Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 5).djvu/269

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[To the priests.] Stay not your pious hymns on my account. Forward, my friends! [The procession passes slowly out to the left.

Follow whoso will, and remain whoso will. But this you shall all know to-day, that my place is here.

[Uneasiness and movement in the crowd.

What am I? The Emperor. But in saying that, have I said all? Is there not one imperial office, which seems to have been shamefully wiped out of remembrance in these later years? What was that crowned philosopher, Marcus Aurelius? Emperor? Only Emperor? I could almost ask: was he not something more than Emperor? Was he not also the Supreme Pontiff?

What says the Emperor? What was that? What did he say?

Oh sire, is it indeed your purpose?

Not even my uncle Constantine the Great dared to renounce this dignity. Even after he had conceded to a certain new doctrine such very extraordinary privileges, he was still called the Chief Priest by all who held fast to the ancient divinities of the Grecian race. I will not here enlarge upon the melancholy disuse into which this office has fallen of late years, but will merely remark that none of my exalted predecessors, not even he to