Towers and Collomns tumble to the ground;
'Twas not the high built walls and guiltlesse stones
That _Nero_ did provoke: themselves must be the wood
To feed this fire or quench it with their blood.

_Enter a Woman with a burnt Child_.

_Wom_. O my deare Infant, O my Child, my Child,
Unhappy comfort of my nine moneths paines;
And did I beare thee only for the fire,
Was I to that end made a mother?

_Nero_. I, now begins the sceane that I would have.

_Enter a Man bearing another dead_.

_Man_. O Father, speake yet; no, the mercilesse blowe
Hath all bereft speech, motion, sense and life.

_Wom_. O beauteous innocence, whitenes ill blackt,
How to be made a coale didst thou deserve?

_Man_. O reverend wrinckles, well becoming palenesse,
Why hath death now lifes colours given thee
And mockes thee with the beauties of fresh youth?

_Wom_. Why wert thou given me to be tane away
So soone, or could not Heaven tell how to punish
But first by blessing mee?

_Man_. Why where thy years
Lengthened so long to be cut off untimely?

_Nero_. Play on, play on, and fill the golden skies
With cryes and pitie, with your blood; Mens Eyes[57]--

_Wom_. Where are thy flattering smiles, thy pretty kisses,
And armes that wont to writhe about my necke?

_Man_. Where are thy counsels? where thy good example,
And that kind roughnes of a Father's anger?

_Wom_. Whom have I now to leane my old age on?

_Man_. Who shall I now have to set right my youth?
Gods, if yee be not fled from Heaven, helpe us.

_Nero_. I like this Musique well; they like not mine.
Now in the teare[s] of all men let me sing,
And make it doubtfull to the Gods above
Whether the Earth be pleas'd or doe complaine.

(_Within, cantat_.)

_Man_. But may the man that all this blood hath shed
Never bequeath to th'earth an old gray head;
Let him untimely be cut off before.
And leave a course like this, all wounds and gore;
Be there no friends at hand, no standers by
In love or pittie mov'd to close that Eye:
O let him die, the wish and hate of all,
And not a teare to grace his Funerall.

[_Exeunt_.

_Wom_. Heaven, you will heare (that which the world doth scorn)
The prayers of misery and soules forlorne.
Your anger waxeth by delaying stronger,
O now for mercy be despis'd no longer;
Let him that makes so many Mothers childlesse
Make his unhappy in her fruitfu