At length the young emperor, in following his round of vicious indulgence, formed an intimacy with a certain lady of the court named Poppæa, the wife of Otho, one of Nero's companions in pleasure. Nero sent Otho away on some distant appointment, in order that he might enjoy the society of Poppæa without restraint. At length Poppæa gained so great an ascendency over the mind of the emperor as to seduce him entirely away from his duty to his wife, and she proposed that they should both be divorced and then marry one another. Nero was inclined to accede to this proposal, but Agrippina strongly opposed it. For a time Nero hesitated between the influence of Agrippina and the sentiment of duty, on the one hand, and the enticements of Poppæa on the other. In addition to the influence of her blandishments and smiles, she attempted to act upon Nero's boyish pride by taunting him with what she called his degrading and unmanly subjection to his mother. How long, she asked, was he to remain like a child under maternal tutelage? She wondered how he could endure so ignoble a bondage. He was in name and position, she said, a mighty monarch, reigning absolutely over half the world,--but in actual fact he was a mere nursery boy, who could do nothing without his mother's leave. She was ashamed, she said, to see him in so humiliating a condition; and unless he would take some vigorous measures to free himself from his chains, she declared that she would leave him forever, and go with her husband to some distant quarter of the world where she could no longer be a witness of his disgrace. The effect of these taunts upon the mind of Nero was very much heightened by the proud and imperious spirit which his mother manifested toward him, and which seemed to become more and more stern and severe, through the growing desperation which the conduct of her son and her own hopeless condition seemed to awaken in her mind. The quarrel, in a word, between the emperor and his mother grew more and more inveterate and hopeless every day. At length he shunned her entirely, and finally, every remaining spark of filial duty having become extinguished, he began to meditate some secret plan of removing her out of his way. He revolved various projects for accomplishing this purpose, in his mind. He did not dare to employ open violence, as he had no charge against his mother to justify a criminal sentence against her; and he dreaded the effect upon the public mind which would be produced by the spectacle of so unnatural a deed as the execution of a mother by command of her son. He could not trust to poison. Agrippina was perfectly familiar with every thing relating to the poisoning art, and would doubtless be fully on her guard against any attempt of that kind that he might make. Besides, he supposed, that by means of certain antidotes which she was accustomed to use, her system was permanently fortified against the action of every species of poison.