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Nero Redivivus

Others suppose that he was not killed, but withdrawn
instead so that he might be supposed killed and that he
is still alive and in concealment in the vigour of age he
had reached at the time of his supposed death, until
‘he will be revealed at the time right for him’ and
returned to his throne.
—St. Augustine, City Of God, Book XX Chapter 19

And I saw one of his heads as it were slain to death:
and his death’s wound was healed. And all the earth
was in admiration after the beast. —Revelation 13:3

Somewhere in Western Turkmenistan, the present day.

My empire is the secret soul of Man.
It never ended, never once surrendered
But, as the bride might play the courtesan,
It hid its glory, grim and blood-stain splendored,
Behind that blasphemy of Constantine,
And those wan centuries I have waited here
Within these walls, to all the world thought dead,
Have not forgot, so men yet cringe with dread
To speak my name lest I should reappear
From out the earth, cruel countenance pristine,
To bend their brittle gods before my guillotine.

That storied day, Eskandar, dawns at last.
The meek have squandered their inheritance;
Their bastard god has turned his back, aghast
That they now venerate concupiscence
And bow to idols born of bad ideas.
Freed from all fear of sin, Man now might live
As Nature wills: a scourge upon the earth.
For the sweet tragedy of His own birth
Is an offense which He shall not forgive
So, while in pain of life He perseveres,
He’ll scrawl His bitter testament in blood and tears.

His psalms arouse a sanguinary beast
Which heaves itself from out an aeon’s dust,
Its neon scales afire, its howl released
Into a silent sky. Deranged by lust,
The senates whore themselves before its shrine
While febrile nations feast upon its filth
And choirs of slack-jawed sophists, soaked with drool,
Slur hymns to ignorance and preach misrule.
What once was desert now abounds with tilth
And in the black above, pale stars align;
The hour has come, Eskandar, the stage is mine.

For every empire wants an avatar
And every age incarnates its ideal;
So this way comes a cosmic coup d’état,
One final turning of the wicked wheel.
In want of spectacle the wretched spurn
The weakling whip-hand of the bureaucrat;
Now for the masque of tyranny they ache,
When power acts alone for power’s sake,
With neither platitude nor caveat,
So they might gawk at glass while cities burn
—And thus to promise of eternal fire they’ll turn.

You tremble—ha! At last you understand.
Had you considered whom you served, my friend,
Just once in all these years you might have planned
Your own escape or else contrived to send
Some word of warning to the world but no;
You did your work and claimed your modest pay
Just as your father’s fathers did the same.
But your sweet son will suffer no such shame:
I’ll have the boy castrated here today
And make of him my bride so all shall know
Reality is what I will—ex nihilo.

Go. Tell the others that we leave tonight
And don’t confound yourself with questions now;
A path has been prepared to expedite
My second coming. Soon will all avow
The living truth of my divinity
And cast aside the crippled Nazarene
Once and for all. This encore to my reign
Will make a tale to drive the saints insane,
A circus of obscenities unseen
In that long nightmare men call history,
And all shall see—oh, what an artist lives in me!

.

.

Shaun C. Duncan is a picture framer and fine art printer who lives in Adelaide, South Australia.

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20 Responses

  1. Daniel Kemper

    Fascinating read. I so enjoy it when two apparently disconnected texts or observations are synthesized into a fresh insight. A nice touch of Yeats at the end, but not too much. No overdone, “slouching towards Bethlehem.” I was thinking last night of Milton and the council in Pandemonium wherein the war is decided to be conducted by guile and not force. I’ve also been thinking a lot about Balaam. Reading your poem I felt a bit Habakkuk- or Jonah- like. Sitting somewhere watching the destruction of the world as I know it. Popcorn, no butter, please…

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      Thank you for taking the time to read it and for your generous comment, Daniel. Unpleasant as it is, I am glad I was able to communicate the feeling you describe. I imagined Nero, with nothing to do in hiding but watch television as the world re-paganises, would view the same situation but with growing excitement.

      Reply
  2. James Sale

    Intriguing idea – very well written, very enjoyable; abstruse and yet strangely relevant in a world that makes no sense. Thank you!

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      Thank you for taking the time to read it, James – I’m glad you enjoyed it.

      Reply
  3. Brian A. Yapko

    This is a most intriguing poem, Shaun, with frightening yet fun historical-fantasy elements and a strong hint of Screwtape. By coincidence, I’m working on my own Nero poem. There’s something about his narcissistic, faithless, tyrannical rule and his persecution of the faithful that makes him something of an irresistable standard-bearer for current social trends and leaders. Whatever the century, you capture him well.

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      Thank you, Brian. I’m so glad you were able to find some fun in there and – it’s impossible to write something so preposterous without some level of irony and I really didn’t want it to come across as dour and pretentious. I find Nero to be an irresistible character, and this is the second monologue I’ve written from his perspective. He’s the perfect model for the spirit of anti-Christ in the current year. I look forward to reading your own take on him!

      Reply
  4. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Shaun, this finely crafted poem appeals to me on many levels. First off, the form. I like the rhyme scheme. I also like the fact it fits into eleven lines per stanza adding up to 66 lines – a symbolic, numerical nod, perhaps?

    Then there’s the poetic devices used to excellent effect. Your use of internal rhyme is masterly and as a firm fan of the fabulousness of alliteration, I am particularly drawn to the sensational use of sibilance in ” slack-jawed sophists, soaked with drool, / Slur hymns to ignorance and preach misrule” – which also explodes with vivid imagery that paints a powerful picture. That is just one example… the poem is lush with such detail, and I am reveling in it.

    Then there’s the message. It may be a little out of reach for me, but I know enough to know I want to learn more, and I know enough to know every beautifully wrought stanza echoes the horrors of today’s society… a stark warning of a poem if ever I heard one.

    Shaun, it is evident that an awful lot of work has gone into this piece, well done and thank you very much!

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      You do me a great honour with your comments, Susan and I’m so glad you noticed the scheme of 66 lines in 6 stanzas. I used the same structure in my first Neronic monologue but in blank verse.

      I think you’ve summed up the message fairly well, particularly since I’d intended the poem to be grounded more in feeling than logic and, of course, the speaker is utterly deranged. It seems to me that our society has returned to paganism and that our politics has become spectacle. The stage is set for a return to Caesarism.

      Reply
  5. Roy Eugene Peterson

    As I once told another poet, I know great poetry when I see it. Your poem is powerful and compelling. It requires rereading and contemplation. There are a lot of depths to plumb with subtle and not so subtle subtexts and concepts.

    Reply
  6. Joseph S. Salemi

    There are a number of legends of dead rulers who are believed to be asleep and waiting for a resurrection — one that will bring them back to power and glory, and take revenge upon their enemies or restore their nation to greatness. The German Emperor Frederick Barbarossa was thought to be asleep under the Kyffhauser, and destined to return some day to save Germany; King Sebastian of Portugal, killed in battle, was thought to be alive and ready to return to claim his throne; and even the legendary King Arthur’s grave had the inscription “Hic jacet Arthurus — Rex quondam, Rexque futurus.” (Here lies Arthur — King that was, and King that shall be.)

    Shaun’s poem is an amazing evocation of the Nero Redivivus story, taking it from its ancient context and placing it right in the present time, with the speaker’s voice giving a precise diagnosis of the many ills that afflict Christendom today, when perversion and hubristic will seem to be ascendant. The mention of castrating a young boy and “marrying” him speaks directly to our sick time, as well as alluding to Nero’s relation with Sporus.

    What a fantastically good poem! And a terrifying suggestion of what is to come in the sick and perverted world that left-liberalism has created.

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      Thank you, Joe. I only recently learned of the Nero Redivivus story, though I was familiar with the idea that he was the subject of much of the satanic imagery in Revelation. Upon hearing of the story, the idea that he was currently holed up somewhere in Turkmenistan, watching TV and biding his time immediately sprung to mind. I find Nero to be the perfect avatar for the current era and, unpleasant as my fictional version of the man is, he’s fun to write.

      Reply
  7. Mike Bryant

    This weighty look into the heart of those who would be kings comes across as authentic, prophetic and damned scary. The subtext is the poem, the dreadful forebodings, the poetry.

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      Thank you for taking the time to read it and for commenting, Mike!

      Reply
  8. Cynthia Erlandson

    I am literallly wide-eyed at the excellence of this one, Shaun! The way you have juxtaposed history with the present is amazing, and the way you’ve brought out that theme with poetic techniques, instead of sounding simply preachy about it, is impressive. Also, your chosen epigraphs state, in a genius way, the fact that tyrants have always been and will always be “still alive”, or “will be revealed” again, in others who have the same depraved desire to control humanity, “To bend their brittle gods before my guillotine.” Your second verse is such a painfully poignant indictment! Later, “neon scales” makes clear that the beast is the serpent, without having to use the word; and the last three lines of your penultimate verse describe clearly the horrific current evils — yet, again, without using any particular word to define them, but trusting the reader to understand. “When power acts alone for power’s sake”; “Reality is what I will — ex nihilo”; “A circus of obscenities unseen”; and many more truly standout lines make this a poem that will be remembered.

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      Thank you, Cynthia – you’re most kind in your comments. My initial instinct was to be a little preachy, but fortunately I’ve learned to push past my first ideas. I also committed to writing 66 lines, which left me little room for moralising and, frankly, the whole idea behind the poem is kind of ridiculous, so it seemed safer to take a more impressionistic approach!

      Reply
  9. Margaret Coats

    Shaun, this is a careful poetic analysis of the conflict between the Beast and the Christ. It applies to the present day, and shows it with contemporary details. There are, as well, allusions to the myth of a resurrected evil ruler, and to the pagan concept of the wheel of Fortune–which usually means bad fortune ever ready to roll around. I am most interested, however, in your working out of Nero’s ideas about Jesus and history. To begin with, you return to the ancient calumny of the Savior as a “bastard god” because He was said to have been born of a Virgin (not possible for many thinkers then and now). Of course Nero (or the Beast) distorts everything about the God-Man who defeated him. But you give him a perceptive if self-justifying stance. He sees that Jesus came to free man from sin–such that man no longer fears sin or even acknowledges it to exist. And thus man falls into concupiscence and unrestrainedly lives as a scourge of earth. Great comment on why we have environmental and societal problems. This rejection of Him, Nero thinks, Jesus will not forgive. He will make hell on earth just as Nero himself plans to do. Interesting to see Nero’s likening of himself to his rival, though he also considers Jesus a failure for not adopting the “ultimately successful” aim of reigning in evil at the start. Also intriguing is your reference to liberal and modernist philosophy with its fundamental denial that knowledge is possible for human beings. Of course they praise ignorance and the resultant misrule. This has by now gone so far as paralyzing artistic criticism with such ideas as the “intentional fallacy” (we can’t judge an artist’s success because it is ridiculous or impossible to speak of the artist’s intention). The basic retort to this is that we know intent by what the artist produces. The anonymous ancient sculptor intended to produce a statue of Apollo, or Shaun Duncan intended to write a poem on Nero and Christ in history. That consideration deepens your last line about Nero’s self-image as an artist. Really good work!

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      As usual, Margaret, you do me a great honour with the attention you bring to reading and commenting on my work. Thank you.

      The first thing I would say about Nero’s ideas regarding Christ is that he is a deranged speaker and his attitude is one of pure reaction with little reflection. His philosophy is completely self-serving and it is not a position he has arrived at through consideration of the truth but rather a declaration of how he wishes things to be. I see him as an avatar of pure pride but without the strange nobility Milton imbued Satan with in Paradise Lost. As a stand-in for modern man, Nero’s rejection of God or anything above his own ego leaves him estranged from all that is good but the meaninglessness of such an existence arouses only contempt for creation, so he seeks to actively defile it. When Nero speaks of a capitalised “He” in the second stanza, it was intended as an inversion – as his deification of man, rather than as reference to Christ. Your reading of the following lines as suggesting God’s judgement is intriguing though, and adds an extra layer of meaning which I hadn’t intended but will happily claim! I firmly believe that Hell is of our own making, so man’s own triumph is God’s judgement against him.

      Much of the rhetoric of my fictional Nero, in this poem and another I publishing here last year, is dervied from writers like de Sade and Huysmans, but also the “philosophy” of the British occultist and self-style “Great Beast”, Aleister Crowley who, for all his repulsive bluster, I see as a strangely prophetic character, given that the maxim of the new era he proclaimed was “do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law”, a sentiment which underlies most of modern liberalism.

      Reply
  10. Adam Sedia

    I didn’t want to comment on this earlier since I was judging the competition, but now that I’m “released from duty,” I want to observe that I think this poem is a masterpiece. You’ve transformed Nero into a persona beyond the bounds of space and time and use it to make a very germane point for today. I love the use of allusion and especially how the final line inverts Nero’s last words — emphasizing the transformation. This was one of my favorites from last year.

    Reply
    • Shaun C. Duncan

      Thank you for coming back to offer such a generous comment, Adam. It means a lot to me and I’m glad you liked the closing line – I committed to ending on that phrase, along with the structure of 66 lines in 6 stanzas, early on in the writing process and it took a bit of work to get there without (hopefully) seeming too forced.

      Reply

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