Sit down, my comfort. When the master prince Of all the world, Sejanus, saith he fears, Is it not fatal? SEJANUS. Yes, to those are fear’d. TIBERIUS. And not to him? SEJANUS. Not, if he wisely turn That part of fate he holdeth, first on them. TIBERIUS. That nature, blood, and laws of kind forbid. SEJANUS. Do policy and state forbid it? TIBERIUS. No. SEJANUS. The rest of poor respects, then, let go by; State is enough to make the act just, them guilty. TIBERIUS. Long hate pursues such acts. SEJANUS. Whom hatred frights, Let him not dream of sovereignty. TIBERIUS. Are rites Of faith, love, piety, to be trod down, Forgotten, and made vain? SEJANUS. All for a crown. The prince who shames a tyrant’s name to bear, Shall never dare do any thing, but fear; All the command of sceptres quite doth perish, If it begin religious thoughts to cherish: Whole empires fall, sway’d by those nice respects; It is the license of dark deeds protects Ev’n states most hated, when no laws resist The sword. but that it acteth what it list. TIBERIUS. Yet so, we may do all things cruelly, Not safely. SEJANUS. Yes, and do them thoroughly. TIBERIUS. Knows yet Sejanus whom we point at? SEJANUS. Ay, Or else my thought, my sense, or both do err: ’Tis Agrippina. TIBERIUS. She, and her proud race. SEJANUS. Proud! dangerous, Cæsar: for in them apace The father’s spirit shoots up. Germanicus Lives in their looks, their gait, their form, t’ upbraid us With his close death, if not revenge the same. TIBERIUS. The act’s not known. SEJANUS. Not proved: but whispering Fame Knowledge and proof doth to the jealous give, Who, than to fail, would their own thought believe. It is not safe, the children draw long breath, That are provoked by a parent’s death. TIBERIUS. It is as dangerous to make them hence, If nothing but their birth be their offence. SEJANUS. Stay, till they strike at Cæsar; then their crime Will be enough; but late and out of time For him to punish. TIBERIUS. Do they purpose it?