Masters The open Sea

1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-3-7364-1689-5
Verlag: anboco
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 282 Seiten

Brutus Brutus and Antony At the Mermaid Tavern Charlotte Corday A Man Child is Born Richard Booth to His Son, Junius Booth A Man Child is Born Squire Bowling Green Lincoln Speaking in Congress John Wilkes Booth at the Farm Junius Brutus Booth A Certain Poet on the Debates The Decision Lincoln Makes a Memorandum Winter Garden Theatre The Sparrow Hawk in the Rain Adelaide and John Wilkes Booth Brutus Lives Again in Booth Booth's Philippi The Burial of Boston Corbett{vi} The New Apocrypha Business Reverses The Fig Tree Tribute Money The Great Merger At Decapolis The Single Standard First Entrants John in Prison Ananias and Sapphira The Two Malefactors Berenice Nebuchadnezzar or Eating Grass Hip Lung on Yuan Chang Ulysses The Party Celsus at Hadrian's Villa Invoation to the Gods Pentheus in These States Comparative Criminals The Great Race Passes Demos the Despot A Republic The Inn Monody on the Death of William Marion Reedy God and My Country The Dunes of Indiana Nature

Autoren/Hrsg.

Masters, Edgar Lee

Leseproben

PART ONE

THE OPEN SEA

BRUTUS

BRUTUS AND ANTONY
(Lucilius Talks at a Feast Given to Aristocrates in
Rome.)

B. C. 20

THE OPEN SEA

BRUTUS

BRUTUS AND ANTONY

Part I

(Lucilius Talks at a Feast Given to Aristocrates in Rome)

B.C. 20

How shall I write this out? I do not write.

Talk to you? Yes, and tell of Antony,

And how I knew him. There at Philippi

I let myself be captured, so to give

Time to escape to Brutus—made pretense

That I was Brutus, and so Brutus flies

And I am captured. Antony forgives me,

And to his death I was his faithful friend.

Well, after Actium, in Africa,

He roamed with no companions but us two,

Our friend Aristocrates, here, myself,

And fed upon his bitter heart. Our guest

Nods truth to what I say, he knows it all.

And after certain days in solitude

He seeks his Cleopatra. As for her,

She was the sovereign queen of many nations;

Yet that she might be with her Antony,

Live with him and enjoy him, did not shun

The name of mistress, and let Fulvia keep

Her wifehood without envy. As for him,

A lover’s soul lives in the loved one’s body,

And where bode Cleopatra, there his soul

Lived only, though his feet of flesh pursued

The Parthian, or Cæsar’s hateful heir....

And if this Antony would wreathe his spear

With ivy like a thyrsus; from the chamber

Of his beloved rush to battle, helmet

Smelling of unguents and of Egypt; leave

Great action and great enterprise to play

Along the seashore of Canopus with her;

And fly the combat, not as Paris did,

Already beaten, with lift sail, desert

The victory that was his, yet true it is

His rank, his eloquence, his liberal blood,

His interest in all grades and breeds of men,

His pity and his kindness to the sick,

His generous sympathies, stamped Antony

A giant in this dusty, roaring place

Which we call earth. Who ruined Antony?

Why, Brutus! For he gave to Antony

The truth of which the Queen of Egypt stood

As proof in the flesh:—Beauty and Life. His heart

Was apt to see her for mad days in Rome,

And soul created sateless for the cup

Of ecstasy in living.

On a day

Myself and Aristocrates and Antony,

We two companioning him in Africa,

Wandering in solitary places, Antony

Brooding on Actium, and the love that kept

His soul with Cleopatra, up he speaks,

And asks us if we knew what Brutus said,

While nearing death, to Cassius. “No,” we said.

And Antony began to tell of Brutus:—

How all his life was spent in study, how

He starved his body, slept but briefly, cut

His hours of sleep by practice; fixed his thought

On virtue and on glory; made himself

A zealot of one purpose: liberty;

A spirit as of a beast that knows one thing:

Its food and how to get it; over its spirit

No heaven keeps of changing light; no stars

Of wandering thought; no moons that charm

Still groves by singing waters, and no suns

Of large illumination, showing life

As multiform and fathomless, filled with wings

Of various truth, each true as other truth.

This was that Brutus, made an asp by thought

And nature, to be used by envious hands

And placed to Cæsar’s breast. So Antony

Discoursed upon our walk, and capped it off

With Brutus’ words when dying. They were these:

“O virtue, miserable virtue, bawd and cheat;

Thou wert a bare word and I followed thee

As if thou hadst been real. But even as evil,

Lust, ignorance, thou wert the plaything too

Of fortune and of chance.”

So Antony

Consoled himself with Brutus, sighed and lapsed

To silence; thinking, as we deemed, of life

And what it yet could be, and how ’twould end;

And how to join his Cleopatra, what

The days would hold amid the toppling walls

Of Rome in demolition, now the hand

Of Cæsar rotted, and no longer stayed

The picks and catapults of an idiot world!

So, as it seemed, he would excuse himself

For Actium and his way in life. For soon

He speaks again, of Theophrastus now,

Who lived a hundred years, spent all his life

In study and in writing, brought to death

By labor; dying lay encompassed by

Two thousand followers, disciples, preachers

Of what he taught; and dying was penitent

For glory, even as Brutus was penitent

For virtue later. And so Antony

Spoke Theophrastus’ dying words, and told

How Theophrastus by a follower

Asked for a last commandment, spoke these words:

“There is none. But ’tis folly to cast away

Pleasure for glory! And no love is worse

Than love of glory. Look upon my life:—

Its toil and hard denial! To what end?

Therefore live happy; study, if you must,

For fame and happiness. Life’s vanity

Exceeds its usefulness.”

So speaking thus

Wise Theophrastus died.

Now I have said

That Brutus ruined Antony. So he did,

If Antony were ruined—that’s the question.

For Antony hearing Brutus say, “O virtue,

Miserable virtue, bawd and cheat,” and seeing

The eyes of Brutus stare in death, threw over him

A scarlet mantle, and took to his heart

The dying words of Brutus.

It is true

That Cicero said Antony as a youth

Was odious for drinking-bouts, amours,

For bacchanals, luxurious life, and true

When as triumvir, after Cæsar’s death,

He kept the house of Pompey, where he lived,

Filled up with jugglers, drunkards, flatterers.

All this before the death of Brutus, or

His love for Cleopatra. But it’s true

He was great Cæsar’s colleague. Cæsar dead,

This Antony is chief ruler of all Rome,

And wars in Greece, and Asia. So it’s true

He was not wholly given to the cup,

But knew fatigue and battle, hunger too,

Living on roots in Parthia. Yet, you see,

With Cæsar slaughtered in the capitol,

His friend, almost his god; and Brutus gasping

“O miserable virtue”; and the feet of men

From Syria to Hispania, slipping off

The world that broke in pieces, like an island

Falling apart beneath a heaving tide—

Whence from its flocculent fragment wretches leap—

You see it was no wonder for this Antony,

Made what he was by nature and by life,

In such a time and fate of the drifting world,

To turn to Cleopatra, and leave war

And rulership to languish.

Thus it was:

Cæsar is slaughtered, Antony must avenge

The death of Cæsar. Brutus is brought to death,

And dying scoffs at virtue which took off

In Brutus’ hand the sovran life of Cæsar.

And soon our Antony must fight against

The recreant hordes of Asia,...