What, are the _Gauls_ returnd?
Doth _Brennus_ brandish fire-brands againe?

_Seneca_. What can Heaven now unto our suffrings adde?

_Enter another Romane to them_.

_Rom_. O all goes downe, _Rome_ falleth from the Roofe;
The winds aloft, the conquering flame turnes all
Into it selfe. Nor doe the Gods escape;
_Plei[a]des_ burnes; _Iupiter, Saturne_ burnes;
The Altar now is made a sacrifice,
And _Vesta_ mournes to see her Virgin fires
Mingle with prophane ashes.

_Seneca_. Heaven, hast thou set this end to Roman greatnesse?
Were the worlds spoyles for this to Rome devided
To make but our fires bigger?
You Gods, whose anger made us great, grant yet
Some change in misery. We begge not now
To have our Consull tread on _Asian_ Kings
Or spurne the quivered _Susa_ at their feet;
This we have had before: we beg to live,
At least not thus to die. Let _Cannae_[52] come,
Let _Allias_[53] waters turne again to blood:
To these will any miseries be light.

_Petron_. Why with false _Auguries_ have we bin deceiv'd?
Why was our Empire told us should endure
With Sunne and Moone in time, in brightnesse pass them,
And that our end should be oth' world and it?
What, can Celestiall Godheads double too?

_Seneca_. _O Rome_, the envy late
But now the pitie of the world! the _Getes_[54]?
The men of _Cholcos_ at thy sufferings grive;
The shaggy dweller in the _Scithian_ Rockes,
The _Mosch_[55] condemned to perpetual snowes,
That never wept at kindreds burials
Suffers with thee and feeles his heart to soften.
O should the _Parthyan_ heare these miseries
He would (his low and native hate apart[56])
Sit downe with us and lend an Enemies teare
To grace the funerall fires of ending Rome.

[_Exeunt_.

(SCENE 4.)

_Soft Musique. Enter Nero above alone with a Timbrell_.

I, now my _Troy_ lookes beautious in her flames;
The _Tyrrhene_ Seas are bright with _Roman_ fires
Whilst the amazed Mariner afarre,
Gazing on th'unknowne light, wonders what starre
Heaven hath begot to ease the aged Moone.
When _Pirrhus_, stryding ore the cynders, stood
On ground where _Troy_ late was, and with his Eye
Measur'd the height of what he had throwne downe,--
A Citie great in people and in power,
Walls built with hands of God--he now forgive[s]
The ten yeares length and thinkes his wounds well heald,
Bath'd in the blood of _Priams_ fifty sonnes.
Yet am not I appeas'd; I must see more
Then