DRUSILLA AND NERO.
While Paul in chains is writing to Christian churches letters characterized at once by the sublimest reaches of spiritual vision and by the most painstaking condescension to details of practical precept, Simon the sorcerer, with Felix and Drusilla, plots the apostle's death. Simon proceeds by indirection, having it in mind to bring about the death of Felix also. This he accomplishes, with the collusion and complicity of Drusilla. But first, at Drusilla's instance, he procures for her in company with her husband an audience with Nero, of which Poppæa, the emperor's favorite, is secretly an observer. Poppæa notices the impression made on her sovereign by Drusilla, and she is openly present at a subsequent hearing granted by Nero to the beautiful Jewess, during which the latter accuses Paul, together with other crimes, of instigating the murder by poison of Felix. Nero throughout displays, with much license, his reckless and frivolous character.
DRUSILLA AND NERO.
That Phrygian slave did not companionless
His way Colossæ-ward pursue; he went
By Tychicus accompanied, who bore
Another letter written from the lips
Of Paul to the Colossian church at large.
This gloried and exulted in sublime
Prophetic visions of far future things—
Things future far and other quite than these.
Paul's hand was manacled, but not his soul;
That, given the freedom of the universe,
Ranged as at will on wing omnipotent
Through all the heights and depths of space and time,
And saw unutterable things, which he
Seeking to lade upon expression made
The very pillars of expression bend
And sway and totter, like to sink, beneath
The burden insupportable they bore.
Great soul and free, free in a body bound,
So soaring those empyreal altitudes
Winged with his native vigor but upborne
On a strong-breasted gale of power divine
Inspiring and enabling him, who took
Undazzled, like an eagle in full gaze
Upon the sun, insufferably bright
Glimpses of heavenly glory, he yet deigned—
Nay, he ascended but to condescend
The mightier by his lofty lowliness,
From exaltation such beheld come down!—
Deigned to the level of the mean degree
Of men that needed to be counselled thus:
"Lie not one to another, seeing ye
Have put off the old man that late ye were,
Him with his deeds, and the new man put on,
The man made new through knowledge to become
Once more the image, long so far defaced,
Of that God who at first created him.
Put ye on, therefore, as elect of God
To be His holy and belovéd, all
Sweet meltingness of heart, kindness and love,
A lowly mind most meek, long-suffering,
Forbearing one another, and should ever,
But that be far! some man among you have
Complaint or quarrel against any, then,
As Christ forgave you once, forgive so ye;
And over all these vestments of the soul,
Completing them and binding them secure,
Put ye on love, girdle of perfectness.
And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.
"Ye wives, to your own husbands subject be,
So yielding as befits you in the Lord.
Ye husbands, love your wives and nourish not
Against them any bitterness of heart.
Children, obey your parents in all things,
For this well-pleasing is unto the Lord.
Fathers, good heed give ye not to provoke
Your children unto wrath, lest they lose heart.
Servants, your masters in the flesh obey,
Not with eye-service as men-pleasers, this,
But single-heartedly as fearing God.
And whatsoever be the thing ye do,
Heartily do it, as if doing all
For the Lord Christ in heaven and not for men;
Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive
Guerdon of that inheritance reserved
For your true bond of service is to Christ.
But he that doeth wrong shall for that wrong
Due recompense receive; and with the Lord
Is no respect of person or degree.
Ye masters, to your servants what is just
And equal render; for a Master ye,
Ye also, have who watcheth from the heaven."
While Paul with tongue or pen such things discoursed,
Things heavenly and things earthly intermixed
(Yet so as earthly things to raise to heaven,
Like the sea lifted skyward by the moon),
Simon the sorcerer, with the guilty pair,
His master and his mistress, otherwise
Was busy, plotting the apostle's death.
Plot within plot there was; the sorcerer sought
The death of Felix too, for hate of him.
To compass this, he fed Drusilla's mind
With bitter poison and with poison sweet;
The bitter, of innuendo to inflame
Her jealous rancor more against her spouse;
The sweet, of flattery ever interfused
In casual hint dropped, whisper by the way,
No recognition sought, still less reply,
Rebuke, repudiation, tempted not,
But inly working to inebriate
Her pride of beauty and her sense of power,
Till she should dare whatever need be dared
Of danger or of crime to clear her way
To empire hoped over the emperor.
At length the double venom took effect
Such on Drusilla's fierce aspiring mind,
That Simon ventured on these words to her:
"Ill sleeper is thine husband, O my liege!
I overhear him oft in troubled dream
Belching forth broken voices of unrest.
He sleeps like Ætna or Vesuvius,
Say like Enceladus with Ætna piled—
Thou knowest their fable of that giant old.
I hope he never will by evil chance
Work his wife harm unmeant in his nightmares!
Such weight, such strength, are monstrous in such throes!"