Monologue

Terentius Monologue from Sejanus His Fall

From Sejanus His Fall by Ben Jonson

male · dark · 1:25 min

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 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.

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