Old English Plays, Vol. I | Page 4

When his attendant, Phaon, urged him to conceal himself in a sandpit, Nero "negavit se vivum sub terram iturum;" but soon, creeping on hands and knees into a cavern's mouth, he spread a tattered coverlet over himself and lay down to rest. And now the pangs of hunger and thirst racked him; but he refused the coarse bread that his attendants offered, only taking a draught of warm water. Then he bade his attendants dig his grave and get faggots and fire, that his body might be saved from indignities; and while these preparations were being made he kept moaning "qualis artifex pereo!" Presently comes a messenger bringing news that Nero had been adjudged an "enemy" by the senate and sentenced to be punished "more majorum." Enquiring the nature of the punishment, and learning that it consisted in fastening the criminal's neck to a fork and scourging him, naked, to death, the wretched emperor hastily snatched a pair of daggers and tried the edges; but his courage failed him and he put them by, saying that "not yet was the fatal moment at hand." At one time he begged some one of his attendants to show him an example of fortitude by dying first; at another he chid himself for his own irresolution, exclaiming: [Greek: "ou prepei Neroni, ou prepei--naephein dei en tois toioutois--age, egeire seauton."] But now were heard approaching the horsemen who had been commissioned to bring back the emperor alive. The time for wavering was over: hurriedly ejaculating the line of Homer,
[Greek: "Hippon m'okypodon amphi ktypos ouata ballei,"]
he drove the steel into his throat. To the centurion, who pretended that he had come to his aid and who vainly tried to stanch the wound, he replied "_Sero_, et _Haec est fides_!" and expired.
Such is the tragic tale of horror told by Suetonius. Nero's last words in the play "O _Rome_, farewell," &c., seem very poor to "Sero et _Haec est fides_"; but, if the playwright was young and inexperienced, we can hardly wonder that his strength failed him at this supreme moment. Surely the wonder should rather be that we find so many noble passages throughout this anonymous play. Who the writer may have been I dare not conjecture. In his fine rhetorical power he resembles Chapman; but he had a far truer dramatic gift than that great but chaotic writer. He is never tiresome as Chapman is, who, when he has said a fine thing, seems often to set himself to undo the effect. His gorgeous imagination and his daring remind us of Marlowe; the leave-taking of Petronius is certainly worthy of Marlowe. He is like Marlowe, too, in another way,--he has no comic power and (wiser, in this respect, than Ford) is aware of his deficiency. We find in Nero none of those touches of swift subtle pathos that dazzle us in the _Duchess of Malfy_; but we find strokes of sarcasm no less keen and trenchant. Sometimes in the ring of the verse and in turns of expression, we seem to catch Shakespearian echoes; as here--
"Staid men suspect their wisedome or their faith, To whom our counsels we have not reveald; And while (our party seeking to disgrace) They traitors call us, each man treason praiseth _And hateth faith, when Piso is a traitor_." (iv. i);
or here--
"'Cause you were lovely therefore did I love: O, if to Love you anger you so much, You should not have such cheekes nor lips to touch: You should not have your snow nor curral spy'd;-- _If you but look on us, in vain you chide: We must not see your Face, nor heare your speech: Now, while you Love forbid, you Love doe teach_."
I am inclined to think that the tragedy of Nero was the first and last attempt of some young student, steeped in classical learning and attracted by the strange fascination of the _Annals_,--of one who, failing to gain a hearing at first, never courted the breath of popularity again; just as the author of _Joseph and his Brethren_, when his noble poem fell still-born from the press, turned contemptuously away and preserved thenceforward an unbroken silence. It should be noticed that the 4to. of 1633 is not really a new edition; it is merely the 4to. of 1624, with a new title-page. In a copy bearing the later date I found a few unimportant differences of reading; but no student of the Elizabethan drama needs to be reminded that variae lectiones not uncommonly occur in copies of the same edition. The words "newly written" on the title-page are meant to distinguish the Tragedy of Nero from the wretched Tragedy of Claudius Tiberius Nero published in 1607.
But now I will bring my remarks to a close. It has been at once a pride and a