“I feel the love of madness for itself”

An abandoned Nero, forcing a new identity as lonely artist

Sabinus exhorts his officers to rouse the enlisted men to revolt

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Then let each man remember what is owed him:

Back pay, earnest work, and an exigent path

Toward levity -

And if we should feel our indignance

At once arising: how are we not then justified?

Sabinus convinces an adversary to join in a scheme to subvert their superiors

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I trust an impudent feeling is mutual,

And oft enough have seen blood-enemies

Thus to a common course engendered.

Faenius asserts his chronic physical pain has strengthened his mind

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The very harms which lame men’s bodies

Make vigilant their minds. Thus pain pervades

My wariness: It is an eye about me

Engendering infinite persecutions

From my enfeeblement, that I may preempt them.

Nero rails against those trying to suppress him

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It were a fault to earth to constrain me:

To constrain myself, to I know not what.

Ofonius explains why Nero’s guards no longer wish to serve him

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Yet sometime all have watched as his eyes held,

And his gaze went out: what you felt from him

Was idleness - and it so disturbing,

That when our minds returned to their places,

We each as men resolved: no more to risk

Our lives to serve, but to endure the fall.

Nero, after strangling his wife, looks forward to openly loving his guardsman

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Now am I rid of wife and mother,

But I can play the mourner easily:

I will give out how she has killed herself,

And make bold my displays of widow-grief,

The while in private,

I’ll mark the ending of our false design.

Burrus, now faintly does the morning come:

I think I shall find it easy to sleep.

Watch the city -

And wake me not when the faithful come,

I had rather be roused by it.

Now, let me not mind the keep:

I dream, I sleep.

Nero expresses gratitude to his guards for their genuine interest in his art

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Gentlemen, many whom I would love

Are otherwise bound to me, yet this day

You have been my soul’s physicians:

You were firm to oppose your duty,

Yet your bearings are lovely and open:

Upon the close of our performance

I will acquit myself that well with you,

For for me to reciprocate

What otherwise I feel is natural to show

Begs no impetus, but the absence

Of such impediments as do obstruct

My heart’s expanse.

Nero accepts his lot in life, as the pain will inspire him to greater art

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Oft times I care little

How my condition is a majority

Of pain, for joy does never linger long,

And being no fair friend, enjoins with me

To forge endeavors none so worthwhile

As do myself and suffering.

Sabinus exhorts his officers to rouse the enlisted men to revolt

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How faultless women seem for being weak!

There are words that to women are great deeds:

Here is a man will happily speak them.

Sabinus exhorts his officers to rouse the enlisted men to revolt

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Now mark me, sirs,

I hold not one of you indecent,

Yet these remarks are of too free a sort.

Therefore -

Determine what it is to be content,

And we shall do the work of it. Till then,

You may love our words, yet loathe what’s in them.