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XV: Dramatis Personae: the Palace at Alexandria-Canopus
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ONE. ANTINOUS' ROOM. MORNING
ANTINOUS of all the places we have seen and been together
i like this best. my new room is lovely
high and cool and spacious
with its balcony on the great canal
HADRIAN i knew you'd like it.
and your new servant karikles
is looking after you?
ANTINOUS he's fine, but old, and fusses
someone nearer my age would be better
but i know you do not trust me
HADRIAN karikles is a good ex-army man
one who served in germany and britain
nearly forty years of faultless service
he could have retired had he wished
ANTINOUS retired - and gone mad with fussing
now he fusses me and drives me mad
HADRIAN his gravitas is suitable to your station
ANTINOUS as emperor's boy?
HADRIAN as my companion
ANTINOUS i thought you'd left those latin ideas
behind you, lost in rome
HADRIAN darling, latium rules the world
the greeks could never have done it
much as i love them - look at this place
anarchy and worse
for all their learning and their library
if it wasn't for us they'd very soon go under
ANTINOUS if it wasn't for rome they'd all be so much richer
HADRIAN please please no politics, not now
(hadrian takes antinous in his arms. antinous turns away)
ANTINOUS please please no caresses, not now
i have to polish our verses from last night
HADRIAN you're the only person who says no
all the rest obey me, but not you.
and only a boy
ANTINOUS you told me long ago
(it seems so long ago)
that acquiescence lacked all style.
now i must obey you?
HADRIAN no of course not
do whatever you need to do.
you're free, you always have been
ANTINOUS free to go away?
HADRIAN if that's what you want
ANTINOUS i want nothing. the indian said...
HADRIAN 'desire is restriction' - yes i heard him
our old philosophers say the same
i suppose that i believe it.
but when i am with you...
ANTINOUS i am the chariot on which you feast your eyes
HADRIAN the golden chariot
ANTINOUS underneath the gilding there is wood, hard wood
a platform for the journey
HADRIAN this means that you don't love me? you are wood?
wooden? hard? unyielding?
ANTINOUS no not that, neither also longer
the impressionable boy
you first met in bithynia.
i have grown and i have changed
HADRIAN yes you have grown. firmer muscles now.
stronger. more set up. a handsome man,
a young man, but a man.
and shaven like a roman not a greek.
but every bit as beautiful as before.
the boy was beautiful, so is the man
ANTINOUS thank you master, your servant is obliged
(laughing, they embrace)
ANTINOUS balbilla says the gossips say...
HADRIAN balbilla is herself the great arch-gossip!
ANTINOUS balbilla says the gossips say
now that i'm a man you will grow cool
and find yourself another handsome boy
HADRIAN they will discover i don't run to type.
i might be a greekling but in this
the full-blooded roman's to the fore.
i know the theory, boy and older man
and all that tripe. the moment i saw you
i loved you - that's the truth. not because
you were a pretty boy, not only that.
all my life there have been pretty boys
pretty toys to play with, both here and
at my uncle trajan's court - i call him
'uncle', he was not quite that, to me tho
like an uncle, letting me share his boys.
you were different, always you were different
and still are
(karikles enters and stands by the door bowing)
ANTINOUS what is it?
KARIKLES the lady balbilla...
HADRIAN send her in
(karikles leaves the room. balbilla enters bowing)
HADRIAN balbilla, just the lady! we were talking
about you. now you've come
BALBILLA i did not know your majesty was here
HADRIAN didn't karikles tell you? he must be slipping
(hadrian winks at antinous)
HADRIAN tell me balbilla
does my empress-wife share the court's opinion
that now antinous is grown i will move on
and take another younger lover?
BALBILLA we never discuss such matters. she has
other interests, as you know
HADRIAN is she enjoying canopus?
BALBILLA the greek ladies are an amusing crowd
but tedium is difficult to avoid
HADRIAN no need to be bored. there is so much
to see and do. and soon we shall be
moving on again. egypt is an
amazing place
(hadrian gets up to go)
HADRIAN i'll catch you later antinous. balbilla...
(he leaves)
BALBILLA i honestly didn't know that he was here.
i'll kill that karikles
ANTINOUS don't fuss darling. all is well between us.
i feel good. let's go out in the boat.
you can help me buy some egyptian clothes.
i'm thinking of one of those figure-hugging kilts
something sheer to reveal my finer points!
(balbilla slaps his bum. they exit laughing arm in arm)
TWO: THE EMPRESS'S QUARTERS. LATE AFTERNOON
BALBILLA he asked what you thought of antinous
SABINA my husband's actions show that what i think
means little to him. i call him husband
but he was never that, only in name.
i was a useful rung upon the ladder
leading to imperium and glory.
not that there's much glory - only shame,
shame for me and shame for him. and sham!
a sham marriage and a life of sham.
what do i think of the boy? - now a man,
his beauty only increases as he fills
with supple muscle his former slenderness.
i think what everybody thinks:
his is the beauty by which all else is judged.
the empress is found wanting, her poor spark
extinguished in endless bithynian light.
i hear you went upon the water...
BALBILLA the people cheered him everywhere. he beamed
like a god
SABINA when i go out they wonder who i am
a shoddy woman in a shoddy shift
BALBILLA nonsense! you are the feminine ornament
of this masculine court. antinous
loves you very very much
SABINA yes that's all part of the joke - loved by the creature
who took my place, supplanted me
at my husband's side
BALBILLA you know the boy adores you and given the chance
would happily swap places. he is oppressed
by a passion he fakes in return and a position
not of his choosing or liking. he is a friend
to your husband, only a friend, loving as a friend
and long companion. the ardour's on the other side
SABINA on the other side of decency
THREE: ANTINOUS' ROOM: EVENING
(antinous is writing. enter lucius commodus who creeps up behind antinous and places his hands over his eyes)
LUCIUS guess who?
ANTINOUS by the scent of your women's perfume
and the softness of your hands...
LUCIUS ...which often pleased you
ANTINOUS ...which sometimes pleased me - lucius,
luscious lucius, i presume!
lascivious lucius, arbiter
of all that's loose and glittering - and nice
LUCIUS i knew that you still loved me
ANTINOUS still like you, i've always liked you
still disapproving of your general tone.
liking and approving aren't the same:
altho i like you, i can't approve you.
where i cannot approve, i cannot love
LUCIUS oh shut up you old straight-lace!
'the canopean poems' - yours and his
i see. the flame burns still as bright?
ANTINOUS how did you gain entrance? i told karikles...
LUCIUS the old man eats from my fingers. you know me
ANTINOUS you haven't! not with karikles!
LUCIUS not yet,
but he thinks i might, and so is malleable.
the ancient sweetie imagines it's a tryst,
me and the emperor's boyfriend. he told me
'to be careful'
ANTINOUS karikles is a dark horse
LUCIUS nah! i read him like a book,
just as i read everyone. people think
that they are subtle. their subtlety
betrays them. i slip in and read their palms,
their eyes, their thoughts. just as i read you,
unloving lover of a loving man,
lovely unloving lover
ANTINOUS loving consists of giving: that i do,
or try to do. but you, you're a taker,
a flesh-eater, a lover of flesh
every emotion skin-deep. if i
didn't like you, i should despise you
LUCIUS you like to hunt with me, you love my poetry
ANTINOUS i do. for these and many other gifts
that you neglect, i do applaud you,
for these i love you. those other arts
you practise to excess, debauchery
and treachery, stupidity from one
that's stupid in his own despite, i must abhor
LUCIUS lecturer! most pure of the most pure!
extraordinary nature that exalts
above the mire of common commerce
that one form desired most by all!
you are our time's phenomenon, unique.
i see now why he loves you, for himself
is of all patricians most patrician
and able to afford the very best
FOUR: THE EMPEROR'S QUARTERS: LATE EVENING
HADRIAN lucius came to see him?
KARIKLES yes he did. he promised me his body
to let him in - half-promised, not knowing
he would have gained admittance without that
HADRIAN (laughing) your pulling power has not yet reached its ebb!
i remember that time on the rhine
you with a troop of german boys in train
and every one in love with you
KARIKLES it was the uniform. they adored it,
that and my spear, they couldn't wait to hold
my heavy spear! the passionate savage!
the long-locked golden hair and dark grey eyes,
the thickets in the forests! such fresh days!
HADRIAN the coolness of the german air! so what
did they do, he and naughty lucius?
KARIKLES sang some poems, played upon the harp,
bantered...
HADRIAN and so to bed?
KARIKLES no, not even a kiss. antinous
was stern with him, repulsed any advance
HADRIAN that makes me glad. here, pour out some wine,
let's have a long night's drinking and reminisce
FIVE: ANTINOUS' ROOM: WHILE KARIKLES IS WITH HADRIAN
(antinous lounging on a couch, half-dressed, only one lamp burning. a tap upon the door)
ANTINOUS come in my dear
(enter lucius, laughing)
LUCIUS the old fool's gone?
ANTINOUS reporting to the master. bolt the door
and kiss me. let's make love
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Note: the photograph at the head of this page, and several others on my website, are taken from the excellent collection on the Virtual Museum of Antinous Portraits by Wolfgang Rueddenklau - see link below.
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Links:
Virtual Museum of Antinous Portraits
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