THE ARGUMENT. ELIUS SEJANUS, son to Seius Strabo, gentleman of Rome, and born at Vulsinium; after his long service in court, first under Augustus; afterward, Tiberius; grew into that favour with the latter, and won him by those arts, as there wanted nothing but the name to make him a co-partner of the empire. Which greatness of his, Drusus, the emperor's son, not brooking; after many smothered dislikes, it one day breaking out, the prince struck him publicly on the face. To revenge which disgrace, Livia, the wife of Drusus (being before corrupted by him to her dishonour, and the discovery of her husband's counsels) Sejanus practiseth with, together with her physician called Eudemus, and one Lygdus an eunuch, to poison Drusus. This their inhuman act having successful and unsuspected passage, it emboldeneth Sejanus to further and more insolent projects, even the ambition of the empire; where finding the lets he must encounter to be many and hard, in respect of the issue of Germanicus, who were next in hope for the succession, he deviseth to make Tiberius' self his means, and instils into his ears many doubts and suspicions, both against the princes, and their mother Agrippina; which Cæsar jealously hearkening to, as covetously consenteth to their ruin, and their friends. 7 For the succession.] These words, wanting in the quarto of 1605, were added in the folio, 1616, to complete the sense. WHAL. In this time, the better to mature and strengthen his design, Sejanus labours to marry Livia, and worketh with all his ingine, to remove Tiberius from the knowledge of public business, with allurements of a quiet and retired life; the latter of which, Tiberius, out of a proneness to lust, and a desire to hide those unnatural pleasures which he could not so publicly practise, embraceth: the former enkindleth his fears, and there gives him first cause of doubt or suspect towards Sejanus: against whom he raiseth in private a new instrument, one Sertorius Macro, and by him underworketh, discovers the other's counsels, his means, his ends, sounds the affections of the senators, divides, distracts them: at last, when Sejanus least looketh, and is most secure; with pretext of doing him an unwonted honour in the senate, he trains him from his guards, and with a long doubtful letter, in one day hath him suspected, accused, condemned, and torn in pieces by the rage of the people. 8 By the rage of the people.] After this, the quarto has the following: “This do we advance, as a mark of terror to all traitors, and treasons; to shew how just the heavens are, in pouring and thundering down a weighty vengeance on their unnatural intents, even to the worst princes; much more to those, for guard of whose piety and virtue the angels are in continual watch, and GOD himself miraculously working." This seems to have been added, in compliment to K. James, on the discovery of the powder-plot. WHAL. 9 Lucius Arruntius, &c.] I have added the cognomen or pronomen to many of the characters, as a necessary help for the English reader, since Jonson, without noticing the circumstance, sometimes uses the one, and sometimes the other, as suits the conveniency of his verse. AIL, Caius Silius !a Sil. Titius Sabinus," hail! Sab. Therefore, well met. Sil. 'Tis true: indeed, this place is not our sphere. Sab. No, Silius, we are no good inginers. We want their fine arts, and their thriving use Should make us graced, or favour'd of the times : We have no shift of faces, no cleft tongues, No soft and glutinous bodies, that can stick, Like snails on painted walls; or, on our breasts, Creep up, to fall from that proud height, to which a De Caio Silio, vid. Tacit. Lips. edit. quarto. Ann. Lib. i. pag. II. Lib. ii. p. 28 et 33. This, together with every succeeding note marked by the letters of the alphabet, is from the pen of Jonson. b De Titio Sabino, vid. Tacit. Lib. iv. p. 79. d e We did by slavery, not by service climb. Enter SATRIUS and NATTA at a distance. A pair that do. Good cousin Latiaris.— Sil. Satrius Secundus, and Pinnarius Natta,h Sab. [salutes LATIARIS.] there be two, The great Sejanus' clients Know more than honest breasts, counsels; whose close Were they ripp'd up to light, it would be found A poor and idle sin,1 to which their trunks 1 A poor and idle sin.] That is, barren, unprofitable. The word is so used by Shakspeare, "Of antres vast, and desarts idle." Othello. So in the first chapter of Genesis, "The earth was without form, and void," is rendered in the Saxon, "The earth was ÿðæl." WHAL. Mr. Pope changed idle for wild, at which Dr. Johnson expresses his surprise. Mr. Malone taxes the editor of the second folio (where Pope found the word) with ignorance of Shakspeare's meaning; and idle is triumphantly reinstated in the text. It does not seem to have occurred to the commentators that wild might e c Tacit. Ann. Lib. i. p. 2. Juv. Sat. iii. v. 49, &c. f De Latiari, cons. Tacit. Ann. Lib. iv. fol. Lib. lviii. p. 711. (b) Pinnario Ñatta, leg. Tacit. Ann. Lib. cons. Senec. Consol. ad Marciam. d Juv. Sat. i. v. 75. p. 94, et Dion. Step. edit. 8 De Satrio Secundo, et iv. p. 83. Et de Satrio |