Simon, sent by Drusilla to the emperor, finds it impossible to reach the imperial presence without help from Poppæa, who grants him her favor only on condition that he will serve her wish at need. The crafty sorcerer buys his way with the necessary promises. Nero flouts Simon with disdainful irony and sarcasm, which excites the sorcerer's resentment. This feeling he dissembles, while he counsels the unfaithful imperial husband how to rid himself of his young empress Octavia—the sorcerer being all the time in doubt whether it is with Drusilla or with Poppæa that the emperor, who speaks darkly, would supplant her.
Nero at length dismisses Simon, bidding him tell his mistress the emperor's desire to pay her a secret visit. This message the sorcerer gratifies his own spleen by conveying to Drusilla in terms the most offensive to her pride. She bursts out in violent anger and spurning; but Simon shows his mistress how she may salve in a measure the hurt to her dignity, and at the same time serve her hatred of Paul, by making it a condition of her complaisance that the emperor shall first put the apostle and his companions to death. The sorcerer returns with her reply to Nero, who again, and even more deeply than before, stirs the Jew's heart to deadly hatred. Simon plots a wild scheme to have his revenge. Meantime with change in certain officers of the government the aspect of affairs grows threatening for Paul and his fellow-Christians. Onesimus and Syrus are arrested and hurried away to suffer on the rack.
NERO AND SIMON.
Drusilla, eager in uncertain hope
To meet the pleasure of the emperor,
Promptly sent Simon to him as he said.
She charged her minion to bend all his craft
To win his mistress way that she in proof
Upon that youngster emperor of the world
Might, without let from other present, try
If for once only what of power was left
Her, after such misfortunes suffered late,
To steal possession of the hearts of men.
"Consider, Simon, what might not I do
For thee, once seated in that place of power?"
She with such words and with a subtle smile
Of deep insinuation cheered him forth.
But Simon, in an outer anteroom
Of the imperial palace with its guards—
Many removes from where the emperor was—
Long hung in waiting day by day in vain.
At length Poppæa, not the emperor,
Sent gracious word that she would see that Jew.
"Thou hadst perhaps forgotten who it was,"
The favorite, drunken-fond of power nor less
Of demonstration too of power, began,
To dash the sorcerer in his confidence—
"Say, hadst thou not forgotten who it was
Gave thee for thy Drusilla her desired
Access to the imperial presence late?"
Simon saw what she wanted, and was quick
To humor to the full her proud caprice.
He readily commanded to his face
A trouble of confusion and chagrin,
And stammered something inarticulate.
The merciless Poppæa pressed her point:
"Was it to me, or to somebody else,
I heard thee offer service of thine art?
Methinks thou spokest, or perhaps I dreamed,
Of certain potencies thou couldst exert
On my behalf—or some one's—if thou wouldst,
To make at need a mind amenable
To reason that might otherwise resist?"
Simon her humor flattered to its height,
And artfully grew more and more confused
Before her, till he judged her satisfied
That his humiliation was complete.
Then, with abject profession of remorse
And shame that he so far forgot her due
As to seek audience with the emperor
In any way other than through herself,
He humbly asked her what her wish might be;
In short, renewed the proffer of himself
To be her faithful servant all in all.
"But art thou not in prior duty bound
To that Drusilla fair of thine?" she asked.
"Yea, doubtless," the adroit dissembler said—
A protestation of deep loyalty
To his old mistress, not to be seduced,
Commingling strangely in his look and tone
With offer to be serviceable now.
"Supposing beautiful Drusilla's aims
And mine should clash?" Poppæa said. But he:
"That were calamity indeed—for her;
The far more beautiful must needs prevail.
She has perhaps her too aspiring hopes;
Her hopes, I own, I have no heart to dash.
Let her nurse them; but be it mine meanwhile
To watch and strive they do not pierce the breast
That suckles them in vain." "What meanest thou?"
Poppæa asked. "Why, this," the sorcerer said,
"Lady Drusilla's interests and her aims
May not agree. They do not, if her aims
And thine, O empress, clash. Her interests,
True interests, I mean, she best consults
In being to her sovereign loyal liege.
I serve the subject, when I serve the queen."
"'Empress,' thou namest me," Poppæa said.
"Thou knowest I am not empress." "Yea, I know,"
Said Simon, "empress not in name—as yet."
"Another," with deep implication said
Poppæa, "that imposing title bears."
"Were it not so," with apt intelligence,
Made instant answer Simon, "thou wouldst not
Need modestly disclaim the title—thou
Who worthily possessest now the power."
"Not all the power," Poppæa sagely said;
"Some real part of the power is in the name.
Help me to win the name, and fix thy price."
"My price would be the pleasure I should have
To see thee sitting, where thy right ere now
Had placed thee, on the half throne of the world"—
So Simon with devout obeisance said.
Then added: "If the emperor should suspect—
But, pardon, thou hast asked me nothing yet."
"I ask thee now, speak freely out to me
All that is in thy mind," Poppæa said.
"If then, I say, the emperor should suspect—
Of course with ground for the suspicion (that
Well understood, no innocent to be wronged)"—
And Simon grinned intolerably a wry
Involuntary grin of import such,
So horribly conveyed, that almost she,
Poppæa, shuddered in recoil from him—
"Suspect, with reason shown, a full supply,
That the young partner of his bed and throne,
Octavia, is less worthy of his faith
Than were to—"
"Aye, I see, I see," broke
Poppæa, her instinctive first recoil
Quite overmastered; it was of the flesh,
Mere backward creep of muscle and of nerve,
Repugnance of the inner spirit none.
"But to supply the reason—"