Again to look like—anyone! Beware!
(Page’s head shakes a timid negative. Nero stares into goblet and muses.)
Blood’s red too. Ah, a woman is the grape
Ripe for the vintage, from whose flesh agape
Glad feet tonight shall stamp the hated ooze!
It boils!—See!—like some witch’s pot that brews
Venomous ichor!—Nay—some angry ghost
Hurls bloody breakers on a bleeding coast!—
’Tis poisoned!—Out, Locusta’s brat!
(Hurls goblet at Page, who flees precipitately.)