SENECA: The glory of the Claudian house, the daughter of a god, and chosen like Juno for the bridal couch of a brother, will fill thy home with divine progeny.
NERO: The vile mother withheld confidence from her daughter’s husband, and never has the soul of Octavia been united with mine.[72]
SENECA: Love is scarcely intelligible in youthful years; overcome with shame it conceals its passion.
NERO: I, too, long made this same mistake, but the unmistakable signs of her lonely heart and features revealed her hatred for me. Yet burning indignation has determined to avenge this. I have found a wife worthy of my couch—a woman of noble family and magnificent bearing.[73] She is more beautiful than Venus, or the wife of Jove, or the stately goddess of war.
SENECA: Let the goodness, fidelity, modesty, and character of the wife please the husband. The good alone continue to be second to none in mind and spirit. The days, one by one, rob the flower of its beauty.[74]
NERO: The gods have bestowed every gift upon one woman, and the fates have decreed her for me.
SENECA: Love will abandon thee. Do not trust rashly.
NERO: Can Jove himself keep away this tyrant of the heavens who penetrates the savage waves of Neptune and the kingdoms of Pluto and draws the celestial deities from their home above?