NERO. Then glorying peacocks: here a sounding march,
Something triumphal—even a trifle loud.
And, ah! the mullets! You remembered them?
STEWARD. O Caesar, yes.
NERO. Let these be introduced
By some low dirge. And let us see them die—
Slow-dying mullets within crystal bowls,
Dying from colour unto colour: now
Vermilion death-pangs fading into blue—
A scarlet agony in azure ending.
There we have colour! And at last the tongues
Of nightingales—the tongues of nightingales?
O, silence with the tongues of nightingales.
[He dismisses STEWARD.]
TIGELLINUS. Sir, grant us three a moment's audience.
[NERO dismisses friends and satellites with gesture.
SENECA. Your mother, sir, this very day intends
To hear the British chiefs in audience,
Sitting beside you. Know then that the world
Will not endure to have a woman's rule.
BURRUS. No, nor the army.
TIGELLINUS. And thy mother laughs
In public at thy verse.
NERO. She has no ear.
I pity her—remember what she loses.