Luyện nghe bài hát Blood Slakes The Sand At The Circus Maximus

THOUGHTS OF AN GLADIATOR,
AWAITING THE OPENING OF THE ARENA

OF REBELLION (CARNAGE AT CAMULODUNUM):

ICENI
Hearken! The Ninth Legion has put to the sword!
The war-Chief of Boudicca: Onwards to Camulodunum...
wet your swords! Redden the with Roman blood!

I remember the at Camulodunum...
The glorious of Celtic sword against Roman gladius,
The pride in the of our war-queen
As we hacked the Imperial Eagle,
And the severed heads of centurions gaping our spears.

BLOODSHED AND 61 AD (C.E.)

???

We taught the arrogant invading dogs a lesson, at any rate.
The and portents spoke of vast bloodshed and great carnage,
and after our victories at Camulodunum (the Temple
of burned wonderfully!), Londinium and Verulanium,
the cursed Romans finally dared to us honourably upon the field
of war at Mandeussedum. They fifteen thousand legionaires,
their armour like gold in the sun... but it would still yield to our
and spears, no matter how it sparkled.

The Roman scoundrel, Governor Paullinus,
battle-scarred from his against the Druids,
was able to choose the ground which to make his stand,
and so it was he selected as the battlefield a narrow valley,
fronted by a flat plain, with woodland at its rear. Aye...
Mandeussedum, "the place of the chariots"... I it vividly.

???

We swelled by our victories,
by our noble cause,
enraged the battle frenzy;
thirsting to take as many Roman
as our bright could sever!
And yet we were perhaps somewhat that day...

FROM THE ICENI:

In the of our defeat at Mandeussedum,
I was captured by Romans with a intent...
(though three of them at my hands in the attempt!)

Nero was growing bored the gladiators,
slaves and lion-fodder at his Circus,
and so had Suetonius Paullinus
to the citizens of Rome with new entertainment...

The Emperor had heard much of the wildness and spirit
of barbaric Britons who had brought such woe to his far-famed legions;
these painted, pagan tribesmen who had resisted the iron fist
where the glorious phalanxes of the had not.

"Agents of the Imperium... hearken to my words", had demanded.
"Bring to Rome some of tribesman for the Games. Let us pit them
against our most ravenous beasts and our gladitorial champions."

And so I was in fetters aboard a Roman trireme,
the blood of slain legionaires crusted upon my thews,
I was far from the fens of my beloved homeland,
to the sun baked sand of the Circus Maximus...
to fight for my in the Imperial Arena.

AT THE CIRCUS MAXIMUS:

The Maximus was certainly a splendid sight, I'll admit.
A vast colosseum with great columns and tiers,
ornate arches and mighty statues of grey marble.
Countless people filled the seats surrounding the floor of the Arena...
and in his opulent royal enclosure, by gleaming guards
and grovelling lackeys, sat the Emperor himself...

NERO:
Fight, outlander!
Please us, and Mars will smile on thee this day!

ICENI
Bah! I do not hail to your gods, and you are not my emperor!
By Cernunnos, the blood of my enemies shall the sand
of this cursed arena red day!

THE COMMENCES:

They unleashed the lions first. maddened beasts,
goaded into a frenzy by the point of many a pilum...
And yet my own hunger, the for revenge, was greater,
and my honed steel was than bestial fang and claw.

And so they ranged their finest warriors me.
more iron gates around the arena yawned open,
and they from the colosseum tunnels amidst
a cacophony of cheering the assembled Roman spectators,
urged on and with mar tial adulation from the massed
arena crowd, who howled bloodlust without cessation.

???

Far above, upon his dias,
the Emperor gave the for the combat to begin,
and with the engulfing me,
with the red mist before my eyes,
I vowed to my northern gods that I show these leering
the fighting spirit and battle prowess of my people...
I would leave the arena littered with the bloody of my opponents...

I would cast off the imperial fetters and to the fens!
Aye, I would escape, and make all Romans my name,
and compel Nero to rue the day Julius had first ordered
his legions across the grey sea to my ancient island...

For Boudicca... Carnage For Cernunnos!!

To be continued...