An Apartment in AGRIPPINA'S House.
Enter GALLUS and AGRIPPINA.
Gal.
You must have patience, royal Agrippina.
Agr.
I must have vengeance, first; and that were nectar
Unto my famish'd spirits. O, my fortune,
Let it be sudden thou prepar'st against me;
Strike all my powers of understanding blind.
And ignorant of destiny to come!
Let me not fear that cannot hope.
Gal.
Dear princess,
These tyrannies on yourself, are worse than Caesar's.
Agr.
Is this the happiness of being born great?
Still to be aim'd at? still to be suspected?
To live the subject of all jealousies?
At least the colour made, if not the ground
To every painted danger? who would not
Choose once to fall, than thus to hang for ever?
Gal.
You might be safe if you would——
Agr.
What, my Gallus!
Be lewd Sejanus' strumpet, or the bawd
To Caesar's lusts, he now is gone to practise?
Not these are safe, where nothing is. Yourself,
While thus you stand but by me, are not safe.
Was Silius safe? or the good Sosia safe?
Or was my niece, dear Claudia Pulchra, safe,
Or innocent Furnius? they that latest have
(By being made guilty) added reputation
To Afer's eloquence? O, foolish friends,
Could not so fresh example warn your loves,
But you must buy my favours with that loss
Unto yourselves; and when you might perceive
That Caesar's cause of raging must forsake him,
Before his will! Away, good Gallus, leave me.
Here to be seen, is danger; to speak, treason:
To do me least observance, is call'd faction.
You are unhappy in me, and I in all.
Where are my sons, Nero and Drusus? We
Are they be shot at; let us fall apart;
Not in our ruins, sepulchre our friends.
Or shall we do some action like offence,
To mock their studies that would make us faulty,
And frustrate practice by preventing it?
The danger's like: for what they can contrive,
They will make good. No innocence is safe,
When power contests: nor can they trespass more,
Whose only being was all crime before.
Enter NERO, DRUSUS, and CALIGULA.
Ner.
You hear Sejanus is come back from Caesar?
Gal.
No. How? disgraced?
Dru.
More graced now than ever.
Cal.
By what mischance?
Cal.
A fortune like enough
Once to be bad.
Dru.
But turn'd too good to both.
Gal.
What was't?
Ner.
Tiberius sitting at his meat,
In a farm-house they call Spelunca, sited
By the sea-side, among the Fundane hills,
Within a natural cave; part of the grot,
About the entry, fen, and overwhelm'd
Some of the waiters; others ran away:
Only Sejanus with his knees, hands, face,
O'erhanging Caesar, did oppose himself
To the remaining ruins, and was found
In that so labouring posture by the soldiers
That came to succour him. With which adventure,
He hath so fix'd himself in Caesar's trust,
As thunder cannot move him, and is come
With all the height of Caesar's praise to Rome.
Agr.
And power, to turn those ruins all on us;
And bury whole posterities beneath them.
Nero, and Drusus, and Caligula,
Your places are the next, and therefore most
In their offence. Think on your birth and blood.
Awake your spirits, meet their violence;
'Tis princely when a tyrant doth oppose,
And is a fortune sent to exercise
Your virtue, as the wind doth try strong trees,
Who by vexation grow more sound and firm.
After your father's fall, and uncle's fate,
What can you hope, but all the change of stroke
That force or sleight can give? then stand upright;
And though you do not act, yet suffer nobly:
Be worthy of my womb, and take strong chear;
What we do know will come, we should not fear.
[Exeunt.