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 Legion has been put to the sword!
The war-Chief of Queen Boudicca: to Camulodunum...
wet your swords! the earth with Roman blood!

I remember the at Camulodunum...
The glorious clash of Celtic against Roman gladius,
The pride in the eyes of our
As we hacked the Imperial Eagle,
And the severed heads of centurions atop our spears.

AND BATTLE: 61 AD (C.E.)

???

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

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

???

We were by our victories,
by our noble cause,
enraged with the battle
thirsting to take as Roman heads
as our blades could sever!
And yet we were somewhat overconfident that day...

ABDUCTED FROM THE

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

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

The had heard much of the wildness and fighting spirit
of these barbaric Britons who had brought woe to his far-famed legions;
these painted, tribesmen who had resisted the Empire's iron fist
where the phalanxes of the East had not.

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

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

AT THE CIRCUS MAXIMUS:

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

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

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

THE COMBAT

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 steel was sharper than bestial fang and claw.

And so they ranged their finest against me.
Three iron gates around the arena yawned open,
and strode from the colosseum tunnels amidst
a cacophony of cheering from the assembled spectators,
urged on and showered with mar tial from the massed
arena crowd, who howled their bloodlust cessation.

???

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

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

For Boudicca... Carnage For Cernunnos!!

To be continued...