the _Sunne_ shall lend his beames to burne
What he before brought forth, and water serve
Not to extinguish but to nurse the fire;
Then, like the _Salamander_, bathing me
In the last Ashes of all mortall things
Let me give up this breath. _Priam_ was happie,
Happie indeed; he saw his _Troy_ burnt
And _Illion_ lye on heapes, whilst thy pure streames
(Divine _Scamander_) did run _Phrygian_ blood,
And heard the pleasant cries of _Troian_ mothers.
Could I see _Rome_ so!

_Tigell_. Your Maiestie may easily,
Without this trouble to your sacred mind.

_Nero_. What may I easily doe? Kill thee or him:
How may I rid you all? Where is the Man
That will all others end and last himselfe?
O that I had thy Thunder in my hand,
Thou idle Rover, I'de[42] not shoote at trees
And spend in woods my unregarded vengeance,
Ide shevire them downe upon their guilty roofes
And fill the streetes with bloody burials.
But 'tis not Heaven can give me what I seeke;
To you, you hated kingdomes of the night,
You severe powers that not like those above
Will with faire words or childrens cryes be wonne,
That have a stile beyond that Heaven is proud off,
Deriving not from Art a makers Name
But in destruction power and terror shew,
To you I flye for succour; you, whose dwellings
For torments are belyde, must give me ease.
Furies, lend me your fires; no, they are here,
They must be other fires, materiall brands
That must the burning of my heat allay.
I bring to you no rude unpractiz'd hands,
Already doe they reeke with mothers' blood.
Tush, that's but innocent[43] to what now I meane:
Alasse, what evell could those yeeres commit!
The world in this shall see my setled wit.

[_Exeunt_.

(SCENE 3.)

_Enter Seneca, Petronius_.

_Seneca. Petronius_, you were at the _Theater_?

_Petron_. _Seneca_, I was, and saw your Kingly Pupyll
In Mynstrills habit stand before the Iudges
Bowing those hands which the worlds Scepter hold,
And with great awe and reverence beseeching
Indifferent hearing and an equall doome.
Then Caesar doubted first to be oreborne;
And so he ioyn'd himselfe to th'other singers
And straightly all other Lawes oth' Stage observ'd,
As not (though weary) to sit downe, not spit,
Not wipe his sweat off but with what he wore.[44]
Meane time how would he eye his adversaries,
How he would seeke t'have all they did disgract;
Traduce them privily, openly raile at them;
And them he could