TERENTIUS.
The whilst the senate at the temple of Concord
Make haste to meet again, and thronging cry,
Let us condemn him, tread him down in water,
While he doth lie upon the bank; away!
While some more tardy, cry unto their bearers,
He will be censured ere we come; run, knaves,
And use that furious diligence, for fear
Their bondmen should inform against their slackness,
And bring their quaking flesh unto the hook:
The rout they follow with confused voice,
Crying, they’re glad, say, they could ne’er abide him,
Enquire what man he was, what kind of face,
What beard he had, what nose, what lips?
Protest They ever did presage he’d come to this;
They never thought him wise, nor valiant; ask
After his garments, when he dies, what death;
And not a beast of all the herd demands,
What was his crime, or who were his accusers,
Under what proof or testimony he fell?
There came, says one, a huge long-worded letter
From Capreae against him. Did there so?
O, they are satisfied; no more.
LEPIDUS.
Alas!
They follow Fortune, and hate men condemn’d,
Guilty or not.
ARRUNTIUS.
But had Sejanus thrived
In his design, and prosperously opprest
The old Tiberius; then, in that same minute,
These very rascals, that now rage like furies,
Would have proclaim’d Sejanus emperor.
LEPIDUS.
But what hath follow’d?
TERENTIUS.
Sentence by the senate,
To lose his head; which was no sooner off,
But that and the unfortunate trunk were seized
By the rude multitude; who not content
With what the forward justice of the state.
Officiously had done, with violent rage
Have rent it limb from limb. A thousand heads,
A thousand hands, ten thousand tongues and voices,
Employ’d at once in several acts of malice!
Old men not staid with age, virgins with shame,
Late wives with loss of husbands, mothers of children,
Losing all grief in joy of his sad fall,
Run quite transported with their cruelty!
These mounting at his head, these at his face,
These digging out his eyes, those with his brains
Sprinkling themselves, their houses and their friends;
Others are met, have ravish’d thence an arm,
And deal small pieces of the flesh for favours;
These with a thigh, this hath cut off his hands,
And this his feet; these fingers and these toes;
That hath his liver, he his heart: there wants
Nothing but room for wrath, and place for hatred!
What cannot oft be done, is now o’erdone.
The whole, and all of what was great Sejanus,
And, next to Cæsar, did possess the World,
Now torn and scatter’d, as he needs no grave;
Each little dust covers a little part:
So lies he no where, and yet often buried!
Enter Nuntius.
ARRUNTIUS.
More of Sejanus?
NUNTIUS.
Yes.
LEPIDUS.
What can be added?
We know him dead.
NUNTIUS.
Then there begin your pity.
There is enough behind to melt ev’n Rome,
And Cæsar into tears; since never slave
Could yet so highly offend, but tyranny,
In torturing him, would make him worth lamenting.—
A son and daughter to the dead Sejanus,
(Of whom there is not now so much remaining
As would give fast’ning to the hangman’s hook,)
Have they drawn forth for farther sacrifice;
Whose tenderness of knowledge, unripe years,
And childish silly innocence was such,
As scarce would lend them feeling of their danger:
The girl so simple, as she often ask’d
“Where they would lead her? for what cause they dragg’d her?”
Cried, “She would do no more:” that she could take
“Warning with beating.” And because our laws
Admit no virgin immature to die,
The wittily and strangely cruel Macro
Deliver’d her to be deflower’d and spoil’d,
By the rude lust of the licentious hangman,
Then to be strangled with her harmless brother.