Sejanus | The Cambridge Works of Ben Jonson

Edited by Tom Cain

Introduction

In the winter of 1601–2 Jonson promised to turn his back on comical satire and ‘try / If Tragedy have a more kind aspect’ (Poet., Apol. Dial., 210–11). The eventual result was one of the most radical of all early modern plays, an austere dystopian tragedy which displayed the corruption of a successful tyranny without concession to social optimism or religious consolation. Sejanus provided a new way of treating the contemporary as well as the historical political scene. It is significant that Shakespeare played a leading part in it, probably as Tiberius. Not only does Sejanus carry on an implicit dialogue with his earlier Roman play, Julius Caesar (Donaldson, 2000b; Pechter, 1986), but without Sejanus it is difficult to see Shakespeare’s later Roman plays, or Measure for Measure, King Lear, and Macbeth, treating the uses and abuses of power as they did.

Despite its originality, the roots of Sejanus can be found in Jonson’s previous play, Poetaster. Both use Rome as a way of commenting on the English political scene, both deal with the corrosive effects of flattery, envy, and detraction, false accusations of treason, spies, informers, and censorship. Sejanus continues to employ satire, and opens with a Juvenalian treatment of courtly corruption that Donne or Marston would have recognized. But whereas in Poetaster slander and misinterpretation are defeated by ridicule, in the world of Sejanus the calumniators are in power, their victims helpless. ‘Comical satire’ cannot reform this society (cf. Maus, 1984, 36–7).

Some of the motivation for this change can be inferred from what is known of Jonson’s life in late 1601. He was soured by the last stages of the War of the Theatres, grieving for the death of his daughter Mary, probably in August that year (Epigr. 22), and threatened by increasing pressure on Roman Catholics to conform. It would not be surprising to find him turning in these circumstances from Augustan satire to Tiberian tragedy; but the tragic subject matter which first came so insistently, as he said, ‘into my thought / That must and shall be sung, high and aloof’ (Poet., Apol. Dial., 224–5) seems not to have been Roman. Almost as soon as Poetaster was finished Jonson may have begun work on additions to the Spanish Tragedy and expanded these further in June 1602, when he also began a new play, Richard Crookback (Henslowe, Diary, ed. Foakes and Rickert, 1961, 182, 203; see the note on Richard Crookback (lost play) in this volume, pp. 183–4).

As with Poetaster, the origins of Sejanus can be discerned in Jonson’s interest in Richard Ⅲ. Reading for Crookback would have included the Latin version of Thomas More’s History of Richard Ⅲ and Shakespeare’s Richard Ⅲ. As well as the murder of children (the subject of all the additions to the Spanish Tragedy, if these are indeed by Jonson), both describe the cynical use of false treason charges, and the relationship between a dissembling tyrant and the lieutenant he exploits and discards. Such a relationship was to be central to Sejanus, and was to be developed along comic lines in Volpone. Jonson’s heavily marked copy of More’s Richard Ⅲ survives. As Robert C. Evans notes (1995a, 160–90), More’s history invokes a world of deception and uncertainty which anticipates ‘the nightmare world of Tiberian Rome’ found in Sejanus.

Illness may have prevented completion of Crookback. In a letter to Sir Robert Cotton, probably dating from late 1602 or early 1603, Jonson describes himself as ‘a man but faintly returning to his despaired health’ (Letter 2). He was probably by now working on Sejanus, since he requests ‘some book’ which would clarify the geography of the Campania (cf. Sej., 3.669–73). Cotton was already an adviser of Lord Henry Howard, who was growing increasingly powerful in the final years of Elizabeth’s reign (Peck, 1982, 103–17). By 1605 Jonson was to see Howard as his enemy (see below), but that this was not the case early in 1603 is suggested not just by Jonson’s friendship with Cotton, but by the patronage at this time of another client of the Howard family, Robert Townshend, whose support is acknowledged in an inscribed copy of Sejanus: ‘The testimony of my affection and observance to my noble friend Sir Robert Townshend which I desire may remain with him, and last beyond marble’ (BL Ashley 3464; see facsimile below, p. 211).

Jonson described the 1603 version of Sejanus as one ‘wherein a second pen had good share’ (‘To the Readers’, 32–3). Some doubt is cast on just how substantial this collaboration was by Ev[erard] B[uckworth?]’s poem (‘To the Most Understanding Poet’, 2.228) which talks about ‘the author’ in the singular. If the entry in the Stationer’s Register for ‘a booke called the tragedie of Seianus written by Beniamin Iohnson’, rather than Q’s final title, ‘SEIANUS his Fall’, means that the copy licensed in November 1604 was the text of the 1603 version (Textual Essay, Electronic Edition), this too implies that it was mainly Jonson’s play, and that his revisions may have been lighter than ‘good share’ suggests. Whalley’s claim (3.130) that Shakespeare was the co-author has been plausibly revived by Anne Barton (1984, 93–4), but Chapman remains a more likely collaborator, his long poem in the 1605 edition suggesting a significant stake in the play’s fortunes. His influence may survive in particular in the recurrent emphasis on man controlling his fate: Chapman’s insistent ‘the use of time is fate’ (Hero and Leander, 3.76) could be Sejanus’s motto (cf. Sej., 1.576–81, 2.165–9, 3.495–6, 5.1–93), though the latter’s hubristic contempt for the ‘rites / Of faith, love, piety’ (2.175–6; cf. 5.69–89), which were so important to Chapman, shows how misguided is his self-reliance (cf. Chapman, Poems, ed. Bartlett, 1941, 135–7).

Date

Sejanus was ‘first acted in the year 1603 by the King’s Majesty’s Servants’, that is between 1 January 1603 and 24 March 1604, but there were few opportunities for a public performance during that time. The first four months of 1603, before the company became ‘the King’s Majesty’s Servants’, can be ruled out. Then, almost as soon as James arrived in London in mid-May, plague closed the theatres until 9April 1604. This has led most scholars to follow Chambers (ES, 3.367; cf. H&S, 9.190; Ayres, 9) in guessing Sejanus was ‘first acted’ at court during Christmas 1603–4, with the first Globe performance following after April 1604. No evidence exists, however, for a court performance, and the arguments against one are strong. The Master of the Revels preferred plays which had been tried out on the public stage (Gurr, 1996, 298–9; Astington, 1999, 216), and in the early years of the new reign he could rely more than formerly on such well-tried plays as Every Man In His Humour and Every Man Out of His Humour, both of which were performed at court the following Christmas. And even if he had been willing to risk an untried play, Sejanus would have been a highly injudicious choice, especially at Wilton, where the King’s Men gave ‘one playe’ on 2 December. The court was there in part to be near Winchester for Ralegh’s trial on 17 November, and the Master of the Revels, not to mention the company, would surely have registered the inappropriateness of performing such scenes as Silius’s trial (3.153ff.; cf. Ayres, 16–22) for the King and privy councillors directly responsible for contriving Ralegh’s sentence. The same objection holds against a performance at Hampton Court or Whitehall over the ensuing Christmas period. The passing of a month or two would not have made perceived allusions to Ralegh’s trial, whether intended or not, any more suitable for the festive entertainment of his persecutors.

A 1603 performance at the Globe needs, therefore, to be reconsidered. Four contemporary accounts of the first public performance survive. Jonson said it was received with ‘malice’ by an audience which he compared to the Roman mob: ‘in Your Lordship’s sight [it] suffered no less violence from our people here than the subject of it did from the rage of the people of Rome’ (Sej., Dedication, 3–5). This sounds very like the same performance as that confounded by the ‘people’s beastly rage’ which Ev[erard] B[uckworth] witnessed in ‘the Globe’s fair ring’ (‘To the Most Understanding Poet’, 1–5). William Fennor similarly described Sejanus as having been ‘condemned . . . without just trial by a multitude’ (his italics), a word he repeats:

With more than human art it was bedewed,

Yet to the multitude it nothing showed;

They screwed their scurvy jaws, and looked awry,

Like hissing snakes adjudging it to die;

When wits of gentry did applaud the same.

(Fennor, Descriptions, 1616, sig. B2)

Much later Francis Osborne recalled that as a boy he had been part of that multitude: ‘I amongst others hissed Sejanus off the stage, yet after sat it out, not only patiently, but with content, and admiration’ (Osborne, True Tragicomedy, c. 1654, 1b).

Contrary to what is often asserted (e.g. Chambers, ES, 3.367; Ayres, 9), there were a few days during May 1603 when all these men could have seen Sejanus at the Globe. Aubigny, attending James I on his progress south, would have reached London by 7 May (True Narration, 1603, sig. F4). The theatres were just then reopening, having been closed almost continuously since 19 March (Acts of the Privy Council, ed. Dasent, 32, p. 449). On 9 May they were ‘beginning to play again by the King’s licence’ (Henslowe, Diary, 1961, 225), albeit only for a short time, since on 17 May, when James issued a warrant for the patent reconstituting the former Lord Chamberlain’s Servants as the King’s Majesty’s Servants, they were only to resume playing ‘when the infection of plague shall decrease’ (Chambers, ES, 2.208–9).

If the long plague closure had begun by 17 May, there remains a week or less, between 9 and 16 May, when Sejanus could have been performed at the Globe. The dispatch with which this would mean Aubigny visiting the theatre is not an objection. He had stayed in London eighteen months earlier with his brother, the Duke of Lennox, when the War of the Theatres was in full swing, and when he may have met Jonson (Acts of the Privy Council, 32, 22 Nov. 1601; CSPV, 25 Nov. 1601). Aubigny and Lennox were both keen patrons of the theatre, though Aubigny’s own company, ‘Lord Awbenyes players’ have always been implausibly identified as the ‘Duke of Albany’s’, the latter being one of Prince Charles’s titles (see e.g. Gurr, 1996, 408–9). The Stuart brothers are, indeed, the most likely courtiers to have pushed James, who was not himself greatly interested in such matters, to move so quickly to issue the patent for the King’s Men.

Although the company did not become the ‘King’s Majesties Servants’ until a few days later, it is likely that, looking back in 1616, Jonson would have credited his first play performed under the new regime to the King’s Men, whose precise date of reconstitution under that name he may never have known anyway. If Sejanus was performed in that week, it was probably only once, and even then incompletely. That, at least, is the implication of Osborne’s ‘hissed . . . off the stage’ and the other references to the audience response, which all sound more extreme than hissing at the end of the play. In these circumstances, the second performance that Osborne admired can hardly have been in the same week; nor could Sejanus have been repeated on the tour the company made between June and November, when they are recorded in the West and Midlands (Barroll, 1991b, 107–9). The large cast (at least 27 speaking parts in Act 5, many impossible to double, plus attendants and musicians) would have made touring it impracticable. The later performance which Osborne sat patiently through probably took place between 9 April 1604 and November, when the play’s entry in the Stationer’s Register suggests it was no longer wanted for performance.

Northampton and the Privy Council

What caused the violent audience reaction? Some spectators were simply ‘not moved’ (‘To Him that Hath So Excelled on This Excellent Subject’, 2.227), perhaps a reaction to the unyielding pessimism of the play, or those aspects which relate it to the ‘academic Senecan drama’ of the day (Barish, Sej., 2). Yet boredom does not fully explain such strong hostility, and those angry enough to hiss the play off the stage were more likely those who saw contentious reference to the present ‘in some speech enweaved’. Accusations were made by ‘great ones’ that in performance Sejanus alluded not only to contemporary ‘faults’ but to contemporary ‘men’ (‘For his Worthy Friend, the Author’, 2.224; cf. Discoveries, 952–6). If, as is suggested below, the ‘men’ were believed to include the lately buried Queen Elizabeth, such a furious rejection of the play becomes understandable.

A hostile political reaction to the 1603 performance is often supposed to have led to the summons of which Jonson told Drummond: ‘Northampton was his mortal enemy for brawling, on a St George’s Day, one of his attenders; he was called before the Council for his Sejanus, and accused both of popery and treason by him’ (Informations, 251–2). Lord Henry Howard, soon to become Earl of Northampton, had by early 1603 manoeuvred himself into a position of influence over James, and could already have been viewed as a potential Sejanus by such established courtiers as Lennox and Aubigny. But Howard’s accusations are more likely to have been prompted by Q’s publication in 1605 (cf. Dutton, 1991, 12, 164). Jonson’s account strongly implies a sequence (first the brawling, then the summons) which could not have begun in April 1603, when Howard, having met James at Berwick on 7 April, was still with his party, then leaving Belvoir for Burleigh, on St George’s Day, 23 April (True Narration, 1603, sig. E3; HMC 10th Rep., 2, Gawdy Mss., 88, ?2 May, 1603). The probable date for Jonson’s brawling is St George’s Day 1605, when Howard was elected to the order of the Garter, and his ‘attenders’ would have been involved in procession and celebration (Beltz, 1841, clxxxiv; there were no elections in April 1602 or 1603). Chapman’s 1605 tribute to Howard as a protector of ‘all human skills’ (‘In Sejanum’, 140–5), which is unlikely to have followed an attack on the play, also points to the later date, as does the lack of any record of actors or co-author being summoned.

If printing was completed just after 5 November 1605 (Textual Essay, Electronic Edition), Howard’s intervention is explicable. He was deeply involved in the investigation of the Gunpowder Plot, and was one of the Commissioners at the trials that followed (A True and Perfect Relation, 1606; Peck, 1982, 111–12). He is likely to have noted the appearance of a contentious play whose publisher, Thorpe, was closely involved with exiled Catholic conspirators (Martin and Finnis, 2003) and whose author, a known Catholic, had been at a dinner hosted by a leading plotter, Catesby, only a few weeks before 5 November. The dinner alone justified suspicion of ‘popery and treason’: the other guests were Catesby’s co-conspirators Winter and Tresham; Lord Mordaunt, later imprisoned under plausible suspicion of involvement in the plot; Winter’s brother-in-law, John Ashfield; Jocelyn Percy, a cousin of another conspirator; and ‘one other unknown’ (Electronic Edition, Life Records, 29). At least four had been active in the Essex rebellion, and probably all knew or suspected that another plot was in the offing. Though Sejanus argues against active resistance, assumptions that Jonson was the only innocent guest (H&S, 1.40–1) or that he was there as a government agent (De Luna, 1967, 118–21) both seem naive. Catesby was still recruiting, and this dinner was one of a number at which he and Winter looked for recusants who might be willing to turn their ‘popery’ into active ‘treason’ (Fraser, 1996, 171–9). All this suggests Howard’s summons over Sejanus was identical with the appearance Jonson is known to have made before the Privy Council on 7 November 1605, when he agreed to act as intermediary in bringing a Catholic priest to give evidence (Life Records, 30).

‘Some faults may be these times’

The Council, then, had good circumstantial grounds to connect Sejanus with ‘popery and treason’. Nor would they have been wholly wrong in interpreting the play itself in terms of contemporary England, particularly of the predicament of loyal Catholics, so suggestively close to that of the Germanicans. Much of the greatness of Sejanus lies in its unflinching engagement with a corruption that is conceived of as applicable to past, present, and almost certainly future political life. Early modern writers, and certainly learned politicians like Howard, believed that history did repeat itself, and they looked to Rome for a typology that helped classify their own politics (cf. Patterson, 1984, 262–3; Donaldson, 2000b, 92–3). Machiavelli’s Discorsi, a major influence on Sejanus, set out to ‘compare ancient and modern events’ so that readers could draw that ‘utilità’ which is the purpose of history (1. Preface; cf. Lipsius, Six Books, 1594, 84). Machiavelli cites Sejanus to demonstrate that those granted ‘too many benefits’ are most dangerous to the prince who has favoured them (3.6; cf. Sej., 3.637–46). Donne, discussing in 1600 the intrigue surrounding the Earl of Essex, to whom this rule might apply, stressed the continuities between the corrupt courts of modern England and imperial Rome:

It was an excellent brag of Livy’s that the Roman state . . . was of all other in the world most fertile of good examples. I call it a brag, and so think it. For certainly all times are of one nature, and all courts produce the same effects of envy and detraction, of jealousy and other human weaknesses. (E. M. Simpson, 1948, 308).

Another friend of Jonson’s, Sir John Roe, applied Machiavelli’s dictum explicitly to Essex at about the same time as Sejanus:

And princes must fear favourites more than foes,

For still beyond revenge ambition goes.

(‘To Sir Nicholas Smith’, in Donne, Poems, ed. Grierson, 1912, 1.405)

It was, therefore, not just the ‘simple elves’ who could be expected to find ‘later times . . . in some speech enweaved’ (‘To Him that Hath So Excelled on This Excellent Subject’, 2.227, lines 11–12). But whereas the elves might read the play oversimply as an allegory in which Sejanus stood for Howard or Cecil, Tiberius for Elizabeth or James, Germanicus (or Silius) for Essex, Cordus for the historian Hayward, more ‘judicious’ auditors or readers (Poet., Apol. Dial., 214) would notice that broad parallels with contemporaries dissolve into the circumstances of first-century Rome almost as soon as they suggest themselves. Some aspects of Tiberius’s rule might be associated with Elizabeth’s, but, as suggested below, it was her father who best fitted the tyrant’s role. When at 2.190 a parallel may reasonably be noted between Tiberius’s designs against Agrippina and Elizabeth’s against Mary Queen of Scots, the succeeding lines dissipate the allusion by reminding us that Mary had no Germanicus behind her; Darnley’s qualities were well known to be almost diametrically opposite to those of Germanicus, and James, though fond of horses, was an unlikely Caligula. Sejanus himself is similarly rooted in his own times. Neither Cecil, Howard, nor Essex make an entirely plausible Sejanus, and the 1616 dedication testifies that James’s first favourite, Aubigny’s father, Esmé Stuart, was not considered a likely candidate. Smaller differences are just as telling, with the verse again and again reminding us of specific Tiberian contexts. A glance at the notes to this edition will indicate the precision Jonson brings to his recreation of this particular period of Roman history.

If parallels with individuals are thus of the broad kind that Machiavelli looked for, the larger humanist utilità of Roman history was, as Holland says, to illuminate general ‘faults’ of the times rather than specific ‘men’. The faction and intrigue of the court, the role of informers, spies, and flatterers, contrived accusations of treason, the sale of ‘places’, heavy-handed censorship and the judicial persecution of writers, the capricious power of a monarch and his or her favourites, would all have been recognized as English as well as Roman ‘faults’ (cf. Worden, 1994, 86–7). Like Donne, Jonson would have claimed that these were universal, that ‘all courts produce the same effects’. But if, as suggested here, Sejanus was written mainly before Elizabeth’s death, its denunciation of corruption must be perceived as directed largely against her court. Attorney-general Coke’s brief in 1600 for the Privy Council interrogation of the historian Hayward, a supporter of Essex, over his Life and reign of Henry Ⅳ, acknowledges this corruption implicitly, and indicates the kind of questions the Privy Council might have asked Jonson:

1. He selecteth a story 200 year old, and publisheth it this last year, intending the application of it to this time 2. maketh choice of that story only, a king is taxed for misgovernment, his council for corrupt and covetous for their private, the king censured, for conferring benefits of hateful parasites and favourites, the nobles discontented, the commons groaning under continual taxations. (Hayward, Life and Raigne, ed. Manning, 1991, 28)

At the same time, with Elizabeth aged 69 in 1602, Jonson, like all politically aware Englishmen, would also have been looking as he wrote to the consequences of James’s probable succession. For most English Catholics, these were a source of hope, and in this sense Sejanus can be seen as a ‘plea for tolerance from the incoming monarch’ (Sanders, 1998a, 15). That Jonson did hope for a less repressive regime is confirmed by the King’s Entertainment of March 1604. Just as Latiaris tempts Sabinus with the prospect that the ‘bright flame / Of liberty might be revived again’ (4.143–4), so Jonson hails James, prematurely, as having ‘made men see / Once more the face of welcome liberty’ (King’s Ent., 500–1), in implied contrast to Elizabeth’s policies. There follows a description of the old order that could apply to the Rome of Sejanus:

Now innocence shall cease to be the spoil

Of ravenous greatness . . .

No more shall rich men, for their little good,

Suspect to be made guilty, or vile spies

Enjoy the lust of their so murdering eyes.

Men shall put off their iron minds and hearts,

The time forget his old malicious arts

With this new minute, and no print remain

Of what was thought the former age’s stain.

(504–13)

Richard Martyn, who had defended Jonson to the Lord Chief Justice over Poetaster, similarly welcomed James to London by contrasting expectations of his rule with the venalities of the previous reign (Martyn, Speech, 1603, sig. A4v).

Jonson’s 1604 Panegyre on James’s opening of Parliament (when the King promised greater toleration for Catholics) views such discontents from a Catholic perspective. Recalling the tyranny of Elizabeth’s father, to whose memory Elizabeth had remained stubbornly loyal, Jonson cites statutes ‘bloody, base, and barbarous’ and ‘laws . . . made to serve the tyran’ will’:

Where acts gave licence to impetuous lust

To bury churches in forgotten dust,

And with their ruins raise the pander’s bowers;

When public justice borrowed all her powers

From private chambers, that could then create

Laws, judges, councillors, yea, prince and state.

(101–6)

The first lines echo Silius’s complaint that Romans have become ‘slaves to one man’s lusts’ (1.63). ‘Lust’ is a word as ineradicably associated with Tiberius as with Henry Ⅷ, and its destructive effects on the Roman state in Sejanus recall the corrupted origins of English Protestant power and wealth.

By the time Q was printed in 1605 most Catholics saw that hopes vested in James had been misplaced (Ellison, 2003, 44–9). Whatever revisions Jonson made for Q may therefore reflect a new and deeper disillusionment than he had felt in 1603. James’s failure to deliver toleration led some, like Catesby, to argue that ‘active valour must redeem / Our loss’ (Sej., 4.157–8), words significantly given in Sejanus to the agent provocateur Latiaris. Catesby compared the condition of English Catholics to ‘slaves’ (Fraser, 1996, 156), which is how the Germanicans frequently characterize themselves in Sejanus. Catesby would certainly have agreed with Latiaris’s powerful if hypocritical statement that the cause was ‘The immortality of every soul’ (4.150), an unlikely argument for Roman republicanism. Loyal Catholics, by contrast, continued to argue in 1605, as Sabinus does in response to Latiaris, for passive endurance in the face of oppression:

No ill should force the subject undertake

Against the sovereign, more than hell should make

The gods do wrong. A good man should and must

Sit rather down with loss than rise unjust.

(4.163–6)

Lepidus similarly attributes his survival to his ‘plain and passive fortitude / To suffer and be silent’ (4.294–5). Such Stoic non-resistance had been advocated by Machiavelli (Discorsi, 3.6), Bodin, Montaigne, and by Lipsius in Six Books of Politics, pp. 200–2, a text Jonson later annotated (Evans, 1992a). Such non-resistance has been criticized as anachronistic in the mouths of Roman republicans (Sejanus, ed. W. D. Briggs, 256–7), but Jonson would, like Lipsius and Machiavelli, have found classical sanction in such passsages as Tacitus, Historiae, 4.8: ‘For himself [Marcellus Eprius] was mindful of the times in which he was born, and the form of government established by the fathers and grandfathers. He admired earlier times, but accepted the present ones; he prayed for good emperors, but endured [tolerare] any kind.’ At the same time, non-resistance had come under recent attack from Catholic theologians who argued the legitimacy of resistance, including where necessary the killing of a tyrannical or heretical ruler (Skinner, 1978, 2.177–8). Jonson, of course, never advocates assassination, but suspicious members of the Privy Council might have noted that Sabinus goes on to condemn tyrannical absolutism:

when the Romans first did yield themselves

To one man’s power, they did not mean their lives,

Their fortunes, and their liberties should be

His absolute spoil . . .

(4.167–70)

This, and Arruntius’s angry rejection of Lepidus’s advice to be guided by ‘Zeal, / And duty; with the thought he is our prince’ (4.371–409) show how passively hostile such ‘endurance’ could be. In this respect the Germanicans are still being used, like Horace or Crites, as spokesmen for Jonson; Arruntius in particular is more a choral commentator on the action than a participant in it, while Jonson ironically underlines the political ineffectiveness of Silius and Sabinus by making them naively oblivious to their impending fate (2.495, 4.139–41). Unlike Horace or Crites, the Germanicans are utterly impotent, a state that justifies Arruntius’s frustrated, Lear-like anger, but also serves to remind us that, like Lear, they bear part of the responsibility for their predicament. Only through suicide can they ‘mock Tiberius’ tyranny’ (3.338). Like the loyal Catholics of early modern England, they cannot intervene to direct the state into more tolerant courses. Instead, they watch or die with stoical dignity as Macro succeeds to Sejanus, and Fortune’s ‘crimes’ (5.873) are set to continue beyond the boundaries of the play.

Use of sources

With events in 1604–5 moving to make what had originally been in part an indictment of the Elizabethan state apply equally well to the new reign, Jonson added his annotations, hoping by displaying his fidelity to his sources to ‘save myself in those common torturers that bring all wit to the rack’ (To the Readers, 20–1). Imprisonment over the summer of 1605 for Eastward Ho! (Life, 1.xcix–c) would have made this defensive scholarship all the more timely; but it is unlikely that Jonson expected his ‘torturers’ to be decisively thwarted, especially since his major source was Tacitus, cited almost 170 times. Not only was it Tacitus’s acknowledged aim to expose the tyranny of imperial Rome (Annals, 1.4–1.7), but he was also favoured by Essex and his circle as a political guide, a more respectable Machiavelli (Worden, 1994, 77). Greneway’s translation of the Annals (1598) was dedicated to Essex, who, according to Jonson, had himself written the introduction to the 1591 translation of the History and Agricola by Sir Henry Savile (Informations, 285 and n.). Giving Tacitus as his main authority for Sejanus was not, therefore, an effectual way to disclaim contemporary ‘application’ of Jonson’s play.

Jonson’s other major historical sources are Dio Cassius and Suetonius. Dio’s history of Rome is used in particular for the final act, a period for which Tacitus’s account is lost (Jonson ignores Velleius Paterculus, who gives a much more favourable account of Tiberius and Sejanus). Seneca offers further historical detail, especially from Ad Marciam, and a bleak tragic model (Thyestes, the most gruesome of Seneca’s tragedies, is quoted or imitated by Jonson at least eight times). Euripides, Seneca’s model, may also have been in Jonson’s mind. Jonson owned a Herwagen 1551 copy of Euripides, now lost (Lilly, 1845, 15; information from Mark Bland); but while the apparently detached attitude of the gods, and the concomitant sense of an amoral world, may owe something to Euripides, Jonson’s use of Dio suggests that in 1605 his Greek was not fluent. Using a parallel text with Xylander’s Latin translation opposite Dio’s Greek, Jonson apparently relied on the Latin. Thus, dealing with portents of Sejanus’s fall, Xylander has ‘felis’ for Dio’s γαλῆ, ‘weasel’ (1592, 716). Jonson renders this ‘cat’ (5.55). In Latin felis usually does mean ‘cat’, but it can be used, as Xylander used it, for the weasel family (Lewis and Short, feles, B). The chances are that Jonson simply did not understand the Greek γαλῆ (cf. also 5.489 note).

Such lapses suggest that Jonson’s classical learning at this stage of his career is sometimes overstated, and that he was often indebted instead to early-modern classical scholarship in a way that his marginalia conceal. Many of his notes are taken verbatim but unacknowledged from Lipsius’s edition of Tacitus (cf. Boughner, 1958a, 249–53). He made far greater use of Greneway’s translation of Tacitus than he pretended, and even more than Ayres (14–16) has demonstrated. Jonson’s use of Brisson (De formulis, 1592; Jonson cites the second, Paris, edition), from whom many references to classical sources are taken and cited as if directly from the original (see e.g. notes to 2.328, 5.83, 102 n.12, 177 n.25) is similarly deceptive. It would be wrong, however, to infer from this that Jonson’s Latin was as small as his Greek at this date. He uses imitatio to put together what seems at times like a palimpsest of classical allusions, often not identified in the marginalia. Apart from those already mentioned, Juvenal, Claudian, Lucan, Horace, Martial, and Cicero are prominent among those used to give Sejanus that ‘somewhat in it moris antiqui’ which he claimed for his ‘Epitaph on Cecilia Bulstrode’ (3.370–1). The rare survival of his copy of Claudian, mentioned eleven times in the notes to this edition, shows how he worked; a direct link can often be made between a passage of Sejanus and the characteristic marginal marks found in his copy (see note to 1.152–4).

A different kind of source that Jonson leaves uncited throughout is Machiavelli, still too disreputable to adduce in support. Both the Principe and the Discorsi enter Sejanus not just in paraphrase, as in Tiberius’s speech at 3.637–46, but in spirit, as in the debate between Tiberius and Sejanus at 2.163–330, or Sejanus’s speech at 2.381–404. Above all, Machiavelli provides that reading of events central to the play, though not explicit in Tacitus, which saw Sejanus’s fall as the outcome of a ruthless amoral contest between the favourite and emperor (cf. Discorsi, 3.6, Principe, 18), a struggle more intense than that between Richard and Buckingham in Richard Ⅲ (Boughner, 1968, 89–112).

Republicanism and censorship

The use of Machiavelli raises the issue of Jonson’s attitude to republicanism in Sejanus. Arruntius’s first speech (1.86–104) introduces him lamenting its lost spirit, and at 4.363–70 he looks forward with equanimity to Tiberius’s destruction. Yet neither he nor the other Germanicans explicitly advocate a return to the republic. Arruntius does not argue with Silius’s statement that ‘Men are deceived who think there can be thrall / Beneath a virtuous prince.’ The two lines from De consulato Stilichonis on which this is based, underlined and marked with one of Jonson’s flower symbols in his copy of Claudian (see 1.407–9 and note), probably represent Jonson’s own position. Though fully fledged republicanism does not develop in England until the Civil War, Sejanus was written at a time of growing interest in Roman republicanism and with it the development of quasi-republican modes of political thought, involving a humanist concept of responsible citizenship, a notion perceived as fully compatible with a liberal form of monarchy (Peltonen, 1995, passim, esp. 3–7, 132–4; cf. Patterson, 1993, 210–44). Such a society had been celebrated in Poetaster, and the conception accounts for some of the hope vested in the learned James, and for the enthusiasm of Jonson, Cotton, and Camden for the Roman image of Britannia which James adopted.

The usual meaning of ‘freedom’ for Jonson is not individual liberty but frankness of speech, and it is this freedom which he identifies as the most important characteristic of the healthy republic. Such freedom is essential for counsellors, but it is no less necessary for the ‘merciful’ prince’s subjects: ‘He needs no emissaries, spies, intelligencers, to entrap true subjects. He fears no libels, no treasons. His people speak what they think, and talk openly what they do in secret. They have nothing in their breasts that they need a cipher for’ (Discoveries, 852–5). This is exactly opposite to Tiberian Rome, where Arruntius, in a speech which must have echoed the psychological experience of many English Catholics, wonders whether there are indeed ‘windows into men’s hearts and secret thoughts’ (see 1.67–70n.):

May I think,

And not be racked? What danger is’t to dream?

Talk in one’s sleep? Or cough? Who knows the law?

May I shake my head, without a comment?

(4.304–7)

Set against this is the ‘mercenary speech’ of Sejanus and his agents, and the hypocritical, ambiguous speech of Tiberius, finally inscribed in his ‘long letter’. These enemies of freedom subject the Germanicans’ speech to arbitrarily damaging interpretation, ‘Malicious and manifold applying, / Foul wresting, and impossible construction’ (3.228–9) which will make innocent writings ‘speak / What they will have, to fit their tyrannous wreak’ (4.134–5). Cordus is the prime victim of this interpretative malice, condemned not for actions (‘fact’) but words (3.407–10) in a scene which is a serious parody of that in Poetaster in which Horace is accused of ‘dangerous, seditious libel’ (5.3.43–4). Unlike Horace, Cordus cannot make his accusers vomit up their words, but in one of the few optimistic statements in the play Arruntius and Sabinus elaborate on Tacitus’s scorn at the ‘brainless diligence’ of those who believe they can, by burning books, ‘extinguish / The memory of all succeeding times’ (3.471–80). The burning of Hayward’s Henry Ⅳ in 1599, along with books by Marlowe, Marston, and others, was fresh enough in the memory for one application of this scene to be obvious. Jonson would have regarded himself, like Hayward, as a historian in writing Sejanus, and Cordus’s speech, though following Tacitus, echoes his own frequent complaints against the ‘application’ of his and others’ work (see e.g. Poet., Ind., 22–6, and Volp., Epistle, 60–6). On numerous occasions in the years preceding Sejanus, the English government had betrayed its sensitivity to the written or spoken word, and Jonson in particular had found the ‘times . . . somewhat queasy to be touched’ (1.82). Government queasiness had touched him first with imprisonment for The Isle of Dogs in 1597 and had culminated in his imprisonment over Eastward Ho! in 1605. In this respect Sejanus is, as D. F. McKenzie has said, ‘Jonson’s Areopagitica, an impassioned plea for his freedom to speak and write’ (1988, 27). With fitting and bitter irony, that ideal is expressed most clearly by the hypocritical tyrant Tiberius:

Nor do we desire their authors, though found, be censured, since in a free state (as ours) all men ought to enjoy both their minds and tongues free. (5.554–6)

This edition is based on the 1605 quarto, with Jonson’s marginalia printed at the foot of his text, and translated in the commentary. These copious marginalia signal the quarto’s radical originality as a primarily literary artefact, as does its collection of commendatory verses, and its use of upper-case type (the latter not reproduced here) in the scenes of the sacrifice to Fortune (5.171–82) and the opening of the Senate (5.514–19, 541–3). These capital letters, separated by centred stops, imitate carved Roman inscriptions, and are used by Jonson to make a visual statement connecting the quarto with formal Roman discourse. These distinctive characteristics were largely discarded in the necessarily standardized layout of the 1616 Workes. Jonson did, however, make a number of revisions for that edition which were not forced on him either by such standardization or by any other external pressures, and these have been incorporated in this text, as have the stage directions which he added. For a full discussion of the text and of the play’s printing history, see Textual Essay, Electronic Edition.

To the No Less Noble by Virtue than Blood:

Esmé,

Lord Aubigny

My Lord,

If ever any ruin were so great as to survive, I think this be one I send you: The Fall of

Sejanus. It is a poem that, if I well remember, in Your Lordship’s sight suffered no

less violence from our people here than the subject of it did from the rage of the

people of Rome; but with a different fate, as (I hope) merit: for this hath outlived 5

their malice, and begot itself a greater favour than he lost, the love of good men.

Amongst whom, if I make Your Lordship the first it thanks, it is not without a

just confession of the bond your benefits have, and ever shall hold upon me.

Your Lordship’s most faithful honourer,

Ben Jonson

To the Readers

The following and voluntary labours of my friends, prefixed to my book, have

relieved me in much whereat without them I should necessarily have touched.

Now I will only use three or four short and needful notes, and so rest.

First, if it be objected that what I publish is no true poem in the strict laws of

time, I confess it; as also in the want of a proper chorus, whose habit and moods 5

are such, and so difficult, as not any whom I have seen since the ancients – no,

not they who have most presently affected laws – have yet come in the way of.

Nor is it needful, or almost possible, in these our times, and to such auditors

as commonly things are presented, to observe the old state and splendour of

dramatic poems, with preservation of any popular delight. But of this I shall take 10

more seasonable cause to speak in my observations upon Horace his Art of Poetry,

which, with the text translated, I intend shortly to publish. In the meantime, if

in truth of argument, dignity of persons, gravity and height of elocution, fullness

and frequency of sentence, I have discharged the other offices of a tragic writer,

let not the absence of these forms be imputed to me, wherein I shall give you 15

occasion hereafter, and without my boast, to think I could better prescribe, than

omit the due use for want of a convenient knowledge.

The next is, lest in some nice nostril the quotations might savour affected,

I do let you know that I abhor nothing more, and have only done it to show my

integrity in the story, and save myself in those common torturers that bring all 20

wit to the rack; whose noses are ever like swine spoiling and rooting up the muses’

gardens, and their whole bodies, like moles, as blindly working under earth to

cast any – the least – hills upon virtue.

Whereas they are in Latin, and the work in English, it was presupposed none

but the learned would take the pains to confer them, the authors themselves 25

being all in the learned tongues, save one, with whose English side I have had

little to do: to which it may be required, since I have quoted the page, to name what

editions I followed. Tacitus, Lipsius in 4°, Antwerp edition, 1600. Dio Cassius, folio,

Henricus Stephanus, 1592. For the rest, as Suetonius, Seneca, etc., the chapter doth

sufficiently direct, or the edition is not varied. 30

Lastly, I would inform you that this book, in all numbers, is not the same

with that which was acted on the public stage, wherein a second pen had good

share; in place of which I have rather chosen to put weaker (and no doubt less

pleasing) of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my

loathed usurpation. 35

Fare you well. And if you read farther of me, and like, I shall not be afraid of it

though you praise me out.

Neque enim mihi cornea fibra est.

But that I should plant my felicity in your general saying ‘Good’, or ‘Well’,

etc., were a weakness which the better sort of you might worthily contemn, if not

absolutely hate me for.

Ben Jonson and no such,

Quem palma negata macrum, donata reducit opimum.

[Commendatory verses]

In Sejanum
Ben Jonsoni
Et Musis, et Sibi
in Deliciis

So brings the wealth-contracting jeweller

Pearls and dear stones, from richest shores and streams,

As thy accomplished travail doth confer

From skill-enrichèd souls their wealthier gems;

So doth his hand enchase in amelled gold, 5

Cut and adorned beyond their native merits,

His solid flames, as thine hath here enrolled,

In more than golden verse, those bettered spirits;

So he entreasures princes’ cabinets,

As thy wealth will their wishèd libraries; 10

So, on the throat of the rude sea, he sets

His ventrous foot for his illustrous prize,

And through wild deserts, armed with wilder beasts,

As thou adventur’st on the multitude,

Upon the boggy and engulfèd breasts 15

Of hirelings, sworn to find most right most rude;

And he, in storms at sea, doth not endure,

Nor in vast deserts, amongst wolves, more danger,

Than we, that would with virtue live secure,

Sustain for her in every vice’s anger. 20

Nor is this allegory unjustly racked

To this strange length; only that jewels are,

In estimation merely, so exact;

And thy work, in itself, is dear and rare.

Wherein Minerva had been vanquishèd, 25

Had she, by it, her sacred looms advanced,

And through thy subject woven her graphic thread,

Contending therein to be more entranced;

For, though thy hand was scarce addressed to draw

The semicircle of Sejanus’ life, 30

Thy muse yet makes it the whole sphere, and law

To all state lives, and bounds ambition’s strife.

And as a little brook creeps from his spring,

With shallow tremblings, through the lowest vales,

As if he feared his stream abroad to bring, 35

Lest profane feet should wrong it, and rude gales;

But finding happy channels and supplies

Of other fords mix with his modest course,

He grows a goodly river, and descries

The strength that manned him since he left his source; 40

Then takes he in delightsome meads and groves,

And, with his two-edged waters, flourishes

Before great palaces, and all men’s loves

Build by his shores, to greet his passages;

So thy chaste muse, by virtuous self-mistrust, 45

Which is a true mark of the truest merit,

In virgin fear of men’s illiterate lust,

Shut her soft wings, and durst not show her spirit;

Till, nobly cherished, now thou lett’st her fly,

Singing the sable orgies of the muses, 50

And in the highest pitch of tragedy

Mak’st her command all things thy ground produces.

But as it is a sign of love’s first firing,

Not pleasure by a lovely presence taken,

And boldness to attempt, but close retiring 55

To places desolate, and fever-shaken;

So, when the love of knowledge first affects us,

Our tongues do falter, and the flame doth rove

Through our thin spirits, and of fear detects us

T’attain her truth, whom we so truly love. 60

Nor can (saith Aeschylus) a fair young dame,

Kept long without a husband, more contain

Her amorous eye from breaking forth in flame

When she beholds a youth that fits her vein,

Than any man’s first taste of knowledge truly 65

Can bridle the affection she inspireth,

But let it fly on men that most unduly

Haunt her with hate, and all the loves she fireth.

If our teeth, head, or but our finger ache,

We straight seek the physician; if a fever, 70

Or any cureful malady we take,

The grave physician is desirèd ever;

But if proud melancholy, lunacy,

Or direct madness overheat our brains,

We rage, beat out, or the physician fly, 75

Losing with vehemence even the sense of pains.

So of offenders, they are past recure

That, with a tyrannous spleen, their stings extend

’Gainst their reprovers; they that will endure

All discreet discipline are not said t’offend. 80

Though others qualified, then, with natural skill

(More sweet-mouthed, and affecting shrewder wits)

Blanch coals, call illness good, and goodness ill,

Breathe thou the fire that true-spoke knowledge fits.

Thou canst not then be great? Yes! Who is he, 85

Said the good Spartan king, greater than I,

That is not likewise juster? No degree

Can boast of eminence or empery

(As the great Stagirite held) in anyone

Beyond another, whose soul farther sees, 90

And in whose life the gods are better known:

Degrees of knowledge difference all degrees.

Thy poem, therefore, hath this due respect,

That it lets pass nothing, without observing,

Worthy instruction, or that might correct 95

Rude manners, and renown the well-deserving;

Performing such a lively evidence

In thy narrations, that thy hearers still

Thou turn’st to thy spectators; and the sense

That thy spectators have of good or ill, 100

Thou inject’st jointly to thy readers’ souls.

So dear is held, so decked thy numerous task,

As thou putt’st handles to the Thespian bowls,

Or stuck’st rich plumes in the Palladian casque.

All thy worth, yet, thyself must patronize, 105

By quaffing more of the Castalian head;

In expiscation of whose mysteries

Our nets must still be clogged with heavy lead,

To make them sink and catch – for cheerful gold

Was never found in the Pierian streams, 110

But wants, and scorns, and shames for silver sold.

What, what shall we elect in these extremes?

Now by the shafts of the great Cyrrhan poet,

That bear all light, that is, about the world,

I would have all dull poet-haters know it, 115

They shall be soul-bound, and in darkness hurled,

A thousand years (as Satan was, their sire)

Ere any worthy the poetic name –

Might I, that warm but at the muses’ fire,

Presume to guard it – should let deathless Fame 120

Light half a beam of all her hundred eyes

At his dim taper, in their memories.

Fly, fly, you are too near; so odorous flowers,

Being held too near the sensor of our sense,

Render not pure nor so sincere their powers 125

As being held a little distance thence,

Because much-troubled earthy parts improve them;

Which, mixèd with the odours we exhale,

Do vitiate what we draw in. But remove them

A little space, the earthy parts do fall, 130

And what is pure and hot by his tenuity

Is to our powers of savour purely borne.

But fly or stay, use thou the assiduity

Fit for a true contemnor of their scorn.

Our Phoebus may, with his exampling beams, 135

Burn out the webs from their Arachnean eyes,

Whose knowledge – day-star to all diadems –

Should banish knowledge-hating policies,

So others, great in the sciential grace:

His Chancellor, fautor of all human skills; 140

His Treasurer, taking them into his place;

Northumber, that, with them, his crescent fills;

Grave Worcester, in whose nerves they guard their fire;

Northampton, that to all his height in blood,

Heightens his soul with them; and Devonshire, 145

In whom their streams, ebbed to their spring, are flood;

Oraculous Salisbury, whose inspirèd voice,

In state proportions, sings their mysteries;

And (though last named) first, in whom they rejoice,

To whose true worth they vow most obsequies, 150

Most noble Suffolk, who by nature noble,

And judgement virtuous, cannot fall by fortune,

Who when our herd came not to drink, but trouble

The muses’ waters, did a wall importune,

Midst of assaults, about their sacred river; 155

In whose behalfs, my poor soul (consecrate

To poorest virtue) to the longest liver

His name, in spite of death, shall propagate.

Oh, could the world but feel how sweet a touch

A good deed hath in one in love with goodness 160

(If poesy were not ravishèd so much,

And her composed rage held the simplest woodness,

Though of all heats that temper human brains

Hers ever was most subtle, high, and holy,

First binding savage lives in civil chains, 165

Solely religious, and adorèd solely)

If men felt this, they would not think a love

That gives itself, in her, did vanities give;

Who is in earth though low, in worth above,

Most able t’honour life, though least to live. 170

And so, good friend, safe passage to thy freight,

To thee a long peace, through a virtuous strife,

In which, let’s both contend to virtue’s height,

Not making fame our object, but good life.

[‘Come forth, Sejanus’]

Come forth, Sejanus, fall before this book,

And of thy fall’s reviver ask forgiveness,

That thy low birth and merits durst to look

A fortune in the face, of such unevenness;

For so his fervent love to virtue hates 5

That her plucked plumes should wing vice to such calling,

That he presents thee to all marking states

As if thou hadst been all this while in falling;

His strong arm plucking, from the middle world,

Fame’s brazen house, and lays her tower as low 10

As Homer’s Barathrum; that, from heaven hurled,

Thou mightst fall on it – and thy ruins grow

To all posterities, from his work, the ground,

And under heav’n nought but his song might sound.

Haec commentatus est 15

Georgius Chapmannus

For his Worthy Friend, the Author

In that this book doth deign Sejanus’ name,

Him unto more than Caesar’s love it brings;

For where he could not with ambition’s wings,

One quill doth heave him to the height of fame.

Ye great ones, though, whose ends may be the same, 5

Know that, however we do flatter kings,

Their favours (like themselves) are fading things,

With no less envy had, than lost with shame.

Nor make yourselves less honest than you are,

To make our author wiser than he is; 10

Ne of such crimes accuse him, which I dare

By all his muses swear be none of his.

The men are not, some faults may be these times’;

He acts those men, and they did act these crimes.

Hugh Holland 15

To the Deserving Author

When I respect thy argument, I see

An image of those times; but when I view

The wit, the workmanship, so rich, so true,

The times themselves do seem retrieved to me.

And as Sejanus, in thy tragedy, 5

Falleth from Caesar’s grace, even so the crew

Of common playwrights, whom opinion blew

Big with false greatness, are disgraced by thee.

Thus, in one tragedy, thou makest twain;

And, since fair works of justice fit the part 10

Of tragic writers, muses do ordain

That all tragedians, masters of their art,

Who shall hereafter follow on this tract,

In writing well, thy tragedy shall act.

Cygnus 15

To His Learned and Beloved Friend,
upon His Equal Work

Sejanus, great and eminent in Rome,

Raised above all the Senate, both in grace

Of prince’s favour, authority, place,

And popular dependence; yet how soon,

Even with the instant of his overthrow, 5

Is all this pride and greatness now forgot –

Only that in former grace he stood not –

By them which did his state, not treason, know!

His very flatterers, that did adorn

Their necks with his rich medals, now in flame 10

Consume them, and would lose even his name,

Or else recite it with reproach or scorn!

This was his Roman fate. But now thy muse,

To us that neither knew his height nor fall,

Hath raised him up with such memorial, 15

All future states and times his name shall use.

What not his good nor ill could once extend

To the next age, thy verse, industrious

And learned friend, hath made illustrious

To this. Nor shall his or thy fame have end. 20

Th. R.

Amicis, amici nostri dignissimi, dignissimis,
Epigramma
D.
Johannes Marstonius

Ye ready friends, spare your unneedful bays;

This work despairful envy must even praise.

Phoebus hath voiced it, loud, through echoing skies:

‘Sejanus’ fall shall force thy merit rise;

For never English shall, or hath before 5

Spoke fuller graced.’ He could say much, not more.

Upon Sejanus

How high a poor man shows in low estate,

Whose base is firm, and whole frame competent,

That sees this cedar made the shrub of fate:

Th’one’s little, lasting; th’other’s confluence spent.

And as the lightning comes behind the thunder 5

From the torn cloud, yet first invades our sense,

So every violent fortune, that to wonder

Hoists men aloft, is a clear evidence

Of a vaunt-curring blow the fates have given

To his forced state: swift lightning blinds his eyes, 10

While thunder from comparison-hating heaven

Dischargeth on his height, and there it lies.

If men will shun swoll’n Fortune’s ruinous blasts,

Let them use temperance. Nothing violent lasts.

William Strachey 15

To Him that Hath
So Excelled on This Excellent Subject

Thy poem (pardon me) is mere deceit;

Yet such deceit, as thou that dost beguile

Art juster far than they who use no wile;

And they who are deceivèd by this feat,

More wise than such who can eschew thy cheat. 5

For thou hast given each part so just a style

That men suppose the action now on file –

And men suppose who are of best conceit.

Yet some there be that are not moved hereby,

And others are so quick that they will spy 10

Where later times are in some speech enweaved;

Those wary simples, and these simple elves:

They are so dull, they cannot be deceived,

These so unjust, they will deceive themselves.

ΦΙΛΟΣ 15

To the Most Understanding Poet

When in the Globe’s fair ring, our world’s best stage,

I saw Sejanus, set with that rich foil,

I looked the author should have borne the spoil

Of conquest from the writers of the age;

But when I viewed the people’s beastly rage, 5

Bent to confound thy grave and learned toil,

That cost thee so much sweat, and so much oil,

My indignation I could hardly ’suage.

And many there (in passion) scarce could tell

Whether thy fault or theirs deserved most blame – 10

Thine, for so showing, theirs, to wrong the same;

But both they left within that doubtful hell.

From whence, this publication sets thee free;

They, for their ignorance, still damnèd be.

Ev. B. 15

The Argument

Aelius Sejanus, son to Seius Strabo, a gentleman of Rome, and born at Vulsinium,

after his long service in court, first under Augustus, afterward Tiberius, grew

into that favour with the latter, and won him by those arts, as there wanted

nothing but the name to make him a co-partner of the Empire. Which greatness

of his, Drusus the Emperor’s son not brooking, after many smothered dislikes — 5

it one day breaking out — the prince struck him publicly on the face. To revenge

which disgrace Livia, the wife of Drusus — being before corrupted by him to

her dishonour, and the discovery of her husband’s counsels — Sejanus practiseth

with, together with her physician, called Eudemus, and one Lygdus an eunuch,

to poison Drusus. This their inhuman act having successful and unsuspected 10

passage, it emboldeneth Sejanus to farther and more insolent projects, even the

ambition of the Empire; where finding the lets he must encounter to be many

and hard, in respect of the issue of Germanicus (who were next in hope for

the succession) he deviseth to make Tiberius’ self his means, and instils into

his ears many doubts and suspicions both against the princes and their mother 15

Agrippina; which Caesar jealously hearkening to, as covetously consenteth to

their ruin, and their friends’. In this time, the better to mature and strengthen

his design, Sejanus labours to marry Livia, and worketh with all his engine to

remove Tiberius from the knowledge of public business, with allurements of a

quiet and retired life, the latter of which Tiberius (out of a proneness to lust 20

and a desire to hide those unnatural pleasures which he could not so publicly

practise) embraceth. The former enkindleth his fears, and there gives him first

cause of doubt or suspect toward Sejanus. Against whom he raiseth in private

a new instrument, one Sertorius Macro, and by him underworketh, discovers

the other’s counsels, his means, his ends, sounds the affections of the senators, 25

divides, distracts them; at last, when Sejanus least looketh, and is most secure,

with pretext of doing him an unwonted honour in the Senate, he trains him

from his guards; and with a long doubtful letter, in one day hath him suspected,

accused, condemned, and torn in pieces by the rage of the people.

This do we advance as a mark of terror to all traitors and treasons, to show how 30

just the heavens are in pouring and thundering down a weighty vengeance on

their unnatural intents, even to the worst princes; much more to those for guard

of whose piety and virtue the angels are in continual watch, and God himself

miraculously working.

The Names of the Actors

TIBERIUS DRUSUS SENIOR SEJANUS NERO LATIARIS DRUSUS JUNIOR VARRO CALIGULA MACRO 5 ARRUNTIUS COTTA SILIUS AFER SABINUS HATERIUS LEPIDUS SANQUINIUS CORDUS POMPONIUS 10 GALLUS POSTUMUS REGULUS TRIO TERENTIUS MINUTIUS LACO SATRIUS EUDEMUS NATTA 15 RUFUS OPSIUS TRIBUNI AGRIPPINA LIVIA SOSIA} PRAECONES LICTORES FLAMEN MINISTRI 20 TUBICINES TIBICINES NUNTIUS SERVI [PRAETOR] [GUARDS]

THE SCENE: ROME

Actus Primus

[Enter] SABINUS [and] SILIUS.

SABINUS

Hail, Caius Silius! ¹

SILIUS

Titius Sabinus,² hail!

You’re rarely met in court.

SABINUS

Therefore, well met.

SILIUS

’Tis true; indeed, this place is not our sphere.

SABINUS

No Silius, we are no good enginers;

We want the fine arts, and their thriving use 5

Should make us graced or favoured of the times.

We have no shift of faces, no cleft tongues,

No soft and glutinous bodies that can stick

Like snails on painted walls, or on our breasts

Creep up, to fall from that proud height to which 10

We did by slavery,³ not by service, climb.

We are no guilty men, and then no great;

We have nor place in court, office in state

That we can say we owe unto our crimes;⁴

We burn with no black secrets⁵ which can make 15

Us dear to the pale authors, or live feared

Of their still-waking jealousies, to raise

Ourselves a fortune by subverting theirs.

We stand not in the lines that do advance

To that so courted point.

[Enter SATRIUS and NATTA.]

SILIUS

But yonder lean 20

A pair that do.

[Enter LATIARIS.]

SABINUS

Good cousin Latiaris.⁶

[Silius and Sabinus converse aside as Satrius and Natta are joined by Latiaris.]

SILIUS

Satrius Secundus ⁷ and Pinnarius Natta, ⁸

The great Sejanus’ clients: there be two

Know more than honest counsels; whose close breasts,

Were they ripped up to light, it would be found 25

A poor and idle sin to which their trunks

Had not been made fit organs. These can lie,

Flatter, and swear, forswear, deprave, inform, ⁹

Smile, and betray; make guilty men, then beg

The forfeit lives to get the livings; cut 30

Men’s throats with whisp’rings; sell to gaping suitors

The empty smoke that flies about the palace;

Laugh when their patron laughs; sweat when he sweats;

Be hot and cold with him; change every mood,

Habit, and garb, as often as he varies; 35

Observe him as his watch observes his clock;

And, true as turquoise in the dear lord’s ring,

Look well or ill with him ¹⁰ — ready to praise

His Lordship if he spit, or but piss fair,

Have an indifferent stool, or break wind well; 40

Nothing can ’scape their catch.

SABINUS

Alas, these things

Deserve no note, conferred with other vile

And filthier flatteries that corrupt the times,¹¹

When not alone our gentry’s chief are fain

To make their safety from such sordid acts, 45

But all our consuls,¹² and no little part

Of such as have been praetors — yea, the most

Of senators, that else not use their voices,¹³

Start up in public Senate, and there strive

Who shall propound most abject things and base, 50

So much as oft Tiberius hath been heard,

Leaving the court, to cry, ‘O race of men,

Prepared for servitude!’¹⁴ — which showed that he,

Who least the public liberty could like,

As loathly brooked their flat servility. 55

SILIUS

Well, all is worthy of us, were it more,

Who with our riots, pride, and civil hate

Have so provoked the justice of the gods;

We that within these fourscore years were born

Free, equal lords of the triumphèd world, 60

And knew no masters but affections,

To which, betraying first our liberties,

We since became the slaves to one man’s lusts,

And now to many. Every minist’ring spy ¹⁵

That will accuse and swear is lord of you, 65

Of me, of all, our fortunes, and our lives.

Our looks are called to question,¹⁶ and our words,

How innocent soever, are made crimes;

We shall not shortly dare to tell our dreams,

Or think, but ’twill be treason.

SABINUS

Tyrants’ arts 70

Are to give flatterers grace, accusers power,

That those may seem to kill whom they devour.

[Enter CORDUS and ARRUNTIUS.]

Now good Cremutius Cordus.¹⁷

CORDUS

[To Sabinus] Hail to Your Lordship!

[Silius, Sabinus, Cordus, and Arruntius walk aside.] They whisper.

NATTA

Who’s that salutes your cousin?

LATIARIS

’Tis one Cordus,

A gentleman of Rome; one that has writ 75

Annals of late, they say, and very well.

NATTA

Annals? Of what times?

LATIARIS

I think of Pompey’s,

And Caius Caesar’s, and so down to these. ¹⁸

NATTA

How stands h’affected to the present state?

Is he or Drusian, or Germanican?¹⁹ 80

Or ours, or neutral?

LATIARIS

I know him not so far.

NATTA

Those times are somewhat queasy to be touched.

Have you or seen or heard part of his work?

LATIARIS

Not I; he means they shall be public shortly.

NATTA

Oh. Cordus do you call him?

LATIARIS

Ay. [Exeunt Satrius, Natta, and Latiaris.]

SABINUS

But these our times 85

Are not the same, Arruntius.²⁰

ARRUNTIUS

Times? The men,

The men are not the same; ’tis we are base,

Poor, and degenerate from th’exalted strain

Of our great fathers. Where is now the soul

Of god-like Cato? — he that durst be good 90

When Caesar durst be evil; and had power,

As not to live his slave, to die his master.

Or where the constant Brutus, that being proof

Against all charm of benefits, did strike

So brave a blow into the monster’s heart 95

That sought unkindly to captive his country?

Oh, they are fled the light. Those mighty spirits

Lie raked up with their ashes in their urns,

And not a spark of their eternal fire

Glows in a present bosom; all’s but blaze, 100

Flashes, and smoke, wherewith we labour so,

There’s nothing Roman in us, nothing good,

Gallant, or great. ’Tis true, that Cordus says,

‘Brave Cassius was the last of all that race.’

SABINUS

Stand by! Lord Drusus. ²¹ 105

DRUSUS passeth by [attended by HATERIUS].

HATERIUS

Th’Emp’ror’s son! Give place!

[Arruntius, Silius, Cordus, and Sabinus stand aside as Drusus and Haterius walk around the stage.]

SILIUS

I like the prince well. [Exeunt Drusus and Haterius.]

ARRUNTIUS

A riotous youth;²²

There’s little hope of him.

SABINUS

That fault his age

Will, as it grows, correct. Methinks he bears

Himself each day more nobly than other;

And wins no less on men’s affections 110

Than doth his father lose. Believe me, I love him,

And chiefly for opposing to Sejanus.²³

SILIUS

And I for gracing his young kinsmen so, ²⁴

The sons ²⁵ of Prince Germanicus; ²⁶ it shows

A gallant clearness in him, a straight mind, 115

That envies not in them their father’s name.

ARRUNTIUS

His name was, while he lived, above all envy;

And being dead, without it. Oh, that man!

If there were seeds of the old virtue left,

They lived in him.

SILIUS

He had the fruits, Arruntius, 120

More than the seeds. Sabinus²⁷ and myself

Had means to know him within, and can report him.

We were his followers (he would call us friends).

He was a man most like to virtue in all

And every action, nearer to the gods 125

Than men in nature, of a body as fair

As was his mind, and no less reverend

In face than fame. He could so use his state,²⁸

Temp’ring his greatness with his gravity,

As it avoided all self-love in him 130

And spite in others. What his funerals lacked

In images and pomp they had supplied

With honourable sorrow, soldiers’ sadness –

A kind of silent mourning, such as men

Who know no tears but from their captives use 135

To show in so great losses.

CORDUS

I thought once,

Considering their forms, age, manner of deaths,

The nearness of the places where they fell,

T’have paralleled him with great Alexander:

For both were of best feature, of high race, 140

Yeared but to thirty, and in foreign lands,

By their own people, alike made away.

SABINUS

I know not for his death, how you might wrest it;

But for his life, it did as much disdain

Comparison with that voluptuous, rash, 145

Giddy, and drunken Macedon’s as mine

Doth with my bondman’s. All the good in him —

His valour and his fortune — he made his;

But he had other touches of late Romans,

That more did speak him: Pompey’s dignity,²⁹ 150

The innocence of Cato, Caesar’s spirit,

Wise Brutus’ temperance, and every virtue,

Which, parted unto others, gave them name,

Flowed mixed in him. He was the soul of goodness,

And all our praises of him are like streams 155

Drawn from a spring that still rise full and leave

The part remaining greatest.

ARRUNTIUS

I am sure

He was too great for us, and that they knew

Who did remove him hence.³⁰

SABINUS

When men grow fast

Honoured and loved, there is a trick in state, 160

Which jealous princes never fail to use,

How to decline that growth with fair pretext

And honourable colours of employment,

Either by embassy, the war, or such,

To shift them forth into another air,165

Where they may purge, and lessen; so was he, ³¹

And had his seconds there, sent by Tiberius

And his more subtle dam to discontent him,

To breed and cherish mutinies, detract

His greatest actions, give audacious check 170

To his commands, and work to put him out

In open act of treason. All which snares

When his wise cares prevented, a fine poison ³²

Was thought on to mature their practices.

CORDUS

Here comes Sejanus.³³

SILIUS

Now observe the stoops, 175

The bendings, and the falls.

ARRUNTIUS

Most creeping base!

[Enter] SEJANUS, SATRIUS, TERENTIUS, etc. They pass over the stage.

SEJANUS

[To Satrius] I note ’em well. No more. Say you.

SATRIUS

My lord,

There is a gentleman of Rome would buy —

SEJANUS

How call you him you talked with?

SATRIUS

Please Your Lordship,

It is Eudemus,³⁴ the physician 180

To Livia, Drusus’ wife.

SEJANUS

On with your suit.

Would buy, you said —

SATRIUS

A tribune’s place, my lord.

SEJANUS

What will he give?

SATRIUS

Fifty sestertia.³⁵

SEJANUS

Livia’s physician, say you, is that fellow?

SATRIUS

It is, my lord. Your Lordship’s answer?

SEJANUS

To what? 185

SATRIUS

The place, my lord. ’Tis for a gentleman

Your Lordship will well like of when you see him,

And one you may make yours by the grant.

SEJANUS

Well, let him bring his money and his name.

SATRIUS

’Thank Your Lordship. He shall, my lord.

SEJANUS

Come hither. 190

Know you this same Eudemus? Is he learn’d?

SATRIUS

Reputed so, my lord; and of deep practice.

SEJANUS

Bring him in to me, in the gallery;

And take you cause to leave us there, together:

I would confer with him about a grief. — On. 195

[Exeunt Sejanus, Satrius, Terentius, etc.; some clients of Sejanus remain.]

ARRUNTIUS

So, yet! Another? Yet? Oh, desperate state

Of grovelling honour! See’st thou this, O sun,

And do we see thee after? Methinks day

Should lose his light when men do lose their shames

And for the empty circumstance of life 200

Betray their cause of living.

SILIUS

Nothing so.

Sejanus can repair, if Jove should ruin.³⁶

He is the now court-god; and well applied

With sacrifice of knees, of crooks, and cringe,

He will do more than all the house of heav’n 205

Can, for a thousand hecatombs. ’Tis he

Makes us our day, or night; hell and Elysium

Are in his look; we talk of Rhadamanth,

Furies, and fire-brands, but ’tis his frown

That is all these, where on the adverse part 210

His smile is more than e’er yet poets feigned

Of bliss and shades, nectar —

ARRUNTIUS

A serving boy!

I knew him at Caius’³⁷ trencher, when for hire

He prostituted his abusèd body ³⁸

To that great gourmand, fat Apicius, 215

And was the noted pathic of the time.

SABINUS

And now, the second face of the whole world;³⁹

The partner of the Empire; hath his image

Reared equal with Tiberius, borne in ensigns;

Commands, disposes every dignity; 220

Centurions, tribunes, heads of provinces,

Praetors, and consuls, all that heretofore

Rome’s general suffrage gave, is now his sale.⁴⁰

The gain, or rather spoil, of all the earth,

One, and his house, receives.

SILIUS

He hath of late 225

Made him a strength too, strangely, by reducing

All the praetorian bands into one camp,

Which he commands; pretending that the soldier,

By living loose and scattered, fell to riot,

And that if any sudden enterprise 230

Should be attempted, their united strength

Would be far more than severed, and their life

More strict if from the city more removed.⁴¹

SABINUS

Where now he builds what kind of forts he please,⁴²

Is heard to court the soldier by his name, 235

Woos, feasts the chiefest men of action,

Whose wants, not loves, compel them to be his.⁴³

And, though he ne’er were liberal by kind,

Yet to his own dark ends he’s most profuse,⁴⁴

Lavish, and letting fly he cares not what 240

To his ambition.

ARRUNTIUS

Yet, hath he ambition?

Is there that step in state can make him higher?

Or more? Or anything he is, but less?

SILIUS

Nothing, but emp’ror.

ARRUNTIUS

The name Tiberius,

I hope, will keep, howe’er he hath foregone 245

The dignity and power.

SILIUS

Sure, while he lives.

ARRUNTIUS

And dead, it comes to Drusus. Should he fail,

To the brave issue of Germanicus,

And they are three:⁴⁵ too many — ha! — for him

To have a plot upon?

SABINUS

I do not know 250

The heart of his designs; but sure their face

Looks farther than the present.⁴⁶

ARRUNTIUS

By the gods,

If I could guess he had but such a thought,

My sword should cleave him down from head to heart

But I would find it out; and with my hand 255

I’d hurl his panting brain about the air,

In mites as small as atomi, to undo

The knotted bed —

SABINUS

You’re observed, Arruntius.

ARRUNTIUS

Death! I dare tell him so, and all his spies.

He turns to Sejanus’s clients.

You, sir, I would, do you look? And you?

SABINUS

[To Arruntius] Forbear. 260

[Enter] SATRIUS [and] EUDEMUS.

SATRIUS

Here he will instant be. Let’s walk a turn.

You’re in a muse, Eudemus?

EUDEMUS

Not I, sir.

[Aside] I wonder he should mark me out so! Well,

Jove and Apollo form it for the best.

SATRIUS

Your fortune’s made unto you now, Eudemus,⁴⁷ 265

If you can but lay hold upon the means;

Do but observe his humour, and — believe it —

He’s the noblest Roman, where he takes —

[Enter SEJANUS to them.]

Here comes His Lordship.

SEJANUS

Now, good Satrius.

SATRIUS

This is the gentleman, my lord.

SEJANUS

Is this? 270

[To Eudemus] Give me your hand. we must be more acquainted.

Report, sir, hath spoke out your art and learning,

And I am glad I have so needful cause

(However in itself painful and hard)

To make me known to so great virtue. [To Satrius] Look, 275

Who’s that, Satrius? — [Exit Satrius.]

I have a grief, sir,

That will desire your help. Your name’s Eudemus?

EUDEMUS

Yes.

SEJANUS

Sir?

EUDEMUS

It is, My Lord.

SEJANUS

I hear you are

Physician to Livia,⁴⁸ the princess?

EUDEMUS

I minister unto her, my good lord. 280

SEJANUS

You minister to a royal lady, then.

EUDEMUS

She is, my lord, and fair.

SEJANUS

That’s understood

Of all their sex, who are, or would be so;

And those that would be, physic soon can make ’em;

For those that are, their beauties fear no colours. 285

EUDEMUS

Your Lordship is conceited.

SEJANUS

Sir, you know it;

And can, if need be, read a learnèd lecture

On this and other secrets. Pray you tell me,

What more of ladies, besides Livia,

Have you your patients?

EUDEMUS

Many, my good lord. 290

The great Augusta, ⁴⁹ Urgulania,⁵⁰

Mutilia Prisca,⁵¹ and Plancina,⁵² divers —

SEJANUS

And all these tell you the particulars

Of every several grief? How first it grew,

And then increased; what action causèd that, 295

What passion that; and answer to each point

That you will put ’em?

EUDEMUS

Else, my lord, we know not

How to prescribe the remedies.

SEJANUS

Go to,

You’re a subtle nation, you physicians!

And grown the only cabinets in court ⁵³ 300

To ladies’ privacies. Faith, which of these

Is the most pleasant lady, in her physic?

Come, you are modest now.

EUDEMUS

’Tis fit, my lord.

SEJANUS

Why, sir, I do not ask you of their urines,

Whose smells most violet, or whose siege is best, 305

Or who makes hardest faces on her stool;

Which lady sleeps with her own face a-nights,

Which puts her teeth off with her clothes, in court,

Or which her hair, which her complexion,

And in which box she puts it. These were questions 310

That might, perhaps, have put your gravity

To some defence of blush. But I inquired,

Which was the wittiest, merriest, wantonest?

Harmless intergatories, but conceits.

Methinks Augusta should be most perverse 315

And froward in her fit?

EUDEMUS

She’s so, my lord.

SEJANUS

I knew it. And Mutilia the most jocund?

EUDEMUS

’Tis very true, my lord.

SEJANUS

And why would you

Conceal this from me, now? Come, what’s Livia?

I know she’s quick and quaintly spirited, 320

And will have strange thoughts when she’s at leisure.

She tells ’em all to you?

EUDEMUS

My noblest lord,

He breathes not in the Empire or on earth

Whom I would be ambitious to serve

In any act that may preserve mine honour 325

Before Your Lordship.

SEJANUS

Sir, you can lose no honour

By trusting aught to me. The coarsest act

Done to my service I can so requite

As all the world shall style it honourable.

Your idle, virtuous definitions 330

Keep honour poor, and are as scorned as vain;

Those deeds breathe honour that do suck in gain.

EUDEMUS

But, good my lord, if I should thus betray

The counsels of my patient, and a lady’s

Of her high place and worth, what might Your Lordship — 335

Who presently are to trust me with your own —

Judge of my faith?

SEJANUS

Only the best, I swear.

Say now that I should utter you my grief,

And with it the true cause: that it were love,

And love to Livia;⁵⁴ you should tell her this, 340

Should she suspect your faith? I would you could

Tell me as much from her; see if my brain

Could be turned jealous.

EUDEMUS

Happily, my lord,

I could in time tell you as much, and more,

So I might safely promise but the first 345

To her from you.

SEJANUS

As safely, my Eudemus

(I now dare call thee so) as I have put

The secret into thee.

EUDEMUS

My lord —

SEJANUS

Protest not.

Thy looks are vows to me; use only speed,

And, but affect her with Sejanus’ love,⁵⁵ 350

Thou art a man made to make consuls. Go.

EUDEMUS

My lord, I’ll promise you a private meeting

This day, together.

SEJANUS

Canst thou?

EUDEMUS

Yes.

SEJANUS

The place?

EUDEMUS

My gardens, whither I shall fetch Your Lordship.

SEJANUS

Let me adore my Aesculapius! 355

Why, this indeed is physic, and outspeaks

The knowledge of cheap drugs, or any use

Can be made out of it! More comforting

Than all your opiates, juleps, apozems,

Magistral syrups, or — Begone, my friend, 360

Not barely stylèd, but created so.

Expect things greater than thy largest hopes

To overtake thee. Fortune shall be taught

To know how ill she hath deserved, thus long

To come behind thy wishes. Go, and speed. 365[Exit Eudemus.]

Ambition makes more trusty slaves than need.

These fellows,⁵⁶ by the favour of their art,

Have still the means to tempt, oft-times the power.

If Livia will be now corrupted, then

Thou hast the way, Sejanus, to work out 370

His secrets, who, thou knowest, endures thee not:

Her husband, Drusus; and to work against them.

Prosper it, Pallas, thou that better’st wit;

For Venus hath the smallest share in it.

[Enter] TIBERIUS [and] DRUSUS [attended by HATERIUS, LATIARIS, SATRIUS, NATTA, etc.].

TIBERIUS

(One kneels to him.)We not endure these flatteries.

Let him stand.⁵⁷ 375

Our empire, ensigns, axes, rods, and state

Take not away our human nature from us.

Look up, on us, and fall before the gods.

SEJANUS

How like a god speaks Caesar!

ARRUNTIUS

[To Cordus, Silius, and Sabinus] There, observe!

He can endure that second, that’s no flattery. 380

Oh, what is it proud slime will not believe

Of his own worth, to hear it equal praised

Thus with the gods!

CORDUS

He did not hear it, sir.

ARRUNTIUS

He did not? Tut, he must not; we think meanly.

’Tis your most courtly, known confederacy 385

To have your private parasite redeem

What he in public subtlety will lose

To making him a name.

HATERIUS

[Giving Tiberius letters] Right mighty lord —

TIBERIUS

We must make up our ears ’gainst these assaults

Of charming tongues; we pray you use no more 390

These contumelies to us; style not us

Or ‘lord’, or ‘mighty’, who profess ourself

The servant of the Senate, and are proud

T’enjoy them our good, just, and favouring lords.⁵⁸

CORDUS

[To Arruntius, Sabinus, and Silius] Rarely dissembled!⁵⁹

ARRUNTIUS

Princelike, to the life. 395

SABINUS

When power, that may command, so much descends,

Their bondage, whom it stoops to, it intends.

TIBERIUS

[To Haterius] Whence are these letters?

HATERIUS

From the Senate.

TIBERIUS

So.

[Latiaris gives him more letters.]

Whence these?

LATIARIS

From thence too.

TIBERIUS

Are they sitting now?

LATIARIS

They stay thy answer, Caesar.

[Silius and the other Germanicans continue to talk privately among themselves.]

SILIUS

If this man 400

Had but a mind allied unto his words,

How blest a fate were it to us, and Rome!

We could not think that state for which to change,

Although the aim were our old liberty;

The ghosts⁶⁰ of those that fell for that would grieve 405

Their bodies lived not now, again to serve.

Men are deceived who think there can be thrall

Beneath a virtuous prince. Wished liberty

Ne’er lovelier looks than under such a crown.

But when his grace is merely but lip-good,⁶¹ 410

And that no longer than he airs himself

Abroad in public, there to seem to shun

The strokes and stripes of flatterers, which within

Are lechery unto him, and so feed

His brutish sense with their afflicting sound, 415

As, dead to virtue, he permits himself

Be carried like a pitcher, by the ears,

To every act of vice: this is a case

Deserves our fear, and doth presage the nigh

And close approach of blood and tyranny. 420

Flattery is midwife unto princes’ rage,⁶²

And nothing sooner doth help forth a tyrant

Than that, and whisperers’ grace, who have the time,

The place, the power to make all men offenders.

ARRUNTIUS

He should be told this, and be bid dissemble 425

With fools and blind men. We that know the evil

Should hunt the palace-rats,⁶³ or give them bane,

Fright hence these worse than ravens, that devour

The quick, where they but prey upon the dead.

He shall be told it.

SABINUS

Stay, Arruntius, 430

We must abide our opportunity,

And practise what is fit, as what is needful.

It is not safe t’enforce a sovereign’s ear;

Princes hear well, if they at all will hear.

ARRUNTIUS

Ha! Say you so? Well. In the meantime, Jove 435

(Say not, but I do call upon thee now)

Of all wild beasts, preserve me from a tyrant;

And of all tame, a flatterer!

SILIUS

’Tis well prayed.

TIBERIUS

[To Haterius] Return the lords this voice: we are their creature,

And it is fit a good and honest prince, 440

Whom they,⁶⁴ out of their bounty, have instructed

With so dilate and absolute a power,

Should owe the office of it to their service,

And good of all and every citizen.

Nor shall it e’er repent us to have wished 445

The Senate just and fav’ring lords unto us,

Since their free loves do yield no less defence

To a prince’s state than his own innocence.

Say then, there can be nothing in their thought

Shall want to please us, that hath pleasèd them; 450

Our suffrage rather shall prevent than stay

Behind their wills. ’Tis empire to obey

Where such, so great, so grave, so good, determine.

Yet for the suit of Spain ⁶⁵ t’erect a temple

In honour of our mother and ourself, 455

We must (with pardon of the Senate) not

Assent thereto. Their Lordships may object

Our not denying the same late request

Unto the Asian cities; we desire

That our defence for suffering that be known 460

In these brief reasons, with our after-purpose.

Since deified Augustus hindered not

A temple to be built at Pergamum

In honour of himself and sacred Rome,

We, that have all his deeds and words observed ⁶⁶ 465

Ever in place of laws, the rather followed

That pleasing precedent because, with ours,

The Senate’s reverence also there was joined.

But as t’have once received it may deserve

The gain of pardon, so to be adored 470

With the continued style and note of gods

Through all the provinces were wild ambition,

And no less pride. Yea, even Augustus’ name

Would early vanish, should it be profaned

With such promiscuous flatteries. For our part, 475

We here protest it, and are covetous

Posterity should know it: we are mortal,

And can but deeds of men. ’Twere glory enough

Could we be truly a prince. And they shall add

Abounding grace unto our memory 480

That shall report us worthy our forefathers,

Careful of your affairs, constant in dangers,

And not afraid of any private frown

For public good. These things shall be to us

Temples and statues, rearèd in your minds, 485

The fairest and most during imagery;

For those of stone or brass, if they become

Odious in judgement of posterity,

Are more contemned as dying sepulchres

Than ta’en for living monuments. We then 490

Make here our suit, alike to gods and men:

The one, until the period of our race,

T’inspire us with a free and quiet mind,

Discerning both divine and human laws;

The other, to vouchsafe us after death 495

An honourable mention, and fair praise

T’accompany our actions and our name.

The rest of greatness princes may command,

And therefore may neglect; only a long,

A lasting, high, and happy memory 500

They should, without being satisfied, pursue.

Contempt of fame begets contempt of virtue.

NATTA

Rare!

SATRIUS

Most divine!

SEJANUS

The oracles are ceased,

That only Caesar with their tongue might speak.

ARRUNTIUS

[To Cordus, Silius, and Sabinus] Let me be gone!

Most felt and open, this! 505

CORDUS

[To Arruntius] Stay.

ARRUNTIUS

[To Cordus, Silius, and Sabinus] What, to hear

more cunning, and fine words

With their sound flattered, ere their sense be meant?

TIBERIUS

Their choice of Antium,⁶⁷ there to place the gift

Vowed to the goddess⁶⁸ for our mother’s health,

We will the Senate know we fairly like; 510

As also of their grant to Lepidus ⁶⁹

For his repairing the Aemilian place,

And restoration of those monuments;

Their grace too in confining of Silanus ⁷⁰

To th’other isle Cythera, at the suit 515

Of his religious sister,⁷¹ much commends

Their policy, so tempered with their mercy.

But, for the honours ⁷² which they have decreed

To our Sejanus, to advance his statue

In Pompey’s theatre — whose ruining fire 520

His vigilance and labour kept restrained

In that one loss — they have therein outgone

Their own great wisdoms by their skilful choice

And placing of their bounties on a man

Whose merit more adorns the dignity 525

Than that can him, and gives a benefit

In taking, greater than it can receive.

Blush not, Sejanus, thou great aid of Rome,⁷³

Associate of our labours, our chief helper;

Let us not force thy simple modesty 530

With off’ring at thy praise, for more we cannot,

Since there’s no voice can take it. No man here

Receive our speeches as hyperboles,

For we are far from flattering our friend,

Let envy know, as from the need to flatter. 535

Nor let them ask the causes of our praise;

Princes have still their grounds reared with themselves,

Above the poor low flats of common men,

And who will search the reasons of their acts

Must stand on equal bases. – Lead, away! 540

Our loves unto the Senate. [Exeunt Tiberius, Sejanus, Haterius,

Latiaris, Satrius, Natta, etc.]

ARRUNTIUS

[To the departing Tiberius] Caesar!

SABINUS

[Holding him back] Peace!

CORDUS

Great Pompey’s theatre was never ruined ⁷⁴

Till now, that proud Sejanus hath a statue

Reared on his ashes.

ARRUNTIUS

Place the shame of soldiers

Above the best of generals? Crack the world, 545

And bruise the name of Romans into dust,

Ere we behold it!

SILIUS

Check your passion;

Lord Drusus tarries.

[Drusus approaches Arruntius, Cordus, Satrius, and Sabinus.]

DRUSUS

Is my father mad? ⁷⁵

Weary of life and rule, lords? Thus to heave

An idol up with praise? Make him his mate? 550

His rival in the Empire?

ARRUNTIUS

O good prince!

DRUSUS

Allow him statues? Titles? Honours? Such⁷⁶

As he himself refuseth?

ARRUNTIUS

Brave, brave Drusus!

DRUSUS

The first ascents to sovereignty are hard,

But, entered once, there never wants or means 555

Or ministers to help th’aspirer on.

ARRUNTIUS

True, gallant Drusus.

DRUSUS

We must shortly pray

To Modesty that he will rest contented —

ARRUNTIUS

Ay, where he is, and not write emperor.

[Enter] SEJANUS [with SATRIUS, LATIARIS, and clients. They take no notice at first of Drusus and the Germanicans.]

SEJANUS

[To his clients] There is your bill, and yours. Bring you your man. 560

I’ve moved for you too, Latiaris.

[He walks into Drusus.]

DRUSUS

What?

Is your vast greatness grown so blindly bold

That you will over us?

SEJANUS

Why, then give way.

DRUSUS

Give way, Colossus? Do you lift? Advance you?

Take that!⁷⁷ (Drusus strikes him.)

ARRUNTIUS

Good! Brave! Excellent brave prince! 565

DRUSUS

[To Sejanus] Nay, come, approach. [Draws his sword.] What? Stand you off?

At gaze?

It looks too full of death for thy cold spirits.

Avoid mine eye, dull camel, or my sword

Shall make thy brav’ry fitter for a grave

Than for a triumph. I’ll advance a statue 570

O’your own bulk; but’t shall be on the cross,⁷⁸

Where I will nail your pride at breadth and length,

And crack those sinews, which are yet but stretched

With your swoll’n fortune’s rage.

ARRUNTIUS

A noble prince!

ALL

A Castor, a Castor, a Castor, a Castor!⁷⁹ 575[Exeunt all but Sejanus.]

SEJANUS

He that with such wrong moved can bear it through

With patience and an even mind knows how

To turn it back. Wrath, covered, carries fate:

Revenge is lost, if I profess my hate.

What was my practice late I’ll now pursue 580

As my fell justice. This hath styled it new. [Exit.]

Musicorum Chorus

Actus Secundus

[Enter] SEJANUS, LIVIA, [and] EUDEMUS.

SEJANUS

Physician, thou art worthy of a province

For the great favours done unto our loves;

And, but that greatest Livia bears a part

In the requital of thy services,

I should alone despair of aught like means 5

To give them worthy satisfaction.

LIVIA

Eudemus (I will see it) shall receive

A fit and full reward for his large merit.

But for this potion ¹ we intend to Drusus

(No more our husband now), whom shall we choose 10

As the most apt and abled instrument

To minister it to him?

EUDEMUS

I say Lygdus.²

SEJANUS

Lygdus? What’s he?

LIVIA

An eunuch Drusus loves.

EUDEMUS

Ay, and his cup-bearer.

SEJANUS

Name not a second.

If Drusus love him, and he have that place, 15

We cannot think a fitter.

EUDEMUS

True, my lord,

For free access and trust are two main aids.

SEJANUS

Skilful physician!

LIVIA

But he must be wrought

To th’undertaking with some laboured art.

SEJANUS

Is he ambitious?

LIVIA

No.

SEJANUS

Or covetous? 20

LIVIA

Neither.

EUDEMUS

Yet gold is a good general charm.

SEJANUS

What is he, then?

LIVIA

Faith, only wanton, light.

SEJANUS

How! Is he young? And fair?

EUDEMUS

A delicate youth.

SEJANUS

Send him to me, I’ll work him.³ Royal lady,

Though I have loved you long, and with that height 25

Of zeal and duty (like the fire, which more

It mounts, it trembles), thinking naught could add

Unto the fervour which your eye had kindled,

Yet, now I see your wisdom, judgement, strength,

Quickness, and will to apprehend the means 30

To your own good and greatness, I protest

Myself through-rarefied, and turned all flame

In your affection. Such a spirit as yours

Was not created for the idle second

To a poor flash as Drusus, but to shine 35

Bright as the moon among the lesser lights,

And share the sovereignty of all the world.

Then Livia triumphs in her proper sphere,

When she and her Sejanus shall divide

The name of Caesar, and Augusta’s star 40

Be dimmed with glory of a brighter beam;

When Agrippina’s ⁴ fires are quite extinct,

And the scarce-seen Tiberius borrows all

His little light from us, whose folded arms

Shall make one perfect orb.

[Knocking within]

Who’s that? Eudemus, 45

Look. ’Tis not Drusus? [Exit Eudemus.]

Lady, do not fear.

LIVIA

Not I, my lord. My fear and love of him

Left me at once.

SEJANUS

Illustrous lady! Stay —

[Enter EUDEMUS.]

EUDEMUS

I’ll tell His Lordship.

SEJANUS

Who is’t, Eudemus?

EUDEMUS

One of Your Lordship’s servants, brings you word 50

The Emp’ror hath sent for you.

SEJANUS

Oh! Where is he?

[To Livia] With your fair leave, dear princess. I’ll but ask

A question, and return. He goes out.

EUDEMUS

Fortunate princess!

How are you blest in the fruition

Of this unequalled man, this soul of Rome, 55

The Empire’s life, and voice of Caesar’s world!

LIVIA

So blessèd, my Eudemus, as to know

The bliss I have, with what I ought to owe

The means that wrought it. How do I look today?

EUDEMUS

Excellent clear, believe it. This same fucus 60

Was well laid on.

LIVIA

Methinks ’tis here not white.

EUDEMUS

Lend me your scarlet, lady. ’Tis the sun

Hath given some little taint unto the ceruse;⁵

[He paints her cheeks.]

You should have used of the white oil I gave you.

Sejanus, for your love! His very name 65

Commandeth above Cupid, or his shafts —

LIVIA

Nay, now you’ve made it worse.

EUDEMUS

I’ll help it straight —

And, but pronounced, is a sufficient charm

Against all rumour; and of absolute power

To satisfy for any lady’s honour. 70

[Eudemus prepares more cosmetic.]

LIVIA

What do you now, Eudemus?

EUDEMUS

Make a light fucus,

To touch you o’er withal — Honoured Sejanus!

What act (though ne’er so strange, and insolent)

But that addition will at least bear out,

If ’t do not expiate?

LIVIA

Here, good physician. 75

EUDEMUS

I like this study to preserve the love

Of such a man, that comes not every hour

To greet the world. ’Tis now well, lady, you should

Use of the dentifrice I prescribed you, too,

To clear your teeth, and the prepared pomatum, 80

To smooth the skin: a lady cannot be

Too curious of her form, that still would hold

The heart of such a person, made her captive,

As you have his — who, to endear him more

In your clear eye, hath put away his wife,⁶ 85

The trouble of his bed and your delights,

Fair Apicata, and made spacious room

To your new pleasures.

LIVIA

Have not we returned

That, with our hate of Drusus, and discovery ⁷

Of all his counsels?

EUDEMUS

Yes, and wisely, lady; 90

The ages that succeed, and stand far off

To gaze at your high prudence, shall admire

And reckon it an act without your sex,

It hath that rare appearance. Some will think

Your fortune could not yield a deeper sound 95

Than mixed with Drusus; but when they shall hear

That and the thunder of Sejanus meet —

Sejanus, whose high name doth strike the stars,

And rings about the concave, great Sejanus,

Whose glories, style, and titles are himself, 100

The often iterating of Sejanus —

They then will lose their thoughts, and be ashamed

To take acquaintance of them.

[Enter SEJANUS.]

SEJANUS

I must make

A rude departure, lady. Caesar sends

With all his haste both of command and prayer. 105

Be resolute in our plot; you have my soul,

As certain yours as it is my body’s.

[To Eudemus] And, wise physician, so prepare the poison ⁸

As you may lay the subtle operation

Upon some natural disease of his. 110

Your eunuch send to me. I kiss your hands,

Glory of ladies, and commend my love

To your best faith and memory.

LIVIA

My lord,

I shall but change your words. Farewell. Yet, this

Remember for your heed: he loves you not. 115

You know what I have told you: his designs

Are full of grudge and danger. We must use

More than a common speed.

SEJANUS

Excellent lady,

How you do fire my blood!

LIVIA

Well, you must go?

The thoughts be best are least set forth to show. 120[Exit Sejanus.]

EUDEMUS

When will you take some physic, lady?

LIVIA

When

I shall, Eudemus; but let Drusus’ drug

Be first prepared.

EUDEMUS

Were Lygdus made, that’s done;

I have it ready. And tomorrow morning

I’ll send you a perfume, first to resolve 125

And procure sweat, and then prepare a bath

To cleanse and clear the cutis; against when,

I’ll have an excellent new fucus made,

Resistive ’gainst the sun, the rain, or wind,

Which you shall lay on with a breath, or oil, 130

As you best like, and last some fourteen hours.

This change came timely, lady, for your health,

And the restoring your complexion,

Which Drusus’ choler had almost burnt up;

Wherein your fortune hath prescribed you better 135

Than art could do.

LIVIA

Thanks, good physician,

I’ll use my fortune (you shall see) with reverence.

Is my coach ready?

EUDEMUS

It attends Your Highness. [Exeunt.]

[Enter] SEJANUS.

SEJANUS

If this be not revenge, when I have done

And made it perfect, let Egyptian slaves,⁹ 140

Parthians, and barefoot Hebrews brand my face,

And print my body full of injuries.

Thou lost thyself, child Drusus, when thou thought’st

Thou couldst outskip my vengeance, or outstand

The power I had to crush thee into air; 145

Thy follies now shall taste what kind of man

They have provoked, and this thy father’s house

Crack in the flame of my incensèd rage

Whose fury shall admit no shame or mean.

Adultery? It is the lightest ill 150

I will commit. A race of wicked acts

Shall flow out of my anger and o’erspread

The world’s wide face, which no posterity

Shall e’er approve, nor yet keep silent — things

That for their cunning, close, and cruel mark, 155

Thy father would wish his — and shall, perhaps,

Carry the empty name, but we the prize.

On then, my soul, and start not in thy course.

Though heav’n drop sulphur, and hell belch out fire,

Laugh at the idle terrors. Tell proud Jove, 160

Between his power and thine there is no odds.

’Twas only fear first in the world made gods.¹⁰

[Enter] TIBERIUS [attended].

TIBERIUS

Is yet Sejanus come?

SEJANUS

He’s here, dread Caesar.

TIBERIUS [sitting]

Let all depart that chamber, and the next.

[Exeunt Attendants.]

Sit down, my comfort. When the master prince ¹¹ 165

Of all the world, Sejanus, saith he fears,

Is it not fatal?

SEJANUS

Yes, to those are feared.

TIBERIUS

And not to him?

SEJANUS

Not if he wisely turn

That part of fate he holdeth first on them.

TIBERIUS

That nature, blood, and laws of kind forbid.170

SEJANUS

Do policy and state forbid it?

TIBERIUS

No.

SEJANUS

The rest of poor respects, then, let go by;

State is enough to make th’act just, them guilty.

TIBERIUS

Long hate pursues such acts.

SEJANUS

Whom hatred frights,

Let him not dream on sov’reignty.

TIBERIUS

Are rites 175

Of faith, love, piety, to be trod down?

Forgotten? And made vain?

SEJANUS

All, for a crown.

The prince who shames a tyrant’s name to bear

Shall never dare do anything but fear.

All the command of sceptres quite doth perish 180

If it begin religious thoughts to cherish:

Whole empires fall, swayed by those nice respects.

It is the licence of dark deeds protects

Ev’n states most hated, when no laws resist

The sword, but that it acteth what it list. 185

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?¹²

TIBERIUS

She, and her proud race. 190

SEJANUS

Proud? Dangerous, Caesar.¹³ 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,¹⁴ if not revenge the same.

TIBERIUS

The act’s not known.

SEJANUS

Not proved. But whisp’ring fame 195

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 provokèd by a parent’s death.

TIBERIUS

It is as dangerous to make them hence, 200

If nothing but their birth be their offence.

SEJANUS

Stay, till they strike at Caesar: 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. 205

Be not secure; none swiftlier are oppressed

Than they whom confidence betrays to rest.

Let not your daring make your danger such.

All power’s to be feared, where ’tis too much.

The youths are, of themselves, hot, violent, 210

Full of great thought; and that male-spirited dame,¹⁵

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, 215

To the same gods, with Caesar.¹⁶ Days and nights

She spends in banquets and ambitious feasts

For the nobility, where Caius Silius,

Titius Sabinus, old Arruntius,

Asinius Gallus, Furnius, Regulus, 220

And others of that discontented list

Are the prime guests. There, and to these, she tells

Whose niece¹⁷ she was, whose daughter, and whose wife;

And then must they compare her with Augusta,

Ay, and prefer her too, commend her form, 225

Extol her fruitfulness;¹⁸ at which a show’r

Falls for the memory of Germanicus,

Which they blow over straight with windy praise

And puffing hopes of her aspiring sons;

Who, with these hourly ticklings, grow so pleased, 230

And wantonly conceited of themselves,

As now they stick not to believe they’re such

As these do give ’em out; and would be thought

(More than competitors) immediate heirs;

Whilst to their thirst of rule they win the rout, 235

That’s still the friend of novelty, with hope

Of future freedom,¹⁹ which on every change,

That greedily, though emptily, expects.

Caesar, ’tis age in all things breeds neglects,

And princes that will keep old dignity 240

Must not admit too youthful heirs stand by —

Not their own issue, but so darkly set

As shadows are in picture, to give height

And lustre to themselves.

TIBERIUS

We will command ²⁰

Their rank thoughts down, and, with a stricter hand 245

Than we have yet put forth, their trains must bate,

Their titles, feasts, and factions.

SEJANUS

Or your state.

But how, sir, will you work?

TIBERIUS

Confine ’em.

SEJANUS

No.

They are too great, and that too faint a blow

To give them now. It would have served at first, 250

When, with the weakest touch, their knot had burst.

But now your care must be not to detect

The smallest cord or line of your suspect;

For such who know the weight of princes’ fear

Will, when they find themselves discovered, rear 255

Their forces, like seen snakes, that else would lie

Rolled in their circles, close. Naught is more high,

Daring, or desperate, than offenders found;

Where guilt is, rage and courage both abound.

The course must be to let ’em still swell up, 260

Riot, and surfeit on blind Fortune’s cup;

Give ’em more place, more dignities, more style,

Call ’em to court, to Senate; in the while,

Take from their strength some one or twain, or more

Of the main fautors ²¹ — it will fright the store — 265

And by some by-occasion. Thus, with sleight

You shall disarm them first, and they, in night

Of their ambition, not perceive the train

Till, in the engine, they are caught, and slain.

TIBERIUS

We would not kill, if we knew how to save; 270

Yet, than a throne, ’tis cheaper give a grave.

Is there no way to bind them by deserts?

SEJANUS

Sir, wolves do change their hair, but not their hearts.

While thus your thought unto a mean is tied,

You neither dare enough, nor do provide. 275

All modesty is fond; and chiefly where

The subject is no less compelled to bear

Than praise his sovereign’s acts.

TIBERIUS

We can no longer

Keep on our mask to thee, our dear Sejanus; ²²

Thy thoughts are ours, in all, and we but proved 280

Their voice, in our designs, which by assenting

Hath more confirmed us than if heart’ning Jove

Had, from his hundred statues, bid us strike,

And at the stroke clicked all his marble thumbs.²³

But who shall first be struck?

SEJANUS

First, Caius Silius. 285

He is the most of mark, and most of danger:

In power and reputation equal strong,

Having commanded an imperial army

Seven years together, vanquished Sacrovir

In Germany, and thence obtained to wear 290

The ornaments triumphal. ²⁴ His steep fall,

By how much it doth give the weightier crack,

Will send more wounding terror to the rest,

Command them stand aloof, and give more way

To our surprising of the principal. 295

TIBERIUS

But what Sabinus?²⁵

SEJANUS

Let him grow a while;

His fate is not yet ripe. We must not pluck

At all together, lest we catch ourselves.

And there’s Arruntius too; he only talks.

But Sosia,²⁶ Silius’ wife, would be wound in 300

Now, for she hath a fury in her breast

More than hell ever knew; and would be sent

Thither in time. Then is there one Cremutius

Cordus,²⁷ a writing fellow they have got

To gather notes of the precedent times, 305

And make them into annals — a most tart

And bitter spirit, I hear, who, under colour

Of praising those, doth tax the present state,

Censures the men, the actions, leaves no trick,

No practice unexamined, parallels 310

The times, the governments; a professed champion

For the old liberty —

TIBERIUS

A perishing wretch!

As if there were that chaos bred in things,

That laws and liberty would not rather choose

To be quite broken, and ta’en hence by us, 315

Than have the stain to be preserved by such.

Have we the means to make these guilty first?

SEJANUS

Trust that to me. Let Caesar, by his power,

But cause a formal meeting of the Senate,

I will have matter and accusers ready. 320

TIBERIUS

But how? Let us consult.

SEJANUS

We shall misspend

The time of action. Counsels are unfit

In business, where all rest is more pernicious

Than rashness can be. Acts of this close kind

Thrive more by execution than advice; 325

There is no ling’ring in that work begun,

Which cannot praisèd be, until through done.

TIBERIUS

Our edict shall forthwith command a court.²⁸

While I can live, I will prevent earth’s fury;

Εμου θανοντος γαια μιχθητω πυρι. ²⁹ 330[Exit Tiberius.]

[Enter] POSTUMUS.

POSTUMUS

My lord Sejanus —

SEJANUS

Julius Postumus,³⁰

Come with my wish! What news from Agrippina’s?

POSTUMUS

Faith, none. They all lock up themselves a’late,

Or talk in character. I have not seen

A company so changed. Except they had 335

Intelligence by augury of our practice.

SEJANUS

When were you there?

POSTUMUS

Last night.

SEJANUS

And what guests found you?

POSTUMUS

Sabinus, Silius — the old list — Arruntius,

Furnius, and Gallus.

SEJANUS

Would not these talk?

POSTUMUS

Little.

And yet we offered choice of argument. 340

Satrius was with me.

SEJANUS

Well, ’tis guilt enough,

Their often meeting. You forgot t’extol

The hospitable lady?³¹

POSTUMUS

No, that trick

Was well put home, and had succeeded too,

But that Sabinus coughed a caution out, 345

For she began to swell.

SEJANUS

And may she burst!

Julius, I would have you go instantly

Unto the palace of the great Augusta,

And, by your kindest friend,³² get swift access.

Acquaint her with these meetings. Tell the words 350

You brought me, th’other day, of Silius;³³

Add somewhat to ’em. Make her understand

The danger of Sabinus, and the times,

Out of his closeness. Give Arruntius words

Of malice against Caesar; so, to Gallus; 355

But, above all, to Agrippina. Say,

As you may truly, that her infinite pride,

Propped with the hopes of her too-fruitful womb,

With popular studies gapes for sov’reignty,³⁴

And threatens Caesar. Pray Augusta, then, 360

That for her own, great Caesar’s, and the pub-

lic safety, she be pleased to urge these dangers.

Caesar is too secure, he must be told,

And best he’ll take it from a mother’s tongue.

Alas! What is’t for us to sound, t’explore, 365

To watch, oppose, plot, practise, or prevent,

If he for whom it is so strongly laboured

Shall, out of greatness and free spirit, be

Supinely negligent? Our city’s now ³⁵

Divided as in time o’th’civil war 370

And men forbear not to declare themselves

Of Agrippina’s party. Every day

The faction multiplies, and will do more

If not resisted. You can best enlarge it

As you find audience. Noble Postumus, 375

Commend me to your Prisca, and pray her

She will solicit this great business

To earnest and most present execution,

With all her utmost credit with Augusta.

POSTUMUS

I shall not fail in my instructions.380[Exit.]

[Sejanus remains alone onstage.]

SEJANUS

This second, from his mother, will well urge

Our late design, and spur on Caesar’s rage,

Which else might grow remiss. The way to put

A prince in blood is to present the shapes

Of dangers greater than they are, like late 385

Or early shadows, and, sometimes, to feign

Where there are none, only to make him fear;

His fear will make him cruel; and once entered,

He doth not easily learn to stop, or spare

Where he may doubt. This have I made my rule, 390

To thrust Tiberius into tyranny,

And make him toil to turn aside those blocks

Which I, alone, could not remove with safety.

Drusus once gone, Germanicus’ three sons

Would clog my way,³⁶ whose guards have too much faith 395

To be corrupted, and their mother known

Of too too unreproved a chastity

To be attempted, as light Livia was.

Work then my art on Caesar’s fears, as they

On those they fear, till all my lets be cleared, 400

And he in ruins of his house, and hate

Of all his subjects, bury his own state;

When, with my peace and safety, I will rise,

By making him the public sacrifice. [Exit.]

[Enter] SATRIUS [and] NATTA.

SATRIUS

They’re grown exceeding circumspect and wary. 405

NATTA

They have us in the wind. And yet Arruntius

Cannot contain himself.

SATRIUS

Tut, he’s not yet

Looked after; there are others more desired,³⁷

That are more silent.

NATTA

Here he comes. Away! [Exeunt.]

[Enter] SABINUS, ARRUNTIUS, [and] CORDUS.

SABINUS

How is it that these beagles haunt the house 410

Of Agrippina?

ARRUNTIUS

Oh, they hunt, they hunt.³⁸

There is some game here lodged, which they must rouse,

To make the great ones sport.

CORDUS

Did you observe

How they inveighed ’gainst Caesar?

ARRUNTIUS

Ay, baits, baits

For us to bite at. Would I have my flesh 415

Torn by the public hook, these qualified hangmen

Should be my company.

AFER passeth by.

CORDUS

Here comes another.

ARRUNTIUS

Ay, there’s a man, Afer the orator!³⁹

One that hath phrases, figures, and fine flowers

To strew his rhetoric with, and doth make haste ⁴⁰ 420

To get him note, or name, by any offer

Where blood or gain be objects; steeps his words,

When he would kill, in artificial tears —

The crocodile of Tiber! Him I love,

That man is mine. He hath my heart, and voice, 425

When I would curse, he, he!

SABINUS

Contemn the slaves;

Their present lives will be their future graves. [Exeunt.]

[Enter] SILIUS, AGRIPPINA, NERO, [and] SOSIA.

SILIUS

May’t please Your Highness not forget yourself,

I dare not, with my manners, to attempt

Your trouble farther.

AGRIPPINA

Farewell, noble Silius. 430

SILIUS

Most royal princess.

AGRIPPINA

Sosia stays with us?

SILIUS

She is your servant, and doth owe Your Grace

An honest but unprofitable love.

AGRIPPINA

How can that be, when there’s no gain but virtue’s?

SILIUS

You take the moral, not the politic sense. 435

I meant, as she is bold, and free of speech,

Earnest to utter what her zealous thought

Travails withal, in honour of your house;⁴¹

Which act, as it is simply born in her,

Partakes of love and honesty, but may, 440

By th’over-often and unseasoned use,

Turn to your loss and danger — for your state

Is waited on by envies, as by eyes;⁴²

And every second guest your tables take

Is a fee’d spy, t’observe who goes, who comes, 445

What conference you have, with whom, where, when;

What the discourse is, what the looks, the thoughts

Of every person there, they do extract,

And make into a substance.

AGRIPPINA

Hear me, Silius:

Were all Tiberius’ body stuck with eyes, 450

And every wall and hanging in my house

Transparent as this lawn I wear, or air;

Yea, had Sejanus both his ears as long

As to my inmost closet, I would hate

To whisper any thought, or change an act, 455

To be made Juno’s rival. Virtue’s forces

Show ever noblest in conspicuous courses.

SILIUS

’Tis great, and bravely spoken, like the spirit

Of Agrippina; yet Your Highness knows

There is nor loss nor shame in providence; 460

Few can, what all should do, beware enough.

You may perceive with what officious face ⁴³

Satrius and Natta, Afer and the rest

Visit your house of late, t’inquire the secrets,

And with what bold and privileged art they rail 465

Against Augusta, yea, and at Tiberius,

Tell tricks of Livia, and Sejanus, all

T’excite and call your indignation on,

That they might hear it at more liberty.

AGRIPPINA

You’re too suspicious, Silius.

SILIUS

Pray the gods 470

I be so, Agrippina; but I fear

Some subtle practice. They that durst to strike ⁴⁴

At so exampless and unblamed a life

As that of the renowned Germanicus

Will not sit down with that exploit alone. 475

He threatens many that hath injured one.

NERO

’Twere best rip forth their tongues, sear out their eyes,

When next they come.

SOSIA

A fit reward for spies.

[Enter] DRUSUS JUNIOR.

DRUSUS JUNIOR

Hear you the rumour?

AGRIPPINA

What?

DRUSUS JUNIOR

Drusus is dying.⁴⁵

AGRIPPINA

Dying?

NERO

That’s strange!

AGRIPPINA

Yo’were with him yesternight. 480

DRUSUS JUNIOR

One met Eudemus the physician

Sent for but now, who thinks he cannot live.

SILIUS

Thinks? If’t be arrived at that, he knows,

Or none.

AGRIPPINA

This’s quick! What should be his disease?

SILIUS

Poison, poison —⁴⁶

AGRIPPINA

How, Silius!

NERO

What’s that? 485

SILIUS

Nay, nothing. There was, late, a certain blow

Giv’n o’the face.

NERO

Ay, to Sejanus?

SILIUS

True.

DRUSUS JUNIOR

And what of that?

SILIUS

I’m glad I gave it not.

NERO

But there is somewhat else?

SILIUS

Yes, private meetings,

With a great lady, at a physician’s, 490

And a wife turned away —

NERO

Ha!

SILIUS

Toys, mere toys.

What wisdom’s now i’th’streets? I’th’common mouth?

DRUSUS JUNIOR

Fears, whisp’rings, tumults, noise, I know not what.

They say the Senate sit.⁴⁷

SILIUS

I’ll thither, straight,

And see what’s in the forge.

AGRIPPINA

Good Silius, do. 495

Sosia and I will in.

SILIUS

Haste you, my lords,

To visit the sick prince. Tender your loves

And sorrows to the people. This Sejanus,

Trust my divining soul, hath plots on all;

No tree that stops his prospect but must fall.500[Exeunt.]

Musicorum Chorus

Actus Tertius

The Senate.

[Enter] PRAECONES, LICTORS, VARRO, SEJANUS, LATIARIS, COTTA, [and] AFER.

SEJANUS

’Tis only you must urge against him, Varro. ¹

Nor I nor Caesar may appear therein,

Except in your defence, who are the consul,

And under colour of late enmity

Between your father and his, may better do it, 5

As free from all suspicion of a practice.

[Varro is handed some notes.]

Here be your notes, what points to touch at. Read:

Be cunning in them. Afer has them too.

VARRO

But is he summoned?

SEJANUS

No. It was debated

By Caesar, and concluded as most fit 10

To take him unprepared.

AFER

And prosecute

All under name of treason.²

VARRO

I conceive.

[Enter SABINUS, GALLUS, LEPIDUS, and ARRUNTIUS. They confer privately.]

SABINUS

Drusus being dead, Caesar will not be here.

GALLUS

What should the business of this Senate be?

ARRUNTIUS

That can my subtle whisperers tell you. We, 15

That are the good-dull-noble lookers-on,

Are only called to keep the marble warm.

What should we do with those deep mysteries,

Proper to these fine heads? Let them alone.

Our ignorance may, perchance, help us be saved 20

From whips and furies.

GALLUS

See, see, see, their action!

ARRUNTIUS

Ay, now their heads do travail, now they work;

Their faces run like shuttles; they are weaving

Some curious cobweb to catch flies.

SABINUS

Observe,

They take their places.

ARRUNTIUS

What, so low?³

GALLUS

Oh, yes, 25

They must be seen to flatter Caesar’s grief,

Though but in sitting.

VARRO

[To the Praecones] Bid us silence.

FIRST PRAECO

Silence!

VARRO

Fathers conscript, may this our present meeting

Turn fair and fortunate to the commonwealth.⁴

[Enter] SILIUS [and other SENATORS].

SEJANUS

See, Silius enters.

SILIUS

Hail, grave fathers!

LICTOR

[Announcing] Stand! — 30

Silius; forbear thy place.

SENATORS

How!

FIRST PRAECO

Silius, stand forth.

The consul hath to charge thee.

LICTOR

[Announcing] Room for Caesar!

ARRUNTIUS

[To Sabinus] Is he come too? Nay then, expect a trick.

SABINUS

[To Arruntius] Silius accused? Sure he will answer nobly.

[Enter] TIBERIUS [attended].

TIBERIUS

We stand amazèd, fathers, to behold 35

This general dejection. Wherefore sit ⁵

Rome’s consuls thus dissolved, as they had lost

All the remembrance both of style and place?

It not becomes. No woes are of fit weight

To make the honour of the Empire stoop — 40

Though I, in my peculiar self, may meet

Just reprehension, that so suddenly,

And in so fresh a grief, would greet the Senate,

When private tongues of kinsmen and allies,

Inspired with comforts, loathly are endured, 45

The face of men not seen, and scarce the day,

To thousands that communicate our loss.

Nor can I argue these of weakness, since

They take but natural ways; yet I must seek

For stronger aids, and those fair helps draw out 50

From warm embraces of the commonwealth.

Our mother, great Augusta, is struck with time,

Ourself impressed with agèd characters;

Drusus is gone, his children young, and babes;

Our aims must now reflect on those that may 55

Give timely succour to these present ills,

And are our only glad-surviving hopes,

The noble issue of Germanicus,

Nero and Drusus. Might it please the consul

Honour them in — they both attend without — 60

I would present them to the Senate’s care,

And raise those suns of joy, that should drink up

These floods of sorrow in your drownèd eyes.

ARRUNTIUS

[To Sabinus] By Jove, I am not Oedipus enough

To understand this Sphinx.

SABINUS

[To Arruntius] The princes come. 65

[Enter] NERO [and] DRUSUS JUNIOR.

TIBERIUS

Approach you, noble Nero, noble Drusus. —

These princes, fathers, when their parent died,

I gave unto their uncle, with this prayer:

That, though he’d proper issue of his own,

He would no less bring up and foster these 70

Than that self-blood, and by that act confirm

Their worths to him and to posterity.

Drusus ta’en hence, I turn my prayers to you,

And, ’fore our country and our gods, beseech

You take, and rule, Augustus’ nephew’s sons, 75

Sprung of the noblest ancestors; and so

Accomplish both my duty and your own. —

Nero, and Drusus, these shall be to you⁶

In place of parents, these your fathers, these,

And not unfitly; for you are so born 80

As all your good or ill’s the commonwealth’s. —

Receive them, you strong guardians; — and, blest gods,

Make all their actions answer to their bloods.

Let their great titles find increase by them,

Not they by titles. Set them, as in place, 85

So in example, above all the Romans,

And may they know no rivals but themselves.

Let Fortune give them nothing, but attend

Upon their virtue — and that still come forth

Greater than hope, and better than their fame. — 90

Relieve me, fathers, with your general voice.

SENATORS

May all the gods consent to Caesar’s wish,

And add to any honours that may crown

The hopeful issue of Germanicus!

TIBERIUS

We thank you, reverend fathers, in their right. 95

[Arruntius, Sabinus, and Gallus, seated together, whisper among themselves.]

ARRUNTIUS

If this were true now! But the space, the space

Between the breast and lips — Tiberius’ heart

Lies a thought farther than another man’s.

TIBERIUS

My comforts are so flowing in my joys

As, in them, all my streams of grief are lost, 100

No less than are land waters in the sea,

Or show’rs 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.

ARRUNTIUS

Well acted, Caesar. 105

TIBERIUS

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, 110

And beg it of this Senate, some fit ease.

ARRUNTIUS

Laugh, fathers, laugh! Ha’ you no spleens about you?⁷

TIBERIUS

The burden is too heavy I sustain

On my unwilling shoulders; and I pray

It may be taken off, and reconferred 115

Upon the consuls, or some other Roman,

More able, and more worthy.

ARRUNTIUS

Laugh on, still.

SABINUS

Why, this doth render all the rest suspected!

GALLUS

It poisons all.

ARRUNTIUS

Oh, do’you taste it then?

SABINUS

It takes away my faith to anything 120

He shall hereafter speak.

ARRUNTIUS

Ay, to pray that

Which would be to his head as hot as thunder —

’Gainst which he wears that charm ⁸ — should but the court

Receive him at his word.

GALLUS

Hear!

TIBERIUS

For myself,

I know my weakness, and so little covet — 125

Like some gone past — the weight that will oppress me

As my ambition is the counterpoint.

ARRUNTIUS

Finely maintained; good still.

SEJANUS

But Rome, whose blood,

Whose nerves, whose life, whose very frame relies

On Caesar’s strength, no less than heav’n on Atlas, 130

Cannot admit it but with general ruin.

ARRUNTIUS

Ah! Are you there, to bring him off?

SEJANUS

Let Caesar

No more then urge a point so contrary

To Caesar’s greatness, the grieved Senate’s vows,

Or Rome’s necessity.

GALLUS

He comes about. 135

ARRUNTIUS

More nimbly than Vertumnus.

TIBERIUS

For the public,

I may be drawn to show I can neglect

All private aims, though I affect my rest.

But if the Senate still command me serve,

I must be glad to practise my obedience.⁹ 140

ARRUNTIUS

You must, and will, sir. We do know it.

SENATORS

Caesar!

Live long, and happy, great and royal Caesar!

The gods preserve thee, and thy modesty,

Thy wisdom, and thy innocence!

ARRUNTIUS

Where is’t?

The prayer’s made before the subject.

SENATORS

Guard 145

His meekness, Jove, his piety, his care,

His bounty —

ARRUNTIUS

And his subtlety, I’ll put in —

Yet he’ll keep that himself, without the gods.

All prayers are vain for him.

TIBERIUS

We will not hold

Your patience, fathers, with long answer, but 150

Shall still contend to be what you desire,

And work to satisfy so great a hope.

Proceed to your affairs.

[Afer comes forward.]

ARRUNTIUS

Now, Silius, guard thee.

The curtain’s drawing. Afer advanceth.

FIRST PRAECO

[Proclaiming] Silence!

AFER

Cite Caius Silius.

FIRST PRAECO

Caius Silius!¹⁰

SILIUS

[Coming forward] Here. 155

AFER

The triumph that thou hadst in Germany

For thy late victory on Sacrovir,

Thou hast enjoyed so freely, Caius Silius,

As no man it envied thee; nor would Caesar

Or Rome admit that thou wert then defrauded 160

Of any honours thy deserts could claim

In the fair service of the commonwealth.

But now, if after all their loves and graces,

Thy actions and their courses being discovered,

It shall appear to Caesar, and this Senate, 165

Thou hast defiled those glories with thy crimes —

SILIUS

Crimes?

AFER

Patience, Silius.

SILIUS

Tell thy mule of patience!

I’m a Roman. What are my crimes? Proclaim them.

Am I too rich? Too honest for the times?

Have I or treasure, jewels, land, or houses 170

That some informer gapes for? Is my strength

Too much to be admitted? Or my knowledge?

These now are crimes.¹¹

AFER

Nay, Silius, if the name

Of crime so touch thee, with what impotence

Wilt thou endure the matter to be searched? 175

SILIUS

I tell thee, Afer, with more scorn than fear:

Employ your mercenary tongue and art.

Where’s my accuser?

VARRO

[Coming forward] Here.

ARRUNTIUS

Varro? The consul?

Is he thrust in?

VARRO

’Tis I accuse thee, Silius.

Against the majesty of Rome and Caesar, 180

I do pronounce thee here a guilty cause,

First, of beginning and occasioning,¹²

Next, drawing out the war in Gallia,¹³

For which thou late triumph’st; dissembling long

That Sacrovir to be an enemy, 185

Only to make thy entertainment more,

Whilst thou, and thy wife Sosia, polled the province;

Wherein, with sordid-base desire of gain,

Thou hast discredited thy actions’ worth

And been a traitor to the state.

SILIUS

Thou liest. 190

ARRUNTIUS

I thank thee, Silius. Speak so still, and often.

VARRO

[To Tiberius] If I not prove it, Caesar, but unjustly ¹⁴

Have called him into trial, here I bind

Myself to suffer what I claim ’gainst him,

And yield to have what I have spoke confirmed 195

By judgement of the court, and all good men.

SILIUS

Caesar, I crave to have my cause deferred

Till this man’s consulship be out.

TIBERIUS

We cannot,

Nor may we grant it.

SILIUS

Why? Shall he design

My day of trial? Is he my accuser? 200

And must he be my judge?

TIBERIUS

It hath been usual,

And is a right that custom hath allowed

The magistrate,¹⁵ to call forth private men

And to appoint their day; which privilege

We may not in the consul see infringed, 205

By whose deep watches and industrious care

It is so laboured as the commonwealth

Receive no loss by any oblique course.

SILIUS

Caesar, thy fraud is worse than violence.

TIBERIUS

Silius, mistake us not. We dare not use 210

The credit of the consul to thy wrong,

But only do preserve his place and power

So far as it concerns the dignity

And honour of the state.

ARRUNTIUS

Believe him, Silius.

COTTA

[Overhearing] Why, so he may, Arruntius.

ARRUNTIUS

I say so. 215

And he may choose to.

TIBERIUS

By the Capitol,

And all our gods, but that the dear Republic,

Our sacred laws, and just authority

Are interessed therein, I should be silent.

AFER

Please Caesar to give way unto his trial. 220

He shall have justice.

SILIUS

Nay, I shall have law;

Shall I not, Afer? Speak.

AFER

Would you have more?

SILIUS

No, my well-spoken man, I would no more;

Nor less — might I enjoy it natural,

Not taught to speak unto your present ends, 225

Free from thine, his, and all your unkind handling,

Furious enforcing, most unjust presuming,

Malicious and manifold applying,

Foul wresting, and impossible construction.

AFER

He raves, he raves.

SILIUS

Thou durst not tell me so, 230

Hadst thou not Caesar’s warrant. I can see

Whose power condemns me.

VARRO

This betrays his spirit.

This doth enough declare him what he is.

SILIUS

What am I? Speak.

VARRO

An enemy to the state.

SILIUS

Because I am an enemy to thee, 235

And such corrupted ministers o’the state,

That here art made a present instrument

To gratify it with thine own disgrace.¹⁶

SEJANUS

This, to the consul, is most insolent!

And impious!

SILIUS

Ay, take part. Reveal yourselves. 240

Alas, I scent not your confederacies,

Your plots and combinations? I not know

Minion Sejanus hates me, and that all

This boast of law, and law, is but a form,

A net of Vulcan’s filing, a mere engine, 245

To take that life by a pretext of justice

Which you pursue in malice? I want brain

Or nostril to persuade me that your ends

And purposes are made to what they are,

Before my answer? O you equal gods, 250

Whose justice not a world of wolf-turned men

Shall make me to accuse, howe’er provoke,

Have I for this so oft engaged myself,

Stood in the heat and fervour of a fight,

When Phoebus sooner hath forsook the day 255

Than I the field, against the blue-eyed Gauls

And crispèd Germans, when our Roman eagles

Have fanned the fire with their labouring wings,

And no blow dealt that left not death behind it?

When I have charged, alone, into the troops 260

Of curled Sicambrians,¹⁷ routed them, and came

Not off with backward ensigns of a slave,

But forward marks, wounds on my breast, and face,

Were meant to thee, O Caesar, and thy Rome?

And have I this return? Did I, for this, 265

Perform so noble and so brave defeat

On Sacrovir? O Jove, let it become me

To boast my deeds, when he, whom they concern,

Shall thus forget them!

AFER

Silius, Silius,

These are the common customs of thy blood, 270

When it is high with wine, as now with rage.

This well agrees with that intemperate vaunt ¹⁸

Thou lately mad’st at Agrippina’s table,

That when all other of the troops were prone

To fall into rebellion, only thine 275

Remained in their obedience. Thou wert he

That saved the Empire, which had then been lost,

Had but thy legions, there, rebelled, or mutined.

Thy virtue met and fronted every peril.

Thou gav’st to Caesar and to Rome their surety. 280

Their name, their strength, their spirit, and their state,

Their being was a donative from thee.

ARRUNTIUS

Well worded, and most like an orator.

TIBERIUS

Is this true, Silius?

SILIUS

Save thy question, Caesar.

Thy spy, of famous credit, hath affirmed it. 285

ARRUNTIUS

Excellent Roman!

SABINUS

He doth answer stoutly.

SEJANUS

If this be so, there needs no farther cause

Of crime against him.

VARRO

What can more impeach

The royal dignity and state of Caesar

Than to be urgèd with a benefit 290

He cannot pay?

COTTA

In this, all Caesar’s fortune

Is made unequal to the courtesy.

LATIARIS

His means are clean destroyed, that should requite.

GALLUS

Nothing is great enough for Silius’ merit.

ARRUNTIUS

[To Sabinus] Gallus o’ that side too?

SILIUS

Come, do not hunt 295

And labour so about for circumstance

To make him guilty whom you have foredoomed.

Take shorter ways; I’ll meet your purposes.

The words were mine; and more I now will say:

Since I have done thee that great service, Caesar, 300

Thou still hast feared me, and, in place of grace,

Returned me hatred. So soon, all best turns,

With doubtful princes, turn deep injuries

In estimation, when they greater rise

Than can be answered. Benefits, with you, 305

Are of no longer pleasure than you can

With ease restore them; that transcended once,

Your studies are not how to thank, but kill.

It is your nature to have all men slaves

To you, but you acknowledging to none. 310

The means that make your greatness must not come

In mention of it. If it do, it takes

So much away, you think; and that which helped

Shall soonest perish, if it stand in eye,

Where it may front or but upbraid the high. 315

COTTA

Suffer him speak no more.

VARRO

Note but his spirit.

AFER

This shows him in the rest.

LATIARIS

Let him be censured.

SEJANUS

He’hath spoke enough to prove him Caesar’s foe.

COTTA

His thoughts look through his words.

SEJANUS

A censure.

SILIUS

Stay,

Stay, most officious Senate! I shall straight 320

Delude thy fury. Silius hath not placed

His guards within him, against Fortune’s spite,

So weakly but he can escape your gripe

That are but hands of Fortune. She herself,

When virtue doth oppose, must lose her threats. 325

All that can happen in humanity,

The frown of Caesar, proud Sejanus’ hatred,

Base Varro’s spleen, and Afer’s bloodying tongue,

The Senate’s servile flattery, and these

Mustered to kill, I’m fortified against, 330

And can look down upon; they are beneath me.

It is not life whereof I stand enamoured,

Nor shall my end make me accuse my fate.

The coward and the valiant man must fall;

Only the cause, and manner how, discerns them, 335

Which then are gladdest when they cost us dearest.

Romans, if any here be in this Senate

Would know to mock Tiberius’ tyranny,

Look upon Silius, and so learn to die.

[He stabs himself.]

VARRO

Oh, desperate act!

ARRUNTIUS

An honourable hand! ¹⁹ 340

TIBERIUS

Look, is he dead?

SABINUS

’Twas nobly struck, and home.

ARRUNTIUS

My thought did prompt him to it. Farewell, Silius!

Be famous ever for thy great example.

TIBERIUS

We are not pleased in this sad accident,

That thus hath stallèd and abused our mercy, 345

Intended to preserve thee, noble Roman,

And to prevent thy hopes.

ARRUNTIUS

Excellent wolf!

Now he is full, he howls.

SEJANUS

Caesar doth wrong

His dignity and safety, thus to mourn

The deserved end of so professed a traitor, 350

And doth, by this his lenity, instruct

Others as factious to the like offence.

TIBERIUS

The confiscation merely of his state

Had been enough.

ARRUNTIUS

Oh, that was gaped for, then?

VARRO

[To Lictors] Remove the body.

SEJANUS

Let citation 355

Go out for Sosia.

GALLUS

Let her be proscribed.

And for the goods, I think it fit that half

Go to the treasure, half unto the children.

LEPIDUS

With leave of Caesar, I would think that fourth

Part, which the law doth cast on the informers, 360

Should be enough; the rest go to the children —

Wherein the prince shall show humanity

And bounty, not to force them by their want,

Which in their parents’ trespass they deserved,

To take ill courses.

TIBERIUS

It shall please us.

ARRUNTIUS

Ay, 365

Out of necessity. This Lepidus

Is grave and honest, and I have observed

A moderation still in all his censures.²⁰

SABINUS

And bending to the better —

[Enter] CORDUS [guarded by LICTORS], SATRIUS, [and] NATTA.

ARRUNTIUS

Stay, who’s this?

Cremutius Cordus?²¹ What? Is he brought in? 370

ARRUNTIUS

More blood unto the banquet? Noble Cordus,

I wish thee good. Be as thy writings, free,

And honest.

TIBERIUS

What is he?

SEJANUS

For th’annals, Caesar.

FIRST PRAECO

Cremutius Cordus!

CORDUS

Here.

FIRST PRAECO

Satrius Secundus,

Pinnarius Natta, you are his accusers. 375

ARRUNTIUS

Two of Sejanus’ bloodhounds, whom he breeds

With human flesh, to bay at citizens.

AFER

[To Satrius and Natta] Stand forth before the Senate, and confront him.

SATRIUS

I do accuse thee here, Cremutius Cordus,

To be a man factious and dangerous, 380

A sower of sedition in the state,

A turbulent and discontented spirit,

Which I will prove from thine own writings here,

The annals thou hast published, where thou bit’st

The present age, and with a viper’s tooth, 385

Being a member of it, dar’st that ill

Which never yet degenerous bastard did

Upon his parent.

NATTA

To this I subscribe,

And, forth a world of more particulars,

Instance in only one: comparing men 390

And times, thou praisest Brutus, and affirmst

That ‘Cassius was the last of all the Romans.’

COTTA

How! What are we, then?

VARRO

What is Caesar? Nothing?

AFER

My lords, this strikes at every Roman’s private,

In whom reigns gentry and estate of spirit, 395

To have a Brutus brought in parallel —

A parricide, an enemy of his country —

Ranked and preferred to any real worth

That Rome now holds. This is most strangely invective,

Most full of spite and insolent upbraiding. 400

Nor is’t the time alone is here disprized,

But the whole man of time, yea, Caesar’s self,

Brought in disvalue; and he aimed at most

By oblique glance of his licentious pen.

Caesar, if Cassius were the last of Romans, 405

Thou hast no name.

TIBERIUS

Let’s hear him answer. Silence.

CORDUS

So innocent I am of fact, my lords,

As but my words are argued; yet those words

Not reaching either prince or prince’s parent,

The which your law of treason comprehends. 410

Brutus and Cassius I am charged t’have praised,

Whose deeds, when many more besides myself

Have writ, not one hath mentioned without honour.

Great Titus Livius, great for eloquence

And faith amongst us, in his History, 415

With so great praises Pompey did extol

As oft Augustus called him a Pompeian —

Yet this not hurt their friendship. In his book

He often names Scipio, Afranius,

Yea, the same Cassius, and this Brutus too, 420

As worthi’st men; not thieves and parricides,

Which notes upon their fames are now imposed.

Asinius Pollio’s writings quite throughout

Give them a noble memory; ²² so Messalla

Renowned his general Cassius — yet both these 425

Lived with Augustus, full of wealth and honours.

To Cicero’s book, where Cato was heaved up

Equal with heav’n, what else did Caesar answer,

Being then dictator, but with a penned oration,

As if before the judges? Do but see 430

Antonius’ letters; read but Brutus’ pleadings,

What vile reproach they hold against Augustus —

False, I confess, but with much bitterness.

The epigrams of Bibaculus and Catullus

Are read, full stuffed with spite of both the Caesars; 435

Yet deified Julius, and no less Augustus,

Both bore them and contemned them — I not know

Promptly to speak it, whether done with more

Temper or wisdom; for such obloquies,

If they despisèd be, they die suppressed, 440

But if with rage acknowledged, they are confessed.

The Greeks I slip, whose licence not alone,

But also lust did scape unpunishèd;

Or where some one, by chance, exception took,

He words with words revenged. But in my work, 445

What could be aimed more free, or farther off

From the time’s scandal, than to write of those

Whom death from grace or hatred had exempted?

Did I, with Brutus and with Cassius,

Armed, and possessed of the Philippi fields, 450

Incense the people in the civil cause

With dangerous speeches? Or do they, being slain

Seventy years since, as by their images —

Which not the conqueror hath defaced — appears,

Retain that guilty memory with writers? 455

Posterity pays every man his honour.

Nor shall there want, though I condemnèd am,

That will not only Cassius well approve,

And of great Brutus’ honour mindful be,

But that will, also, mention make of me. 460

ARRUNTIUS

Freely and nobly spoken.

SABINUS

With good temper.

I like him, that he is not moved with passion.

[Tiberius and his followers confer privately. The Germanicans talk quietly among themselves.]

ARRUNTIUS

He puts ’em to their whisper.

TIBERIUS

[Speaking Aloud] Take him hence,²³

We shall determine of him at next sitting.

[Exeunt Lictor with Cordus.]

COTTA

Meantime, give order that his books be burnt, 465

To th’aediles.

SEJANUS

You have well advised.

AFER

It fits not such licentious things should live

T’upbraid the age.

ARRUNTIUS

If th’age were good, they might.

LATIARIS

Let ’em be burnt.

GALLUS

All sought, and burnt, today.

FIRST PRAECO

The court is up. Lictors, resume the fasces.470[Exeunt.]

Arruntius, Sabinus, [and] Lepidus [remain].

ARRUNTIUS

Let ’em be burnt! Oh, how ridiculous

Appears the Senate’s brainless diligence,

Who think they can, with present power, extinguish

The memory of all succeeding times!

SABINUS

’Tis true, when, contrary, the punishment 475

Of wit doth make th’authority increase.

Nor do they aught, that use this cruelty

Of interdiction, and this rage of burning,

But purchase to themselves rebuke and shame,

And to the writers an eternal name.²⁴ 480

LEPIDUS

It is an argument the times are sore

When virtue cannot safely be advanced,

Nor vice reproved.

ARRUNTIUS

Ay, noble Lepidus.

Augustus well foresaw what we should suffer

Under Tiberius, when he did pronounce 485

The Roman race most wretched that should live

Between so slow jaws, and so long a-bruising.²⁵ [Exeunt.]

[Enter] TIBERIUS [and] SEJANUS.

TIBERIUS

This business hath succeeded well, Sejanus —

And quite removed all jealousy of practice

’Gainst Agrippina and our nephews. Now 490

We must bethink us how to plant our engines

For th’other pair, Sabinus and Arruntius;

And Gallus too ²⁶ — howe’er he flatter us,

His heart we know.

SEJANUS

Give it some respite, Caesar.

Time shall mature, and bring to perfect crown, 495

What we with so good vultures have begun.

Sabinus shall be next.

TIBERIUS

Rather Arruntius.

SEJANUS

By any means preserve him. His frank tongue,

Being lent the reins, will take away all thought

Of malice in your course against the rest. 500

We must keep him to stalk with.

TIBERIUS

Dearest head,

To thy most fortunate design I yield it.

SEJANUS

Sir — I’ve been so long trained up in grace,²⁷

First with your father, great Augustus, since

With your most happy bounties so familiar, 505

As I not sooner would commit my hopes

Or wishes to the gods than to your ears.

Nor have I ever yet been covetous

Of overbright and dazzling honours; rather

To watch and travail in great Caesar’s safety, 510

With the most common soldier.

TIBERIUS

’Tis confessed.

SEJANUS

The only gain, and which I count most fair

Of all my fortunes, is that mighty Caesar

Hath thought me worthy his alliance.²⁸ Hence

Begin my hopes.

TIBERIUS

H’mh?

SEJANUS

I have heard Augustus, 515

In the bestowing of his daughter, thought

But even of gentlemen of Rome. If so —

I know not how to hope so great a favour —

But if a husband should be sought for Livia,

And I be had in mind, as Caesar’s friend, 520

I would but use the glory of the kindred.

It should not make me slothful, or less caring

For Caesar’s state; it were enough to me

It did confirm and strengthen my weak house

Against the now unequal opposition 525

Of Agrippina; and for dear regard

Unto my children, this I wish. Myself

Have no ambition farther than to end

My days in service of so dear a master.

TIBERIUS

We cannot but commend thy piety, 530

Most loved Sejanus, in acknowledging

Those ‘bounties’, which we, faintly, such remember.

But to thy suit. The rest of mortal men,

In all their drifts and counsels, pursue profit;

Princes, alone, are of a different sort, 535

Directing their main actions still to fame.

We therefore will take time to think, and answer.

For Livia, she can best, herself, resolve

If she will marry after Drusus, or

Continue in the family; besides, 540

She hath a mother, and a grandam yet,

Whose nearer counsels she may guide her by —

But I will simply deal. That enmity

Thou fear’st in Agrippina would burn more

If Livia’s marriage should, as ’twere in parts 545

Divide th’imperial house. An emulation

Between the women might break forth, and discord

Ruin the sons and nephews on both hands.

What if it cause some present difference?

Thou art not safe, Sejanus, if thou prove it. 550

Canst thou believe that Livia, first the wife

To Caius Caesar,²⁹ then my Drusus, now

Will be contented to grow old with thee,

Born but a private gentleman of Rome,

And raise thee with her loss, if not her shame? 555

Or say that I should wish it, canst thou think

The Senate, or the people, who have seen

Her brother, father, and our ancestors

In highest place of empire, will endure it?

The state thou holdst already is in talk; 560

Men murmur at thy greatness; and the nobles

Stick not, in public, to upbraid thy climbing

Above our father’s favours, or thy scale —

And dare accuse me, from their hate to thee.

Be wise, dear friend. We would not hide these things 565

For friendship’s dear respect. Nor will we stand

Adverse to thine or Livia’s designments.

What we had purposed to thee, in our thought,

And with what near degrees of love to bind thee

And make thee equal to us, for the present 570

We will forbear to speak. Only thus much

Believe, our loved Sejanus: we not know

That height in blood, or honour, which thy virtue,

And mind to us, may not aspire with merit.

And this we’ll publish, on all watched occasion 575

The Senate or the people shall present.

SEJANUS

I am restored, and to my sense again,

Which I had lost in this so blinding suit.

Caesar hath taught me better to refuse

Than I knew how to ask. How pleaseth Caesar 580

T’embrace my late advice for leaving Rome?³⁰

TIBERIUS

We are resolved.

SEJANUS

[Giving him a paper] Here are some motives more,

Which I have thought on since, may more confirm.

TIBERIUS

Careful Sejanus! We will straight peruse them.

Go forward in our main design, and prosper. 585[Exit.]

SEJANUS

If those but take, I shall. Dull, heavy Caesar!

Wouldst thou tell me thy favours were made crimes?

And that my fortunes were esteemed thy faults?

That thou, for me, wert hated? And not think

I would with wingèd haste prevent that change, 590

When thou mightst win all to thyself again

By forfeiture of me? Did those fond words

Fly swifter from thy lips than this my brain,

This sparkling forge, created me an armour

T’encounter chance, and thee? Well, read my charms, 595

And may they lay that hold upon thy senses

As thou hadst snuffed up hemlock, or ta’en down

The juice of poppy and of mandrakes. Sleep,

Voluptuous Caesar, and security

Seize on thy stupid powers, and leave them dead 600

To public cares, awake but to thy lusts —

The strength of which makes thy libidinous soul

Itch to leave Rome; and I have thrust it on,

With blaming of the city business,

The multitude of suits, the confluence 605

Of suitors, then their importunacies,

The manifold distractions he must suffer,

Besides ill rumours, envies, and reproaches —

All which, a quiet and retired life,

Larded with ease and pleasure, did avoid; 610

And yet, for any weighty and great affair,

The fittest place to give the soundest counsels.

By this shall I remove him both from thought

And knowledge of his own most dear affairs,

Draw all dispatches through my private hands, 615

Know his designments, and pursue mine own,

Make mine own strengths, by giving suits and places,

Conferring dignities and offices;

And these that hate me now, wanting access

To him, will make their envy none, or less.³¹ 620

For when they see me arbiter of all,

They must observe — or else, with Caesar, fall. [Exit.]

[Enter] TIBERIUS.

TIBERIUS

To marry Livia? Will no less, Sejanus,

Content thy aims? No lower object? Well!

Thou know’st how thou art wrought into our trust, 625

Woven in our design; and think’st we must

Now use thee, whatsoe’er thy projects are.

’Tis true. But yet with caution, and fit care.

And, now we better think — [Calling] Who’s there, within?

[Enter SERVUS.]

SERVUS

Caesar?

TIBERIUS

[Aside] To leave our journey off were sin 630

’Gainst our decreed delights; and would appear

Doubt — or, what less becomes a prince, low fear.

Yet, doubt hath law, and fears have their excuse,

Where princes’ states plead necessary use,

As ours doth now — more in Sejanus’ pride 635

Than all fell Agrippina’s hates beside.

Those are the dreadful enemies we raise

With favours, and make dangerous with praise.

The injured by us may have will alike,

But ’tis the favourite hath the power to strike; 640

And fury ever boils more high and strong,

Heat’ with ambition, than revenge of wrong.

’Tis then a part of supreme skill to grace

No man too much, but hold a certain space

Between th’ascender’s rise and thine own flat, 645

Lest, when all rounds be reached, his aim be that.

’Tis thought — [To Servus] Is Macro ³² in the palace? See.

If not, go seek him, to come to us. [Exit Servus.]

– He

Must be the organ we must work by now,

Though none less apt for trust. Need doth allow 650

What choice would not. I’ve heard that aconite,

Being timely taken, hath a healing might

Against the scorpion’s stroke. The proof we’ll give —

That, while two poisons wrestle, we may live.

He hath a spirit too working to be used 655

But to th’encounter of his like. Excused

Are wiser sovereigns then, that raise one ill

Against another, and both safely kill.

The prince that feeds great natures, they will sway him;

Who nourisheth a lion must obey him. 660

[Enter] MACRO [and SERVUS].

TIBERIUS

Macro, we sent for you.

MACRO

I heard so, Caesar.

TIBERIUS

[To Servus] Leave us awhile. [Exit Servus.]

When you shall know, good Macro,

The causes of our sending, and the ends,

You then will hearken nearer — and be pleased

You stand so high, both in our choice and trust. 665

MACRO

The humblest place in Caesar’s choice or trust

May make glad Macro proud, without ambition —

Save to do Caesar service.

TIBERIUS

Leave our courtings.

We are in purpose, Macro, to depart

The city for a time, and see Campania —³³ 670

Not for our pleasures, but to dedicate

A pair of temples, one to Jupiter

At Capua, th’other at Nola, to Augustus; ³⁴

In which great work, perhaps, our stay will be

Beyond our will produced. Now, since we are 675

Not ignorant what danger may be born

Out of our shortest absence in a state

So subject unto envy, and embroiled

With hate and faction, we have thought on thee,

Amongst a field of Romans, worthiest Macro, 680

To be our eye and ear; to keep strict watch

On Agrippina, Nero, Drusus — ay,

And on Sejanus. Not that we distrust

His loyalty, or do repent one grace

Of all that heap we have conferred on him — 685

For that were to disparage our election,

And call that judgement now in doubt which then

Seemed as unquestioned as an oracle —

But greatness hath his cankers. Worms and moths

Breed out of too fit matter in the things 690

Which after they consume, transferring quite

The substance of their makers int’ themselves.

Macro is sharp, and apprehends. Besides,

I know him subtle, close, wise, and well-read

In man and his large nature. He hath studied 695

Affections, passions, knows their springs, their ends,

Which way, and whether they will work. ’Tis proof

Enough of his great merit that we trust him.

Then to a point — because our conference

Cannot be long without suspicion: 700

Here, Macro, we assign thee, both to spy,

Inform, and chastise. Think, and use thy means,

Thy ministers, what, where, on whom thou wilt.

Explore, plot, practise:³⁵ all thou dost in this

Shall be as if the Senate or the laws 705

Had giv’n it privilege, and thou thence styled

The saviour both of Caesar and of Rome.

We will not take thy answer but in act —

Whereto, as thou proceed’st, we hope to hear

By trusted messengers. If ’t be inquired 710

Wherefore we called you, say you have in charge

To see our chariots ready, and our horse.

Be still our loved and (shortly) honoured Macro. [Exit.]

MACRO

I will not ask why Caesar bids do this, ³⁶

But joy that he bids me. It is the bliss 715

Of courts to be employed, no matter how;

A prince’s power makes all his actions virtue.

We, whom he works by, are dumb instruments,

To do, but not inquire; his great intents

Are to be served, not searched. Yet, as that bow 720

Is most in hand whose owner best doth know

T’effect his aims, so let that statesman hope

Most use, most price, can hit his prince’s scope.

Nor must he look at what or whom to strike,

But loose at all; each mark must be alike. 725

Were it to plot against the fame, the life

Of one with whom I twinned; remove a wife

From my warm side, as loved as is the air;

Practise away each parent; draw mine heir

In compass, though but one; work all my kin 730

To swift perdition; leave no untrained engine,

For friendship or for innocence; nay, make

The gods all guilty: I would undertake

This, being imposed me, both with gain and ease.

The way to rise is to obey and please. 735

He that will thrive in state, he must neglect

The trodden paths that truth and right respect,

And prove new, wilder ways; for virtue, there,

Is not that narrow thing she is elsewhere.

Men’s fortune there is virtue; reason, their will; 740

Their licence, law; and their observance, skill.

Occasion is their foil; conscience, their stain;

Profit, their lustre; and what else is, vain.

If then it be the lust of Caesar’s power

T’have raised Sejanus up, and in an hour 745

O’erturn him, tumbling down from height of all,³⁷

We are his ready engine; and his fall

May be our rise. It is no uncouth thing

To see fresh buildings from old ruins spring. [Exit.]

Musicorum Chorus

Actus Quartus

[Enter] GALLUS and AGRIPPINA.

GALLUS

You must have patience, royal Agrippina. ¹

AGRIPPINA

I must have vengeance first — and that were nectar

Unto my famished spirits. O my Fortune,

Let it be sudden thou prepar’st against me!

Strike all my powers of understanding blind, 5

And ignorant of destiny to come!

Let me not fear, that cannot hope.

GALLUS

Dear princess,

These tyrannies on yourself are worse than Caesar’s.

AGRIPPINA

Is this the happiness of being born great?

Still to be aimed at? Still to be suspected? 10

To live the subject of all jealousies?

At least the colour made, if not the ground

To every painted danger? Who would not

Choose once to fall, than thus to hang forever?

GALLUS

You might be safe, if you would —

AGRIPPINA

What, my Gallus? 15

Be lewd Sejanus’ strumpet? Or the bawd

To Caesar’s lusts he now is gone to practise?

Not these are safe, where nothing is. Yourself,

While thus you stand but by me, are not safe.

Was Silius safe? Or the good Sosia safe? 20

Or was my niece, dear Claudia Pulchra, safe?²

Or innocent Furnius? They that latest have,

By being made guilty, added reputation

To Afer’s eloquence?³ O foolish friends,

Could not so fresh example warn your loves, 25

But you must buy my favours with that loss

Unto yourselves — and when you might perceive

That Caesar’s cause of raging must forsake him

Before his will? Away, good Gallus, leave me.

Here to be seen is danger; to speak, treason; 30

To do me least observance is called faction.

You are unhappy in me, and I in all.

Where are my sons, Nero and Drusus? We

Are they be shot at. Let us fall apart,

Not, in our ruins, sepulchre our friends. 35

Or shall we do some action, like offence,

To mock their studies that would make us faulty?

And frustrate practice by preventing it?

The danger’s like, for what they can contrive,

They will make good. No innocence is safe 40

When power contests. Nor can they trespass more,

Whose only being was all crime before.

[Enter NERO, DRUSUS JUNIOR, and CALIGULA.]

NERO

You hear Sejanus is come back from Caesar?

GALLUS

No. How? Disgraced?

DRUSUS JUNIOR

More gracèd now than ever.

GALLUS

By what mischance?

CALIGULA

A fortune, like enough 45

Once to be bad.

DRUSUS JUNIOR

But turned too good, to both.

GALLUS

What was’t?

NERO

Tiberius sitting at his meat,⁴

In a farmhouse they call Spelunca,⁵ sited

By the seaside, among the Fundane Hills,

Within a natural cave, part of the grot 50

About the entry fell and overwhelmed

Some of the waiters; others ran away.

Only Sejanus, with his knees, hands, face,

O’erhanging Caesar, did oppose himself

To the remaining ruins, and was found 55

In that so labouring posture by the soldiers

That came to succour him. With which adventure

He hath so fixed himself in Caesar’s trust

As thunder cannot move him, and is come,

With all the height of Caesar’s praise, to Rome.⁶ 60

AGRIPPINA

And power to turn those ruins all on us,

And bury whole posterities beneath them.

Nero, and Drusus, and Caligula,

Your places are the next, and therefore most

In their offence. Think on your birth and blood, 65

Awake your spirits, meet their violence;

’Tis princely when a tyrant doth oppose,

And is a fortune sent to exercise

Your virtue, as the wind doth try strong trees,

Who by vexation grow more sound and firm. 70

After your father’s fall, and uncle’s fate,

What can you hope but all the change of stroke

That force or sleight can give? Then stand upright;

And though you do not act, yet suffer nobly.

Be worthy of my womb, and take strong cheer. 75

What we do know will come, we should not fear.[Exeunt.]

[Enter] MACRO.

MACRO

Returned so soon? Renewed in trust and grace?

Is Caesar then so weak? Or hath the place

But wrought this alteration with the air,

And he, on next remove, will all repair? 80

Macro, thou art engaged; and what before

Was public, now must be thy private, more.

The weal of Caesar fitness did imply,

But thine own fate confers necessity

On thy employment; and the thoughts borne nearest 85

Unto ourselves move swiftest still, and dearest.

If he recover, thou art lost: yea, all

The weight of preparation to his fall

Will turn on thee and crush thee. Therefore, strike

Before he settle, to prevent the like 90

Upon thyself. He doth his vantage know

That makes it home, and gives the foremost blow. [Exit.]

[Enter] LATIARIS, RUFUS, [and] OPSIUS.

LATIARIS

It is a service great Sejanus will

See well requited and accept of nobly.⁷

Here place yourselves, between the roof and ceiling, 95

And when I bring him to his words of danger,

Reveal yourselves and take him.

RUFUS

Is he come?

LATIARIS

I’ll now go fetch him. [Exit.]

OPSIUS

With good speed. I long

To merit from the state in such an action.

RUFUS

I hope it will obtain the consulship 100

For one of us.

OPSIUS

We cannot think of less,

To bring in one so dangerous as Sabinus.

RUFUS

He was a follower of Germanicus,

And still is an observer of his wife

And children, though they be declined in grace ⁸ — 105

A daily visitant, keeps them company

In private, and in public; and is noted

To be the only client of the house.

Pray Jove he will be free to Latiaris!

OPSIUS

He’s allied to him and doth trust him well. 110

RUFUS

And he’ll requite his trust?

OPSIUS

To do an office

So grateful to the state, I know no man

But would strain nearer bands than kindred —

RUFUS

List,

I hear them come.

OPSIUS

Shift to our holes with silence.⁹

[They hide above]

[Enter] LATIARIS [and] SABINUS [on main stage.]

LATIARIS

It is a noble constancy you show 115

To this afflicted house, that not like others

(The friends of season) you do follow Fortune,

And in the winter of their fate forsake

The place whose glories warmed you. You are just,

And worthy such a princely patron’s love 120

As was the world’s renowned Germanicus;

Whose ample merit when I call to thought,

And see his wife and issue objects made

To so much envy, jealousy, and hate,

It makes me ready to accuse the gods 125

Of negligence, as men of tyranny.

SABINUS

They must be patient; so must we.

LATIARIS

O Jove!

What will become of us, or of the times,

When to be high, or noble, are made crimes?

When land and treasure are most dangerous faults? 130

SABINUS

Nay, when our table, yea our bed, assaults

Our peace and safety?¹⁰ When our writings are,

By any envious instruments that dare

Apply them to the guilty, made to speak

What they will have, to fit their tyrannous wreak? 135

When ignorance is scarcely innocence,

And knowledge made a capital offence?

When not so much but the bare empty shade

Of liberty is reft us? And we made

The prey to greedy vultures and vile spies 140

That first transfix us with their murdering eyes?

LATIARIS

Methinks the genius of the Roman race

Should not be so extinct but that bright flame

Of liberty might be revived again,

Which no good man but with his life should lose, 145

And we not sit like spent and patient fools,

Still puffing in the dark at one poor coal,

Held on by hope, till the last spark is out.

The cause is public, and the honour, name,

The immortality of every soul 150

That is not bastard or a slave in Rome

Therein concerned. Whereto, if men would change

The wearied arm, and, for the weighty shield

So long sustained, employ the ready sword,

We might have some assurance of our vows. 155

This ass’s fortitude doth tire us all.

It must be active valour must redeem

Our loss, or none. The rock and our hard steel

Should meet, t’enforce those glorious fires again

Whose splendour cheered the world, and heat gave life 160

No less than doth the sun’s.

SABINUS

’Twere better stay

In lasting darkness, and despair of day.

No ill should force the subject undertake

Against the sovereign, more than hell should make

The gods do wrong. A good man should and must 165

Sit rather down with loss than rise unjust —

Though when the Romans first did yield themselves

To one man’s power, they did not mean their lives,

Their fortunes, and their liberties should be

His absolute spoil, as purchased by the sword. 170

LATIARIS

Why, we are worse, if to be slaves and bond

To Caesar’s slave be such — the proud Sejanus!

He that is all, does all, gives Caesar leave

To hide his ulcerous and anointed face,¹¹

With his bald crown, at Rhodes,¹² while he here stalks 175

Upon the heads of Romans and their princes,

Familiarly to empire.

SABINUS

Now you touch

A point, indeed, wherein he shows his art

As well as power.

LATIARIS

And villainy in both.

Do you observe where Livia lodges? How 180

Drusus came dead? What men have been cut off?

SABINUS

Yes, those are things removed. I nearer looked

Into his later practice, where he stands

Declared a master in his mystery.

First, ere Tiberius went, he wrought his fear 185

To think that Agrippina sought his death;

Then put those doubts in her; sent her oft word,

Under the show of friendship, to beware

Of Caesar, for he laid to poison her;¹³

Drave them to frowns, to mutual jealousies, 190

Which now in visible hatred are burst out.

Since, he hath had his hired instruments

To work on Nero, and to heave him up;¹⁴

To tell him Caesar’s old; that all the people,

Yea, all the army have their eyes on him; 195

That both do long to have him undertake

Something of worth, to give the world a hope;

Bids him to court their grace. The easy youth

Perhaps gives ear, which straight he writes to Caesar,

And with this comment: ‘See yond dangerous boy; 200

Note but the practice of the mother, there;

She’s tying him, for purposes at hand,

With men of sword.’ Here’s Caesar put in fright

’Gainst son and mother. Yet he leaves not thus.

The second brother, Drusus — a fierce nature, 205

And fitter for his snares, because ambitious

And full of envy — him he clasps and hugs,¹⁵

Poisons with praise, tells him what hearts he wears,

How bright he stands in popular expectance;

That Rome doth suffer with him in the wrong 210

His mother does him by preferring Nero.

Thus sets he them asunder, each ’gainst other,

Projects the course that serves him to condemn,

Keeps in opinion of a friend to all,

And all drives on to ruin.

LATIARIS

Caesar sleeps, 215

And nods at this?

SABINUS

Would he might ever sleep,

Bogged in his filthy lusts!

[OPSIUS and RUFUS reveal themselves on the main stage.]

OPSIUS

Treason to Caesar!

RUFUS

Lay hands upon the traitor, Latiaris,

Or take the name thyself.

LATIARIS

I am for Caesar.

[Sabinus is apprehended.]

SABINUS

Am I then catched?

RUFUS

How think you, sir? You are. 220

SABINUS

Spies of this head! So white! So full of years!

Well, my most reverend monsters, you may live

To see yourselves thus snared.

OPSIUS

Away with him!

LATIARIS

Hale him away.

RUFUS

To be a spy for traitors

Is honourable vigilance.

SABINUS

You do well,¹⁶ 225

My most officious instruments of state,

Men of all uses. Drag me hence, away.

The year is well begun, and I fall fit

To be an off’ ring to Sejanus. Go.

OPSIUS

Cover him with his garments, hide his face. 230

SABINUS

It shall not need. Forbear your rude assault;

The fault’s not shameful villainy makes a fault. [Exeunt.]

[Enter] MACRO [and] CALIGULA.

MACRO

Sir, but observe how thick your dangers meet

In his clear drifts! Your mother and your brothers

Now cited to the Senate!¹⁷ Their friend Gallus, 235

Feasted today by Caesar, since committed!¹⁸

Sabinus here we met, hurried to fetters!

The senators all struck with fear and silence,

Save those whose hopes depend not on good means,

But force their private prey from public spoil! 240

And you must know, if here you stay, your state

Is sure to be the subject of his hate,

As now the object.

CALIGULA

What would you advise me?

MACRO

To go for Capreae presently; and there

Give up yourself, entirely, to your uncle. 245

Tell Caesar, since your mother is accused

To fly for succours to Augustus’ statue,

And to the army,¹⁹ with your brethren, you

Have rather chose to place your aids in him

Than live suspected, or in hourly fear 250

To be thrust out by bold Sejanus’ plots —

Which you shall confidently urge to be

Most full of peril to the state and Caesar,

As being laid to his peculiar ends,

And not to be let run with common safety. 255

All which, upon the second, I’ll make plain,

So both shall love and trust with Caesar gain.

CALIGULA

Away then! Let’s prepare us for our journey. [Exeunt.]

[Enter] ARRUNTIUS.

ARRUNTIUS

Still dost thou suffer, heav’n? Will no flame,

No heat of sin make thy just wrath to boil 260

In thy distempered bosom, and o’erflow

The pitchy blazes of impiety

Kindled beneath thy throne? Still canst thou sleep,

Patient, while vice doth make an antic face

At thy dread power, and blow dust and smoke 265

Into thy nostrils? Jove, will nothing wake thee?

Must vile Sejanus pull thee by the beard

Ere thou wilt open thy black-lidded eye,

And look him dead? Well, snore on, dreaming gods,

And let this last of that proud giant race 270

Heave mountain upon mountain ’gainst your state.

Be good unto me, Fortune, and you powers

Whom I, expostulating, have profaned.

I see (what’s equal with a prodigy)

A great, a noble Roman, and an honest, 275

Live an old man!

[Enter LEPIDUS.]

O Marcus Lepidus,²⁰

When is our turn to bleed? Thyself and I,

Without our boast, are almost all the few

Left to be honest in these impious times.

LEPIDUS

What we are left to be, we will be, Lucius, 280

Though tyranny did stare as wide as death

To fright us from it.

ARRUNTIUS

’T hath so, on Sabinus!

LEPIDUS

I saw him now drawn from the Gemonies,

And, what increased the direness of the fact,

His faithful dog,²¹ upbraiding all us Romans, 285

Never forsook the corpse, but, seeing it thrown

Into the stream, leaped in, and drowned with it.

ARRUNTIUS

Oh, act to be envied him of us men!

We are the next the hook lays hold on, Marcus.

What are thy arts — good patriot, teach them me — 290

That have preserved thy hairs to this white dye,

And kept so reverend and so dear a head

Safe on his comely shoulders?

LEPIDUS

Arts, Arruntius?

None but the plain and passive fortitude ²²

To suffer and be silent; never stretch 295

These arms against the torrent; live at home,

With my own thoughts, and innocence about me,

Not tempting the wolf’s jaws: these are my arts.

ARRUNTIUS

I would begin to study ’em, if I thought

They would secure me. May I pray to Jove 300

In secret, and be safe? Ay, or aloud?

With open wishes? So I do not mention

Tiberius, or Sejanus? Yes, I must,

If I speak out. ’Tis hard, that. May I think,

And not be racked? What danger is’t to dream? 305

Talk in one’s sleep? Or cough? Who knows the law?

May I shake my head, without a comment? Say

It rains, or it holds up, and not be thrown

Upon the Gemonies?²³ These now are things

Whereon men’s fortune, yea, their fate depends. 310

Nothing hath privilege ’gainst the violent ear.

No place, no day, no hour, we see, is free —

Not our religious and most sacred times —

From some one kind of cruelty. All matter,

Nay, all occasion pleaseth. Madmen’s rage, 315

The idleness of drunkards, women’s nothing,

Jesters’ simplicity — all, all is good

That can be catched at. Nor is now th’event

Of any person, or for any crime,

To be expected; for ’tis always one: 320

Death, with some little difference of place,

Or time — What’s this? Prince Nero? Guarded?

[Enter] LACO ²⁴ [and] NERO [with LICTORS].

LACO

On, lictors, keep your way. — My lords, forbear.

On pain of Caesar’s wrath, no man attempt

Speech with the prisoner.

NERO

[To Lepidus and Arruntius] Noble friends, be safe. 325

To lose yourselves for words were as vain hazard

As unto me small comfort. Fare you well.

Would all Rome’s sufferings in my fate did dwell!

LACO

Lictors, away!

LEPIDUS

Where goes he, Laco?

LACO

Sir,

He’s banished into Pontia, by the Senate.²⁵ 330

ARRUNTIUS

Do I see, and hear, and feel? May I trust sense?

Or doth my fant’sy form it?

LEPIDUS

[To Laco] Where’s his brother?

LACO

Drusus is prisoner in the palace.²⁶

ARRUNTIUS

Ha?

I smell it now; ’tis rank. Where’s Agrippina?

LACO

The princess is confined, to Pandataria.²⁷ 335

ARRUNTIUS

Bolts, Vulcan — bolts for Jove! Phoebus, thy bow;

Stern Mars, thy sword; and blue-eyed maid, thy spear;

Thy club, Alcides. All the armoury

Of heaven is too little! — Ha? To guard

The gods, I meant. Fine, rare dispatch! This same 340

Was swiftly borne! Confined? Imprisoned? Banished?

Most tripartite! [To Laco] The cause, sir?

LACO

Treason.

ARRUNTIUS

Oh?

The complement of all accusings?²⁸ That

Will hit, when all else fails.

LEPIDUS

This turn is strange!

But yesterday, the people would not hear 345

Far less objected, but cried, Caesar’s letters ²⁹

Were false and forged; that all these plots were malice;

And that the ruin of the prince’s house

Was practised ’gainst his knowledge. Where are now

Their voices? Now that they behold his heirs 350

Locked up, disgraced, led into exile?

ARRUNTIUS

Hushed.

Drowned in their bellies. Wild Sejanus’ breath

Hath, like a whirlwind, scattered that poor dust

With this rude blast.

He turns to Laco and the rest.

We’ll talk no treason, sir,

If that be it you stand for. Fare you well. 355

We have no need of horse-leeches. Good spy,

Now you are spied, begone.

[Exeunt Laco, Nero, and Lictors.]

LEPIDUS

I fear you wrong him.

He has the voice to be an honest Roman.

ARRUNTIUS

And trusted to this office? Lepidus,

I’d sooner trust Greek Sinon than a man 360

Our state employs. He’s gone; and being gone,

I dare tell you — whom I dare better trust —

That our night-eyed ³⁰ Tiberius doth not see

His minion’s drifts; or if he do, he’s not

So errant subtle as we fools do take him, 365

To breed a mongrel up in his own house

With his own blood, and, if the good gods please,

At his own throat flesh him to take a leap.

I do not beg it, heav’n; but if the fates

Grant it these eyes, they must not wink.

LEPIDUS

They must 370

Not see it, Lucius.

ARRUNTIUS

Who should let ’em?

LEPIDUS

Zeal,

And duty; with the thought he is our prince.

ARRUNTIUS

He is our monster: forfeited to vice

So far, as no racked virtue can redeem him;

His loathèd person fouler than all crimes,³¹ 375

An emp’ror only in his lusts; retired

From all regard of his own fame, or Rome’s,

Into an obscure island,³² where he lives,

Acting his tragedies with a comic face,

Amidst his rout of Chaldees; spending hours,³³ 380

Days, weeks, and months in the unkind abuse

Of grave astrology, to the bane of men,

Casting the scope of men’s nativities,

And, having found aught worthy in their fortune,

Kill, or precipitate them in the sea, 385

And boast he can mock fate! Nay, muse not; these

Are far from ends of evil, scarce degrees.

He hath his slaughterhouse at Capreae,

Where he doth study murder as an art;

And they are dearest in his grace that can 390

Devise the deepest tortures. Thither, too,

He hath his boys and beauteous girls ta’en up

Out of our noblest houses, the best formed,

Best nurtured, and most modest. What’s their good

Serves to provoke his bad. Some are allured,³⁴ 395

Some threatened; others, by their friends detained,

Are ravished hence like captives, and, in sight

Of their most grievèd parents, dealt away

Unto his spintries, sellaries, and slaves,

Masters of strange and new-commented lusts, 400

For which wise nature hath not left a name.

To this — what most strikes us, and bleeding Rome —

He is, with all his craft, become the ward ³⁵

To his own vassal, a stale catamite,

Whom he, upon our low and suffering necks, 405

Hath raised from excrement to side the gods,

And have his proper sacrifice in Rome,

Which Jove beholds, and yet will sooner rive

A senseless oak with thunder than his trunk.

[Enter to them] LACO, POMPONIUS, [and] MINUTIUS.³⁶ [They converse among themselves, observed at some distance by Arruntius and Lepidus, who comment privately on them.]

LACO

These letters ³⁷ make men doubtful what t’expect, 410

Whether his coming, or his death.

POMPONIUS

Troth, both —

And which comes soonest, thank the gods for.

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside to Lepidus] List,

Their talk is Caesar. I would hear all voices.

MINUTIUS

One day, he’s well, and will return to Rome;

The next day, sick, and knows not when to hope it.³⁸ 415

LACO

True, and today, one of Sejanus’ friends

Honoured by special writ; and on the morrow

Another punished —

POMPONIUS

By more special writ.

MINUTIUS

This man receives his praises of Sejanus;³⁹

A second, but slight mention; a third, none; 420

A fourth, rebukes. And thus he leaves the Senate

Divided and suspended, all uncertain.

LACO

These forkèd tricks, I understand ’em not.

Would he would tell us whom he loves or hates,

That we might follow, without fear or doubt! 425

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside] Good heliotrope! Is this your honest man?

Let him be yours so still. He is my knave.

POMPONIUS

I cannot tell; Sejanus still goes on,

And mounts, we see. New statues are advanced,⁴⁰

Fresh leaves of titles, large inscriptions read, 430

His fortune sworn by,⁴¹ himself new gone out

Caesar’s colleague in the fifth consulship.⁴²

More altars smoke to him than all the gods.

What would we more?

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside] That the dear smoke would choke him,

That would I more.

LEPIDUS

[Aside to him] Peace, good Arruntius. 435

LACO

But there are letters come, they say, ev’n now,

Which do forbid that last.⁴³

MINUTIUS

Do you hear so?

LACO

Yes.

POMPONIUS

By Pollux, that’s the worst.

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside] By Hercules, best!

MINUTIUS

I did not like the sign, when Regulus,⁴⁴

Whom all we know no friend unto Sejanus, 440

Did, by Tiberius’ so precise command,

Succeed a fellow in the consulship.

It boded somewhat.

POMPONIUS

Not a mote. His partner,

Fulcinius Trio, is his own, and sure.⁴⁵

Here comes Terentius.

[Enter TERENTIUS.]

He can give us more. 445

They whisper with Terentius. [Lepidus and Arruntius, still standing apart, converse audibly.]

LEPIDUS

I’ll ne’er believe but Caesar hath some scent

Of bold Sejanus’ footing. These cross-points ⁴⁶

Of varying letters and opposing consuls,

Mingling his honours and his punishments,

Feigning now ill, now well, raising Sejanus ⁴⁷ 450

And then depressing him, as now of late

In all reports we have it, cannot be

Empty of practice. ’Tis Tiberius’ art.

For, having found his favourite grown too great,

And, with his greatness, strong, that all the soldiers ⁴⁸ 455

Are, with their leaders, made at his devotion,

That almost all the Senate are his creatures

Or hold on him their main dependences,

Either for benefit, or hope, or fear,

And that himself hath lost much of his own 460

By parting unto him, and by th’increase

Of his rank lusts and rages quite disarmed

Himself of love or other public means

To dare an open contestation,

His subtlety hath chose this doubling line, 465

To hold him even in — not so to fear him

As wholly put him out, and yet give check

Unto his farther boldness.⁴⁹ In meantime,

By his employments, makes him odious

Unto the staggering rout, whose aid (in fine) 470

He hopes to use, as sure, who, when they sway,

Bear down, o’erturn all objects in their way.

ARRUNTIUS

You may be a Lynceus, Lepidus, yet I

See no such cause but that a politic tyrant,

Who can so well disguise it, should have ta’en 475

A nearer way: feigned honest, and come home

To cut his throat, by law.

LEPIDUS

Ay, but his fear

Would ne’er be masked, albe his vices were.

[The clients of Sejanus, who have been whispering among themselves, now speak aloud, while Lepidus and Arruntius speak privately to each other.]

POMPONIUS

His Lordship then is still in grace?

TERENTIUS

Assure you,

Never in more, either of grace or power. 480

POMPONIUS

The gods are wise and just.

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside] The fiends they are,

To suffer thee belie ’em!

TERENTIUS

[Showing letters] I have here

His last and present letters, where he writes him

The ‘partner of his cares’ and ‘his Sejanus’ —

LACO

But is that true, it is prohibited 485

To sacrifice unto him?⁵⁰

TERENTIUS

Some such thing

Caesar makes scruple of, but forbids it not,

No more than to himself; says he could wish

It were forborne to all.

LACO

Is it no other?

TERENTIUS

No other, on my trust. For your more surety, 490

Here is that letter too.

[He shows another letter.]

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside] How easily

Do wretched men believe what they would have!

Looks this like plot?

LEPIDUS

[Aside to him] Noble Arruntius, stay.

LACO

[Reading] He names him here without his titles.⁵¹

LEPIDUS

[Aside to Arruntius] Note.

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside to him] Yes, and come off your notable fool. I will. 495

LACO

No other than Sejanus.

POMPONIUS

That’s but haste

In him that writes. Here he gives large amends.

[He shows another letter.]

MINUTIUS

And with his own hand written?

POMPONIUS

Yes.

LACO

Indeed?

TERENTIUS

Believe it, gentlemen, Sejanus’ breast

Never received more full contentments in 500

Than at this present.

POMPONIUS

Takes he well th’escape

Of young Caligula with Macro?⁵²

TERENTIUS

Faith,

At the first air it somewhat troubled him.

LEPIDUS

[Aside to Arruntius] Observe you?

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside to him] Nothing. Riddles. Till I see

Sejanus struck, no sound thereof strikes me. 505

[Exeunt Arruntius and Lepidus.]

POMPONIUS

I like it not. I muse he’d not attempt

Somewhat against him in the consulship,⁵³

Seeing the people ’gin to favour him.

TERENTIUS

He doth repent it now, but he’s employed

Pagonianus after him;⁵⁴ and he holds 510

That correspondence there with all that are

Near about Caesar, as no thought can pass

Without his knowledge thence in act to front him.

POMPONIUS

I gratulate the news.

LACO

But how comes Macro

So in trust and favour with Caligula? 515

POMPONIUS

Oh sir, he has a wife,⁵⁵ and the young prince

An appetite. He can look up, and spy

Flies in the roof when there are fleas i’bed,

And hath a learnèd nose t’assure his sleeps.

Who, to be favoured of the rising sun, 520

Would not lend little of his waning moon?

’Tis the saf ’st ambition. — Noble Terentius!

TERENTIUS

The night grows fast upon us. At your service. [Exeunt.]

Musicorum Chorus

Actus Quintus

[Enter] SEJANUS.

SEJANUS

Swell, swell, my joys, and faint not to declare

Yourselves as ample as your causes are.

I did not live till now, this my first hour,

Wherein I see my thoughts reached by my power.

But this, and gripe my wishes. Great, and high, ¹ 5

The world knows only two, that’s Rome, and I.

My roof receives me not; ’tis air I tread —

And, at each step, I feel my advancèd head

Knock out a star in heav’n! Reared to this height,

All my desires seem modest, poor, and slight, 10

That did before sound impudent. ’Tis place,

Not blood, discerns the noble and the base.

Is there not something more than to be Caesar?

Must we rest there? It irks t’have come so far,

To be so near a stay. Caligula, 15

Would thou stood’st stiff, and many, in our way!

Winds lose their strength when they do empty fly,

Unmet of woods or buildings; great fires die

That want their matter to withstand them. So

It is our grief, and will be our loss, to know 20

Our power shall want opposites, unless

The gods, by mixing in the cause, would bless

Our fortune with their conquest. That were worth

Sejanus’ strife, durst fates but bring it forth.

[Enter] TERENTIUS [and SERVUS].

TERENTIUS

Safety to great Sejanus!

SEJANUS

Now, Terentius? 25

TERENTIUS

Hears not my lord the wonder?

SEJANUS

Speak it, no.

TERENTIUS

I meet it violent in the people’s mouths,

Who run, in routs, to Pompey’s theatre

To view your statue, which, they say, sends forth

A smoke as from a furnace, black and dreadful.² 30

SEJANUS

Some traitor hath put fire in. [To Servus] You, go see.

And let the head be taken off, to look

What ’tis. — [Exit Servus.]

Some slave hath practised an imposture

To stir the people.

[Enter to them] SATRIUS, NATTA, [with SERVUS].

How now? Why return you?

SATRIUS

The head, my lord, already is ta’en off.³ 35

I saw it; and, at op’ning, there leapt out

A great and monstrous serpent!

SEJANUS

Monstrous! Why?

Had it a beard? And horns? No heart? A tongue

Forkèd as flattery? Looked it of the hue

To such as live in great men’s bosoms? Was 40

The spirit of it Macro’s?

NATTA

May it please

The most divine Sejanus, in my days —

And by his sacred Fortune I affirm it —

I have not seen a more extended, grown,

Foul, spotted, venomous, ugly —

SEJANUS

Oh, the fates! 45

What a wild muster’s here of attributes,

T’express a worm, a snake!

TERENTIUS

But how that should

Come there, my lord!

SEJANUS

What! And you too, Terentius?

I think you mean to make’t a prodigy

In your reporting.

TERENTIUS

Can the wise Sejanus 50

Think heav’n hath meant it less?

SEJANUS

Oh, superstition!

Why, then the falling of our bed, that brake

This morning, burdened with the populous weight

Of our expecting clients to salute us,⁴

Or running of the cat betwixt our legs, 55

As we set forth unto the Capitol,⁵

Were prodigies.

TERENTIUS

I think them ominous,

And would they had not happened! As, today,

The fate of some your servants,⁶ who, declining

Their way, not able for the throng to follow, 60

Slipped down the Gemonies and brake their necks.

Besides, in taking your last augury,⁷

No prosperous bird appeared, but croaking ravens

Flagged up and down, and from the sacrifice

Flew to the prison, where they sat, all night, 65

Beating the air with their obstreperous beaks.

I dare not counsel, but I could entreat

That great Sejanus would attempt the gods,

Once more, with sacrifice.

SEJANUS

What excellent fools

Religion makes of men! Believes Terentius, 70

If these were dangers, as I shame to think them,

The gods could change the certain course of fate?

Or, if they could, they would — now, in a moment —

For a beef’s fat, or less, be bribed t’invert

Those long decrees? Then think the gods, like flies, 75

Are to be taken with the steam of flesh

Or blood diffused about their altars; think

Their power as cheap as I esteem it small.

Of all the throng that fill th’Olympian hall,

And, without pity, lade poor Atlas’ back, 80

I know not that one deity but Fortune

To whom I would throw up, in begging smoke,

One grain of incense,⁸ or whose ear I’d buy

With thus much oil. Her I indeed adore,

And keep her grateful image in my house,⁹ 85

Sometimes belonging to a Roman king,

But now called mine, as by the better style.

To her I care not if, for satisfying

Your scrupulous fant’sies, I go offer. Bid

Our priest prepare us honey, milk, and poppy,¹⁰ 90

His masculine odours and night vestments. Say

Our rites are instant, which performed, you’ll see

How vain, and worthy laughter, your fears be. [Exeunt.]

[Enter] COTTA [and] POMPONIUS.

COTTA

Pomponius! Whither in such speed?

POMPONIUS

I go

To give my lord Sejanus notice —

COTTA

What? 95

POMPONIUS

Of Macro.

COTTA

Is he come?

POMPONIUS

Entered but now

The house of Regulus.¹¹

COTTA

The opposite consul?

POMPONIUS

Some half hour since.

COTTA

And by night too! Stay, sir.

I’ll bear you company.

POMPONIUS

Along, then — [Exeunt.]

[Enter] MACRO, REGULUS, [and SERVUS].

MACRO

’Tis Caesar’s will to have a frequent Senate, 100

And therefore must your edict lay deep mulct

On such as shall be absent.¹²

REGULUS

So it doth.

[To Servus] Bear it my fellow consul to adscribe.

MACRO

[To Servus] And tell him it must early be proclaimed;

The place, Apollo’s temple.¹³ [Exit Servus.]

REGULUS

That’s remembered. 105

MACRO

And at what hour.

REGULUS

Yes.

MACRO

You do forget

To send one for the provost of the watch?¹⁴

REGULUS

I have not. Here he comes.

[Enter] LACO.

MACRO

Gracinus Laco,

You’re a friend most welcome. By and by

I’ll speak with you. [To Regulus] You must procure this list 110

Of the praetorian cohorts, with the names

Of the centurions, and their tribunes.

REGULUS

Ay.

MACRO

[To Laco] I bring you letters and a health from Caesar.¹⁵

LACO

Sir, both come well.

MACRO

[To Regulus] And hear you, with your note,

Which are the eminent men, and most of action. 115

REGULUS

That shall be done you, too.

MACRO

Most worthy Laco,

Caesar salutes you.

The Consul [Regulus] goes out.

Consul! Death and furies!

Gone now? [To Laco] The argument will please you, sir.

Ho! Regulus? The anger of the gods

Follow his diligent legs, and overtake ’em, 120

In likeness of the gout!

[REGULUS] returns.

Oh, good my lord,

We lacked you present. I would pray you send

Another to Fulcinius Trio straight,

To tell him you will come and speak with him —

The matter we’ll devise — to stay him there, 125

While I, with Laco, do survey the watch.

[Regulus] goes out again.

What are your strengths, Gracinus?

LACO

Seven cohorts.¹⁶

MACRO

You see what Caesar writes; and — gone again?

H’has sure a vein of Mercury in his feet.

Know you what store of the praetorian soldiers 130

Sejanus holds about him for his guard?

LACO

I cannot the just number — but I think

Three centuries.

MACRO

Three? Good.

LACO

At most, not four.

MACRO

And who be those centurions?

LACO

That the Consul

Can best deliver you.

MACRO

When he’s away. 135

Spite on his nimble industry! Gracinus,

You find what place you hold there in the trust

Of royal Caesar?

LACO

Ay, and I am —

MACRO

Sir,

The honours there proposed are but beginnings

Of his great favours.

LACO

They are more —

MACRO

I heard him 140

When he did study what to add —

LACO

My life,

And all I hold —

MACRO

You were his own first choice,

Which doth confirm as much as you can speak;

And will, if we succeed, make more. Your guards

Are seven cohorts, you say?

LACO

Yes.

MACRO

Those we must 145

Hold still in readiness, and undischarged.¹⁷

LACO

I understand so much. But how it can —

MACRO

Be done without suspicion, you’ll object?

[REGULUS] returns.

REGULUS

What’s that?

LACO

The keeping of the watch in arms

When morning comes.

MACRO

The Senate shall be met, and set 150

So early in the temple, as all mark

Of that will be avoided.

REGULUS

If we need,

We have commission to possess the palace,

Enlarge Prince Drusus, and make him our chief.¹⁸

MACRO

[Aside] That secret would have burnt his reverend mouth, 155

Had he not spit it out now. [To Regulus] By the gods,

You carry things too — Let me borrow a man

Or two, to bear these — [Exit Regulus.]

[To Laco] That of freeing Drusus

Caesar projected as the last, and utmost;

Not else to be remembered.

[Enter REGULUS with SERVI.]

REGULUS

Here are servants. 160

MACRO

[Giving letters] These to Arruntius, these to Lepidus,

This bear to Cotta, this to Latiaris.

If they demand you of me, say I have ta’en

Fresh horse, and am departed. [Exeunt Servi.]

[To Regulus] You, my lord,

To your colleague; and be you sure to hold him 165

With long narration of the new fresh favours

Meant to Sejanus, his great patron. I,

With trusted Laco here, are for the guards —

Then, to divide. For night hath many eyes,

Whereof, though most do sleep, yet some are spies. 170[Exeunt.]

[Enter] TUBICINES, TIBICINES,¹⁹ PRAECONES, FLAMEN,²⁰ MINISTRI, SEJANUS, TERENTIUS, SATRIUS, [NATTA,] etc.

FIRST PRAECO

Be all profane far hence!²¹ Fly, fly far off.

Be absent far. Far hence be all profane.

TUBICINES, TIBICINES sound while the Flamen washeth. ²²

FLAMEN

We have been faulty, but repent us now,

And bring pure hands, pure vestments, and pure minds.

FIRST MINISTER

Pure vessels.

SECOND MINISTER

And pure off’rings.

THIRD MINISTER

Garlands pure.²³ 175

FLAMEN

Bestow your garlands, and, with reverence, place

The vervin on the altar.²⁴

FIRST PRAECO

Favour your tongues!²⁵

FLAMEN

Great mother Fortune, queen of human state,²⁶

Rectress of action, arbitress of fate,

To whom all sway, all power, all empire bows, 180

Be present, and propitious to our vows!

FIRST PRAECO

Favour it with your tongues!²⁷

MINISTER

Be present, and propitious to our vows!

Tubicines, Tibicines [sound again].

While they sound again, the flamen takes of the honey with his finger and tastes, then
ministers to all the rest; ²⁸ so of the milk,²⁹ in an earthen vessel, he deals about. Which done,
he sprinkleth upon the altar milk, then imposeth the honey, and kindleth his gums, and
after censing about the altar, placeth his censer thereon, into which they put several branches
of poppy,³⁰ and the music ceasing, say all,

ALL

Accept our off’ring, and be pleased, great goddess.³¹

TERENTIUS

See, see, the image stirs!

SATRIUS

And turns away! 185

NATTA

Fortune averts her face!³²

FLAMEN

Avert, you gods,

The prodigy. Still! Still! Some pious rite

We have neglected. Yet! Heav’n, be appeased.

And be all tokens false, or void, that speak

Thy present wrath!

SEJANUS

Be thou dumb, scrupulous priest; 190

And gather up thyself, with these thy wares,

Which I, in spite of thy blind mistress, or

Thy juggling mystery, religion, throw

Thus, scornèd, on the earth.

[He sweeps the altar clean and addresses the statue.]

Nay, hold thy look

Averted, till I woo thee turn again; 195

And thou shalt stand to all posterity

Th’eternal game and laughter, with thy neck

Writhed to thy tail, like a ridiculous cat.

Avoid these fumes, these superstitious lights,

And all these coz’ning ceremonies — you, 200

Your pure and spicèd conscience!

[Exeunt Flamen, Tubicines, Tibicines, Praecones, Ministri, etc.]

[Sejanus, Terentius, Satrius, and Natta remain onstage.]

I, the slave

And mock of fools, scorn on my worthy head,

That have been titled and adored a god,³³

Yea, sacrificed unto, myself, in Rome,³⁴

No less than Jove — and I be brought to do 205

A peevish giglot rites? Perhaps the thought

And shame of that made Fortune turn her face,

Knowing herself the lesser deity,

And but my servant. Bashful queen, if so,

Sejanus thanks thy modesty. — Who’s that? 210

[Enter] POMPONIUS [and] MINUTIUS.³⁵

POMPONIUS

His fortune suffers till he hears my news.

I’ve waited here too long. — Macro, my lord —

SEJANUS

Speak lower, and withdraw.

[Sejanus takes Pomponius aside. The others converse while these two confer privately.]

TERENTIUS

Are these things true?

MINUTIUS

Thousands are gazing at it, in the streets.

SEJANUS

What’s that?

[Sejanus returns from his conference with Pomponius.]

TERENTIUS

Minutius tells us here, my lord, 215

That, a new head being set upon your statue,

A rope is since found wreathed about it;³⁶ and,

But now, a fiery meteor,³⁷ in the form

Of a great ball, was seen to roll along

The troubled air, where yet it hangs, unperfect, 220

Th’amazing wonder of the multitude!

SEJANUS

No more. That Macro’s come is more than all!

TERENTIUS

Is Macro come?

POMPONIUS

I saw him.

TERENTIUS

Where? With whom?

POMPONIUS

With Regulus.

SEJANUS

Terentius —

TERENTIUS

My lord?

SEJANUS

Send for the tribunes. We will straight have up 225

More of the soldiers for our guard.³⁸ [Exit Terentius.]

Minutius,

We pray you, go for Cotta, Latiaris,

Trio the Consul, or what senators

You know are sure, and ours. [Exit Minutius.]

You, my good Natta,

For Laco, provost of the watch. [Exit Natta.]

Now, Satrius, 230

The time of proof comes on. Arm all our servants,

And without tumult. [Exit Satrius.]

You, Pomponius,

Hold some good correspondence with the Consul;

Attempt him, noble friend. [Exit Pomponius.]

These things begin

To look like dangers, now, worthy my fates. 235

Fortune, I see thy worst. Let doubtful states

And things uncertain hang upon thy will;

Me surest death shall render certain still.

Yet why is now my thought turned toward death,

Whom fates have let go on so far in breath, 240

Unchecked or unreproved? I, that did help

To fell the lofty cedar of the world,

Germanicus;³⁹ that, at one stroke, cut down

Drusus, that upright elm;⁴⁰ withered his vine;

Laid Silius⁴¹ and Sabinus,⁴² two strong oaks, 245

Flat on the earth; besides those other shrubs,

Cordus⁴³ and Sosia,⁴⁴ Claudia Pulchra,

Furnius ⁴⁵ and Gallus,⁴⁶ which I have grubbed up;

And since have set my axe so strong and deep

Into the root of spreading Agrippine;⁴⁷ 250

Lopped off and scattered her proud branches, Nero,

Drusus, and Caius⁴⁸ too, although replanted —

If you will, destinies, that, after all,

I faint now, ere I touch my period,

You are but cruel; and I already’ve done 255

Things great enough. All Rome hath been my slave.

The Senate sat an idle looker-on

And witness of my power, when I have blushed

More to command than it to suffer. All

The fathers have sat ready and prepared 260

To give me empire, temples, or their throats,

When I would ask ’em. And, what crowns the top,

Rome, Senate, people, all the world have seen

Jove but my equal, Caesar but my second.

’Tis then your malice, fates, who, but your own, 265

Envy and fear t’have any power long known. [Exit.]

[Enter] TERENTIUS [and] TRIBUNI.

TERENTIUS

[To the Tribunes] Stay here. I’ll give His Lordship you are come.

[Enter] MINUTIUS, COTTA, [and] LATIARIS [with letters].

MINUTIUS

Marcus Terentius, pray you tell my lord

Here’s Cotta and Latiaris.

TERENTIUS

Sir, I shall. [Exit.]

[Cotta and Latiaris] confer over their letters.

COTTA

My letter is the very same with yours; 270

Only requires me to be present there,

And give my voice, to strengthen his design.

LATIARIS

Names he not what it is?

COTTA

No, nor to you.

LATIARIS

’Tis strange, and singular doubtful!

COTTA

So it is!

It may be all is left to Lord Sejanus. 275

[Enter] NATTA [and] LACO.

NATTA

Gentlemen, where’s my lord?

TRIBUNUS

We wait him here.

COTTA

The provost Laco? What’s the news?

LATIARIS

My lord —

[Enter] SEJANUS [and] TERENTIUS.

SEJANUS

Now, my right dear, noble, and trusted friends.

How much I am a captive to your kindness!

Most worthy Cotta, Latiaris; Laco, 280

Your valiant hand; and gentlemen, your loves.

I wish I could divide myself unto you;

Or that it lay within our narrow powers

To satisfy for so enlargèd bounty.

Gracinus, we much pray you, hold your guards 285

Unquit when morning comes. Saw you the Consul?

MINUTIUS

Trio will presently be here, my lord.

COTTA

They are but giving order for the edict,⁴⁹

To warn the Senate.

SEJANUS

How! The Senate?

LATIARIS

Yes.

This morning, in Apollo’s temple.

COTTA

We 290

Are charged by letter to be there, my lord.

SEJANUS

By letter? Pray you let’s see.

LATIARIS

[Aside to Cotta] Knows not His Lordship?

COTTA

[Aside to him] It seems so!

SEJANUS

A Senate warned? Without my knowledge?

And on this sudden? Senators by letters

Requirèd to be there! Who brought these?

COTTA

Macro. 295

SEJANUS

Mine enemy!⁵⁰ And when?

COTTA

This midnight.

SEJANUS

Time,

With every other circumstance, doth give

It hath some strain of engine in’t! — How now?

[Enter] SATRIUS. [He and Sejanus confer privately.]

SATRIUS

My lord, Sertorius Macro is without,

Alone, and prays t’have private conference 300

In business of high nature with Your Lordship,

He says to me, and which regards you much.⁵¹

SEJANUS

Let him come here.

SATRIUS

Better, my lord, withdraw.

You will betray what store and strength of friends

Are now about you, which he comes to spy. 305

SEJANUS

Is he not armed?

SATRIUS

We’ll search him.

SEJANUS

No, but take

And lead him to some room where you, concealed,

May keep a guard upon us. [Exit Satrius.]

Noble Laco,

You are our trust, and till our own cohorts

Can be brought up, your strengths must be our guard. 310

He salutes them humbly.

Now, good Minutius, honoured Latiaris,

Most worthy, and my most unwearied friends,

I return instantly. [Exit.]

LATIARIS

Most worthy lord!

COTTA

His Lordship is turned instant kind, methinks.

I’ve not observed it in him heretofore. 315

FIRST TRIBUNUS

’Tis true, and it becomes him nobly.

MINUTIUS

Am rapt withal.

SECOND TRIBUNUS

By Mars, he has my lives,

Were they a million, for this only grace.

LACO

Ay, and to name a man!

LATIARIS

As he did me!

MINUTIUS

And me!

LATIARIS

Who would not spend his life and fortunes 320

To purchase but the look of such a lord?

LACO

[Aside] He that would nor be lord’s fool nor the world’s. [Exeunt.]

[Enter] SEJANUS, MACRO, [and SATRIUS].

SEJANUS

Macro! Most welcome, as most coveted friend!⁵²

Let me enjoy my longings. When arrived you?

MACRO

About the noon of night.⁵³

SEJANUS

Satrius, give leave. 325[Exit Satrius.]

MACRO

I have been, since I came, with both the consuls,

On a particular design from Caesar.

SEJANUS

How fares it with our great and royal master?

MACRO

Right plentifully well, as with a prince ⁵⁴

That still holds out the great proportion 330

Of his large favours, where his judgement hath

Made once divine election — like the god

That wants not, nor is wearied to bestow

Where merit meets his bounty, as it doth

In you, already the most happy, and, ere 335

The sun shall climb the south, most high Sejanus.

Let not my lord b’amused. For to this end

Was I by Caesar sent for, to the isle,

With special caution to conceal my journey;

And thence had my dispatch as privately 340

Again to Rome; charged to come here by night;⁵⁵

And only to the consuls make narration

Of his great purpose, that the benefit

Might come more full and striking by how much

It was less looked for or aspired by you, 345

Or least informèd to the common thought.

SEJANUS

What may this be? Part of myself, dear Macro!

If good, speak out, and share with your Sejanus.

MACRO

If bad, I should forever loathe myself

To be the messenger to so good a lord. 350

I do exceed m’instructions to acquaint

Your Lordship with thus much; but ’tis my venture

On your retentive wisdom, and because

I would no jealous scruple should molest

Or rack your peace of thought.⁵⁶ For I assure 355

My noble lord, no senator yet knows

The business meant, though all, by several letters,

Are warned to be there and give their voices,

Only to add unto the state and grace

Of what is purposed.

SEJANUS

You take pleasure, Macro, 360

Like a coy wench, in torturing your lover.

What can be worth this suffering?

MACRO

That which follows,

The tribunicial dignity and power,⁵⁷

Both which Sejanus is to have this day

Conferred upon him, and by public Senate. 365

SEJANUS

Fortune, be mine again! Thou’st satisfied

For thy suspected loyalty.

MACRO

My lord,

I have no longer time; the day approacheth,

And I must back to Caesar.

SEJANUS

Where’s Caligula?

MACRO

That I forgot to tell Your Lordship. Why, 370

He lingers yonder, about Capreae,

Disgraced. Tiberius hath not seen him yet.

He needs would thrust himself to go with me,

Against my wish or will, but I have quitted

His forward trouble with as tardy note 375

As my neglect or silence could afford him.

Your Lordship cannot now command me aught,

Because I take no knowledge that I saw you,

But I shall boast to live to serve Your Lordship,

And so take leave.

SEJANUS

Honest and worthy Macro, 380

Your love and friendship. [Calling] Who’s there?

[Enter SATRIUS.]

Satrius,

Attend my honourable friend forth. [Exeunt Macro and Satrius.]

Oh,

How vain and vile a passion is this fear!

What base, uncomely things it makes men do!

Suspect their noblest friends, as I did this, 385

Flatter poor enemies, entreat their servants,

Stoop, court, and catch at the benevolence

Of creatures unto whom, within this hour,

I would not have vouchsafed a quarter-look,

Or piece of face! By you, that fools call gods, 390

Hang all the sky with your prodigious signs,

Fill earth with monsters, drop the Scorpion down

Out of the zodiac, or the fiercer Lion,

Shake off the loosened globe from her long hinge,

Roll all the world in darkness, and let loose 395

Th’enragèd winds to turn up groves and towns!

When I do fear again, let me be struck

With forkèd fire, and unpitied die.

Who fears, is worthy of calamity. [Exit.]

[Enter TERENTIUS, MINUTIUS, LACO, COTTA, LATIARIS, TRIBUNI, and others.] To the rest POMPONIUS, REGULUS, [and] TRIO.

POMPONIUS

Is not my lord here?⁵⁸

TERENTIUS

Sir, he will be straight. 400

COTTA

[Privately to Trio] What news, Fulcinius Trio?

TRIO

Good, good tidings.

But keep it to yourself. My lord Sejanus

Is to receive this day, in open Senate,

The tribunicial dignity.

COTTA

Is’t true?

TRIO

No words — not to your thought — but sir, believe it. 405

LATIARIS

What says the Consul?

[Latiaris and others join in this hushed conversation.]

COTTA

Speak it not again.

He tells me that today my lord Sejanus —

TRIO

I must entreat you, Cotta, on your honour

Not to reveal it.

COTTA

On my life, sir.

LATIARIS

Say.

COTTA

Is to receive the tribunicial power. 410

But as you are an honourable man,

Let me conjure you not to utter it,

For it is trusted to me with that bond.

LATIARIS

I am Harpocrates.

TERENTIUS

Can you assure it?

POMPONIUS

The consul told it me; but keep it close. 415

MINUTIUS

Lord Latiaris, what’s the news?

LATIARIS

I’ll tell you,

But you must swear to keep it secret —

[Enter] SEJANUS.

SEJANUS

I knew the fates had on their distaff left

More of our thread, than so.

REGULUS

Hail, great Sejanus!

TRIO

Hail, the most honoured!⁵⁹

COTTA

Happy!

LATIARIS

High Sejanus! 420

SEJANUS

Do you bring prodigies too?

TRIO

May all presage

Turn to those fair effects, whereof we bring

Your Lordship news!

REGULUS

May’t please my lord withdraw.

SEJANUS

Yes.

To some that stand by.

I will speak with you anon.

TERENTIUS

My lord,

What is your pleasure for the tribunes?

SEJANUS

Why, 425

Let ’em be thanked, and sent away.

MINUTIUS

My lord —

LACO

Will’t please Your Lordship to command me —

SEJANUS

No.

You’re troublesome.

MINUTIUS

The mood is changed.⁶⁰

FIRST TRIBUNUS

Not speak?

SECOND TRIBUNUS

Nor look?

LACO

Ay. He is wise, will make him friends

Of such who never love but for their ends. 430[Exeunt.]

[Enter] ARRUNTIUS [and] LEPIDUS, divers other SENATORS [including SANQUINIUS and HATERIUS] passing by them.

ARRUNTIUS

Ay, go, make haste. Take heed you be not last

To tender your ‘All hail!’⁶¹ in the wide hall

Of huge Sejanus. Run a lictor’s pace.

Stay not to put your robes on, but away,

With the pale troubled ensigns of great friendship 435

Stamped i’your face! — Now, Marcus Lepidus, [Exeunt Senators.]

You still believe your former augury?

Sejanus must go downward? You perceive

His wane approaching fast?

LEPIDUS

Believe me, Lucius,

I wonder at this rising!

ARRUNTIUS

Ay, and that we 440

Must give our suffrage to it? You will say

It is to make his fall more steep and grievous?

It may be so. But think it they that can

With idle wishes ’say to bring back time.

In cases desperate, all hope is crime. 445

See, see! What troops of his officious friends

Flock to salute my lord! And start before

My great proud lord, to get a lord-like nod!

Attend my lord unto the Senate house!

Bring back my lord! Like servile ushers, make 450

Way for my lord! Proclaim his idol Lordship,

More than ten criers, or six noise of trumpets!

Make legs, kiss hands, and take a scattered hair

From my lord’s eminent shoulder! See Sanquinius,⁶²

With his slow belly, and his dropsy! Look 455

What toiling haste he makes! Yet here’s another,⁶³

Retarded with the gout, will be afore him!

Get thee Liburnian porters,⁶⁴ thou gross fool,

To bear thy obsequious fatness, like thy peers.

They’re met! The gout returns, and his great carriage. 460

LICTORS, CONSULS, SEJANUS, etc. pass over the stage.

LICTOR

Give way! Make place! Room for the consul!

SANQUINIUS

Hail,

Hail, great Sejanus!

HATERIUS

Hail, my honoured lord!

[Exeunt Sejanus, Lictors, Consuls, etc.]

[Arruntius and Lepidus remain alone onstage.]

ARRUNTIUS

We shall be marked anon for our not-hail.

LEPIDUS

That is already done.

ARRUNTIUS

It is a note

Of upstart greatness to observe and watch 465

For these poor trifles, which the noble mind

Neglects and scorns.⁶⁵

LEPIDUS

Ay, and they think themselves

Deeply dishonoured where they are omitted,

As if they were necessities that helped

To the perfection of their dignities, 470

And hate the men that but refrain ’em.⁶⁶

ARRUNTIUS

Oh,

There is a farther cause of hate. Their breasts

Are guilty that we know their obscure springs

And base beginnings. Thence the anger grows. On, follow! [Exeunt.]

[Enter] MACRO [and] LACO.

MACRO

When all are entered, shut the temple doors, 475

And bring your guards up to the gate.⁶⁷

LACO

I will.

MACRO

If you shall hear commotion in the Senate,

Present yourself — and charge on any man

Shall offer to come forth.

LACO

I am instructed. [Exeunt.]

The Senate

[Enter] PRAECONES, LICTORS, REGULUS, SEJANUS, TRIO, HATERIUS, SANQUINIUS, COTTA, POMPONIUS, LATIARIS, LEPIDUS, and ARRUNTIUS [with NATTA, PRAETOR, and other SENATORS].

HATERIUS

How well His Lordship looks today!

TRIO

As if 480

He had been born or made for this hour’s state.

COTTA

Your fellow consul’s come about, methinks?

TRIO

Ay, he’s wise.

SANQUINIUS

Sejanus trusts him well.

TRIO

Sejanus is a noble, bounteous lord.⁶⁸

HATERIUS

He is so, and most valiant.

LATIARIS

And most wise. 485

FIRST SENATOR

He’s everything.

LATIARIS

Worthy of all, and more

Than bounty can bestow.

TRIO

This dignity

Will make him worthy.

POMPONIUS

Above Caesar.

SANQUINIUS

Tut,

Caesar is but the rector of an isle,

He of the Empire.⁶⁹

TRIO

Now he will have power 490

More to reward than ever.

COTTA

Let us look

We be not slack in giving him our voices.⁷⁰

LATIARIS

Not I.

SANQUINIUS

Nor I.

COTTA

The readier we seem

To propagate his honours, will more bind

His thought to ours.

HATERIUS

I think right with Your Lordship. 495

It is the way to have us hold our places.

SANQUINIUS

Ay, and get more.

LATIARIS

More office, and more titles.⁷¹

POMPONIUS

I will not lose the part I hope to share

In these his fortunes, for my patrimony.

LATIARIS

See how Arruntius sits, and Lepidus. 500

TRIO

Let ’em alone; they will be marked anon.

FIRST SENATOR

I’ll do with others.

SECOND SENATOR

So will I.

THIRD SENATOR

And I.

Men grow not in the state but as they are planted

Warm in his favours.

COTTA

Noble Sejanus!

HATERIUS

Honoured Sejanus!

LATIARIS

Worthy and great Sejanus! 505

ARRUNTIUS

[To Lepidus] Gods! How the sponges open, and take in!

And shut again! Look, look! Is not he blest

That gets a seat in eye-reach of him? More,

That comes in ear- or tongue-reach? Oh, but most,

Can claw his subtle elbow, or with a buzz 510

Flyblow his ears.

PRAETOR [To Praecones]

Proclaim the Senate’s peace,

And give last summons by the edict.

FIRST PRAECO

[Proclaiming] Silence!

In name of Caesar and the Senate, silence!

Memmius Regulus ⁷² and Fulcinius Trio, consuls, these present kalends

of June with the first light, shall hold a senate in the temple of Apollo Palatine.⁷³ 515

All that are fathers and are registered fathers that have right of entering the

Senate we warn or command you be frequently present. Take knowledge the

business is the commonwealth’s. Whosoever is absent his fine or mulct will

be taken. His excuse will not be taken.

TRIO

Note who are absent, and record their names. 520

REGULUS

Fathers conscript, may what I am to utter

Turn good and happy for the commonwealth.⁷⁴

And thou, Apollo, in whose holy house

We here are met, inspire us all with truth,

And liberty of censure, to our thought. 525

The majesty of great Tiberius Caesar

Propounds to this grave Senate the bestowing

Upon the man he loves, honoured Sejanus,

The tribunicial dignity and power.⁷⁵

Here are his letters, signèd with his signet. 530

What pleaseth now the fathers to be done?⁷⁶

SENATORS

Read, read ’em, open, publicly, read ’em.

COTTA

Caesar hath honoured his own greatness much

In thinking of this act.

TRIO

It was a thought

Happy, and worthy Caesar.

LATIARIS

And the lord 535

As worthy it, on whom it is directed!

HATERIUS

Most worthy!

SANQUINIUS

Rome did never boast the virtue

That could give envy bounds, but his: Sejanus —

FIRST SENATOR

Honoured and noble!

SECOND SENATOR

Good and great Sejanus!⁷⁷

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside] Oh, most tame slavery, and fierce flattery!

FIRST PRAECO

Silence! 540

The epistle is read [by the First Praeco].

‘Tiberius Caesar to the Senate, greeting.

If you conscript fathers, with your children, be in health, it is abundantly

well. We with our friends here are so.⁷⁸ The care of the commonwealth,

howsoever we are removed in person, cannot be absent to our thought;

although, oftentimes, even to princes most present, the truth of their own 545

affairs is hid; than which nothing falls out more miserable to a state, or

makes the art of governing more difficult. But since it hath been our easeful

happiness to enjoy both the aids and industry of so vigilant a Senate, we

profess to have been the more indulgent to our pleasures, not as being careless

of our office, but rather secure of the necessity. Neither do these common 550

rumours of many and infamous libels published against our retirement at all

afflict us, being born more out of men’s ignorance than their malice; and will,

neglected, find their own grave quickly, whereas too sensibly acknowledged,

it would make their obloquy ours. Nor do we desire their authors, though

found, be censured, since in a free state (as ours) all men ought to enjoy both 555

their minds and tongues free.’⁷⁹

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside] The lapwing, the lapwing!

FIRST PRAECO

‘Yet, in things which shall worthily and more near concern the

majesty of a prince, we shall fear to be so unnaturally cruel to our own fame

as to neglect them. True it is, conscript fathers, that we have raised Sejanus, 560

from obscure and almost unknown gentry — ’

SENATORS

How! How!

FIRST PRAECO

‘— to the highest and most conspicuous point of greatness, and,

we hope, deservingly; yet not without danger — it being a most bold hazard in

that sovereign who, by his particular love to one, dares adventure the hatred 565

of all his other subjects.’

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside] This touches, the blood turns.

FIRST PRAECO

‘But we affy in your loves and understandings, and do no way

suspect the merit of our Sejanus to make our favours offensive to any —’

SENATORS

Oh! Good, good! 570

FIRST PRAECO

‘— though we could have wished his zeal had run a calmer course

against Agrippina and our nephews, howsoever the openness of their actions

declared them delinquents; and that he would have remembered no innocence

is so safe, but it rejoiceth to stand in the sight of mercy — the use of

which in us he hath so quite taken away toward them by his loyal fury, as 575

now our clemency would be thought but wearied cruelty, if we should offer

to exercise it.’

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside] I thank him, there I looked for’t. A good fox!

FIRST PRAECO

‘Some there be that would interpret this his public severity to

be particular ambition, and that under a pretext of service to us he doth 580

but remove his own lets; alleging the strengths he hath made to himself

by the praetorian soldiers, by his faction in court and Senate, by the offices

he holds himself and confers on others, his popularity and dependants, his

urging (and almost driving) us to this our unwilling retirement, and lastly,

his aspiring to be our son-in-law.’⁸⁰ 585

SENATORS

This’s strange!

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside] I shall anon believe your vultures, Marcus.

FIRST PRAECO

‘Your wisdoms, conscript fathers, are able to examine and censure

these suggestions. But, were they left to our absolving voice, we durst

pronounce them, as we think them, most malicious.’ 590

SENATORS

Oh, he has restored all! List!

FIRST PRAECO

‘Yet are they offered to be averred, and on the lives of the informers.

What we should say, or rather what we should not say, lords of the Senate,

if this be true, our gods and goddesses confound us if we know! Only, we

must think we have placed our benefits ill; and conclude that in our choice, 595

either we were wanting to the gods, or the gods to us.’

The Senators shift their places.

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside] The place grows hot, they shift.

FIRST PRAECO

‘We have not been covetous, honourable fathers, to change; neither

is it now any new lust that alters our affection, or old loathing, but those

needful jealousies of state, that warn wiser princes, hourly, to provide their 600

safety, and do teach them how learned a thing it is to beware of the humblest

enemy, much more of those great ones whom their own employed favours

have made fit for their fears.’

FIRST SENATOR

Away!

SECOND SENATOR

Sit farther.

COTTA

Let’s remove —

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside] Gods! How the leaves drop off, this little wind! 605

FIRST PRAECO

‘We therefore desire that the offices he holds be first seized by the

Senate and himself suspended from all exercise of place or power —’

SENATORS

How!

SANQUINIUS

[Getting up to leave] By your leave.

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside, speaking of Sanquinius] Come, porpoise. Where’s Haterius?

His gout keeps him most miserably constant.⁸¹

[Speaking of Sanquinius] Your dancing shows a tempest.

SEJANUS

[To the Praecones] Read no more. 610

REGULUS

Lords of the Senate, hold your seats. [To the Praecones] Read on.

SEJANUS

These letters, they are forged.

REGULUS

[Calling] A guard! — Sit still.

LACO enters with the guards.

ARRUNTIUS

[Aside] Here’s change!

REGULUS

[To First Praeco] Bid silence, and read forward.

FIRST PRAECO

Silence! ‘— and himself suspended from all exercise of place or

power, but till due and mature trial be made of his innocency, which yet 615

we can faintly apprehend the necessity to doubt. If, conscript fathers, to

your more searching wisdoms there shall appear farther cause — or of farther

proceeding, either to seizure of lands, goods, or more — it is not our power

that shall limit your authority, or our favour that must corrupt your justice.

Either were dishonourable in you, and both uncharitable to ourself. We 620

would willingly be present with your counsels in this business, but the

danger of so potent a faction, if it should prove so, forbids our attempting it,

except one of the consuls would be entreated for our safety to undertake the

guard of us home; then we should most readily adventure. In the meantime,

it shall not be fit for us to importune so judicious a Senate, who know how 625

much they hurt the innocent that spare the guilty, and how grateful a sacrifice

to the gods is the life of an ingrateful person. We reflect not in this on Sejanus

— notwithstanding, if you keep an eye upon him — and there is Latiaris,

a senator, and Pinnarius Natta, two of his most trusted ministers, and so

professed, whom we desire not to have appr’ended, but as the necessity of 630

the cause exacts it.’⁸²

REGULUS

[To the Guard] A guard on Latiaris!

ARRUNTIUS

Oh, the spy!

The reverend spy is caught! Who pities him?

[To Latiaris] Reward, sir, for your service. Now you ha’done

Your property, you see what use is made? 635

[Exeunt Latiaris and Natta, guarded.]

Hang up the instrument.

SEJANUS

[Attempting to leave] Give leave.

LACO

[Brandishing his weapon] Stand, stand!

He comes upon his death that doth advance

An inch toward my point.

SEJANUS

Have we no friend here?

ARRUNTIUS

Hushed. Where now are all the hails and acclamations?

[Enter] MACRO.

MACRO

Hail to the Consuls, and this noble Senate!⁸³ 640

SEJANUS

[Aside] Is Macro here? Oh, thou art lost, Sejanus.

[The Senators begin to rise.]

MACRO

Sit still, and unaffrighted, reverend fathers.

Macro, by Caesar’s grace the new-made provost,

And now possessed of the praetorian bands —

An honour late belonged to that proud man — 645

Bids you be safe; and to your constant doom

Of his deservings, offers you the surety

Of all the soldiers, tribunes, and centurions

Received in our command.

REGULUS

Sejanus, Sejanus!

[Sejanus appears not to hear.]

Stand forth, Sejanus!

SEJANUS

Am I called?

MACRO

Ay, thou, 650

Thou insolent monster, art bid stand.

SEJANUS

Why, Macro,

It hath been otherwise between you and I!

This court, that knows us both, hath seen a difference,

And can, if it be pleased to speak, confirm

Whose insolence is most.

MACRO

Come down, Typhoeus. 655

If mine be most, lo, thus I make it more:

Kick up thy heels in air, tear off thy robe,

Play with thy beard and nostrils. Thus ’tis fit

(And no man take compassion of thy state)

To use th’ingrateful viper, tread his brains 660

Into the earth.

REGULUS

Forbear.

MACRO

If I could lose

All my humanity now, ’twere well to torture

So meriting a traitor. Wherefore, fathers,

Sit you amazed and silent, and not censure

This wretch, who in the hour he first rebelled 665

’Gainst Caesar’s bounty, did condemn himself?

Phlegra, the field where all the sons of earth

Mustered against the gods, did ne’er acknowledge

So proud and huge a monster.

REGULUS

Take him hence.

And all the gods guard Caesar!

TRIO

[To Lictors] Take him hence. 670

HATERIUS

Hence!

COTTA

To the dungeon with him!

SANQUINIUS

He deserves it.

FIRST SENATOR

Crown all our doors with bays!

SANQUINIUS

And let an ox

With gilded horns and garlands straight be led

Unto the Capitol!

HATERIUS

And sacrificed

To Jove for Caesar’s safety!

TRIO

All our gods 675

Be present still to Caesar!

COTTA

Phoebus!

SANQUINIUS

Mars!

HATERIUS

Diana!

SANQUINIUS

Pallas!

SECOND SENATOR

Juno, Mercury,

All guard him!

MACRO

[To Sejanus] Forth, thou prodigy of men! [Exit Sejanus, guarded.]

COTTA

Let all the traitor’s titles be defaced.

TRIO

His images and statues be pulled down.⁸⁴ 680

HATERIUS

His chariot wheels be broken.

ARRUNTIUS

And the legs

Of the poor horses, that deserved naught,

Let them be broken too.

LEPIDUS

O violent change

And whirl of men’s affections!

ARRUNTIUS

Like as both

Their bulks and souls were bound on Fortune’s wheel, 685

And must act only with her motion.

[Exeunt Macro, Regulus, Trio, Haterius, Sanquinius, etc.]

[Lepidus, Arruntius, and a few Senators remain onstage].

LEPIDUS

Who would depend upon the popular air,

Or voice of men, that have today beheld

That which, if all the gods had foredeclared,

Would not have been believed, Sejanus’ fall? 690

He that this morn rose proudly as the sun,

And, breaking through a mist of clients’ breath,

Came on as gazed at and admired as he

When superstitious Moors salute his light!

That had our servile nobles waiting him 695

As common grooms, and hanging on his look,

No less than human life on destiny!

That had men’s knees as frequent as the gods,

And sacrifices more than Rome had altars —

And this man fall! Fall? Ay, without a look 700

That durst appear his friend, or lend so much

Of vain relief to his changed state as pity!⁸⁵

ARRUNTIUS

They that before, like gnats, played in his beams,

And thronged to circumscribe him, now not seen!

Nor deign to hold a common seat with him! 705

Others, that waited him unto the Senate,

Now inhumanely ravish him to prison!

Whom, but this morn, they followed as their lord,

Guard through the streets, bound like a fugitive!

Instead of wreaths, give fetters; strokes for stoops; 710

Blind shame for honours; and black taunts for titles!

Who would trust slippery chance?

LEPIDUS

They that would make

Themselves her spoil, and foolishly forget,

When she doth flatter, that she comes to prey.

Fortune, thou hadst no deity if men 715

Had wisdom. We have placed thee so high

By fond belief in thy felicity.

SENATORS

(Shout within.) The gods guard Caesar! All the gods guard Caesar!

[Enter] MACRO, REGULUS, [and SENATORS].

MACRO

Now, great Sejanus, you that awed the state,⁸⁶

And sought to bring the nobles to your whip; 720

That would be Caesar’s tutor, and dispose

Of dignities and offices; that had

The public head still bare to your designs,

And made the general voice to echo yours;

That looked for salutations twelve score off, 725

And would have pyramids, yea, temples reared

To your huge greatness! Now you lie as flat

As was your pride advanced.

REGULUS

Thanks to the gods!

SENATORS

And praise to Macro, that hath savèd Rome!

Liberty, liberty, liberty! Lead on! 730

And praise to Macro, that hath savèd Rome!

[Exeunt Macro, Regulus, and Senators.]

[Arruntius [and] Lepidus [remain alone onstage.]

ARRUNTIUS

I prophesy, out of this Senate’s flattery,

That this new fellow, Macro, will become

A greater prodigy in Rome than he

That now is fall’n.

[Enter TERENTIUS.]

TERENTIUS

O you whose minds are good, 735

And have not forced all mankind from your breasts,

That yet have so much stock of virtue left

To pity guilty states, when they are wretched:

Lend your soft ears to hear and eyes to weep

Deeds done by men beyond the acts of furies. 740

The eager multitude, who never yet

Knew why to love or hate, but only pleased

T’express their rage of power, no sooner heard

The murmur of Sejanus in decline

But, with that speed and heat of appetite 745

With which they greedily devour the way

To some great sports or a new theatre,

They filled the Capitol and Pompey’s Cirque;

Where, like so many mastiffs, biting stones,

As if his statues now were sensive grown 750

Of their wild fury, first they tear them down;

Then fastening ropes, drag them along the streets,

Crying in scorn, ‘This, this was that rich head ⁸⁷

Was crowned with garlands and with odours, this

That was in Rome so reverenced! Now 755

The furnace and the bellows shall to work,

The great Sejanus crack, and piece by piece

Drop i’the founder’s pit.’

LEPIDUS

O popular rage!

TERENTIUS

The whilst the Senate, at the temple of Concord,

Make haste to meet again,⁸⁸ and thronging cry, 760

‘Let us condemn him, tread him down in water,

While he doth lie upon the bank. Away!’

Where some, more tardy, cry unto their bearers,

‘He will be censured ere we come. Run, knaves!’

And use that furious diligence, for fear 765

Their bondmen should inform against their slackness,

And bring their quaking flesh unto the hook.

The rout, they follow with confusèd voice,

Crying, they’re glad, say they could ne’er abide him;

Inquire, what man he was? What kind of face? 770

What beard he had? What nose? What lips? Protest

They ever did presage he’d come to this;

They never thought him wise nor valiant; ask

After his garments, when he dies? What death?

And not a beast of all the herd demands, 775

What was his crime? Or, who were his accusers?

Under what proof or testimony he fell?

‘There came’, says one, ‘a huge, long, worded letter

From Capreae against him.’ ‘Did there so?

Oh!’ — they are satisfied; no more.

LEPIDUS

Alas! 780

They follow Fortune, and hate men condemned,

Guilty or not.⁸⁹

ARRUNTIUS

But had Sejanus thrived

In his design, and prosperously oppressed

The old Tiberius, then, in that same minute,

These very rascals, that now rage like furies, 785

Would have proclaimed Sejanus emperor.

LEPIDUS

But what hath followed?

TERENTIUS

Sentence, by the Senate,

To lose his head ⁹⁰ — which was no sooner off,

But that and th’unfortunate trunk were seized

By the rude multitude; who, not content 790

With what the forward justice of the state

Officiously had done, with violent rage

Have rent it limb from limb.⁹¹ A thousand heads,

A thousand hands, ten thousand tongues and voices,

Employed at once in several acts of malice! 795

Old men not staid with age, virgins with shame,

Late wives with loss of husbands, mothers of children,

Losing all grief in joy of his sad fall,

Run quite transported with their cruelty:

These mounting at his head, these at his face, 800

These digging out his eyes, those with his brain,

Sprinkling themselves, their houses, and their friends.

Others are met have ravished thence an arm,

And deal small pieces of the flesh for favours;

These with a thigh; this hath cut off his hands; 805

And this his feet; these, fingers, and these, toes;

That hath his liver; he his heart. There wants

Nothing but room for wrath and place for hatred.

What cannot oft be done is now o’erdone.

The whole, and all of what was great Sejanus, 810

And next to Caesar did possess the world,

Now torn and scattered, as he needs no grave;

Each little dust covers a little part.

So lies he nowhere, and yet often buried.

[Enter] NUNTIUS.

ARRUNTIUS

More of Sejanus?

NUNTIUS

Yes.

LEPIDUS

What can be added? 815

We know him dead.

NUNTIUS

Then there begin your pity.

There is enough behind to melt ev’n Rome

And Caesar into tears — since never slave

Could yet so highly offend, but tyranny,

In torturing him, would make him worth lamenting. 820

A son and daughter to the dead Sejanus,

Of whom there is not now so much remaining

As would give fast’ning to the hangman’s hook,⁹²

Have they drawn forth for farther sacrifice;

Whose tenderness of knowledge, unripe years, 825

And childish silly innocence was such

As scarce would lend them feeling of their danger;

The girl so simple, as she often asked,

Where they would lead her? For what cause they dragged her?⁹³

Cried, she would do no more. That she could take 830

Warning with beating. And because our laws

Admit no virgin immature to die,⁹⁴

The wittily and strangely cruel Macro

Delivered her to be deflow’red and spoiled

By the rude lust of the licentious hangman, 835

Then to be strangled with her harmless brother.

LEPIDUS

Oh, act most worthy hell and lasting night,

To hide it from the world!

NUNTIUS

Their bodies thrown

Into the Gemonies, I know not how

Or by what accident returned, the mother, 840

Th’expulsèd Apicata,⁹⁵ finds them there;

Whom when she saw lie spread on the degrees,⁹⁶

After a world of fury on herself,

Tearing her hair, defacing of her face,

Beating her breasts and womb, kneeling amazed, 845

Crying to heaven, then to them; at last

Her drownèd voice got up above her woes,

And with such black and bitter execrations

As might affright the gods and force the sun

Run backward to the east — nay, make the old 850

Deformèd Chaos rise again, t’o’erwhelm

Them, us, and all the world — she fills the air,

Upbraids the heavens with their partial dooms,

Defies their tyrannous powers, and demands

What she and those poor innocents have transgressed 855

That they must suffer such a share in vengeance,

Whilst Livia, Lygdus, and Eudemus live,

Who, as she says, and firmly vows to prove it

To Caesar and the Senate, poisoned Drusus!⁹⁷

LEPIDUS

Confederates with her husband?

NUNTIUS

Ay.

LEPIDUS

Strange act! 860

ARRUNTIUS

And strangely opened. What says now my monster,

The multitude? They reel now, do they not?

NUNTIUS

Their gall is gone, and now they ’gin to weep

The mischief they have done.

ARRUNTIUS

I thank ’em, rogues!

NUNTIUS

Part are so stupid, or so flexible, 865

As they believe him innocent. All grieve.

And some, whose hands yet reek with his warm blood,

And grip the part which they did tear of him,

Wish him collected and created new.

LEPIDUS

How Fortune plies her sports, when she begins 870

To practise ’em! Pursues, continues, adds!

Confounds, with varying her impassioned moods!

ARRUNTIUS

Dost thou hope, Fortune, to redeem thy crimes?

To make amends for thy ill-placèd favours

With these strange punishments? Forbear, you things 875

That stand upon the pinnacles of state,

To boast your slippery height. When you do fall,

You pash yourselves in pieces, ne’er to rise,

And he that lends you pity is not wise.

TERENTIUS

Let this example move th’insolent man 880

Not to grow proud and careless of the gods.

It is an odious wisdom to blaspheme,

Much more to slighten or deny their powers.

For whom the morning saw so great and high,

Thus low and little, ’fore th’even, doth lie. 885[Exeunt.]

FINIS

This Tragedy was first

acted in the year

1603

by the King’s Majesty’s Servants.890

The principal tragedians were

RICHARD BURBAGE WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

AUGUSTINE PHILLIPS JOHN HEMMINGES

WILLIAM SLY HENRY CONDELL

JOHN LOWIN ALEXANDER COOKE 895

With the allowance of the Master of Revels.

The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

Sejanus His Fall

Edited by Tom Cain

Introduction

Date

Northampton and the Privy Council

‘Some faults may be these times’

Use of sources

Republicanism and censorship

To the No Less Noble by Virtue than Blood:

To the Readers

[Commendatory verses]

In Sejanum
Ben Jonsoni
Et Musis, et Sibi
in Deliciis

[‘Come forth, Sejanus’]

For his Worthy Friend, the Author

To the Deserving Author

To His Learned and Beloved Friend,
upon His Equal Work

Amicis, amici nostri dignissimi, dignissimis,
Epigramma
D.
Johannes Marstonius

Upon Sejanus

To Him that Hath
So Excelled on This Excellent Subject

To the Most Understanding Poet

The Argument

The Names of the Actors

Actus Primus

Actus Secundus

Actus Tertius

Actus Quartus

Actus Quintus

The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

Sejanus His Fall

Edited by Tom Cain

Introduction

Date

Northampton and the Privy Council

‘Some faults may be these times’

Use of sources

Republicanism and censorship

To the No Less Noble by Virtue than Blood:

To the Readers

[Commendatory verses]

In SejanumBen JonsoniEt Musis, et Sibiin Deliciis

[‘Come forth, Sejanus’]

For his Worthy Friend, the Author

To the Deserving Author

To His Learned and Beloved Friend,upon His Equal Work

Amicis, amici nostri dignissimi, dignissimis,EpigrammaD.Johannes Marstonius

Upon Sejanus

To Him that HathSo Excelled on This Excellent Subject

To the Most Understanding Poet

The Argument

The Names of the Actors

Actus Primus

Actus Secundus

Actus Tertius

Actus Quartus

Actus Quintus

In Sejanum
Ben Jonsoni
Et Musis, et Sibi
in Deliciis

To His Learned and Beloved Friend,
upon His Equal Work

Amicis, amici nostri dignissimi, dignissimis,
Epigramma
D.
Johannes Marstonius

To Him that Hath
So Excelled on This Excellent Subject