Then glorying peacocks: here a sounding march,
Something triumphal--even a trifle loud.
And, ah! the mullets! You remembered them?

STEWARD. O Caesar, yes.

NERO. Let these be introduced
By some low dirge. And let us see them die--
Slow-dying mullets within crystal bowls,
Dying from colour unto colour: now
Vermilion death-pangs fading into blue--
A scarlet agony in azure ending.
There we have colour! And at last the tongues
Of nightingales--the tongues of nightingales?
O, silence with the tongues of nightingales.

[_He dismisses_ STEWARD.]

TIGELLINUS. Sir, grant us three a moment's audience.

[NERO _dismisses friends and satellites with gesture._

SENECA. Your mother, sir, this very day intends
To hear the British chiefs in audience,
Sitting beside you. Know then that the world
Will not endure to have a woman's rule.

BURRUS. No, nor the army.

TIGELLINUS. And thy mother laughs
In public at thy verse.

NERO. She has no ear.
I pity her--remember what she loses.

TIGELLINUS. Ah, be not laughed at, sir, be it not said
Nero is tied unto his mother's robe.
Be brilliant, cruel, lustful, what you will,
But not a naughty child, rated and slapped.
Poppaea too, she will not suffer you
With her to indulge your fancy.

SENECA. Caesar, rise!

BURRUS. Rise--rise, and reign!

TIGELLINUS. And be no more a doll
That dances while she pulls the string behind.
Then young Britannicus!

NERO. O nothing!

TIGELLINUS. Yet
He is winning on the people: he hath charm,
His voice is sweet.

[NERO _starts._

Caesar, I judge it not,
But speak the common drift; and his recital,
So I am told, has for accompaniment
Gesture most eloquent.

[NERO _is more and more roused._

His poems, too!

NERO. [_Breaking the silence._] His poems!
Why, why, not a line will scan
To the true ear; and what variety,
I ask you all--what flow, or what resource
Is shown? A safe monotony of rhythm!

[_He paces to and fro angrily._

TIGELLINUS. Caesar, I cannot speak to such a theme.
Merely Rome's mouthpiece.

NERO. And his gesture, why,
'Tis of the Orient, and gesticulation
More happily were called; never a stillness,
Never repose, but one wild whirl of arms.

TIGELLINUS. I spoke not of fulfilment, but of promise,
The artist's dazzling future.

NERO