Shall flow out of my anger, and o’erspread
   The world’s wide face, which no posterity
   Shall e’er approve, nor yet keep silent:  things
   That for their cunning, close, and cruel mark,
   Thy father would wish his:  and shall, perhaps,
   Carry the empty name, but we the prize. 
   On, then, my soul, and start not in thy course;
   Though heaven drop sulphur, and hell belch out fire,
   Laugh at the idle terrors; tell proud Jove,
   Between his power and thine there is no odds: 
   ’Twas only fear first in the world made gods! 
                                     Enter Tiberius, attended. 
Tib.  Is yet Sejanus come?

Sej.  He’s here, dread Caesar.

Tib. 
   Let all depart that chamber, and the next.
                                     [Exeunt Attendants. 
   Sit down, my comfort.  When the master prince
   Of all the world, Sejanus, saith he fears, Is it not fatal?

Sewj.  Yes, to those are fear’d.

Tib.  And not to him?

Sej. 
   Not, if he wisely turn
   That part of fate he holdeth, first on them.

Tib.  That nature, blood, and laws of kind forbid.

Sej.  Do policy and state forbid it?

Tib.  No.

Sej. 
   The rest of poor respects, then, let go by;
   State is enough to make the act just, them guilty.

Tib.  Long hate pursues such acts.

Sej. 
   Whom hatred frights,
   Let him not dream of sovereignty.

Tib. 
   Are rites
   Of faith, love, piety, to be trod down,
   Forgotten, and made vain?

Sej. 
   All for a crown. 
   The prince who shames a tyrant’s name to bear,
   Shall never dare do any thing, but fear;
   All the command of sceptres quite doth perish,
   If it begin religious thoughts to cherish: 
   Whole empires fall, sway’d by those nice respects;
   It is the license of dark deeds protects
   Ev’n states most hated, when no laws resist
   The sword. but that it acteth what it list.

Tib. 
   Yet so, we may do all things cruelly,
   Not safely.

Sej.  Yes, and do them thoroughly.

Tib.  Knows yet Sejanus whom we point at?

Sej. 
   Ay,
   Or else my thought, my sense, or both do err: 
   ’Tis Agrippina.

Tib.  She, and her proud race.

Sej. 
   Proud! dangerous, Caesar:  for in them apace
   The father’s spirit shoots up.  Germanicus
   Lives in their looks, their gait, their form, t’ upbraid us
   With his close death, if not revenge the same.

Tib.  The act’s not known.

Sej. 
   Not proved:  but whispering Fame
   Knowledge and proof doth to the jealous give,
   Who, than to fail, would their own thought believe. 
   It is not safe, the children draw long breath,
   That are provoked by a parent’s death.