Rome -- History -- Tiberius, 14-37 -- Drama; Sejanus, Lucius Aelius, -31 -- Drama; Tragedies (Drama)
EUDEMUS.
Not I, sir.
I wonder he should mark me out so! well,
Jove and Apollo form it for the best. [Aside.
SATRIUS.
Your fortune’s made unto you now, Eudemus,
If you can but lay bold upon the means;
Do but observe his humour, and—believe it—
He is the noblest Roman, where he takes—
Enter Sejanus.
Here comes his lordship.
SEJANUS.
Now, good Satrius.
SATRIUS.
This is the gentleman, my lord.
SEJANUS.
Is this?
Give me your hand—we must be more acquainted.
Report, sir, hath spoke out your art and learning:
And I am glad I have so needful cause,
However in itself painful and hard,
To make me known to so great virtue.—Look,
Who is that, Satrius?
[_Exit Satrius._]
I have a grief, sir,
That will desire your help. Your name’s Eudemus!
EUDEMUS.
Yes.
SEJANUS.
Sir?
EUDEMUS.
It is, my lord.
SEJANUS.
I hear you are
Physician to Livia, the princess.
EUDEMUS.
I minister unto her, my good lord.
SEJANUS.
You minister to a royal lady, then.
EUDEMUS.
She is, my lord, and fair.
SEJANUS.
That’s understood
Of all her sex, who are or would be so;
And those that would be, physic soon can make them:
For those that are, their beauties fear no colours.
EUDEMUS.
Your lordship is conceited.
SEJANUS.
Sir, you know it,
And can, if need be, read a learned lecture
On this, and other secrets. Pray you, tell me,
What more of ladies besides Livia,
Have you your patients?
EUDEMUS.
Many, my good lord.
The great Augusta, Urgulania,
Mutilia Prisca, and Plancina; divers—
SEJANUS.
And all these tell you the particulars
Of every several grief? how first it grew,
And then increased; what action caused that;
What passion that: and answer to each point
That you will put them?
EUDEMUS.
Else, my lord, we know not
How to prescribe the remedies.
SEJANUS.
Go to,
you are a subtile nation, you physicians!
And grown the only cabinets in court,
To ladies’ privacies. Faith, which of these
Is the most pleasant lady in her physic?
Come, you are modest now.
EUDEMUS.
’Tis fit, my lord.
SEJANUS.
Why, sir, I do not ask you of their urines,
Whose smell’s most violet, or whose siege is best,
Or who makes hardest faces on her stool?
Which lady sleeps with her own face a nights?
Which puts her teeth off, with her clothes, in court?
Or, which her hair, which her complexion,
And, in which box she puts it; These were questions,
That might, perhaps, have put your gravity
To some defence of blush. But, I enquired,
Which was the wittiest, merriest, wantonnest?
Harmless intergatories, but conceits.—
Methinks Augusta should be most perverse,
And froward in her fit.
EUDEMUS.
She’s so, my lord.
SEJANUS.
I knew it: and Mutilia the most jocund.
EUDEMUS.
’Tis very true, my lord.
SEJANUS.
And why would you
Conceal this from me, now? Come, what is Livia?
I know she’s quick and quaintly spirited,
And will have strange thoughts, when she is at leisure:
She tells them all to you.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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