Gal.  You must have patience, royal Agrippina.

Agr. 
   I must have vengeance, first; and that were nectar
   Unto my famish’d spirits.  O, my fortune,
   Let it be sudden thou prepar’st against me;
   Strike all my powers of understanding blind. 
   And ignorant of destiny to come! 
   Let me not fear that cannot hope.

Gal. 
   Dear princess,
   These tyrannies on yourself, are worse than Caesar’s.

Agr. 
   Is this the happiness of being born great? 
   Still to be aim’d at? still to be suspected? 
   To live the subject of all jealousies? 
   At least the colour made, if not the ground
   To every painted danger? who would not
   Choose once to fall, than thus to hang for ever?

Gal.  You might be safe if you would—–­

Agr. 
   What, my Gallus! 
   Be lewd Sejanus’ strumpet, or the bawd
   To Caesar’s lusts, he now is gone to practise? 
   Not these are safe, where nothing is.  Yourself,
   While thus you stand but by me, are not safe. 
   Was Silius safe? or the good Sosia safe? 
   Or was my niece, dear Claudia Pulchra, safe,
   Or innocent Furnius? they that latest have
   (By being made guilty) added reputation
   To Afer’s eloquence?  O, foolish friends,
   Could not so fresh example warn your loves,
   But you must buy my favours with that loss
   Unto yourselves; and when you might perceive
   That Caesar’s cause of raging must forsake him,
   Before his will!  Away, good Gallus, leave me. 
   Here to be seen, is danger; to speak, treason: 
   To do me least observance, is call’d faction. 
   You are unhappy in me, and I in all. 
   Where are my sons, Nero and Drusus?  We
   Are they be shot at; let us fall apart;
   Not in our ruins, sepulchre our friends. 
   Or shall we do some action like offence,
   To mock their studies that would make us faulty,
   And frustrate practice by preventing it? 
   The danger’s like:  for what they can contrive,
   They will make good.  No innocence is safe,
   When power contests:  nor can they trespass more,
   Whose only being was all crime before.

Enter Nero, Drusus, and Caligula.

Ner.  You hear Sejanus is come back from Caesar?

Gal.  No.  How? disgraced?

Dru.  More graced now than ever.

Cal.  By what mischance?

Cal. 
   A fortune like enough
   Once to be bad.

Dru.  But turn’d too good to both.

Gal.  What was’t?

Ner. 
   Tiberius sitting at his meat,
   In a farm-house they call Spelunca, sited
   By the sea-side, among the Fundane hills,
   Within a natural cave; part of the grot,
   About the entry, fen, and overwhelm’d
   Some of the waiters; others ran away: 
   Only Sejanus with his knees, hands, face,