SUPPER WITH THE EMPEROR

a play by Peter Oswald

Note. This began as a joint commission from Central School of Speech and Drama, and Hampstead Theatre. The remit, from director Martin Wylde, was a play about faith. I had the idea of Saints Peter and Paul in the cells under Nero’s palace, under interrogation like in Guantanamo bay. Over the years the play has changed immeasurably, and now centres on the marriage of Nero and Sporus - the first known gay marriage. It will probably change a whole lot more but anyway I put it up here because I think or hope it’s readable even at this stage.

CHARACTERS

Agrippina, Nero’s mother

Drusilla, her lady in waiting

Captain of the boat

Nero

Sporus, his consort

Armenian priest

Quorus,

Rufus – guards

Camerarius (chamberlain)

Alecto

Tisiphone

Megaera – the Furies

Candida – a Christian woman

Phoenix, priest of Jupiter

Jailer

Quintus

Marcus, consuls

Servants

The play can be done with ten actors

ONE. A BOAT CROSSING THE BAY OF BAIAE. AGRIPPINA, DRUSILLA.

AGRIPPINA: I feel most afraid when he is kind!

DRUSILLA: You showed great courage tonight, my lady Agrippina!

AGRIPPINA: When he is my son I am his mother, Drusilla. I obey the emperor! Why can he not obey me, as he used to do?

DRUSILLA: Perhaps tonight he was signalling to you that he is lonely! He wants you back!

AGRIPPINA: I want him back too! Back in here! (SHE INDICATES HER WOMB.) He was a good before he was born!

DRUSILLA: He recognises that, my Lady! He knows that without you he cannot be good. Tonight he honoured you! He even gave you this little ship!

AGRIPPINA: To get rid of me –

DRUSILLA: He had it specially built!

AGRIPPINA: It is beautiful.

DRUSILLA: So is this night! The depth of stars reflects

the depthless bay beneath. And we might think

that we could swim among the stars, the friends

and neighbours of the gods. Just as this night

at Nero’s table, we were waited on

by nymphs and satyrs – costumed slaves, and yet

I thought that at the windows, from the dark,

real nymphs were peeping. Neptune sent them up,

his heart was swelled with such a depth of peace

by son and mother smiling there together. 

AGRIPPINA: Well we are women, we have got to love

if we are loved. But we have got to fight

if we are fought. I do not know tonight

which one it was, so I will love and fight

and fight and love, till I sink out of sight.

DRUSILLA: Oh look! The little fishes leaping out!

Dolphins are chasing them! It is the hunt

of Neptune! Dolphins are his hounds! Look hard

and you will see him riding on the back

of one of them! Oh I can hear his horn,

almost! The night-hunt of the sea is on!

AGRIPPINA: The fish that flash into the stars are souls

flapping with all their tiny might to get

out of this world, that is a mouth so deep.

See how they all fall back into the black.

Fins are not wings.

ENTER CAPTAIN.

CAPTAIN: My Lady –

AGRIPPINA: Yes, Captain?

CAPTAIN: The ship is sinking.

AGRIPPINA: Sinking?

CAPTAIN: Yes, Ma’am.

AGRIPPINA: Are there any boats?

CAPTAIN: No, Ma’am.

AGRIPPINA: Why is the ship sinking?

CAPTAIN: Because the boards are nailed together with straw, Ma’am.

AGRIPPINA: Furies! Avenge me!

TWO. NERO’S PALACE. NERO AND SPORUS ENTHRONED AS EMPEROR AND EMPRESS. NB – SPORUS CHANGES HIS COSTUME FROM SCENE TO SCENE, SOMETIMES DRESSED AS A MAN, SOMETIMES AS A WOMAN, SOMETIMES ANDROGYNOUS – OUTRAGEOUS OR SIMPLE, ALWAYS VERY STYLISH.

NERO: Where are they?

SPORUS: They are not late, Nero.

NERO: Then why am I waiting?

SPORUS: We are early.

NERO: Why are we early?

SPORUS: I think we were a bit fidgety.

NERO: What time is it? Sporus?

SPORUS: Dawn has risen from the side of her withered husband, and every bloody little bird has cracked open its stiff little face –

NERO: Good. Good. It is not night then.

SPORUS: No! We have survived another night, my darling!

NERO: That explains the great brightness! And yet I feel as though it is still night –

SPORUS: Would the ambassadors come to see you at night?

NERO: Where are they???

SPORUS: It is still early!!!!

NERO: Anyway I don’t care especially about the ambassadors –

SPORUS: What do you care about?

NERO: Obviously I care about the little man –

SPORUS: What little man do you care about?

NERO: The little man from Armenia!

SPORUS: Ah! The little Armenian man!

NERO: The priest, sweetheart, the priest!

SPORUS: The one I found –

NERO: Yes, you found him! Obviously I care about him –

SPORUS: I think he will be here today too. But I don’t know what time –

NERO: I wish he was here now! I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night!

SPORUS: It is not night.

NERO: Then why doesn’t he come???

ENTER RUFUS WHO WHISPERS TO SPORUS.

SPORUS: Oh castrated Saturn! Here in the nick of time!

NERO: The little man??

SPORUS: All the way from Armenia!

NERO: Then let him enter!

SPORUS: (TO RUFUS) Let him enter!

EXIT RUFUS. HE RE-ENTERS, WHISPERS TO SPORUS.

SPORUS: He won’t come in –

NERO: What?

SPORUS: He won’t come in.

NERO: Why?

SPORUS: For obvious reasons –

NERO: You mean – he has been successful???

SPORUS: Apparently!

NERO: The oracles???

SPORUS: Reasonably clear –

NERO: The auspices???

SPORUS: Plain as your face!

NERO: Then what are you –

SPORUS PROSTRATES HIMSELF.

NERO: Rise! Rise!

SPORUS: Oh most holy!

NERO: No, no, no – let him come in – say that I am grateful –

ENTER PRIEST, BACKWARDS, SHUFFLING ALONG THE GROUND.

NERO: Rise! Rise!

PRIEST RISES, FACING AWAY.

NERO: Priest! Welcome back to Rome! Is it true what they tell me?

PRIEST: Oh Nero, thou great god!

NERO: Does Augustus say so?

PRIEST: In visions twelve times. Both by night and by day!

NERO: And there will be sacrifices? Made – to me?

PRIEST: They are already being made! Each and every hour!

NERO: I knew it. I felt it, Sporus –

SPORUS: You did!

NERO: Priest – your little shrine, far away and unknown to men – but not to gods – is just the beginning!

PRIEST: So says the spirit of Augustus!

NERO: Augustus says so, Sporus. Now, priest, how many have you appointed to my service?

PRIEST: Twelve. And twelve neophytes are they training.

NERO: It will carry on. But priest, understand, this must not yet be known in Rome! They are not ready here. The senators. They do not like me. It would be said – Nero is a stranger to himself.

PRIEST: I do understand! Augustus gives the same advice!

NERO: Ah! You see. Priest, you have my gratitude. Ask whatever you desire.

PRIEST: Only to return to Armenia. There to continue my worship of the newest god – the emperor Nero!

NERO: Go then, priest.

EXIT PRIEST. NERO CALLS QUORUS OVER TO HIM.

NERO: This man must not live.

EXIT QUORUS.

NERO: (VERY WARMLY TO SPORUS) My love, you did this!

SPORUS: No! Augustus.

NERO: You – my love – did this!

SPORUS: Oh my god!

NERO: Ha!

SPORUS: Yes!

NERO: I could not have got through the nights –

SPORUS: Now you will!

NERO: Yes – now! That is the point! Let them dare, now, to attack me by day or by night!

SPORUS: But how will I –

NERO: What?

SPORUS: How can I, a mortal, continue to be your wife?

NERO: Ah!

SPORUS: Your kiss will burn me up – fizzzzz!

NERO: Selfish fool, Nero! You – fetch back the priest!

EXIT RUFUS.

SPORUS: If he is still alive –

ENTER CAMERARIUS (chamberlain)

CAMERARIUS: Emperor, the ambassadors from Persia!

NERO: At last!

EXIT CAMERARIUS. ENTER AMBASSADORS. THEY ARE ACTUALLY THE FURIES, ALECTO, TISIPHONE AND MEGAERA, IN DISGUISE.

ALECTO: Further than far, unrivalled emperor,

across demented wastes, where, in the air

the hawk hangs held by heat above the sand

that melts the armour of the scorpion –

TISIPHONE: Over crazed seas whose waves are wolves that run,

tracking the ships like deer to drag them down –

ALECTO: Across all this -

MEGAERA:                Through epileptic forests

whose pines are witches that the wind cracks wide

with mouths their branches grapple you inside –

ALECTO: Through mountains where the men are thick-skulled bears –

TISIPHONE: Whose palaces are dark psychotic lairs –

MEGAERA: Through kingdoms ruled by magic, lightning-strong –

ALECTO: Where men change colour as they walk along –

TISIPHONE: At last to Rome!

MEGAERA:                            To Rome!

ALECTO:                                               To Rome!

TISIPHONE:                                                  To Rome!

MEGAERA: Civilisation’s safe and normal home!

ALECTO: To do you honour, trusted older brother –

TISIPHONE: If we may call you that, great emperor –

MEGAERA: And bring our King’s condolences, great sir –

ALECTO: For the sad death by stabbing of –

SPORUS: Don’t speak about that!

TISIPHONE:                                   Your mother.

NERO: What is this dark? Has night already fallen?

SPORUS: (TO ‘AMBASSADORS’) Leave! Leave quickly!

MEGAERA: But we have straggled over scar and fell –

ALECTO: Out through the crowded corridors of hell –

TISIPHONE: To bring you news!

MEGAERA:                         Your mother is unwell!

NERO: These are assassins, not ambassadors!

Save me!

ALECTO: No ear can hear you in this place.

Time has abandoned her old husband, space.

THE FURIES REMOVE THEIR DISGUISES. SPORUS FAINTS.

TISIPHONE: And we are all and everything, forever!

ALECTO: Do not complain about the dreadful weather

pelting inside you. He who kills his mother

gets us! That is the Law. There is no other!

NERO: I did not kill her!

TISIPHONE:                        But you gave the word!

MEGAERA: The ship collapsed. She was a waterbird

and swam to shore. Oh how she loved to live!

She did not want the sleep death loves to give,

but to keep waking – as does everyone.

However, on the orders of her son,

as she crawled, sodden, up the stony sand,

clutching the bosom of the motherland,

terrified and exhausted, by a slave

she was struck down. She struggled like a wave

onto her feet, then crumpled to her knees,

crying, No do not kill me, do not, please,

kill me! But she did not give birth to pity

when she gave birth to you, in this cold city.

NERO: I am a god!

ALECTO:                 Since when?

NERO:                                      Enquire! Enquire!

Augustus has confirmed it!

TISIPHONE:                       Is this true?

If so we have no power over you –

NERO: Sacrifice has been made!

THE FURIES STAND AS IT WERE LISTENING TO THE WIND OR EARS TO THE GROUND.

MEGAERA:                                    It has been made.

ALECTO: Then we must let him go, and not invade

his mind again!

TISIPHONE:    No! Wait! There is a change!

The Law has shifted! This is more than strange!

The gods are not the gods – fire is not fire –

MEGAERA: Then we are not ourselves?

ALECTO:                         We must enquire

in the dark place. Farewell! We will return!

Till then, in fear, far worse than fire, burn!

EXEUNT FURIES. SPORUS WAKES UP.

SPORUS: Oh my love – again! And not in the night!

NERO: I fought them!

SPORUS: Lion!

NERO: They will return!

SPORUS: Ah! I would give anything!

NERO: You have given so much!

SPORUS: If there was more they could take from me without me dying! I would give that, to save you my darling!

THREE. PHOENIX. UNDER AN OAK TREE.

PHOENIX:

Jupiter, Father, speak to me

out of the leaves of this oak tree,

which is your voice on earth

to those of mortal birth.

The breeze, your breath, blows through

and sets

the leaves like castanets

against each other. I hear you,

and now I strain my mind

with all my strength to find

what you, great sky, are saying

to this poor priest here praying.

Immeasurable storm and star,

made tiny here

to creep into my ear,

rushing from very far,

come shape me like a cloud,

speak, not too loud,

so in a flash I understand

your grace for this lost land.

HE PRAYS. ENTER SPORUS, WHO STANDS QUIETLY. AT LAST PHOENIX GETS UP.

PHOENIX: Sporus!

SPORUS: Ah, Phoenix! Is it alright?

PHOENIX: Yes, yes! This is the time, this is the place.

SPORUS: You are so kind!

PHOENIX: It is always an honour.

SPORUS: I will flood the temple with treasures!

PHOENIX: Please – Sporus –

SPORUS: Has the god spoken?

PHOENIX: The question is, can we hear? And understand?

SPORUS: There are new questions –

PHOENIX: Naturally.

SPORUS: If it wasn’t for you, father Phoenix, I would have gone mad!

PHOENIX: I myself am not to be thanked.

SPORUS: Oh yes, the god, the god! Why he should bother with me I don’t know –

PHOENIX: You are the empress of Rome –

SPORUS: Oh yes. A painful position. But father, it’s working!

PHOENIX: Yes.

SPORUS: Jupiter is ruling this empire! Changing the emperor. My husband! This man who murdered his mother, who kicked his wife to death when she was pregnant, lit his garden parties with Christians, burned half the city, dressed up as a wild animal and savaged people to death, tied to posts! It was an act of sheer cruelty to give that man an empire! She deserved to die for that, the mother! But he has gone! My dearly beloved husband – is not that man!

PHOENIX: We have to thank you for that, Sporus –

SPORUS: Yes but – I have got you! And Jupiter! I went to the priests of Venus first. It was she who gave me strength – when he asked me – to become, for him, what I now am – she – oh she poured all of her beauty into me! And then I didn’t care, I was not afraid of the blade. And now look at me! He loves me and he listens to me!

PHOENIX: Jupiter and Venus, working together for Rome –

SPORUS: And Dionysos! What am I? A singer, an actor! How could I possibly help? But these gods brought us together on stage! He Orpheus, me Euridyce. It was divine. Even though in fact he can’t act or sing. But that was the only time he was happy! And so he had to keep me, marry me, be happy always! And he will be!

PHOENIX: What is the new question?

SPORUS: Oh sorry, father, sorry! Um – they came again –

PHOENIX: The Eumenides –

SPORUS: Uh-huh. Oh Phoenix this is so secret –

PHOENIX: You do not have to speak a single word to me.

SPORUS: They say something has changed! They are not even sure of themselves! Oh father Phoenix, what has changed? What has changed?

PHOENIX: I will enquire, child. When the time is right, when the oak speaks.

SPORUS: Oh father, I love you, father!

FOUR. PALACE. RUFUS AND QUORUS FIGHTING OVER THE DEAD ARMENIAN PRIEST.

QUORUS: You shall not take him!

RUFUS: I will obey the command of the emperor!

QUORUS: He didn’t tell you to bring back a corpse!

RUFUS: Why did you kill him???

QUORUS: Because that was the emperor’s command!

RUFUS: But I have still got to obey the command he gave me!

QUORUS: Are you an idiot?

RUFUS: I am obedient! Unto death!

QUORUS: Well that’s what it’s going to be, when you drag back to the emperor this corpse!

RUFUS: Your death! Not mine!

QUORUS: Both of us, probably!

RUFUS: Why, if we are obedient? You killed the man, as you were commanded, I bring him back, as I was commanded!

QUORUS: But I was commanded to not bring him back!

RUFUS: You aren’t bringing him back! I am!

QUORUS: The emperor told me to kill him! He did not want to see him again!

RUFUS: He changed his mind!

QUORUS: I will change your mind!

RUFUS: How?

QUORUS: I’ll cut off your head and put this man’s head in its place!

RUFUS: I can fight!

QUORUS: Can you? Come on then!

THEY FIGHT. ENTER NERO AND SPORUS, ATTENDANTS.

SPORUS: Stop it! What’s this?

RUFUS: Great emperor! Here is the Armenian priest you commanded me to bring you!

NERO: What on earth has happened to him?

RUFUS: This man killed him, great emperor, before I could reach him!

NERO: Why did you kill him?

QUORUS: Emperor, for your sake I will say nothing but – a great and good person commanded him to be dead.

NERO: Perhaps that great and good person was yourself?

QUORUS: Emperor, I am neither great nor good.

NERO: This priest was meaningful to me! Isn’t that true, Sporus?

SPORUS: It is.

NERO: He had a great message from me to take to Armenia. Sporus knows what it was!

SPORUS: I do.

NERO: Who will take it for me now?

RUFUS: Great emperor, let it be me!

SPORUS: No. The other one.

NERO: I was thinking that he should be killed.

SPORUS: Send him to Armenia. It is a long and difficult way. But not for one whose life has been spared.

NERO: You want him to go?

SPORUS: Yes.

NERO: And him to die?

SPORUS: Not necessarily. Look how well he has obeyed you. Death itself could not prevent him from bringing to you the man you sent for.

NERO: Sheer stupidity!

SPORUS: And what is the punishment for that?

NERO: High office!

SPORUS: Make him a magistrate. Or rather, I would say – a corpse-burner.

NERO: Yes! He can spend the rest of his life correcting this mistake. The dead need fire! You see? Stupid to drag this fellow up and down! Nobody wants him!

RUFUS: As my lord commands!

EXIT RUFUS WITH BODY.

NERO: And everybody else leave! Except this man!

EXEUNT ALL EXCEPT SPORUS AND QUORUS.

NERO: What is your name?

QUORUS:                   Great Lord, my name is Quorus.

NERO: Yes I remember. Quorus, you I praise,

because you had the grace to spare your Lord

over a questionable matter. Ha!

Sending for someone I had ordered killed

would have looked stupid, if you had announced

in your defence, that that is what I did,

in front of all those people. Quorus, thanks.

Now on the subject of Armenia,

I want to ask you, Quorus, to go there.

You are a handsome and intelligent,

deeply insightful person. It is far,

over thick rivers, deserts full of gangsters,

mythical birds that blind you in your dreams,

corrupt officials, poisoned food, false kisses

from painted women who have snakes for hair,

glittering snakes! And on their fingers, rings

jewelled with insects that can break your mind

with just one look! All this, my friend, and more,

on the wild highway to Armenia,

waits for you, Quorus. Now you see my wife –

I think you know I love him. I can see,

you are a person who I think can see

that I love him. And in Armenia

we must be married. Not as we have been

already here on earth, but in the sky,

in heaven, Quorus. Do you follow me?

I think you do. There is a little shrine –

so far the only temple in the world

where prayers are said to Nero. Said to me,

to Nero, prayers. And sacrifices there

are daily made. They have a calendar

of sacrifices, very strictly followed,

terribly strictly. Astral calculations,

based on my birth-star, fix the ritual year,

so it all perfectly unfolds forever.

But secret, Quorus, from the ears of Rome,

this must be muzzled for the present time.

Augustus is a god, we know that now,

Claudius too. But Nero, at this hour,

is a child-god still hiding in the womb,

daybreak is not yet. Still, Armenia knows.

Or one small golden shrine up in the mountains.

I have the way to get there written down,

which I will give you. Tell the priests of Nero,

Sporus his consort is no less divine.

I am a god. The truth is what I say.

QUORUS: I shall do this, great god!

NERO:                                  Go now – prepare!

Come to us later for the way to get there.

QUORUS: I will, great Nero!

EXIT.

SPORUS: Thankyou! What sweeter present could there be

than the great big fat diamond of divinity?

NERO SUDDENLY COLLAPSES INTO GLOOM AND HORROR.

NERO: It is a black responsibility,

my heart, to share the deathless throne with me,

step by my side into eternity,

where the dark legions wait, all fangs and hunger.

Your mortal weakness is no use to me,

however loving and however lovely,

where I am now. Dear man, do you not see,

this was the Kindly Ones! My emissary,

who should have told the priests to lift up you,

killed by my own command, was obviously

in fact a victim of the skilful Furies.

Who are determined that our love should be

split by the chasm of mortality,

to keep me weak, so they can torture me!

SPORUS: But Nero, they were full of doubt, you said,

when they left you last time –

NERO:                        A trick! A trickle

of poisoned hope!

SPORUS:            But Quorus –

NERO:                              He will die!

They will destroy him! He will not get through!

I am besieged! My palace is an island

in the mud-sea of death, and we are sinking!

Nobody can get out or in! Oh save me!

Get me a knife, I have to kill myself,

so I can get away from here! Quick! Sporus!

A knife! A knife!

SPORUS TAKES UP A POSE, SINGS, AS EURIDYCE.

SPORUS:

Who is this man

who comes to me

with daylight in his eyes?

Much brighter than

a sunlit sea

whose coast is paradise?

Come on my love! Sing, sing!

NERO SINGS, AS ORPHEUS.

NERO:

Sweet shadow of

my earthly love,

oh follow, follow me,

up to the place

where your sweet face

I may turn round and see!

SPORUS:

What, follow you,

can this be true,

up to the world so good,

out of the deep

and evil sleep

of this bad neighbourhood?

NERO:
Yes follow me,

Euridyce!

SPORUS:
No need to fuss,

my Orpheus!

NERO, AS ORPHEUS, IS TURNED AWAY FROM SPORUS. HE SPINS ROUND AND EMBRACES HIM.

SPORUS: Careful how you turn round, husband! You’ll spin me straight back to Hades!

NERO: Never!  

THEY EMBRACE. ENTER SERVANT OF PHOENIX, LED IN BY AN ATTENDANT.

NERO: Now what?

ATTENDANT: Emperor – a man from the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

NERO: What?! Another ultimatum from the old men!

SERVANT: No, my Lord, no –

SPORUS: Send away the attendant.

NERO SIGNALS TO THE ATTENDANT, WHO LEAVES.

SPORUS: Great, sweet, unassailable god – there is one, just one, among the priests of Jupiter who loves us – a man who has helped me over and over again! Wishing to take up arms against those spirits who hurt you, I went to him, and begged him to ask the great King of all the gods, why the Furies say that something has changed –

NERO: How much did you tell this priest????

SPORUS: Just what the Furies had said!

NERO: I prefer not to speak to these people!

SPORUS: I think this man has brought an answer from heaven –

SERVANT: I have –

SPORUS: What is it?

SERVANT: I speak the words of the Priest of Jupiter, as the god Jupiter himself spoke them to him. Jesus Christ is the death of the gods.

NERO: All the gods???

SERVANT: And the death of the gods is the death of Rome.

NERO: Jesus Christ? We stamped that cult out! After they set fire to the whole city!  

FIVE. PRISON CELL. PETER. HE KNEELS, CHANTING IN HEBREW. ENTER HOODED GUARDS, CROWING LIKE COCKERELS. THEY HANG HIM UPSIDE DOWN FROM THE CEILING, BEAT HIM, STILL CHANTING LOUDER AND LOUDER, THEN LET HIM DOWN AND EXIT.

PETER: Ah Lord, when, when? Yes, yes, I will fish, I will follow. Lord, you know I love you. I love you, Lord, you know I love you! Yes I will feed your sheep, I will feed your lambs! Shall we build here a shrine, my Lord, for Abraham? Ah Lord, how long?

ENTER JAILER WITH SPORUS.

JAILER: Stay as long as you like, my – Lady.

SPORUS: Thanks. Here.

HE GIVES THE JAILER MONEY. EXIT JAILER.

SPORUS: Peter. Peter.

PETER: Is it you, Lord?

SPORUS: Peter – Peter –

PETER: Is it time? Is it time?

SPORUS: May I speak to you, sir?

PETER: Who are you? Who are you?

SPORUS: I have come from above. From upstairs.

PETER: I will not give any names.

SPORUS: I am a seeker after truth –

PETER: I will not give you names!

SPORUS: Truth!

PETER: What kind of truth do you want?

SPORUS: Truth that will help my friend.

PETER: What is your name?

SPORUS: I don’t mind telling you that.

PETER: Well then?

SPORUS: Sporus. And yours is Peter.

PETER: Simon the Rock. Known as Peter.

SPORUS: They are trying to break you.

PETER: They want to carve me into a statue of Venus. But they are bad sculptors. And I am the wrong material.

SPORUS: Yes I would agree with that.

PETER: Nor will it help them to send soft ladies –

SPORUS: I have not come here to break you, Peter. The chain-gang was never my notion of entertainment.

PETER: What are you?

SPORUS: I am the wife of the emperor.

PETER: Ah! That Sporus!

SPORUS: You’ve heard of me?

PETER: Everybody has!

SPORUS: And what do they say?

PETER: Well –

SPORUS: Do they praise me?

PETER: No.

SPORUS: They ought to praise me! I am the best wife ever!

PETER: I’m sure you try –

SPORUS: No one else could do better!

PETER: Perhaps. In the case of Nero.

SPORUS: Thanks! Thanks!

PETER: What do you want?

SPORUS: I told you that! I want the truth!

PETER: I cannot give it to you. For reasons I cannot explain – but it is my Lord’s command. Only I will say this. There are false Christians. Some of them no doubt are here in this prison. Do not listen to them. There is only one truth, one gospel. That is the point. For example – do not listen to Paul.

SPORUS: Paul –

PETER: If he is here. Or anyone who tells you that his truth is true. I walked with Jesus Christ when he was preaching and doing good, before he died and rose again. Paul did not. That is all I can say to you. Except - Sporus –

SPORUS: Yes?

PETER: Start to change your life. Put on man’s clothing. Refuse Nero’s advances. For the sake of truth, turn to stone. So the truth may begin to reveal itself in you too.

SPORUS: What was the name of the man I must not listen to?

PETER: Paul. Paul. The little one. I say no more.

SIX. PAUL’S CELL. PAUL, EPAPHRAS. PAUL IS DICTATING A LETTER.

PAUL: And when this letter is read among you, see that it is also read to the congregation at Laodicea, and that you in return read the one from Laodicea. This special word to Archippus: 'Attend to the duty entrusted to you in the Lord's service, and discharge it to the full.' Paul. Remember I am in prison. God's grace be with you.

EPAPHRAS ROLLS UP THE SCROLL.

PAUL: God go with you, Epaphras.

EPAPHRAS: God be with you, Paul.

EXIT EPAPHRAS. ENTER SPORUS, STANDING IN THE DOORWAY.

PAUL: Come, come in, whoever you are! Paul’s cell is open to the world! No – Paul’s cell is the world! I can’t go out – yet. But anyone can come in! And when I do leave – yes – I really will be leaving this world. So my cell is the world. Come into the world, whoever you are, don’t linger at the edge peeping in like the morning star! Come in, come in, come in.

SPORUS: Thankyou.

PAUL: Alright! Speak!

SPORUS: You are Paul –

PAUL: Yes! Absolutely! Indisputably! So that is settled, no need to debate about that! When you come to Paul, you find certainty, firm first principles on which to build. Out there, it’s a mess, isn’t it, a maze, a fog – blind old philosophers squelching around in a swamp of mythologies. But here, you will find the first stepping stone! Anyway, speak, speak, speak, I am listening.

SPORUS: My name is Victoria.

PAUL: Alright.

SPORUS: My husband - is a very important man.

PAUL: Mhmn –

SPORUS: His mother was a monster. She forced him into this important position, against his nature – which is unstable –

PAUL: Luckily he has you, Victoria!

SPORUS: Also – she forced him – into foul congress – in a coach – many times – from the age of sixteen - during sacred processions! Grown into the body of a man, he killed her. And now he is pursued by the Furies.

PAUL: I see.

SPORUS: I love him!

PAUL: Clearly. Or you would not have come down here.

SPORUS: I have been told that you have power!

PAUL: Who by?

SPORUS: The Furies told Nero that something has changed!

PAUL: I see. I see. I see.

SPORUS: I spoke to a Priest of Jupiter. He confirmed –

PAUL: What exactly did they say?

SPORUS: Things have changed! You have changed things!

PAUL: Not me, Victoria –

SPORUS: My husband is frightened! They will come back!

PAUL: He killed his mother! He ought to be frightened! Furies or no Furies!

SPORUS: Is that what you say?

PAUL: Yes I do!

SPORUS: But your god can help –

PAUL: Because he is the only God! Father, Son and Holy Spirit! The rest are just demons! The Furies are demons. In comparison to my God they have no existence. In his presence they vanish, as the stars at sunrise. But He is a sun that never sets. So they never come back.

SPORUS: Really?

PAUL: Absolutely. Indisputably. As sure as I am Paul and you are Victoria.

SPORUS: And what if a god –

PAUL: Yes?

SPORUS: Killed his mother and –

PAUL: Is there such a myth?

SPORUS: What if! And was pursued by the Furies, even though he was a god, because a new power had taken away his power – so that he, a god, could be pursued by mere demons –

PAUL: This is a tangled net, with strange fish in it!

SPORUS: It is the truth!        

PAUL: Really?

SPORUS: Yes! My husband is a god!

PAUL: I see.

SPORUS: And so am I – soon to be. But because of you, this no longer shields us from the Furies –

PAUL: Yes! Oh yes! This is why I am here in a cell, waiting for death, not standing, shepherd of the shepherd of the empire, trusted and loved beside the emperor! ‘He turns the world upside down!’ ‘He knocks the gods off their plinths!’ So here I sit, condemned, for bringing the peace that passes all understanding!

SPORUS: Peace?

PAUL: Come on, be honest with me! Who is your husband? What is the name of this god?

SPORUS: Nero.

PAUL: You are not Victoria then!

SPORUS: No. I am Sporus.

PAUL: Why come to Paul with a lie? Approach the truth with pretence?

SPORUS: Well I was told by Peter –

PAUL: Peter!?

SPORUS: Peter told me to dress as a man! For me that is pretending! So I told myself I would go to Paul as I am!

PAUL: Peter is in this prison? Or still free?

SPORUS: He is here –

PAUL: And you told him who you are?

SPORUS: Yes!

PAUL: Did he preach to you?

SPORUS: He laid down a few laws –

PAUL: You want to save the emperor?

SPORUS: Yes!

PAUL: It will not work! Not Peter’s gospel!

SPORUS: But he walked with Jesus –

PAUL: Oh yes? And not me? He walked with Jesus. I walk with Christ!

SPORUS: What does that mean?

PAUL: Do not go back to him, Sporus, if you love your – husband –

SPORUS: May I come to you instead?

PAUL: Yes! Yes!

SPORUS: Dressed like this?

PAUL: Yes – yes – you are still bewitched, that will change –

SPORUS: Peter said that I must refuse my husband’s advances –

PAUL: Christ will show you the way! I will not lay down laws to you now, whilst you still stand outside the light! But let me – if you really want to help him, and yourself, and the entire empire – Sporus – let me speak to the emperor!

SPORUS: That time may come. But not yet. For now, speak to me –

PAUL: Then do me this one favour – let me speak to Peter! No – it is not a favour –

SPORUS: No?

PAUL: The death of each one of us gives birth to a hundred converts. Some break down in court and save their skins, but most do not! Nothing you can devise – the cross was your worst, and that is our greatest triumph! The beasts – even the beasts and the arena, simply add to our dignity over and over again. And yet you have to kill us. Even though it kills you. We have got the empire in

a corner -

SEVEN. NERO’S THRONEROOM. NERO, WITH A COMMUNION CUP OF WINE.

NERO: In the name of the father and the daughter and the niece and the mother-in-law!

ENTER CAMERARIUS.

CAMERARIUS: Emperor, the consuls!

NERO: Good.

EXIT CAMERARIUS. ENTER CONSULS, QUINTUS AND MARCUS.

QUINTUS: Emperor – you asked us for a list of the senators we suspect to be Christians. We respectfully report that having searched deeply into the matter, we find – that not one of them is! Each man is loyal to the gods and to yourself and to Rome!

MARCUS: Great Nero, the list is empty.

SILENCE.

NERO: This is terrible. Empty? In this I see the force of a strange god, who stands in front of me, to each side and behind. I cannot see him or hear him, but whichever way I turn, he fills the whole alley!

QUINTUS: Great Nero –

NERO: Christ is the death of Rome!

MARCUS: Christ will die, not Rome!

NERO: I am Rome’s defence! Who will help me fight him?

QUINTUS: We will!

NERO: With empty lists??? Traitors! I have seen what happens in the arena! The prisoners walk out calm and serene! A great hush from the crowd! The animals themselves are bewildered. A starving, enfuriated lioness, she walks up to the white-dressed Christian maiden, and sniffs – what is this? Why does it not scream and run? How do I kill this statue? Or the victims form a chorus, hand in hand, and the bears circle them round, they start to fight each other! The gladiators have to take over. And ripples of amazement wash the amphitheatre, slaves and consuls alike, half-think, there is something here! So what am I to do? If killing them helps their cause, and their cause is the death of Rome???

MARCUS: We have enquired -

NERO: Enquired! My husband has descended to the underworld, to find out the truth for himself.

QUINTUS: This is the truth!

NERO: The Priests of Jupiter, even though they hate me, have told me the truth.

MARCUS: The senate loves you, Nero.

NERO: What you see is not what I am. I can see through mountains!

QUINTUS: That is good news for Rome!

NERO: And if I can see through them I can see through you! You are the Christians! You two! By chance, or bewitched, I asked the very two who are Christians themselves, to sniff out the Christians!

MARCUS: This is not true!

QUINTUS: May Christ be cursed!

MARCUS: In the name of Mars!

QUINTUS: In the name of Minerva! Of great Rome herself! Of Venus! May Christ and all his believers be cursed forever!

MARCUS: May they go blind!

QUINTUS: May they run mad!

MARCUS: May their houses burn!

QUINTUS: May their children drown!

MARCUS: May they cut their own throats!

QUINTUS: May they be bitten by bats!

NERO: Stop, stop, no, no – you don’t understand – it hurts me – it hurts me. Please. I called you here tonight for a secret reason. It is me – it is me – me –

MARCUS: Emperor?

NERO: I am a Christian.

THE CONSULS BURST OUT LAUGHING, THEN STOP WHEN THEY SEE HE IS NOT JOKING.

NERO: I have not told anyone else. I did not dare. God bless sweet Jesus! But because in you two, who hold under me the greatest power in Rome, I recognised, with these eyes that can see through stones – recognised brothers, I knew that at last I can speak my heart! You, like me, I know, are Christians! Aren’t you?

QUINTUS: No, no, great Lord, not at all –

MARCUS: Jupiter and Juno witness me –

NERO: Oh! Then I was wrong? Oh! I am so alone!

HE WEEPS.

NERO: I weep for you. And for my own soul, consuls. Because now, for the safety of Rome, you must die! Knowing what you know, you can never leave this room. Oh, how will I explain it to the senate? Well, they will understand, when I tell them you were Christians –

QUINTUS: We are not –

MARCUS: Ah sweet Jesus, can it be true? Can it be true that my own emperor, chief priest of the false old way, is himself, himself a secret believer? Oh we are saved, Rome is saved, the world is saved!

QUINTUS: A – men! Amen! Oh Jesus, Jesus, Lord!

MARCUS: Peace on earth! Love!

NERO: Halleluiah. Halleluiah. Let us now make the feast of love together. The bread and the wine.

QUINTUS: Halleluiah!

MARCUS: Halloolayliah –

NERO: Haha. In the name of the aunt and the sister and the little dog and the tortoise –

HE HANDS THEM THE CUP.

QUINTUS: In the name of the tortoise –

HE DRINKS.

MARCUS: In the name of the little dog –

HE DRINKS, HANDS THE CUP BACK TO NERO, WHO IS ABOUT TO DRINK.

NERO: Brothers!

THE CONSULS DROP DEAD. NERO PUTS DOWN THE CUP, DRAGS THE CONSULS BEHIND A CURTAIN.

EIGHT. CANDIDA’S CELL. CANDIDA SITS IN ABSOLUTE STILLNESS AND SILENCE LIKE A STATUE. ENTER SPORUS, WHO STARES AT HER FOR A LONG TIME. AT LAST CANDIDA NOTICES.

CANDIDA: Great Lady!

SPORUS: Me?

CANDIDA: Great Lady!

SPORUS: Is that all you say?

SILENCE

SPORUS: You are waiting for them to take you away. But you have already gone. Come back, Christian woman! Come back, Candida, there has been a reprieve –

CANDIDA: Reprieve?

SPORUS: Your life has been – for a time – reprieved.

CANDIDA: Only mine?

SPORUS: Only yours.

CANDIDA: Why?

SPORUS: I was too slow. A whole batch went out –

CANDIDA: Amen.

SPORUS: Yes. You were all that was left. I think by mistake. Not like them. But good, because I want to talk to you –

CANDIDA: Why?

SPORUS: I thought you would understand. As a woman. My Lord is not well.

CANDIDA: I will pray for him. What is his name?

SPORUS: Romanus.

CANDIDA: What is his illness?

SPORUS: He has been cursed – by a foreign god.

CANDIDA: A demon -

SPORUS: Yes.

CANDIDA: I will pray for you against him! Let us pray together –

SPORUS: No.

CANDIDA: Why?

SPORUS: I am not a Christian.

CANDIDA: Yet you have come to me for help – great Lady.

SILENCE.

CANDIDA: Or is it that you wish to put my Lord to the test?

SPORUS: He puts you to the test.

CANDIDA: Yes he does. And lifts us when we fail. Does your Lord do that?

SPORUS: Do what?

CANDIDA: The Lord Romanus. When you fail.

SPORUS: I do not fail –

CANDIDA: If you did. Would he lift you up?

SPORUS: No.

CANDIDA: What would he do?

SPORUS: Kill me.

CANDIDA: That is a cruel Lord!

SPORUS: Really? You are going to the wild beasts for yours!

CANDIDA: Gladly.

SPORUS: Really?

CANDIDA: That is the test he sets me! If I fail, if I shake with fear, fall down, he will lift me up, even in the arena!

SPORUS: Mine would cry for me. Maybe. But it would be too late by then.

CANDIDA: I wish you were with me!

SPORUS: Condemned to death –

CANDIDA: To mercy.

SPORUS: I will make you a confession –

CANDIDA: Please.

SPORUS: I want my Lord to be more like yours.

CANDIDA: Yes!

SPORUS: That is my dream and my aim. He loves me!

CANDIDA: Ah!

SPORUS: He has never loved anyone before!

CANDIDA: Ah!

SPORUS: Some he has owned. Or married. Those he has murdered!

CANDIDA: Oh –

SPORUS: But me he has not yet murdered, though we are married!

CANDIDA: May he never do so!

SPORUS: That is my aim! To change him! And not just for my sake! He is a very great Lord!

CANDIDA: I see!

SPORUS: Millions depend on his will –

CANDIDA: God save him!

SPORUS: So if I change him for the better I help them!

CANDIDA: May God help you!

SPORUS: I am not very well respected in Rome. To put it mildly! I am a laughing stock, frankly!

CANDIDA: No, surely –

SPORUS: But if they knew! Their lives are in my hands! I could be the saviour of Rome! I can help him to think! I can say to him, My love, wait, stop, think, do not kill, first think. – One who is not loved cannot think.

CANDIDA: That is true.

SPORUS: Therefore my love is his thinking, my kisses his mercy, his wisdom – and the peace and happiness of millions!     

CANDIDA: Yours is a sacred marriage!

SPORUS: Or he may kill me.

CANDIDA: Oh pray with me, great Lady!

SPORUS: I can’t do that! Why? Because my Lord is a god! And I am too – or shortly to be. That is my way of trying to persuade him not to kill me. I don’t care so much about immortality! Just staying alive.

CANDIDA: Ah my dear Lady –

SPORUS: Do you mind me talking to you like this?

CANDIDA: No! In the name of Christ, speak as you wish!

SPORUS: My Lord killed his mother.

CANDIDA: God save him!    

SPORUS: He is pursued by the Spirits of Vengeance, the Furies. Because your Lord has taken away his divinity!

CANDIDA: Christ alone is divine!

SPORUS: Tell your Lord to leave my Lord alone! Let him keep his divinity, for otherwise the Furies will drive him mad and he will kill me! As sure as the sun will rise on the day they give you to the animals!

CANDIDA: May it come soon!

SPORUS: If you will not help me, I have got other ways!

CANDIDA: Lady, I will do all for you that in grace I may!

NINE. NERO. HE DRAGS THE CONSULS OUT AND PROPS THEM UP.

NERO: I am sorry. I realise I went too far. Now there will be rebellions. All I want to say is – yes I made a mistake. But because of that, does there have to be a political crisis, hundreds of dead, me included? Speak to the King of Hades. Ask him to intercede, to make peace between me and the senate. For the sake of Rome. Look, I can’t kill you again, we can speak freely, man to man. Do as I say. Then we will be friends again. Ah, Jupiter, the wife –

HE HEARS SPORUS COMING AND THROWS A DRAPE OVER THE CORPSES, HIDING THEM. ENTER SPORUS.

SPORUS: Love, would you like to know where I have been?

NERO: Yes, if you want to tell me, then I do.

SPORUS: My Lord, I have descended to the shades,

jammed in the ferry with the dead who peer

over the gunwhales, searching through their tears

in vain for their own faces on the water.

Past the self-hating watchdog’s tangled growling,

and all the rest of it. Poor howling shadows!

Each thinks it has the truth, and makes great speeches,

and never listens, in its sealed-up cave,

to anyone but Echo, who agrees.

It stinks like hell down there, I have to tell you.

And in that bitter honeycomb of chambers

there are two Christians, who are not yet dead,

but are condemned to death, so have already

taken their places in the hum of Hades.

Sweet Lord, these are the gurus and the leaders,

they are the two main pillars of the temple

of Jesus Christ! We have them here, we have them!

NERO: Victory!

SPORUS:              Maybe. If we cut their throats,

the victory is theirs. The blood of martyrs

is desert rain for half-believing flowers -

NERO: How can we win then?

SPORUS:                           Christ, as I discover,

is subject to dispute. Not like Minerva.

There are no schools at war about Diana,

fighting with words – she simply is, and Venus

and all the rest. But Christ, it seems, is complex,

partly a god and partly a philosophy,

half Greek, half Jewish. And the Greeks and Jews

endlessly argue, split and split again

tiniest fibres, and they hate each other,

and they would fight, if you did not restrain them

with crucifixion and your speedy legions,

shutting down their discussions just in time,

before the knives come out. But, sweetest Lord,

what if we let them fight, these Christian pillars,

what if we let them strike and crack each other,

standing aside, correct and smiling umpires,

as their whole temple crashes to the ground

in a vast storm of dust, that blots out blackly

the Christian heaven? So that Jesus Christ,

strong though he is up there, has got down here

no one who knows him! Then your own divinity,

and mine, when I am worshipped in Armenia

alongside you, will not be contradicted,

and we will drive the Furies back to Athens

where their cold caves are, underneath the Parthenon!

Oh we will be so happy then, my darling!

NERO: The iridescence of your face, Euridyce!

When did you change your name to Orpheus,

where did you get the wisdom to descend,

and courage, to the underworld, to find me,

and lead me out? I feel you are my friend,

and that with you to help me I will win

this battle of the gods that I am in!

SPORUS: I am yours, dearest Lord, since you are mine.

NERO: Together – almost – not yet both divine.

As far as dry Armenia is from Rome

we are still distant. But diminishing,

rapidly as my servant gallops home,

the space between us!

SPORUS:                   When at last he comes,

oh what a second wedding! But this time,

heaven and earth attending! Mortal bodies

joined in immortal love – all gods agreeing!

NERO: Drink – to our love!

SPORUS:                   All-knowing and all-seeing!

HE IS ABOUT TO DRINK. NERO DASHES THE CUP OUT OF HIS HANDS.

NERO: No! Not you too!

SPORUS: Nero!

NERO PULLS BACK THE CURTAIN TO REVEAL THE DEAD BODIES.

SPORUS: The consuls?! No!!!

NERO: Christians!

SPORUS:            You think so? Oh my love! But me???

NERO: You spoke about me to the priests of Jupiter!

SPORUS: I didn’t tell them anything!

NERO:                            You told them

about Armenia!

SPORUS:                 No! I only told them –

NERO: What?

SPORUS:     What the Furies said!

NERO:                         That my divinity

is crossed?

SPORUS:  No! Just that there has been a change!

I did not tell the priest about Armenia!

I would not do that!

NERO:                     They have worked it out!

Rome knows I am divine – and hates me for it!

I feel it here! These consuls were against me!

You killed them, Sporus!

SPORUS:                        I have done too much,

too much for you, my love! My life is over.

Where is the cup? Is there a drop still in it?

NERO GRABS THE CUP AND HOLDS IT AWAY FROM SPORUS.

SPORUS: Give it to me! I want to join the consuls,

who were against you! I was not against you,

but I have hurt you! You have hurt yourself,

by killing them! It is just us now, sweetheart!

HE CHASES NERO, WHO RUNS AWAY, HOLDING THE CUP UP IN THE AIR.

SPORUS: No one will help us, they will not forgive us,

it is just you and me against sweet Jesus!

Oh my dear heart, you great collapsing state,

I wanted so to prop you up with love,

and make you everlasting! Oh my love!

THEY SIT ON THE GROUND, CRYING. SPORUS GETS THE CUP AND HIDES IT UNDER HIS CLOAK.

TEN. PETER IN HIS CELL.

PETER: Oh Lord, how long? Roman justice! Why is it so slow? I have confessed, I will confess again, over and over, to anyone, that I am yours, you mine! Torture is completely unnecessary! Except for the names – they want names. I will not give them names! Anyone they suspect, let them simply ask him, or her. If he or she is a Christian they will confess immediately, with great joy! It is so easy for the authorities! But still they keep me here, while the Church suffers, and wanders. Ah my dear God, sweet man, what are you saving me for? What is it I still have to do? Even here!

ENTER JAILER WITH PAUL.

JAILER: A visitor. Well, not a visitor, a fellow prisoner. A visit from a fellow prisoner.

EXIT JAILER. SILENCE.

PETER: Oh Paul –

PAUL: Oh Peter –

SILENCE

PAUL: I have got bread –

HE PRODUCES A SCRAP OF BREAD AND A TINY FLASK OF WINE.

PAUL: And wine – two drops! Will you –

PETER: No, you, you –

THEY SIT DOWN AS FOR COMMUNION SUPPER

PAUL: On the night that he was betrayed he took bread, and broke it, and gave it to them saying, Take, eat, this is my body that was given for you for everlasting life. Eat this in remembrance of me, and be thankful.

HE EATS A BIT AND GIVES A BIT TO PETER

PAUL: In the same way he took the wine and gave it to them saying, This is my blood which is given for you for everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance of me, and be thankful.

DRINKS AND GIVES TO PETER. THEY SING.

And could it be that I should gain

An interest in the saviour’s blood?

Died he for me who caused his pain,

For me who him to death pursued?

Amazing love! How could it be

That thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

Amazing love! How could it be

That thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

PETER: Amen.

SILENCE.

PAUL: They are mistreating you.

PETER: Well I am not a Roman citizen. Just a bloody Jewish nuisance.

PAUL: I am that too.

PETER: Where were you picked up?

PAUL: In Jerusalem. There was a riot.

PETER: What about?

PAUL: Me.

PETER: Oh yes, I can understand that.

PAUL: The garrison got word a Roman citizen was being lynched in the temple. They just rammed straight into the crowd and plucked me out. Then I was on trial, for public disorder, but I knew there’d be no justice for me in Jerusalem –

PETER: No –

PAUL: So I appealed to Caesar, as is my right. And the judge says – You appeal to Caesar? Then to Caesar you shall go. – And they put me on a boat. We hit a hurricane. The captain panicked. I took over –

PETER: I bet you did –

PAUL: Anyway here I am! Peter! Peter.

PETER: They treat you well.

PAUL: I am allowed to write letters.

PETER: With names and addresses on them –

PAUL: Should I not speak to my Churches? I have founded Churches, Peter, all over Anatolia. And Greece! I preached to the Greeks, in Athens! Why are you in Rome?

PETER: To preach to the Jews, Paul, as Jesus Christ told us to do.

PAUL: To stop me. But they got you.  

PETER: Yes! To stop you! He said not to speak to the Greeks or the Romans or any other gentiles till the Jews had first been converted!

PAUL: And when will that be?

PETER: That is what he said! I heard him!

PAUL: I started out preaching in synagogues only. I was stoned, lashed with rods in the market place – several times nearly murdered! I shook the dust off my feet, went elsewhere! And was heard with joy! Extasy!

PETER: So the wisdom of Paul wipes out the wisdom of Christ!

PAUL: Not Christ – Jesus! What he said when he walked as a man is not what he says now he is risen!

PETER: So you say!

PAUL: I do! And will, till they cut off my head! Even then!

PETER: God comes to earth as a man and suffers crucifixion, steps from the tomb alive to speak to his friends, then ascends to heaven! At which point Paul from Tarsus takes over. Why? Well, he has a first class education!

PAUL: I have no choice but to preach what he says to me!

PETER: And should Peter have no authority? He called to me by name, when I was in my boat! Me and my brother, he said, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men! And to me he said, this is Peter, my rock! And after he had risen he said to me three times, Feed my sheep! And do you think the man to whom he said these things, me, Peter, his rock, will allow his words to be changed by you, Paul???

PAUL: If you fight the Spirit, you will be swept away, even you –

PETER: First convert the Jews!

PAUL: First be stoned to death!

PETER: If necessary!

PAUL: It is not!

PETER: You flinch?

PAUL: You preached to Romans!

PETER: I was mistaken! And corrected!

PAUL: Ah Peter, Peter, if you knew what I know! We have got Rome in the palm of our hand!

PETER: I think it is the other way round –

PAUL: No! Haha! Peter – yesterday the Holy Spirit sent to me a man who calls himself the wife of the emperor –

PETER: Sporus, yes I know him.

PAUL: Of course! He comes to us both! A man so close to Nero comes to speak to us Christians in our cells! A desperate man! In need of Christ! As is the emperor! Now you, Peter, if you were invited to preach to the emperor, you would refuse! No, you would say, no – not till the conversion of the Jews!

PETER: That is true!

PAUL: Fall, emperor, into hell, and take your empire with you!

PETER: That is Christ’s law!

PAUL: So say you. But the Spirit says to me, Preach to this fellow, Sporus, reach through him to Nero and through Nero to the world! The whole world!

PETER: The world is coming to an end.

PAUL: Yes, but when?

PETER: He would not say exactly. He said we would know. I think quite obviously –

PAUL: Maybe. But even so, till it actually goes bang, will we pause even a minute from teaching?

PETER: The Jews, no.

PAUL: Or listening, listening to the Spirit?

PETER: It does not contradict Christ!

PAUL: Peter, will you wreck this chance? I tell you, if Sporus asks me to preach to the emperor, I will preach with all my heart! Will you please at least promise not to speak against me!?

ENTER SPORUS.

SPORUS: Christians! You are invited cordially

upstairs, to supper with the emperor.

Will you attend? In fact you are not free,

you have to come, but please come willingly!

Tomorrow evening! Nero does not know

yet, but he will agree to it, for sure.

He wants to know what Jesus Christ is for.

EXIT.

PAUL: This was a trap! He was listening to us!

ELEVEN. NERO IN HIS BEDROOM, DRESSED AND MADE UP AS AGRIPPINA. SERVANT.

NERO: I am not dead! How can my son have killed me?

I am not dead! Command the Kindly Ones

To haunt real matricides, and not good children

who love their mothers! Do you hear me, Furies?

Look! Agrippina is alive, she glitters

brighter than ever, and the evening star,

green Venus, laughs to see her equal stride

the groaning earth, above hell’s buried fires,

under the shadow of immense Olympus!

Oh my dear son, Rome’s love for me is warm,

for bearing you, to be her starry guide,

and moonlight path across the midnight sea!

And yours for her is hot, since it was she,

myself I mean, who carried you inside!

SERVANT: (AS IF READING FROM A SCRIPT) Agrippina lives! She is well! Praise Nero’s lustrous mother!

NERO: Hush! I can hear them coming! Let them ride

on greasy eels across the glinting meadows

from ditch to ditch, and through the summer sky

attached to bats by cobwebs. Let them slide

on back of snakes through bracken, over stones

rush when the river breaks its banks, astride

slithering otters, infiltrate the city

through sewage pipes, in rat-drawn chariots,

let them pour down out of the dark as fire,

drag shrieking chalk across the blackboard sky,

germs that pass through all barriers with ease,

faster than fear, and fill the cemeteries!

We do not care, we have no crimes to hide!

SERVANT: They cannot touch the great god Nero!

NERO: That is a secret! Hush! The rattling tiles

announce their presence, and the floorboards dance!

ENTER FURIES. SERVANTS FAINT.

ALECTO: Sweet Agrippina!

TISIPHONE:                Are we in the world

or under it?

MEGAERA:   I saw you by the river,

clambering out of Charon’s boat, bewildered.

Still, you held out your spectral hand, expecting

someone to help you up the bank, great Lady.

But no one did, and you slipped sadly down

into the dead mud. But leapt up again,

laughing, because you understood right then,

it made no difference. And the cursing owls

in the bone trees, cried Whoop and clapped their wings.

ALECTO: And now we see you in the world again!

TISIPHONE: The world of weight.

MEGAERA:                  How can a shadow gain

weight?

ALECTO:  And rise up, the more it presses down?

TISIPHONE: Wonderfully acrobatic!

NERO:                            You were fooled!
Spirits of Vengeance, everything you see

is feverish and false! You breathe out clouds

that take the form of your obscure daydreams,

so you believe them! Agrippina breathes

the air of life! My shadow on the ground

follows me like a mongrel shaped like me,

what I break breaks, what I push over falls,

and people hear me when I speak to them!

I am alive! You ghouls have got it wrong,

since as you said yourselves, there is a change!

TISIPHONE: I saw you sitting by the Lethe stream,

whose waters if you drink them blank the mind –

the only ease for spirits dry with horrors.

You would not drink a sip, but stubbornly

sat shaping from the mud a heart you stained

with berries from the heavy mulberry

that stands there like an absence.

This heart you carried to a fire nearby,

in which a hero burns eternally,

and baked it hard. You took the hero’s blade

and cracked and split the heart, and cried aloud,

This was the heart of Nero, murderer

of his own mother! Then you shuffled slow

back to the bank, scooped up black mud again,

and made another heart. And so on and

so on. Some will not drink, but honestly,

the price for that is very high indeed.

MEGAERA: I saw you there! I spoke to you! I swore

that Nero shall not rest!

ALECTO:                      I did the same!

TISIPHONE: If you are Agrippina, where is he?

Where is your son? If you can show us him,

then you have proved us wrong and we will leave!

MEGAERA: Fetch us the emperor!  

NERO:                                    I will run and get him!

EXIT NERO. FURIES STARE BLANKLY. RE-ENTER NERO, MINUS WIG AND DRESS.

NERO: Kindly ones! You have come to visit me!

I am so honoured!

ALECTO:              Go and get your mother!

NERO: I will!

EXIT.

TISIPHONE: How much of this can we put up with?

MEGAERA:                                                    None.

ALECTO: Let him unravel. It will save us labour.

RE-ENTER NERO AS AGRIPPINA.

NERO: Did you see him?

TISIPHONE:                 Can we see you together?

NERO: Not at the moment –

ALECTO:                          We will come back later!

THEY LEAVE. NERO STANDS FOR A MOMENT, STUNNED, THEN BURSTS OUT LAUGHING.

NERO: Victory! Victory! A victory for – theatre!

ENTER SPORUS. 

SPORUS: Oh! Agrippina!

NERO: Oh my darling, they were here, I convinced them! Hahaha! They believed I was her! So I am innocent! She is still alive! Oh mother, mother, I love you, mother! ah

SPORUS: I love you too! Oh dear, sweet matron! Listen! I too have conquered!

NERO: Don’t compete with me, little man!

SPORUS: Oh how I long for my Nero!

NERO TAKES OFF THE WIG ETC.

SPORUS: Ah, it is he, it is he! Nero, listen, listen, in a little niche I hid, when Paul and Peter, Christ’s representatives, spoke together! How they hate each other! You and the senate are more in agreement than they are! I have asked them to supper with you tomorrow night. Is that alright? Oh my love, believe me, if you agree, it will not be the temple of Nero that is torn down, but the Church of Jesus Christ, forever! Think how the senate will give you thanks, and the priests of Jupiter! They will forgive you, and love you – and worship you as I do!

NERO: We have got to kill the Christians!

SPORUS: Every time one of them dies, Christ comes back to life! No, we need them alive, to fight each other to the death! We must licence them, send them out into the world, as spiritual gladiators!   

TWELVE. EMPEROR’S DINING ROOM. SERVANTS, FLAVIUS AND LUCIUS, SETTING THE TABLE.

FLAVIUS: No lobster there!

LUCIUS: No lobster?

FLAVIUS: And the wine has to be from grapes not grown near tilled soil.

LUCIUS: Why?

FLAVIUS: You can’t seethe a kid in its mother’s milk –

LUCIUS: How can you tell?

FLAVIUS: No pig –

LUCIUS: So what are they having?

FLAVIUS: Chicken casserole basically, with Spanish potatoes –

LUCIUS: Anyway I thought they were Christians –

FLAVIUS: Christians are Jews –

LUCIUS: Are they?

FLAVIUS: Yes like a parrot is a kind of bird, but so is a peacock.

LUCIUS: I see.

FLAVIUS: You’re a Roman and I’m a Roman, but we come from different sides of the river.

LUCIUS: Yes, the Roman side and the other side.

FLAVIUS: Your side –

LUCIUS: No, your side. Rome was originally founded on the north side –

FLAVIUS: According to you!

LUCIUS: According to everyone!

FLAVIUS: Everyone on your side of the ditch!

LUCIUS: I promise you –

FLAVIUS: Whatever!

LUCIUS: So the emperor is having lobster?

FLAVIUS: Yes and Sporus and the woman –

LUCIUS: And the others are both –

FLAVIUS: No. One of them’s strict. The other’ll eat anything –

LUCIUS: Help us, Mercury!

ENTER SPORUS.

SPORUS: Thanks, Lucius, perfect, good! Thanks Flavius!

LUCIUS: Thanks, empress!

EXEUNT SERVANTS.

SPORUS: Thanks empress! But remove the emperor,

blot him out with a little cup of poison,

and I am up against the beasts, stripped naked,

running and squealing. Weakest of all animals,

the clever human in the amphitheatre.

His body is my only dignity,

my freedom the arena of his face.

My weakness is his strength, which comes to much.

I am his only weakness. Oh what priest

ever dissolved into his acid god

as much as I have merged into this marriage,

which is the trembling wire above the lions,

on which I walk. The other side, my husband

beckons me over into immortality.

And the wind blows.

HE PRODUCES A SMALL PHIAL OF POISON.

                                 I drained the loving cup

that killed the consuls, into this. I keep it

in case he dies. I will not face the beasts

that make you ugly in a public place,

clumsy, in front of such an audience!

But we have got these Christians! Furies, come!

Witness the second death of Christ tonight,

which we have got for your delight!  

EXIT. ENTER CANDIDA, WITH GUARD, WHO SITS HER DOWN.

SPORUS: Hello, Candida.

CANDIDA: I have prayed for you, and for your Lord, my Lady!

SPORUS: And is there hope for me?

CANDIDA: Yes!!!

SPORUS: I don’t see it.

CANDIDA: Turn towards the light. Then you will.

SPORUS: Should I ask my Lord to worship your Lord?

CANDIDA: Yes.

SPORUS: Then for certain he would kill me.

CANDIDA: You and I together, in the arena.

SPORUS: No, you in the arena, with the crowds – me, come to think of it, more likely: a deaf-mute Nubian slave drags me into a wardrobe.

CANDIDA: Both deaths are the same to my Lord if they are for him.

SPORUS: Ah Candida, take care. You are on slippery ground. This very night I fear you will slip.

CANDIDA: Where can I possibly fall, other than into the arms of my Lord?

SPORUS: I mean I fear that tonight, as this very supper, you will lose sight of your Lord, you will see him disappear, and then you will fall into nothing!

CANDIDA: That I do not believe.

SPORUS: Ah Candida, my dear, take care.

EXIT SPORUS. ENTER PAUL WITH GUARD, WHO SITS HIM DOWN.

PAUL: Thanks! This seat? I’ll take it! Every seat is the seat of honour, when you have supper with the emperor! What’s on the menu? Fricasee of small kingdoms? No, he has those for breakfast! Baked Republic? No, that went off, I hear, they had to bin that. Well anyway, I will eat anything with anyone. Not like some! Serve me the crocodile god of Egypt, blanched – I won’t blanch. Or stir-fried sacred Ibis. I’ll gobble up all your gods, I, who, every time I meet with other Christians, wolf down the one living God, and guzzle his blood. Oh yes, Paul eats it all!

CANDIDA: Paul?

PAUL: Sister, I know your face –

CANDIDA: Candida – I am Candida –

PAUL: One of the Christians in Rome! Ah, Candida!

ENTER PETER, WITH GUARD, WHO SITS HIM DOWN OPPOSITE PAUL.

PAUL: Hail to thee, brother!

PETER: Hail to thee in hell.

PAUL: Can it be hell where Paul and Peter are? Where two or three are gathered together in Christ’s name, he is among them.

CANDIDA: Peter???

PETER: And if they are gathered in hell, he is there with them in hell.

PAUL: Then hell is heaven, and I am glad to dine there!

PETER: Hell is hell. Best to be aware.

CANDIDA: Paul and Peter!

SILENCE.

PAUL: Will you eat, Peter?

PETER: I will follow the Law.

PAUL: The Law of Love or the love of Law?

PETER: The Law that God wrote in my heart.

PAUL: I follow that!

PETER: No. Your heart is not mine.

PAUL: I wish it was!

CANDIDA SUDDENLY BREAKS FROM HER SEAT AND RUSHES TO KNEEL AT PETER’S FEET.

CANDIDA: Can it be possible? Peter! And Paul! Peter and Paul!

SHE RUSHES FROM ONE TO THE OTHER, THE GUARD TRYING TO CATCH HER AND GET HER BACK TO HER OWN SEAT.

CANDIDA: Oh sweet Jesus Christ almighty, dear friend, thanks, thanks!

PETER: Sister, what is your name?

CANDIDA: Candida!

PAUL: Candida, you are a moth. You have found your way to the lower light.

CANDIDA: They took you, and then Peter came! Then they took him too. Then all of us.

PETER: You are a prisoner.

CANDIDA: The others are all gone up. By lions, yesterday. Now I see why I was spared! Or do I? Sweet Jesus –

SHE LOOKS UPWARDS FOR EXPLANATION

PAUL: Ah Candida, sister –

PETER: See. As I said, we are in hell. Satan has asked us to supper. This is a trial! A trap! He may try to keep us here! To destroy our faith – turning one against the other! But for us, there is a way out – through the clear door of the Law!

CANDIDA: Amen!

PETER: We cannot move from where we have been seated, but let us reach out to each other in spirit and remember – He is here!

CANDIDA, PAUL: He is here!

PETER: And evil, when it sits down next to him, vanishes!

CANDIDA, PAUL: Amen! Amen!

PETER: In this, at least, we are one!

CANDIDA: In this and all things!

PAUL: Candida – you might detect some variation in the preaching of Peter and of Paul. Let me say this to you only: allow your own soul to decide where the truth lies –

CANDIDA: Yes, there is a difference -

PETER: Hush! Listen!

SILENCE. SUDDENLY PETER GASPS AND CHOKES AS IF NEARLY OVERWHELMED BY POISONOUS GAS.

PETER: There is something -  

CANDIDA CROSSES HERSELF.

CANDIDA: In Christ’s name!

PETER: Evil is approaching! Very fast from very far! But Christ sits with us here!

CANDIDA: He is there! He is sitting right there!

PAUL: Yes! I do see him! And them -

PETER: They are far worse than the beasts. This, the cruellest arena! We must join our hearts together!

THEY CONCENTRATE VERY HARD TOGETHER, PRAYING. SOUND OF FLUTE MUSIC, TAMBOURINES AND DRUMS.

GUARD: Up! Up! On your feet! Up!

THEY STAND UP. ENTER DANCERS AND MUSICIANS, FOLLOWED BY SPORUS.

SPORUS: Dearly beloved guests, that one is coming

who rules the world with love! Oh please applaud him,

open your hearts unto the light of – Nero!

ENTER NERO. THE CHRISTIANS QUIETLY CLAP.

NERO: Thankyou! Sit down, sit down. I am so happy

to have come here in ignorance, but hoping

to learn from you, as you may learn from me.

So let moon shine on moon, day break day open,

in mutual illumination blazing!

Food first! There should be something right for everyone -

PAUL: Thanks, emperor!

NERO:                       Paul?

PAUL:                                 That’s me, the little one!

NERO: So this is Peter –

PETER:                            May God bless you, emperor!

NERO: And –

CANDIDA CAN’T SPEAK.

GUARD:    Candida.

NERO:                      Yes. Our little friend and helper.

CANDIDA: Christ bless you, sir. And may Christ help me, sir,

to serve you in whatever serves him, sir!

NERO: Well we will let the slaves serve us our supper –

CANDIDA: Hahahaha!

SHE LAUGHS UNCONTROLLABLY UNTIL A SLAVE HALF-FORCES WINE DOWN HER.

NERO: Peter, will you say grace for us?

SILENCE.

PAUL: May I, emperor?

PETER: No, I will.

Christ bless this supper, not the feast of heaven.

May all who care to eat it be forgiven.

NERO: May all the gods be present, each of them

equally honoured and adored. The named,

and those unknown to us, whose secret shrines

are nonetheless divine! Their light still shines!

ALL EAT, EXCEPT PETER. AND CANDIDA, WHO IS UNCERTAIN.

PAUL: Excellent! To the health of the emperor!

HE RAISES HIS GLASS.

ALL (EXCEPT NERO): To the health of the emperor!

PAUL: Never has the empire been so at peace! Spain! Gaul! Israel, even! Great emperor, if I may be so bold, since I am here, and perhaps soon to die, I want to thank you for the justice that has brought me here! I was about to be lynched by a mob in Jerusalem! And look – here I am in Rome! And this could have happened anywhere from the Rhine to – Syria – and well, now, Britain even! On the one side, the mob. On the other, the empire! Amen, amen! Now, it is not an empire of Love, and to that extent it is a work in progress. And when the day of Love comes, will the empire stand? Because Love dissolves Law. And what is the empire without law? Anything? We will see! Love is the everlasting flower, but Love cannot thrive in the soil of Law. So, for Love to live, the Law must die. But then – where is the empire?

NERO: The empire lives by my love for this man.

HE KISSES SPORUS.

PAUL: Amen.

SILENCE. EATING. CANDIDA PICKS AT HER FOOD.

NERO: Peter is not eating.

PAUL: Once, Peter was sleeping on a roof, and had a vision. Angels let down from heaven a great sheet, and gathered up in it, all of the animals Jews must not eat – lobsters, pigs, camels. And the Spirit said to Peter – Take, Peter, and eat. And Peter answered, How can I, Lord, how can you tell me to break your own law? And the voice replied as follows: Call nothing I have made unclean! So Peter ate, in the vision. And when he woke up he went to the house of a Roman centurion who is a Christian, and he sat down and broke bread with him! Ate what he was given. Then for awhile he preached to the non-Jews, the Greeks and the Romans and so on, but then James, the brother of Jesus, head of our Church in Jerusalem, sent a furious command, and Peter back-tracked, scrapped the vision, went back to not preaching to or dining with non-Jews, even Christians –

NERO: I see -

PAUL: Paul eats! Paul eats! This is the law of Love!

Eat, Candida, the old Law died with Christ!

NERO: Did he say so?

PETER:               He said the opposite!

PAUL: Preaching to pagans, Peter?

PETER:                                     No! To you!

NERO: This is so strange – is Christ one god or two?

TO CANDIDA:

And will you die for Peter’s Christ or Paul’s?

CANDIDA: My God is three in one and one in three!

NERO: And they all seem to broadly disagree –

SPORUS: Like Jupiter and Juno!

PAUL:                        So it seems,

great ones, when you are in a trap of dreams,

wandering down the echo-corridors

of the mould-ceilinged labyrinth of laws!

But love is not like that! Love builds no walls,

either of stony Peter’s or of Paul’s –

it is a bridge, a road, a kiss, a feast,

open to all, without restraint, not least

the loveless! Let the gods now take their place

within Christ’s heart, a house with ample space

for all their temples, and a single face,

of Love and Justice, Truth and Peace and Grace!

SPORUS: We will not fit!

NERO: So you love everyone, Greeks, Jews, Romans, Africans – and yet you wish to destroy the empire –

PAUL: No, no –

NERO: You preach the end of the world!

PAUL: And the beginning of a new one!

NERO: You set fire to Rome!

PAUL: No we did not, emperor, I swear!

NERO: Who did then? Me??

PAUL: Haha! Maybe it was the Zoroastrians. They worship fire!

NERO: Paul, you are slippery! Listen! The emperor Augustus has been declared divine. As your civic duty, you are called upon to make sacrifices to him – will you?

PAUL: Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. Render unto God that which is God’s.

NERO: And if Caesar is a god???

PAUL: He has no need to be!

NERO: Is the empire God’s will?

PAUL: Yes! For certain!

NERO: It is the will of the emperor! Then the emperor is God!

PAUL: It is my will too. I wish it to thrive. But I am not God at all, I am just Paul –

NERO: There is no difference, Paul, between Augustus and you?

PAUL: There is all the difference in the world! Yet God loves us both equally! And you too!

NERO: I do not think your God loves me!!!

PAUL: He does! Believe me!

NERO: Then he is an idiot, because I hate him!!!

PAUL: Why?

NERO: Because he cannot help me!

PAUL: He can!

NERO: No, no, no –

PAUL: Emperor, what is your trouble? Tell me!

SPORUS: (TO GUARD) Strike the man!

GUARD STRIKES PAUL.

NERO: Trouble? What is my trouble? When they dragged your God out and nailed him to a cross, when he hung there, like they do, going nowhere, his trouble was nothing compared to mine!

PAUL: Emperor!

GUARD STRIKES HIM.

NERO: Nothing!!!! Nothing!!!!

SILENCE.

NERO: What is that sound? Be quiet!

SPORUS: Who do you hear?

NERO:                     The walls are trembling, Sporus!

PETER: Leave us in peace, you demons! Quit this palace!

SILENCE.

PAUL: They are silent!

NERO: Yes, they are bursting with laughter!

PAUL: Christ!

NERO: It is because of Christ that they are here!

SPORUS: Furies! Kindly Ones! Come! Good! It is good! I called them!

NERO: Again the ceiling shook –

SPORUS: Good, good! Proceed! They are watching! Now, now, Nero!

NERO MAKES CANDIDA STAND UP

NERO: You have to choose between your teachers, woman!

Choose between Paul and Peter! One must die,

the other live, to preach his gospel version.

Which will it be? If you refuse this duty,

then both will die, and you the worm that killed them!

PETER: It is a trick, Candida!

GUARD HITS PETER.

PETER: Choose Paul, to live! Choose Paul!

PAUL:                             Choose Peter! Peter!

PETER: Choose neither, then we all go up together!

NERO: Then Christ is dead, his word unpreached by Peter

or Paul – the rest are dust!

CANDIDA TURNS HELPLESSLY FROM PETER TO PAUL AND BACK.

SPORUS: Whichever you choose to live, his truth will shape the Church of Christ! This is in your hands, Candida! The Church, as it will be forever! Which of them is true? Which? Which? Love or the Law? Love, or the Law?!

SILENCE.

CANDIDA: What do I know? Oh Christ, speak through me!

SPORUS: Speak, or both die!

CANDIDA:                           Amen! I will choose neither!

NERO: Jupiter! Sporus! Help me, they are here!

Not them – but her!

ENTER AGRIPPINA, IN A SHROUD, VEILED – DRIPPING WET AS WHEN SHE DIED. SPORUS AND CANDIDA FAINT. AGRIPPINA LIFTS HER VEIL AND GROPES AROUND, AS IF HER EYESIGHT WAS COMING BACK INTO FOCUS.

AGRIPPINA:

Is it the world? Then where is Nero,

my hero?

My child! Oh help me, cold,

and more than old.

Dead, I am dead,

just as you wished,

out of the Med

wickedly fished.

Oh help me, Nero!

Look, I am less than zero!

Oh kiss me hot,

as when we did

things that are forbid.

Love, leave me not!

Oh touch me, child,

drive my dead heart wild!

Oh give me your heat,

my dove, my sweet,

Oh I am

your ewe, you my ram.

Soaked by the sea,

oh pity me,

drag me to land

with your strong hand.

But not for death.

With your hot breath

wrap me up tight

in the long night –

NERO: I did not kill her, Paul! Look, look – she drowned!

AGRIPPINA EXPOSES HER BREAST TO SHOW A STAB WOUND.

AGRIPPINA: No, no, my heart was split!

Look at it! Look at it!

NERO: Yes I did kill her! But I am divine!

I call the gods into this court! Dear friends,

comrades and peers! Augustus! Speak for me,

quash these weak human charges finally,

that cannot touch me! I fear you shrill Furies

as the shark fears the wolf – you cannot reach me!

Jupiter, you are Justice – clear my name!

Juno, stand by him, as my love by me!

HE SEES THAT SPORUS HAS FAINTED, BUT CARRIES ON REGARDLESS.

Apollo! Venus! Mars! Quick Mercury!

And Hades underground! Resound, all things!

Thunder above and shake below, to say

Nero did this, but Nero need not pay!

SILENCE.

NERO: Nero did this, and Nero need not pay!

SILENCE.

NERO: Nero did this, and Nero will not pay!

SILENCE.

PAUL: Poor emperor, I can see your trouble now!

ENTER THE FURIES, ADDRESSING PETER AND PAUL AS IN A COURT.

TISIPHONE: The accused claims he did not kill his mother!

MEGAERA: He showed us her alive!

ALECTO:                         He tried! He tried!

TISIPHONE: It was himself!

MEGAERA:                      The world is just himself!

ALECTO: But still we needed proof –

TISIPHONE:                          We needed proof –

MEGAERA: A witness of her death –

ALECTO:                          To prove she died!

TISIPHONE: And was not simply sleeping on a shelf –

MEGAERA: Or imitating pigeons on a roof –

ALECTO: Or in some such unlikely hiding place

TISIPHONE: Obscured the daily sunshine of her face!

ALECTO: Proof we required!

TISIPHONE:                      To cut through subtleties

of intricate defence!

MEGAERA:       And here it is!

ALECTO: You will not shake us off. From shore to shore

even in death we will keep after you.

The dead still suffer. No, they suffer more.

Flesh is an anaesthetic. It is true.

Breath is the opium of the spirit.

NERO: No! No! No!

PETER: I call Christ into this court, to plead for Nero!

NERO: No! No! No!

PAUL: He is the reason why divinity

no longer shields you! He is earth and sky,

world, underworld, gold sunrise on the sea –

NERO: No! No!

PETER: Turn to him! Watch these demons disappear!

PAUL: Try him! Just test him! Then be done with fear!

NERO: No – no -

PETER: I turn to Christ!

NERO: I – turn –

PAUL: To Christ!

NERO: To Christ. I turn to Christ! Christ, the gods have failed me, fight for me! Save me, Jesus Christ! Drive them away! Away!

EXEUNT FURIES AND AGRIPPINA. SILENCE.

NERO: What? Where - ? Wh –

PAUL, PETER: Halleluiah! Halleluiah!

CANDIDA AND SPORUS WAKE UP.

PETER: Your enemies are wounded! Now you must be baptized! Then they will be dead!

PAUL: Press on with the fight!

NERO: Baptized?

PETER: In water and the word!

NERO: The fountain - in the courtyard –

PAUL: Come, sister, quick! A miracle! The emperor!

EXEUNT NERO, PAUL, PETER, CANDIDA.

SPORUS: Love, they have taken you away from me! And when you command the whole senate to convert, the legions – how long before they stick the knife in? I will not let this happen! Venus, ingenious goddess, help me! And Athene, you whose home is the brink of disaster!

THIRTEEN. THE COURTYARD. NERO, PETER, PAUL, CANDIDA. THE CHRISTIANS ARE SINGING AND NERO IS TRYING TO JOIN IN WITH THEM, AS THEY LEAD HIM IN CEREMONIOUS FASHION TOWARDS THE FOUNTAIN.

SONG:

Ye holy angels bright

Who wait at God’s right hand

Or through the realms of light

Fly at the Lord’s command,

Assist our song,

Or else the theme

Too high doth seem

For mortal tongue!

PAUL: Nero, you ought to prize mortality!

Think about this: the gods cannot be saved!

They cannot be baptized, as you can be!

They cannot die, and so they cannot rise.

But you can die before your body dies,

and be reborn through water, so that then,

when in the course of time your dead bones burn,

no actual death will touch you. So you see,

mortality is immortality!

NERO: No, stop! I must not leave my love behind!

When I am changed, he has to change with me!

PETER: Run through the gates alone, and then turn round

and call his name – he will not linger long!

But if you turn back now, or wait for him,

then you and he will both be trapped outside,

when this great moment closes! Call to him

with a new voice, once you have been transformed,

and he will not refuse you! How could he?

NERO: Very well then! The water! Push me down,

and the next breath I breathe, of Christ’s new sky,

will be my first!

PAUL: In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I baptize thee Nero Germanicus Caesar –

NERO IS PUSHED UNDERWATER. SOUND OF SISTRUM. ENTER SPORUS AS A GODDESS, WITH ATTENDANTS PLAYING INSTRUMENTS. NERO COMES BACK UP.

ATTENDANT: Attend!

ATTENDANTS: Attend!

ATTENDANT: Hush! Hear the voice of a new god, Sporus!

SPORUS: Quorus the brave has reached Armenia!

Swans gave him swiftness when he turned to them,

angels of Sporus, consort of the god

Nero! Oh hear, you slow-foot waterbirds,

who build your roofless houses in the reeds,

and glide along still ditches. You who climb,

with creaking windmill wings the breaking sky,

and whistle as you push your cloud-breasts through

the scraps of blue – you are forever sacred,

because you carried to Armenia

my messenger. And you, world-eating swallow,

who fetched the bright news back in half an instant,

who twittered in my window how in heaven

our wedding was declared, you too are sacred

to Sporus. Now the swallow and the swan

shall be the earthly signs of this divine

marriage!

ATTENDANTS LOUDLY CLANG CYMBALS AND BLOW FLUTES ETC.

ATTENDANT: Oh take your place beside her, Nero,

and rule this mortal world with godly power!

PAUL: In the name of the Father, the Son, the –

SPORUS: Silence! Malicious spirit, sick with bile!

Since you were not invited to the wedding,

you have cast spells against our happiness,

and sworn to make our reign a barren season,

to rip the very womb out of the world,

and cut the stumbling ploughman into clods

with his own share! To boil the brains of mothers

so that they stab their husbands dead with daggers

made from the sharpened bones of their own children!

Why is your hatred for our love so strong???

It is a fire that, having burned the world,

will simply hunger for another one!

PETER: In the name of the Father and the Son and the –

SPORUS: Hush, mortals, you are dead, you have lost!

(TO NERO) Oh take your place, my ever-shining one!

The space beside me on our double throne

aches empty, and the gods, our guests, stand round,

sweetly impatient for the celebrations!

Come Nero, god, our marriage is a sky

from which the sun and rain of peace flow down.

Otherwise drought and night and nought.

NERO SEEMS STUNNED, GAZING AT SPORUS.

PETER: He is a Christian!

SPORUS: These men have been sentenced to death by the court. Take them! And the woman – ah, Candida, this is what you wished for! You did not slip, after all! But you must fall!

CANDIDA: God save you, my great Lady!

GUARDS SEIZE HOLD OF PETER, PAUL AND CANDIDA.

PAUL: Emperor!

NERO IS STILL UNABLE TO RESPOND, GAZING AT SPORUS. THE GUARDS HESITATE.

CANDIDA: We are blest after all! We are martyrs!

PETER: This was an evil sweet delusion!

PAUL: But you fought well, Candida!

PETER: You have more than earned the crown! The devil tempted you to choose between us! But you would not!

CANDIDA: But I fear for the Church! A broken and mournful girl, with no teachers! She will wander!

PAUL: We will guide her from heaven!

SPORUS STRIKES ONE OF THE GUARDS.

SPORUS: What are you, a Christian?

THE GUARDS DRAG OFF THE CHRISTIANS.

SPORUS: And now forever shall Armenia

be called the sky and brightness of the world!

For there it is that on their deathless throne

Nero and Sporus are the sun and moon!

ENTER GUARD WITH MESSAGE. HE HANDS IT TO NERO, WHO IS STILL TOO ENTRANCED TO READ. HE HANDS IT TO SPORUS.

SPORUS: This is very strange –

NERO: Nothing is strange.

SPORUS: But this is strange –

NERO: Show me!

HE READS, CRIES OUT, DROPS THE LETTER.

NERO: They give me one hour –

SPORUS: Oh great Nero!  

NERO: Then they will come for me. Why was there no warning? All of the legions of Gaul and of Spain –

SPORUS: Oh Nero!

NERO SINGS.

NERO:

Sweet shadow of

My earthly love,

Oh follow, follow me,

Up to the place

Where your dear face

I may turn round and see –

SPORUS:

What, follow you,

Can this be true,

Up to the world so good,

Out of the deep

And evil sleep

Of this bad neighbourhood?

NERO:

Yes follow me,

Euridyce.

SPORUS:

No need to fuss,

My Orpheus –

NERO: Ah, what a waste of a great voice!

HE TAKES A DAGGER FROM A GUARD AND STABS HIMSELF IN THE THROAT, DIES.

SPORUS: Oh, Venus, just me, just me! A minus! Well they said the womb was a slippery slope! I staked - my actual - manhood – on this! And still failed to find a place! There is no place! For any of us! It’s all a mistake! I haven’t got the stomach to cut myself up – but I have got this – I scraped out of the loving cup!

HE TAKES POISON AND DIES. END.