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