rime before.
Enter NERO, DRUSUS, and CALIGULA.
Ner. You hear Sejanus is come back from Caesar?
Gal. No. How? disgraced?
Dru. More graced now than ever.
Cal. By what mischance?
Cal.
A fortune like enough
Once to be bad.
Dru. But turn'd too good to both.
Gal. What was't?
Ner.
Tiberius sitting at his meat,
In a farm-house they call Spelunca, sited
By the sea-side, among the Fundane hills,
Within a natural cave; part of the grot,
About the entry, fen, and overwhelm'd
Some of the waiters; others ran away:
Only Sejanus with his knees, hands, face,
O'erhanging Caesar, did oppose himself
To the remaining ruins, and was found
In that so labouring posture by the soldiers
That came to succour him. With which adventure,
He hath so fix'd himself in Caesar's trust,
As thunder cannot move him, and is come
With all the height of Caesar's praise to Rome.
Agr.
And power, to turn those ruins all on us;
And bury whole posterities beneath them.
Nero, and Drusus, and Caligula,
Your places are the next, and therefore most
In their offence. Think on your birth and blood.
Awake your spirits, meet their violence;
'Tis princely when a tyrant doth oppose,
And is a fortune sent to exercise
Your virtue, as the wind doth try strong trees,
Who by vexation grow more sound and firm.
After your father's fall, and uncle's fate,
What can you hope, but all the change of stroke
That force or sleight can give? then stand upright;
And though you do not act, yet suffer nobly:
Be worthy of my womb, and take strong chear;
What we do know will come, we should not fear. [Exeunt.
SCENE ll.----The Street
Enter MACRO.
Mac.
Return'd so soon! renew'd in trust and grace!
Is Caesar then so weak, or hath the place
But wrought this alteration with the air;
And he, on next remove, will all repair?
Macro, thou art engaged: and what before
Was public; now, must be thy private, more.
The weal of Caesar, fitness did imply;
But thine own fate confers necessity
On thy employment; and the thoughts born nearest
Unto ourselves, move swiftest still, and dearest.
If he recover, thou art lost; yea, all
The weight of pr
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