Читать книгу Two Voltairean Plays: The Triumvirate and Comedy at Ferney - Voltaire - Страница 7

ACT I

The action takes place on an island in the River Reno, near modern Bologna.

The Triumvirs are carrying out proscriptions and dividing the world. It is dark. Lightning flashes and the sound of thunder. There are rocks, precipices and tents in the distance.

FULVIA

What a frightful night. How celestial wrath

Explodes with justice over this funereal isle.

ALBINA

These sudden quakes, these overturned rocks,

These infernal volcanoes hurling to the heaven,

This river erected, rolling its waves over us,

Have made humans fear the end of the world.

Thunder has devoured this detestable bronze,

These tables of vengeance where fatal engravings,

Shock our eyes with a list of crimes,

With the order for carnage and the names of victims—

You see, indeed, that our proscriptions

Are the horror of heaven as well as Nature.

FULVIA

Let this wild thunder fall on our tyrants,

Which, vainly striking an abhorred earth,

Has destroyed in the hands of our cruel master

The instruments of crime and not the criminals!

I would have seen this isle annihilated,

With the unworthy affronts with which they load Fulvia.

What are our three tyrants doing in this horrid disorder?

What remorse, at least, have they drawn to themselves?

ALBINA

In this island trembling at lightning bursts

Calmly in their tent as they are sharing the world

Of Senate and people they rule the fate

And into bloody Rome they are sending death.

FULVIA

Anthony is giving it to me, o day of ignominy,

He’s leaving me, kicking me out, marrying Octavia.

In an odious divorce, I await the infamous writing

I am repudiated; it’s me they are proscribing.

ALBINA

He braves you to this degree?

He’s doing you this injury?

FULVIA

Is the murderer of Romans perjuring himself?

I have served him too well—

All barbarians are ingrates

He pretends toward me the consideration of state

But this great consideration is only that of a traitor

That clever Octavian is deceiving him with, perhaps.

ALBINA

Octavian loves you—is it probable that today

Your misfortunes are coming from him?

FULVIA

Who can know Octavian? And how different his character

In every respect from the great heart of his father.

I’ve seen, in the error of his distraction

Pass even Anthony in his passionate outbursts.

I have seen pleasures in search of mad intoxication

I have seen Catos pretend wisdom

After having offered me a criminal love

This Proteus has escaped my chain without return.

Sometimes willful, sometimes bloodthirsty,

Adoring Julia, he proscribes her father;

He hates, he fears Anthony, and is giving him his sister.

Anthony is wild, but Octavian is deceitful.

These are the heroes who rule the earth,

Playing with peace and war,

From whose voluptuous breasts that enchain us

To what masters, great god, do you deliver the universe?

Albina, lions emerging from carnage, Roaring, follow their savage mates.

Tigers make love with ferocity:

Such are the Triumvirs. Embloodied Anthony,

Prepares the detestable marriage feast.

Octavia, has of Julia undertaken the conquest;

And on their day of blood, of sadness, of horror

Love on all sides is mixed with furor:

Julia abhors Octavian, she is only

Concerned with giving her heart to the son of great Pompey.

If Pompey is written in the fatal book

Octavian, by sacrificing him, strikes in him his rival.

These are the springs of destiny, of empire.

These great secrets of state that ignorance admires

From afar they astonish vulgar wits

Close up, they inspire horror and scorn.

ALBINA

What baseness, O heaven, and what tyranny!

What! The masters of the world are ignoramuses!

I pity you. I thought that today Lepidus

Would support you against those two impostors,

Unite Anthony and yourself with Lepidus.

FULVIA

He hardly counts in their homicidal gang.

Scorned pontiff, subaltern tyrant

They have much abused his weak genius,

Odious instrument of their vile caprices

This vile scoundrel submits to his accomplices.

He signs their orders without being consulted

And still thinks he’s acting with authority.

But if some delights still remain to me in my troubles,

It’s that my tyrants secretly detest each other.

This marriage with Octavia, and her weak attractions

Will prolong the breach—not prevent it.

They know each other too well, they do each other justice

One day I will see them prepare their sacrifice.

Light Discord with the greatest fury

So that their false friendship exposes here its horror.

(Aufidius enters)

FULVIA

Aufidius, what’s going on? What is my fate?

To what abasement am I finally condemned?

AUFIDIUS

The divorce is signed with that self-same hand

That poured out long waves of Roman blood.

And soon your tyrants will come to this tent

To share the bloody pillage of the proscribed.

FULVIA

Can I count on you?

AUFIDIUS

Born in your house

If I am serving under Antonius and in his legion

I am still yours alone. In the past my sword

Served Great Pompey in the fields of Thessaly

I blush to be here the slave of passions

Of the conquerors of Pompey and your oppressors—

But what is your decision?

FULVIA

To avenge myself.

AUFIDIUS

No question,

You must, Fulvia.

FULVIA

No matter what it costs me

There is nothing that I fear and in our factions

They count Fulvia in the rank of the greatest number

In my disgrace, Aufidius, I have only one resource:

The party of Pompey is the one I embrace.

And Lucius Caesar has secret friends

Who will know how to join my cause to his interests.

He is, you know, Julia’s father;

He’s been proscribed; all reconciles me to him.

Is Julia in Rome?

AUFIDIUS

No one is able to find her there.

The rumor ran

All powerful Octavian would have carried her off.

FULVIA

Rape and murder

These are his exploits! These are our laws, Aufidius.

But Pompey’s son—is he safe?

What have you learned about it?

AUFIDIUS

His arrest is projected.

And infamous avarice to power subjected

Must cut off such a fine life at the price of gold

Such are the vile Romans.

FULVIA

What! All hope is fleeing from me!

No, I still defy the fate that pursues me;

The tumults of army camps have been my asylum.

My genius was born for our civil wars,

For this terrible century into which I was born.

I intend—but I notice in this bloody abode

The lictors of tyrants—their cowardly satellites

Who occupy the limits of their barbarous camp.

You, whose funereal job keeps you here near them,

Stay—listen to their dark conspiracies

You will warn me and will come to inform me what I must suffer and what must be attempted.

(she leaves with Albina)

AUFIDIUS

Me, Anthony’s soldier! To what am I reduced!

For thirty years of labor what execrable fruit.

(As he speaks, the tent of Octavian where Octavian and Anthony are going to speak is brought forward. The lictors surround it, making a half circle. Aufidius places himself at the side of the tent. Octavian and Anthony stand in the tent with a table between them)

ANTHONY

Octavian, it’s done, and I repudiate her—

I retie our bonds by marrying Octavia;

But, it’s not enough to extinguish those fires,

That jealous interest ignites between the two of us.

Two leaders, always united, are a rare example.

To counsel them they have to be separated.

Twenty times your Agrippa, your confidants, mine,

For as long as we have reigned, have broken our bonds

One companion the more, or at least who will grow to be one

Affecting to appear on the throne with us—

Lepidus, is a phantom, easy to remove,who himself returns to his obscurity.

Let him remain pontiff and preside at festivals

That trembling Rome dedicates to our conquests:

The earth is ours alone, and our legions—

The time has come to fix the fate of nations

Let’s especially regulate one—and when all second us

Let’s stop squabbling over sharing the world.

(They sit at the table where they are to sign)

OCTAVIAN

For a long while my plans have foreseen your wishes

I wanted the empire to belong to the two of us

Think that I intend Gaul, Illyria,

Spain, Africa, and especially Italy

The Orient is yours—

ANTHONY

Such is my will.

Such is the fate of the world arrested between us.

I am not hiding from myself what your advantage is.

Rome is going to serve you. You will have under your rule

The conquerors of the earth; I will have only kings

I willingly give it up to you. I demand in exchange

that your authority, seconding my power

Exterminate forever the remaining outcasts

Of the party of Pompey, and of the traitor Brutus;

Let none of them escape the laws we have set up.

OCTAVIAN

Perhaps they are cemented with enough blood.

ANTHONY

What! You hesitate. I no longer know you.

What can thus trouble your irresolute desire?

OCTAVIAN

Heaven itself has destroyed these cruel lists

ANTHONY

Heavenseconds us by permitting new ones.

Are you afraid of an omen?

OCTAVIAN

And aren’t you fearful

Of revolting the earth because of murders?

We want to chain up Roman liberty

We want to govern, not excite more hate.

ANTHONY

Do you call justice inhumanity?

Octavian, a Triumvir adopted by Caesar

If I avenge a friend, do you fear to avenge a father?

You would forget his blood to flatter the vulgar.

To whom would you pretend to grant a pardon

When you had me sacrifice Cicero?

OCTAVIAN

Rome wept at his death.

ANTHONY

It wept in silence.

Cassius and Brutus, reduced to impotence

Might perhaps inspire other nations

With an eternal horror of our proscription.

It lets them depict terrible images

And against our two names revolt the ages.

Assassins of their master and their benefactor,

It’s their unworthy names that ought to be in horror.

These are the ingrate hearts it’s time to punish.

They alone are criminals, and we are doing justice.

Those who served them, who approved them

Will have some punishment reserved to them.

Twenty thousand warriors perished in our battles

Their funerals are seen with a dry, calm eye

On their extended bodies, victims of death

We fly, without paling, to new battles

And through the treason of a hundred wretched accomplices

We will make too many costly sacrifices to Caesar.

OCTAVIAN

In Rome, on this very day they are still avenging his death.

But know what costs my heart an effort:

Too much horror in the end can stain his vengeance.

I would be more his son if I had his clemency.

ANTHONY

Clemency today can ruin us both.

OCTAVIAN

An excess of cruelty will be more dangerous.

ANTHONY

Do you distrust the people?

OCTAVIAN

They have to be managed

They must be made to love the bridle of slavery

With an indifferent eye they observe the death of the great

But when they fear for themselves, bad luck to tyrants.

ANTHONY

I hear, at my peril, you seek to please them.

You want to become a popular tyrant.

OCTAVIAN

You are always imparting to me some secret plans.

To sacrifice Pompey—will that please Romans?

Today my orders overthrow their idol.

While I am talking to you, they beat him, they strike him

What more do you want?

ANTHONY

You are not abusing me.

It costs you little to order his death.

To our true interests his death would be necessary.

But you wish to be rid of a secret rival

He adored Julia and you were jealous

Your outraged love leads all your blows

Fulfill the agreement of all our undertakings.

OCTAVIAN

Stop.

ANTHONY

Is the guilty man sacred to us?

I want him dead.

OCTAVIAN (rising)

Him? The father of Julia?

ANTHONY

Yes, himself.

OCTAVIAN

Listen—our interest links us.

Marriage binds the knot; but if you persist

In demanding blood to persecute

From this day I am breaking all alliances between us.

ANTHONY

Octavian, I’m too well aware that our intelligence

Will produce discord and deceive our wishes

Let’s not rush to such dangerous times.

Do you intend to offend me?

OCTAVIAN

No—but I am a master

Who would spare a proscribed who should not be proscribed.

ANTHONY

But you yourself, with me, condemned him.

Of all our enemies, he’s the most obstinate.

What difference if his daughter was for a moment dear to you?

To our security I owe the father’s blood

The inconstant pleasures of a fleeting love

To our great interests are nothing except foreign

Until now, you’ve shown little tenderness

And I wasn’t expecting this excess of weakness.

OCTAVIAN

Of weakness! It’s you who dare to blame me?

Today it’s Anthony who forbids me to love?

ANTHONY

Both of us have mixed festivities

And pleasures with the fury of arms.

Caesar did it, too. But through sensuality

The course of his exploits was not hindered.

I saw him in Egypt, amorous and cruel

Adoring Cleopatra, and sacrificing her brother.

OCTAVIAN

That was to serve her, I can see you one day,

More blind than he, weaker in your turn.

I know you well enough, whatever may happen

I’ve scratched out Lucius, and I insist that he live.

ANTHONY

I will consent to it when seeing you sign

The executions of those proscribed not to be spared.

OCTAVIAN

I’ve already said, I’m weary of carnage

To which Caesar’s death forced my courage.

But since of necessity nothing be done by half

That the safety of Rome be affirmed,

I must consummate the horror that brings us together.

(he sits and signs)

Go, Tribune, bear these unhappy edicts.

(to Anthony who sits and signs)

And as for us, may we be forever joined!

ANTHONY

Yes. Aufidius, tomorrow you will escort Fulvia

Her retreat is limited to the country of Apulia

Let me no longer hear her seditious screams.

OCTAVIAN

Let’s hear this Tribune who’s returning to these parts.

He’s coming from Rome and can inform us

With what respect the Senate has completed our laws.

ANTHONY (to Tribune)

Have they accomplished the Triumvirs’ plans?

Does blood assure the repose of humanity?

TRIBUNE

Rome trembles and holds its peace amidst executions

What remains for us is to strike some secret conspirators

Some vile enemies of Anthony’s and Caesar’s,

Remain from the conspirators of the Ides of March,

Who in their last raids conceal their obscure hate

Are going in secret to the people to excite murmurs.

Paulus, Albin, Cotter, the greatest have fallen;

From the proscription few have escaped.

OCTAVIAN

Have they affirmed the conquest of the universe?

And brought the head of the son of Pompey?

For the good of the state, I had to demand it.

TRIBUNE

The gods didn’t wish, lords, to grant it to you.

This bold youth, very dear to the Romans,

Appears to their eyes with the virtues of his father,

And when through my efforts, the heads of the proscribed

To the walls of the capitol the rewards are affixed,

Pompey to their safety set forth rewards,

He had by his benefits combated your vengeance.

But when your legions, marching on our heels,

Then, fleeing from Rome, and seeking battle

He advanced to Ceseria, and near the Pyrenees

Joined his destiny to that of Cato’s son.

While in the Orient, Cassius and Brutus

Conspirators very famous for their false virtues

To their weak party gave a bit of audacity,

They dared to defy you in the fields of Thrace.

ANTHONY

Pompey has escaped!

OCTAVIAN

Don’t be alarmed!

No matter what place he may be in, death is on his heels;

If my father owed his triumph in Pharsalia

I expect against the son an equal fortune

And the name of Caesar by which I am honored

Has made his ruin a sacred duty to my arm.

ANTHONY

Let’s prepare this great enterprise suddenly

But let our interests never divide us.

The blood of great Caesar is already joined to mine

Your sister is my wife; and this double bond

Must affirm the yoke by which our victorious hands

Will hold trembling nations at our knees.

(Anthony and his party leave)

OCTAVIAN (alone—the Tribune at a distance)

What will all these knots do? We are two tyrants!

Powers of the earth—do you have relatives?

Julia was born in the blood of Caesars—

And far from seeking my useful alliance

She looks on this sad union

Only as one of the decrees of proscription.

(To Tribune)

Come back!— What, Pompey has escaped my vengeance?

What—Julia is in communication with him?

Is she unaware in what parts she has come?

TRIBUNE

Her father is aware, and doesn’t doubt

Himself to prepare the flight of his daughter.

OCTAVIAN

What is my overly seduced reason being informed of?

What! When it’s necessary to govern the consternated universe

Surrounded by enemies, environed by murder

Stained by the blood of the proscribed I sacrifice to my father

Detested by Romans, perhaps, by a brother-in-law,

In the midst of war, in the breast of factions

To other passions my heart is open.

What unheard of mixture, what astonishing intoxication

With love, ambition, crimes, weakness!

What devouring cares are coming to consume me!

Destroyer of humans, is it suitable for you to love?

C U R T A I N