Do thou pray for me and the gods implore760
That in this happy state I may endure.
[Exeunt Poppaea and Nurse.]
Chorus [of Roman women in sympathy with Poppaea]: If babbling rumor's tales of Jove,
His secret joys in mortal love,
Are true, he once, in plumage dressed,
Was to the lovely Leda pressed;765
And as a savage bull he bore
Europa from her native shore:
But should he once thy form, Poppaea, see,