The second act commences with a monologue by Seneca on the growing corruption of the age, which is interrupted by the approach of his master in talk with the Prefect. His words, as he enters, are:
Dispatch with speede that we commaunded haue:
Go, send forthwith some one or other slaue,
That Plautius cropped scalpe, and Sillas eke,
May bring before our face: goe some man seeke.[23]
Seneca remonstrates, but his remonstrances are of no avail; and in a long discussion in which he advocates a policy of righteousness and goodwill and the sacredness of Octavia’s claims, he is equally unsuccessful. The act, to which there is no chorus, concludes with Nero’s determination to flout the wishes of the people and persist in the promotion of Poppaea:
Why do we not appoynt the morrow next
When as our mariage pompe may be context?[24]
The third act is ushered in with one of those boding apparitions of which the Senecan Tragedy is so fond. The shade of Agrippina rises, the bridal torch of Nero and Poppaea in her hand:
Through paunch of riuened earth, from Plutoes raigne