The Corsicans have not failed to take revenge on Seneca. Since he gives them and their country such a disgraceful character, they have connected a scandalous story with his name. Popular tradition has preserved only a single incident from the period of his residence in Corsica, and it is as follows:--As Seneca sat in his tower and looked down into the frightful island, he saw the Corsican virgins, that they were fair. Thereupon the philosopher descended, and he dallied with the daughters of the land. One comely shepherdess did he honour with his embrace; but the kinsfolk of the maiden came upon him suddenly, and took him, and scourged the philosopher with nettles. Ever since, the nettle grows profusely and ineradicably round the Tower of Seneca, as a warning to moral philosophers. The Corsicans call it _Ortica de Seneca_. Unhappy Seneca! He is always getting into tragi-comic situations. A Corsican said to me: "You have read what Seneca says of us? _ma era un birbone_--but he was a great rascal." _Seneca morale_, says Dante,--_Seneca birbone_, says the Corsican--another instance of his love for his country. Other sighs of exile did the unfortunate philosopher breathe out in verse--some epigrams to his friends, one on his native city of Cordova. If Seneca wrote any of the tragedies which bear his name in Corsica, it must certainly have been the Medea. Where could he have found a locality more likely to have inspired him to write on a subject connected with the Argonauts, than this sea-girt island? Here he might well make his chorus sing those remarkable verses which predict Columbus:-- "A time shall come In the late ages, When Ocean shall loosen The bonds of things; Open and vast Then lies the earth; Then shall Tiphys New worlds disclose. And Thule no more Be the farthest land." Now the great navigator Columbus was born in the Genoese territory, not far from Corsica. The Corsicans will have it that he was born in Calvi, in Corsica itself, and they maintain this till the present day. CHAPTER V. SENECA MORALE. ----"e vidi Orfeo Tullio, e Livio, e Seneca morale."--DANTE.