forms a magnificent ending to a play which, for all its unreality, succeeds for more than half its length (l 578) in arresting our attention by its ingenious rhetoric and its comparative freedom from mere bombast. Excellent, too, is the speech (_Phoen_. 193) in which Antigone dissuades her father from suicide. 'What ills can time have in store for him compared to those he has endured?'-- qui fata proculcavit ac vitae bona proiecit atque abscidit et casus suos oneravit ipse, cui deo nullo est opus, quare ille mortem cupiat aut quare petat? utrumque timidi est: nemo contempsit mori qui concupivit. cuius haut ultra mala exire possunt, in loco tuto est situs, quis iam deorum, velle fac, quicquam potest malis tuis adicere? iam nec tu potes nisi hoc, ut esse te putes dignum nece-- non es nec ulla pectus hoc culpa attigit. et hoc magis te, genitor, insontem voca, quod innocens es dis quoque invitis.... ... ... quidquid potest auferre cuiquam mors, tibi hoc vita abstulit. Who tramples under foot his destiny, Who disregards and scorns the goods of life, And aggravates the evils of his lot, Who has no further need of Providence: Wherefore should such a man desire to die, Or seek for death? Each is the coward's act. No one holds death in scorn who seeks to die. The man whose evils can no further go Is safely lodged. Who of the gods, think'st thou, Grant that he wills it so, can add one jot Unto thy sum of trouble? Nor canst thou, Save that thou deem'st thyself unfit to live. But thou art not unfit, for in thy breast No taint of sin has come. And all the more, My father, art thou free from taint of sin, Because, though heaven willed it otherwise, Thou still art innocent.... Whatever death From any man can take, thy life hath taken. MILLER It is, however, in isolated lines and striking _sententiae_ that Seneca's gift for rhetorical epigram is seen at its best. Nothing could be better turned than quaeris Alcidae parem? nemo est nisi ipse: (_H.F_. 84).[A] curae leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent (_Phaedra_ 607).[B] fortem facit vicina libertas senem (_Phaedra_ 139).[C] qui genus iactat suum, aliena laudat (_H.F_. 340). fortuna fortes metuit, ignavos premit (_Med_. 159). fortuna opes auferre, non animum potest (_Med_. 176). maius est monstro nefas:[D] nam monstra fato, moribus scelera imputes (_Phaedra_ 143). [A] Cp. Theobald: None but himself can be his parallel. [B] Cp. Sir W. Raleigh: Passions are best compared with floods and streams, The shallow murmur but the deep are dumb. [C] For dawning freedom makes the aged brave. MILLER. [D] For thy impious love is worse Than her unnatural and impious love. The first you would impute to character, The last to fate. MILLER.