Nero. 
   Noble friends, be safe;
   To lose yourselves for words, were as vain hazard,
   As unto me small comfort:  fare you well. 
   Would all Rome’s sufferings in my fate did dwell!

Lac.  Lictors, away.

Lep.  Where goes he, Laco?

Lac. 
   Sir,
   He’s banish’d into Pontia by the senate.

Arr. 
    Do I see, hear, and feel?  May I trust sense,
    Or doth my phant’sie form it? 
Lep.  Where’s his brother?

Lac.  Drusus is prisoner in the palace.

Arr.  Ha! 
   I smell it now:  ’tis rank.  Where’s Agrippina?

Lac.  The princess is confined to Pandataria.

Arr. 
   Bolts, Vulcan; bolts for Jove!  Phoebus, thy bow;
   Stern Mars, thy sword:  and, blue-ey’d maid, thy spear;
   Thy club, Alcides:  all the armoury
   Of heaven is too little!—–­Ha!—–­to guard
   The gods, I meant.  Fine, rare dispatch I this same
   Was swiftly born!  Confined, imprison’d, banish’d? 
   Most tripartite! the cause, sir?

Lac.  Treason.

Arr. 
   O! 
   The complement of all accusings! that
   Will hit, when all else fails.

Lep. 
   This turn is strange! 
   But yesterday the people would not hear,
   Far less objected, but cried Caesar’s letters
   Were false and forged; that all these plots were malice;
   And that the ruin of the prince’s house
   Was practised’ gainst his knowledge.  Where are now
   Their voices, now, that they behold his heirs
   Lock’d up, disgraced, led into exile?

Arr. 
   Hush’d,
   Drown’d in their bellies.  Wild Sejanus’ breath
   Hath, like a whirlwind, scatter’d that poor dust,
   With this rude blast—–­We’ll talk no treason, sir,
                                     [Turns to Laco and the rest
   If that be it you stand for.  Fare you well. 
   We have no need of horse-leeches.  Good spy,
   Now you are spied, be gone.
                                  [Exeunt Laco, Nero, and Guards. 
Lep. 
   I fear you wrong him: 
   He has the voice to be an honest Roman.

Arr. 
   And trusted to this office!  Lepidus,
   I’d sooner trust Greek Sinon, than a man
   Our state employs.  He’s gone:  and being gone,
   I dare tell you, whom I dare better trust,
   That our night-eyed Tiberius doth not see
   His minion’s drifts; or, if he do, he’s not
   So arrant subtile, as we fools do take him;
   To breed a mungrel up, in his own house,
   With his own blood, and, if the good gods please,
   At his own throat, flesh him, to take a leap. 
   I do not beg it, heaven; but if the fates
   Grant it these eyes, they must not wink.

Lep. 
   They must
   Not see it, Lucius.

Arr.  Who should let them?

Lep. 
   Zeal,
   And duty:  with the thought he is our prince.