_Enter various servants bearing wine-jars and dishes from the inner suffer-room, in procession. Then_ BURRUS, SENECA, ANICETUS, _and_ TIGELLINUS
BURRUS. 'Tis not man's work to witness this. I have fought Neck-deep in blood and spared not when the fit Was on me, but I cannot gaze on this. Have you a heart, old man?
TIGELLINUS. No, not in hours Like these: the brain is all. I fear, I fear him The last farewell--he will not bear it out!
SENECA. How to excuse my soul, yet I am here. Was this mere acting, or a true emotion?
ANICETUS. A little of both, but most, I fear it, true.
TIGELLINUS. Is all prepared and timed? No hazard left?
ANICETUS. Yonder the barge with lights and fluttering flags. The canopy whereunder Agrippina Will sit is heavily weighted: at a sign A bolt withdrawn will launch it on her head.
NERO. I cannot do it: if she goes, she goes. I cannot say farewell, and kiss her lips, Ere I commit her body to the deep.
TIGELLINUS. All hangs upon the fervour of farewell, The kiss, the soft word, and the hand detained, All hangs on it; go back.
AGRIPPINA. This seemeth like to old days come again, Evenings of Antium with a rising moon.
My boy, my boy, again! Look in my eyes. So as a babe would you look up at me After a night of tossing, half-awake, Blinking against the dawn, and pull my head Down to you, till I lost you in my hair. Do you remember many a night so thick With stars as this--you would not go to bed, But still would paddle in the warm ocean Spraying it with small hands into the skies.
AGRIPPINA. Or when you would sail In a slight skiff under a moon like this, Though chidden oft and oft.
AGRIPPINA. A wilful child--the sea--ever the sea-- Your mother could not hold you from the sea. Will you be sore if I confess a thought?
AGRIPPINA. So foolish it seems now. Awhile I doubted whether I should come.
AGRIPPINA. Now, do not laugh at me--I say You will not laugh at me?
AGRIPPINA. Why--I thought That you perhaps would kill me if I came! Truly I did!
AGRIPPINA. 'O,' I said, 'I have wearied him: he is weary of his mother.'
AGRIPPINA. In my ears there buzzed that prophecy-- 'Nero shall reign but he shall kill his mother.'
AGRIPPINA. Now--now--I had not told you had I not Been above measure happy. Now no more Wild words, no more mad words between us two, Who all the while are aching to be friends. O how your hands come waxen once again Within my own: again behind your voice The hesitating tardy bird-like word And the sweet slur of 'r's.' O but to-night Even grandeur palls, the splendid goal: to-night I am a woman and am with my child.