Terentius monologue (Act 10) — Sejanus: His Fall

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 the state. Officiously had done, with violent rage Have rent it limb from limb. A thousand heads, A thousand hands, ten thousand tongues and voices, Employ’d at once in several acts of malice! Old men not staid with age, virgins with shame, Late wives with loss of husbands, mothers of children, Losing all grief in joy of his sad fall, Run quite transported with their cruelty! These mounting at his head, these at his face, These digging out his eyes, those with his brains Sprinkling themselves, their houses and their friends; Others are met, have ravish’d thence an arm, And deal small pieces of the flesh for favours; These with a thigh, this hath cut off his hands, And this his feet; these fingers and these toes; That hath his liver, he his heart: there wants Nothing but room for wrath, and place for hatred! What cannot oft be done, is now o’erdone. The whole, and all of what was great Sejanus, And, next to Cæsar, did possess the World, Now torn and scatter’d, as he needs no grave; Each little dust covers a little part: So lies he no where, and yet often buried!