public good excuses private guile.

AGRIPPINA. You, Xenophon and Burrus, stand with me.

_Enter_ BURRUS, _right. He salutes the corse of_ CLAUDIUS

BURRUS. Obedient to the trumpet-call I come.

AGRIPPINA. Say, Burrus, quickly say, how stands our cause
With the Praetorians who unmake and make Emperors?

BURRUS. The Praetorians are staunch,
And they are marching now upon the Palace.

AGRIPPINA. Will they have Nero?

BURRUS. Yes, and double pay.
There is a murmuring minority
Who toss about the name Britannicus.
These may be feared; let Nero scatter gold
There where dissension rises--it will cease.
Their signal when they shall surround the Palace,
The gleam of my unsheathed sword to the dawn.

AGRIPPINA. Stand there until I have from him the sign,
Then let thy sword gleam upward to the dawn.
[_Turning and pointing to body of_ CLAUDIUS.
That is my work! Also, I must betroth
Nero unto the young Octavia,
And with the dead man's daughter mate my son.
This marriage sets him firmer on the throne,
And foils the party of Britannicus.
[_To_ BURRUS.] You for the army answerable stand.
[_To_ SENECA.] And, Seneca, I have entrusted Nero's mind
To you, to point an eaglet to the sun.
Nero? What does he?

SENECA. Nero knows not yet
That Claudius is dead. Rome hath not slept,
But to the torch-lit circus all have run
To see him victor in a chariot race,
Whence he is now returning. A night race
By burning torches is his newest whim.

AGRIPPINA. A torch-lit race! And yet why not? My child
Should climb all virgin to the throne of the earth,
Not conscious of spilt blood: and I meantime
Will sway the deep heart of the mighty world.
The peril is Britannicus: for Nero,
Careless of empire, strings but verse to verse.
How shall this dove attain the eagle cry?

SENECA. Be not so sure of Nero's harmlessness.

AGRIPPINA. What do you mean?

SENECA. By me he has been taught,
And I have watched him. True, the harp, the song,
The theatre, delight this dreamer: true,
He lives but in imaginations: yet
Suppose this aesthete made omnipotent,
Feeling there is no bar he cannot break,
Knowing there is no bound he cannot pass;
Might he not then despise the written page,
A petty music, and a puny scene?
Conceive a spectacle not witnessed yet,
When he, an artist in omnipotence,
Uses for colour this red blood of ou