blood is not unknown to me,

  but my bloodstained trade has its own meaning:

  I fought to spread wide the Imperial peace,

  to make it greater still, cause it to pour out

  blessings over the whole round earth.

  But this empire and this blessed peace

  rest on foundations made of clay,

  the clay of hatred, bitterness of peoples, slaves.

  TIBERIUS

  If you were truly honest, you would not have fought.

  GERMANICUS [Hotly]

  That’s true. I have been weak. Yet I must speak out

  and Caesar listen. I shape the words: they’re vague [81]

  just like my thoughts, but through me speaks humanity,

  the voice of those who have no other power

  than words. You sit above all earthly powers,

  more than a man may ask you have been given.

  Grasp this chance once, break this stilted mould,

  kneed, kneed the great Empire with its nations

  and make them men again, break down this fear

  that makes each stumble in its shackling ties;

  then no man need listen, spy, snoop and tattle;

  break the old hatred ...

  TIBERIUS

  To fight must be much easier than to think.

  GERMANICUS

  these slaves here,

  they’re people, Caesar, brave and simple;

  thousands like these I had to bring to Rome.

  What do we turn them into? grant order, rest,

  a pattern to the space that borders all humanity.

  Is there no other way, must we just kill

  until they seize us by the throat? and then

  answer hate with death, bring terror to the terrified?

  beat till they stagger, beat down those that stagger?

  circle round in a bloodstained rink, round

  and round; humanity dissolved: in us, in them –

  we with our pride, yes, they with their hate ...

  TIBERIUS

  He thinks a ruler of Empire lies still,

  a nucleus, glorious, imperturbable:

  his stillness unmoved by all activity.

  You saw me crawling darkly on the ground.

  You see me here, half-mad, terrible.

  He has no idea of what I say. I don’t know you.

  Fiercely

  This is what to rule becomes, so blind, so pitiless!

  GERMANICUS

  You do not listen. I call in vain – you’re deaf. [82]

  To serve was my ideal. That task you should have given me.

  To rule is not for me. I cannot ask, Caesar:

  “Bring back their freedom” – that we have lost;

  our freedom was cruel, reckless toward underlings;

  but I reach out, I’m not sure how, to a clarity,

  to a greatness that the Empire can achieve,

  and you, you can do this. I can serve you.

  TIBERIUS

  What I should say and what I should not say

  and how this should be said, that I don’t know.

  [Suddenly sober] You put it very well:

  “The cold wind of Rome has blown at will

  – too far – across the thick, white, slippery broth

  of each strange nation, stewing in a pan ...”

  GERMANICUS

  My very words! Spoken in my tent,

  in Germany, secretly, to friends alone ...

  so the spies of Empire must listen, C
aesar;

  so they must listen where hate and fear rule

  as one household.

  TIBERIUS

  Back to the letters of your plain ABC!

  Our Empire speaks and while it speaks, it listens.

  You are its voice, my boy, I am its ear,

  and between us two it screams, confused and frightened

  in a dazed dementia against itself ...

  You speak of a “beast”, “a swarthy animal in its lair” –

  but Caesar is its head, and you’re the claw!

  You, me, and the Romans – beauties, riffraff –

  our fat senate, our lean black legions,

  our slaves and the nations teeming here

  in this pauper’s peace – it’s all one.

  Each simply does his job: yours, clean; mine, foul ...

  He snatches up the paper and signs it [83]

  Humanity is dull and wild; cruelty and violence

  must keep it at bay.

  GERMANICUS

  Please don’t sign now, Caesar!

  Should you dare? You’re drunk, and wild, you snatch

  with hands that aren’t yours, at people,

  Such murder rises from a madness, madness now ...

  TIBERIUS

  It’s glorious, oh, it washes round these hands of mine;

  I am a god, I can take them up to mould,

  just as I wish, to die or live so happily ...

  more, more than human, holy, untouchable ...

  More soberly

  You are revolted. Your talk’s all of “humanity;”

  you shudder at facts about the sombre seeds

  of true humanity.

  Listen: its cruelty and its lust, they are one;

  and pain and lust, also one; they copulate

  more horribly and more gloriously than you think.

  You’re young; the nation shouts, thinks you’re its pet.

  Were you to rule as those men in Germany

  would have it, – then “clarity” would be your aim,

  so you think now ... Humanity craves for the dark,

  locked in its blood, pain-wracked, with urges;

  and searching deep for new griefs, too frightful,

  each for himself, so many in stark contrast

  with the few quiet pure ones such as you ...

  [Speaking as if from the depths of his soul]

  why name the words that control our lives ...

  Osiris is a secret god ...

  I rule

  in Rome, where there is “silence”, in Clemens’

  words ... for you the broad reaches of our East,

  of our dear world, for me the kernel, pip,

  an almond that shares its bitterness and poison.

  I know you have accepted it. [84]

  GERMANICUS [Tiredly]

  I have accepted it.

  I take it as I have accepted death

  and all that’s human, as I accept

  my heart, which is doomed one day to stop.

  Tiberius partly slumps forward over the table and remains leaning on one arm

  One thing more, Caesar: Piso’s the governor

  in Syria; is he your watchdog then?

  He waits, no answer

  My friend, Silanus, was dismissed, called back:

  Piso, he follows him – or keeps track of me.

  I get these warnings, often; there’re messengers and letters

  sent on to Piso in my camp.

  Caesar! Caesar!

  So the ruler of the world hangs in his web

  at the quiet centre of his Empire, and rules.

  Off. Tiberius sits unmoving. The Secretary enters, whispers something to him, touches his arm

  TIBERIUS

  No! Say I am ill. Say I am drunk.

  I don’t want her here; not right before my eyes.

  Tell her I’m lying like the other day

  mumbling rot. Just make her go.

  Livia, with Plancina following, enters the room hurriedly

  LIVIA

  Please don’t send him. Let me talk to him ...

  SECRETARY

  Caesar, it’s not my fault, I couldn’t help ...

  TIBERIUS

  What right? where do you get the right? How did you ...

  pass through the guards I posted?

  LIVIA

  Don’t send him, please! I beg you! It’s dangerous.

  TIBERIUS [85]

  Grabs her shoulder, shouts loudly

  Quiet! How did you pass by my guards?

  Tell me, how did you pass by my guards?

  What new plots are here? Why weave them all round me?

  LIVIA [frightened]

  Forgive me. I had so many fears for you.

  TIBERIUS

  To Secretary

  Go, and find out who all were in the guard,

  each one, right up to the door; imprison them!

  And post new guards, ones you know well.

  [Softly] And call the torturer. I must know all.

  Secretary off

  Sits down; addresses Livia, more calmly, but bitterly

  Pull yourself together and speak intelligibly.

  I send such thousands out into the world:

  who – do you think – must I not send out now?

  LIVIA

  Calpurnius Piso! He’s the hand, the tendon

  of conspiracy. She, here, has just found out,

  his wife. Each night they meet him at his house,

  secretly, but all are names well-known to me.

  I watch out for you. I commanded her to listen well.

  They want the stupid young Caesar to lead

  the treachery, to drive us out and re-install

  what they call freedom – the republic.

  TIBERIUS

  Approaches Plancina, takes her under the chin and raises her head

  Ah, so. This is the new kind of Roman woman

  that loves Caesar more than her own man!

  [To Livia] So much they now love us – you speak

  of “us” – love the red Caesars, mother, dear,

  that women turn against their men. Parents will

  rage against their children and for imperial gain

  children will turn against parents. And slowly [86]

  – we, old Romans – turn into humankind.

  You don’t hear well ... or bring your news too slowly.

  Looks at her intently

  Why then so slowly, Livia? Why only now?

  I’ve known long since.

  LIVIA

  And still you dare to send them?

  together they go East: the gold, the grain,

  the great legions, all the soft nations

  of our East given in their hands –

  you say: Here are our Caesar-throats, exposed

  bent back for slaughter.

  The rabble must just hear

  of Agrippina, of Germanicus,

  then their thoughts revive Agrippa and great Drusus

  and they shout treason and revolt against Tiberius

  and against Livia. You dare not do it, you don’t dare!

  TIBERIUS

  You talk so much of “us”, of “us” that rule.

  Perhaps I want to see how they work loose a brick

  and pull it out to make the whole wobbling edifice

  come crashing down on “our” four ears.

  LIVIA

  Desperate

  Please do not send them! Listen to me and don’t.

  Just grab those two now and kill them quietly.

  TIBERIUS

  Takes another draught

  You were the first to mention Piso then,

  that first time ...

  LIVIA

  Tiberius, please don’t drink,

  don’t creep down deeper in dementia

  and hide your heart from me ...

  TIBERIUS [87]

  Was it not you

  that
first demanded Cneius Piso be sent there?

  Your plans always lie in ferment, bubbling up.

  I don’t know them. I don’t know them ...

  And ... and – let her hear it from me! –

  how many lives were taken by your hand?

  LIVIA

  All just for you! For you I did it all.

  I let my hands wallow in the filth,

  more filth than any woman should;

  I steeled myself to cruelty

  and ruined all my latter days.

  What thanks do I get? You’re cold, inhuman,

  more inhuman yet than I, for ...

  Visibly upset

  for to me

  that am frightful myself, you are too frightful ...

  TIBERIUS [Smiling]

  You are so old ... otherwise I should have made

  a plan, brought you to heel ...

  He wants to leave; threateningly

  and, mother ... leave my guards alone!

  LIVIA

  Grasps his knees

  Why do you reject me? you were my child.

  For you I did it all.

  Give me your hands to hold. They were so small.

  The fingers were like little grubs, so white.

  And do not send! Please don’t send him, my child!

  TIBERIUS [At the door]

  I’m sending them – together purposely – for only I

  can see, can understand through what blind tensions,

  whereby each man is knotted tightly,

  our Empire maintains its balance still

  and holy rest. I see, and therefore I can rule. [88]

  He goes off, to his bedchamber

  LIVIA [To Plancina]

  He’s pitching into madness, and I am old.

  I need to save him, soon, before I should die.

  Remember the doctor. The surgeon of Germanicus.

  I’ll let him know betimes.

  Where you must get the poison, you’ll hear it later.

  PLANCINA

  You are raising something frightful, horrible.

  Germanicus is son and friend to Caesar.

  LIVIA

  I know this Caesar – is he not then my child?

  He never speaks straight-out, and those around him,

  those who both serve and love him, have to guess,

  search deep into his words, watch how his calm clear eyes

  flicker; read other, deeper thoughts

  in every simple sentence;

  from a thousand little gestures we must guess,

  and from his silences, guess from his hesitations

  what that dark will of Caesar wants.

  And then we do it – for we, we are his hands,

  which by some quirk are severed wholly from his heart.