ACT · III

SCENE · 1

A burned street in Rome: night.

THRASEA.

IN these burned streets I wander like a ghost:

Rome is no more: O see, my memoried Rome,

1101

My senatorial city is burned and gone!

The city of Camillus, whose abrupt

And tortuous streets my ancestors have threaded,

Here going about a tower of Servius,

Here an Etruscan temple of carved wood,

Here by some patriot tribune’s gabled home:

All gone, as the free spirit that made it, gone:

And I, like this old beam, in vain escaped

The burning, shall be cast out, nor find place

In the new Rome that Cæsar promises,

O’erlaid with perfected monotony,

The textbook ornaments of shallow taste,

Imperial gewgaws.—What poet was it said

That Desolation was a beautiful thing?

What parricidal spirit? To cut down

And burn the gnarl’d trunk of a thousand years,

And plant the trifling shoot of one gay summer

Rootless in the ground. (Cries heard.) What noise is this?

Some wretched Christian, that in blind revenge

The maddened people sacrifice.

Enter the mob carrying off Clitus—Epicharis following.

MOB.

Burn him! To the Vatican! to the Vatican! Burn him!

EPICHARIS.

Pity, pity, pity, sirs! He is guiltless, indeed he is guiltless. He is my brother.

Thr. Stay, ye mad fools! To what detestable,

Forbidden crime of hellish witchcraft haste ye!

Mob. Here’s another. He’s a Christian. Seize him!

Thr. Hands off, fools! I am Thrasea.

Mob. Thrasea! 1130

Thr. Are ye Romans?

Citizen. ’Tis Nero’s order.

Ep. (kneeling to Thrasea). O sir, save thou my brother.

Cit. If thou wert Thrasea, man, thou wouldst not hinder us from punishing them that fired the city.

Mob. On! on!

Another Cit. Nay, nor let any Christian woman touch thee.

Mob. To the Vatican! on! (Going.)

Thr. Fools, I am Thrasea, and I bid you stay.

Mob. Burn him, burn him![Exeunt Mob, etc.

Thr. Stay! Are ye men?

Ep. O sir, ’tis my brother, my brother Clitus; save him!

Thr. What can I do? Alas, (calls) stay! stay! (To Ep.) Thou seest.[Exeunt running.

Enter Lateranus and Flavus.

LATERANUS.

This is the only way. The Fabian street

Is blocked with red-hot ashes.

FLAVUS.

Where’s this Natalis?