INUS

TIGELLINUS. Caesar at last! Sole master of the world!

NERO. O Tigellinus, in the mid of night,
The spirit of my whelmed mother stole
Hither upon me, dumb out of the deep.
Heaven gave a flash: I saw her face and fell.

TIGELLINUS. Her spirit! Better that than she herself.
Dismiss dark fancies now--this day thou art free.

NERO. No, but enthralled by her for ever-more.
She is my air, my ocean, and my sky.

TIGELLINUS. The night has wrought this sickly mood on you--
Natural--it will pass.

NERO. Never, O never!
You flatter, you console, you would assuage,
But you are human, can forget and change.
But yonder rocky coast remembers yet.
That countenance changes not: that conscious bay
Maintains its everlasting memory.
This privy region saw, and it shall see
For ever what was done. The amulet!
Filched from me! Was it then a ghost I saw?

_Enter_ SEAMAN _hurriedly, followed by_ BURRUS

SEAMAN. Caesar, my news must plead for this intrusion.
I was aboard the ship whereon the Augusta
Set sail: when the roof fell, thy mother's maid
Cried 'Save me! I am the Emperor's mother!'
Straight
Crushed under many a blow, she dropped and died.
But silently thy mother Agrippina
Slid from the ship into the water and swam
Shoreward. With white and jewelled arms she thrust
Out through the waves and lay upon the foam.
We heard her through the ripple breathing deep,
And when we heard no more, we watched her still--
Her hair behind her blowing into gold
As she did glimmer o'er the gloomy deep;
And all the stars swam with her through the heavens,
The hurrying moon lighted her with a torch,
The sea was loth to lose her, and the shore
Yearned for her; till we lost her in the dark,
Save now and then some splendid leap of the head.

NERO. You know not if she be alive or dead?

SEAMAN. Caesar, rejoice--thy mother lives.

NERO. She lives?

SEAMAN. When I at last touched shore, I spoke with two
Night-wandering fishermen. These two, it seems,
Had borne her in their boat across the bay
To her own villa.

NERO. [_Falling hysterically on neck of_ SEA-MAN.]
I am no murderer then!

TIGELLINUS. Have you considered, sir, what now may urge
Thy mother, Agrippina, knowing all,
Seeing that by no chance or accident
Or sudden flurry of the ocean floor
The ship collapsed. Safe is she, but how long?
Will sh