Sejanus His Fall Act 4. Scene 5

Another part of the Street.

Enter ARRUNTIUS.

Arr.
Still dost thou suffer, heaven! will no flame,
No heat of sin, make thy just wrath to boil
In thy distemper'd bosom, and o'erflow
The pitchy blazes of impiety,
Kindled beneath thy throne! Still canst thou sleep,
Patient, while vice doth make an antick face
At thy dread power, and blow dust and smoke
Into thy nostrils! Jove! will nothing wake thee?
Must vile Sejanus pull thee by the beard,
Ere thou wilt open thy black-lidded eye,
And look him dead? Well! snore on, dreaming gods,
And let this last of that proud giant-race
Heave mountain upon mountain, 'gainst your state——
Be good unto me, Fortune and you powers,
Whom I, expostulating, have profaned;
I see what's equal with a prodigy,
A great, a noble Roman, and an honest,
Live an old man!——

Enter LEPIDUS.

O Marcus Lepidus,
When is our turn to bleed? Thyself and I,
Without our boast, are almost all the few
Left to be honest in these impious times.

Lep.
What we are left to be, we will be, Lucius;
Though tyranny did stare as wide as death,
To fright us from it.

Arr.
'T hath so on Sabinus.

Lep.
I saw him now drawn from the Gemonies,
And, what increased the direness of the fact,
His faithful dog, upbraiding all us Romans,
Never forsook the corps, but, seeing it thrown
Into the stream, leap'd in, and drown'd with it.

Arr.
O act, to be envied him of us men!
We are the next the hook lays hold on, Marcus:
What are thy arts, good patriot, teach them me,
That have preserved thy hairs to this white dye,
And kept so reverend and so dear a head
Safe on his comely shoulders?

Lep.
Arts, Arruntius!
None, but the plain and passive fortitude,
To suffer and be silent; never stretch
These arms against the torrent; live at home,
With my own thoughts, and innocence about me,
Not tempting the wolves' jaws: these are my arts.

Arr.
I would begin to study 'em, if I thought
They would secure me. May I pray to Jove
In secret and be safe? ay, or aloud,
With open wishes, so I do not mention
Tiberius or Sejanus? yes, I must,
If I speak out. 'Tis hard that. May I think,
And not be rack'd? What danger is't to dream,
Talk in one's sleep, or cough? Who knows the law?
May I shake my head without a comment? say
It rains, or it holds up, and not be thrown
Upon the Gemonies? These now are things,
Whereon men's fortune, yea, their faith depends.
Nothing hath privilege 'gainst the violent ear.
No place, no day, no hour, we see, is free,
Not our religious and most sacred times,
From some one kind of cruelty: all matter
Nay, all occasion pleaseth. Madmen's rage,
The idleness of drunkards, women's nothing,
Jester's simplicity, all, all is good
That can be catcht at...Nor is now the event
Of any person, or for any crime,
To be expected; for 'tis always one:
Death, with some little difference of place,
Or time——What's this? Prince Nero, guarded!

Enter LACO and NERO, with Guards.

Lac.
On, lictors, keep your way. My lords, forbear.
On pain of Caesar's wrath, no man attempt
Speech with the prisoner.

Nero.
Noble friends, be safe;
To lose yourselves for words, were as vain hazard,
As unto me small comfort: fare you well.
Would all Rome's sufferings in my fate did dwell!

Lep.
Lictors, away.

Lep.
Where goes he, Laco?

Lac.
Sir,
He's banish'd into Pontia by the senate.

Arr.
Do I see, hear, and feel? May I trust sense,
Or doth my phant'sie form it?

Lep.
Where's his brother?

Lac.
Drusus is prisoner in the palace.

Arr.
Ha!
I smell it now: 'tis rank. Where's Agrippina?

Lac.
The princess is confined to Pandataria.

Arr.
Bolts, Vulcan; bolts for Jove! Phoebus, thy bow;
Stern Mars, thy sword: and, blue-ey'd maid, thy spear;
Thy club, Alcides: all the armoury
Of heaven is too little!——Ha!——to guard
The gods, I meant. Fine, rare dispatch I this same
Was swiftly born! Confined, imprison'd, banish'd?
Most tripartite! the cause, sir?

Lac.
Treason.

Arr.
O!
The complement of all accusings! that
Will hit, when all else fails.

Lep.
This turn is strange!
But yesterday the people would not hear,
Far less objected, but cried Caesar's letters
Were false and forged; that all these plots were malice;
And that the ruin of the prince's house
Was practised' gainst his knowledge. Where are now
Their voices, now, that they behold his heirs
Lock'd up, disgraced, led into exile?

Arr.
Hush'd,
Drown'd in their bellies. Wild Sejanus' breath
Hath, like a whirlwind, scatter'd that poor dust,
With this rude blast——We'll talk no treason, sir,
[Turns to Laco and the rest

If that be it you stand for. Fare you well.
We have no need of horse-leeches. Good spy,
Now you are spied, be gone.

[Exeunt Laco, Nero, and Guards.

Lep.
I fear you wrong him:
He has the voice to be an honest Roman.

Arr.
And trusted to this office! Lepidus,
I'd sooner trust Greek Sinon, than a man
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 loathed 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 route 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
Are far from ends of evil, scarce degrees.
He hath his slaughter-house at Capreae;
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.

Pom.
Troth, both:
And which comes soonest, thank the gods for.

Arr.
List!
Their talk is Caesar; 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
Caesar's colleague in the fifth consulship;
More altars smoke to him than all the gods:
What would we more?

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.

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. His 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 Caesar 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 practice: 'tis Tiberius' art.
For having found his favourite grown too great,
And with his greatness strong; that all the soldiers
Are, with their leaders, made a 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.——

Lac.
But is that true? it is prohibited
To sacrifice unto him?

Ter.
Some such thing
Caesar makes scruple of, but forbids it not;
No more than to himself: says he could wish
It were forborn to all.

Lac.
Is it no other?

Ter.
No other, on my trust. For your more surety,
Here is that letter too.

Arr.
How easily
Do wretched men believe, what they would have!
Looks this like plot?

Lep.
Noble Arruntius, stay.

Lac.
He names him here without his titles.

Lep.
Note!

Arr.
Yes, and come off your notable fool. I will

Lac.
No other than Sejanus.

Pom.
That's but haste
In him that writes: here he gives large amends.

Mar.
And with his own hand written?

Pom.
Yes.

Lac.
Indeed?

Ter.
Believe it, gentlemen, Sejanus' breast
Never received more full contentments in,
Than at this present.

Pom.
Takes he well the escape
Of young Caligula, with Macro?

Ter.
Faith,
At the first air it somewhat troubled him.

Lep.
Observe you?

Arr.
Nothing; riddles. Till I see
Sejanus struck, no sound thereof strikes me.

[Exeunt Arrun. and Lepidus.

Pom.
I like it not. I muse he would not attempt
Somewhat against him in the consulship,
Seeing the people 'gin to favour him.

Ter.
He doth repent it now; but he has employ'd
Pagonianus after him: and he holds
That correspondence there, with all that are
Near about Caesar, as no thought can pass
Without his knowledge, thence in act to front him.

Pom.
I gratulate the news.

Lac.
But how comes Macro
So in trust and favour with Caligula?

Pom.
O, sir, he has a wife; and the young prince
An appetite: he can look up, and spy
Flies in the roof, when there are fleas i' the bed;
And hath a learned nose to assure his sleeps.
Who to be favour'd of the rising sun,
Would not lend little of his waning moon?
It is the saf'st ambition. Noble Terentius!

Ter.
The night grows fast upon us. At your service.

[Exeunt.