_Fla._ One word. Nero must die; And whosoe’er but thou steps in his place 610 Must also die; for none is worthy. Come At once, ere more be slain. This ends not here. _Sen._ Thou dost say right: this ends not here: if more Shall die, thou bearest some blame of it. Farewell! God can bend all to good: this, which to me Seems ill, may not be so. _Lat._ (_going_). Sir, I shall trust you. _Sen._ Indeed fear not. Now, for my safety & yours, Leave me, I pray. Farewell! _All_ (_going_). Farewell! [_Exeunt._ _Sen._ Nay, can it be? Fools! can it be they cried Seneca, Cæsar? My hand is trembling, my sense Swimming: ’tis true: my mortal stroke, & dealt me By would-be friends. The way that least I expected, When I least looked for it—yea—thus cometh Death. No hope. I am named. But ah! thou bloody tiger, Who slewest her that bare thee, now I that trained thee Might ... yea, I might.—The whole world for a bait Dangles upon the hook, and I refuse. I would not; nay, I could not ... What then do? Stand firm? with my poor palsied limbs, Stand firm? budge not a hair, as Burrus put it? 630 —So take rank in the monster’s tale of murders: My gravity in his comedy of crime: Suffer in my last act of serious life His hypocritical smile, his three or four Crocodile tears: be waved off with a smirk, ‘A sacrifice to the safety of the state’? Oft have I thought of death, to brave his terror, But ne’er forereckoned thus.... Why, it were better To give life its one chance, still play the game. That may well be: That I’ll do: all my skill Summon to aid me: else ’tis my death,—the end: That execrable nothing which no art Of painful thought can reconcile.... _Enter Paullina excitedly._ _PAULLINA._ Seneca, Seneca! The Circus Maximus is burned; the fire Hath reached the embankment—Ah, they have told you? _Sen._ Nay: What didst thou say? _Pau._ The fire, my lord, the fire. The Circus is burned down, and the Velabrum Is now a field of flame, that waves in the wind. Rome will be burned. _Sen._ A general calamity Might turn attention from me. _Pau._ My lord, you are strange. _Sen._ Paullina, it matters not to me or thee If the whole world should burn: a little while And all is nought. There have been here this morning The heads of a conspiracy. _Pau._ A conspiracy! _Sen._ To murder Nero. _Pau._ Indeed I wonder not. _Sen._ But who is the man, thinkst thou, whom they would take To set up in his place; who, if they fail, Must fall a sacrifice? Who least desires The crown? Who least deserves the death? ’Tis he.