from Threnody in Three Voices
Joel Chace
1.
I begin my work when Servius Galba was consul for the second time
with Titus Vinius for his colleague. Great intellects had
passed away. Then too the truthfulness of history
was impaired in many ways; at first, through men's ignorance
of public affairs, which were now wholly
strange to them, then, through their passion for flattery.
In the anteroom, he began to notice how small he’d become, considerably smaller than the several others there — men and women —
Left hospital with Marci today, for home.
Ronnie, Mother, & Jule came to pick us up.
Jule didn’t quite know what to say, but after
we gave her a toy dog from her new sister, she
was O.K. Good to be home, but so tired & weak.
and even much smaller than he’d been before,
2.
I am entering on the history of a period rich
in disasters, frightful in its wars, torn by
civil strife, and even in peace full of horrors.
Sacred rites were profaned; there was profligacy
in the highest ranks; the sea was crowded with exiles,
and its rocks polluted with bloody deeds.
In the capital there were yet worse horrors.
a fact that he’d soon have to explain to his superior,
The Lakelands’ 7 yr. old son died of
polio this a.m. Only seemed sick a few
hours before. All parents here getting
jittery. Have put Jule on
homogenized milk until this is over.
who was about to chastise him for arriving late that morning.
3.
5 or 6 cases in town now. Don’t
dare let Jule or Marci go in. All
Halloween activities have been called off.
The rewards of the informers were no less odious
than their crimes; for while some seized on consulships and priestly
offices, as their share of the spoil, others on procuratorships,
and posts of more confidential authority, they robbed and
ruined in every direction amid universal hatred and terror.
Those who had not an enemy were destroyed by friends.
Not quite a homunculus, he
thought about himself, though he was now
certain that those in the room were now naming
him such
Tried to sort out some of the newspapers. I’m
way behind on my reading now. Marci’s
naps are so short it’s hard to accomplish anything.
4.
Galling to troops who rebelled against the old discipline,
and who had been accustomed by fourteen years’ service under
Nero to love the vices of their emperors, as much
as they had once respected their virtues.
behind his tiny back.
Though he’d been caught out as tardy, he gauged
— through the filthy windows — the hour as still
very early,
Jule’s 4th birthday. When she was finally in bed,
I began to think back to when she had the croup
so bad, not long after her first birthday. The attack
started Thanksgiving night, 1950, and continued
night & day for 4-5 weeks (2 weeks in
hospital). Dr. told us she might
not make it, but here she is!
not terribly long after dawn. Which was why he
couldn’t get straight
Few had any discrimination or patriotism, many
had foolish hopes for themselves, and spread interested
reports, in which they named this or that person to whom
they might be related as friend or dependant.
5.
how, earlier that morning,
Marcie woke 6 or 8 times during night. Teeth
must really
in virtually the same light,
For to urge his duty upon a prince is indeed
a hard matter; to flatter him, whatever his character,
hurt. Hope they push through
as I’m getting mighty tired.
is a mere routine gone through without any heart.
he’d had time to climb to the summit on the city’s opposite
6.
Jule turns television
Let Nero, swollen with pride, be ever before
your eyes. What shook his yoke
side, before showing up here.
How much older he’d been hours ago, ascending that street, his pace steady, though decidedly
voice way
down if the program
from our necks was his
own profligacy, his own brutality, and that, though there had been
before no precedent of an emperor condemned by his own people.
scares her.
slow. After all, he was venturing out for the first time in the months
7.
Many who wished him well, spoke with enthusiasm; those
since his retirement. The
very next day after taking his pension, he fell
Did quite a bit of shopping dept.
store. Had to
who had opposed him, in
ill — that is, into despair.
Forty years of numbing, enervating effort to
teach literature; then blinking his eyes upon
the horror of the unrecognizable
stop when money gave out.
moderate terms; the majority met him with
an officious homage, having aims of their own and no thought for
the state.
8.
world around him, its people — even the young — looking every way stunned.
But that morning, he
Otho, meanwhile, who had nothing to hope while the State
was tranquil, and whose whole plans depended on
revolution, was
being roused to
Jule played “Jingle Bells” at church on her toy
woke and, at last, exited his home. As he began trudging up the incline,
trombone. Got up on stage all by
herself. She’s a real comedienne —
had
action by a combination of
many motives, by a luxury that would have embarrassed even
an emperor, by a poverty that a subject
could hardly endure, by his rage and his envy.
all the other kids laughing.
Joel Chace’s most recent collections include Sharpsburg (Cy Gist Press), Blake’s Tree (Blue & Yellow Dog Press), Whole Cloth (Avantacular Press), Red Power (Quarter After Press), Kansoz (Knives, Forks, and Spoons Press), Web Too (Tonerworks), War, and After (BlazeVOX [books]), Scorpions (Unlikely Books), and Humors (Paloma Press).
