SENECA. Here's what I feared!
TIGELLINUS. His eyes now! Yet how calm!
So steals the panther, stirring not a leaf!
[Exeunt slowly SENECA, TIGELLINUS, and BURRUS. NERO walks to and fro, constructing the scene in pantomime to himself. LOCUSTA enters down, right.
NERO. You are Locusta, and your trade is poison.
[She makes obeisance.
[Uneasily.] Is poison but a trade with you, or art?
Surely to slay is the supreme of arts;
And with no ugly wound or hideous blow,
But beautifully to extinguish life.
Have you some rare drug that kills suddenly?
As I have planned it, I can have no pause—
Death must be sudden—silent. And my guests
Must not be wearied with a pang prolonged,
And there must be no cry. That understand.
[LOCUSTA, grovelling at his feet.
LOCUSTA. O Caesar, such a drug is known to me,—
But I will not reveal it.
NERO. Die then.
LOCUSTA. Die?
O, I love life, but this I'll not reveal.