(VIR): Scenes 14-17

Scene 14: The Tent of Viriathus

Viriathus is sleeping / Audax, Minurus & Ditalco enter quietly / at a given signal Minurus holds Virathus down, Audax yanks back his head & Ditalco stabs him through the throat

Audax
{whispering}
It is passed, Viriathus, he is dead

Minurus
What have we done

Ditalco
We have stilled the slaughter

Audax
His body is a sacrifice to peace

Ditalco
Washing the blood away enables time
Before discovery, by when we shall
Be far-off & safe from this fatal thrust

Audax
But Caepio first, our promise fulfill’d

Minurus
Our murder done, you mean

Ditalco
Please, Minurus
Let it go, the gnawing rat of conscience
Replace with hopes of happier futures
For all of us & all our families

Audax
Tongina’s grief awaits a tender friend

Exit Minurus, Audax & Ditalco – the sun rises – enter Gulucia

Gulucia
Good morming my lord, time to face the day
Such an unusually long repose
Your lovely wife attendance shall make soon
Let me bathe you in fragrant rosewater
Tongina loves her husband to be clean
If you do so permit… Viriathus
Are you awake, master, are you alive?

Gulucia takes off the helmet of Viriathus – he rushes out of the tent & returns a few moments later with Camalo & Arantonio

Gulucia
Awake Viriathus , awake,

Arantonio
Shake him

Camalo
{checking pulse}
He is dead

Arantonio
Dead!?

Camalo
But how

Gulucia
It cannot be

Arantonio
What pungent hail of woes rain upon us
With painful jolts, then melting drench in tears

Camalo
Could this be murder, instinct wrangles thus
At point of greatest danger made bereft
Of our general & his genius

Arantonio
A timely happenstance make no mistake
A poisoning perhaps

Gulucia
Impossible
Each liquid drop, each morsel I prepare

Camalo
Then you our chief focus of suspicion

Enter Arco & Cabruno

Arco
It was not him

Arantonio
Soothsayer, what you say?

Arco
Who else had access to this tent last night

Camalo
Minurus, Audax, Ditalco, yes them
{Cabruno goes to inspect the body}
But

Arco
But what

Camalo
But it could not have been them
Why would they…

Cabruno
Look, here, daggertip punctures
Point deeply where the chinskin folds o’er throat

Gulucia
O day of grief, of weeping of despair
Of Lusitanian lamentations
Whose like shall ne’er be heard

Arantonio
Men, we must try
To hold as noble bearing as befits
The virtuousness of Viriathus
Prepare the pyre, send messengers abroad
The funeral begins tomorrow dusk

Cabruno
We must down hunt these treacherous jcackals

Arco
The gods will find a better fate for them
Than instant death before their guilt consumes
Their living fibres like a wasting plague

Enter Tongina

What is happening, what is the matter
With Viriathus, stand aside at once

Gulucia
Tongina – he is – he is

Arantonio
He is dead

Tongina
{wailing}
No————– But how

Arco
Murder

Camalo
By murderers foul

Cabruno
By Minurus, Audax & Ditalco

Tongina
How do you know

Arco
We know

Tongina
Why would they so

Arantonio
Roman gold?

Gulucia
They met with Caepio on the behalf
Of Viriathus hours before his death

Tongina
Too much, too much! Too little have I loved
This man enough, I shared him far too long,
Go, all of you go, leave us,
I wish to be alone with my husband

Exit all apart from Tongina

Tongina
When I met you I caught a falling star,
Your heart it was, that whisper’d unto me,
‘I love you,’ with a sigh-tempest of breath,
This breath gone now, & like a melt of snow
That make no noise, your silence ends our joys,
For we are ever absent from the sphere
That is the intersuredness of love,
Knock upon its memorial entrance,
I’ll never get back in, my own profess
Of love, like gold to airy thinness beat;
What sadness has descended on my soul!
The firmness of my being now in thrall
To some dark watcher, ever thro’ my days
That stands & haunts me ’till I weep once more!

Scene 15: The Roman Camp

Caepio is reading a scroll / enter Sempronius with Audax, Ditalco & Minurus

Sempronius
Enter, Caepio has been awaiting

Audax
It is done

Caepio
What is done

Ditalco
We have killed him

Caepio
O you have have you

Audax
We did as you asked

Caepio
Did I, O yes I did, but as men might
Change their own minds I seem to have changed mine

Ditalco
You have what

Caepio
Weeelll – I thought about it more
& realised it never pleases Rome
When Generals are slain by her soldiers
No, not at all, as such I cannot deal
with such dishonorable men as you

Audax
But our rewards

Caepio
Will not be forthcoming

Sempronius
We must set an example for the world
Traitors who bounty chiefs shall not be paid

Caepio
But I am not a man who lets distaste
Oertake decision-making, you may keep
Whatever you were given yester-e’en,
Safely, of course

Minurus
This is dark remission
You gave us your word, sworn on your Senate
In the eyes of your gods you must stand true

Caepio
My gods! stand true! this is quite a pickle

YE EAGLES OF ROME

Brothers in arms stick together
In the face of stormy weather
But the clever ones find shelter from the gales
& families of warriors
That shake a spear & roar at us
Are falling side by side in wild travails

Because Rome, Rome!
Rome is the greatest of them all
As we up rise the rest downfall
Because were Rome

Fly fly, ye legions of Rome
Go find a new home, fly, fly

Fly fly, ye eagles of Rome
Go find a new home, fly, fly

Brothers in arms stick together
In the face of all whatever
& we’ll never leave our honour to the crows
& families of warriors
That shake a spear & roar at us
Are falling side by side in crimson rows

Because Rome, Rome!
Rome is the greatest of them all
As we up rise the rest downfall
Because were Rome

Fly fly, ye legions of Rome
Go find a new home, fly, fly

Fly fly, ye eagles of Rome
Go find a new home, fly, fly

Caepio
I tell you what – why don’t you go to Rome
& bring it up with them, yes, they might pay
But me, I’m busy working on the war
Yes, better, that you go to Rome, & soon
Your countrymen will think the case severe
Diminuating names to shame’s disgrace

Audax
Your mind serpentine has mischief’d us

Caepio
No, not at all, your damage wrought by greed
Now leave me, I would not suffer the air
Of traitors creeping into honest lungs.

Ditalco
You scandalous scoundrel,

Caepio
Yes, goodbye… guards!
These murderous rascals throw from the camp

Minurus
This is outrageousness

Caepio
You are dismiss’d

Gaurds excort Audax, Minurus & Ditalco from the tent

Caepio
There is never honour, Sempronius,
In betraying one’s own for money mere

Scene 16: A Mountain Valley

The body of Viriathus, clad in splendid garments & holding a falcata sword, is lain on a funerary pyre – troops of ssoldiers in armour form a circle around it – Can=bruno is sacrificing an animal

Cabruno
Ye gods of heaven, gods of underground,
What righteous sort has severed from the coil
That binds the universe to its bodies
We offer you this tender sacrifice
To carry Viriathus to the stars
Where he may gaze upon hour lives once more
{Tongina wails}
Our sun of finest magnitude has set
His life an inspiration to the song
Of those his spirit moves thro,’ we who mourn
His name’s elated immortality
To Viriathus

All
Viriathus, huh!

***

RECITATIVO TO THE DEAD

All
Viriathus (Viriathus, Viriathus)
You were glorious (glorius, glorious)
We ask you special spirit to watch over us

Repeat in a series of key changes until reaching the orginal key

Scene 17: The Roman Senate

The Closing of the Viriathic War

Magistrate
Senators, the war of Viriathus
Is over, we have word from Saguntum
The same city Hannibal overthrew
& named New Carthage, just as Roman arms
Ensured to it Saguntum soon return’d,
So have the Lusitani surrender’d
To Caepio on favour’d conditions
They shall be simply subjects under Rome
Not friends, nor allies, as our former pact,
We vote today upon two positions;
The first – do we honour Caepio’s change
To the status of Lusitania
& if so, do we honour his return
With a glorious triumph into Rome,
Senators, your balls, let reason speak

The vote

Magistrate
How go the counts

Magistrate’s assistant
On the matter of law
Caepio’s conquest has been ratified
But there shall be no triumph for the coup

Magistrate
Very well, let these be struck on record
But there is one last appertanation
In reccomendation to your judgement,
The death of Viriathus wholly caus’d
By three of his own chieftans, they here seek
Renumeration, one of them shall speak
His name Ditalco, fetch him to the floor

Magistrate’s assistant brings in Ditalco

Magistrate
Well, you are here, what wish you to impart

Servilianus
Do not let him speak

Labaecus
He’s a murderer

Popilius
Barbarian

Senator 1
Regicide

Senator 2
Assassin

Ditalco
Let me speak

Servilianus
Rome will never pay traitors,
Who slay their chiefs

Ditalco
But we cannot go home
Caepio’s promise

Labaceus
Is not the senates’
Your leader was a noble man & you
Slew him for enrichment – you, the most vile

Magistrate
It seems the Senate does not wish to hear
Your case, this is a brain’d predicament,
Which we shall solve hen best course sprung to mind –
You are welcome to stay in the city
& work for your living – or better still
Join with the legions, their ranks depleted
Since Viriathus rose among your kind,
We need good soldiers, yes, this course is best,
Your case dismissed, please leave the Senate floor,

Enter Romans singing, Fly, Fly, Ye eagles of Rome……..’ / The Roman soldiers change the clothes of Ditalco to that of a Roman legionary