Burrus defends himself by appealing to the homophobia and misogyny of his condemners

—————

I think no man has prospered since his wedding

But by her lineage and dowry.

Yet foremost in a lady’s mind,

Her present suffering: It follows then

The requisition of condolement

Falls on us constant -

Therefore women are no more to empire

Than little rural people come from their villages

To demand restitution - it being

Our duty always to console them,

Yet never their’s to fight. It is certain

An eagerness pervades the gender,

Yet even still, it is a greater sickness

Which makes a man immune to women

And robs him of the instinct, where any man

Of great will and internal needing

Who makes those assays and forfeitures

Which Seneca before me well described

May rise up and be powerful.

By all measures, I have made them, and

If ever there be cause, I will again. Aye,

If I do lust, ’tis for advantages.

As for the doll: It does disturb us all.

Nero, to keep Burrus from leaving, recounts a traumatic experience that stole his identity

—————

Burrus -

(Burrus slows)

I have been collected.

(Turns)

Through the garden I took a walk one day

To pass a melancholy -

When in the very hollow beneath my breast,

A little void I tried to know

(But it had always shied from me),

Began to morph and increase, making

It onerous to breathe. Vainly for mine ease

I made then for a sunlit clearing,

Wherein a thousand times I had quieted.

Midway along a bypath

I peeped into the lightest wood; overcome

By a profound sense: Around my eyeballs,

There was this pressure -

Infinite brief and most instinctual thoughts

Originated in my temples.

Little as I could bear it,

Something near my heart I felt untether -

I fell on my knees, then to a seat,

I laid on my back, I could not breathe!

Laying then beside a thicket, I thought

A providence - which I affected -

Cast out in infinite yearning to quit me.

In the moment we were indeterminably connected,

I felt I was the portion of a galaxy,

And learned it thought itself immutable -

Now, whether beholding it, or myself

In some limitless sense,

I have felt the consignment of the soul

Where it had raided; lost all it’s fondness;

Went with my joy and purposed me to feel.

And ever since, I am in half: I yearn

More than anything. Yet still in my ribs,

I feel famished. And the cocoon therein

Lies empty: I cannot inhabit it.

Nero recounts and explains why he murdered his wife, Empress Octavia

—————

I did it. It was me. One backward night

I stifled her. Yet was I bedeviled?

Like to a warhorse I had become!

Huffing, snarling, stomping, blindly going on,

At her neck I lunged - and we both fell,

Oh, I must have felt what you feel -

An impulse to crush, so I laid on.

Next we did some wriggling,

But then I felt her stop. And ever since,

I could admit but to contentment:

There lays Octavia, and you have come.

Nero explains to his troupe he was late to rehearsal due to a group of ambassadors keeping him

—————

The lady told me nothing of the banquet,

Yet each man sat about my table

That as I entered, thinking how strange

The train of innominate courtiers

After me, they insipidly quarreled

Such that the day would be encompassed

With petty arguments and courtly matters.

But I am given to an entry:

Remarking on the flavor of a cherry,

I put forth art and all it’s usefulness:

How heavily the Greeks engaged me.

Listen what their ambassador reported:

In the east they have forgotten how to play,

And commoners content their souls either with

A shallow modesty or sheepishness -

What could I follow it? I fell to dreaming:

My mind did span the ocean twice at breakfast

In search of playful actors, sportive crew,

But dreams do peddle to our hearts we’re free -

My mind began to render a far extravagancy

Wherein I felt the wildness I go to.

Yet therein I recovered myself

Upon my great devotion to the work.

Thus finished with breakfast, I gave gratitude

For their counsel, vowed to receive their notes,

And then informed them of some crisis

And it required me.

Merchant boasts of his competence to win Nero’s business

—————

My lord,

Aught I have in my store is for royalty,

What else there is, I will acquire it.

For if I may on my proficiency:

Many a man have I helped to good fortune,

I have exchanged a magpie for a goat,

Love and vice are clients both: Much of one

Do I make to the other. And there was once

I set my hounds to baying in the wood,

Went round, and bought the field from its farmer.

As for fine things -

I would throw coin at a fish

For a more tenable mooring,

And yet with what breadth this troupe should grant me

I shall not tempt increase, nor withhold

Surfeit from charity, but do my business

To fit this company, for if your lordships,

With no breath of irony, bid me find

And come forth with eternal months of summer,

I should do more than attempt it,

That I would summon all the elements,

Yet be tamed by the dimensions of the scene.

Now, whether some notion of an outfit

Or light suggestion of a set-piece,

You need but mention it.

Merchant professes his humility and his desire to aid Nero’s art

—————

You honor me,

But let me overcome at once my great delight,

Lest I depart and pity myself

That I did not speak:

A single spirit permeates this troupe,

And sirs, beyond my calmness, I abhor

Any freedom from all devotion,

For it should mean the company stands still

Apart from me: Therefore, and from this day,

I swear never to relinquish our trade,

Nor to displace it for another.

And think not that I lack gratitude:

Know what your faith is to a tradesman,

And our kinship is to me. Therefore,

Let me be paid in acclamation,

The while I’ll not discard one article

But leave you that assured of yourselves

You cannot but be certain of me

Seneca describes Nero sharing a romantic night with a doll resembling his imperial guard captain

—————

Out of his vanities

In a lady’s nightgown, our king himself

In rhythm stepped - and held to his breast a figure

In shape and countenance most like yourself,

Whose bottom half had been cut off, and I recall

The tunic had been sewn from patches

Of elegant fabrics, and bright tails

Were pinned about the torso. Falling then

With you into flowers, he raised up his head,

I saw the boy grin

With a most crazed and piteous affect,

And thought thus to have made my entry

And to have done the task by witness of it.

Nero and Sabinus discuss Nero’s contender for the throne, Galba

—————

Nero

Come, who will be my prosecutor?

Sabinus

The senator Lucius Galba.

Nero

Galba?

What’s it with Galba? Other than he is

So handsome, and gaining.

Sabinus

My lord, it is

That there’s no offense in his quality,

And yet no peace within his temperament.

Lamentable bards struggle to profane him:

He walks with a physicality exalting,

Belying his age and vindicating

His brutality. Personally,

I would omit no tale of monsters

Inhabiting his footmen. Even still

The people move in great majority

With Galba.

Nero

The senator looks to

Accomplish much, yet nothing on his own -

Like the inanimate wheel.