3RD MAIDEN. O please tell me how to droop
These scarlet flowers.

2ND MAIDEN. About the lyre then, thus.

4TH MAIDEN. This bust now of the Emperor as a boy?

1ST MAIDEN. O, covered with white flowers and birds of spring.

5TH MAIDEN. This charioteer: with green I have dressed that.

3RD MAIDEN. Yes, for the Emperor's colour is the green.

1ST MAIDEN. Now all the busts are wreathed.

2ND MAIDEN. What more to do?

1ST MAIDEN. All is arranged. How heavy are my eyes.

3RD MAIDEN. And this low music on my spirit hangs.

4TH MAIDEN. And the faint odour steals upon my hair.

1ST MAIDEN. [_Moving up and leaning out._
See, all the city is a solitude.

2ND MAIDEN. All Rome is gathered in the theatre
To hear the Emperor sing.

5TH MAIDEN. O, I should sleep
On such a noon, in such a throng.

1ST MAIDEN. That sleep
Would have no wakening, if your eyes but closed
While Caesar sang.

4TH MAIDEN. To-night there is a feast.
Have you remembered?

3RD MAIDEN. Yes, the dancing girls
From Egypt are arrived.

1ST MAIDEN. We are to strew
Down from the ceiling flowers upon the guests.

[_They recline in various attitudes about the seats and pillars._

_Enter_ SENECA _and_ BURRUS

BURRUS. Ah, Seneca, five years since Nero climbed
The throne; and in this very chamber, now
So changed, this odour--pah! This was the place,
Grim, bare, for military virtues apt.

SENECA. And he how changed! The boy who dreamed so high
Of mightiest empire and unmeasured peace,
All I had taught him lost; by flattery sapped,
Jewelled and clothed as from the Orient,
He sings and struts with dancers and buffoons.

ACTE. [_Starting up._] And you, when have you two dissuaded him?
Or when forbidden? Do you teach him shun
Languor or luxury? You lure him thither.

SENECA. 'Tis true that we have not dissuaded him,
But out of high deliberate policy
Have suffered him to tread the path of folly
Rather than mischief. We have ruled the world
With wisdom these five years while he has played.

ACTE. What of Poppaea, Otho's wife. Have you
Restrained that madness? Rather have you not
Screened it and fed it?

SENECA. With the same design;
Better that he should vent his madness thus
In pastime to the State not perilous,
Amuse himself with her rather than Rome.

ACTE. A woman without pity, beautiful.
She makes the