TERENTIUS.
Hears not my lord the wonder?
SEJANUS.
Speak it, no.
TERENTIUS.
I meet it violent in the people’s mouths,
Who run in routs to Pompey’s theatre,
To view your statue, which, they say, sends forth
A smoke, as from a furnace, black and dreadful.
SEJANUS.
Some traitor hath put fire in: you, go see,
And let the head be taken off, to look
What ’tis.
[Exit Terentius.]
Some slave hath practised an imposture,
To stir the people.—How now! why return you?
Re-enter Terentius with Satrius and Natta.
SATRIUS.
The head, my lord, already is ta’en off,
I saw it; and, at opening, there leapt out
A great and monstrous serpent.
SEJANUS.
Monstrous! why?
Had it a beard, and horns? no heart? a tongue
Forked as flattery? look’d it of the hue,
To such as live in great men’s bosoms? was
The spirit of it Macro’s?
NATTA.
May it please
The most divine Sejanus, in my days,
(And by his sacred fortune, I affirm it,)
I have not seen a more extended, grown,
Foul, spotted, venomous, ugly—