Var.  I conceive. 
                Enter Sabinus, Gallus, lepidus, and Arruntius. 
Sab.  Drusus being dead, Caesar will not be here.

Gal.  What should the business of this senate be?

Arr. 
   That can my subtle whisperers tell you:  we
   That are the good-dull-noble lookers on,
   Are only call’d to keep the marble warm. 
   What should we do with those deep mysteries,
   Proper to these fine heads? let them alone. 
   Our ignorance may, perchance, help us be saved
   From whips and furies.

Gall.  See, see, see their action!

Arr. 
   Ay, now their heads do travail, now they work;
   Their faces run like shittles; they are weaving
   Some curious cobweb to catch flies.

Sab. 
   Observe,
   They take their places.

Arr.  What, so low!

Gal. 
   O yes,
   They must be seen to flatter Caesar’s grief,
   Though but in sitting.

Var.  Bid us silence.

Prae.  Silence!

Var. 
   Fathers conseript, may this our present meeting,
   Turn fair, and fortunate to the common-wealth! 
                               Enter Silius, and other Senators. 
Sej.  See, Silius enters.

Sil.  Hail, grave fathers!

Lic. 
   Stand. 
   Silius, forbear thy place.

Ben.  How!

Prae. 
   Silius, stand forth,
   The consul hath to charge thee.

Lic.  Room for Caesar.

Arr.  Is he come too! nay then expect a trick.

Sab.  Silius accused! sure he will answer nobly. 
                                       Enter Tiberius, attended. 
Tib. 
   We stand amazed, fathers, to behold
   This general dejection.  Wherefore sit
   Rome’s consuls thus dissolved, as they had lost
   All the remembrance both of style and place
   It not becomes.  No woes are of fit weight,
   To make the honour of the empire stoop: 
   Though I, in my peculiar self, may meet
   Just reprehension, that so suddenly,
   And, in so fresh a grief, would greet the senate,
   When private tongues, of kinsmen and allies,
   Inspired with comforts, lothly are endured,
   The face of men not seen, and scarce the day,
   To thousands that communicate our loss. 
   Nor can I argue these of weakness; since
   They take but natural ways; yet I must seek
   For stronger aids, and those fair helps draw out
   From warm embraces of the common-wealth. 
   Our mother, great Augusta, ’s struck with time,
   Our self imprest with aged characters,
   Drusus is gone, his children young and babes;
   Our aims must now reflect on those that may
   Give timely succour to these present ills,
   And are our only glad-surviving hopes,
   The noble issue of Germanicus,
   Nero and Drusus:  might it please