SEJANUS. 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. 

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

 SEJANUS. Yes, and do them thoroughly. 

 TIBERIUS. Knows yet Sejanus whom we point at? 

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

 TIBERIUS. She, and her proud race. 

 SEJANUS. Proud! dangerous, Cæsar: 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. 

 TIBERIUS. The act’s not known. 

 SEJANUS. 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. 

 TIBERIUS. It is as dangerous to make them hence, If nothing but their birth be their offence. 

 SEJANUS. Stay, till they strike at Cæsar; then their crime Will be enough; but late and out of time For him to punish. 

 TIBERIUS. Do they purpose it? 

 SEJANUS. You know, sir, thunder speaks not till it hit. Be not secure; none swiftlier are opprest, Than they whom confidence betrays to rest. Let not your daring make your danger such: All power is to be fear’d, where ’tis too much. The youths are of themselves hot, violent, Full of great thought; and that male-spirited dame, Their mother, slacks no means to put them on, By large allowance, popular presentings, Increase of train and state, suing for titles; Hath them commended with like prayers, like vows, To the same gods, with Cæsar: days and nights She spends in banquets and ambitious feasts For the nobility; where Caius Silius, Titius Sabinus, old Arruntius, Asinius Gallus, Furnius, Regulus, And others of that discontented list, Are the prime guests. There, and to these, she tells Whose niece she was, whose daughter, and whose wife. And then must they compare her with 

 Prev. P 45/205 next