Читать книгу Queen Cleopatra - Talbot Mundy - Страница 15

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The living are afraid of death. I should not be surprised to know the dead are equally afraid of living—but with far more reason.

—Fragment from The Diary Of Olympus.

Darkness before moonrise. On the beach: Pelusium.

A voice. Stand! I have a javelin. Who are you?

Another voice. I am no man's enemy in these days—too old to be dangerous and too poor to be worth a robber's trouble. I am Marius Rufus. Who are you?

First voice. Philip, a freedman. Draw near. Let me look at you.

Marius Rufus. A freedman? Whose then?

Philip. A great Roman's. If you are as honorable as your name sounds, then attend his obsequies. Oh, woe! Oh, woe and wailing for the greatest Roman! Woe! Oh, misery! Oh, shame! Oh, foul fate! Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus—

Marius Rufus. He? You are demented!

Philip. Would I were! Oh, would it were my head they took! See you—naked—headless! That is my shirt he is wrapped in.

Marius Rufus. He shall have mine too, whoever he is. But Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus—naked—headless on a seashore? Who is likely to believe that? How comes he dead—and you, his freedman as you say you are, still living?

Philip. Woe! Woe! Would that I had died in place of him! Oh, would that he had listened to his wife Cornelia: 'Go not! Go not ashore!' she warned him. Would that he had listened to us, who begged him to stay in our midst, as he left the boat! But he would come last, proud to the end, although he foresaw treachery. They stabbed him—hacked his head off—stripped him—threw his body in the sea—oh, woe! woe!

Marius Rufus. Woe indeed, if you speak truth! If this is Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus then I have better right than you to grieve, for I was free born, and I marched with his standard in Spain, and in Hellas—aye, and against Lepidus. But what were you and your companions doing?

Philip. Them they slew. I broke away. I dashed into the sea; for I had seen my patron's headless body thrown in, and I had no other thought left than to die with him—to drown with him. The gods preserved me to perform his obsequies. I swam a long time, looking for the body. And at last I saw a crowd of idlers staring; and I saw the body rolling in the surf. So I put seaweed on my hair and shoulders and I came forth. The fools ran! They thought me Neptune!

Marius Rufus. Eh? The Sea-god coming to do honor to the Scourge of Pirates? That was good, that was! Poor fellow, you are wet still—and a chill wind. I begin to believe your tale. Let me see that body. I believe I would know my old general, even headless. He was wounded in Spain—let me remember now—where was it?—on the right breast, half-a-hand's breadth from the arm-pit. Ecce! Ecce! You have not lied, Philip! That is he! Oh, woe and lamentation! Foul fate! Imperator—conqueror—dictator—headless on a vile beach!

Philip. Quiet! Let us pay him the last honor in such silence as he loved. See—I have found the book that he was calmly reading as they rowed us between ship and shore. Such dignity! Such otherworldliness! A Roman—a true Roman! Oh, what foul fate for the greatest of all Romans!

Marius Rufus. You were right, friend. Let us make no clamor, or they might prevent the honor we would do him. Where is the head?

Philip. I know not. I have hunted for it high and low. His murderers may have taken it to sport with or to spike above a fort gate.

Marius Rufus. Likelier to sell. And who should pay a price for it but Caesar? May our fathers' gods repay that Caesar as he merits! Infamous impostor! Demagogue! Perverter of our olden customs!

Philip. May the Fates mete justice! You are old, friend Rufus. Have you strength to carry driftwood?

Marius Rufus. Aye, some little strength yet. You have washed the body? Wait then while I add my shirt to yours. I am a soldier. Let your shirt be for decency, and mine for honor—for his imperator's cloak—the worthier to act that part because I have no other. So—now, let us hasten. When we have brought wood will you know where to find a torch?

Philip. Aye. Let us build the pyre here, by the sea's edge.

Marius Rufus. Vale, Imperator! Marius Rufus gives thanks that with shreds of strength left over from the service of the Rome we both love, he has lived to do this last deed, to the end that your great spirit may go forth in peace, and find rest. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus—vale, Imperator!

Philip. Vale, Imperator!