But her close cased up in dreadful barge,
With her unto Compania coast to wend
A band of armed men, he gave in charge.
This programme the play proceeds to fill in.
In the first act Octavia, unbosoming herself to her nurse, relieves her heart of its woe and horror. She recounts the misfortunes of her house, the atrocities of her lord, his infidelities to her, her detestation of him. The nurse is full of sympathy, but admonishes her to patience, consoling her with assurances of the people’s love, and reminding her of the truancies that the Empress of Heaven had also to excuse in her own husband and brother:
Now, madam, sith on earth your powre is pight
And haue on earth Queene Junos princely place,
And sister are and wyfe to Neroes grace,
Your wondrous restles dolours great appease.[22]
The chorus closes the act with a variation on the same themes, passing from praises of Octavia’s purity and regrets for the ancient Roman intolerance of wrong, to the contrasted picture of Nero’s unchallenged malignity.