Excerpt from The Gladiator: A Tragedy in Five Acts O, Catacombs i O, temple 1 sole asylum Wherein can freely breathe, Man, oppressed by the cruel yoke of Rome That Rome which grows old in bitter Strife and discord; whose spirit, That once kept whole the people, now from Her worn out body dies away. 0, Catacombs I Be your gloom redoubled, the fight Begins - the future of the world Is concentrated in one thought, nor doubtful Is the victory. Tyrants and slaves 1 At the great man's feet a people laden With funereal clothes and chains Greens, madness, misery and of three thousand Gods, not a single one for the crisis 1 Behold thy world 0 Rome! Behold thy heaven! But our god has risen, and sheds the ray Of his light upon his human family. He Whom the entombed spirit makes alive With its breath, for our eyes can make a sun And freedom for the soul. Yesi Christ Our brother, - Christ who was born On straw, in a manger, sprung From the common people - but not therefore less Son to the Omnipotent. In His name We have fought against a century of blows. The prisons are with martyrs filled, The greedy axe gets blunt, in vain Redoubling its strokes. Alas l we die On all sides. 0, heaven, when shall be erased From the world's face the scandal. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.