Agrippina sample

Oh, don’t slide off the track. The fact is, the army still honors the memory of my father so that I don’t lack the power to quash Nero if I choose.

I carried the weight of your dreams for longer than I ever planned. I have been your minister and I have been your lover. It was I who was responsible for the interests of a great empire, not for your hatreds. You must think of me now, not your hatreds and your ambitions.

You’re rich. As minister of finance you’ve had virtual control of the treasury. Lie in your bed and count your money. That should fill your days.

What shall I say? You think all a woman should ever do is say YES to a man. That I should retire to some dull island with you and rot away like a senile hag. I belong next to Nero on the throne and I won’t give up to any WHORE!

I remember when you were lovely. Even then, you wore this hard defiance I never could penetrate. I mistook the ambition that flushed your cheeks for innocence. It breathed a fire that lit up the dark, empty rooms of my mind, and I saw myself rising above a thousand black crimes commited for your sake.

Because I thought that once your boy was emperor, we would leave Rome and with snowy heads retire to some island with the ghost of youth still in our hearts.

I’ve NO taste for island life (Suddenly contrite, touching his face). My poor friend. I know this isn’t what you’ve waited for. My sharp words, this boredom that glazes my eyes. They are right. I AM a monster. And I won’t be counted among the vanquished. Not by Nero. I taught him everything he knows, and now he thinks he can drop me for a……

Oh, these endless battles. All different, and all the same. You’ve become like an old soldier so steeped in the rigors of war, you’ve forgotten how to live in peace. GIVE IT UP. (Embracing her gently) We’ve both passed the age of youthful dreams, but you can’t stop me now from saying there were times when we’d loved. Who knows how that was destroyed? At first there was no time for it. Too much was at stake. And now, it seems, it’s too late. Perhaps time, after all, is the real culprit.

I’m thinking of something more important. Survival!! I know what can happen to women in high places.

Yes, too popular and so exiled to a desert island. She had scorpions and uncouth guards for company. No wine, no music, no books, nothing to break the monotony. She finally died by starving herself. I was only fourteen, and it taught that life for a woman in my family would be meaningless without power. I knew that I must rule, or die, and that there was nothing in between. The trick was to find a way to rule. Then….Nero was born.

Listen to me Agrippina! He’s not your boy any longer. Did you never think he would discover the world had shapes other than the rounds of your breasts? That the world isn’t bounded by the pillars of your legs? He’s a man now.

MEN! How you all hang together with your puffed up chests and flexed muscles. Humanity’s seed pods. Remember that we women are the ones who nurture your seed. I made Nero. He’s MINE!