MESSENGER: The crowds of people are strongly attached to Octavia, and frenzied by her great wrongs and persecutions they surge in turmoil everywhere.[93]
CHORUS: Tell what they have dared to do and by what counsel?
MESSENGER: The gods prepare to return to Claudia her brother’s penates and couch, the empire which was her dowry.
CHORUS: Whom does Poppaea now hold in allegiance?
MESSENGER: This rash favor inflames the mind of the people and drives them headlong into raging madness. All the costly marble and shining bronze images of Poppaea are broken and lie prostrate overthrown by their savage swords. They drag her dismembered statues along and after trampling them in the filthy mire, finally destroy them entirely. My fears conceal their plans and fierce deeds. They prepare to burn the palace of the emperor unless he surrenders the new wife to their wrath and submissively returns to Claudia her own penates. I shall not delay to carry out the commands of the prefect, that Nero may know the movements of his citizens.
CHORUS: Cupid carries invincible weapons with which thou dost vainly excite fierce wars. He will overwhelm thee with the fires of passion with which he has often destroyed thunderbolts and has drawn captive Jove from the sky. Thou wilt pay the penalty with thy life. Glowing with passion, he is not patient nor easily controlled. He commanded fierce Achilles to play the lyre; he shattered the Greeks and Menelaus; he overturned the kingdom of Priam; he destroyed royal cities. Now the mind fears what the relentless power of the pitiless god brings.
NERO: O, too lenient is the band of my soldiers and my anger after such a great wrong, since civilian blood has not quenched the torches burning for us and since Rome which produced such a monster does not reek with the blood of the people. The wicked crime of the common people deserves more severe punishment. But let that woman who has stirred up rebellion among the citizens and whom I have always suspected though she was wife and sister, too—let her die by my wrath and let her extinguish my anger in her own blood. Let the walls of the city perish in my flames. Let disgraceful poverty, hunger, and cruel sorrow destroy a hated nation. Great crowds corrupted by the prosperity of the times run riot; moderation does not please it, nor can it endure a peaceful reign, but it is borne hither by restless audacity, and is hurled thither by its own temerity. Misfortune must govern it; a heavy yoke must always crush it down lest it should dare to compare me with former rulers and to conspire against my wife. Crushed by fear of punishment, the people will learn to obey the will of its own leader. But I see a man coming whose singular loyalty and remarkable fidelity have placed him in command of my legions.
PREFECT: I announce that the uprising of the people is checked by the death of a few who long rashly resisted.