Chapter II: Part I: (Lucilius Talks at a Feast Given to Aristocrates in Rome) (1)

B.C. 20

How shall I write this out? I do not write.
Talk to you? Yes, and tell of Antony,
And how I knew him. There at Philippi
I let myself be captured, so to give
Time to escape to Brutus--made pretense
That I was Brutus, and so Brutus flies
And I am captured. Antony forgives me,
And to his death I was his faithful friend.
Well, after Actium, in Africa,
He roamed with no companions but us two,
Our friend Aristocrates, here, myself,
And fed upon his bitter heart. Our guest
Nods truth to what I say, he knows it all.
And after certain days in solitude
He seeks his Cleopatra. As for her,
She was the sovereign queen of many nations;
Yet that she might be with her Antony,
Live with him and enjoy him, did not shun
The name of mistress, and let Fulvia keep
Her wifehood without envy. As for him,
A lover’s soul lives in the loved one’s body,
And where bode Cleopatra, there his soul
Lived only, though his feet of flesh pursued
The Parthian, or Cæsar’s hateful heir....
And if this Antony would wreathe his spear
With ivy like a thyrsus; from the chamber
Of his beloved rush to battle, helmet
Smelling of unguents and of Egypt; leave
Great action and great enterprise to play
Along the seashore of Canopus with her;
And fly the combat, not as Paris did,
Already beaten, with lift sail, desert
The victory that was his, yet true it is
His rank, his eloquence, his liberal blood,
His interest in all grades and breeds of men,
His pity and his kindness to the sick,
His generous sympathies, stamped Antony
A giant in this dusty, roaring place
Which we call earth. Who ruined Antony?
Why, Brutus! For he gave to Antony
The truth of which the Queen of Egypt stood
As proof in the flesh:--Beauty and Life. His heart
Was apt to see her for mad days in Rome,
And soul created sateless for the cup
Of ecstasy in living.
On a day
Myself and Aristocrates and Antony,
We two companioning him in Africa,
Wandering in solitary places, Antony
Brooding on Actium, and the love that kept
His soul with Cleopatra, up he speaks,
And asks us if we knew what Brutus said,
While nearing death, to Cassius. “No,” we said.
And Antony began to tell of Brutus:--
How all his life was spent in study, how
He starved his body, slept but briefly, cut
His hours of sleep by practice; fixed his thought
On virtue and on glory; made himself
A zealot of one purpose: liberty;
A spirit as of a beast that knows one thing:
Its food and how to get it; over its spirit
No heaven keeps of changing light; no stars
Of wandering thought; no moons that charm
Still groves by singing waters, and no suns
Of large illumination, showing life
As multiform and fathomless, filled with wings
Of various truth, each true as other truth.
This was that Brutus, made an asp by thought
And nature, to be used by envious hands
And placed to Cæsar’s breast. So Antony
Discoursed upon our walk, and capped it off
With Brutus’ words when dying. They were these:
“O virtue, miserable virtue, bawd and cheat;
Thou wert a bare word and I followed thee
As if thou hadst been real. But even as evil,
Lust, ignorance, thou wert the plaything too
Of fortune and of chance.”
So Antony
Consoled himself with Brutus, sighed and lapsed
To silence; thinking, as we deemed, of life
And what it yet could be, and how ’twould end;
And how to join his Cleopatra, what
The days would hold amid the toppling walls
Of Rome in demolition, now the hand
Of Cæsar rotted, and no longer stayed
The picks and catapults of an idiot world!
So, as it seemed, he would excuse himself
For Actium and his way in life. For soon
He speaks again, of Theophrastus now,
Who lived a hundred years, spent all his life
In study and in writing, brought to death
By labor; dying lay encompassed by
Two thousand followers, disciples, preachers
Of what he taught; and dying was penitent
For glory, even as Brutus was penitent
For virtue later. And so Antony
Spoke Theophrastus’ dying words, and told
How Theophrastus by a follower
Asked for a last commandment, spoke these words:
“There is none. But ’tis folly to cast away
Pleasure for glory! And no love is worse
Than love of glory. Look upon my life:--
Its toil and hard denial! To what end?
Therefore live happy; study, if you must,
For fame and happiness. Life’s vanity
Exceeds its usefulness.”
So speaking thus
Wise Theophrastus died.
Now I have said
That Brutus ruined Antony. So he did,
If Antony were ruined--that’s the question.
For Antony hearing Brutus say, “O virtue,
Miserable virtue, bawd and cheat,” and seeing
The eyes of Brutus stare in death, threw over him
A scarlet mantle, and took to his heart
The dying words of Brutus.

It is true
That Cicero said Antony as a youth
Was odious for drinking-bouts, amours,
For bacchanals, luxurious life, and true
When as triumvir, after Cæsar’s death,
He kept the house of Pompey, where he lived,
Filled up with jugglers, drunkards, flatterers.
All this before the death of Brutus, or
His love for Cleopatra. But it’s true
He was great Cæsar’s colleague. Cæsar dead,
This Antony is chief ruler of all Rome,
And wars in Greece, and Asia. So it’s true
He was not wholly given to the cup,
But knew fatigue and battle, hunger too,
Living on roots in Parthia. Yet, you see,
With Cæsar slaughtered in the capitol,
His friend, almost his god; and Brutus gasping
“O miserable virtue”; and the feet of men
From Syria to Hispania, slipping off
The world that broke in pieces, like an island
Falling apart beneath a heaving tide--
Whence from its flocculent fragment wretches leap--
You see it was no wonder for this Antony,
Made what he was by nature and by life,
In such a time and fate of the drifting world,
To turn to Cleopatra, and leave war
And rulership to languish.
Thus it was:
Cæsar is slaughtered, Antony must avenge
The death of Cæsar. Brutus is brought to death,
And dying scoffs at virtue which took off
In Brutus’ hand the sovran life of Cæsar.
And soon our Antony must fight against
The recreant hordes of Asia, finding here
His Cleopatra for coadjutor....
He’s forty-two and ripe. She’s twenty-eight,
Fruit fresh and blushing, most mature and rich;
Her voice an instrument of many strings
That yielded laughter, wisdom, folly, song,
And tales of many lands, in Arabic,
And Hebrew, Syriac and Parthiac.
She spoke the language of the troglodytes,
The Medes and others. And when Antony
Sent for her in Cilicia, she took time,
Ignored his orders, leisurely at last
Sailed up the Cydnus in a barge whose stern
Was gilded, and with purple sails. Returned
His dining invitation with her own,
And bent his will to hers. He went to her,
And found a banquet richer than his largess
Could give her. For while feasting, branches sunk
Around them, budding lights in squares and circles,
And lighted up their heaven, as with stars.
She found him broad and gross, but joined her taste
To him in this. And then their love began.
And while his Fulvia kept his quarrels alive
With force of arms in Rome on Octavianus,
And while the Parthian threatened Syria,
He lets the Queen of Egypt take him off
To Alexandria, where he joins with her
The Inimitable Livers; and in holiday
Plays like a boy and riots, while great Brutus
Is rotting in the earth for Virtue’s sake;
And Theophrastus for three hundred years
Has changed from dust to grass, and grass to dust!
And Cleopatra’s kitchen groans with food.
Eight boars are roasted whole--though only twelve
Of these Inimitable Livers, with the Queen
And Antony are to eat--that every dish
May be served up just roasted to a turn.
And who knows when Marc Antony may sup?
Perhaps this hour, perhaps another hour,
Perhaps this minute he may call for wine,
Or start to talk with Cleopatra; fish--
For fish they did together. On a day
They fished together, and his luck was ill,
And so he ordered fishermen to dive
And put upon his hook fish caught before.
And Cleopatra feigned to be deceived,
And shouted out his luck. Next day invited
The Inimitable Livers down to see him fish,
Whereat she had a diver fix his hook
With a salted fish from Pontus. Antony
Drew up amid their laughter. Then she said:
“Sweet Antony, leave us poor sovereigns here,
Of Pharos and Canopus, to the rod;
Your game is cities, provinces and kingdoms.”
Were Antony serious, or disposed to mirth?
She had some new delight. She diced with him,
Drank with him, hunted with him. When he went
To exercise in arms, she sat to see.
At night she rambled with him in the streets,
Dressed like a servant-woman, making mischief
At people’s doors. And Antony disguised
Got scurvy answers, beatings from the folk,
Tormented in their houses. So it went
Till Actium. She loved him, let him be
By day nor night alone, at every turn
Was with him and upon him.

Well, this life
Was neither virtue, glory, fame, nor study,
But it was life, and life that did not slay
A Cæsar for a word like Liberty.
And it was life, its essence nor changed nor lost
By Actium, where his soul shot forth to her
As from a catapult a stone is cast,
Seeing her lift her sixty sails and fly.
His soul lived in her body as ’twere born
A part of her, and whithersoever she went
There followed he. And all their life together
Was what it was, a rapture, justified
By its essential honey of realest blossoms,
In spite of anguished shame. When hauled aboard
The ship of Cleopatra, he sat down
And with his two hands covered up his face!
Brutus had penitence at Philippi
For virtue which befooled him. Antony
Remorse and terror there at Actium
Deserting with his queen, for love that made
His body not his own, as Brutus’ will
Was subject to the magic of a word....
For what is Virtue, what is Love? At least
We know their dire effects, that both befool,
Betray, destroy.

The Queen and Antony
Had joined the Inimitable Livers, now they joined
The Diers Together. They had kept how oft
The Festival of Flagons, now to keep
The Ritual of Passing Life was theirs.
But first they suffered anger with each other
While on her ship, till touching Tenarus
When they were brought to speak by women friends,
At last to eat and sleep together. Yet
Poison had fallen on their leaves, which stripped
Their greenness to the stalk, as you shall see....
Here to make clear what flight of Antony meant,
For cause how base or natural, let me say
That Actium’s battle had not been a loss
To Antony and his honor, if Canidius,
Commanding under Antony, had not flown
In imitation of his chief; the soldiers
Fought desperately in hope that Antony
Would come again and lead them.

So it was
He touched, with Cleopatra, Africa,
And sent her into Egypt; and with us,
Myself and Aristocrates, walked and brooded
In solitary places, as I said.
But when he came to Alexandria
He finds his Cleopatra dragging her fleet
Over the land space which divides the sea
Near Egypt from the Red Sea, so to float
Her fleet in the Arabian Gulf, and there,
Somewhere upon earth’s other side, to find
A home secure from war and slavery.
She failed in this; but Antony leaves the city,
And leaves his queen, plays Timon, builds a house
Near Pharos on a little mole; lives here
Until he hears all princes and all kings
Desert him in the realm of Rome; which news
Brings gladness to him, for hope put away,
And cares slipped off. Then leaving Timoneum,--
For such he named his dwelling there near Pharos--
He goes to Cleopatra, is received,
And sets the city feasting once again.
The order of Inimitable Livers breaks,
And forms the Diers Together in its place.
And all who banquet with them, take the oath
To die with Antony and Cleopatra,
Observing her preoccupation with
Drugs poisonous and creatures venomous.
And thus their feast of flagons and of love
In many courses riotously consumed
Awaits the radiate liquor dazzling through
Their unimagined terror, like the rays
Shot from the bright eyes of the cockatrice,
Crackling for poison in the crystal served
By fleshless hands! A skeleton steward soon
Will pass the liquer to them; they will drink,
And leave no message, no commandment either--
As Theophrastus was reluctant to--
Denied disciples; for Inimitable Livers
Raise up no followers, create no faith,
No cult or sect. Joy has his special wisdom,
Which dies with him who learned it, does not fire
Mad bosoms like your Virtue.

I must note
The proffered favors, honors of young Cæsar
To Cleopatra, if she’d put to death
Her Antony; and Antony’s jealousy,
Aroused by Thyrsus, messenger of Cæsar,
Whom Cleopatra gave long audiences,
And special courtesies; seized, whipped at last
By Antony, sent back to Cæsar. Yet
The queen was faithful. When her birth-day came
She kept it suitable to her fallen state,
But all the while paying her Antony love,
And honor, kept his birth-day with such richness
That guests who came in want departed rich ...

Wine, weariness, much living, early age
Made fall for Antony. October’s clouds
In man’s life, like October, have no sun
To lift the mists of doubt, distortion, fear.
Faces, events, and wills around us show
Malformed, or ugly, changed from what they were.
And when his troops desert him in the city
To Cæsar, Antony cries out, the queen,
His Cleopatra, has betrayed him. She
In terror seeks her monument, sends word
That she is dead. And Antony believes
And says delay no longer, stabs himself,
Is hauled up dying to the arms of her,
Where midst her frantic wailings he expires!
Kings and commanders begged of Cæsar grace
To give this Antony his funeral rites.
But Cæsar left the body with the queen
Who buried it with royal pomp and splendor.
Thus died at fifty-six Marc Antony,
And Cleopatra followed him with poison,
The asp or hollow bodkin, having lived
To thirty-nine, and reigned with Antony
As partner in the empire fourteen years ...

Who in a time to come will gorge and drink,
Filch treasure that it may be spent for wine,
Kill as Marc Antony did, war as he did,
Because Marc Antony did so, taking him
As warrant and exemplar? Why, never a soul!
These things are done by souls who do not think,
But act from feeling. But those mad for stars
Glimpsed in wild waters or through mountain mists
Seen ruddy and portentous will take Brutus
As inspiration, since for Virtue’s sake
And for the good of Rome he killed his friend;
And in the act made Liberty as far
From things of self, as murder is apart
From friendship and its ways. Yes, Brutus lives
To fire the mad-men of the centuries
As Cæsar lives to guide new tyrants. Yet
Tyrannicide but snips the serpent’s head.
The body of a rotten state still writhes
And wriggles though the head is gone, or worse,
Festers and stinks against the setting sun....

Marc Antony lived happier than Brutus
And left the old world happier for his life
Than Brutus left it.

AT THE MERMAID TAVERN

(_April 10th, 1613_)

(LIONARD DIGGES _is speaking_)

Yes, so I said: ’twas labored “Cataline”
Insufferable for learning, tedious.
And so I said: the audience was kept
There at the Globe twelve years ago to hear:
“It is no matter; let no images
Be hung with Cæsar’s trophies.”

And to-day
They played his Julius Cæsar at the Court.
I saw it at the Globe twelve years ago,
A gala day! The flag over the Theatre
Fluttered the April breeze and I was thrilled.
And look what wherries crossed the Thames with freight
Of hearts expectant for the theatre.
For all the town was posted with the news
Of Shakespeare’s “Julius Cæsar.” So we paid
Our six-pence, entered, all the house was full.
And dignitaries, favored ones had seats
Behind the curtain on the stage. At last
The trumpet blares, the curtains part, Marullus
And Flavius enter, scold the idiot mob
And we sat ravished, listening to the close.

We knew he pondered manuscripts, forever
Was busy with his work, no rest, no pause.
Often I saw him leave the theatre
And cross the Thames where in a little room
He opened up his Plutarch. What was that?
A fertilizing sun, a morning light
Of bursting April! What was he? The earth
That under such a sun put forth and grew,
Showed all his valleys, mountain peaks and fields,
Brought forth the forests of his cosmic soul,
The coppice, jungle, blossoms good and bad.
A world of growth, creation! This the work,
Precedent force of Thomas North, his work
In causal link the Bishop of Auxerre,
And so it goes.

But others tried their hand
At Julius Cæsar, witness “Cæsar’s Fall”
Which Drayton, Webster, others wrote. And look
At Jonson’s “Cataline,” that labored thing,
Dug out of Plutarch, Cicero. Go read,
Then read this play of Shakespeare’s.

I recall
What came to me to see this, scene by scene,
Unroll beneath my eyes. ’Twas like a scroll
Lettered in gold and purple where one theme
In firmest sequence, precious artistry
Is charactered, and all the sound and sense,
And every clause and strophe ministers
To one perfection. So it was we sat
Until the scroll lay open at our feet:
“According to his virtue, let us use him
With all respect and rites of burial,”
Then gasped for breath! The play’s a miracle!
This world has had one Cæsar and one Shakespeare,
And with their birth is shrunk, can only bear
Less vital spirits.

For what did he do
There in that room with Plutarch? First his mind
Was ready with the very moulds of nature.
And then his spirit blazing like the sun
Smelted the gold from Plutarch, till it flowed
Molten and dazzling in these moulds of his.
And lo! he sets up figures for our view
That blind the understanding till you close
Eyes to reflect, and by their closing see
What has been done. O, well I could go on
And show how Jonson makes homonculus,
And Shakespeare gets with child, conceives and bears
Beauty of flesh and blood. Or I could say
Jonson lays scholar’s hands upon a trait,
Ambition, let us say, as if a man
Were peak and nothing else thrust to the sky
By blasting fires of earth, just peak alone,
No slopes, no valleys, pines, or sunny brooks,
No rivers winding at the base, no fields,
No songsters, foxes, nothing but the peak.
But Shakespeare shows the field-mice and the cricket,
The louse upon the leaf, all things that live
In every mountain which his soaring light
Takes cognizance; by which I mean to say
Shows not ambition only, that’s the peak,
But mice-moods, cricket passions in the man;
How he can sing, or whine, or growl, or hiss,
Be bird, fox, wolf, be eagle or be snake.
And so this “Julius Cæsar” paints the mob
That stinks and howls, a woman in complaint
Most feminine shut from her husband’s secrets;
Paints envy, paints the demagogue, in brief,
Paints Cæsar till we lose respect for Cæsar.
For there he stands in verity, it seems,
A tyrant, coward, braggart, aging man,
A stale voluptuary shoved about
And stabbed most righteously by patriots
To avenge the fall of Rome!

Now I have said
Enough to give me warrant to say this:
This play of Shakespeare fails, is an abuse
Upon the memory of the greatest man
That ever trod this earth. And Shakespeare failed
By just so much as he might have achieved
Surpassing triumph had he made the play
Cæsar instead of Brutus, had he shown
A sovereign will and genius struck to earth
With loss irreparable to Time and ruin
To Cæsar’s dreams; struck evilly to death
By a mad enthusiast, a brutal stoic,
In whom all gratitude was tricked aside
By just a word, the word of Liberty.
Or might I also say the man had envy
Of Cæsar’s greatness, or might it be true
Brutus took edge for hatred with the thought
That Brutus’ sister flamed with love for Cæsar?
But who was Brutus, by the largest word
That comes to us that he should be exalted,
Forefronted in this play, and warrant given
To madmen down the ages to repeat
This act of Brutus’, con the golden words
Of Shakespeare as he puts them in his mouth:
“Not that I loved him less, but loved Rome more.
He was ambitious so I slew him. Tears
For his love, joy for his fortune, honor for valor,
Death for ambition. Would you die all slaves
That Cæsar might still live, or live free men
With Cæsar dead?”

And so it is the echo
Of Cæsar’s fall is cried to by this voice
Of Shakespeare’s and increased, to travel forth,
To fool the ages and to madden men
With thunder in the hills of time to deeds
As horrible as this.

Did Shakespeare know
The worth of Cæsar, that we may impute
Fault for this cartoon--caricature? Why look,
Did he not write the “mightiest Julius,” write
“The foremost man of all the world,” “the conqueror
Whom death could conquer not,” make Cleopatra,
The pearl of all the east, say she was glad
That Cæsar wore her on his hand? He knew
What Cæsar’s greatness was! Yet what have we?
A Cæsar with the falling sickness, deaf,
Who faints upon the offering of the crown;
Who envies Cassius stronger arms in swimming,
When it is known that Cæsar swam the Tiber,
Being more than fifty; pompous, superstitious,
Boasting his will, but flagging in the act;
Greedy of praise, incautious, unalert
To dangers seen of all; a lust incarnate
Of power and rulership; a Cæsar smashing
A great republic like a criminal,
A republic which had lived except for him.

So what was Rome when Cæsar took control?
All wealth and power concentered in the few;
A coterie of the rich who lived in splendor;
A working class that lived on doles of corn
And hordes of slaves from Asia, Africa,
Who plotted murders in the dark purlieus;
The provinces were drained to feed the rich;
The city ruled by bribery, and corruption;
Armed gladiators sold their services.
And battled in the Forum; magistrates
Were freely scoffed at, consuls were attacked;
And orators spat in each other’s faces
When reason failed them speaking in the Forum;
No man of prominence went on the streets
Without his hired gladiators, slaves.
The streets were unpoliced, no fire brigade,
Safe-guarded property. Domestic life
Was rotten at the heart, and vice was taught.
Divorce was rife and even holy Cato
Put by his wife.

And this was the republic
That Cæsar took; and not the lovely state
Ordered and prospered, which ambitious Cæsar,
As Shakespeare paints him, over-whelmed. For Cæsar
Could execute the vision that the people
Deserve not what they want, but otherwise
What they should want, and in that mind was king
And emperor.

And what was here for Shakespeare
To love and manifest by art, who hated
The Puritan, the mob? Colossus Cæsar,
Whose harmony of mind took deep offense
At ugliness, disharmony! See the man:
Of body perfect and of rugged health,
Of graceful carriage, fashion, bold of eye,
A swordsman, horseman, and a general
Not less than Alexander; orator
Who rivalled Cicero, a man of charm,
Of wit and humor, versed in books as well;
Who at one time could dictate, read and write,
Composing grammars as he rode to war,
Amid distractions, dangers, battles, writing
Great commentaries. Yes, he is the man
In whom was mixed the elements that Nature
Might say:--this was a man--and not this Brutus.

Look at his camp, wherever pitched in Gaul,
Thronged by young poets, thinkers, scholars, wits,
And headed by this Cæsar, who when arms
Are resting from the battle, makes reports
Of all that’s said and done to Cicero.
Here is a man large minded and sincere,
Active, a lover, conscious of his place,
Knowing his power, no reverence for the past,
Save what the past deserved, who made the task
What could be done and did it--seized the power
Of rulership and did not put it by
As Shakespeare clothes him with pretence of doing.
For what was kingship to him? empty name!
He who had mastered Asia, Africa,
Egypt, Hispania, after twenty years
Of cyclic dreams and labor--king indeed!
A name! when sovereign power was nothing new.
He’s fifty-six, and knows the human breed,
Sees man as body hiding a canal
For passing food along, a little brain
That watches, loves, attends the said canal.
He’s been imperator at least two years--
King in good sooth! He knows he is not valued,
That he’s misprized and hated, is compelled
To use whom he distrusts, despises too.
Why, what was life to him with such contempt
Of all this dirty world, this eagle set
Amid a flock of vultures, cow-birds, bats?
His ladder was not lowliness, but genius.
Read of his capture in Bithynia,
When he was just a stripling by Cilician
Pirates whom he treated like his slaves,
And told them to their face when he was ransomed
He’d have them crucified. He did it, too.
His ransom came at last, he was released,
And set to work at once to keep his word;
Fitted some ships out, captured every one
And crucified them all at Pergamos.
Not lowliness his ladder, but the strength
That steps on shoulders, fit for steps alone.
So on this top-most rung he did not scan
The base degrees by which he did ascend,
But sickened rather at a world whose heights
Are not worth reaching. So it was he went
Unarmed and unprotected to the Senate,
Knowing that death is noble, being nature,
And scorning fear. Why, he had lived enough.
The night before he dined with Lepidus,
To whom he said the death that is not seen,
Is not expected, is the best. But look,
Here in this play he’s shown a weak old man,
Propped up with stays and royal robes, to amble,
Trembling and babbling to his coronation;
And to the going, driven by the fear
That he would be thought coward if he failed.
Who was to think so? Cassius, whom he cowed,
And whipped against strong odds, this Brutus, too,
There at Pharsalus! Faith, I’d like to know
What Francis Bacon thinks of this.

My friend,
Seeing the Rome that Cæsar took, we turn
To what he did with what he took. This Rome
At Cæsar’s birth was governed by the people
In name alone, in fact the Senate ruled,
And money ruled the Senate. Rank and file
Was made of peasants, tradesmen, manumitted
Slaves and soldiers--these the populares,
Who made our Cæsar’s uncle Marius
Chief magistrate six times. This was the party
That Cæsar joined and wrought for to the last.
He fought the aristocracy all his life.
His heart was democratic and his head
Patrician--was ambitious from the first,
As Shakespeare is ambitious, gifted by
The Muses, must work out his vision or
Rot down with gifts neglected; so this Cæsar
Gifted to rule must rule--but what’s the dream?
To use his power for democratic weal,
Bring order, justice in a rotten state,
And carry on the work of Marius,
His democratic uncle. Now behold,
He’s fifty when he reaches sovereign power;
Few years are left in which he may achieve
His democratic ideas, for he sought
No gain in power, but chance to do his work,
Fulfill his genius. Well, he takes the Senate
And breaks its aristocracy, then frees
The groaning debtors; reduces the congestion
Of stifled Italy, founds colonies,
Helps agriculture, executes the laws.
Crime skulks before him, luxury he checks.
The franchise is enlarged, he codifies
The Roman laws, and founds a money system;
Collects a library, and takes a census;
Reforms the calendar, and thus bestrode
The world with work accomplished. Round his legs
All other men must peer; and envy, hatred
Were serpents at his heels, whose poison reached
His heart at last. He was the tower of Pharos,
That lighted all the world.

Now who was Brutus?
Cæsar forgave this Brutus seven times seven,
Forgave him for Pharsalia, all his acts
Of constant opposition. Who was Brutus?
A simple, honest soul? A heart of hate,
Bred by his uncle Cato! Was he gentle?
Look what he did to Salamis! Besieged
Its senate house and starved the senators
To force compliance with a loan to them
At 48 per cent! This is the man
Whom Shakespeare makes to say he’d rather be
A villager than to report himself
A son of Rome under these hard conditions,
Which Cæsar wrought! Who thought or called them hard?
Brutus or Shakespeare? Is it Plutarch, maybe,
Whom Shakespeare follows, all against the grain
Of truth so long revealed?
Do you not see
Matter in plenty for our Shakespeare’s hand,
To show a sovereign genius and its work
Pursued by mad-dogs, bitten to its death,
Its plans thrown into chaos? Is there clay
Wherewith to mould the face of Cæsar; take
What clay remains to mould the face of Brutus?
Do you not see a straining of the stuff,
Making that big and salient which should be
Little and hidden in a group of figures?
And why, I ask? Here is the irony:
Shakespeare has minted Plutarch, stamped the coin
With the face of Brutus. It’s his inner genius,
The very flavor of his genius’ flesh
To do this thing. Here is a world that’s mad,
A Cæsar mad with power, a Brutus madder,
Being a dreamer, student, patriot
Who can’t see things as clearly as the madman
Cæsar sees them, Brutus sees through books.
A mad-man butchered by a man more mad.
His father mad before him. Why, it’s true
That every one is mad, because the world
Cannot be solved. Why are we here and why
This agony of being? Why these tasks
Imposed upon us never done, which drive
Our souls to desperation. So to print
The tragedy of life, our Shakespeare takes,
And by the taking shows he deems the theme
Greater than Cæsar’s greatness: human will,
A dream, a hope, a love, and makes them big.
Strains all the clay to that around a form
Too weak to hold the moulded stuff in place.
Thus from his genius fashioning the tales
Of human life he passes judgment on
The mystery of life. Which could he do
By making Cæsar great, and would it be
So bitter and so hopeless if he did,
So adequate to curse this life of ours?
Why make a man as great as Nature can
The gods will raise a manakin to kill him,
And over-turn the order that he founds.
A grape seed strangles Sophocles, a turtle
Falls from an eagle’s claws on Aeschylos,
And cracks his shiny pate.

So at the last
The question is, is history the truth,
Or is the Shakespeare genius, which arranges
History to speak the Shakespeare mood,
Reaction to our life, the truth?

And here
I leave you to reflect. Let’s one more ale
And then I go.

CHARLOTTE CORDAY

(_The Revolutionary Tribunal; July 17th, 1793_)

MONTANÉ, _Presiding judge_.
FOUQUER-TINVILLE, _Prosecutor_.
CHAVEAU-LAGARDE, _Defending counsel_.
DANTON,} _Leaders of the Jacobins_.
ROBESPIERRE,}
MADAM EVARD, _Marat’s friend_.
CHARLOTTE CORDAY.

MONTANÉ

Where is your home?

CHARLOTTE
Caen.

MONTANÉ

Why did you come to Paris?

CHARLOTTE

To kill Marat.

MONTANÉ

Why?

CHARLOTTE

His crimes.

MONTANÉ

What crimes?

CHARLOTTE

The woes of France! His readiness to fire
All France with civil war.

MONTANÉ

You meant to kill
When you struck?

CHARLOTTE

Yes! I meant to kill.

MONTANÉ

How old are you?

CHARLOTTE

Twenty-four.

MONTANÉ

A woman
Young as you are could not have done this murder
Unless abetted.

CHARLOTTE

No! You little know
The human heart. The hatred of one’s heart
Impels the hand better than other’s hate.

MONTANÉ

You hated Marat?

CHARLOTTE

Hated! I did not kill
A man, I killed a wild beast eating up
The people and the nation.

FOUQUER-TINVILLE

She’s familiar
With crime, no doubt.

CHARLOTTE

You monster! Do you take me
For just a common murderer?

FOUQUER-TINVILLE

Yes! Why not?
Here is your knife!

CHARLOTTE

Oh! Yes, I recognize it.
I bought it at the cutler’s shop.

MONTANÉ

What for?

CHARLOTTE

To kill Marat with; cost me forty sous.
After I came to Paris--

FOUQUER-TINVILLE

When?

CHARLOTTE

Four days ago.

FOUQUER-TINVILLE

That was the day you wrote Marat?

CHARLOTTE

Same day.

FOUQUER-TINVILLE

Saying you knew of news in Caen, knew
Means by the which Marat could render service
To the Republic!

CHARLOTTE

By his death!

FOUQUER-TINVILLE

But yet
You gave him credit in this note for love
Of France, our France. You tricked him.

CHARLOTTE

Like a viper.
He was a mad-dog, dog-leech, alley rat,
With bits of carrion festering ’twixt his teeth,
Hair glued with ordure, urine. Why not trick
By best means, so to catch a beast with fangs
As venomous as his? He was a fire
That crawled and licked its way; why not put out
The fire by water, snuffing, stamping, why
Be precious of the means?

MADAM EVARD

You know me, woman?

CHARLOTTE

You struck me when I stabbed him. You’re his whore!

MADAM EVARD

Oh! Oh!

ROBESPIERRE

(_To Danton_)
This is enough! When fury claws at fury.
I hear the tumbril for her. Come!

DANTON
The slut!

(_Danton and Robespierre leave the room together._)

CHARLOTTE

Was that not Robespierre who left the room?

FOUQUER-TINVILLE

Why do you ask?

CHARLOTTE

I wanted him for counsel.

FOUQUER-TINVILLE

For what? The guillotine?

CHARLOTTE

(_Shrinking_) You monster! You!

MONTANÉ

Have you a lawyer?

CHARLOTTE

No! I wrote Doulcet.
He shirks the honor, doubtless; have not heard.
I thought of Chabot and of Robespierre.

MONTANÉ

Chaveau-Lagarde shall counsel you. Proceed!

FOUQUER-TINVILLE

Is this your letter?

CHARLOTTE

Yes.

FOUQUER-TINVILLE

This letter here
Is written to a man named Barbarous,
Her lover--

CHARLOTTE

No! You monster!

FOUQUER-TINVILLE

Very well!
Is this yours: “To the French, friends of the laws,
And friends of peace.”

CHARLOTTE

Yes! I admit what’s true.

FOUQUER-TINVILLE

And is this yours: “To the Committee of Public Safety”?

CHARLOTTE

I wrote it, yes.

FOUQUER-TINVILLE

Let’s see now what’s her mind.
This letter to the friends of peace and laws:--
“O France, thy peace depends upon the laws.”
Laws! And she hastens to the cutler’s shop,
And buys a knife with which to slay Marat.
Now look! This friend of France’s peace and laws
Must dodge self-contradiction. How? That’s plain:
“I do not break the law, killing Marat.”
Why? What’s Marat? A man? Of course, a man.
But then an “out-law,” as she writes. How’s that?
Outlawed by whom? Charlotte Corday of Caen!
What else? A man! But then condemned. By whom?
“The universe.” Voila! The universe
Is swallowed by her swollen vanity.
She speaks for God, for solar systems, stars;
Adjudges laws, interprets, executes;
Is greater than the Revolution, France.
She’s a descendant of the great Corneille;
A stage imagination, actress, acts,
And quotes here in this letter from Voltaire’s
“Mort de César.” Now listen what her hate
Has used for whetrock, in the words of Brutus:
_“Whether the world astonished loads my name_
_“And deed with horror, admiration, censure,_
_“I do not care, nor care to live in Time._
_“I act indifferent to reproach or glory,_
_“A free, untrameled patriot am I._
_“Duty accomplished I shall rest content._
_“Think only, friends, how you may break your chains.”_
So Brutus lives in her! And like disease
Loosed from the crumbling cerements and dust
Of broken tombs, the madness which slew Cæsar
Infects, makes mad this woman; and she slays
The great Marat!
She does not care for the world’s
Censure or admiration! Does not care
To live in time! She lies! Why, in this room
A man, Huer, is sketching her. Behold
He’s drawing now her face for Time to see.
And in this letter written to the Committee
She says: “_Since I have little time to live,_
“_I trust you will permit me to have painted_
“_My portrait._” Why? If careless if she live
In memory or time? The secret’s out,
And written in her hand: “_I want to leave_
“_A picture for remembrance to my friends._”
What friends? Her father? Barbarous? Caen,
Paris, the whole of France, the world, if Time
Writes down the people’s friend as beast, would see
The face, in such case, which destroyed Marat,
Condemned first by the “universe” and at last
By France, the world! What next? She doubts her God,
Her Brutus warrant, “universe” approval,
And writes here as a reason, in addition:
_“That as men cherish memory of good men,_
_“So curiosity”_--see her spirit flop
And smile with idiot guilt upon itself--
_“So curiosity sometimes seeks out_
_“Memorials of criminals.”_ That’s her word:
“Criminals,” and by that word she stands
Self-dedicated to the guillotine.

CHARLOTTE

Well, am I not a criminal in the eyes
Of such a beast as you? Will nature spawn
No other beasts like you?

FOUQUER-TINVILLE

Yes, in my eyes,
You are a criminal. But you mistake.
I have no curiosity about you.
When you are dead I’d have your name erased,
Your face erased, lest it corrupt the face
Of Brutus, and lead hands in years to come
To speak the “universe,” interpret “laws,”
And slay whom they would slay.

This is not all
About her picture, a memorial
For admiration by posterity.
She writes this Barbarous, lover or what,
It matters nothing, writes him pages here
In detail of herself, and intimate
Portrayal of her feelings: how she planned,
And killed Marat. To Barbarous she writes
About her letter to the Committee, asking
To have her portrait painted. _Now_, for whom?
Her friends? Not now! For the department now
Of Calvados. There! hanging on a wall,
A prize of history, is the deathless face
Of Charlotte Corday, destroyer of Marat,
Saviour of France, as _Brutus struck for Rome_!
Yes, I invite your thought to what she writes
To Barbarous: description of her act
In sneaking to Marat with hidden knife;
And as he sat there helpless in the tub,
And unsuspecting of her hatred, quick
She rips him like a butcher. Then, “A moi!”
He cries, “A moi!” And she’s elate, her eyes
Bright as the lightning that has struck. Look now!
How she writhes here, how passing cross her face
Are lights of ghastly fields of fire and clouds
When hurricanes descend.

CHARLOTTE

You beast! You beast!

FOUQUER-TINVILLE

I am a beast, eh? _You_ are what? I’ll tell.
From Caen, as ’tis known. She’s being sketched,
I’ll sketch her too. You see, she’s strongly built,
Large eyes of blue, large features, handsome though;
Nose shapely, and good teeth; equipped to play
In dramas of Corneille, her ancestor.
She needs a man. A husband would have drawn
Innocuously the electric passion, which
Collected in a bolt to loose and lurch
Against Marat. All women should be farmed.
She has her schooling in a convent, reads;
Lives with her thoughts and dreams. I’ll sketch her soul:
Has not enough of living to consume
The forces of her dreams. She reads Rousseau,
And Plutarch’s heroes, Brutus most of all.
Thrills at the words “Republic,” “Liberty.”
Thinks the Girondists only can set up
A real republic. Ideas are the stuff
Of history. Kill ideas or be killed
By ideas is the fate of man. Republic,
Liberty, Brutus are ideas. Ideas
Are dangerous, being truths, more so as lies.
And lies destroyed Marat.

Who was Marat?
A man of study, learning. Physicist,
Admired of Franklin, Göethe for his works
On heat and light; a doctor, having won
An honorary title at St. Andrew’s
In England. Linguist, speaking Spanish, German,
Italian, English. Versed in Governments:--
You know his work on England’s constitution
Whereby he sought to clear the mind of France--
This Charlotte Corday’s with the rest--that England
Is free, her systems free; stop the Girondists
From that re-iterated lie; stop France
From taking on the English system.

So
True ideas of Marat, evolved from life,
Living and study must combat, destroy
False ideas of Girondists, will succeed;
But cannot bar the door to the idea
That enters at his bathroom with a knife.
How was it that no valet and no guard
Preserved him? Why? Lovers of liberty
Starve in her service!

But there was a time
When he knew elegance and privacy.
But Liberty and Wisdom would be served.
He went to rags, was hunted, had to hide
In sewers for the cause of Liberty;
And there took loathsome trouble, eased at times
By steam, hot tubs. And thus our people’s friend
Is found accessible to this female lie,
Girondist lie, possessing her, and stabbed.
Or at the best ideas of Liberty
Conduct her to his bath-room, where Marat
Is tubbed in sequence and in punishment
Of his idea of Liberty. Gods can laugh,
But men must weep. O worthless, rotten world!
It is most pitiful, most tragic, lifts
Man’s heart to spit at heaven, that these friends
Of peoples must be slain, starved, hunted first,
Then butchered for their service and their love.
Saved not by truth; destroyed by lies, a lie
That he was evil, by the maniac lie
Of her mad vision that she knew what Freedom,
Liberty, Republic mean. Slain by the lie
Of this Girondist dream, this milk and water,
Emasculated, luke-warm craft of states:
Girondists: patches on the robes of kings;
Girondists: autogamists; mating sisters,
The past, and in the mating without child
Of truth or progress. Neither hot nor cold,
Spewed, therefore, from the mouth of Time. Betrayers,
Waylayers of the brave, the clear of eye;
Girondists: ’twixt republicans and kings,
And holding hands of each to make them friends.
Workers and owners of the new foaled mule
Bred of the royal stallion and an ass.
Girondists! loving wealth and ease, the church
Which loves them too. Girondists picking steps
Of moderate reform. Girondists hating
The Revolution, which must kill the foes
Of Liberty, as criminals are killed
For robbery, yet rejoice to see the blood
Of dead Marat. They’re lofty! They are pure!
They love the laws, love peace! Yes, as this woman
Loves law and peace.

What is it like? A play
Where all is mimicked. Do we talk of facts?
Are these not fautocinni? Where’s the hand
That plays this coarse and bloody joke to eyes
Of men that crave reality? I mean this:
A woman with lovers who suggest, abet;
A woman with no man, who dreams and reads,
Lives in the stench of these Girondist lies;
Ghosts float on fogs of her miasmic soul.
She hears Marat’s a monster, dabbling blood,
A rabid ignoramus running foul
Of liberty and order, nihilist,
And sanguinary madman, dragon slimed
In back-wash of all hatred, envy, lust
Of the dispossessed, malformed, misborn; and then
She dreams of Brutus, who struck down--there now
I nail a lie that will be always truth
To Charlotte Cordays. Cæsar? Tyrant? No.
No man is tyrant who sees truth and rules
For truth’s sake. For the ruled must share the truth
Where Cæsars rule.

So much for her. She stands
Watchful and envious in the wings, and sees
Marat, not as we see him; not as Time
Will see Marat. L’Ami du Peuple to her
Is enemy of France, of Liberty.
This man most rare, most pure of soul, most clear
Of vision that the contest lies between
The rich and poor, has always lain between
The rich and poor, and not between the people
And kings; that poverty’s the thing, is seen
By Charlotte Corday from the wings, as nothing
But hatred, murder.

Well, my girl, you’ll get
Your picture in the galleries of history.
You’ll get it; and to choke you with your words:
“So curiosity would have memorials
Of criminals, which serve to keep alive
Horror for their crimes.”

Your picture’s up
Already. Horror stares! You killed Marat.
That is your place in Time: you killed Marat!
You sneaked upon a great man, true man, weak
From torture of disease, contracted serving
Democracy, and slew him like a beast.
Charlotte Corday, assassin! That’s your place,
And character in history.

CHARLOTTE

Let it be.
Assassin. Well, assassins kill assassins:
The words repel, destroy each other, sir.
If any grieve for me I beg of them
To think of me in the Elysian Fields
With Brutus and the heroes.

CHAVEAU-LAGARDE

Gentlemen!
The deed’s admitted. What to say, but ask
Your clemency? The girl’s fanatical.
The prosecutor argues well for me
In saying that a lie corrupted her,
And maddened her to act; which is to say
If that lie were a truth, she had the right
To slay Marat. With this regard Voltaire,
Great minds before him, painted Brutus great
Because he slew a tyrant. But if Cæsar
Was not a tyrant, how does Brutus stand
But mad-man who believed, was honest, slew
In honesty of heart? Then what’s the case?
To punish for ill-judging of the facts,
Or mercy show for human frailty
Of judgment and of vision? Great Marat
Has done his work, and left his legacy.
We cannot help him, meting death for death.
And would his noble spirit ask her death?
Think of it! You will answer no, I think.
He would say: kill the ideas of Caen,
The world which fires these Charlottes with a lie.
Smallpox is deadly as a butcher knife,
He had to die. The syllabus is death
In this our human logic: what’s the odds
What premises produce conclusions? Knives,
Consumptions, fevers, wars? We may be gods
Withholding death where we have power to kill;
Withhold it saying: She mistook, believed
A lie, was faultless for believing it,
And slew believing. Were it truth and all
Believed we would applaud, as nations war,
Bound in a common vision of one truth.
The Revolution, France, will lose not, rather
Gain by this clemency; ’twill lift a light,
First in the world, of reason, justice purged
Of hatred’s refuse: vengeance, fear, all passions
Of bitterness of soul. We worship Reason,
And this is Reason.

CHARLOTTE

You have done your part
And served me well. I thank you.

THE JURY

Let her join
Brutus in the Elysian Fields. We say:
The guillotine!

THE MOB

(_Outside_) To the guillotine! To the guillotine!

CHARLOTTE

I am content.

A MAN CHILD IS BORN

(_February 12th, 1809. Log Hut near Hodgenville, Ky._)

(_A neighbor woman is talking_)

The wind blows through the chinks--it’s snowing too,
Tom piles the logs on, but that door is loose.
An earthen floor is always cold. You’re warm.
I’m glad I brought a kiverlid along,
An extra one comes handy at this time.
You are all right--you had an easy time,
Considering this baby, big and long.
He’s very long, will be a tall man, too,
A hunter and a chopper, Indian fighter,
Lord, who knows what, a big man in the country,
A preacher, congressman or senator,
A president--who knows? God blesses you
To give you such a son. He nurses well.
Don’t let him have too much at first. You see
That single window gives too little light
To show you what he’s like. He looks a little
Like Nancy Shipley Hanks, your mother, perhaps
A little like your aunt, old Mary Lincoln.
Since you and Tom are cousins, it may be
This boy will be a mixture, but if folks
Resemble animals, the traits of you
Will be made stronger in this child, because
You two are cousins.

You will be up to see
What he looks like, in just a week or so.
Perhaps when next the flames mount in the fire-place
The light will show you. Have you named him yet--
Tom likes the name of Abraham--well, that’s good--
You’ve chosen that!

I thought I heard a step--
Who do you think is coming? Dennis Hanks!
He’s come to see his cousin Abraham.

Good mornin’, Dennis! come into the fire--
I’ll you see your cousin Abraham--
A big, long baby--quick! and shut the door,
The room is none too warm, the wind is blowing--
Tom’s gone for logs again! Here, I’ll raise up
The kiverlid and let you see--look here!
You think he’s homely! Pretty is, you know,
As pretty does--but see how big and long!
In fifteen years he’ll make you up and come
To beat him wrestling, I will bet a coon’s skin.
Now you may kiss him; in a little bit
I’ll let you hold him by the fire. The pot
Is on for dinner, we are having squirrel
And hominy for dinner--you can stay.
Now clear out, Dennis--I must do some things--
Open the door for Tom, he’s coming there
With logs to mend the fire!

RICHARD BOOTH TO HIS SON JUNIUS BRUTUS

(_London, December 13th, 1813._)

So you’re to play Campillo, all in spite
Of my commands, at Deptford? Here’s the bill
Found in your pocket. You are seventeen,
Too young for this adventure in the world.
What will you be, a strolling vagabond,
Smelling of grease, impoverished, set apart
From stable folk by this, your wandering art?
And just to think I named you Junius Brutus,
After the great republican who slew
The Roman tyrant Cæsar--I myself
A worshipper of Liberty all my life,
And choosing such a patronym for you
To dedicate you to the faith in me.
Now you would leave this dignity to speak
Mimetic words, and act. I beg of you,
Listen, my boy, before it is too late,
And let me tell my story to you now,
That you may profit by the things I’ve lived....

You see that face of Washington, hung up
There on the wall where every entering eye
Must mark it? You remember that I ask,
Enforce respect to Washington and make
The passer bow his head--well, listen now:

It’s seventeen seventy-seven, I’m fourteen.
Burgoyne’s surrender fires my tender heart.
We hear Lord George Germain forgets to take
A letter from a pigeon hole containing
Instructions to Burgoyne that touches on
The campaign on the Hudson. Anyway,
Burgoyne gets tangled in the wilderness
Around Champlain. He faces broken bridges,
And trees felled in his way. His horses fail,
Provisions are exhausted. Then he sends
A thousand men to Bennington to get
More horses and provisions. There he’s stumped:
A veteran of Bunker Hill is there,
A Colonel Stark, whose wife is Mollie Stark,
Who says we beat the British here to-day,
Or Mollie Stark’s a widow. August 16th
They whipped the British soundly--and Burgoyne
Was driven to defeat.

That made us flame!
I was a hot republican. Slipped away
To Paris with a cousin to set sail
For America and help the Americans,
And wrote from there a letter to John Wilkes,
And asked his help to get me in the army
Of Washington. As Englishmen, I wrote,
It may be said we are not justified
In taking arms against the English cause.
That argument with you could have no weight,
You, who have fought for Liberty so long.
And England, what is she? All human rights
Are lost in England under tyrant rule.
It is the duty of an English heart
To help those whom this lawless tyranny
Oppresses in America. So I wrote,
And sent to London. What do you suppose?
John Wilkes went to my father with this letter.
They caught me, brought me home, and here I am,
A lawyer to this day. You think it strange!
Who was John Wilkes, that he should thus betray?--
I wonder, even now.

For he had been
A rebel spirit from his boyhood up,
Born here in London seventeen twenty-seven;
Was sent to Parliament when he was thirty.
Attacked the king in writing, was arrested;
Refused to answer questions, then they chucked
Our rebel in the Tower; he got out,
Saying he had a privilege as a member
Of Parliament. They passed a special law
To warrant prosecution, ousted him
From Parliament, and then he went to France,
Was outlawed, but returned, again was sent
To Parliament, before he took his seat.
Was sent to prison on the sentences
Passed on the old conviction, and expelled
From Parliament again for libeling
The minister of war. Three times again
They elected him to Parliament, but they kept
Our rebel out. He now became the people’s
Idol for his sufferings and his courage.
They let him out of prison, made him mayor
Of London, and in seventeen seventy-four
He goes from Middlesex to Parliament
And takes his seat at last, and there he was
When I wrote to him, seventeen seventy-seven.
Why did he tell my father, send my father
The letter which I wrote?

I know, I think:
He knew the dangers, agonies ahead,
For a boy who sets his feet along the path
Of Liberty and working for the world
To free the world--and did not know my stuff;
Whether I had the will to fight and die
With no regrets. He knew what he had suffered,
And had a tenderness for the youth who flames
And beats his wings for freedom, would release
From tyranny and wrong.