OTHO
A word, Poppaea!
POPPAEA
I will speak with you
If you will speak for kindness; but your brows
Are sick and stormy: why do you frown on me?
I will not speak unless it is for love.
OTHO
Nothing but love, Poppaea; nothing less.
POPPAEA
Then sit by me and take my hand, and tell me
Why you are sick and stormy and unkind
For nothing less than love.
OTHO
If I should sit
So near you as to touch you; no, this once
I will not touch you, and this once I will
Speak to the end.
POPPAEA [sitting down]
Why, stand then, and so far,
And come no nearer, and by all the gods
Speak, and if you would have it to be the end,
You are the master here, not I.
OTHO
Alas,
I fear the end is over. Yet, if once,
As I thought once, you loved me, if you keep
So much remembrance as to have not forgot
How, when, how much, I loved you, tell me now
What you would have me do.
POPPAEA
You love me still?
OTHO
Still.
POPPAEA
And no less than when you coveted
My husband's wife, and still no less than when
You heated Caesar, praising me?
OTHO
No less?
No more, Poppaea?
POPPAEA
There was a time once,
You loved me lightly; there was a time once,
You taught me to love lightly; and a time
Before that time, if you had loved me then
I had not loved you lightly, Otho. Now
I have learned your lesson, and I ask of you
No more than what you taught me.
OTHO
Miserable,
And a blind fool, and deadly to myself,
I have undone my life; it is I who ask
What you have taught me; for I cannot live
Without that constant poison of your love
That you have drugged me with, and withered me
Into a craving fever. There is a death
More cruel in your arms than in the grave,
More exquisite than many tortures, more
An ecstasy than agony, more quick
With vital pangs than life is. If I must,
Bid me begone, and let me go and die.
POPPAEA
There is no man I would not rather know
Alive to love me. What have I done to you,
Otho, that you should cry against me thus?
OTHO
I will ask Nero: you I will not ask.
POPPAEA
Otho, I hold your hand with both my hands,
Look in my face, and read there if I lie;
But I will love you, Otho, if you will.
OTHO
I hold your hands, I look into your eyes,
There is no truth in them; they laugh with pride
And to be mistress of the souls of men.
POPPAEA
I will not let you go unless you swear
That you believe me; tell me, is it true,
Nothing but truth, and do you really love
Nothing but me?
OTHO
There is not in the world
Anything kind or cruel, anything
Worth the rememberings else: but you are false.
False for a crown, and you are Cressida,
False for the sake of falseness.
POPPAEA [rising]
On my life,
I love you, and I will not let you go.
The crown makes not the Caesar; have I not found
More than a kingdom here? Take this poor kiss,
And this, and this, for tribute.
OTHO
Either the gods
Have sent some madness on me, or I live
For the first time in my life.
[NERO enters quietly and comes up to OTHO and POPPAEA,]
NERO
My most dear friend,
Once, being with this woman who stands here
(Do you remember?), you, with her good leave,
Shut to the door upon me : I knocked then,
Heating your voices merry with the trick.
And no man opened, and I went away.
I ask now of this woman, and not now
As Caesar, but your rival, Otho, still,
I bid her choose between us. Let her speak,
And you, my Otho, listen.
OTHO
If the truth
Live in your soul, speak now, Poppaea, now
The last time in the world.
NERO [smiling]
Poppaea?
POPPAEA [throwing herself into his arms]
Need
Poppaea speak? Nero knows all her heart.
NERO
Is this enough, Otho?
OTHO
It is enough;
Otho knows all her heart.
