Read Ebook: Two Tragedies of Seneca: Medea and The Daughters of Troy Rendered into English Verse by Seneca Lucius Annaeus BCE Harris Ella Isabel Translator

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Ebook has 75 lines and 30165 words, and 2 pages

MEDEA

JASON. CREON. MEDEA. NURSE. MESSENGER. CHORUS OF CORINTHIAN WOMEN.

MEDEA

ACT I

SCENE I

SCENE II

ACT II

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE I

SCENE II

. All are destroyed, the royal empire falls, Father and child lie in one funeral pyre. 840

SCENE II

SCENE IV

Is it true, or does an idle story Make the timid dream that after death, 380 When the loved one shuts the wearied eyelids, When the last day's sun has come and gone, And the funeral urn has hid the ashes, He shall still live on among the shades? Does it not avail to bear the dear one 385 To the grave? Must misery still endure Longer life beyond? Does not all perish When the fleeting spirit fades in air Cloudlike? When the dreaded fire is lighted 'Neath the body, does no part remain? 390 Whatsoe'er the rising sun or setting Sees; whatever ebbing tide or flood Of the ocean with blue waters washes, Time with Pegasean flight destroys. Like the sweep of whirling constellations, 395 Like the circling of their king the sun, Haste the ages. As obliquely turning Hecate speeds, so all must seek their fate; He who touches once the gloomy water Sacred to the god, exists no more. 400 As the sordid smoke from smoldering embers Swiftly dies, or as a heavy cloud, That the north wind scatters, ends its being, So the soul that rules us slips away; After death is nothing; death is nothing 405 But the last mete of a swift-run race, Which to eager souls gives hope, to fearful Sets a limit to their fears. Believe Eager time and the abyss engulf us; Death is fatal to the flesh, nor spares 410 Spirit even; Taenaris, the kingdom Of the gloomy monarch, and the door Where sits Cerberus and guards the portal, Are but empty rumors, senseless names, Fables vain, that trouble anxious sleep. 415 Ask you whither go we after death? Where they lie who never have been born.

SCENE I

SCENE II

Troy saw long since The weeping of a royal child: the tears Of youthful Priam turned aside the threats Of stern Alcides; he, the warrior fierce Who tamed wild beasts, who from the shattered gates 745 Of shadowy Dis a hidden, upward path Opened, was conquered by his young foe's tears. 'Take back,' he said, 'the reins of government, Receive thy father's kingdom, but maintain Thy scepter with a better faith than he;' 750 So fared the captives of this conqueror; Study the gentle wrath of Hercules! Or do the arms alone of Hercules Seem pleasing to thee? Of as noble race As Priam's, at thy feet a suppliant lies, 755 And asks of thee his life; let fortune give To whom she will Troy's kingdom.

SCENE IV

ACT IV

SCENE I

Thou noble daughter of Troy's kingly house, A milder god on thy misfortune looks, Prepares for thee a happy marriage day. Not Priam nor unfallen Troy could give 895 Such bridal, for the brightest ornament Of the Pelasgian race, the man who holds The kingdom of the wide Thessalian land, Would make thee his by lawful marriage bonds. Great Tethys, and the ocean goddesses, 900 And Thetis, gentle nymph of swelling seas, Will call thee theirs; when thou art Pyrrhus' bride Peleus will call thee kin, as Nereus will. Put off thy robe of mourning, deck thyself In gay attire; unlearn the captive's mien, 905 And suffer skillful hands to smooth thy hair Now so unkempt. Perchance fate cast thee down From thy high place to seat thee higher still; It may be profit to have been a slave.

SCENE II

ACT V

SCENE I

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