AGRIPPINA. Bookman, shall I learn policy from you?
Be patient with me. Nero, you I ask,
Not schoolmasters or stewards I promoted.
Is it your will I go to Antium?
Speak, speak. Be not the mouthpiece of these men:
Domitius!
NERO. Mother, 'tis my will you go.
AGRIPPINA. Then, sir, discharge me not from your employ
Without some written commendation,
That I can tire the hair or pare the nails,
That those who were my friends may take me in!
NERO. Lady!
AGRIPPINA. O, lady now? Mother, no more!
NERO. [Pacing fiercely to and fro.] Beware
the son you bore: look lest I turn!
Chafe not too far the master of this world.
AGRIPPINA. See the new tiger in the dancer's eye:
'Ware of him, keepers—then, you bid me go?
[A pause.
Then I will go. But think not, though I go,
My spirit shall not pace the palace still.
I am too bound by guilt unto these walls.
Still shall you hear a step in dead of night;
In stillness the long rustle of my robe.
So long as stand these walls I cannot leave them.
Yet will I go: behold you, that stand by,
A mother by her own son thrust away,
Cast out—ha, ha!—in my old age, infirm,
To totter and mumble in oblivion!
NERO. [To SENECA and BURRUS.] A little
violent that—did you not think so?
And yet the gesture excellent and strong!
AGRIPPINA. Romans, behold this son: the man of men;
This harp-player, this actor, this buffoon——
NERO. Peace!