-
Poppaea: It is foolish to kill those you hate, because once dead they are beyond pain.
-
Emperor Nero: Yet there are those who say that I am mad. I'm only seeking. The flatness and misery of common life depress me. I seek because I must exceed the stature of man in both good and evil. I seek because I must be greater than man, for only then will I be the supreme artist. Do you know why I condemned both my wife... and my mother to death? I did it in order to lay at the gates of an unknown world... the greatest sacrifice a man can put there. Now, I thought, doors will open... beyond which I shall catch a glimpse of the unknown. Let it be wonderful. Or let it be awful. So long as it is uncommon.
Adrienne Corri
Extended Reading
