Two Voltairean Plays: The Triumvirate and Comedy at Ferney. Voltaire

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      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

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