_Thy_. quid liberi meruere? _Atr_. quod fuerant tui. _Thy_. natos parenti-- _Atr_. fateor et, quod me iuvat, certos. _Thy_. piorum praesides testor deos. _Atr_. quin coniugales? _Thy_. scelere quid pensas scelus? _Atr_. scio quid queraris: scelere praerepto doles, nec quod nefandas hauseris angit dapes; quod non pararis: fuerat hic animus tibi instruere similes inscio fratri cibos et adiuvante liberos matre aggredi similique leto sternere--hoc unum obstitit: _tuos_ putasti. _Thy_. What was my children's sin? _Atr_. This, that they were thy children. _Thy_. But to think That children to the father-- _Atr_. That indeed, I do confess it, gives me greatest joy, That thou art well assured they were thy sons. _Thy_. I call upon the gods of innocence-- _Atr_. Why not upon the gods of marriage call? _Thy_. Why dost thou seek to punish crime with crime? _Atr_. Well do I know the cause of thy complaint: Because I have forestalled thee in the deed. Thou grievest, not because thou hast consumed This horrid feast, but that thou wast not first To set it forth. This was thy fell intent, To arrange a feast like this unknown to me, And with their mother's aid attack my sons, And with a like destruction lay them low. But this one thing opposed--thou thought'st them thine. MILLER. These passages are as unreal as they are repulsive, but they are diabolically clever. Seneca's rhetoric is, however, as we have already seen, capable of rising to higher things, and even where he does not succeed, as in the passages quoted above from the _Phaedra_ and _Troades_,[199] in introducing a genuine poetic element, he often produces striking declamatory effects. The exit of the blind Oedipus, as he goes forth into life-long banishment, bringing peace to Thebes at the last, is highly artificial in form, but, given the rhetorical drama, is not easily surpassed as a conclusion-- mortifera mecum vitia terrarum extraho. violenta Fata et horridus Morbi tremor, Maciesque et atra Pestis et rabidus Dolor, mecum ite, mecum. ducibus his uti libet (1058). With me to exile lead I forth 'all pestilential humours of the land. Ye blasting fates', ye trembling agues, famine and deadly plague and maddened grief, go forth with me, with me! My heart rejoices to follow in your train. So likewise the last despairing cry of Jason, as Medea sails victoriously away in her magic car-- per alta vade spatia sublimi aethere, testare nullos esse qua veheris deos Sail on through the airy depths of highest heaven, and bear witness that, where thou soarest, no gods can be.