endures thee not,
   Her husband, Drusus:  and to work against them. 
   Prosper it, Pallas, thou that better’st wit;
   For Venus hath the smallest share in it. 
                             Enter Tiberius and Drusus, attended. 
Tib. [to Haterius, who kneels to him.]
   We not endure these flatteries; let him stand;
   Our empire, ensigns, axes, rods and state
   Take not away our human nature from us: 
   Look up on us, and fall before the gods.

Sej.  How like a god speaks Caesar!

Arr. 
   There, observe! 
   He can endure that second, that’s no flattery. 
   O, what is it, proud slime will not believe
   Of his own worth, to hear it equal praised
   Thus with the gods!

Oar.  He did not hear it, sir.

Arr. 
   He did not!  Tut, he must not, we think meanly. 
   ’Tis your most courtly known confederacy,
   To have your private parasite redeem,
   What he, in public, subtilely will lose,
   To making him a name.

Hat.  Right mighty lord—–­ [Gives him letters.

Tib. 
   We must make up our ears ’gainst these assaults
   Of charming tongues; we pray you use no more
   These contumelies to us; style not us
   Or lord, or mighty, who profess ourself
   The servant of the senate, and are proud
   T’ enjoy them our good, just, and favouring lords.

Car.  Rarely dissembled!

Arr.  Prince-like to the life.

Sab. 
   When power that may command, so much descends,
   Their bondage, whom it stoops to, it intends.

Tib.  Whence are these letters?

Hat.  From the senate.

Tib.  So. [Lat. gives him letters. 
   Whence these?

Lat.  From thence too.

Tib.  Are they sitting now?

Lat.  They stay thy answer, Caesar.

Sil. 
   If this man
   Had but a mind allied unto his words,
   How blest a fate were it to us, and Rome! 
   We could not think that state for which to change,
   Although the aim were our old liberty: 
   The ghosts of those that fell for that, would grieve
   Their bodies lived not, now, again to serve. 
   Men are deceived, who think there can be thrall
   Beneath a virtuous prince:  Wish’d liberty
   Ne’er lovelier looks, than under such a crown. 
   But, when his grace is merely but lip-good. 
   And that, no longer than he airs himself
   Abroad in public, there, to seem to shun
   The strokes and stripes of flatterers, which within
   Are lechery unto him, and so feed
   His brutish sense with their afflicting sound,
   As, dead to virtue, he permits himself
   Be carried like a pitcher by the ears,
   To every act of vice:  this is the case
   Deserves our fear, and doth presage the nigh
   And close approach of blood and