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Arthur Symons - Otho And Poppaea: A Dramatic Scene
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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.
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