_Ner._ You cannot think 970 These men would serve me so.
_Agr._ What is my purpose? My life’s one object, my supreme ambition? Was’t not to raise thee where thou art, and now Is’t not to keep thee there?
_Agr._ O think it yet. Look! there is none can love you, Nero, as I must love you; there’s not one Can guard you as I can. Have I not proved My power? While I am by you, it is yours.
_Ner._ Thou shalt not go. Resign thy outward power; be in all else 980 As heretofore. Forget what I suspected. Be still my mother.
_Agr._ Seneca, my son, Will not permit it.
_Agr._ Unless you join with me He will o’errule you.
_Agr._ For that I’d stay. I would give up all else To stand by you: ay, and be happy so.
_Ner._ And so it shall be. Have thy private fortune, Remain in Rome.
_Ner._ Nay, I will never more suspect thee. Kiss me.
_Agr._ O, now you are good and kind. Tell me, who was it Did me this wrong?
_Ner._ It was Domitia told me. She spied on thee.
_Agr._ My sister! ha! you know not The grudge between us?
_Agr._ And not suspect her slander? Did she also Commit Britannicus?
_Agr._ I feared she might have wronged the boy.
_Agr._ I went so far In sounding him as even to risk my credit. 1000 Let not unjust suspicion add a weight To the just blame we bear. You must protect him. Promise me that.
_Agr._ Forgive, at least, his foolish indiscretion. He begged me make his peace. Now have I made it?
_Agr._ My dearest son, The joy of a good action will be yours As well as mine. O, I am happy now— Indeed, most happy now.
Burrus was right. The more I think of it, The time has come that one or both must go; So the more dangerous first, then are we quit At once of all our mischief and disgrace. 1013 ’Tis past belief that she who plunged in crime To enthrone her son should now plot to dethrone him. There is no bridle for a wicked woman. Men may despise the venerable path Of virtue, and refuse the wholesome laws Of plain philosophy, but still they lean Towards reason, even in their wickedness. 1020 There’s an accountable consistency Found in their actions; but if once a woman Throw off, as men soon do, the first restraints Of credulous childhood; if her nature lack Tenderness, modesty, and that respect To self which sees in self a thing to guard From passion and caprice, and in the pleasure Of fitness finds a law,—if she lack that Or overpass it,—there’s no further bound: All things are mixed together; virtue, crime, 1030 Wisdom and folly. For they have a spirit Of infinite wrong genius. Rule, I say, Such women if you can; rule them with iron.