Our state employs. He's gone: and being gone,
I dare tell you, whom I dare better trust,
That our night-eyed Tiberius doth not see
His minion's drifts; or, if he do, he's not.
So arrant subtile, as we fools do take him;
To breed a mungrel up, in his own house,
With his own blood, and, if the good Gods please,
At his own throat, flesh him, to take a leap.
I do not beg it, heaven; but if the fates
Grant it these eyes, they must not wink.
Lep. They must

Not see it, Lucius.

Arr. Who should let them?

Lep. Zeal,

And duty; with the thought he is our prince.
Arr. He is our monster: forfeited to vice
So far, as no rack'd virtue can redeem him.
His lothed person" fouler than all crimes:
An emperor, only in his lusts. Retired,
From all regard of his own fame, or Rome's,
Into an obscure island; where he lives.
Acting his tragedies with a comic face,
Amidst his rout of Chaldees: spending hours,
Days, weeks, and months, in the unkind abuse
Of grave astrology, to the bane of men,
Casting the scope of men's nativities,

And having found aught worthy in their fortune, Kill, or precipitate them in the sea,

And boast, he can mock fate. Nay, muse not: these

t Tiberius in tenebris videret: testibus Dio. Hist. Rom. Lib. lvii. p. 691. Et Plin. Nat. Hist. Lib. ii. c. 37.

" Cons. Tacit. Ann. Lib. iv. p. 91. (Juv. Sat. 4.)

* Vid. Suet. Tib. de secessu Caprensi, c. 43. Dio. p. 715. Juv. Sat. 10.

y Tacit. Ann. Lib. vi. p. 106. Dio. Rom. Hist. Lib. lvii. p. 706. Suet. Tib. c. 62, &c. 44.

Are far from ends of evil, scarce degrees.
He hath his slaughter-house at Capreæ ;
Where he doth study murder, as an art;
And they are dearest in his grace, that can
Devise the deepest tortures. Thither, too,
He hath his boys, and beauteous girls ta'en up
Out of our noblest houses, the best form'd,
Best nurtured, and most modest; what's their
good,

Serves to provoke his bad. Some are allured, Some threaten'd; others, by their friends detained,

Are ravish'd hence, like captives, and, in sight
Of their most grieved parents, dealt away
Unto his spintries, sellaries, and slaves,

Masters of strange and new commented lusts,
For which wise nature hath not left a name.
To this (what most strikes us, and bleeding
Rome)

He is, with all his craft, become the ward
To his own vassal, a stale catamite:

Whom he, upon our low and suffering necks,
Hath raised from excrement to side the gods,
And have his proper sacrifice in Rome:
Which Jove beholds, and yet will sooner rive
A senseless oak with thunder than his trunk!-

Re-enter LACO," with POMPONIUS and MINUTIUS.

Lac. These letters make men doubtful what t' expect,

Whether his coming, or his death.

z Tacit. Ann. Lib. vi. p. 100. Suet. Tib. c. 43.

a

C

Leg. Dio. Rom. Hist. Lib. lviii. p. 714.

De Pomponio et Minutio vid. Tacit. Ann. Lib. vi.

Dio. Rom. Hist. Lib. lviii. p. 716.

Pom. Troth both:

And which comes soonest, thank the gods for. Arr. List!

Their talk is Cæsar; I would hear all voices.

[Arrunt. and Lepidus stand aside. Min. One day, he's well; and will return to

Rome;

The next day, sick; and knows not when to hope it.

Lac. True; and to-day, one of Sejanus' friends Honour'd by special writ; and on the morrow Another punish'd

Pom. By more special writ.

Min. This man receives his praises of Sejanus, A second but slight mention, a third none, A fourth rebukes: and thus he leaves the senate Divided and suspended, all uncertain.

Lac. These forked tricks, I understand them not: Would he would tell us whom he loves or hates, That we might follow, without fear or doubt. Arr. Good Heliotrope! Is this your honest man? Let him be yours so still; he is my knave.

Pom. I cannot tell,' Sejanus still goes on, And mounts, we see; new statues are advanced, Fresh leaves of titles, large inscriptions read, His fortune sworn by, himself new gone out Cæsar's colleague in the fifth consulship; More altars smoke to him than all the gods: What would we more?

h

• I cannot tell,] i. e. I know not what to think of it. See Vol. I. p. 125. This phrase, of which the sense is now, I presume, sufficiently established, is here noticed for the last time.

& Dio. Rom. Hist. Lib. lviii. p. 716. • Dio. ibid.

Leg. Tacit. Ann. Lib. iv. p. 96.

• Adulationis pleni omnes ejus Fortunam jurabant. Dio. Hist. Rom. Lib. Iviii. p. 714. Dio. p. 714. Suet. Tib. c. 65.

Arr. That the dear smoke would choke him, That would I more.

Lep. Peace, good Arruntius.

Lat. But there are letters come, they say,

ev'n now,

Which do forbid that last.

Min. Do you hear so?

Lac. Yes.

Pom. By Castor that's the worst.

Arr. By Pollux, best.

k

Min. I did not like the sign, when Regulus, Whom all we know no friend unto Sejanus, Did, by Tiberius' so precise command,

Succeed a fellow in the consulship:

It boded somewhat.

Pom. Not a mote.

His1 partner,

Fulcinius Trio, is his own, and sure.

Here comes Terentius.

Enter TERENTIUS.

He can give us more. [They whisper with Terentius.

Lep. I'll ne'er believe, but Cæsar hath some

scent

Of bold Sejanus' footing." These cross points
Of varying letters, and opposing consuls,
Mingling his honours and his punishments,
Feigning now ill, now well," raising Sejanus,
And then depressing him, as now of late
In all reports we have it, cannot be
Empty of practise: 'tis Tiberius' art.

For having found his favourite grown too great,

1 Dio. Lib. Iviii. p. 718.

Dio. ibid. "Dio. p. 726.

* De Regulo cons. Dio. ibid.

Suet. Tib. c. 65.

Are, with their leaders, made at his devotion;
That almost all the senate are his creatures,
Or hold on him their main dependencies,
Either for benefit, or hope, or fear;

And that himself hath lost much of his own,
By parting unto him; and, by th' increase
Of his rank lusts and rages, quite disarm'd
Himself of love, or other public means,
To dare an open contestation;

His Subtilty hath chose this doubling line,
To hold him even in: not so to fear him,
As wholly put him out, and yet give check
Unto his farther boldness. In mean time,
By his employments, makes him odious.
Unto the staggering rout, whose aid, in fine,
He hopes to use, as sure, who, when they sway,
Bear down, o'erturn all objects in their way.

Arr. You may be a Lynceus, Lepidus: yet I See no such cause, but that a politic tyrant, Who can so well disguise it, should have ta'en A nearer way: feign'd honest, and come home To cut his throat, by law.

Lep. Ay, but his fear

Would ne'er be mask'd, allbe his vices were.
Pom. His lordship then is still in grace?
Ter. Assure you,

Never in more, either of grace or power,
Pom. The Gods are wise and just.

Arr. The fiends they are,

To suffer thee belie 'em.

Ter. I have here

His last and present letters, where he writes him, The partner of his cares, and his Sejanus.

• Dio. p. 714.