ay crown
The hopeful issue of Germanicus

Tib. We thank you, reverend fathers, in their right.

Arr.
If this were true now! but the space, the space
Between the breast and lips----Tiberius' heart
Lies a thought further than another man's. [Aside.

Tib.
My comforts are so flowing in my joys,
As, in them, all my streams of grief are lost,
No less than are land-waters in the sea,
Or showers in rivers; though their cause was such,
As might have sprinkled ev'n the gods with tears:
Yet, since the greater doth embrace the less,
We covetously obey.

Arr. Well acted, Caesar. [Aside.

Tib.
And now I am the happy witness made
Of your so much desired affections
To this great issue, I could wish, the
Fates Would here set peaceful period to my days;
However to my labours, I entreat,
And beg it of this senate, some fit ease.

Arr. Laugh, fathers, laugh: have you no spleens about you?
[Aside.
Tib.
The burden is too heavy I sustain
On my unwilling shoulders; and I pray
It may be taken off, and reconferred
Upon the consuls, or some other Roman,
More able, and more worthy.

Arr. Laugh on still. [Aside.

Sab. Why this doth render all the rest suspected!

Gal. It poisons all.

Arr. O, do you taste it then?

Sab.
It takes away my faith to any thing,
He shall hereafter speak.

Arr.
Ay, to pray that,
Which would be to his head as hot as thunder,
'Gainst which he wears that charm should but the court
Receive him at his word.

Gal. Hear!

Tib.
For myself
I know my weakness, and so little covet,
Like some gone past, the weight that will oppress me,
As my ambition is the counter-point.

Arr. Finely maintained; good still!

Sej.
But Rome, whose blood,
Whose nerves, whose life, whose very frame relies
On Caesar's strength, no less than heaven on Atlas,
Cannot admit it but with general ruin.

Arr. Ah! are you there to bring him off? [Aside.

Sej.
Let Caesar
No more then urge a point so contrary
To Caesar's greatness, the grieved senate's vows,
Or Rome's necessity.

Gal. He comes about----

Arr. More nimbly than Vertu