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The Tragedies of Seneca: Translated into English Verse, to Which Have Been Appended Comparative Analyses of the Corresponding Greek and Roman Plays, and a Mythological Index — John Shaqi

The Tragedies of Seneca: Translated into English Verse, to Which Have Been Appended Comparative Analyses of the Corresponding Greek and Roman Plays, and a Mythological IndexSeneca, Lucius Annaeus

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The Tragedies of Seneca: Translated into English Verse, to Which Have Been Appended Comparative Analyses of the Corresponding Greek and Roman Plays, and a Mythological Index

Name: The Tragedies of Seneca: Translated into English Verse, to Which Have Been Appended Comparative Analyses of the Corresponding Greek and Roman Plays, and a Mythological Index
Author: Seneca, Lucius Annaeus

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus

Mythology, Classical -- Drama; Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, approximately 4 B.C.-65 A.D. -- Translations into English

_Chorus:_ Not thou the cause of these our ills;
      And not on thy account hath fate
      Attacked the house of Labdacus;                                710
      But 'tis the ancient wrath of heaven
      That still pursues our race.
      Castalia's grove once lent its shade
      Unto the Tyrian wanderer,
      And Dirce gave her cooling waves,
      What time the great Agenor's son,                              715
      O'er all the earth the stolen prey
      Of Jove pursuing, worn and spent,
      Within these forests knelt him down
      And adored the heavenly ravisher.
      Then by Apollo's bidding led,
      A wandering heifer following,                                  720
      Upon whose neck the dragging plow,
      Nor the plodding wagon's curving yoke
      Had never rested, he his quest
      At last gave over, and his race
      From that ill-omened heifer named.
      From that time forth, the land of Thebes
      Strange monsters hath engendered: first,                       725
      That serpent, sprung from the valley's depths,
      Hissing, o'ertopped the agéd oaks
      And lofty pines; and higher still,
      Above Chaonia's woods, he reared
      His gleaming head, though on the ground                        730
      His body lay in many coils.
      And next the teeming earth produced
      An impious brood of arméd men.
      The battle call resounded loud
      From the curving horn, and the piercing notes
      Of the brazen trumpet shrill were heard.
      Their new-created, nimble tongues,                             735
      And voices strange, they first employ
      In hostile clamor; and the fields,
      The plains, their kindred soil, they fill.
      This monster brood, consorting well
      With that dire seed from which they sprung,
      Their life within a day's brief span                           740
      Enjoyed; for after Phoebus rose
      They had their birth, but ere he set
      They perished. At the dreadful sight
      Great terror seized the wanderer;
      And much he feared to face in war
      His new-born foes. Until, at length
      The savage youth in mutual strife                              745
      Fell down, and mother earth
      Beheld her sons, but now produced,
      Returned again to her embrace.
      And Oh, that with their fall might end
      All impious strife within the state!
      May Thebes, the land of Hercules,
      Such fratricidal strife behold
      No more!                                                       750
               Why sing Actaeon's fate,
      Whose brow the new-sprung antlers crowned
      Of the long-lived stag, and whom his hounds,
      Though their hapless master still, pursued?
      In headlong haste through the mountains and woods,
      He flees in fear, and with nimble feet                         755
      He scours the glades and rocky passes,
      In fear of the wind-tossed feathers hung

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The Tragedies of Seneca: Translated into English Verse, to Which Have Been Appended Comparative Analyses of the Corresponding Greek and Roman Plays, and a Mythological Index

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