Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/455

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Nero: The crowd spurns sluggish men.455
Seneca: The hated, slays.
Nero: Yet swords protect a prince.
Seneca: Still better, faith.
Nero: A Caesar should be feared.
Seneca: And more be loved.
Nero: But men must fear.
Seneca: Enforced commands are hard.
Nero: Let them obey our laws.
Seneca: Make better laws—
Nero: I'll be the judge.460
Seneca: Which all men may approve.
Nero: The sword shall force respect.
Seneca: May heaven forbid!
Nero: Shall I then tamely let them seek my blood,
That suddenly despised and unavenged,
I may be taken off? Though exiled far,
The stubborn spirits are not broken yet
Of Plautus and of Sulla. Still their rage465
Persistent spurs their friends to seek my death;
For still have they the people's love in Rome,
Which ever nourishes the exile's hopes.
Then let the sword remove my enemies;470
My hateful wife shall die, and follow him,
That brother whom she loves. The high must fall.
Seneca: How fair a thing it is to be the first
Among great men, to think for fatherland,
To spare the weak, to hold the hand of power
From deeds of blood, to give wrath time to think,
Give rest to a weary world, peace to the age.475
This is the noblest part; by this high path
Is heaven sought. So did Augustus first,
The father of his country, gain the stars,
And as a god is worshiped at the shrines.
Yet he was long by adverse fortune tossed
On land and sea, in battle's deadly chance,480
Until his father's foes he recompensed.
But fortune hath to thee in peaceful guise
Bent her divinity; with unstained hand