Ter. 
   O you, whose minds are good,
   And have not forced all mankind from your breasts;
   That yet have so much stock of virtue left,
   To pity guilty states, when they are wretched: 
   Lend your soft ears to hear, and eyes to weep,
   Deeds done by men, beyond the acts of furies. 
   The eager multitude (who never yet
   Knew why to love or hate, but only pleased
   T’ express their rage of power) no sooner heard
   The murmur of Sejanus in decline,
   But with that speed and heat of appetite,
   With which they greedily devour the way
   To some great sports, or a new theatre,
   They fill’d the Capitol, and Pompey’s Cirque,
   Where, like so many mastiffs, biting stones,
   As if his statues now were sensitive
   Of their wild fury; first, they tear them down;
   Then fastening ropes, drag them along the streets,
   Crying in scorn, This, this was that rich head
   Was crown’d with garlands, and with odours, this
   That was in Rome so reverenced!  Now
   The furnace and the bellows shall to work,
   The great Sejanus crack, and piece by piece
   Drop in the founder’s pit.

Lep.  O popular rage!

Ter. 
   The whilst the senate at the temple of Concord
   Make haste to meet again, and thronging cry,
   Let us condemn him, tread him down in water,
   While he doth lie upon the bank; away! 
   While some more tardy, cry unto their bearers,
   He will be censured ere we come; run, knaves,
   And use that furious diligence, for fear
   Their bondmen should inform against their slackness,
   And bring their quaking flesh unto the hook: 
   The rout they follow with confused voice,
   Crying, they’re glad, say, they could ne’er abide him,
   Enquire what man he was, what kind of face,
   What beard he had, what nose, what lips? 
   Protest They ever did presage he’d come to this;
   They never thought him wise, nor valiant; ask
   After his garments, when he dies, what death;
   And not a beast of all the herd demands,
   What was his crime, or who were his accusers,
   Under what proof or testimony he fell? 
   There came, says one, a huge long-worded letter
   From Capreae against him.  Did there so? 
   O, they are satisfied; no more.

Lep.  Alas! 
   They follow Fortune, and hate men condemn’d,
   Guilty or not.

Arr. 
   But had Sejanus thrived
   In his design, and prosperously opprest
   The old Tiberius; then, in that same minute,
   These very rascals, that now rage like furies,
   Would have proclaim’d Sejanus emperor.

Lep.  But what hath follow’d?

Ter. 
   Sentence by the senate,
   To lose his head; which was no sooner off,
   But that and the unfortunate trunk were seized
   By the rude multitude; who not content
   With what the forward justice of