When Gods Were Men

  Act the First. The Game.

  Chorus:

  Dreams of Empyre ever whetted the ambition

  of the wicked: first by sword they seek to spread

  their sway and domination, then by arts more dark

  and vicious, by evil genius of treachery they bring

  to completion their designs. Thus even in our time

  you will recall the men for whom your lives, the labor

  and sweat of your hands, the livelihood of our families

  were but bones in great game of chance, amusement

  in their struggles for dominions. They surpassed even

  the labors of the alchemists, coaxing not from lead

  or silver precious glitter of gold, but from the pledge

  of the poor upon their unborn children, from the blood

  and tears of the enslaved obtaining precious gem and coin.

  Yea, they hath found the philosopher’s stone, and touched

  the world with its edge, heeding not the mortal price

  for their perverse miracle. It was to be paid for another,

  and justice of man hath not brought account against them.

  But even if the lictor’s sword would not touch their neck,

  a far greater strike would come from heaven, to crush

  without mercy the rightly despised, in league with hell.

  Such now is this our tale, of a man tempted to bind

  his end with those who burned the world, and with

  his bet brought upon himself and the innocent their death.

  SCENE ONE. CHADWICK’S TOWN-HOUSE.