Passion's Consequence: A Play For Lovers in 4th Century Italy.

The four of them were so different. One was reputed to be a goddess, one to be a man, another one a witch, and the last one a ghost.

They met in the garden at night, the only place where they could meet without raising suspicions. They talked about the weather and their families, about the wars and politics surrounding them.

They did not talk about love. Love was supposed to be private, intimate, something you never spoke about with someone else. It was sacred.

The following day they saw each other again at church. They sat down together near the altar, in front of all the nobles of Rome. They listened to the sermon delivered by their bishop, who reminded them that love was not meant to be an act of lust or passion but rather an act of faithfulness and devotion to God.

They nodded politely when he said that. They knew that this was not what he really thought about love as well.

Back home they started asking after each other again. The rumors were that everybody had heard something about everybody else: how two of them were having an incestuous affair because their families had been rivals for generations; how another one's parents were cursed with infertility because her mother had fallen in love with a priest's son while she was married; how the youngest one had died ten years ago and was now haunting her lover; how one family had been worshipping Saturn since time immemorial and another one had always been loyal to Mars.

They wondered why these rumors were spread around town then. Did somebody want to hurt somebody else? Did somebody just like to gossip? Or maybe it was only meant as little game? Perhaps it was even true? But then again - weren't they all acting suspiciously? And if it really wasn't true, how long would it take before somebody figured out which rumors were indeed true and which ones weren't?

That's when they came up with their plan: if everybody knew everything about everybody else's lives anyway, why not turn this knowledge into something useful? Why not let everybody see how clever they really were? How smartly they could play with all these rumors and old stories? In fact - why not tell all these gossips themselves, pretending to believe them? If it worked, great - if not, no harm done either!

So the next day they went around town telling everybody all those rumors - some more than once! Sometimes they told them straightaway, sometimes they said them right before someone who might have heard it already, sometimes they shrugged their shoulders like "well... I have heard some things..." But there was no way you could keep silent while listening to what they said! There was simply too much truth in those words!