Each man goes alone.
THE HERALD:
The soldiers tilt the bier, the General
Stands up now, a little uncertain.
His philosopher makes as if to accompany him
A wise saw on his lips. But …
THE HOLLOW VOICE:
Stand back, Philosopher. Behind this wall
No one heeds your sophistry.
THE HERALD:
Says the voice that gives orders here
And thereupon the advocate steps forward
To raise an objection.
THE HOLLOW VOICE:
Overruled.
THE HERALD:
Says the voice that gives orders here. And it says to the
General:
THE HOLLOW VOICE:
Now step through the gateway.
THE HERALD:
And the General goes to the little gateway
Stands there a moment, looking about him
And stares with grave eyes at the soldiers
Stares at the slaves who haul the sculpture
Stares at the boxtree, the last green thing. He lingers.
As the portico stands open, a breath of wind
Blows in from the street.
A gust of wind.
THE HOLLOW VOICE:
Take your helmet off. Our gateway is low.
THE HERALD:
And the General takes off his splendid helmet
And steps in with bowed head. With a sigh of relief
The soldiers crowd out of the burial place, chattering gaily.
5
DEPARTURE OF THE LIVING
CHORUS OF THE SOLDIERS:
So long, Lakalles.
Now we’re quits, old goat.
Out of the boneyard
Up with the glass!
Fame isn’t everything
You’ve got to live too.
Who’ll come along?
Down by the dock
There’s wine and song. You weren’t in step.
I’ll come along.
Be sure of that.
Who’ll pay the bill?
They’ll chalk it up.
Look at his grin!
I’m off to the cattle market.
To the little brunette? Hey, we’ll come along.
No, three’s a crowd.
You’ll put her off.
Then
We’re for the dog races.
Man
That costs money. Not if they know you.
I’ll come along.
Attention! Break ranks!
March.
6
THE RECEPTION
The Hollow Voice is the voice of the gatekeeper of the Realm of Shadows. It continues the narration.
THE HOLLOW VOICE:
Ever since the newcomer has entered
He has stood near the door, motionless, his helmet under
his arm
Like his own statue.
The other dead who are newly arrived
Crouch on the bench and wait as they have often waited
For good fortune and for death
Waited in the tavern until they got their wine
Waited at the well until the lover came
Waited in the wood, in battle, for the word of command.
But the newcomer
Does not seem to have learned how to wait.
LUCULLUS suddenly:
By Jupiter
What does this mean? I stand and wait here.
The greatest city on the globe still rings
With lamentations for me, and here
There is no one to receive me. Outside my war tent
Seven kings once waited for me.
Is there no order here? (3)
Pause.
I demand to be conducted from this place.
Pause.
Must I stand here among these people?
Pause.
I object. Two hundred armoured ships, five legions
Used to advance at the crook of my little finger.
I object.
Pause.
THE HOLLOW VOICE:
No answer but from the bench of those who wait
An old woman says:
THE VOICE OF AN OLD WOMAN WAITING:
Sit down, newcomer.
All that metal you haul, the heavy helmet
And the breastplate must be tiring.
So sit down.
Lucullus is silent.
Don’t be arrogant. You can’t stand the whole time
You must wait here. My turn comes before yours.
No one can say how long the hearing inside will last.
There’s no doubt that each one will be strictly examined
To determine whether he shall be sentenced to go
Down into dark Hades
Or into the Elysian Fields. Sometimes
The trial is quite short. One glance is enough for the judges.
This one here, they say
Has led a blameless life and he was able
To be of use to his fellow men.
With them a person’s usefulness counts the most.
They say to him, go take your rest.
Of course with others
The hearing may last for whole days, especially
With those who have sent someone down here to the Realm
of the Shadows
Before the appointed span of his life was over.
It won’t take long with the one who went in just now.
He’s a harmless little baker. As for my affair
I’m a little anxious, but put my faith in this –
Among the jury within, they tell me
There are little people who know well enough
How hard life is for those of us in times of war.
My advice to you, newcomer …
THE THREEFOLD VOICE interrupting:
Tertullia! (4)
THE HOLLOW VOICE:
The newcomer stands stubbornly on the sill
But the burden of his decorations
His own roaring
And the friendly words of the old woman have changed
him.
He looks around to see if he is really alone.
Now he goes to the bench after all, but before he can sit
down
He’ll be called. A glance at the old woman
Was enough for the judge.
THE THREEFOLD VOICE:
Lakalles!
LUCULLUS:
My name is Lucullus! Isn’t my name known here?
I come from a distinguished family
Of statesmen and generals. Only in the slums
In the docks and soldiers’ taverns, in the unwashed
Jaws of the vulgar, the scum
Is my name Lakalles.
THE THREEFOLD VOICE:
Lakalles!
THE HOLLOW VOICE:
And so yet again called
In the despised language of the slums
Lucullus, the general
Who conquered the East
Who overthrew seven kings
And filled the city of Rome with riches.
At nightfall, when Rome sits down to the funeral feast
Lucullus presents himself before the highest tribunal of the
Realm of the Shadows.
7
CHOICE OF SPONSOR
THE COURT CRIER:
Before the highest tribunal of the Realm of the Shadows
appears
General Lakalles, who calls himself Lucullus.
Presided over by the Judge of the Dead
Five jurors pursue the examination:
One, formerly a farmer
One, formerly a slave who was a teacher
One, formerly a fishwife
One, formerly a baker
And one, formerly a courtesan.
They sit upon a high bench
Without hands to take and without mouths to eat
Insensible to magnificence, these long-extinguished eyes
Incorruptible, these ancestors of the world-to-come.
The Judge of the Dead begins the hearing.
THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:
Shadow, you shall be heard.
You must account for your life among men.
Whether you have served them or harmed them
Whether we wish to see your face
In the Elysian Fields.
You need a sponsor.
Have you a sponsor in the Elysian Fields?
LUCULLUS:
I propose the great Alexander of Macedon be called.
Let him speak to you as an expert
On deeds like mine.
THE THREEFOLD VOICE calls out in the Elysian Fields:
Alexander of Macedon!
Silence.
THE COURT CRIER:
The person called does not answer.
THE THREEFOLD VOICE:
In the Elysian Fields
There is no Alexander of Macedon.
THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:
Shadow, your expert is unknown
In the Fields of the Blessed.
LUCULLUS:
What? He who conquered from Asia to India
The never-to-be-forgotten one
Who so indelibly pressed his footprint in the globe of the
earth
The mighty Alexander …
THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:
Is unknown here. (5)
LUCULLUS:
Then I propose
That the frieze from my memorial
On which my triumphal procession is set forth, be fetched.
But how can it be fetched? Slaves haul it. Surely
Entrance is forbidden here
To the living.
THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:
Not to slaves. So little divides them
From the dead that one can say
They scarcely live. The step from the world above
Down to the Realm of the Shadows
Is to them a short one.
The frieze shall be brought.
8
THE FRIEZE IS PRODUCED
THE HOLLOW VOICE:
His slaves still huddle
By the wall, uncertain
Where the frieze should go. Until a voice
Suddenly speaks through the wall.
THE COURT CRIER:
Come.
THE HOLLOW VOICE:
And changed to shadows
By this single word
They drag their burden
Through the wall with the box hedge.
CHORUS OF SLAVES:
Out of life into death
Without protest, we haul the burden.
Long ago our time ceased to be ours
And the goal of our journey unknown.
And so we follow the new voice
Like the old. Why question it?
We leave nothing behind; we expect nothing. (6)
THE COURT CRIER:
And so they go through the wall
For nothing holds them back, neither can this wall keep
them back.
And they set their burden down
Before the highest tribunal of the Realm of the Shadows –
This frieze with the triumphal procession.
The jurymen of the dead, look upon it:
A captured king, sad of countenance
A strange-eyed queen with provocative thighs
A man with a cherry tree, eating a cherry
A golden god, borne by two slaves, very fat
Two girls with a tablet, upon it the names of fifty-three
cities
A dying legionary, greeting his general
A cook with a fish.
THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:
Are these your witnesses, Lakalles?
LUCULLUS:
They are. But how shall they speak?
They are stone, they are dumb.
THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:
Not to us. They shall speak.
Are you ready, you stony shadows
You shapes, to give testimony here?
CHORUS OF FIGURES IN THE FRIEZE:
We figures, stony shadows of vain sacrifice
Once destined to remain above in the daylight
Either to speak or to keep silent We figures once destined by the conqueror’s order to
portray
Those conquered, robbed of breath
Silenced, forgotten
Are willing to keep silent and willing to speak.
THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:
Shadow, the witnesses of your greatness
Are ready to testify.
9
THE HEARING
THE COURT CRIER:
And the General steps forward and
Points to the king.
LUCULLUS:
Here you see one whom I vanquished.
In these few days
His empire crumbled like a hut struck by lightning.
He began to fly when I appeared on his frontier
And the first few days of the war
Were scarcely enough for us both
To reach the other frontier of his realm.
So short was the campaign that a ham
My cook had hung up to smoke
Was not yet thoroughly cured when I returned.
And of seven I struck down he was but one.
THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:
Is that true, O King?
THE KING:
It is true.
THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:
Your questions, jurors.
THE COURT CRIER:
And the shadowy slave who was once a teacher
Bends darkly forward and asks:
THE TEACHER:
How did it happen?
THE KING:
As he says. We were attacked
As the farmer loading hay
Stood with raised fork
His half-filled waggon was taken from him
And strange hands seized the baker’s breadloaf
Before it was fully baked. All that he says
Concerning the lightning that strikes a hut is true.
The hut is destroyed. Here
Is the lightning.
THE TEACHER:
And of seven you were …
THE KING:
But one.
THE COURT CRIER:
The jurymen of the dead
Consider the testimony of the king.
Silence.
And the shadow who was once a courtesan
Puts a question.
THE COURTESAN:
You there, O Queen
How did you get here?
THE QUEEN:
One day by the Taurion I
Went to bathe there early
From among the olive trees
Down came fifty strangers.
Those men were my conquerors.
Had no weapon but a sponge
In the limpid water.
And their armour shielded me
Only for a moment.
Quickly I was conquered. (7)
THE COURTESAN:
And why do you walk here in the procession?
THE QUEEN:
Oh, as a proof of the victory.
THE COURTESAN:
What victory, the one over you?
THE QUEEN:
And the lovely Taurion.
THE COURTESAN:
And what does he call a triumph?
THE QUEEN:
That the king, my husband
Could not with his whole army
Protect his property
From prodigious Rome.
THE COURTESAN:
Sister, then our fates are the same.
For I too
Found prodigious Rome
No shield against prodigious Rome.
THE COURT CRIER:
And there was silence. The
jurymen
Of the dead consider the testimony of the queen.
Silence.
And the Judge of the Dead
Turns to the General.
THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:
Shadow, do you wish to proceed?
LUCULLUS:
Yes, I mark well how the conquered
Have a sweet voice. However
Once it was rougher. This king here
Who captures your sympathy, when he was in power
Was especially ruthless. (8)
In taxes and tribute
He took no less than I. The cities
I snatched from him
Lost nothing in him, but Rome won
Fifty-three cities, thanks to me.
TWO YOUNG GIRLS WITH A TABLET:
With streets and people and houses
Temples and waterworks
We sprang out of the landscape.
Today only our names remain on this tablet.
THE COURT CRIER:
And the shadowy juror who was once a baker
Bends darkly forward and asks:
THE BAKER:
Why so?
GIRL WITH A TABLET:
One day at noon an uproar broke loose.
Into the streets swept a flood
Whose waves were men, and carried
Our goods away. In the evening
Only a foul smoke marked the spot
That was once a city.
THE BAKER:
And what then
Did he carry away, he who sent the flood and says
He gave fifty-three cities to Rome?
THE COURT CRIER:
And the slaves who haul the golden god
Began to tremble and cry:
THE SLAVES:
Us.
Once happy, now cheaper than oxen
To haul away booty, ourselves booty.
GIRL WITH A TABLET:
Formerly the builders of fifty-three cities, of which
Only name and smoke remain.
LUCULLUS:
Yes, I carried them off.
There were two hundred and fifty thousand
Formerly foes but now no longer foes.
THE SLAVES:
Formerly men, but now no longer men.
LUCULLUS:
And with them I carried away their god
So that the whole earth might see our gods
Were greater than all other gods.
THE SLAVES:
And the god was very welcome
Because he was of gold and weighed two hundredweight
And we too are each worth a piece of gold
The size of a fingerbone.
THE COURT CRIER:
And the shadowy juryman
Who was once a baker
In Marsilia, the city by the sea
Bends forward and says quietly:
THE BAKER:
Then we write to your credit, shadow
Simply this: Brought gold to Rome.
THE COURT CRIER:
And there is silence.
The jurymen of the dead
Consider the testimony of the cities.
THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:
The accused seems tired.
I allow a recess.
10
ROME