Maximus’ cure

Dear Maximus,
I write to you 9 days before the fruits of all our many months of labour burst into flower.
All our preparation and rehearsing will be harvested before an audience in the great amphitheatre.
I look forward to our performance, but I am plagued by one malicious spirit: an omnipresent fiddling upon my ears; a singer in my inward eye; a tiny orchestra in my head!
Walking to class today I could not shake the music from my brain. The opening strains of the most violent scene played over and over in my mind, as if some small serpent, yea even a large worm was invading my brain repeating that music over and over.
As the performance approaches, I fear I may be driven mad by these vipers of vibration – these snakes of sound – these worms of the ear.
What advice do you have for your poor long-suffering friend?
Yours faithfully,
Stephanus

Dear Stephanus,
I prescribe patience, tea drinking and taking of the waters.
I will send one of my most skilled servants to administer a goat’s milk poultice and I shall offer a sacrifice to Apollo.
That will assuage you, at least until the performance, and by the Ides of May you will be right as rain.
The performance will be over in the blinking of an eye.
You will miss hearing that sweet music, when the harsh sounds of ordinary life replace those jocund tones, and those mysterious musical vibrations will be only a longed-for memory.
Carpe Diem. Let the music play.
All the best to you,
Your old friend,
Maximus