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the fatal book

      Octavian, by sacrificing him, strikes in him his rival.

      These are the springs of destiny, of empire.

      These great secrets of state that ignorance admires

      From afar they astonish vulgar wits

      Close up, they inspire horror and scorn.

      ALBINA

      What baseness, O heaven, and what tyranny!

      What! The masters of the world are ignoramuses!

      I pity you. I thought that today Lepidus

      Would support you against those two impostors,

      Unite Anthony and yourself with Lepidus.

      FULVIA

      He hardly counts in their homicidal gang.

      Scorned pontiff, subaltern tyrant

      They have much abused his weak genius,

      Odious instrument of their vile caprices

      This vile scoundrel submits to his accomplices.

      He signs their orders without being consulted

      And still thinks he’s acting with authority.

      But if some delights still remain to me in my troubles,

      It’s that my tyrants secretly detest each other.

      This marriage with Octavia, and her weak attractions

      Will prolong the breach—not prevent it.

      They know each other too well, they do each other justice

      One day I will see them prepare their sacrifice.

      Light Discord with the greatest fury

      So that their false friendship exposes here its horror.

      (Aufidius enters)

      FULVIA

      Aufidius, what’s going on? What is my fate?

      To what abasement am I finally condemned?

      AUFIDIUS

      The divorce is signed with that self-same hand

      That poured out long waves of Roman blood.

      And soon your tyrants will come to this tent

      To share the bloody pillage of the proscribed.

      FULVIA

      Can I count on you?

      AUFIDIUS

      Born in your house

      If I am serving under Antonius and in his legion

      I am still yours alone. In the past my sword

      Served Great Pompey in the fields of Thessaly

      I blush to be here the slave of passions

      Of the conquerors of Pompey and your oppressors—

      But what is your decision?

      FULVIA

      To avenge myself.

      AUFIDIUS

      No question,

      You must, Fulvia.

      FULVIA

      No matter what it costs me

      There is nothing that I fear and in our factions

      They count Fulvia in the rank of the greatest number

      In my disgrace, Aufidius, I have only one resource:

      The party of Pompey is the one I embrace.

      And Lucius Caesar has secret friends

      Who will know how to join my cause to his interests.

      He is, you know, Julia’s father;

      He’s been proscribed; all reconciles me to him.

      Is Julia in Rome?

      AUFIDIUS

      No one is able to find her there.

      The rumor ran

      All powerful Octavian would have carried her off.

      FULVIA

      Rape and murder

      These are his exploits! These are our laws, Aufidius.

      But Pompey’s son—is he safe?

      What have you learned about it?

      AUFIDIUS

      His arrest is projected.

      And infamous avarice to power subjected

      Must cut off such a fine life at the price of gold

      Such are the vile Romans.

      FULVIA

      What! All hope is fleeing from me!

      No, I still defy the fate that pursues me;

      The tumults of army camps have been my asylum.

      My genius was born for our civil wars,

      For this terrible century into which I was born.

      I intend—but I notice in this bloody abode

      The lictors of tyrants—their cowardly satellites

      Who occupy the limits of their barbarous camp.

      You, whose funereal job keeps you here near them,

      Stay—listen to their dark conspiracies

      You will warn me and will come to inform me what I must suffer and what must be attempted.

      (she leaves with Albina)

      AUFIDIUS

      Me, Anthony’s soldier! To what am I reduced!

      For thirty years of labor what execrable fruit.

      (As he speaks, the tent of Octavian where Octavian and Anthony are going to speak is brought forward. The lictors surround it, making a half circle. Aufidius places himself at the side of the tent. Octavian and Anthony stand in the tent with a table between them)

      ANTHONY

      Octavian, it’s done, and I repudiate her—

      I retie our bonds by marrying Octavia;

      But, it’s not enough to extinguish those fires,

      That jealous interest ignites between the two of us.

      Two leaders, always united, are a rare example.

      To counsel them they have to be separated.

      Twenty times your Agrippa, your confidants, mine,

      For as long as we have reigned, have broken our bonds

      One companion the more, or at least who will grow to be one

      Affecting to appear on the throne with us—

      Lepidus, is a phantom, easy to remove,who himself returns to his obscurity.

      Let him remain pontiff and preside at festivals

      That trembling Rome dedicates to our conquests:

      The earth is ours alone, and our legions—

      The time has come to fix the fate of nations

      Let’s especially regulate one—and when all second us

      Let’s stop squabbling over sharing the world.

      (They sit at the table where they are to sign)

      OCTAVIAN

      For a long while my plans have foreseen your wishes

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