NURSE: Listen, I hear the voice of my sad foster daughter. Does slow old age hesitate to go to the wedding chamber?
OCTAVIA: O, nurse, thou faithful witness of my grief, see my tears.
NURSE: What day, wretched daughter, will free thee from such sorrow?
OCTAVIA: The day which will send me to the Stygian shades.
NURSE: I hope that these forebodings of thine may be long in realization.
OCTAVIA: Not thy prayers but the fates rule my destiny.
NURSE: A pitying god will give better opportunities to thee in thy sorrow. Soon thou wilt quietly win over thy husband with caressing obedience.
OCTAVIA: I could conquer the savage lion and the fierce tiger sooner than the merciless heart of a barbarous tyrant. He hates men of noble descent, he scorns both gods and men, and not yet does he meet the fate which his infamous mother by a dreadful crime bestowed upon him. Although he may be ashamed to have gained this unacknowledged empire by the kindness of his ill-omened mother, yet she will bear this title of honor[19] after death for endless generations.
NURSE: Restrain the thoughts of thy raging mind; repress those rashly spoken words.