SEJANUS. Swell, swell, my joys; and faint not to declare Yourselves as ample as your causes are. I did not live till now; this my first hour; Wherein I see my thoughts reach’d by my power. But this, and gripe my wishes. Great and high, The world knows only two, that’s Rome and I. My roof receives me not; ’tis air I tread; And, at each step, I feel my advanced head Knock out a star in heaven! rear’d to this height, All my desires seem modest, poor, and slight, That did before sound impudent: ’tis place, Not blood, discerns the noble and the base. Is there not something more than to be Cæsar? Must we rest there? it irks t’ have come so far, To be so near a stay. Caligula, Would thou stood’st stiff, and many in our way! Winds lose their strength, when they do empty fly, Unmet of woods or buildings; great fires die, That want their matter to withstand them: so, It is our grief, and will be our loss, to know Our power shall want opposites; unless The gods, by mixing in the cause, would bless Our fortune with their conquest. That were worth Sejanus’ strife; durst fates but bring it forth. Enter Terentius. TERENTIUS. Safety to great Sejanus! SEJANUS. Now, Terentius? TERENTIUS. Hears not my lord the wonder? SEJANUS. Speak it, no. TERENTIUS. I meet it violent in the people’s mouths, Who run in routs to Pompey’s theatre, To view your statue, which, they say, sends forth A smoke, as from a furnace, black and dreadful. SEJANUS. Some traitor hath put fire in: you, go see, And let the head be taken off, to look What ’tis. [_Exit Terentius._] Some slave hath practised an imposture, To stir the people.—How now! why return you? Re-enter Terentius with Satrius and Natta. SATRIUS. The head, my lord, already is ta’en off, I saw it; and, at opening, there leapt out A great and monstrous serpent. SEJANUS. Monstrous! why? Had it a beard, and horns? no heart? a tongue Forked as flattery? look’d it of the hue, To such as live in great men’s bosoms? was The spirit of it Macro’s? NATTA. May it please The most divine Sejanus, in my days, (And by his sacred fortune, I affirm it,) I have not seen a more extended, grown, Foul, spotted, venomous, ugly— SEJANUS. O, the fates! What a wild muster’s here of attributes, T’ express a worm, a snake! TERENTIUS. But how that should Come there, my lord! SEJANUS. What, and you too, Terentius! I think you mean to make ’t a prodigy In your reporting. TERENTIUS. Can the wise Sejanus Think heaven hath meant it less! SEJANUS. O, superstition! Why, then the falling of our bed, that brake This morning, burden’d with the populous weight, Of our expecting clients, to salute us; Or running of the cat betwixt our legs, As we set forth unto the Capitol, Were prodigies.