Chapter 40 Premiere in Turbulence (3)

　Because the song team was placed in the audience, and they weren't particularly disguised. So when the song entered the chorus stage, these people suddenly opened their mouths and sang, which took the surrounding audience by surprise.

　　In this clip, the song was only the first verse. When the song ended, the members of the singing team all closed their mouths and almost instantly became audience members again.

　　"Hey man, you guys know this song?" Right next to one of the song team members, a young man with a little bit of light brown freckles on the top of his nose gently tugged on the sleeve of one of the singers next to him and asked in a low voice.

　　"Yes. We can sing." The song team member replied simply.

　　"That's a powerful song!" The young man exclaimed.

　　"There are a few more verses behind the song, only one verse is sung here, and it's even more powerful when it's sung in its entirety later." Another person interjected, "I live nearby, I've heard them practicing this song for the past few days ..."

　　"Shut up, I can't even hear the lines!" Another person complained.

　　The drama on stage continued, Vesuvius was already too small to accommodate the insurgents. There is a disagreement between Spartacus and Crixus, another insurrectionary leader, about the future movements of the insurrectionary army. Spartacus believed that the Roman legions were very powerful, and after this battle, they had attracted the attention of Rome, and it would be difficult to stay in the local area to support them. The insurgents should first leave Rome while those Roman legions on the border had not yet been mobilized back, go to the north, cross the Alps, and establish their own free country north of the Alps first, and then, when they had grown stronger, fight their way back to Rome and free all the slaves. Crixus, on the other hand, thought that Spartacus was too timid, and felt that the Roman regiments were nothing to be feared, and that the insurgents should just stay in the area, take down the cities of Rome, liberate the slaves there, and then keep on fighting, and keep on liberating the slaves to grow stronger and stronger, and minimally destroy the evil slavery.

　　Neither of the two men could convince anyone, and in the end they had to resort to a democratic vote. As a result most of the insurgent fighters chose to support Spartacus, and Crixus was so outraged by this that he ended up requesting himself to be the rear guard of the army when Spartacus led it north. When the insurgent army set out he instead left the insurgent army with a group of warriors and launched himself at the Roman cities. This turned out to be a Roman ambush, and by the time Spartacus arrived they had all been wiped out. The Romans executed all the prisoners with cruel punishments. The insurgents were furious at the sight of this and, unwilling to march any further north, they demanded revenge. Spartacus could not convince everyone and had to take another vote. It turned out that this time everyone chose to stay and fight in Rome.

　　"Staying in Rome is murderous ah, why should Spartacus obey democracy?" A spectator couldn't help but say, "What do those slaves know?"

　　"That's not true." Another retorted, "If Crixus had submitted to democracy like Spartacus, there would be no such thing. And you say 'what do those slaves know?' Those clerics and nobles would have said the same thing about us!"

　　The Spartacus Rebellion stayed in Italy, and under his command they continued to win, but Spartacus grew increasingly worried. For he knew the victories were only temporary. The main force of the Romans was approaching. He kept trying to convince the insurgent warriors to hurry north, but his suggestions were always rejected by everyone.

　　Crassus with the Roman army blocked the way of Spartacus' army to the north, and they approached step by step. Spartacus marched to the south with the insurgent army while contacting the pirates, hoping to cross the sea and retreat to Sicily. But when they arrived at the appointed place, the pirate fleet failed to appear. So they were surrounded by Crassus' army. Crassus sent letters to Spartacus to persuade him to surrender. He promised that Spartacus could become a Roman citizen and general if he surrendered. But when Spartacus asked about the other slaves, Crassus replied, "They will return to their estates and gladiator schools to remain slaves."

　　Spartacus refused Crassus' persuasion to surrender and led his troops in a forced breakout. They finally broke out after paying a huge price. But the Romans brought in more troops, which forced Spartacus to have a duel with Crassus' army at Apulia.

　　Before the duel, Spartacus meets Crassus. Crassus again persuaded Spartacus to surrender with the same terms as last time. Spartacus also rejected Crassus again. He and Crassus agreed that they would all fight to the death on the battlefield early tomorrow morning.

　　On the battlefield, the insurgents were outnumbered and defeated, and Spartacus died on the battlefield. His adjutant, Enormae, and over 6,000 other warriors were captured. Crassus orders them all to be crucified.

　　The final scene of the play is the crucifixion of Enomaeus and two other insurgent warriors. They are forced to carry their own crosses and erect them themselves. Then the Romans crucified them. The two fighters were crucified on either side and Enormae was crucified in the center.

　　"O this is sacrilege!" A cleric said in a low, vicious voice as he clutched the cross on his chest with his hand.

　　Indeed, the scene was a clear imitation of the crucifixion of Jesus in the Bible. At that time, Jesus was also carrying his own cross on his own back, and was crucified together with two other prisoners, who were on the two sides, with Jesus in the center.

　　The two crucified warriors hung their heads and sobbed, and Enormae, who was also crucified, thought to look to the right and to the left, and then cried out, "What is the matter, my brother, can the loss of life be worse than slavery? Yes, we did not win freedom for ourselves in the end, but we did at least win for ourselves never to be enslaved again! This time we lost the battle, but in the long run our cause will never fail, and the slavery of man oppressing man and man enslaving man will surely be overthrown! The name and cause of Spartacus will surely live on! Brothers, let us sing our battle cry one last time!"

　　Then Enomae spoke first and sang, "Debout! les damnés de la terre, Debout! les forcats de la faim..."

　　At the sound of his song, the two crucified warriors also stopped crying, looked up, and sang along:

　　"La raison tonne en son cratère:

　　C'est l'éruption de la fin."

　　The Roman soldiers with spears in their hands looked up in horror at the crucified slaves and cried out in terrified voices, "No singing! No singing!" One of the soldiers even stabbed Enormae in the ribs with his lance, and blood flowed immediately.

　　"This, this is terrible blasphemy! Lord, may you send down thunder ..." that cleric whispered through gritted teeth.

　　In the Bible, after Jesus was crucified, in order to check whether he was dead or not, a Roman soldier called Longinus, also stabbed Jesus with a lance, through his ribs. This lance later became a holy relic of the Catholic Church and was called the Lance of Longinus. Even made such as "as long as you hold the gun, within one hundred and twenty feet of the people are submissive, holders of the gun can rule the fate of the world, but the loss of the person will be instantly killed" and other legends. These legends really fooled a lot of people in later times, even Hitler was once fanatically begged with it. He was also said to have been given the sacred spear at one point, however, it did not allow him to win the Second World War.

　　But Enomayi's song didn't stop there, he continued to sing.

　　The lyrics, which had already been sung once before, had very simple lyrics and melody, so many of the audience in the theater then sang along. Only that cleric had a blue face and lowered his head without saying a word.

　　Unlike the previous choruses, this time, the song team directly sang the entire song in its entirety. Of course, in the original history, the song should have six verses. But the traveled Joseph could not fully remember the lyrics of these six stanzas. Because in the latter days of the Red Rabbit Kingdom, because of translation reasons, (there were a few paragraphs that were almost impossible to sing when translated into Chinese) the song was basically only sung in three stanzas. So now that Joseph had copied it over, there were only the first, second and sixth verses left.

　　As the second verse was sung, the entire theater suddenly fell silent. Over the years, under the influence of Voltaire and the like, the French had become far less "pious" than they used to be, (but frankly speaking, as a filial daughter of God, France had done not too many blasphemous things in the past.) But it was still a surprise to everyone that the song denied religion so directly. But because of the general dissatisfaction with the Church, such an extreme denial of religion made everyone even more excited, and when the chorus came on, more people joined in the chorus.

　　This was followed by the sixth verse, which was even more explicit and full of defiant passion:

　　The clergyman had by this time quietly slipped out and disappeared into the street.

　　After the song was finished, the whole theater was quiet for a while, and then a voice rang out: "Wonderful, this song is wonderful! Will you sing it again?"

　　Immediately after that the whole theater was filled with such prayers:

　　"Sing it again, I haven't memorized some of the words!"

　　"Please, sing it again."

　　"Sing it again!"

　　Originally, the curtain had been lowered, and the actors and song team were planning to exit the stage, but with such a request, everyone then had to sing the song again, and then again ... to the end, a full six times. Clearly, the premiere was an unprecedented success.