The Epic of Paul

by William Cleaver Wilkinson

Untimely roused, and unrefreshed with sleep,
And shaken as still she was with panic fears,
The Jewess, ever conscious of herself
And proudly the more conscious now before
One whom she fain would hold her vassal, sat
Like a queen giving audience, well-arrayed,
Yet artfully in speaking seemed to plead.
"Simon," she said, "be once more my resource."
"Not once more, but an hundred hundred times,
Liege lady," Simon said, "if mine art serve."
"But, Simon, will it serve for no reward?"
Drusilla, not without some pathos, said;
Yet also not without some scrutiny
Of Simon, which that deep dissembler bore
Flinching, but scarcely flinching, as he said:
"My fortune I account bound up with thine."
"Yea, Simon, what through thee I gain," she said,
"Reckon that thou no less gainest through me.
As has been, is, our pact; art thou content?"
"More than content, most thankful," Simon said;
"I pray thee of conditions now no more,
But speak thy wishes; they shall be commands."
"Well, faithful Simon," wheedling now she spoke,
"That proud Drusilla thou once knewest in me,
Is abject in sheer sense of helplessness.
My lord is broken in spirit with lack of hope:
I stay him up, as best I may, to show
The world some front of kingly boldness yet,
But truth is, I am broken with staying him.
What can we do at Rome? How mend our case?
Friends have we few, and on the fallen thou knowest
Enemies swarm like flies on rotting flesh.
All is for sale at Rome, but who can buy
That goes barehanded thither, as do we?
Thou hast the truth; now, Simon, like the rest,
Leave us, as rats forsake a dooméd ship!"
"Thou pleasest to be facetious, O my queen,"
Said Simon; "thou barehanded never art,
Go where thou wilt, with beauty such as thine,
Such beauty, and such wit to use it well."
With pregnant ambiguity he spoke,
And deeply read the features of her face.

Those features molded nobly fair, but now
Through their disfiguring discomposure wronged,
Slowly regained the aspect clear and calm
Wherein the proud possessor long before
Learned that her sumptuous beauty best prevailed
To make her sovereign of the hearts of men:
Habit, with reminiscence of her past
Triumphs, usurped her mind that she forgot
Simon, the raging storm, her doubts and fears.
Simon considered his mistress at his ease;
He saw she was not flattered by his words
To be a childlike plaything in his hands;
He saw she was too haughty to resent,
Too haughty to acknowledge by word or sign,
Perhaps too haughty even to recognize
In her deep mind, much more in heart to feel,
Hint as conveyed by him in what he said
That in the marriage markets of the world
Such charms as hers were merchantable ware;
And that he Simon abode at her command
Loyally ready to renew for her,
On some august occasion still to seek,
That intermediary office his
Which once from King Azizus parted her
To make her of the Roman Felix spouse.

Drusilla in no manner made response;
But not less Simon knew his wish was sped;
He knew the Venus Victrix heart in her
Was flattering to the height her sense of power.
He could not err by over-audacity
In tempting this presumptuous woman's pride.
He ventured: "It were loyal service done
Thy husband, to whom loyal service thou
Already even to sacrifice hast done
In being his consort, thou a queen before,
And he"—'but lately raised from servile state,'
Simon would fain have said outright, to ease
The pressure of hate and scorn he felt for Felix,
But knew he must no more than thus arrest
That word upon the point of utterance caught—
"It were I say, well-weighed, a service to him
If thou shouldst wake the matchless power thou hast
Of kindling admiration and desire,
To exercise it in supreme assay
At the tribunal where he must be judged,
Making the judge himself thy willing thrall!"

The subtle sorcerer watched with wary eye
Askance, to see his mistress give at this
Some sign of pleased and startled vanity:
Impassible placidity he saw—
Serene, withdrawn, uninterrupted muse.
A little disconcerted, he bode mute,
Half glad in hope that he had not been heard.
When at length she, that queenly creature, broke,
Herself, with speech the growing spell of awe
He felt upon him cast by her supreme
Beauty suspense in its august repose,
Its silence and reserve and mystery,
Then Simon knew that she had been before
Him with the soaring thought of Nero led—
The emperor of the world in triumph led—
A captive at Drusilla's chariot wheels!
A flash of light invaded Simon's mind:
'Were there not hidden here the way long sought
To free himself from the abhorréd yoke
Of Felix? This bold woman would not stick
At putting such an obstacle as was
A husband such as he, out of her path—
This by whatever means—a path that led
Steep to enthronement by the emperor's side.'
Thenceforward Felix's worst foe was one
Of his own household at his table fed.

"The emperor is a bloody man, if true
Be all, be half, that they report of him—"
Drusilla thus, as in soliloquy
Rather than in discourse to ear addressed,
Spoke slowly—"he, the latest story goes
Sped like a shudder of horror around the world,
Has got his mother slain, bunglingly drowned
By accident forsooth, at his command—
Accident such as asks design to chance,
A vessel foundering in a placid sea,
On a serene and starry summer night—
And after all not drowned, even awkwardly,
But rescued to be stabbed, with mother's cry
First from her lips, 'I never will believe
This of my son!' but then with, 'Strike me here!'
Confessing that she knew it was her son!
And his young queen Octavia, silly sweet,
And good, and pure, and fair, and amiable,
And in short all a Roman emperor's spouse
Should not be—she, they say, leads a slave's life,
Or worse, amid her husband's palace scorned,
And happy if at last only with death
And not with shame he rid her from his side."

Thus speaking, his bold mistress, Simon knew,
Called up deterrent thoughts so formidable,
Not to succumb before them shocked, appalled,
But to confront them fairly, know them well,
Then with defiance triumph over them.
Still, with slant thrust at Felix in his thought,
He dared a word of double-edged reply:
"Emperors, and those however now ill-placed
Yet worthy to be empresses, are free
To seek their consorts, consorts true I mean,
Wherever they can find them in the world;
And obstacles must not be obstacles
To them; their pathway must somehow be cleared.
Such, one may all too easily judge amiss.
Wait till thou see the emperor fitly wed!
That emperor-mother Agrippina balked
Her boy too often of his wish. She would
Be empress of the emperor of the world;
Her blood in him made this impossible:
It was her folly and crime invoked her fall.
As for that young Octavia—thou hast said."

"Poppæa"—so Drusilla had resumed,
But Simon rashly took the word from her:
"Poppæa is a rival to be weighed
Doubtless—highborn, and beautiful, and deep
In cunning, and sure mistress of herself—
As art not thou too, and full equally?—
But then she has a husband in the way,
And is she of the stuff to deal with him?"

Simon's hatred of his lord had pricked him on
Beyond the mark of prudence; he recoiled
From his own words before Drusilla spoke,
And added, for diversion of her thought:
"But doubtless thou wilt need to buy thy way
To opportunity at Rome; betimes
Prepare thee bribes to drop along thy path.
Our Gentile brethren have a pretty tale"—
And Simon with sarcastic humor leered—
"Of how a runner once upon a time
Won him a famous race by letting fall
Gold apples on the course too tempting bright
Not to delay his rival gathering them.
Provide thyself with apples of gold to drop,
While thou art speeding featly to thy goal."
"Gold, Simon!" Drusilla said, "thou teasest me,
Too well thou knowest I have no gold; our store
Was swallowed all in that devouring sea."
"I speak in figure, my lady," Simon said;
"I mean neither literal apples nor literal gold."
"Pray, no more parable to me," severe
With air resumed once more of queen enthroned,
Drusilla answered, and, with only look,
As haughtily disdaining further word,
Demanded that he make his meaning plain.
Simon, with indirection sly, replied:
"Hast thou remarked the daily opening bloom
Of beauty in the face, and in the form,
Of that Eunicé, our young countrywoman?"

Drusilla gave a fiercely jealous start—
On Simon, eagerly alert, not lost,
Brief though it was, and instantly subdued;
It was as instantly interpreted—
A welcomed effect, though calculated not.
She had recalled what late she overheard
Hinted from Felix to the prisoner Paul,
"Unless indeed thy pretty countrywoman"—
And construed it as meaning that his eye,
Her husband's, had been levying on the maid.
"Women are not like men to note such things,"
Drusilla answered with a frigid air,
Yet not as with unwillingness to learn
What sequel there might be in Simon's thought.
That sequel Simon changed to suit the case
He had now created unexpectedly.
He would torment Drusilla's jealous mind,
And whet her temper to the proper edge
For helpful quarrel with that spouse of hers
So hateful to him.

"Women that are wives,"
Said Simon, "well might condescend to pay
Some heed to such things! But the present need
Is to have bribes in hand of the right sort
To lavish where occasion may arise
When we reach Rome. Try if thou canst not gain
This pretty damsel for our purposes.
Play patroness to her, have her at court
Here—for wherever the true queen is, there
Is court, though in a desert—flatter her,
And ply her to thy will. Arrived at Rome,
Where all is venal yet venal not all for gold,
Offer her as likest seems to serve thy cause.
There is my scheme for thee; and thy lord will,
I doubt not, wink at least to forward it."
Simon could not forbear the tempting chance
To end, as he began, with what would bait
Further Drusilla's flushed and jealous mind.