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Fascism through History
Fascism through History
Culture, Ideology, and Daily Life

Volume 1: A–M
Patrick G. Zander
Copyright © 2020 by ABC-CLIO, LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in
writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Zander, Patrick G., author.

Title: Fascism through history : culture, ideology, and daily life / Patrick G. Zander.
Description: Santa Barbara, California : ABC-CLIO, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019059494 (print) | LCCN 2019059495 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440861932 (set) |
ISBN 9781440861956 (v. 1 ; hardcover) | ISBN 9781440861963 (v. 2 ; hardcover) | ISBN
9781440861949 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Fascism—Europe—History—20th century—Encyclopedias. | Europe—Politics
and government—1918-1945—Encyclopedias.
Classification: LCC D726.5 .Z36 2020 (print) | LCC D726.5 (ebook) | DDC
320.53/309—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019059494
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ISBN: 978-1-4408-6193-2 (set)
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    978-1-4408-6196-3 (vol. 2)
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24 ​23 ​22 ​21 ​20   1 ​2 ​3 ​4 ​5
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in some instances this has proven impossible. The editors and publishers will be glad to receive
information leading to more complete acknowledgments in subsequent printings of the book and
in the meantime extend their apologies for any omissions.
Contents

Alphabetical List of Entries vii

Topical List of Entries xi
List of Primary Documents xv
Preface xvii
Introduction xix
Timeline xxxiii
A–Z Entries 1
Primary Documents 537
Selected Bibliography 583
Index 591
Alphabetical List of Entries

VOLUME ONE
Abyssinia, Italian Conquest of Cable Street, Battle of
Action Française Carnera, Primo
Air Armada Ciano, Count Gian Galeazzo
Anglo-German Naval Agreement Concentration Camps
Anschluss Corporatism
Anti-Semitism Czech Crisis of 1938
Appeasement
Archaeology D’Annunzio, Gabriele
Architecture Der Stürmer
Arditi Dietrich, Marlene
Argentina, Fascism in Dollfuss, Engelbert
Autarky Dreyfus Affair
Autobahn
Aviation Education
Einsatzgruppen
Badoglio, Pietro Elser, Johann Georg
Balbo, Italo Enabling Act of 1933
Barbarossa, Operation Eugenics
Barrès, Maurice Euthanasia
Beer Hall Putsch Exhibition of Degenerate Art
Berghof Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution
Biennio Rosso
Blackshirts Falange Española
Blood Flag (Blutfahne) Family Life
Boulanger Crisis Fasces
British Union of Fascists (BUF) Fascist Party of Italy (PNF)
viii Alphabetical List of Entries

Fatherland Front Italian Racial Laws

First World War Italian Social Republic
Fiume, Occupation of Italy, Fascism in
Four-Year Plan
France, Fascism in Japan, Fascism in
Franco, Francisco Jud Süß (Film, 1940)
Freikorps Joyce, William
Futurists
Kristallnacht
Genocide
Gentile, Giovanni Labor Charter of 1927
German Labor Front Lateran Pacts of 1929
Germanization League of German Girls (BDM)
Gestapo Lebensborn Program
Ghettoes of the Holocaust Lebensraum
“Giovinezza, La”
“Manifesto of Race”
Goebbels, Joseph
March on Rome
Goering, Hermann
Marxism
Grand Council of Fascism (Italy)
Mein Kampf
Greater Britain, The
Military Culture
Greece, Fascism in
Modernism/Modernization
Guernica, Bombing of
Mosley, Sir Oswald
Guernica (Painting, 1937)
Murder of Giacomo Matteotti
Heavy Water Sabotage Mussolini, Benito
Hess, Rudolf
Heydrich, Reinhard VOLUME TWO
Himmler, Heinrich Nationalism
Hitler, Adolf Nazi Party (NSDAP)
Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend) Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of
Holidays 1939
Holocaust Neofascism
“Horst Wessel Song” Neurath, Baron Konstantin von
Newspapers
Ideology of Fascism Night of the Long Knives
International Brigades Nuremberg Laws
Interpretations of Fascism Nuremberg Nazi Party Rallies
 Alphabetical List of Entries ix

Occupation, European Life Under Shirer, William L.

Olympic Summer Games of 1936 Social Darwinism
Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB) Sorrow and the Pity, The (Film, 1969)
Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (OND) Spain, Fascism in
OVRA Spanish Civil War
Speer, Albert
Pact of Steel Sports and Physical Culture
Paris Peace Conference Squadrismo
Pavelić, Ante Strength through Joy Program
Pétain, Henri Philippe Sturmabteilung (SA)
PIDE Swastika
Portugal, Fascism in Symbolism
Pound, Ezra
Primo de Rivera, José Antonio Tokyo Rose
Primo de Rivera, Miguel Totalitarianism
Propaganda Treaty of Versailles
Protofascism Tripartite Pact
Triumph of the Will (Film, 1934)
Quisling, Vidkun Trumpism

Racial Hygiene Uniforms

Radio and Broadcasting United States, Fascism in the
Rearmament (Germany) Ustaše (Croatian Revolutionary
Reichstag Fire Movement)
Religion and Fascism
Remilitarization of the Rhineland Valkyrie Plot (July 1944 Plot)
Resistance Organizations of World Vichy France
War II Volkssturm
Resistance to Fascism Volkswagen Project
Ribbentrop, Joachim von
Rӧhm, Ernst Wannsee Conference
Romania, Fascism in Welthauptstadt Germania
Rosenberg, Alfred White Rose Group
Wolf’s Lair
Salazar, António de Oliveira Women and Fascism
Schmeling, Max
Schutzstaffel (SS) Zeppelins
Second World War Zyklon B
Topical List of Entries

ARTS, ARCHITECTURE, IDEOLOGY

AND CINEMA Anti-Semitism
Archaeology Autarky
Architecture Eugenics
Berghof Euthanasia
Exhibition of Degenerate Art Futurists
Exhibition of the Fascist Greater Britain, The
Revolution
Ideology of Fascism
Guernica (Painting, 1937)
Interpretations of Fascism
Jud Süß (Film, 1940)
Lebensraum
Sorrow and the Pity, The
“Manifesto of Race”
(Film, 1969)
Marxism
Triumph of the Will
(Film, 1934) Mein Kampf
Welthauptstadt Germania Modernism/Modernization
Nationalism
Neofascism
DIPLOMACY AND Protofascism
FOREIGN RELATIONS Racial Hygiene
Anglo-German Naval Agreement Social Darwinism
Appeasement Squadrismo
Czech Crisis of 1938 Totalitarianism
Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of Trumpism
1939
Pact of Steel
Paris Peace Conference INDIVIDUALS
Treaty of Versailles Badoglio, Pietro
Tripartite Pact Balbo, Italo
xii Topical List of Entries

Barrès, Maurice Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro

Carnera, Primo (OND)
Ciano, Count Gian Galeazzo Strength through Joy Program
D’Annunzio, Gabriele
Dietrich, Marlene
LAW AND
Dollfuss, Engelbert
ADMINISTRATION
Elser, Johann Georg
Enabling Act of 1933
Franco, Francisco
Italian Racial Laws
Gentile, Giovanni
Nuremberg Laws
Goebbels, Joseph
Goering, Hermann
Hess, Rudolf
MEDIA AND
Heydrich, Reinhard PROPAGANDA
Himmler, Heinrich Der Stürmer
Hitler, Adolf Newspapers
Joyce, William Propaganda
Mosley, Sir Oswald Radio and Broadcasting
Mussolini, Benito Tokyo Rose
Neurath, Baron Konstantin von
Pavelić, Ante
Pétain, Henri, Philippe ORGANIZATIONS
Pound, Ezra Action Française
Primo de Rivera, José Antonio Blackshirts
Primo de Rivera, Miguel British Union of Fascists
Quisling, Vidkun (BUF)
Ribbentrop, Joachim von Falange Española
Rӧhm, Ernst Fascist Party of Italy (PNF)
Rosenberg, Alfred Fatherland Front
Salazar, António de Oliveira Freikorps
Schmeling, Max Gestapo
Shirer, William L. Grand Council of Fascism
Speer, Albert (Italy)
Nazi Party (NSDAP)
Sturmabteilung (SA)
LABOR Ustaše (Croatian Revolutionary
German Labor Front Movement)
Labor Charter of 1927 White Rose Group
 Topical List of Entries xiii

POLICE AND STATE United States, Fascism in the

REPRESSION Vichy France
Concentration Camps
Ghettoes of the Holocaust
OVRA RELIGION AND FASCISM
PIDE Lateran Pacts of 1929
Schutzstaffel (SS) Religion and Fascism

POLITICAL EVENTS SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY,

AND INDUSTRY
Anschluss
Air Armada
Beer Hall Putsch
Autobahn
Biennio Rosso
Aviation
Boulanger Crisis
Corporatism
Cable Street, Battle of
Four-Year Plan
Dreyfus Affair
Volkswagen Project
Fiume, Occupation of
Zeppelins
Kristallnacht
Zyklon B
March on Rome
Murder of Giacomo Matteotti
Night of the Long Knives SPORT
Reichstag Fire
Olympic Summer Games of 1936
Remilitarization of the
Sports and Physical Culture
Rhineland
Valkyrie Plot (July 1944 Plot)
SYMBOLISM AND
REGIONAL FASCIST POLITICAL CULTURE
HISTORIES Blood Flag (Blutfahne)
Argentina, Fascism in Fasces
France, Fascism in “Giovinezza, La”
Greece, Fascism in Holidays
Italian Social Republic “Horst Wessel Song”
Italy, Fascism in Military Culture
Japan, Fascism in Nuremberg Nazi Party Rallies
Portugal, Fascism in Swastika
Romania, Fascism in Symbolism
Spain, Fascism in Uniforms
xiv Topical List of Entries

WAR AND CONFLICT Resistance to Fascism

Abyssinia, Italian Conquest of Second World War
Arditi Spanish Civil War
Barbarossa, Operation Volkssturm
Einsatzgruppen Wannsee Conference
First World War Wolf’s Lair
Genocide
Germanization WOMEN, CHILDREN,
Guernica, Bombing of EDUCATION, AND
FAMILY LIFE
Heavy Water Sabotage
Holocaust Education
International Brigades Family Life
Occupation, European Life Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend)
Under League of German Girls (BDM)
Rearmament (Germany) Lebensborn Program
Resistance Organizations of World Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB)
War II Women and Fascism
List of Primary Documents

ITALY GERMANY
1. “The Futurist Manifesto” (1909) 12. Program of the National Socialist
2. Program of the Italian Fascist German Workers’ Party (1920)
Movement (1919) 13. Appeal to the German People
3. Italian Charter of Labor (1927) (1933)
4. Mussolini’s Speech Declaring 14. Law Making the Hitler Youth
Victory in Abyssinia (1936) Compulsory (1936)
5. “Manifesto of Racial Scientists” 15. Hitler’s Declaration about the
(1938) Place of Women in the Nazi State
(1934)
6. Fundamental Law Regarding
Fascist Crimes (1944) 16. Martin Bormann’s Declaration
That Christianity and Nazism Are
Irreconcilable (1941)
BRITAIN 17. The Nuremberg Laws (1935)
7. Excerpt from The Greater Britain 18. Notes from the Conference on the
(1932) Jewish Question (1938)
8. Daily News Coverage in Britain’s 19. Daily Life under Axis Occupation
Fascist Press (1933–1940) in World War II (1941–1944)
20. Testimony of Rudolf Höss at the
Nuremberg Trials (1946)
SPAIN
9. The Twenty-Six Point Program of
the Falange Española (1937)
10. General Franco’s Call for Spanish
Unity and the Announcement of the
Falange Española Tradicionalista y
de las JONS (1937)
11. The Franco Regime’s Law
Restricting the Press (1938)
Preface

This two-volume reference work, Fascism through History: Culture, Ideology,

and Daily Life, addresses one of the most complicated and destructive develop-
ments of modern history—the growth and expansion of Fascist dictatorship dur-
ing the twentieth century. This political movement originated and was centered in
Europe, though it would eventually influence states across the globe. In Europe,
from the end of the First World War in 1918, a variety of conditions came together
to shape a new form of ultranationalism that eventually found enough mass sup-
port in some nations to produce dictatorial regimes during the 1920s and 1930s. In
other European states, such popular movements developed but never gained the
mass support necessary to take power. In yet other nations, the dictatorships that
took power were deeply influenced by these dictatorial regimes, though not identi-
cal. These regimes and movements together espoused a belief system and a set of
political practices that collectively came to be known as Fascism.
Despite its often-violent nature and its tendency to victimize particular groups
of people, Fascist dictatorship was thought of by many at the time as a necessary
development to stop the spread of Communism and to deal with the prolonged
economic downturn that nagged Europe from 1918 to 1939. By the late 1930s,
Fascist or Fascist-inspired dictatorships existed in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany,
Austria, Romania, Greece, and Yugoslavia. It was the aggressive expansion of
these dictatorships (particularly Italy’s and Germany’s) as they moved to conquer
neighboring states that eventually took the world into the largest, most destructive
conflict in human history—the Second World War. In that war, the Axis powers
(Italy, Germany, and Japan) occupied a number of other nations and created sub-
ject or puppet governments that imposed Fascism on the people of those occupied
countries. Such nations included Denmark, Norway, Croatia, Greece, Belgium,
the Netherlands, and France. That war would eventually cost an estimated sixty
million lives and leave many powerful, developed nations in ruins. The conflict
would also see one Fascist dictatorship—that of Nazi Germany—initiate an orga-
nized and industrialized project of mass murder against the Jews of Europe. This
was the Holocaust, and its murderous policies killed over six million Jews and
millions of others in specially designed death camps by war’s end.
There has been an enormous amount of historical study done to examine how
and why Fascism developed and to trace the history of its destructive expansion.
There exists a vast literature on the political and military aspects of Fascism—so
xviii Preface

much so that any individual scholar might require a lifetime’s work to master it.
There are aspects of the Fascist phenomenon, however, that have not been as
widely explored, and these have to do with the actual living conditions and cul-
tural aspects of societies living under Fascist dictatorship. In the last twenty years
or so, there has been a marked increase in the academic studies of these dimen-
sions of Fascism. But the exciting scholarship in these areas remains a work in
progress.
This reference set hopes to contribute to the expansion of understanding in
these areas. While it includes a good deal of standard political history, its focus is
on the ideological development of Fascism, the effects of Fascism on national cul-
tures, and the daily lives of ordinary people under Fascist regimes. The majority
of the work is devoted to a large encyclopedia section, which includes entries cov-
ering themes like: the relationship between women and Fascism; conditions for
workers and industrial labor; the arts, architecture, and cinema in Fascist culture;
religion and Fascism; the press, radio, and other media; education and youth cul-
ture; family life; science, technology, and industry; symbolism and political cul-
ture; and crime, punishment, and policing. There is also an emphasis on the
ideological aspects of Fascism, including class relations, race theory and discrimi-
nation, nationalism, totalitarian aspects of Fascism, and finally, violence, war, and
military culture.
This work is designed to help students at the high school and undergraduate
level gain understanding in these emerging areas of scholarship. It can also serve
as a starting point for graduate students and even professional scholars for embark-
ing upon more in-depth studies. It begins with a timeline of events to provide
students a chronological order of these developments and a way to see the relation-
ships between events. Next is an introduction and historical overview, which
explains the origins and development of Fascism, introducing the key individuals,
events, and ideas that brought this political movement to prominence, and which
discusses the areas of ideology, culture, and daily life. There follows the largest
section of the work, an encyclopedia section with nearly two hundred entries on
the political, social, cultural, ideological, and military aspects of Fascism. The
next section is a list of some of the important documentary sources for our under-
standing of Fascism. The documents have been chosen to shed light specifically
on Fascist ideology, culture, and daily life. This section will contain brief explana-
tions of the documents and their significance, followed by excerpts from the actual
writings. This allows students to hear for themselves the voices of those who
helped bring about the Fascist era and who lived in Fascist societies. Finally, there
is a selected bibliography section, which includes some of the most helpful sources
available on the subject. It is organized by subject areas relative to political his-
tory, ideology, culture, and daily life. Together, these tools should help students
gain a clearer understanding of the political creed that became so powerful—and
brought the world to such anguish and destruction. It will also provide insights to
students about what it was like to actually live and work in a culture under
Fascist rule.
Introduction

In the years immediately following the First World War, an ultranationalist politi-
cal creed developed in Europe as a response to many of the changes brought about
by that conflict.
This political movement became known as Fascism. Economic distress, fear of
the spread of Communism, radical cultural change, and particularly a sense of
national victimhood all contributed to a growing sense of anxiety among many
Europeans during the 1920s and ’30s. Believing parliamentary democracy to be
inadequate to deal with this array of problems, many turned to extreme political
solutions—Marxism (Socialism/Communism) on the left, and on the right, the
system of Fascist dictatorship. Fascism, named after the political party in Italy,
where it was first established, gained enormous followings in nations where such
problems were particularly acute.
Fascist or Fascist-inspired dictatorial regimes were established in Italy, Ger-
many, Portugal, Spain, Austria, Greece, Romania, Slovakia, and Yugoslavia.
Later, as a result of German domination during World War II, Fascist-style pup-
pet regimes were also established in places like France, Hungary, Norway, Croa-
tia, and the Netherlands, among others. There were also sizable Fascist
movements in virtually every other European nation, even if they never gained
enough popular support to take power. By the 1930s, the most powerful of the
Fascist dictatorships (Italy and Germany) began to expand their territorial
claims. Their aggressive annexations of neighboring nations would eventually
bring the world back into global conflict by 1939. In this Second World War,
Germany and Italy joined Japan (which would briefly develop its own Fascistic
system during the war) to form the Axis powers. These nations sought to dra-
matically expand their domination over territories in Europe and Africa (and for
Japan, in the Pacific Rim). They were confronted—and eventually defeated—by
a large coalition of nations, led by Great Britain, the United States, China, and
the Soviet Union. The Second World War caused enormous destruction around
the globe, leaving many nations in ruins and costing an estimated sixty million
lives. This was the sacrifice necessary to extinguish the dictatorships of Nazi
Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan and to discredit Fascism as a viable
political system.
xx Introduction

WHAT IS FASCISM?
What exactly is Fascism and how do we define it? This question has proven
notoriously difficult to answer for scholars. Because Fascism was established in so
many different nations, many of these created their own particular rhetoric, policy
priorities, and political practices. When one tries to compare the many regimes
and movements that are generally accepted as being Fascist, one finds many
inconsistencies. There are, however, some common denominators that help pro-
vide at least a fundamental and basic definition.

1. The Nation as the Supreme Entity

Fascism begins with the premise that the nation is the supreme entity to which
all other aspects of life must be subordinated (including individual desires and
democratic rights). A nation is defined as a collection of people who share a
language, a history, and a culture and who think of themselves as a single
community. Some Fascist groups also believed that this national identity was
based on a shared racial or biological ancestry. Because the nation is all-
important to them, it follows that Fascists believe the nation must be strength-
ened to the point where it can (if it chooses) impose its will upon any other
nation and defend itself against any other entity that might threaten it. The
vast majority of Fascist policy initiatives all come back to this essential objec-
tive: empowering the nation to the point where it can work its will (and domi-
nate others) without hindrance.
2. Single-Party Dictatorship
Fascists rejected representative forms of government as futile and inclined to
promote divisions within the nation. They endorsed instead a state run by a
single political party. This party possessed the power, in the absence of oppo-
sition parties, to conceive and enact its decisions without hindrance or delay.
The party was thus the vehicle through which government was carried out,
but the party government was led (and hence the nation was led) by a single
charismatic individual with dictatorial power who was believed to embody
the general will of the entire national community.
3. State Control and Direction of the Privately Owned Means of Production
In terms of economics and industrial production, Fascism advocated the state
control and direction of the privately owned means of production. While
Marxist ideology proposed the state ownership of the means of production,
Fascists were adamant about keeping industrial production (and property in
general) in the hands of private ownership. Fascists, however, also believed
that the state should construct the apparatus to direct those privately owned
businesses toward maximizing their contributions for the benefit of the
nation as a whole, rather than for the exclusive goal of profit maximization.
(This goes back to the principle in item 1). To achieve this goal, virtually all
Fascist movements endorsed some variant of the corporative model first pio-
neered in Italy.
 Introduction xxi

4. The Use and Celebration of Violence

Fascists believed in the legitimacy and positive value of violence and warfare.
Fascist discourse consistently made the point that all life involved struggle,
and in the inherent struggle between races and nations, violent action was a
vital necessity and a legitimate tool for accomplishing the objectives of the
national community. The struggle and sacrifices involved in violent activity
against enemies of the nation helped to ennoble, unify, and purify the members
of that national community. War, Fascists said, was the ultimate mechanism to
bring out the best and hardest qualities in the nation and to winnow out the
weak. Fascist culture, therefore, tended to celebrate and glorify violence, war,
and death—provided these were carried out in the service of the nation.
5. Exclusive Nationalism (Protection from without and within)
Fascists of all nations believed in a variety of different policies that collec-
tively can be called exclusive nationalism. Going back to item 1, the nation
was considered the supreme entity, and the preservation and expansion of that
national community were among the most cherished objectives of any Fascist
group. Preserving the national community meant that any polluting or harm-
ful elements had to be eliminated. Fascists often described the nation in
organic terms—as a living body with every individual a working part of the
healthy whole. Harmful influences were said to cause disease in the national
body and to require cutting out like a cancer. Outside influences that could
harm the community—like cheap foreign goods, foreign cultural influences,
or foreign biological elements—were to be kept outside the community by
state measures. Fascist groups provided their own definitions of what consti-
tuted the nation. Elements inside the country that did not fit that definition
were considered impurities that could corrode and degrade the national com-
munity from within. These could be foreign cultural influences (like immi-
grants) or political opponents (like Marxists). In cases like Nazi Germany, the
nation was defined principally in genetic/racial terms, and “impure” racial
elements like Jews, Gypsies, Africans, etc., were considered harmful to the
very essence of the nation. A central mission, then, of Fascist governments
was to purge such elements from the nation. This was usually accomplished
through the use of violence, repression, and persecution.
Now that the fundamental components of Fascist ideology have been identified,
there remains another important question. What kinds of conditions allow such an
ideology to flourish and even to produce governmental regimes? No period of his-
tory is identical to others, and the exact conditions that bring about extreme right-
wing rule may vary somewhat based on the times. But in the period immediately
following the First World War, when Fascism was at its most prevalent, there were
some clear conditions that can be linked to the onset of the Fascist era (from 1919
to 1945). They are as follows:
1. A widespread feeling among the masses of suppressed nationhood or a sense
of national victimization, with an identifiable set of “national enemies” who
were supposedly working against the greatness of the nation;
xxii Introduction

2. Extreme economic distress, which required radical political solutions;

3. Loss of confidence in liberal democracy because of the weakness of the exist-
ing state and the failure of democratic institutions to solve existing social and
economic problems;
4. The intense fear of the expansion of the Marxist left and the threat of Marxist
revolution; and
5. The presence of a large community of men with a “militarized” mentality
willing to support a militantly violent political philosophy and bring the ethos
of military conflict into the political process.

IDEOLOGICAL ORIGINS
Fascist ideology grew out of the profusion of new and controversial ideas swirl-
ing around the European West during the nineteenth and early twentieth centu-
ries. Nationalism, Darwinism, race theory, Marxism, syndicalism, militarism,
and imperialism all contributed in some way to the eventual conglomeration that
emerged as Fascist ideology by the early twentieth century. While the most promi-
nent Fascist regimes were established throughout Europe during the 1920s and
1930s (most prominently in Italy and Germany), many of these ideas came together
for the first time in the political culture of France during the late nineteenth cen-
tury. France suffered a decisive and humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian
War of 1870–1871, which saw the exile of Napoleon III, the Prussian occupation of
Paris, and then the establishment of a newly unified German Empire in a cere-
mony held in the French Palace of Versailles. The Prussians also took the French
provinces of Alsace and Lorraine in the peace agreement, which further outraged
and humiliated the French people. In the wake of such a shameful defeat, many
French intellectuals reflected the national mood in their writings by demanding
that the defeat must someday be avenged. French political culture became fixated
on recovering the lost provinces and taking revenge on the new Germany, a politi-
cal obsession that became known as revanchisme, or revengism. The new Third
Republic of France, which had formed after the exile of Napoleon III, did not run
smoothly and developed a large number of vicious critics, particularly on the
political right. The right also looked to the French Army as the organization which
would one day be tasked with recovering Alsace and Lorraine and restoring
French honor. As such, the French right began to combine its obsession with
revenge with the glorification of the army and war and with a general rejection of
parliamentary democracy. In this atmosphere, some French right-wing intellectu-
als, like Paul Déroulède and Maurice Barrès, began to emphasize the sacred
nature of the French national community—those French by birth, ancestry, and
culture—and their spiritual ties to traditional French territory. This link between
“blood and soil” meant that those who lived in France but were not considered
truly French—such as immigrants and especially racial “others,” like Jews—
undermined French national power and corroded the nation from within. In this
climate, anti-Semitism grew to frightening levels led by racist journalists like
 Introduction xxiii

Édouard Drumont, whose newspaper, La Libre Parole (Free Speech), demanded

that Jews be ejected from the country or at least have their political rights removed.
In 1889, a figure emerged within the French Republic around whom the various
groups of the political right could unify. General Georges Boulanger was a former
minister of war and was visibly nationalist and anti-German, all of which appealed
to the revanchist right wing. During 1889, there was a rising call on the right for
Boulanger to seize the government and create some form of authoritarian system,
possibly a military dictatorship. As this appeal grew, the deputies of the French
parliament charged Boulanger with conspiracy, and he left the country rather than
face the charges. He eventually killed himself over the death of his mistress a year
later, and the popular cry petered out. France, however, had come close to seeing
a protofascist dictatorship take power some thirty-two years before Benito Mus-
solini. The crisis had also exposed the polarization of the country between the
anti-Republican, pro-militarist, and anti-Semitic right and the forces of liberal
democracy. That conflict culminated five years later with the notorious Dreyfus
Affair. In 1894, army captain Alfred Dreyfus was accused of having given mili-
tary secrets to the Germans. He was tried for treason and found guilty, though the
case against him was quite flimsy. It was clear that the fact that he was Jewish was
held against him, and his guilt was generally assumed by his accusers. He was
sentenced to life on Devil’s Island and was languishing in solitary confinement
when another officer in the French Army found evidence suggesting his inno-
cence. Eventually, the real spy was found, but the French Army refused to admit a
mistake, and astonishingly, the actual culprit was acquitted in a French court. This
produced a nationwide polarization between those mostly on the anti-Republican
right, who insisted upon Dreyfus’s guilt (mostly because of his Jewishness), and
those who insisted that the republic must follow the rule of law for all French citi-
zens, regardless of race or ethnicity. Dreyfus was eventually cleared in 1906 and
returned to the army, but the affair had exacerbated the glaring divide in France
and brought into sharp relief the combination of ideas behind the right-wing move-
ment. Many of those ideas—anti-democracy, anti-Semitism, fanatic nationalism,
and pro-militarism—would form part of the basis for twentieth-century Fascism.

ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT IN ITALY

Fascism began as a political force in Italy immediately following World War I,
when Benito Mussolini created the first explicitly Fascist organization. Mussolini
had been a violent and difficult youth. A sometime schoolteacher and aspiring
political journalist, he eventually joined the Socialist Party of Italy in the early
1900s and found great success. However, Mussolini fell out with the Socialist
Party over the question of Italy’s entry into World War I; the party was against
entry, while Mussolini became an enthusiastic proponent. He was eventually
thrown out of the party over this difference and began to publish his own rabidly
nationalist newspaper, Il Popolo d’Italia.
When the war was over, Italy was on the winning side, having joined with Brit-
ain, France, Russia, and later the United States against Germany, Austria, and the
xxiv Introduction

Ottoman Turks. The Italians had joined those nations because of a secret treaty
(the 1915 Treaty of London) that promised Italy extensive territory in Central
Europe if the Allies were victorious. At the Paris Peace Conference, however,
Italy was denied those territories as part of a wider effort to eliminate secret diplo-
macy going forward. Italian governmental officials walked out of the peace con-
ference and returned home to Italy having secured only the tiniest of additional
territory. In Italy, this added to an already existing sense of national victimhood,
and some began to describe Italy’s war experience as their “mutilated victory.”
Italy’s government fell as a result, and new elections were held. But for the next
two years, Italy’s political situation remained highly fluid and unstable. Govern-
ments were elected and fell repeatedly due to a lack of unified support. While the
country foundered politically, it faced other major dislocations as well. Italy’s
economy suffered greatly as war production ended. Wages fell drastically, and
laborers were dismissed in high numbers. Italian workers responded with a wave
of thousands of industrial strikes. In this atmosphere, the Italian Socialist Party
began to expand rapidly. It became the majority party in the Italian parliament and
took numerous local government positions as well. Socialist leaders also estab-
lished labor exchanges in the countryside that helped peasants attain higher wages
for their seasonal agricultural labor. This period from 1919 to 1920 became known
as the Biennio Rosso, or the red two years. After the success of Russia’s Bolshevik
Revolution in 1917, which produced a Communist state, many in Italy began to
fear that Italy was headed for a similar fate.
Into this mix of political instability, economic turmoil, and social tension
stepped Benito Mussolini. In 1919, he formed a small band that would grow into a
formal political party in only a few years. He initially called this group his Fasci
di Combattimento (Fascist Combat Squads). Many of those who joined were
demobilizing soldiers from Italy’s elite forces known as the Arditi. These Arditi
veterans often retained their military uniforms, which included a black shirt. As
such, Mussolini began to call them his Blackshirts and increasingly formed them
into a kind of paramilitary private army. Their chief political activity became
known as squadrismo, or squadism. This consisted of organizing into squads and
traveling to towns where Socialists were in charge of local government. Once
there, they would often inflict terrible violence, smashing up newspaper offices,
ransacking city halls, and especially beating up and torturing Socialist politicians.
Blackshirts celebrated such violence and often bragged about their use of castor
oil, which, when forced down the throat of a victim, might force that person to
vomit themselves into unconsciousness. Mussolini’s early Fascist squads thus
found their political identity as the one group in Italy fighting (violently) against
the rise of Socialism. The national government was in such a state of instability
that it could do very little to stop it, and the local police forces rarely got involved
as they often supported the Fascists’ anti-Marxism.
As this situation continued, Mussolini’s disparate groups gelled into a formal
political party, the National Fascist Party, or Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF), in
1921. Some of its candidates were elected to the parliament, supported by mostly
middle-class voters and large landowners. By the end of 1922, the king of Italy,
Victor Emmanuel III, faced a growing political crisis, as no existing party leader
 Introduction xxv

seemed to have the support necessary to form a new government, and there was
increasing pressure from the Fascists to bring Mussolini to power. In late October
1922, the Fascists staged a nationwide march, converging on Rome, which esca-
lated the crisis. Running out of alternatives, the king and his advisers agreed to
ask Mussolini to become prime minister and form a government. Mussolini,
though he had used illegal violence to force the issue, took power by constitutional
means.
In power, Mussolini set about making Italy a single-party dictatorship. Over
the next three years, he would change the electoral laws, which gave the Fascists a
sizable majority by 1924, and then use that majority to outlaw all opposition par-
ties. Leaders of the opposition parties, particularly those of the Marxist left, were
often imprisoned. In 1924, one Socialist, Giacomo Matteotti, stood up in parlia-
ment and spoke against these brutal tactics. Police later found him murdered on
the outskirts of Rome. Whether Mussolini directly ordered this murder remains
controversial, though it temporarily cast a pall over his regime.
Despite the violence of Fascism in Italy, many around the world admired Mus-
solini, accepting his methods as necessary in Italy to eliminate the Marxist threat
and to bring political stability. It was in the economy where Mussolini would
receive the most credit from outside observers. By the late 1920s, he reorganized
the Italian economy along the lines known as corporatismo, or corporatism.
Under this new organization, a corporation was formed as a board including rep-
resentatives from senior management, Fascist Party representatives, specialists in
science and technology, and labor. Together these board members would regulate
an entire industry with the mission of maximizing that industry’s benefit to the
nation as a whole. Right-wing observers, in particular, applauded Mussolini’s
experiment, and some suggested he had solved the seemingly insoluble problem
of class conflict. At the same time he was putting such corporations together,
though, Mussolini also outlawed trade unions and strikes. As a result, most histo-
rians agree, this process destroyed the power and leverage of Italian labor. Corpo-
ratism, though, emerged as a central objective among those other Fascist groups
that agitated for power in other nations.

ORIGINS IN GERMANY
In Germany, Nazism developed as a set of ideas embraced by many, but ini-
tially it was mostly driven by the activities and vision of a single individual: Adolf
Hitler. Hitler was born in Austria but became a fanatic Pan-Germanist early in his
life, possibly to defy his abusive father. As a young adult, Hitler applied for admis-
sion into the Royal Academy of Arts in Vienna to study painting, but he was twice
rejected. After this, he lived an impoverished and precarious existence in Vienna
until he was able to move to Munich. Soon after his arrival there, the First World
War began, and young Hitler was able to join the German Army. He served in the
trenches as a communications runner, was decorated for bravery, and achieved the
rank of corporal. He was recovering in a hospital from exposure to poison gas
when he heard the devastating news of Germany’s surrender and the chaos of the
German Revolution (1918–1919). After Germany’s defeat, he remained in the
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 II
(The same night. Nero’s private chamber in his villa at Baiae.
Nero is discovered asleep in his state robes on a couch, where
he has evidently thrown himself down, overcome by the stupor
incident to the feast of the night. Beside the couch is a writing
stand, bearing writing materials. A few lights burn dimly. Nero
groans, cries out, and, as though terrified by a nightmare, sits
up, trembling and staring upon some projected vision of his
sleep. He is yet only half awake.)

Nero

Oh—oh—begone, blear thing!—She is not dead!

You are not she—my mother!—Ghastly head—
Trunkless—and oozing green gore like the sea,
Wind-stabbed! Begone! Go—do not look at me—
I will not be so tortured!—Eyes burned out
With scorious hell-spew!—Locks that grope about
To clutch and strangle!

(He has got up from the couch and now struggles with
something at his throat, still staring at the thing.)
Off! Off!

(In an outburst of terrified tenderness extends his arms as

toward a woman.)
 Mother—mother—come
Into these arms—speak to me—be not dumb!
Stare not so wildly—kiss me as of old!
Be flesh again—warm flesh! Oh green and cold
As the deep grave they gave you!
‘Twas not I!
Mother, ‘twas not my will that you should die—
‘Twas hers!—I hate her! Mother, pity me!
Oh, is it you?—Sole goddess of the sea
I shall proclaim you! Pity! I shall pour
The hot blood of your foes on every shore,
A huge libation! Hers shall be the first!
I swear it! May my waking be accursed,
My sleep a-swarm with furies if I err!

(He has advanced a short distance toward what he sees, but

now shrinks back burying his face in his robe.)
Go!—Spare me!—Guards! Guards!

(Three soldiers, who have been standing guard without the

chamber, rush in and stand at attention.)
Seize and shackle her!
There ‘tis!—eh?

(He stares blankly, rubs his eyes.)

It is gone!

(Blinks at soldiers, and cries petulantly.)

What do you here?

First Soldier
Great Caesar summoned us.

Nero

(Glancing nervously about.)

The night is blear—
Make lights! I will not have these shadow things
Crawling about me! Poisoners of kings
Fatten on shadows! Quick there, dog-eyed scamp,
Lean offal-sniffer! Kindle every lamp!

(Soldier tremblingly takes a lamp and lights a number of others

with its flame. Stage is flooded with light.)
By the bronze beard I swear there shall be lights
Enough hereafter, though I purge the nights
With conflagrating cities, till the crash
Of Rome’s last tower beat up the smouldering ash
Of Rome’s last city!
So—I breathe again!
Some cunning, faceless god who hated men
Devised this curse of darkness! What’s the hour?

Second Soldier

The third watch wanes.

Nero
 Too late! Too late! The power
Of Nero Caesar can not stay the sun!
The stars have marched against me—it is done!
And all Rome’s legions could not rout this swarm
Of venom-footed moments!
—She was warm
One little lost eternity ago.

(With awakening resolution.)

‘Twas not my deed! I did not wish it so!
Some demon, aping Caesar, gave the word
While Lucius Aenobarbus’ eyes were blurred
With too much beauty!
Oh, it shall be done!
Ere these unmothered eyes behold the sun,
She shall have vengeance, and that gift is mine!

(To First Soldier.)

Rouse the Praetorians! Bid a triple line
Be flung about the palace!

(To Second Soldier.)

Send me wine—
Strong wine to nerve a resolution!

(To Third Soldier.)

You—
Summon Poppaea!

(The Soldiers go out.)

 This deed I mean to do
Unties the snarl, but broken is the thread.
Would that the haughty blood these hands will shed
Might warm my mother! that the breath I crush—
So—(clutching air) from that throat of sorceries, might rush
Into the breast that loved and nurtured me!
The heart of Nero shivers in the sea,
And Rome is lorn of pity!
Could the world
And all her crawling spawn this night be hurled
Into one woman’s form, with eyes to shed
Rivers of scalding woe, her towering head
Jeweled with realms aflare, with locks of smoke,
Huge nerves to suffer, and a neck to choke—
That woman were Poppaea! I would rear
About the timeless sea, my mother’s bier,
A sky-roofed desolation groined with awe,
Where, nightly drifting in the stream of law,
The vestal stars should tend their fires, and weep
To hear upon the melancholy deep
That shipless wind, her ghost, amid the hush!
Alas! I have but one white throat to crush
With these world-hungry fingers!

(From behind Nero, enter Page—a little boy—bearing a goblet of

wine on a salver. Nero turns, startled.)
Ah!—You!—You!

Page

I bring wine, mighty Caesar.

 (Nero passes his hand across his face, and the expression of
fright leaves.)

Nero

So you do—
I saw—the boy Brittanicus!—One sees—
Things—does one not?—such eerie nights as these?

Page

(With eager boyish earnestness.)

With woozy heads?

Nero

(Irritably.)
The wine!

(The Page, startled, presents the salver, from which Nero takes
the goblet with unsteady hand. Page is in the act of fleeing.)
Stay!

(Page stops and turns tremblingly.)

Never dare
Again to look like—anyone! Beware!

(Page’s head shakes a timid negative. Nero stares into goblet

and muses.)
Blood’s red too. Ah, a woman is the grape
Ripe for the vintage, from whose flesh agape
Glad feet tonight shall stamp the hated ooze!
It boils!—See!—like some witch’s pot that brews
Venomous ichor!—Nay—some angry ghost
Hurls bloody breakers on a bleeding coast!—
’Tis poisoned!—Out, Locusta’s brat!

(Hurls goblet at Page, who flees precipitately.)

 ‘Twas she!
The hand that flung my mother to the sea
Now pours me death!
Alas, great Hercules
Too long has plied the distaff at the knees
Of Omphale, spinning a thread of woe!
Was ever king of story driven so
By unrelenting Fate? Lo, round on round
The slow coils grip and choke—a mother drowned,
Her wrathful spirit rising from the dead—
A gentle wife outcast, discredited,
With sighs to wake the dread Eumenides!
Some thunder-hearted, vaster Sophocles,
His aeon-beating blood the stellar stream,
Has flung on me the mantle of his dream,
And Nero grapples Fate! O wondrous play!
With smoking brand aloft, the haggard Day
Gropes for the world! Pursued by subtle foes,
Superbly tragic ‘mid a storm of woes,
The fury-hunted Caesar takes the cue!
One time-outstaring deed remains to do,
Then let the pit howl—Caesar sings no more!
Go ask the battered wreckage on the shore
Who sought his mother in a sudden sleep,
To be with her forever on the deep
A twin ship-hating tempest!

(Enter Anicetus excitedly.)

Anicetus

Lost! We’re lost!

The Roman ship yaws rock-ward tempest-tossed
And Nero is but Lucius in the wreck!
 Nero

Croak on! Each croak’s a dagger in that neck,

You vulture with the hideous dripping beak,
The clutching tearing talons that now reek
With what dear sacred veins!

Anicetus

O Caesar, hear!
So keen the news I bear you, that I fear
To loose it like the arrow it must be.
I know not why such wrath you heap on me;
I know what peril deepens ‘round my lord;
How, riven by the lightning of the sword,
The doom-voiced blackness labors round his head!

Nero

Say what I know, that my poor mother’s dead—

So shall your life be briefer!

Anicetus

Would ‘t were so!

Nero

(A light coming into his face.)

She lives?

Anicetus

Yea, lives—and lives to overthrow!

Nero

Not perished?

Anicetus

—And her living is our death!

Nero

She moves and breathes?

Anicetus

—And potent is her breath

To blow rebellion up!

Nero

(Rubbing his eyes.)

 Still do I sleep?
Is this a taunting dream that I may weep
More bitterly? Or some new foul intrigue?

Anicetus

‘Tis bitter fact to her who swam a league,

And bitter fact to Nero shall it be!
At Bauli now, still dripping from the sea,
She crouches snarling!

Nero

(In an outburst of joy.)

Oh, you shall not die,
My best-loved Anicetus! Though you lie,
Sweeter these words are than profoundest truth!
They breathe the fresh, white morning of my youth
Upon the lampless night that smothered me!
O more than human Sea
That spared my mother that her son might live!
What bounty can I give?
I—Caesar—falter beggared at this gift
Of living words that lift
My mother from the regions of the dead!
Ah—I shall set a crown upon your head,
Snip you a kingdom from Rome’s flowing robe!
I’ll temple you in splendors! Yea, I’ll probe
Your secret heart to know what wishes pant
In wingless yearning there, that I may grant!

(Pause, while Anicetus regards Nero with gloomy face.)

What sight thus makes your face a pool of gloom?

Anicetus

The ghost of Nero crying from his tomb!

Nero

(Startled.)
Eh?—Nero’s ghost—mine?

Anicetus
 Even so I said.
The doomed to perish are already dead
Who woo not Fate with swift unerring deeds!
That breathless moment when the tigress bleeds
Is ours to strike in, ere the tigress spring!
What could it boot your servant to be king
While any moment may the trumpets cry,
Hailing the certain hour when we shall die—
Caesar, the deaf, and his untrusted slave?
Peer deep, peer deep into this yawning grave
And tell me who shall fill it!—Wind and fire,
Harnessed with thrice the ghost of her dead sire,
Your mother is tonight! She knows, she knows
How galleys founder when no tempest blows
And moonlight slumbers on a glassy deep!
The beast our wound has wakened shall not sleep
Till it be gorged with slaughter, or be slain!
Lull not your heart, O Caesar! It is vain
To dream this cub-lorn tigress will not turn.
Lo, flaring through the dawn I see her burn,
A torch of revolution! Hear her raise
The legions with a voice of other days,
Worded with pangs to fret their ancient scars!
And every sword-wound of her father’s wars
Will shriek aloud with pity!

Nero

(During Anicetus’ speech he has shown growing fear.)

Listen!—There!
You heard it?—Did you hear a trumpet blare?

Anicetus
‘Tis but the shadow of a sound to be
One rushing hour away!

Nero

(In panic.)
Where shall I flee?—
I, the sad poet whom she made a king!
At last we flesh the ghost of what we sing—
We bards!—I sang Orestes.

(His face softens with a gentler thought.)

Ah—I’ll go
To my poor heartsick mother. Tears shall flow,
The tears of Lucius, not imperial tears.
I’ll heap on her the vast, too vast arrears
Of filial love. The Senate shall proclaim
My mother regnant with me—write her name
Beside Augustus with the demigods!
Yea, lictors shall attend her with the rods,
And massed Praetorians tramp the rabble down
Whene’er her chariot flashes through the town!
One should be kind to mothers.

Anicetus

Yea, and be
Kind to the senseless fury of the sea,
Fondle the tempest in a rotten boat!

Nero
What would you, Anicetus?

Anicetus

Cut her throat!

(Nero gasps and shrinks from Anicetus.)

Nero

No, no!—her ghost!—one can not stab so deep—

One can not kill these tortures spawned of sleep!
No, no—one can not kill them with a sword!

Anicetus

Faugh! One good thrust—the rest is air, my lord!

(Enter Page timorously. Nero turns upon him.)

Page

(Frightened.)
Spare me, good Caesar!—Agerinus—

Nero

Go!
Bid Agerinus enter!
 (Page flees. Nero to Anicetus menacingly.)
We shall know
What breath from what damned throat tonight shall hiss!

(Enter Agerinus, bowing low.)

Agerinus

My mistress sends fond greetings and a kiss

To her most noble son, and bids me say,
She rests and would not see him until day.
The royal galley, through unhappy chance,
Struck rock and foundered; but no circumstance
So meagre might deprive a son so dear
Of his beloved mother! Have no fear,
The long swim leaves her weary, but quite well.
She knows what tender love her son would tell
And yearns for dawn to bring him to her side.

Nero

(To Anicetus.)
So! Spell your doom from that! You lied! You lied!
I’ll lance that hateful fester in your throat!
Yea, we shall prove who rides the rotten boat
And supplicates the tempest!

(With a rapid motion, Nero draws Agerinus’ sword from its

sheath. Anicetus shrinks back. Nero cries to Agerinus.)
Wait to see
The loving message you bear back from me!
 (Nero brandishing the sword, makes at Anicetus. As he is about
to deliver the stroke, enter Poppaea from behind. She has
evidently been quite leisurely about her toilet, being dressed
gorgeously; and wearing her accustomed half-veil. Her manner
is stately and composed. She approaches slowly. Nero stops
suddenly in the act to strike Anicetus, and stares upon the
beautiful apparition. Anger leaves his face, which changes as
though he had seen a great light.)

Poppaea

(Languidly.)
My Nero longed for me?

(Nero with his free hand brushes his eyes in perplexity.)

Nero

I—can not—tell—
What—‘twas—I wished—I wished—

Poppaea

(Haughtily.)
Ah, very well.

(She walks slowly on across the stage. Nero stares blankly after
her. The sword drops from his hand. As Poppaea disappears,
he rouses suddenly as from a stupor.)

Nero
Ho! Guards!

(Three soldiers enter. Nero points to Agerinus.)

There—seize that wretch who came to kill Imperial Caesar!

(Agerinus is seized. Nero turns to Anicetus.)

Hasten! Do your will!
(Nero turns, and with an eager expression on his face, goes
doddering after Poppaea.)
 III
(The same night. Agrippina’s private chamber in her villa at Bauli
near Baiae. There is one lamp in the room. At the center back
is a broad door closed with heavy hangings. At the right is an
open window through which the moonlight falls. Agrippina is
discovered lying on a couch. One maid, Nina, is in attendance
and is arranging Agrippina’s hair.)

Agrippina

He was so tender—what should kindness mean?

(The maid seems not to hear.)

I spoke!—you heard me speak?

Nina

I heard, my Queen.

Agrippina

And deemed my voice some ghostly summer wind

Fit for autumnal hushes? He was kind!
Was ever breath in utterance better spent?

Nina
Your slave could scarcely fancy whom you meant,
There are so many tender to the great.

Agrippina

When all the world is one sky-circled state,

Pray, who shall fill it as the sun the sky?
The mother of that mighty one am I—
And he caressed me!
I shall feel no pain
Forever now. So, drenched with winter rain,
The friendless marshland knows the boyish South
And shivers into color!
On the mouth
He kissed me, as before that other came—
That Helen of the stews, that corpse aflame
With lust for life, that—
Ah, he maidened me!
What dying wind could sway so tall a tree
With such proud music? I shall be again
That darkling whirlwind down the fields of men,
That dart unloosed, barbed keenly for his sake,
That living sword for him to wield or break,
But never sheathe!

(Lifts herself on elbow.)

 O Nina, let me be
Robed as the Queen I am in verity!
Robed as a victrix home from splendid wars,
Whom, ‘mid the rumble of spoil-laden cars
Trundled by harnessed kings, the trumpets hail!
Let quiet garments be for those who fail,
Mourning a world ill-lost with meek surrenders!
I would flare bright ‘mid Death’s unhuman splendors,
Dazzle the moony hollows of the dead!
Ah no—

(Arising and going to window.)

I shall not die yet.

(Parts the curtains and gazes out.)

Nina

‘Tis the dread

Still clinging from the clutches of the sea,
That living, writhing horror! Ugh! O’er me
Almost I feel the liquid terror crawl!
Through glassy worlds of tortured sleep to fall,
Where winds blow not, nor mornings ever blush,
But green, cold, ghastly light-wraiths wander—

Agrippina

(Turning from window with nervous anger.)

Hush!

(Turns again to window; after pause, continues musingly.)

She battles in a surf of spectral fire.
No—like some queen upon a funeral pyre,
Gasping, she withers in a fever swoon.
Had she a son too?

Nina

(Approaching the window.)

Who, O Queen?

Agrippina

The moon!
See, she is strangled in a noose of pearl!
What tell-tale scars she has!
—Look yonder, girl—
Your eyes are younger—by the winding sea
Where Baiae glooms and blanches; it may be
Old eyes betray not, but some horsemen take
The white road winding hither by the lake.

Nina

The way lies plain—I see no moving thing.

Agrippina

Why thus is Agerinus loitering?

For he was ever true.
 (Joyously.)
Ah foolish head!
My heart knows how my son shall come instead,
My little Lucius! Even now he leaps
Into the saddle and the dull way creeps
Beneath the spurred impatience of his horse,
He longs so for me!

(Pause—She scans the moonlit country.)

Shrouded like a corse,
Hoarding a mother’s secret, lies the sea;
And Capri, like a giant Niobe,
Outgazes Fate!
O sweet, too gentle lies
And kisses sword-like! Would the sun might rise
No more on Baiae! Would that earth might burst
Spewing blear doom upon this world accursed
With truth too big for hiding!
See! He sleeps
Beside her, and the shame-dimmed lamp-light creeps
Across her wine-stained mouth—so red—so red—
Like mother blood!—See! hissing round her head
Foul hate-fanged vipers that he calls her hair!
Ah no—beyond all speaking is she fair!
Sweet as a sword-wound in a gasping foe
Her mouth is; and too well, too well I know
Her face is dazzling as a funeral flame
Battened on queen’s flesh!

(Turning angrily from window.)

 Oh the blatant shame!
The bungling drunkard’s plot!—Tonight, tonight
I shall swoop down upon them by the light
Of naked steel! Faugh! Had it come to that?
Had Rome no sword, that like a drowning rat
The mother of a king should meet her end?
What Gallic legion would not call me friend?
Did they not love Germanicus, my sire?
Oh, I will rouse the cohorts, scattering fire
Till all Rome blaze rebellion!

(She has advanced to a place beside the couch, stands in a

defiant attitude for a moment, then covers her face with her
hands and sinks to the couch.)
No, no, no—
It could not be, I would not have it so!
Not mine to burn the tower my hands have built!
And somewhere ‘mid the shadows of his guilt
My son is good.

(Lifts herself on elbow.)

Look, Nina, toward the roofs
Of sleeping Baiae. Say that eager hoofs
Beat a white dust-cloud moonward.

(Nina goes to window and peers out.)

Nina

Landward crawls
A sea fog; Capri’s league-long shadow sprawls
Lengthening toward us—soon the moon will set.
 Agrippina

No horsemen?

Nina

None, my Queen.

Agrippina

—And yet—and yet—

He called me baby names. Ah, ghosts that wept
Big tears down smiling faces, twined and crept
About my heart, and still I feel their tears.
They make me joyous.—After all these years,
The little boy my heart so often dirged
Shivered the man-husk, beardless, and emerged!
He kissed my breasts and hung upon my going!
Once more I felt the happy nurture flowing,
The silvery, tingling shivers of delight!
What though my end had come indeed tonight—
I was a mother!
—Have you children?

Nina

No,
My Queen.

Agrippina
 Yet you are winsome.

Nina

Lovers go
Like wind, as lovers come; I am unwed.

Agrippina
How lonely shall you be among the dead
Where hearts remember, but are lorn of hope!
Poor girl! No dream of tiny hands that grope,
And coaxing, hunting little mouths shall throw
Brief glories ‘round you!
Nina, I would go
Like any brazen bawd along the street,
Hailing the first stout carter I should meet,
Ere I would perish childless! Though we nurse
The cooing thing that some day hurls the curse,
Forge from our hearts the matricidal sword,
The act of loving is its own reward.
We mothers need no pity!
‘Twill be said,
When this brief war is done, and I am dead,
That I was wanton, shameless—be it so!
Unto the swarm of insect scribes I throw
The puffed-up purple carcass of my name
For them to feast on! Pointed keen with shame,
How shall each busy little stylus bite
A thing that feels not! I have fought my fight!
That mine were but the weapons of the foe,
Too well the ragged scars I bear can show.
Oh, I have triumphed, and am ripe to die!
About my going shall the trumpets cry
Forever and forever!
I can thread
The twilit under-regions of the dead
A radiant shadow with a heart that sings!
Before the myriad mothers of great kings
I shall lift up each livid spirit hand
Spotted with blood—and they shall understand
How small the price was!
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