Sej. 
   Swell, swell, my joys; and faint not to declare
   Yourselves as ample as your causes are. 
   I did not live till now; this my first hour;
   Wherein I see my thoughts reach’d by my power. 
   But this, and gripe my wishes.  Great and high,
   The world knows only two, that’s Rome and I.
   My roof receives me not; ’tis air I tread;
   And, at each step, I feel my advanced head
   Knock out a star in heaven! rear’d to this height,
   All my desires seem modest, poor, and slight,
   That did before sound impudent:  ’tis place,
   Not blood, discerns the noble and the base. 
   Is there not something more than to be Caesar? 
   Must we rest there’! it irks t’ have come so far,
   To be so near a stay.  Caligula,
   Would thou stood’st stiff, and many in our way! 
   Winds lose their strength, when they do empty fly,
   Unmet of woods or buildings; great fires die,
   That want their matter to withstand them:  so,
   It is our grief, and will be our loss, to know
   Our power shall want opposites; unless
   The gods, by mixing in the cause, would bless
   Our fortune with their conquest.  That were worth
   Sejanus’ strife; durst fates but bring it forth. 
                                               Enter Terentius.

Ter.  Safety to great Sejanus!

Sej.  Now, Terentius?

Ter.  Hears not my lord the wonder?

Sej.  Speak it, no.

Ter. 
   I meet it violent in the people’s mouths,
   Who run in routs to Pompey’s theatre,
   To view your statue, which, they say, sends forth
   A smoke, as from a furnace, black and dreadful.

Sej. 
   Some traitor hath put fire in:  you, go see,
   And let the head be taken oft’, to look
   What ’tis. [Exit Terentius.]—–­
   Some slave hath practised an imposture,
   To stir the people.-How now! why return you?

                     Reenter Terentius, with Satrius and Natta. 
Sat. 
   The head, my lord, already is ta’en off,
   I saw it; and, at opening, there leapt out
   A great and monstrous serpent.

Sej. 
   Monstrous! why? 
   Had it a beard, and horns? no heart? a tongue
   Forked as flattery? look’d it of the hue,
   To such as live in great men’s bosoms? was
   The spirit of it Macro’s?

Nat. 
   May it please
   The most divine Sejanus, in my days,
   (And by his sacred fortune, I affirm it,)
   I have not seen a more extended, grown,
   Foul, spotted, venomous, ugly—–­

Sej. 
   O, the fates! 
   What a wild muster’s here of attributes,
   T’ express a worm, a snake!

Ter. 
   But how that should
   Come there, my lord!

Sej. 
   What, and you too, Terentius! 
   I think you mean to make ’t a prodigy
   In your reporting.