Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/456

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Hath she the reins of government bestowed,
And given world-dominion to thy nod.
Sour hate is overcome, and in its stead485
Is filial harmony; the senate, knights,
All orders yield obedience to thy will;
For in the fathers' judgment and the prayers
Of humbler folk, thou art the arbiter
Of peace, the god of human destinies,
Ordained to rule the world by right divine.
Thy country's father thou. This sacred name490
Doth suppliant Rome beseech thee to preserve,
And doth commend her citizens to thee.
Nero: It is the gift of heaven that haughty Rome,
Her people, and her senate bow to me,
And that my terror doth extort those prayers
And servile words from their unwilling lips.
To save the citizens! seditious men,
Who ever 'gainst their land and prince conspire,495
Puffed up with pride of race—sheer madness that,
When all my enemies one word of mine
Can doom to death. Base Brutus raised his hand
To slay that prince from whom he had his all;
And he, who never 'mid the shock of arms
Had been o'ercome, the world's great conqueror,500
Who trod, a very Jove, the lofty paths
Of honor, he was slain by impious hands—
Of citizens! What streams of blood hath Rome,
So often rent by civil strife, beheld!
That very saint of thine, Augustus' self,505
Who, as thou said'st but now, did merit heaven
By piety—how many noble men
Did he destroy, in lusty youth, in age,
At home, abroad, when, spurred by mortal fear,
They fled their household gods and that fell sword
Of the Triumvirate, consigned to death
Upon those mindful tablets' fatal lists.
The grieving parents saw their severed heads510
Upon the rostra set, but dared not weep
Their hapless sons; the forum reeked with blood,