[Exit TIGELLINUS.
[Thunder heard.
NERO. Ah! thunder! thou art come
At last, too late! What catches at my heart?
I—I—her boy, her baby that was, even I
Have killed her: where I sucked there have I struck.
Mother! Mother! [He drinks.
The anguish of it hath taken hold of me,
And I am gripped by Nature. O, it comes
Upon me, this too natural remorse.
I faint! I flinch from the raw agony!
I cannot face this common human throe!
Ah! Ah! the crude stab of reality!
I am a son, and I have killed my mother!
Why! I am now no more than him who tills
Or reaps: and I am seized by primal pangs.
Mother! [He drinks.
The thunder crieth motherless.
Ah! how this sword of lightning thrusts at me!
O, all the artist in my soul is shattered,
And I am hurled into humanity,
Back to the sweat and heart-break of mankind.
I am broken upon the jagged spurs of the earth.
I can no more endure it. Mother!
[He drinks again, walking distractedly to and fro, not looking seaward. But as he at last turns, slowly out from the sea appears the figure of AGRIPPINA with dripping hair, who comes slowly towards him in silence.
[He cries aloud and falls in a swoon. She comes and looks at him.
AGRIPPINA. Child!
[She stoops, removes the amulet from his arm, flings it into the sea, and passes out in silence.
SCENE V
SCENE.—The same. Dawn breaking; NERO discovered lying in a swoon
NERO. [Slowly.] Dawn! In the night o'er-past a lightning flash!
Ah! I remember—here my mother's ghost
Stood—on this very ground—I feel the air
Still cold from her—and here the lightning burned.
So I awake my mother's murderer.
That was her ghost that stole on me sea-marred,
Silent—the ocean falling from her hair.