A Space before the Temple of Apollo.
Enter ARRUNTIUS and LEPIDUS divers Senators passing by them.
Arr.
Ay, go, make haste; take heed you be not last
To tender your All Hail in the wide hall
Of huge Sejanus: run a lictor's pace:
Stay, not to put your robes on; but away,
With the pale troubled ensigns of great friendship
Stamp'd in your face! Now, Marcus Lepidus,
You still believe your former augury!
Sejanus must go downward! You perceive
His wane approaching fast!
Lep.
Believe me, Lucius, I wonder at this rising.
Arr.
Ay, and that we
Must give our suffrage to it. You will say,
It is to make his fall more steep and grievous:
It may be so. But think it, they that can
With idle wishes 'say to bring back time:
In cases desperate, all hope is crime.
See, see! what troops of his officious friends
Flock to salute my lord, and start before
My great proud lord! to get a lord-like nod!
Attend my lord unto the senate-house!
Bring back my lord! like servile ushers, make
Way for my lord! proclaim his idol lordship,
More than ten criers, or six noise of trumpets!
Make legs, kiss hands, and take a scatter'd hair
From my lord's eminent shoulder!
[Sanquinius and Haterius pass over the stage.
See, Sanquinius
With his slow belly, and his dropsy! look,
What toiling haste he makes! yet here's another
Retarded with the gout, will be afore him.
Get thee Liburnian porters, thou gross fool,
To bear thy obsequious fatness, like thy peers.
They are met! the gout returns, and his great carriage.
[Lictors, Regulus, Trio, Sejanus, Satrius,
and many other Senators, pass over the stage.
Lict.
Give way, make place, room for the consul!
San.
Hail,
Hail, great. Sejanus!
Hat.
Hail, my honour'd lord!
Arr.
We shall be mark'd anon, for our not Hail.
Lep.
That is already done.
Arr.
It is a note
Of upstart greatness, to observe and watch
For these poor trifles, which the noble mind
Neglects and scorns.
Lep.
Ay, and they think themselves
Deeply dishonour'd where they are omitted,
As if they were necessities that help'd
To the perfection of their dignities;
And hate the men that but refrain them.
Arr.
O!
There is a farther cause of hate. Their breasts
Are guilty, that we know their obscure springs,
And base beginnings; thence the anger grows.
On. Follow.