LACO.
Drusus is prisoner in the palace.
ARRUNTIUS.
Ha!
I smell it now: ’tis rank. Where’s Agrippina?
LACO.
The princess is confined to Pandataria.
ARRUNTIUS.
Bolts, Vulcan; bolts for Jove! Phœbus, thy bow;
Stern Mars, thy sword: and, blue-ey’d maid, thy spear;
Thy club, Alcides: all the armoury
Of heaven is too little!—Ha!—to guard
The gods, I meant. Fine, rare dispatch I this same
Was swiftly born! Confined, imprison’d, banish’d?
Most tripartite! the cause, sir?
LACO.
Treason.
ARRUNTIUS.
O!
The complement of all accusings! that
Will hit, when all else fails.
LEPIDUS.
This turn is strange!
But yesterday the people would not hear,
Far less objected, but cried Cæsar’s letters
Were false and forged; that all these plots were malice;
And that the ruin of the prince’s house
Was practised ’gainst his knowledge. Where are now
Their voices, now, that they behold his heirs
Lock’d up, disgraced, led into exile?
ARRUNTIUS.
Hush’d,
Drown’d in their bellies. Wild Sejanus’ breath
Hath, like a whirlwind, scatter’d that poor dust,
With this rude blast—We’ll talk no treason, sir,
[Turns to Laco and the rest.]
If that be it you stand for. Fare you well.
We have no need of horse-leeches. Good spy,
Now you are spied, be gone.
[Exeunt Laco, Nero and Guards.]
LEPIDUS.
I fear you wrong him:
He has the voice to be an honest Roman.