 | Octavia |  |
SCENE THE SECOND.
Octavia, Seneca.Oct.
Oh joy! art thou then living, Seneca?
Oh come, my more than father ... What is this?
Thou wear'st a less dejected countenance:
What tidings dost thou bring me?
Sen.
Unaspersed,
Enjoy eternally thy innocence.
Thy unexampled goodness with its warmth
Has touch'd the obduracy of servile hearts,
Inflaming them to virtue. 'Mid the pangs
Of the most cruel martyrdom, thy maidens,
All, with one voice, the invented crime denied.
Distinguish'd by her firmness from the rest,
Marcia, with masculine and free-born aspect,
(Enough to make us trembling slaves ashamed)
Fixing on Nero her undaunted looks,
Now Tigellinus, and now Nero, she,
With a loud voice, alternately proclaim'd
Impious impostors: rapt with generous rage
116
Commemorative of Octavia's virtue,
'Mid torments seemed incapable of pain,
And thus heroically breathed her last.
Oct.
Ah victim, worthy of a better fate! ...
But what boots this? To redeem mine, what blood
Can now suffice?
Sen.
More difficult than ever
Will Nero find it now to spill that blood.
Thou hast gain'd fame and honour, where the tyrant
Hoped to draw on thee infamy and death.
Even Eucerus his approaching fate
With benedictions hail'd. Now horrid oaths,
By which his spirit to the infernal gods
He consecrates; now free ferocious words,
He utters, which attest thy innocence;
And now he swears that ropes, and swords, and axes,
To him are far more welcome, than the gold
Which, as the price of calumny, was proffer'd.
To every man around him he revealed
The ineffectual bribes of Tigellinus:
The very executioners themselves,
Smitten with unaccustomed horror, listened,
And e'en in spite of their ferocious office
Kept him at bay, and dallied with his death.
These grateful tidings to impart to thee
Swiftly I came.
Oct.
See, who approaches now:
See him, and hope.
Sen.
Oh heaven!
| Octavia | |