Part 5 (1/2)
CENTURION (scandalised) Silence! Have some sense of your situation. Is this the way for martyrs to behave? (To Spintho, who is quaking and loitering) I know what YOU'LL be at that dinner. You'll be the emetic. (He shoves him rudely along).
SPINTHO. It's too dreadful: I'm not fit to die.
CENTURION. Fitter than you are to live, you swine.
They pa.s.s from the square westward. The oxen, drawing a waggon with a great wooden cage and the lion in it, arrive through the central arch.
ACT II
Behind the Emperor's box at the Coliseum, where the performers a.s.semble before entering the arena. In the middle a wide pa.s.sage leading to the arena descends from the floor level under the imperial box. On both sides of this pa.s.sage steps ascend to a landing at the back entrance to the box. The landing forms a bridge across the pa.s.sage. At the entrance to the pa.s.sage are two bronze mirrors, one on each side.
On the west side of this pa.s.sage, on the right hand of any one coming from the box and standing on the bridge, the martyrs are sitting on the steps. Lavinia is seated half-way up, thoughtful, trying to look death in the face. On her left Androcles consoles himself by nursing a cat. Ferrovius stands behind them, his eyes blazing, his figure stiff with intense resolution. At the foot of the steps crouches Spintho, with his head clutched in his hands, full of horror at the approach of martyrdom.
On the east side of the pa.s.sage the gladiators are standing and sitting at ease, waiting, like the Christians, for their turn in the arena. One (Retiarius) is a nearly naked man with a net and a trident. Another (Secutor) is in armor with a sword. He carries a helmet with a barred visor. The editor of the gladiators sits on a chair a little apart from them.
The Call Boy enters from the pa.s.sage.
THE CALL Boy. Number six. Retiarius versus Secutor.
The gladiator with the net picks it up. The gladiator with the helmet puts it on; and the two go into the arena, the net thrower taking out a little brush and arranging his hair as he goes, the other tightening his straps and shaking his shoulders loose. Both look at themselves in the mirrors before they enter the pa.s.sage.
LAVINIA. Will they really kill one another?
SPINTHO. Yes, if the people turn down their thumbs.
THE EDITOR. You know nothing about it. The people indeed! Do you suppose we would kill a man worth perhaps fifty talents to please the riffraff? I should like to catch any of my men at it.
SPINTHO. I thought--
THE EDITOR (contemptuously) You thought! Who cares what you think? YOU'LL be killed all right enough.
SPINTHO (groans and again hides his face)!!! Then is n.o.body ever killed except us poor--
LAVINIA. Christians?
THE EDITOR. If the vestal virgins turn down their thumbs, that's another matter. They're ladies of rank.
LAVINIA. Does the Emperor ever interfere?
THE EDITOR. Oh, yes: he turns his thumbs up fast enough if the vestal virgins want to have one of his pet fighting men killed.
ANDROCLES. But don't they ever just only pretend to kill one another? Why shouldn't you pretend to die, and get dragged out as if you were dead; and then get up and go home, like an actor?
THE EDITOR. See here: you want to know too much. There will be no pretending about the new lion: let that be enough for you. He's hungry.
SPINTHO (groaning with horror) Oh, Lord! Can't you stop talking about it? Isn't it bad enough for us without that?
ANDROCLES. I'm glad he's hungry. Not that I want him to suffer, poor chap! but then he'll enjoy eating me so much more. There's a cheerful side to everything.
THE EDITOR (rising and striding over to Androcles) Here: don't you be obstinate. Come with me and drop the pinch of incense on the altar. That's all you need do to be let off.