In the Circus Maximus

by Brett Rutherford

Adapted from Victor Hugo, l’Annee Terrible, “January 1871”

The lion of the south is lord. What is this?
Something he has never seen before
comes at him — a polar bear!.
The bear runs straight to the lion,
snarling, and full of anger, attacking it,
roaring as loud as a Nubian wind-storm.
And the lion said to him: Fool! Look around!
We are in the circus, and you are making war on me.

For what? Do you see that man over there
     the one with the vulgar forehead?
He calls himself Nero, emperor of the Romans.
You fight for him. If one of us bleeds,
     he laughs, he claps his hands.
We are not in the great outdoors, brother,
the sky above is the only way out of here,
and you see no fewer stars than I do.

What does this master want from us,
sitting on his balcony with banners fluttering?
He is happy; and we die by his command,
     his business is laughter,
     and ours is biting, do you see?
He makes one of us massacre the other;
and, while, brother, my nail-bite waits
for your untender tooth-bite,
he is there on his throne and watches us do it.

Our torments are his games;
he is from another sphere.
Brother, when we shed our blood in streams,
he calls it purple. Innocent, simpleton,
come and attack me. So be it. My claws are ready;
but I think and dare to say, my brother,
that if we are beast enough to kill one another
with such fury, we had better eat the emperor instead.