And to the august features of my wife
Dare lift again their vulgar eyes. O'erawed
By fear of punishment must they be taught
To yield obedience to their prince's nod.
But here I see the man whose loyalty
Has made him captain of my royal guards.845
[Enter Prefect.]
Prefect: The people's rage by slaughter of a few,
Who most resistance made is overcome.
Nero: Is that enough? Was that my word to thee
"Is overcome?" Where then is my revenge?
Prefect: The guilty leaders of the mob are dead.850
Nero: Nay, but the mob itself, which dared to assail
My house with flames, to dictate laws to me,
To drag my noble wife from off my bed,
And with unhallowed hands and angry threats
To affront her majesty—are they unscathed?855
Prefect: Shall angry grief decide their punishment?
Nero: It shall—whose fame no future age shall dim.
Prefect: Which neither wrath nor fear shall moderate?[1]
Nero: She first shall feel my wrath who merits it.
Prefect: Tell whom thou mean'st. My hand shall spare her not.860
Nero: My wrath demands my guilty sister's death.
Prefect: Benumbing horror holds me in its grasp.
Nero: Wilt not obey my word?
Prefect: Why question that?
Nero: Because thou spar'st my foe
Prefect: A woman, foe?
Nero: If she be criminal.865
Prefect: But what her crime?
Nero: The people's rage.
Prefect: But who can check their rage?
Nero: The one who fanned its flame.
Prefect: But who that one?
Nero: A woman she, to whom an evil heart
Hath nature given, a soul to fraud inclined.
Prefect: But not the power to act.870
Nero: That she may be
- ↑ Reading, quam temperet non ira, etc.
