All for thy sake was planned, and now my pleasure In scheming thine is fled; for what is Baiæ, And what Minerva’s feast, blue skies and seas, Or games, or mirth, or wine, or the soft season, If thou deny me? Prithee say thou’lt come. _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 2491 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 2500 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 2512 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? 2520 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.