Poppæa.

Nay, I’ll not go.

Ner. Thou wilt not?

Pop. Nay, I cannot.

Ner. Cannot to Cæsar?

Pop. Prove me then thou’rt Cæsar, And not a ward.

Ner. A ward!

Pop. I said a ward. May I not see thee vexed? ’Tis what men whisper, Who dare not vex thee. Well, thy mother’s child, So much that at her beck thou forfeitest Empire and liberty.

Ner. Wouldst thou enrage me! What dost thou mean, Poppæa?

Pop. Deny not that: If ’tis not that hinders our marriage, then The case, I fear, blackens. I, who can smile At that, must weep another cause. I’ll think Thou’rt tired of me.

Ner. Now by what sign?

Pop. Maybe Thou hast seen a better beauty, and repented The promise given to me.

Ner. O treason, treason!

Pop. Thinkest my blood unworthy of alliance With thine—tho’, truth, my ancestors have triumphed.

Ner. Who dares that lie shall bleed.

Pop. Or that our bed Is not like to be blest.

Ner. The fruitful gods With all their oracles avert the omen.

Pop. Or that I urge my marriage for advancement; And thou, doubting my love, pressest denial To proof of faith.

Ner. Ay, that is it; thou’st hit it.

Pop. Or that I, once thy wife, would cross thy mother, Divulge her crimes, the hate the senate bear her, And last, though that’s well known, how she hates thee.

Ner. Speak of this once for all, then let the jest Be dead.

Pop. Nay, ’tis no jest, for Agrippina Will never love a daughter who loves thee. Restore me to my husband. I were happier In any place, howe’er remote from Rome, Where thy disgrace and wrongs can but be spoken, Not seen and felt as here. See why I go.

Ner. Poppæa, since I have never hid from thee My quarrel with my mother, thou mayst know It draws to end.

Pop. Oh, is’t the turn for kindness? Hath she been kind again? Why, ’tis deception. When her plot failed she cast it off, and now Exults: ’tis her fresh confidence seems kind.

Ner. ’Twas not her plot. Or else I’d rather think She put the snare to catch my foolish aunt, Who blindly took the bait.

Pop. Then she pretended Treason, that she might better hurt her sister: And yet can win thy trust!

Ner. Nay, heaven forbid; I trust her not.

Pop. She hates me.

Ner. Nay, her kinship Is jealous for Octavia; but...

Pop. Ah, true! To kill one’s husband, plot against one’s son, Should leave unsatisfied some tender feelings To spend upon a step-child. Why, she knows Those arts which manage you would not gull me, A woman not her child. Her whole design Is bent to thwart our marriage; and she will. I know it.

Ner. I swear that were this proved against her, Came it to a question ’twixt herself and thee, Which to take, which to lose, then not a moment Would I delay: the blow I have often sworn To strike should fall.

Enter Messenger.