s is her ultimate audacity.

TIGELLINUS. And this our utmost opportunity.

NERO. Sirs, seeing that the State demands this life,
Seeing that I must choose 'twixt her and Rome,
I do consent to Agrippina's death.
The State like Nature must be pitiless,
And I must ruthless be as Nature's Lord.
But I'll be no Orestes, I'll not lift
This hand against her: see you then to that!
It is enough to have conceived this deed.
The how, the when, the where, I leave to you.

TIGELLINUS. She is delivered now into our hands,
And runs into the toils we had not set.
In Baiae no Praetorians are camped,
No populace inflamed in her cause;
A solitary woman doth she come.
Caesar, receive her graciously and well.
Smile all distrust away and speak her soft,
While we devise for her a noiseless doom.

ANICETUS. Caesar, a sudden thought hath come to me.
A pleasure pinnace lies in Baiae Bay
Built for thyself: on this let her return
In the deep night after Minerva's feast,
Or supper given in sign of amity.
I will contrive a roof weighted with lead
Over the couch whereon she will recline.
Once in deep water at a signal given
The roof shall fall: and with a leak prepared
The ship shall sink and plunge her in the waves.
In that uncertain water what may chance?
What may not? To the elements this deed
Will be imputed, to a casual gust
Or striking squall upon the moody deep.

NERO. Wonderful! This gives beauty to an act
Which else were ugly and of me unworthy.
So mighty is she that her proper doom
Could come but by some elemental aid.
Her splendid trouble asketh but the sea
For sepulchre: her spirit limitless
A multitudinous and roaring grave.
Here's nothing sordid, nothing vulgar. I
Consign her to the uproar whence she came.
Be the crime vast enough it seems not crime.
I, as befits me, call on great allies.
I make a compact with the elements.
And here my agents are the very winds,
The waves my servants, and the night my friend.

BURRUS. Suppose the night be clear, with a bright moon,
A calm sea.

NERO. On the moon I can rely.
Last night I wrote to her a glimmering verse;
She is white with a wan passion for my lips.
The moon will succour me. Depart from me--
Trouble me not with human faces now.

[_Exeunt_ COUNCILLORS.

[_Meanwhile_ POPPAEA _appears behind in a gorgeous dress with
white arms extended against the curtains_.