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

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      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

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