_OCTAVIA_: Alas, the cruel tyrant sends me to the sorrowing shades in the lower world. Why do I in my misery vainly hesitate? Hasten to the death which fate has bestowed upon thee. I call to witness the immortal gods--What art thy doing in thy madness? Cease to supplicate the gods who hate thee--I call to witness Tartarus, the avenging goddesses of Erebus, and thee, father, who art worthy of such a death and punishment. This dreadful death was not unforeseen by me. Equip and launch the ship. Let the pilot set sail for the shores of Pandataria.[100] _CHORUS_: Gentle breezes and light zephyrs which bore away Iphigenia from the cruel altars of the Virgin and covered her with a heavenly cloud, we beseech thee, waft this maiden far away from bitter punishment to the temples of Trivia.[101] The harbor of Aulis[102] and the barbarian land of the Tauri are more merciful than our city. The gods above are propitiated by the sacrifice of a stranger, but Rome rejoices in the murder of her own citizen. * * * * * FOOTNOTES: [1] Goddess of the dawn. [2] The sun. [3] Messalina, third wife of Claudius and mother of Octavia and Britannicus. She acquired the most infamous celebrity of all the Roman matrons. [4] Alcyone threw herself into the sea when Ceyx, her husband, was shipwrecked, and the gods in compassion changed the two into kingfishers. Ovid Book XI l. 583-748. [5] The spinner among the Parcae. [6] Murder of Messalina. [7] Agrippina. [8] One of the Furies. [9] Styx, river in the lower world. [10] Claudius, fifth Caesar, reigned 41-54 A.D. He was distinguished among the Roman emperors by his politic munificence in founding empires. [11] Claudius determined to carry into effect the plan which Augustus had prematurely announced of an invasion of the great island of Britain. He conquered magnificently and was accorded a triumph at Rome. [12] Referring probably to the construction of Portus Romanus and the extension of maritime power. [13] Claudius was the first emperor who really conquered the Britains. [14] Tiberius Claudius Drusus who succeeded Caligula obtained with his infant son the name of Britannicus in honor of his British victories. After the death of his third wife Messalina, he married his own niece Agrippina 49 A.D. She influenced him to set aside his own son Britannicus and to adopt her son Domitius Ahenobarbus giving him the name of Nero. Having afterward shown a disposition to return the succession to Britannicus, Claudius was poisoned by Agrippina 54. Britannicus was poisoned in 55 and Agrippina murdered in 59 by order of Nero. [15] To Octavia her marriage was a funeral in a house where her father and soon afterward her brother had been poisoned, where a maid had become more powerful than her mistress, where a paramour had supplanted the lawful wife, and where she had been branded with a crime more hateful to her than the worst of deaths.