the gods?
                                           [Ovid and the rest kneel. 
   Reverence, amaze, and fury fight in me. 
   What, do they kneel!  Nay, then I see ’tis true
   I thought impossible:  O, impious sight! 
   Let me divert mine eyes; the very thought
   Everts my soul with passion:  Look not, man,
   There is a panther, whose unnatural eyes
   Will strike thee dead:  turn, then, and die on her
   With her own death.
                                     [Offers to kill his daughter. 
Mec.  Hor.  What means imperial Caesar?

Caes.  What would you have me let the strnmpet live That, for this pageant, earns so many deaths?

Tuc.  Boy, slink, boy.
                                     [Exeunt Tucca and Pyrgus. 
Pyr.  Pray Jupiter we be not followed by the scent, master.

Caes.  Say, sir, what are you?

Alb.  I play Vulcan, sir.

Caes.  But what are you, sir?

Alb.  Your citizen and jeweller, sir.

Caes.  And what are you, dame?

Chloe.  I play Venus, forsooth.

Caes.  I ask not what you play, but what you are.

Chloe.  Your citizen and jeweller’s wife, sir.

Caes.  And you, good sir?
                                                [Exit. 
Caes. 
   O, that profaned name!—–­
   And are these seemly company for thee, [To Julia. 
   Degenerate monster?  All the rest I know,
   And hate all knowledge for their hateful sakes. 
   Are you, that first the deities inspired
   With skill of their high natures and their powers,
   The first abusers of their useful light;
   Profaning thus their dignities in their forms,
   And making them, like you, but counterfeits? 
   O, who shall follow Virtue and embrace her,
   When her false bosom is found nought but air? 
   And yet of those embraces centaurs spring,
   That war with human peace, and poison men.—–­
   Who shall, with greater comforts comprehend
   Her unseen being and her excellence;
   When you, that teach, and should eternise her,
   Live as she were no law unto your lives,
   Nor lived herself, but with your idle breaths? 
   If you think gods but feign’d, and virtue painted,
   Know we sustain an actual residence,
   And with the title of an emperor,
   Retain his spirit and imperial power;
   By which, in imposition too remiss,
   Licentious Naso, for thy violent wrong,
   In soothing the declined affections
   Of our base daughter, we exile thy feet
   From all approach to our imperial court,
   On pain of death; and thy misgotten love
   Commit to patronage of iron doors;
   Since her soft-hearted sire cannot contain her.

Cris.  Your gentleman parcel-poet, sir.

Mec.  O, good my lord, forgive! be like the gods.

Hor.  Let royal bounty, Caesar, mediate.