in tragedy and comedy, a wholesale imitation of the Greek dramas,
oftentimes nothing more than a translation of these, with only here and
there an attempt to produce something of a strictly native character,
entirely independent of the Greek influence.
This imitative impulse was augmented by the fact that the Romans were
following the line of least resistance, since it is always easier
to imitate than to create. Furthermore, they had as yet developed
no national pride of literature to hold them to their own lines
of national development; they had no forms of their own so well
established that the mere force of literary momentum would carry them
steadily on toward a fuller development, in spite of the disturbing
influences of the influx of other and better models. They had, indeed,
developed a native Saturnian verse which, had it been allowed a free
field, might have reached a high pitch of literary excellence. But it
speedily gave way at the approach of the more elegant imported forms.
The overwhelming influence of Greek tragedy upon the Roman dramatists
can be seen at a glance as we review the dramatic product of the
Roman tragedians. We have titles and fragments of nine tragedies by
Livius Andronicus, seven by Naevius, twenty-two by Ennius, thirteen
by Pacuvius, forty-six by Accius, and many unassignable fragments
from each of these which indicate numerous other plays of the same
character. To these should be added scattering additions from nearly
a score more of Roman writers during the next two hundred years after
Accius. All the above-mentioned plays are on Greek subjects; and most
of those whose fragments are sufficiently extensive to allow us to
form an opinion of their character are either translations or close
imitations of the Greeks, or are so influenced by these as to be
decidedly Greek rather than Roman in character.
And what of the genuine Roman dramatic product? Speaking for the
fabula praetexta, or Roman historical drama, alone, the entire
output, so far as our records go, is contained in the following list of
authors and titles.
From Naevius (265-204 B.C.) we have the Clastidium, written in
celebration of the victory of Marcellus over Vidumarus, king of the
Transpadane Gauls, whom Marcellus slew and stripped of his armor,
thus gaining the rare spolia opima; this at Clastidium in 222 B.C.
The play was probably written for the especial occasion either of the
triumph of Marcellus or of the celebration of his funeral.
We have also from Naevius a play variously entitled Lupus or
Romulus or Alimonium Remi et Romuli, evidently one of those
dramatic reproductions of scenes in the life of a god, enacted as a
part of the ceremonies of his worship. These are comparable to similar
dramatic representations among the Greeks in the worship of Dionysus.
The Ambracia and the Sabinae of Ennius (239-169 B.C.) are
ordinarily classed as fabulae praetextae, although Lucian Müller
classes the fragments of the Ambracia among the Saturae of Ennius;
while Vahlen puts the Ambracia under the heading Comoediarum et
ceterorum carminum reliquiae, and classifies the fragments of the
Sabinae under ex incertis saturarum libris. The Ambracia is
evidently called after the city of that name in Epirus, celebrated for
the long and remarkable siege which it sustained against the Romans
under M. Fulvius Nobilior. That general finally captured the city in
189 B.C. If the piece is to be considered as a play, it was, like the
Clastidium, written in honor of a Roman general, and acted on the
occasion either of his triumph or of his funeral.
We have four short fragments from the Paulus of Pacuvius (220-130
B.C.), written in celebration of the exploits of L. Aemilius Paulus who
conquered Perseus, king of Macedonia, in the battle of Pydna, 168 B.C.
The fragments of the plays already mentioned are too brief to afford
any adequate idea of the character or content of the plays. But in the
Brutus of Accius (b. 170 B.C.), which centers around the expulsion of
the Tarquins and the establishment of the Republic, we have a larger
glimpse into the play through two most interesting fragments consisting
of twelve iambic trimeters and ten trochaic tetrameters, respectively.
In the first, King Tarquin relates to his seer an ill-ominous dream
which he has had; the second is the seer's interpretation of this
dream, pointing to Tarquin's dethronement by Brutus. Other short
fragments give glimpses of the outrage of Lucretia by Sextus at
Collatia, and the scene in the forum where Brutus takes his oath of
office as first consul. This play, unlike its predecessors, was not
written at the time of the events which it portrays, but may still
be classed with them, so far as its object is concerned, since it is
generally thought to have been written in honor of D. Junius Brutus
who was consul in 138 B.C., and with whom the poet enjoyed an intimate
friendship.
Another praetexta of Accius is preserved, the Decius, of which
eleven short fragments remain. This play celebrates the victory
of Quintus Fabius Maximus and P. Decius Mus over the Samnites and
Gauls at Sentinum in 295 B.C. The climax of the play would be the
self-immolation of Decius after the example of his father in the Latin
war of 340 B.C.
In addition to these plays of the Roman dramatists of the Republic,
we have knowledge of a few which date from later times. There was
a historical drama entitled Iter, by L. Cornelius Balbus, who
dramatized the incidents of a journey which he made to Pompey's camp
at Dyrrachium at the opening of civil war in 49 B.C. Balbus was under
commission from Caesar to treat with the consul, L. Cornelius Lentulus,
and other optimates who had fled from Rome, concerning their return to
the city. The journey was a complete fiasco, so far as results were
concerned; but the vanity of Balbus was so flattered by his (to him)
important mission that he must needs dramatize his experiences and
present the play under his own direction in his native city of Gades.
We have mention also of an Aeneas by Pomponius Secundus, and of two
praetextae by Curiatius Maternus, entitled Domitius and Cato.
These eleven historical plays are, as we have seen, for the most part,
plays of occasion, and would be at best of but temporary interest,
born of the special circumstances which inspired them. They are in
no way comparable with such historical dramas on Roman subjects as
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar or Coriolanus, whose interest is for
all times.
We have still a twelfth play of this class, which enjoys the unique
distinction of being the only Roman historical drama which has come
down to us--the Octavia. Its authorship is unknown, although
tradition gives it a place among the tragedies of Seneca, the
philosopher. The general opinion of modern critics, however, is against
this tradition, chiefly because one passage in the play, in the form
of a prophecy, too circumstantially describes the death of Nero, which
occurred three years after the death of Seneca. It is generally agreed
that the play must have been written soon after the death of Nero, and
by some one, possibly Maternus, who had been an eye-witness of the
events, and who had been inspired by his sympathies for the unfortunate
Octavia to write this story of her sufferings.
OCTAVIA
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
OCTAVIA Stepsister and wife of Nero.
Nurse of Octavia.
Poppaea Mistress and afterward wife of Nero.
Ghost of Agrippina Mother of Nero, slain by him.
Nero Emperor of Rome.
Seneca Former tutor of Nero, and later one of his chief counselors.
Prefect of Roman Soldiers.
Messenger.
Chorus of Romans Sympathetic with Octavia.
Chorus Attached to the interests of the court.
THE SCENE is laid throughout in different apartments of the palace of
Nero, and is concerned with the events of the year 62 A.D.
ACT I
Octavia: Now doth the flushing dawn from heaven drive
The wandering stars; the sun mounts into sight
With radiant beams, and brings the world once more
The light of day. Up, then, my heavy soul,
With grievous cares o'erburdened, and resume 5
Thy woe; out-wail the sea-bred Halcyons,
And those sad birds of old Pandion's house;
For this thy lot is heavier far than theirs.
O mother, constant source of tears to me, 10
Hear now thy woeful daughter's sad complaints,
If aught of sense remains among the shades.
Oh, that the grizzly Clotho long ago,
With her own hand had clipt my thread of life! 15
Through blinding tears I saw thy bleeding wounds,
Thy features sprinkled with defiling blood.
Oh, light of day, abhorrent to my eyes!
From that dread hour I hate the day's pure light 20
More than the night's dark gloom; for daily now
Must I endure a cruel stepdame's rule,
Must daily bear her hateful looks and words.
She, she the baleful fury fiend it was
Who at my marriage rites bore torches lit 25
With hellish fires; 'twas she who wrought thy death,
O wretched father, whom but yesterday
The whole world owned as lord on land and sea;
To whom the Britain bowed, though ne'er before
Had he a Roman master known or owned. 30
Alas, my father, by thy wife's fell plots
Thou liest low, and I and all thy house
Like captives groan beneath the tyrant's sway.
[Exit to her chamber.]
Nurse [entering]: Who stands in wonder, smitten by the gloss 35
And splendor of a princely court, amazed
At sight of easy-won prosperity,
Let him behold how, at the stroke of fate,
The house of Claudius is overthrown,
To whose control the world was subjugate, 40
Whose rule an ocean, long to sway unknown,
Obeyed, and bore our ships with subject will.
Lo, he, who first the savage Britains curbed,
And filled an unknown ocean with his fleet,
And passed in safety 'mid barbaric tribes--
By his own wife's impiety was slain. 45
And she is destined by her son to fall,
Whose hapless brother lies already slain
By poison's hand, whose sister-wife alone
Is left to mourn. Nor may she hide her grief,
By bitter wrath impelled to speak. She shuns
Her cruel lord's society, and, fired 50
With equal hate, with mutual[55] loathing burns.
Our pious faithfulness in vain consoles
Her grieving heart; her cruel woes reject
Our aid; the noble passion of her soul
Will not be ruled, but grows on ills renewed.
Alas, my fears forebode some desperate deed, 55
Which may the gods forbid!
Octavia [heard speaking from within her chamber]: O fate of mine,
that can no equal know!
Thy woes, Electra, were no match for these;
For thou couldst soothe with tears the grief thou hadst 60
For thy dear father's fall; thou couldst avenge
The murder by thy brother's ready hand,
Who by thy piety was saved from death,
And whom thy faith concealed. But me base fear
Forbids to weep my parents reft away 65
By cruel fate; forbids to weep the death
Of him, my brother, who my sole hope was,
My fleeting comfort of so many woes.
And now, surviving but to suffer still,
I live, the shadow of a noble name. 70
Nurse: Behold, the voice of my sad foster-child
Falls on my list'ning ears. Slow steps of age,
Why haste ye not within her chamber there?
[Starts to enter the chamber, but is met by Octavia coming forth.]
Octavia: Within thy bosom let me weep, dear nurse,
Thou ever trusty witness of my grief. 75
Nurse: What day shall free thee from thy woes, poor child?
Octavia: The day that sends me to the Stygian shades.
Nurse: May heaven keep such dark omens far away! 80
Octavia: 'Tis not thy prayers, but fate that shapes my life.
Nurse: But God will bring thy life to better days.
Do thou but be appeased, and win thy lord
With mild obedience. 85
Octavia: I'll sooner tame
The savage lion's heart, the tiger's rage,
Than curb that brutal tyrant's cruel soul.
He hates all sons of noble blood, and gods
And men he sets at naught; nor can he bear 90
That high estate to which along the paths
Of shameful crime his impious mother led;
For though it shames him now, ungrateful one,
To hold the scepter which his mother gave;
And though by death he has requited her: 95
Still will the glory of the empire won
Belong to her for centuries to come.
Nurse: Restrain these words that voice thy raging heart,
And check thy tongue's too rash and thoughtless speech.
Octavia: Though I should bear what may be borne, my woes, 100
Save by a cruel death, could not be ended.
For, since my mother was by murder slain,
And my father taken off by crime most foul,
Robbed of my brother, overwhelmed with woe,
Oppressed with sadness, by my husband scorned,
Degraded to the level of my slave, 105
I find this life no more endurable.
My heart doth tremble, not with fear of death,
But slander base, employed to work my death.
Far from my name and fate be that foul blot.
For death itself--Oh, 'twould be sweet to die;
For 'tis a punishment far worse than death,
To live in contact with the man I loathe,
To see the tyrant's face all passion puffed, 110
And fierce with rage, to kiss my deadliest foe.
That I should fear his nod, obey his will,
My grief, resentful, will not suffer me,
Since by his hand my brother was destroyed,
Whose kingdom he usurps, and boasts himself
The author of that shameful deed. How oft 115
Before my eyes does that sad image come,
My brother's ghost, when I have gone to rest,
And sleep has closed my eyelids faint with tears!
Now in his weakling hand he brandishes
The smoking torch, and violently assails
His brother to his face; now, trembling sore,
He flees for refuge to my sheltering arms. 120
His foe pursues, and, as his victim clings
Convulsively to me, he thrusts his sword
With murderous intent through both our sides.
Then, all a-tremble, do I start awake,
And in my waking sense renew my fear.
Add to these cares a rival, arrogant, 125
Who queens it in the spoils of this our house;
At whose behest the mother was enticed
To that fell ship which should have carried her
To Orcus' depths; but when o'er ocean's waves
She triumphed, he, than ocean's waves more harsh
And pitiless, despatched her with the sword.
Amid such deeds, what hopes of peace have I? 130
O'erblown with hate, triumphant, doth my rival
Within my very chamber's hold defy me;
With deadly malice doth she blaze against me,
And as the price of her adulterous sweets,
Doth she demand that he, my husband, give
My life, his lawful wife's, in sacrifice.
Oh, rise thou, father, from the gloomy shades,
And help thy daughter who invokes thine aid; 135
Or else cleave wide the earth to Stygian depths,
And let me plunge at last to shelter there.
Nurse: In vain dost thou invoke thy father's soul,
Poor child, in vain; for there among the shades
He little thinks upon his offspring here;
Who, when in life, unto his own true son
Preferred the offspring of another's blood, 140
And to himself in most incestuous bonds
And rites unhallowed joined his brother's child.
From this foul source has flowed a stream of crime:
Of murder, treachery, the lust of power,
The thirst for blood. Thy promised husband fell,
A victim slain to grace that wedding feast, 145
Lest, joined with thee, he should too mighty grow.
Oh, monstrous deed! Silanus, charged with crime,
Was slain to make a bridal offering,
And stained the household gods with guiltless blood.
And then this alien comes, Oh, woe is me, 150
And by his mother's wiles usurps the house,
Made son-in-law and son to the emperor,
A youth of temper most unnatural,
To impious crime inclined, whose passion's flame
His mother fanned, and forced thee at the last
In hated wedlock into his embrace.
Emboldened by this notable success, 155
She dared to dream of wider sovereignty.
What tongue can tell the changing forms of crime,
Her impious hopes, her cozening treacheries,
Who seeks the throne along the ways of sin?
Then Piety with trembling haste withdrew, 160
And Fury through the empty palace halls
With baleful tread resounded, and defiled
The sacred images with Stygian brands.
All holy laws of nature and of heaven
In mad abandon did she set at naught.
She mingled deadly poison for her lord, 165
And she herself by the impious mandate fell
Of her own son. Thou too dost lifeless lie,
Poor youth, forever to be mourned by us,
Ill-starred Britannicus, so late, in life,
The brightest star of this our firmament,
The prop and stay of our imperial house;
But now, Oh, woe is me, a heap of dust,
Of unsubstantial dust, a flitting shade. 170
Nay, even thy stepmother's cruel cheeks
Were wet with tears, when on the funeral pyre
She placed thy form and saw the flames consume
Thy limbs and face fair as the wingéd god's.
Octavia: Me, too, he must destroy--or fall by me.
Nurse: But nature has not given thee strength to slay. 175
Octavia: Yet anguish, anger, pain, distress of soul,
The ecstasy of grief will give me strength.
Nurse: Nay, by compliance, rather, win thy lord.
Octavia: That thus he may restore my brother slain?
Nurse: That thou thyself mayst go unscathed of death;
That thou by thine own offspring mayst restore
Thy father's falling house. 180
Octavia: This princely house
Expects an heir, 'tis true; but not from me,
For I am doomed to meet my brother's fate.
Nurse: Console thy heart with this, that thou art dear
Unto the populace, who love thee well.
Octavia: That thought doth soothe, but cannot cure my grief.
Nurse: Their power availeth much. 185
Octavia: The prince's more.
Nurse: He will regard his wife.
Octavia: My foe forbids.
Nurse: But she is scorned by all.
Octavia: Yet loved by him.
Nurse: She is not yet his wife.
Octavia: But soon will be,
And mother of his child, his kingdom's heir.
Nurse: The fire of youthful passion glows at first
With heat impetuous; but soon abates, 190
And vanishes like flickering tongues of flame.
Unhallowed love cannot for long endure;
But pure and lasting is the love inspired
By chaste and wifely faith. She who has dared
To violate thy bed, and hold so long
Thy husband's heart in thrall, herself a slave,
Already trembles lest his fickle love 195
Shall thrust her forth and set a rival there.
Subdued and humble, even now she shows
How deep and real her fear; for her, indeed,
Shall wingéd Cupid, false and fickle god,
Abandon and betray. Though face and form
Be passing fair, though beauty vaunt herself,
And boast her power, still are her triumphs brief, 200
Her joys a passing dream.
Nay, Juno's self,
Though queen of heaven, endured such grief as thine,
When he, her lord, and father of the gods,
Stole from her side to seek in mortal forms
The love of mortal maids. Now, in his need, 205
He dons the snowy plumage of a swan;
Now hornéd seems, like a Sidonian bull;
And now a glorious, golden shower he falls,
And rests within the arms of Danaë.
Nor yet is Juno's sum of woe complete:
The sons of Leda glitter in the sky
In starry splendor; Bacchus proudly stands
Beside his father on Olympus' height;
Divine Alcides hath to Hebe's charms 210
Attained, and fears stern Juno's wrath no more.
Her very son-in-law hath he become
Whom once she hated most. Yet in her heart
Deep down she pressed her grief, and wisely won,
By mild compliance to his wayward will,
Her husband's love again. And now the queen, 215
Secure at last from rivalry, holds sway
Alone, within the Thunderer's heart. No more,
By mortal beauty smitten, does he leave
His royal chambers in the vaulted sky.
Thou, too, on earth, another Juno art, 220
The wife and sister of our mighty lord.
Then be thou wise as she, make show of love,
And hide thy crushing sorrows with a smile.
Octavia: The savage seas shall sooner mate with stars,
And fire with water, heav'n with gloomy hell,
Glad light with shades, and day with dewy night,
Than shall my soul in amity consort 225
With his black heart, most foul and impious:
Too mindful I of my poor brother's ghost.
And Oh, that he who guides the heavenly worlds,
Who shakes the realms of earth with deadly bolts,
And with his dreadful thunders awes our minds,
Would whelm in fiery death this murderous prince. 230
Strange portents have we seen: the comet dire,
Shining with baleful light, his glowing train
Far gleaming in the distant northern sky,
Where slow Boötes, numb with arctic frosts,
Directs his ponderous wagon's endless rounds.
The very air is tainted by the breath 235
Of this destructive prince; and for his sake
The stars, resentful, threaten to destroy
The nations which so dire a tyrant rules.
Not such a pest was impious Typhon huge,
Whom earth, in wrath and scorn of heaven, produced.
This scourge is more destructive far than he. 240
He is the bitter foe of gods and men,
Who drives the heavenly beings from their shrines,
And from their native land the citizens;
Who from his brother took the breath of life,
And drained his mother's blood.
And does he live,
This guilty wretch, and draw his tainted breath?
O Jove, thou high-exalted father, why 245
Dost thou so oft with thine imperial hand
Thy darts invincible at random hurl?
Why from his guilty head dost thou withhold
Thy hand of vengeance? Oh, that he might pay
For all his crimes the fitting penalty,
This son of deified Domitius,
This Nero, heartless tyrant of the world, 250
Which he beneath the yoke of bondage holds,
This moral blot upon a noble name!
Nurse: Unworthy he to be thy mate, I know;
But, dearest child, to fate and fortune yield,
Lest thou excite thy savage husband's wrath.
Perchance some god will come to right thy wrongs, 255
And on thy life some happier day will dawn.
Octavia: That may not be. Long since, our ill-starred house
Has groaned beneath the heavy wrath of heaven.
That wrath at first my hapless mother felt,
Whom Venus cursed with lust insatiate;
For she, with heedless, impious passion fired, 260
Unmindful of her absent lord, of us,
Her guiltless children, and the law's restraints,
In open day another husband wed.
To that fell couch avenging Fury came
With streaming locks and serpents intertwined,
And quenched those stolen wedding fires in blood.
For with destructive rage, on murder bent, 265
She fired the prince's heart; and at his word,
Ah, woe is me, my ill-starred mother fell,
And, dying, doomed me to perpetual grief.
For after her in quick succession came
Her husband and her son; and this our house,
Already falling, was to ruin plunged.
Nurse: Forbear with pious tears to renew thy grief, 270
And do not so disturb thy father's shade,
Who for his rage has bitterly atoned.
* * * * *
Chorus [sympathetic with Octavia]: False prove the rumor that of
late
To our ears has come! May its vaunted threats
Fall fruitless out and of no avail! 275
May no new wife invade the bed
Of our royal prince; may Octavia, born
Of the Claudian race, maintain her right
And bear us a son, the pledge of peace,
In which the joyful world shall rest, 280
And Rome preserve her glorious name.
Most mighty Juno holds the lot
By fate assigned--her brother's mate;
But this our Juno, sister, wife
Of our august prince, why is she driven 285
From her father's court? Of what avail
Her faith, her father deified,
Her love and spotless chastity?
We, too, of our former master's fame
Have been unmindful, and his child
At the hest of cringing[56] fear betrayed. 290
Not so of old: then Rome could boast
Of manly virtue, martial blood.
There lived a race of heroes then
Who curbed the power of haughty kings
And drove them forth from Rome; and thee,
O maiden, slain by thy father's hand, 295
Lest thou shouldst in slavery's bonds be held,
And lest foul lust its victorious will
Should work on thee, did well avenge.
Thee, too, a bloody war avenged,
O chaste Lucretia; for thou, 300
By the lust of an impious tyrant stained,
With wretched hand didst seek to cleanse
Those stains by thy innocent blood.
Then Tullia with her guilty lord,
Base Tarquin, dared an impious deed,
Whose penalty they paid; for she 305
Over the limbs of her murdered sire,
A heartless child, drove cruel wheels,
And left his corpse unburied there.
Such deeds of dire impiety
Our age has known, our eyes have seen,
When the prince on the mighty Tyrrhene deep 310
In a fatal bark his mother sent,
By guile ensnared.
The sailors at his bidding haste
To leave the peaceful harbor's arms;
And soon the rougher waves resound 315
Beneath their oars, and far away
Upon the deep the vessel glides;
When suddenly the reeling bark
With loosened beams yawns open wide,
And drinks the briny sea.
A mighty shout to heaven goes, 320
With women's lamentations filled,
And death stalks dire before the eyes
Of all. Each seeks to save himself.
Some naked cling upon the planks
Of the broken ship and fight the floods, 325
While others swimming seek the shore.
But most, alas! a watery death
By fate awaits. Then did the queen
In mad despair her garments rend;
Her comely locks she tore, and tears
Fell streaming down her grieving cheeks. 330
At last, with hope of safety gone,
With wrath inflamed, by woes o'ercome,
"Dost thou, O son, make this return,"
She cried, "for that great boon I gave?
Such death I merit, I confess, 335
Who bore such monstrous child as thou,
Who gave to thee the light of day,
And in my madness raised thee high
To Caesar's name and Caesar's throne.
Oh, rise from deepest Acheron,
My murdered husband, feast thine eyes 340
Upon my righteous punishment;
For I brought death to thee, poor soul,
And to thy son. See, see, I come,
Deep down to meet thy grieving shade;
And there, as I have merited,
Shall I unburied lie, o'erwhelmed 345
By the raging sea." E'en as she spoke,
The lapping waves broke o'er her lips,
And deep she plunged below. Anon
She rises from the briny depths,
And, stung by fear of death, she strives
With frenzied hands to conquer fate;
But, spent with fruitless toil at last, 350
She yields and waits the end. But lo,
In hearts which in trembling silence watch,
Faith triumphs over deadly fear,
And to their mistress, spent and wan
With fruitless buffetings, they dare
To lend their aid with cheering words 355
And helping hands.
But what avails
To escape the grasp of the savage sea?
By the sword of the son is she doomed to die,
Whose monstrous deed posterity
Will scarce believe. With rage and grief 360
Inflamed, he raves that still she lives,
His mother, snatched from the wild sea's jaws,
And doubles crime on impious crime.
Bent on his wretched mother's death,
He brooks no tarrying of fate. 365
His willing creatures work his will,
And in the hapless woman's breast
The fatal sword is plunged; but she
To that fell minister of death
Appeals with dying tongue: "Nay here,
Here rather strike the murderous blow,
Here sheathe thy sword, deep in the womb 370
Which such a monster bore."
So spake the dying queen, her words
And groans commingling. So at last
Through gaping wounds her spirit fled 375
In grief and agony.
FOOTNOTES:
[55] Reading, mariti mutua.
[56] Reading, saevo.
ACT II
Seneca [alone]: Why hast thou, potent Fate, with flattering looks,
Exalted me, contented with my lot,
That so from this great height I might descend
With heavier fall, and wider prospect see 380
Of deadly fears? Ah, better was I, hid
Far from the stinging lash of envy's tongue,
Amid the lonely crags of Corsica.
There was my spirit free to act at will,
Was master of itself, had time to think
And meditate at length each favorite theme.
Oh, what delight, than which none greater is, 385
Of all that mother nature hath produced,
To watch the heavens, the bright sun's sacred rounds,
The heavenly movements and the changing night,
The moon's full orb with wandering stars begirt,
The far-effulgent glory of the sky! 390
And is it growing old, this structure vast,
Doomed to return to groping nothingness?
Then must that final doomsday be at hand,
That shall by heaven's fall o'erwhelm a race
So impious, that thus the world may see
A newer race of men, a better stock, 395
Which once the golden reign of Saturn knew.
Then virgin Justice, holy child of heaven,
In mercy ruled the world; the race of men
Knew naught of war, the trumpet's savage blare, 400
The clang of arms; not yet were cities hedged
With ponderous walls; the way was free to all,
And free to all the use of everything.
The earth, untilled, spread wide her fertile lap, 405
The happy mother of a pious stock.
Then rose another race of sterner mold;
Another yet to curious arts inclined,
But pious still; a fourth of restless mood,
Which lusted to pursue the savage beasts, 410
To draw the fishes from their sheltering waves
With net or slender pole, to snare the birds,
To force the headstrong bullocks to endure
The bondage of the yoke, to plow the earth
Which never yet had felt the share's deep wound,
And which in pain and grief now hid her fruits
Within her sacred bosom's safer hold. 415
Now deep within the bowels of the earth
Did that debased, unfilial age intrude;
And thence it dug the deadly iron and gold,
And soon it armed its savage hands for war.
It fixed the bounds of realms, constructed towns, 420
Fought for its own abodes, or threat'ning strove
To plunder those of others as a prize.
Then did abandoned Justice, heavenly maid,
In terror flee the earth, the bestial ways
Of men, their hands with bloody slaughter stained,
And, fixed in heaven, now shines among the stars. 425
Then lust of war increased, and greed for gold,
Throughout the world; and luxury arose,
That deadliest of evils, luring pest,
To whose fell powers new strength and force were given
By custom long observed, and precedent
Of evil into worser evil led.
This flood of vice, through many ages dammed, 430
In ours has burst its bounds and overflowed.
By this dire age we're fairly overwhelmed--
An age when crime sits regnant on the throne,
Impiety stalks raging, unrestrained;
Foul lust, with all unbridled power, is queen,
And luxury long since with greedy hands
Has snatched the boundless riches of the world, 435
That she with equal greed may squander them.
[Enter Nero, followed by a Prefect.]
But see, with frenzied step and savage mien,
The prince approaches. How I fear his will.
Nero [to Prefect]: Speed my commands: send forth a messenger
Who straight shall bring me here the severed heads
Of Plautus and of Sulla.
Prefect: Good, my lord;
Without delay I'll speed me to the camp.
[Exit.]
Seneca: One should not rashly judge against his friends. 440
Nero: Let him be just whose heart is free from fear.
Seneca: But mercy is a sovereign cure for fear.
Nero: A ruler's part is to destroy his foes.
Seneca: A ruler's better part, to save his friends.
Nero: A mild old man's advice is fit for boys. 445
Seneca: Still more does hot young manhood need the rein--
Nero: I deem that at this age we're wise enough.
Seneca: That on thy deed the heavenly gods may smile.
Nero: Thou fool, shall I fear gods myself can make?
Seneca: Fear this the more, that so great power is thine. 450
Nero: My royal fortune grants all things to me.
Seneca: But trust her cautiously; she may deceive.
Nero: A fool is he who does not what he may.
Seneca: To do, not what he may, but ought, wins praise.
Nero: The crowd spurns sluggish men. 455
Seneca: The hated, slays.
Nero: Yet swords protect a prince.
Seneca: Still better, faith.
Nero: A Caesar should be feared.
Seneca: And more be loved.
Nero: But men must fear.
Seneca: Enforced commands are hard.
Nero: Let them obey our laws.
Seneca: Make better laws--
Nero: I'll be the judge. 460
Seneca: Which all men may approve.
Nero: The sword shall force respect.
Seneca: May heaven forbid!
Nero: Shall I then tamely let them seek my blood,
That suddenly despised and unavenged,
I may be taken off? Though exiled far,
The stubborn spirits are not broken yet
Of Plautus and of Sulla. Still their rage 465
Persistent spurs their friends to seek my death;
For still have they the people's love in Rome,
Which ever nourishes the exile's hopes.
Then let the sword remove my enemies; 470
My hateful wife shall die, and follow him,
That brother whom she loves. The high must fall.
Seneca: How fair a thing it is to be the first
Among great men, to think for fatherland,
To spare the weak, to hold the hand of power
From deeds of blood, to give wrath time to think,
Give rest to a weary world, peace to the age. 475
This is the noblest part; by this high path
Is heaven sought. So did Augustus first,
The father of his country, gain the stars,
And as a god is worshiped at the shrines.
Yet he was long by adverse fortune tossed
On land and sea, in battle's deadly chance, 480
Until his father's foes he recompensed.
But fortune hath to thee in peaceful guise
Bent her divinity; with unstained hand
Hath she the reins of government bestowed,
And given world-dominion to thy nod.
Sour hate is overcome, and in its stead 485
Is filial harmony; the senate, knights,
All orders yield obedience to thy will;
For in the fathers' judgment and the prayers
Of humbler folk, thou art the arbiter
Of peace, the god of human destinies,
Ordained to rule the world by right divine.
Thy country's father thou. This sacred name 490
Doth suppliant Rome beseech thee to preserve,
And doth commend her citizens to thee.
Nero: It is the gift of heaven that haughty Rome,
Her people, and her senate bow to me,
And that my terror doth extort those prayers
And servile words from their unwilling lips.
To save the citizens! seditious men,
Who ever 'gainst their land and prince conspire, 495
Puffed up with pride of race--sheer madness that,
When all my enemies one word of mine
Can doom to death. Base Brutus raised his hand
To slay that prince from whom he had his all;
And he, who never 'mid the shock of arms
Had been o'ercome, the world's great conqueror, 500
Who trod, a very Jove, the lofty paths
Of honor, he was slain by impious hands--
Of citizens! What streams of blood hath Rome,
So often rent by civil strife, beheld!
That very saint of thine, Augustus' self, 505
Who, as thou said'st but now, did merit heaven
By piety--how many noble men
Did he destroy, in lusty youth, in age,
At home, abroad, when, spurred by mortal fear,
They fled their household gods and that fell sword
Of the Triumvirate, consigned to death
Upon those mindful tablets' fatal lists.
The grieving parents saw their severed heads 510
Upon the rostra set, but dared not weep
Their hapless sons; the forum reeked with blood,
And gore down all those rotting faces dripped.
Nor this the end of slaughter and of death:
Long did the plains of grim Philippi feed 515
The ravenous birds and prowling beasts of prey;
While ships and men, in deadly conflict met,
Beneath Sicilia's waters were engulfed.
The whole world trembled with the shock of arms;
And now, when all was lost, with fleeing ships, 520
That mighty leader sought the distant Nile,
Doomed soon himself to perish there. And thus,
Once more incestuous Egypt drank the blood
Of Rome's great captains. Now his flitting shade
Is hovering there; and there is civil strife,
So long and impious, at last interred.
Now did the weary victor sheathe his sword,
All blunted with the savage blows he gave, 525
And held his empire with the rein of fear.
He lived in safety 'neath the ample shield
Of loyal guards; and when his end was come,
The pious mandate of his son proclaimed
Him god, and at the temples' sacred shrines
Was he adored. So shall the stars expect
My godhead too, if first I seize and slay 530
With sword relentless all who bear me hate,
And on a worthy offspring found my house.
Seneca: But she will fill thy house with noble sons,
That heaven-born glory of the Claudian stock,
Who by the will of fate was wed to thee,
As Juno to her brother Jove was given. 535
Nero: A child of hers would stain my noble line,
For she herself was of a harlot born;
And more--her heart was never linked to me.
Seneca: In tender years is faith not manifest,
When love, by shame o'ercome, conceals its fires.
Nero: This I myself long trusted, but in vain, 540
Though she was clearly of unloving heart,
And every look betrayed her hate of me.
At length, in angry grief, I sought revenge;
And I have now a worthy wife obtained,
In race and beauty blessed, before whose charms 545
Minerva, Venus, Juno--all would bow.
Seneca: But honor, wifely faith, and modesty--
These should the husband seek, for these alone,
The priceless treasures of the heart and soul,
Remain perpetual; but beauty's flower
Doth fade and languish with each passing day. 550
Nero: On her has heaven all its charms bestowed,
And fate has given her from her birth to me.
Seneca: But love will fail; do not too rashly trust.
Nero: Shall he give way, that tyrant of the skies,
Whom Jove, the Thunderer, cannot remove,
Who lords it over savage seas, the realms 555
Of gloomy Dis, and draws the gods to earth?
Seneca: 'Tis by our human error that we paint
Love as a god, wingéd, implacable,
And arm his sacred hands with darts and bow,
Assign him blazing torches, count him son
Of fostering Venus and of Vulcan. Nay, 560
But love is of the heart's compelling power,
A fond and cozening passion of the soul;
Of hot youth is it born, and in the lap
Of ease and luxury, 'midst fortune's joys,
Is fostered. But it sickens straight and dies
When you no longer feed and fondle it. 565
Nero: I deem the primal source of life is this,
The joy of love; and it can never die,
Since by sweet love, which soothes e'en savage breasts,
The human race is evermore renewed.
This god shall bear for me the wedding torch, 570
And join me with Poppaea in his bonds.
Seneca: The people's grief could scarce endure to see
That marriage, nor would piety permit.
Nero: Shall I alone avoid what all may do?
Seneca: The state from loftiest souls expects the best. 575
Nero: I fain would see if, broken by my power,
This rashly cherished favor will not yield.
Seneca: 'Tis better calmly to obey the state.
Nero: Ill fares the state, when commons govern kings.
Seneca: They justly chafe who pray without avail. 580
Nero: When prayers do not avail, should force be sought?
Seneca: Rebuffs are hard.
Nero: 'Tis wrong to force a prince.
Seneca: He should give way.
Nero: Then rumor counts him forced.
Seneca: Rumor's an empty thing.
Nero: But harmful too.
Seneca: She fears the strong. 585
Nero: But none the less maligns.
Seneca: She soon can be o'ercome. But let the youth,
The faith and chastity of this thy wife,
The merits of her sainted sire prevail
To turn thee from thy will.
Nero: Have done at last,
For wearisome has thy insistence grown;
One still may do what Seneca comdemns.
And I myself have now too long delayed 590
The people's prayers for offspring to the throne.
Tomorrow's morn her wedding day shall prove,
Who bears within her womb my pledge of love.
[Exeunt.]
ACT III
Ghost of Agrippina [bearing a flaming torch]: Through cloven
earth from Tartarus I come,
To bring in bloody hands this torch of hell
To light these curséd rites; with such dire flames 595
Let this Poppaea wed my son, which soon
His mother's grief and vengeful hand shall turn
To funeral fires. And ever 'mid the shades
My impious murder in my memory dwells,
A heavy weight upon my grieving soul
Still unavenged; for, Oh, ingratitude
He gave me in return for all my gifts, 600
E'en for the gift of empire did he give
A murderous ship designed to work my death.
I would have wept my comrades' plight, and more,
My son's most cruel deed: no time for tears
Was given, but even higher did he heap 605
His sum of crime. Though I escaped the sea,
I felt the keen sword's thrust, and, with my blood
The very gods defiling, poured my soul
In anguish forth. But even yet his hate
Was not appeased. Against my very name
The tyrant raged; my merits he obscured; 610
My statues, my inscriptions, honors--all,
On pain of death he bade to be destroyed
Throughout the world--that world my hapless love,
To my own direful punishment, had given
To be by him, an untried boy, controlled.
And now my murdered husband's angry ghost
Shakes vengeful torches in my guilty face, 615
Insistent, threat'ning; blames his death on me,
His murdered son, and loud demands that now
The guilty cause be given up. Have done:
He shall be given, and that right speedily.
Avenging furies for his impious head
Are planning even now a worthy fate: 620
Base flight and blows, and fearful sufferings,
By which the raging thirst of Tantalus
He shall surpass; the cruel, endless toil
Of Sisyphus; the pain that Tityus feels,
And the dread, racking anguish of the wheel
On which Ixion's whirling limbs are stretched.
Let gold and marble deck his palace walls;
Let arméd guards protect him; let the world 625
Be beggared that its treasures vast may flow
Into his lap; let suppliant Parthians bend
To kiss his hands, and bring rich offerings:
The day and hour will come when for his crimes
His guilty soul shall full atonement make, 630
When to his enemies he shall be given,
Deserted and destroyed and stripped of all.
Oh, to what end my labors and my prayers?
Why did thy frenzied madness, O my son,
And fate impel thee to such depths of crime
That e'en thy mother's wrath, whom thou didst slay, 635
Is all too small to match her sufferings?
Oh, would that, ere I brought thee forth to light,
And suckled thee, my vitals had been rent
By savage beasts! Then senseless, innocent,
And mine wouldst thou have perished; joined to me
Wouldst thou forever see the quiet seats 640
Of this abode of souls, thy mighty sire,
And grandsires too, those men of glorious name,
Whom now perpetual shame and grief await
Because of thee, thou monster, and of me.
But why delay in hell to hide my face,
Since I have proved a curse to all my race? 645
[Vanishes.]
Octavia [to the Chorus in deprecation of their grief because
of her divorce]: Restrain your tears; put on a face of joy,
As on a festal day, lest this your love
And care for me should stir the royal wrath,
And I be cause of suffering to you. 650
This wound is not the first my heart has felt;
Far worse have I endured; but all shall end,
Perchance in death, before this day is done.
No more upon my brutal husband's face
Shall I be forced to look; that hateful couch, 655
Long since consigned to slavish uses, base,
I shall behold no more.
For now Augustus' sister shall I be,
And not his wife. But Oh, be far from me
All cruel punishments and fear of death. 660
Poor, foolish girl! and canst thou hope for this?
Bethink thee of his former sins--and hope.
Nay, he has spared thy wretched life till now,
That thou mayst at his marriage altars fall.
But why so often turn thy streaming eyes 665
Upon thy home? Now speed thy steps away,
And leave this bloody prince's hall for aye.
Chorus: Now dawns at last the day we long have feared
And talked of. Lo, our Claudia, driven forth 670
By cruel Nero's threats, leaves that abode
Which even now Poppaea calls her own;
While we must sit and grieve with sluggish woe,
By heavy fear oppressed. 675
Where is that Roman people's manhood now,
Which once the pride of mighty leaders crushed,
Gave righteous laws to an unconquered land,
Gave powers at will to worthy citizens,
Made peace and war, fierce nations overcame, 680
And held in dungeons dark their captive kings?
Behold, on every side our eyes are grieved
By this Poppaea's gleaming statues joined
With Nero's images--a shameful sight. 685
Come, overturn them with indignant hands,
Too like in feature to her living face.
And her we'll drag from off that royal couch;
And then, with flaming brand and deadly sword,
Attack the princely palace of her lord.
ACT IV
Nurse
[to Poppaea, who appears, distraught, coming out of her chamber]:
Why dost thou from thy husband's chamber come, 690
Dear child, with hurried step and troubled face?
Why dost thou seek a lonely place to weep?
For surely has the day we long have sought
With prayers and promised victims come at last.
Thou hast thy Caesar, firmly joined to thee
By ties of marriage, whom thy beauty won, 695
Whom Venus gave to thee in bonds of love,
Though Seneca despised and flouted her.
How beautiful, upon the banquet couch
Reclining in the palace, didst thou seem!
The senate viewed thy beauty in amaze
When thou didst offer incense to the gods, 700
And sprinkle wine upon the sacred shrines,
Thy head the while with gauzy purple veiled.
And close beside thee was thy lord himself;
Amid the favoring plaudits of the crowd
He walked majestic, in his look and mien
Proclaiming all his pride and joy in thee. 705
So did the noble Peleus lead his bride
Emerging from the ocean's snowy foam,
Whose wedding feast the heavenly gods adorned,
With equal joy the sea divinities.
What sudden cause has clouded o'er thy face? 710
Tell me, what mean thy pallor and thy tears!
Poppaea: Dear nurse, this night I had a dreadful dream;
And even now, as I remember it,
My mind is troubled and my senses fail.
For when the joyful day had sunk to rest,
And in the darkened sky the stars appeared, 715
I lay asleep within my Nero's arms.
But that sweet sleep I could not long enjoy;
For suddenly a grieving crowd appeared
To throng my chamber--Roman matrons they,
With hair disheveled and loud cries of woe. 720
Then 'midst the oft-repeated, strident blasts
Of trumpets, there appeared my husband's mother,
And shook before my face with threat'ning mien
A bloody torch. Compelled by present fear,
I followed her; when suddenly the earth 725
Seemed rent asunder to its lowest depths.
Headlong to these I plunged, and even there
In wonder I beheld my wedding couch,
Whereon I sank in utter weariness.
Then with a throng of followers I saw
My son and former husband drawing near.
Straightway Crispinus hastened to my arms, 730
And on my lips his eager kisses fell:
When suddenly within that chamber burst
My lord the king with frantic, hurrying steps,
And plunged his sword into that other's throat.
A mighty terror siezed me, and at last
It roused me from my sleep. I started up
With trembling limbs and wildly beating heart. 735
Long was I speechless from that haunting fear,
Until thy fond affection gave me tongue.
Why do the ghosts of hades threaten me?
Or why did I behold my husband's blood?
Nurse: All things which occupy the waking[57] mind, 740
Some subtle power, swift working, weaves again
Into our web of dreams. Small wonder then,
Thy sleeping thoughts were filled with marriage beds
And husbands, when thy newly mated lord
Held thee in his embrace. Does it seem strange
That thou shouldst dream tonight of sounds of woe, 745
Of breasts hard beaten and of streaming hair?
Octavia's departure did they mourn
Within her brother's and her father's house.
The torch which thou didst follow, borne aloft
By Agrippina's hand, is but a sign
That hate shall win for thee a mighty name.
Thy marriage couch, in realms infernal seen, 750
Portends a lasting state of wedded joy.
Since in Crispinus' neck the sword was sheathed,
Believe that no more wars thy lord shall wage,
But hide his sword within the breast of peace.
Take heart again, recall thy joys, I pray,
Throw off thy fears, and to thy couch return. 755
Poppaea: Nay, rather will I seek the sacred shrines,
And there make sacrifice unto the gods,
That they avert these threats of night and sleep,
And turn my terrors all upon my foes.
Do thou pray for me and the gods implore 760
That in this happy state I may endure.
[Exeunt Poppaea and Nurse.]
Chorus [of Roman women in sympathy with Poppaea]:
If babbling rumor's tales of Jove,
His secret joys in mortal love,
Are true, he once, in plumage dressed,
Was to the lovely Leda pressed; 765
And as a savage bull he bore
Europa from her native shore:
But should he once thy form, Poppaea, see,
He would leave his shining stars to dwell with thee.
For thou than Leda many fold 770
Art fairer, or that maid of old
Whom Jove embraced in showers of gold.
Let Sparta boast her lovely dame,
Who, as his prize, to Paris came:
Though Helen's beauty drove the world to arms, 775
She still must yield to our Poppaea's charms.
[Enter Messenger.]
But who comes here with hurried step and wild?
What tidings bears he in his heaving breast?
Messenger: Whoever guards our noble prince's house, 780
Let him defend it from the people's rage.
Behold, the prefects lead their men in haste,
To save the city from the furious mob
Whose reckless passion grows, unchecked by fear.
Chorus: What is the madness that inflames their hearts? 785
Messenger: The people for their loved Octavia
Are wild with rage and grief; and now in throngs
Are rushing forth in mood for any deed.
Chorus: What are they bent to do, or with what plan?
Messenger: To give Octavia back her father's house,
Her brother's bed, and her due share of empire. 790
Chorus: But these Poppaea holds as Nero's wife.
Messenger: 'Tis even she 'gainst whom the people's rage
Burns most persistent, and to reckless deeds
Is driven headlong on. Whate'er they see,
Of noble marble wrought, or gleaming bronze,
The hated image of Poppaea's face, 795
They cast it to the earth with wanton hands
And crushing bars. The shattered parts they drag
Along the streets, and with insulting heel
Deep in the filthy mud they trample them.
These savage deeds are mingled with such words
As I should fear to utter in your ears. 800
Soon will they hedge the royal house with flames,
Unless the prince his new-made wife give up
To sate the people's wrath, and then restore
To noble Claudia her father's house.
That he himself may know these threatened deeds,
I'll haste to tell him as the prefect bade. 805
[Exit.]
Chorus: Why vainly strive against the powers above?
For Cupid's weapons are invincible.
Your puny fires by those fierce flames he'll dim
By which he oft has quenched the bolts of Jove,
And brought the Thunderer captive from the sky. 810
For this offense you shall dire forfeit pay,
E'en with your blood; for hot of wrath is he,
And may not be o'ercome. At his command
Did fierce Achilles strike the peaceful lyre;
He forced the Greeks and Agamemnon proud 815
To do his will. Illustrious cities, too,
And Priam's realm he utterly destroyed.
And now my mind in fear awaits to see
What Cupid's cruel penalties will be.
FOOTNOTES:
[57] Reading, intentus.
ACT V
Nero [seated in a room of his palace]: Too slow my soldiers'
hands, too mild my wrath, 820
When citizens have dared such crimes as these.
Those torches that they kindled 'gainst their prince
Their blood shall quench; and Rome, who bore such men,
Shall be bespattered with her people's gore.
Yet death is far too light a punishment 825
For such atrocities; this impious mob
Shall suffer worse than death. But she, my wife
And sister, whom I hate with deadly fear,
For whose sole sake the people rage at me,
Shall give her life at last to sate my grief,
And quench my anger in her flowing blood. 830
Soon shall my flames enwrap the city's walls,
And in the ruins of her falling homes
The people shall be buried; squalid want,
Dire hunger, grief-all these shall they endure.
Too fat upon the blessings of our age
Has this vile mob become, and know not how 835
To bear our clemency and relish peace;
But, rash and reckless, are they ever borne
By shifting tides of passion to their hurt.
They must be held in check by suffering,
Be ever pressed beneath the heavy yoke,
Lest once again they dare assail the throne, 840
And to the august features of my wife
Dare lift again their vulgar eyes. O'erawed
By fear of punishment must they be taught
To yield obedience to their prince's nod.
But here I see the man whose loyalty
Has made him captain of my royal guards. 845
[Enter Prefect.]
Prefect: The people's rage by slaughter of a few,
Who most resistance made is overcome.
Nero: Is that enough? Was that my word to thee?
"Is overcome?" Where then is my revenge?
Prefect: The guilty leaders of the mob are dead. 850
Nero: Nay, but the mob itself, which dared to assail
My house with flames, to dictate laws to me,
To drag my noble wife from off my bed,
And with unhallowed hands and angry threats
To affront her majesty--are they unscathed? 855
Prefect: Shall angry grief decide their punishment?
Nero: It shall--whose fame no future age shall dim.
Prefect: Which neither wrath nor fear shall moderate?[58]
Nero: She first shall feel my wrath who merits it.
Prefect: Tell whom thou mean'st. My hand shall spare her not. 860
Nero: My wrath demands my guilty sister's death.
Prefect: Benumbing horror holds me in its grasp.
Nero: Wilt not obey my word?
Prefect: Why question that?
Nero: Because thou spar'st my foe.
Prefect: A woman, foe?
Nero: If she be criminal. 865
Prefect: But what her crime?
Nero: The people's rage.
Prefect: But who can check their rage?
Nero: The one who fanned its flame.
Prefect: But who that one?
Nero: A woman she, to whom an evil heart
Hath nature given, a soul to fraud inclined.
Prefect: But not the power to act. 870
Nero: That she may be
Without the power to act, that present fear
May break her strength, let punishment at once,
Too long delayed, crush out her guilty life.
Have done at once with arguments and prayers,
And do my royal bidding: let her sail
To some far distant shore and there be slain, 875
That thus at last my fears may be at rest.
[Exeunt.]
Chorus [attached to Octavia]: Oh, dire and deadly has the people's
love
To many proved, which fills their swelling sails
With favoring breeze, and bears them out to sea;
But soon its vigor languishes and dies, 880
And leaves them to the mercy of the deep.
The wretched mother of the Gracchi wept
Her murdered sons, who, though of noble blood,
Far famed for eloquence and piety, 885
Stout-hearted, learnéd in defense of law,
Were brought to ruin by the people's love
And popular renown. And Livius, thee
To equal fate did fickle fortune give,
Who found no safety in thy lictors' rods,
No refuge in thy home. But grief forbids
To tell more instances. This hapless girl, 890
To whom but now the citizens decreed
The restoration of her fatherland,
Her home, her brother's couch, is dragged away
In tears and misery to punishment,
With citizens consenting to her death! 895
Oh, blesséd poverty, content to hide
Beneath the refuge of a lowly roof!
For lofty homes, to fame and fortune known,
By storms are blasted and by fate o'erthrown!
[Enter Octavia in the custody of the palace guards, who are dragging
her roughly out into the street.]
Octavia: Oh, whither do ye hurry me? What fate
Has that vile tyrant or his queen ordained? 900
Does she, subdued and softened by my woes,
Grant me to live in exile? Or, if not,
If she intends to crown my sufferings
With death, why does her savage heart begrudge
That I should die at home? But now, alas, 905
I can no longer hope for life; behold,
My brother's bark, within whose treacherous hold
His mother once was borne; and now for me,
Poor wretch, his slighted sister-wife, it waits. 910
No more has right a place upon the earth,
Nor heavenly gods. Grim Fury reigns supreme.
Oh, who can fitly weep my evil plight?
What nightingale has tongue to sing my woes? 915
Would that the fates would grant her wings to me!
Then would I speed away on pinions swift,
And leave my grievous troubles far behind,
Leave these unholy haunts of savage men. 920
There, all alone, within some forest wide,
Among the swaying branches would I sit,
And let my grieving spirit weep its fill.
Chorus: The race of men is by the fates controlled,
And none may hope to make his own secure; 925
And o'er the ever-shifting ways of life
The day which most we fear shall come to us.
But comfort now thy heart with thought of those
Of thine own house who suffered ill, and ask: 930
In what has fortune been more harsh to thee?
Thee first I name, Agrippa's noble child,
The famous mother of so many sons,
Great Caesar's wife, whose name throughout the world 935
In flaming glory shone, whose teeming womb
Brought forth so many hostages of peace:
E'en thee did exile wait, and cruel chains,
Blows, bitter anguish, and at last a death 940
Of lingering agony. And Livia, thou,
Though fortunate in husband and in sons,
Didst walk the way of sin--and punishment.
And Julia, too, endured her mother's fate;
For, though no evil deed was charged to her, 945
She fell a victim to the sword at last.
What could not once thy mighty mother do
Who ruled supreme the house of Claudius,
By him beloved, and in her son secure?
Yet she at last was subject to a slave, 950
And fell beneath a brutal soldier's sword.
For what exalted heights of royalty
Might not our Nero's mother once have hoped?
Mishandled first by vulgar sailors' hands, 955
Then slain and mangled by the bungling sword,
She lay the victim of her cruel son.
Octavia: Me, too, the tyrant to the world of shades
Is sending. Why delay? Then speed my death, 960
For fate hath made me subject to your power.
I pray the heavenly gods--what wouldst thou, fool?
Pray not to gods who show their scorn of thee.
But, O ye gods of hell, ye furies dire, 965
Who work your vengeance on the crimes of men,
And thou, my father's restless spirit, come
And bring this tyrant fitting punishment.
[To her guards.]
The death you threaten has no terrors now
For me. Go, set your ship in readiness, 970
Unfurl your sails, and let your pilot seek
The barren shores of Pandataria.
[Exit Octavia with guards.]
Chorus: Ye gentle breezes and ye zephyrs mild,
Which once from savage Dian's altar bore 975
Atrides' daughter in a cloud concealed,
This child of ours, Octavia too, we pray,
Bear far away from these too cruel woes,
And set her in the fane of Trivia.
For Aulis is more merciful than Rome,
The savage Taurian land more mild than this: 980
There hapless strangers to their gods they feed,
But Rome delights to see her children bleed.
FOOTNOTES:
[58] Reading, quam temperet non ira, etc.
COMPARATIVE ANALYSES
COMPARATIVE ANALYSES OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES AND THE CORRESPONDING GREEK
DRAMAS
The Phoenissae, if, indeed, these fragments are to be considered as
belonging to one play, has no direct correspondent in Greek drama;
although, in the general situations and in some details, it is similar
to parts of three plays: The Seven Against Thebes of Aeschylus, the
Oedipus at Colonus of Sophocles, and the Phoenician Damsels of
Euripides. The Thyestes is without a parallel in extant Greek drama;
and the Octavia, of course, stands alone.
The other seven tragedies attributed by tradition to Seneca, together
with their Greek correspondents, are here presented in comparative
analyses in order that the reader may be enabled easily to compare, at
least so far as subject-matter and dramatic structure are concerned,
the Roman tragedies and their Greek originals.
Although the traditional division into acts is followed in the English
version of the several plays, it seems wise in these comparisons to
give the more minute division into prologue, episodes, and choral
interludes.
THE OEDIPUS OF SOPHOCLES, AND THE OEDIPUS OF SENECA
Prologue.--Dialogue between Oedipus and the priest of Zeus, who
discloses the present plague-smitten condition of the people, and prays
the king for aid since he is so wise. The fatherly regard of Oedipus
for his people, in that he has already sent a messenger to ask the aid
of the oracle, is portrayed.
The answer of the oracle: first reference to an unexpiated sin. Short
question and answer between Oedipus and Creon, the messenger, bringing
out the facts of Laïus' death.
The irony of fate: Oedipus proposes, partly in his own interest, to
seek out the murderer. As yet there is no foreshadowing of evil in the
king's mind. At the end of the prologue Oedipus remains alone upon the
stage.
_Prologue._--In the early morning Oedipus is seen lamenting the
plague-smitten condition of his people. He narrates how he had fled
from Corinth to avoid the fulfilment of a dreadful oracle, that he
should kill his father and wed his mother. Even here he cannot feel
safe, but still fears some dreadful fate that seems threatening. He
describes with minute detail the terrors of the pestilence which
has smitten man and beast and even the vegetable world. He prays
for death that he may not survive his stricken people. Jocasta
remonstrates with him for his despair and reminds him that it is a
king's duty to bear reverses with cheerfulness.
Parode, or chorus entry.--The chorus enlarges upon the distresses of
the city, and appeals to the gods for aid.
_Parode, or chorus entry._--The chorus appeals to Bacchus, relating
how the descendants of his old Theban comrades are perishing. It
enlarges upon the distresses of the city, and deplores the violence
of the plague. The sufferings of the people are described in minute
detail.
First episode.--The curse of Oedipus upon the unknown murderer is
pronounced, and the charge is made by Tiresias (who long refuses to
speak but is forced to do so by Oedipus), "Thou art the man." Oedipus'
explanation of Tiresias' charge; it is a plot between the latter and
Creon. The facts of Oedipus' birth are hinted at. Tiresias prophesies
the after-life of the king, with the name but thinly veiled.
_First episode._--Creon, returned from the consultation of the
oracle at Delphi, announces that the plague is caused by the
unatoned murder of Laïus, former king of Thebes. Oedipus anxiously
inquires who the murderer is, but is told that this is still a
mystery. Creon describes the scene at Delphi in the giving of the
oracle. Oedipus declares himself eager to hunt out the murderer and
inquires why the matter has been left so long uninvestigated. He is
told that the terrors of the Sphinx had driven all other thoughts
out of the people's mind.
The irony of fate: Oedipus pronounces a dreadful curse upon the
murderer of Laïus and vows not to rest until he finds him. He
inquires where the murder took place and how. At this moment the
blind old Tiresias enters, led by his daughter, Manto. Tiresias
tries by the arts of divination (which are described with the
greatest elaboration) to ascertain the name of the murderer, but
without avail; and says that recourse must be had to necromancy, or
the raising of the dead.
First choral interlude.--The chorus reflects upon the oracle and the
certain discovery of the guilty one. Ideal picture of the flight of the
murderer. While troubled by the charge of Tiresias, the chorus still
refuses to give it credence. After all, the seer is only a man and
liable to be mistaken. Oedipus has shown himself a wiser man by solving
the riddle of the Sphinx.
_First choral interlude._--The chorus sings a dithyrambic strain in
praise of the wonderful works of Bacchus. No reference is made to
the tragedy which is in progress.
Second episode.--Quarrel of Oedipus and Creon based upon the charges
of the former. Oedipus' argument: The deed was done long ago, and
Tiresias, though then also a seer, made no charge. Now, when forced
by the recent oracle, the seer comes forward with Creon. This looks
like a conspiracy. Creon pleads for a fair and complete investigation.
Jocasta tries to reconcile the two, but in vain, and Creon is driven
out. Jocasta relates the circumstances of Laïus' death, which tally in
all details but one with the death of one slain by Oedipus. A terrible
conclusion begins to dawn upon the king. He tells his queen the story
of his life and the dreadful oracle, the fear of the fulfilment of
which drove him from Corinth. At the end of this episode the death
of Laïus at the hands of Oedipus is all but proved, but the relation
between the two is not yet hinted at.
_Second episode._--Creon returns from the rites of necromancy in
which he had accompanied Tiresias, and strives to avoid telling
the result of the investigation to the king. Being at last forced
to reveal all that he knows, he describes with great vividness of
detail how Tiresias has summoned up the spirits of the dead, and
among them Laïus. The latter declares that Oedipus himself is the
murderer, having slain his father and married his mother. Oedipus,
strong in the belief that Polybus and Merope of Corinth are his
parents, denies the charge, and after a hot dispute orders Creon to
be cast into prison, on suspicion of a conspiracy with Tiresias to
deprive Oedipus of the scepter.
Second choral interlude.--Prayer for a life in accordance with the
will of heaven. Under the shadow of impending ill, the chorus seeks the
aid of God, meditates upon the doom of the unrighteous, and considers
the seeming fallibility of the oracle.
_Second choral interlude._--The chorus refuses to believe the
charge against Oedipus, but lays the blame of all these ills upon
the evil fate of Thebes which has pursued the Thebans from the
first.
Third episode.--A messenger from Corinth brings the news of Polybus'
death, the supposed father of Oedipus. The irony of fate: the king is
lifted up with joy that now the oracle cannot be fulfilled that he
should kill his own father. Step by step the details of the king's
infancy come out, which reveal the awful truth to Jocasta. To Oedipus
the only result of the present revelation is that he is probably
base-born. Jocasta tries to deter Oedipus from further investigation.
_Third episode._--Oedipus, remembering that he had slain a man
on his way to Thebes, questions Jocasta more closely as to the
circumstances of Laïus' death, and finding these circumstances to
tally with his own experience, is convinced that he was indeed the
slayer of Laïus.
At this point a messenger from Corinth, an old man, announces to
Oedipus the death of Polybus, the king of Corinth, and the supposed
father of Oedipus. The latter is summoned to the empty throne of
Corinth. A quick succession of questions and answers brings to
light the fact that Oedipus is not the child of Polybus and Merope,
but that the messenger himself had given him when an infant to the
Corinthian pair. This announcement removes the chief support of
Oedipus against the charges of Tiresias, and now he rushes blindly
on to know the rest of the fatal truth. The shepherd is summoned
who had given the baby to the old Corinthian. He strives to avoid
answering, but, driven on by the threats of Oedipus, he at last
states that he had received the child from the royal household of
Thebes, and that it was in fact the son of Jocasta. At this last
and awful disclosure, Oedipus goes off the stage in a fit of raving
madness.
Strophe and antistrophe.--A partial interlude, while they wait for
the shepherd who is to furnish the last link in the chain of evidence.
The chorus conjectures as to the wonderful birth of Oedipus; possibly
his father is Pan, or Apollo, or Mercury, or Bacchus.
The shepherd, arriving, also seeks to keep the dreadful truth from the
king, but a second time the passion of Oedipus forces the truth from
an unwilling witness. At last the whole story comes out, and Oedipus
realizes that he has slain his father and wed his mother.
Third choral interlude.--The utter nothingness of human life, judged
by the fate of Oedipus, who above all men was successful, wise, and
good. It is inscrutable; why should such a fate come to him? The chorus
laments the doom of the king as its own.
_Third choral interlude._--The chorus reflects upon the dangerous
position of the man who is unduly exalted, and illustrates this
principle by the case of Icarus.
Exode.--The catastrophe in its final manifestations. A messenger
describes the lamentations and suicide of Jocasta, the despair of
Oedipus, and the wild mood in which he inflicts blindness upon himself.
He comes upon the stage piteously wailing and groping his way. He prays
for death or banishment at the hands of Creon, who is now king. He
takes a tender farewell of his daughters and consigns them to Creon's
care.
The play ends with the solemn warning of the chorus "to reckon no man
happy till ye witness the closing day; until he pass the border which
severs life from death, unscathed by sorrow."
_Exode._--Although there is a short chorus interjected here (lines
980-97) on the inevitableness of fate, all the remainder of the
play is really the exode, showing the catastrophe in its final
manifestation. A messenger describes with horrible minuteness how
Oedipus in his ravings has dug out his eyes. At this point Oedipus
himself comes upon the stage, rejoicing in his blindness, since
now he can never look upon his shame. And now Jocasta appears,
having heard strange rumors. On learning the whole truth, she slays
herself on the stage with Oedipus' sword. The play ends as the
blind old king goes groping his way out into darkness and exile.
THE MEDEA OF EURIPIDES, AND THE MEDEA OF SENECA
Prologue.--The old nurse of Medea, alone upon the stage, laments that
the Argo was ever framed and that Medea had ever fled from Colchis.
Then had she never been here in Corinth an exile and now deserted even
by her husband, Jason. In describing Medea's distracted condition,
the nurse first voices the fear of that violence which forms the
catastrophe of the play. Enter an old attendant with the two sons of
Medea, who announces a new woe--that Creon, the king, has decreed the
banishment of Medea and her children. The nurse repeats her warning
note, and urges the attendant to keep the children out of the sight of
their mother, who even now can be heard raving within, and vowing the
destruction of her children and her husband. The attendant retires with
the children.
_Prologue._--Medea, finding herself deserted by Jason, calls upon
gods and furies to grant her vengeance. She prays for destruction
to light upon her rival, and imprecates curses upon Jason. She
thinks it monstrous that the sun can still hold on his way, and
prays for power to subvert the whole course of nature. She finally
realizes that she is impotent save as she has recourse to her old
sorceries which she has long since laid aside, and resolves upon
them as a means of revenge.
Parode, or chorus entry.--The chorus of Corinthian women comes to
the front of the palace to inquire the cause of Medea's cries, which
they have heard, and to profess their attachment to her. From time to
time Medea's voice can be heard from within as she prays for death and
imprecates curses upon Jason. The nurse at the suggestion of the chorus
undertakes to induce her mistress to come forth, that converse with her
friends may soothe her grief. The nurse goes within, leaving the chorus
alone upon the stage.
_Parode, or chorus entry._--A chorus of Corinthians chants an
epithalamium for the nuptials of Jason and Creüsa. First, in
Asclepiadean strains, they invoke the gods to be present and bless
the nuptials. The strain then changes to quick, joyful Glyconics
in praise of the surpassing beauty of the married pair. Changing
back to Asclepiads, the chorus continues in extravagant praise of
Jason and his bride, congratulates him on his exchange from Medea
to Creüsa, and finally, in six lines of hexameter, exults in the
license of the hour.
First episode.--Medea comes forth from the palace to explain to the
chorus her position and unhappy condition. She deplores the lot of
women in general, and especially in relation to marriage, and enlists
the sympathy of the chorus in her attempt to secure some revenge for
her wrongs. They confess the justice of her cause and promise to keep
her secret.
Creon announces to Medea that she must leave his realm at once, for
much he fears that she will take her revenge upon him and upon his
house. She pleads for grace, and bewails her reputation for magic
power; she assures the king that he has nothing to fear from her, and
affects compliance with all that has taken place. Creon, while still
protesting that she cannot be trusted, yields in so far that he grants
her a single day's delay.
Medea tells the chorus that her recent compliance was only feigned, and
openly announces her intention before the day is done of slaying Creon,
his daughter, and Jason. She debates the various methods by which this
may be accomplished, and decides, for her own greater safety, upon the
help of magic.
_First episode._--Hearing the epithalamium, Medea goes into a
passion of rage. She recounts all that she has done for Jason, and
exclaims against his ingratitude. Again, with shifting feelings she
pleads Jason's cause to herself and strives to excuse him, blaming
all upon Creon. Upon him she vows the direst vengeance. Meanwhile
the nurse in vain urges prudence.
Creon now enters, manifesting in his words a fear of Medea, and
bent upon her immediate banishment. Medea pleads her innocence,
and begs to know the reason for her exile. She reviews at length
her former regal estate and contrasts with this her present
forlorn condition. She claims the credit for the preservation of
all the Argonautic heroes. Upon this ground she claims that Jason
is hers. She begs of Creon some small corner in his kingdom for
her dwelling, but the king remains obdurate. She then prays for a
single day's delay in which to say farewell to her children, who
are to remain, the wards of the king. This prayer Creon reluctantly
grants.
First choral interlude.--The course of nature is subverted. No longer
let woman alone have the reputation for falsehood; man's insincerity
equals hers. In poetry the fickleness of both should be sung, just as
in history it is seen. Though Medea, for her love of Jason, left her
native land and braved all the terrors of the deep, she is now left all
forsaken and alone. Verily truth and honor have departed from the earth.
_First choral interlude._--Apropos of Medea's reference to the
Argonautic heroes the chorus sings of the dangers which those first
voyagers upon the sea endured; how the natural bounds which the
gods set to separate the lands have now been removed--and all this
for gold and this barbarian woman. (The chorus is nowhere friendly
to Medea, as in Euripides.) The ode ends with a prophecy of the
time when all the earth shall be revealed, and there shall be no
"Ultima Thule."
Second episode.--Jason reproaches Medea for her intemperate speech
against the king, which has resulted in her banishment, and shows
her that he is still concerned for her interests. She retorts with
reproaches because of his ingratitude, and proceeds to recount all that
she had done for him and given up in his behalf. Jason replies that it
was not through her help but that of Venus that he had escaped all the
perils of the past, and reminds her of the advantages which she herself
had gained by leaving her barbarous land for Greece. He even holds that
his marriage into the royal family of Corinth is in her interest and
that of her children, since by this means their common fortunes will be
mended. He offers her from his new resources assistance for her exile,
which she indignantly refuses, and Jason retires from her bitter taunts.
_Second episode._--Medea is rushing out to seek vengeance, while
the nurse tries in vain to restrain her. The nurse soliloquizes,
describing the wild frenzy of her mistress, and expressing grave
fears for the result. Medea, not noticing the nurse's presence,
reflects upon the day that has been granted her by Creon, and
vows that her terrible vengeance shall be commensurate with her
sufferings. She rushes off the stage, while the nurse calls after
her a last warning.
Jason now enters, lamenting the difficult position in which he
finds himself. He asserts that it is for his children's sake that
he has done all, and hopes to be able to persuade Medea herself
to take this view. Medea comes back, and at sight of Jason her
fury is still further inflamed. She announces her intended flight.
But whither shall she flee? For his sake she has closed all lands
against herself. In bitter sarcasm she accepts all these sufferings
as her just punishment. Then in a flash of fury she recalls all her
services to him and contrasts his ingratitude. She shifts suddenly
to passionate entreaty, and prays him to pity her, to give back all
that she gave up for him, if she must needs flee; she begs him to
brave the wrath of Creon and flee with her, and promises him her
protection as of old. In a long series of quick, short passages
they shift from phase to phase of feeling, and finally Medea prays
that in her flight she may have her children as her comrades.
Jason's refusal shows how deeply he loves his sons, and here is
suggested to Medea for the first time the method of her direst
revenge. Jason now yields to her assumed penitence and grants her
the custody of the children for this day alone. When Jason has
withdrawn, she bids the nurse prepare the fatal robe which she
proposes to send to her rival by the hands of her children.
Second choral interlude.--The chorus prays to be delivered from the
pangs of immoderate love and jealousy, from exile, and the ingratitude
of friends.
_Second choral interlude._--The chorus opens on the text, "Hell
hath no fury like a woman scorned," and continues with a prayer
for Jason's safety. It then recounts the subsequent history of the
individual Argonauts, showing how almost all came to some untimely
end. They might indeed be said to deserve this fate, for they
volunteered to assist in that first impious voyage in quest of the
golden fleece; but Jason should be spared the general doom, for the
task had been imposed upon him by his usurping uncle, Pelias.
Third, episode.--Aegeus, in Corinth by accident, recognizes Medea,
and learns from her her present grievous condition and imminent exile.
She begs that he receive her into his kingdom as a friend under his
protection. This he promises with a mighty oath to do.
Medea, left alone with the chorus, explains to it still more in detail
her plans. She will send her sons with gifts to the new bride, which,
by their magic power, will destroy her and all who touch her. She
adds that she will also slay her two sons, the more to injure Jason.
The chorus, while protesting against this last proposal, offers no
resistance.
_Third episode._--The nurse in a long monologue recites Medea's
magic wonders of the past, and all her present preparations. Then
Medea's voice is heard, and presently she comes upon the stage
chanting her incantations. She summons up the gods of Tartara to
aid her task; recounts all the wonders which her charms can work;
describes her store of magic fires and other potent objects. Then
breaking into quicker measure, as if filled with a fuller frenzy,
she continues her incantations accompanied by wild cries and
gestures. She finally dispatches her sons to Jason's bride with the
robe she has anointed with her magic drugs and charged with her
curses. She hastens out in the opposite direction.
Third choral interlude.--The chorus, dwelling upon Medea's proposed
place of refuge, sings the praises of Athens, sacred to the Muses. It
contrasts with this holy city the dreadful deed which Medea intends,
and again vainly strives to dissuade her.
_Third choral interlude._--The chorus notes and describes Medea's
wild bearing, and prays for her speedy departure from their city.
Fourth episode.--Medea, sending for Jason, with feigned humility
reproaches herself for her former intemperate words to him, and begs
only that he use his influence for the reprieve of their children
from exile. To assist him in this, she proposes to send the children
themselves, bearing a gorgeous robe of golden tissue (which she has
anointed with magic poison) as a wedding present to the bride. Upon
this errand Jason retires attended by his little sons.
Fourth choral interlude.--The chorus, with full knowledge of the
fatal robe, pictures the delight of the bride at its reception, and
laments her fearful doom.
Fifth episode.--This episode is in four parts.
The attendant returns with the children and announces to Medea that
her gifts have prevailed for their reprieve. (The attendant retires.)
Medea contrasts the assured career of her children with her own hapless
condition; then remembers her resolve and with softening heart laments
their dreadful fate. She hastily sends them within the palace. Left
alone, she again struggles between her mother-love and her resolve
not to leave her children subject to the scorn of her foes. (She here
leaves the stage to wait for tidings from the royal house.)
Then follows a monologue by the chorus leader discussing the advantages
of childlessness. No reference is made to the passing events.
Medea returns just in time to meet a messenger who breathlessly
announces the death of Creon and his daughter. At the request of Medea
he gives a detailed account of the reception of the magic robe and
crown, the bride's delight, and her sudden and awful death, in which
her father also was involved. He urges Medea to fly at once. She
announces her intention to do so as soon as she has slain her children;
and then rushes into the house.
Fifth choral interlude.--This consists of a single strophe and
antistrophe in which the chorus calls upon the gods to restrain Medea's
mad act. Then are heard within the house the shrieks first of the
two children, then of one, then silence, the chorus meanwhile wildly
shouting to Medea to desist from her deadly work.
The exode.--Jason appears in search of Medea that he may avenge on
her the death of the royal pair; but most he fears for his children.
The chorus informs him that they are already slain within the palace by
their mother's hand. He prepares to force an entrance into the house.
But now Medea appears in a chariot drawn by dragons. She defies Jason's
power to harm her. Jason replies by reproaching her with all the
murderous deeds of her life, which have culminated in this crowning
deed of blood. She in turn reproaches him and his ingratitude as
the cause of all. A storm of mutual imprecations follows, and Medea
disappears with the bodies of her two sons, denying to Jason even the
comfort of weeping over their remains.
_The exode._--A messenger comes running in from the direction
of the palace, and announces that the king and his daughter are
dead. The eager questions of the chorus bring out the strange
circumstances attending this catastrophe. Medea enters in time to
hear that her magic has been successful, and ignoring the nurse's
entreaties to flee at once, she becomes absorbed in her own
reflections. And now in her words may be seen the inward struggle
between maternal love and jealous hate as she nerves herself for
the final act of vengeance. The purpose to kill her children grows
upon her, resist it as she may, until in an ecstasy of madness,
urged on by a vision of her murdered brother, she slays her first
son; and then, bearing the corpse of one and leading the other
by the hand, she mounts to the turret of her house. Here with a
refinement of cruelty she slays the second son in Jason's sight,
disregarding his abject prayers for the boy's life. Now a chariot
drawn by dragons appears in the air. This Medea mounts and is borne
away, while Jason shouts his impotent curses after her.
THE HERCULES FURENS OF EURIPIDES, AND THE HERCULES FURENS OF SENECA
Prologue.--The old Amphitryon, before the altar of Jupiter, at the
entrance of the house of Hercules in Thebes, relates how Hercules
has gone to the lower world to bring thence to the realms of day the
triple-headed Cerberus. Meanwhile, Lycus, taking advantage of the
hero's absence, has slain king Creon and usurped his throne. The
father, wife, and children of Hercules he has reduced to poverty, and
holds them in durance here in Thebes, threatening to slay the sons,
Lest, when the boys attain maturer age,
They should avenge their grandsire, Creon's, death.
Amphitryon condoles with Megara, and counsels with her how they may
escape the dangers of their present lot.
_Prologue._--Juno complains that she is fairly driven out of
heaven by her numerous rivals, mortal women who have been deified
and set in the sky, either they or their offspring, by Jupiter.
Especially is her wrath hot against Hercules, against whom she has
waged fruitless war from his infancy until now. But he thrives on
hardship, and scorns her opposition. She passes in review the hard
tasks which she has set him, and all of which he has triumphantly
performed. Already is he claiming a place in heaven. He can be
conquered only by his own hand. Yes, this shall be turned against
him, for a fury shall be summoned up from hell who shall fill his
heart with madness; and in this madness shall he do deeds which
shall make him long for death.
Parode, or chorus entry.--The chorus of Theban elders, feeble,
tottering old men, enters and bemoans the wretched fate that has
befallen their city and the household of their prince.
_Parode, or chorus entry._--A vivid picture of the dawning day,
when the stars and waning moon fade out before the rising sun; when
Toil wakes up and resumes its daily cares; when through the fields
the animals and birds are all astir with glad, new life.
But in the cities men awaken to repeat the sordid round of toil,
the greedy quest for gold and power. But, whether happily or
unhappily, all are speeding down to the world of shades. Even
before his time has Hercules gone down to Pluto's realm, and has
not yet returned.
First episode.--Now enters Lycus, the usurper. He insolently taunts
his victims on their helplessness, tells them that Hercules will never
return, belittles and scorns the hero's mighty deeds, and announces his
intention of killing the sons.
Amphitryon answers the slanders of Lycus against Hercules, and protests
against the proposed barbarous treatment of the children, who are
innocent of any harm. He reproaches Thebes and all the land of Greece,
because they have so ill repaid the services of their deliverer in not
coming to the rescue of his wife and children. Lycus gives orders to
burn the hated race of Hercules, even where they kneel for refuge at
the altar-side; and threatens the elders who would thwart his will,
bidding them remember that they are but as slaves in his sight. Yet the
old men valiantly defy him, and warn him that they will withstand his
attacks upon the children.
But Megara shows them how foolish it is to contend against the king's
unbounded power. Let them rather entreat his mercy. Could not exile be
substituted for death? But no, for this is worse than death. Rather,
let them all die together. Perhaps Lycus will allow her to go into
the palace and deck her children in funeral garments? This prayer is
granted, though Lycus warns them that they are to die at once. Left
alone, Amphitryon chides Jupiter because he does not care for the
children of his son:
Thou know'st not how
To save thy friends. Thou surely art a god,
Either devoid of wisdom, or unjust.
_First episode._--Megara enters and bewails the fresh woes that
are ever ready to meet her husband's home-coming. She recounts the
incidents of his long and difficult career, his heroic suffering at
Juno's bidding.
And now base Lycus has taken advantage of her husband's absence in
the lower world to kill her father, Creon, king of Thebes, and all
his sons, and to usurp the throne--
And Lycus rules the Thebes of Hercules!
She prays her husband soon to come and right these wrongs, though
in her heart she fears that he will never come again.
Old Amphitryon tries to reassure her by recalling the superhuman
valor and strength of Hercules, but without success.
Now Lycus appears, boasting of the power which he has gained, not
by long descent from a noble line, but by his own valor. But his
house cannot stand by valor alone. He must strengthen his power by
union with some princely house--he will marry Megara! Should she
refuse, he will give to utter ruin all the house of Hercules.
Meeting her at the moment, he attempts with specious arguments
to persuade her to his plan. But Megara repulses his monstrous
proposition with indignant scorn. Lycus attempts to defend his
slaughter of her father and brother as done through the exigency of
war, and pleads with her to put away her wrath; but all in vain,
and in the end he bids his attendants heap high a funeral pyre on
which to burn the woman and all her brood.
When Lycus has retired, Amphitryon in his extremity prays to heaven
for aid; but suddenly checks himself with incredulous joy, for he
hears approaching the well-known step of Hercules!
First choral interlude.--The chorus sings in praise of the mighty
works of Hercules, describing these in picturesque detail, from the
destruction of the Nemean lion to his last adventure which has taken
him to the world of shades, whence, alas, he will never more return.
And meanwhile, lacking his protection, his friends and family are
plunged in hopeless misery.
_First choral interlude._--Verily fortune is unjust, for while
Eurystheus sits at ease, the nobler Hercules must suffer unending
hardships. His labors are briefly recapitulated. Now has he gone to
hell to bring back Cerberus. Oh, that he may conquer death as all
things else, and come back again, as did Orpheus by the charm of
his lyre.
Second episode.--Forth from the palace, all dressed in the garb of
death, come Megara and her children. She is ready for the doom which
has been pronounced upon them. She sadly recalls the fond hopes that
she and her husband had cherished for these sons. But these bright
prospects have vanished now, for death is waiting to claim them all,
herself as well. She will fold them in a last motherly embrace, and
pour out her grief:
How, like the bee with variegated wings,
Shall I collect the sorrows of you all,
And blend the whole together in a flood
Of tears exhaustless!
But perhaps even yet her absent lord has power to intervene in her
behalf, though he be but a ghost. She prays despairingly that he will
come to aid. Amphitryon would try the favor of Jove once more in this
extremity:
I call on thee, O Jove, that, if thou mean
To be a friend to these deserted children,
Thou interpose without delay and save them;
For soon 'twill be no longer in thy power.
But at this juncture, when no help seems possible from heaven or hell,
to their amazed joy, Hercules himself appears, and in the flesh. He
perceives the mourning garments of his family, and the grief-stricken
faces of the chorus, and quickly learns the cause of all this woe. He
at once plans vengeance upon the wretch who has wrought it all. He has,
himself, forewarned by a "bird of evil omen perched aloft," entered
Thebes in secret; and now he will hide within his own palace and wait
until Lycus comes to fetch the victims whom he has doomed to death. But
first he briefly replies to Amphitryon's questions as to the success of
his errand to the lower world.
_Second episode._--Hercules enters, fresh from the lower world,
rejoicing that he again beholds the light of day, and exulting
in the accomplishment of his latest and most difficult task;
when suddenly he notices soldiers on guard, and his wife and
children dressed in mourning garments. He asks what these things
mean. Amphitryon answers briefly that Lycus has killed Creon and
his sons, usurped the throne, and now has doomed Megara and her
children to death.
Hercules leaves his home at once to find, and take vengeance on,
his enemy, though Theseus, whom he has rescued from the world of
shades, begs for the privilege himself of slaying Lycus. Left with
Amphitryon, in reply to the latter's questions, Theseus gives in
great detail an account of the lower world, its way of approach,
its topography, and the various creatures who dwell within its
bounds. After describing in particular the operations of justice
and the punishment of the condemned, he tells how Hercules overcame
Cerberus and brought him to the upper world.
Second choral interlude.--The old men sing in envy of youth and
complaint of old age:
But now a burden on my head
Heavier than Aetna's rock, old age, I bear.
They hold that had the gods been wiser they would have given renewed
youth as a reward to the virtuous, leaving the degenerate to fall
asleep and wake no more. And yet, though oppressed by age, they still
may "breathe the strain Mnemosyne inspires," and sing unceasingly the
deeds of Hercules:
Alcides, the resistless son of Jove;
Those trophies which to noble birth belong
By him are all surpassed; his forceful hand,
Restoring peace, hath cleansed this monster-teeming land.
_Second choral interlude._--The chorus, with Theseus' words in
mind, dwell in fancy still upon the lower world. They follow
Hercules along "that dark way, which to the distant manes leads,"
and picture the thronging shades, the "repulsive glooms," and the
"weary inactivity of that still, empty universe." They pray that it
may be long ere they must go to that dread world, to which all the
wandering tribes of earth must surely come. But away with gloomy
thoughts! Now is the time for joy, for Hercules is come again. Let
animals and men make holiday, and fitly celebrate their prince's
world-wide victories, and their own deliverance from their recent
woes.
Third episode.--Lycus enters and encounters Amphitryon without the
palace. Him he bids to go within and bring out the victims to their
death. To this Amphitryon objects on the ground that it would make him
an accomplice in their murder. Whereupon Lycus enters the palace to do
his own errand. The old man, looking after him, exclaims:
Depart; for to that place the fates ordain
You now are on the road;
while the chorus rejoices that now the oppressor is so soon to meet his
just punishment. Now the despairing cries of Lycus are heard within and
then--silence.
_Third episode._--Hercules returns to his house, fresh from the
slaying of Lycus, and proceeds to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving
to Jupiter. But in the midst of the sacrifice the madness planned
by Juno begins to come upon him. His sight is darkened, and his
reason changed to delirium. Now he catches sight of his children,
cowering in fright; he thinks they are the children of Lycus,
immediately lets fly an arrow at one of them, and seizes a second,
whom he drags from the scene. Amphitryon, standing where he can see
all that takes place, describes the wretched death of the second,
and then the third, though Megara tries to save her last remaining
child. She also falls before the blow of her husband, who thinks
in his madness that she is his cruel stepmother, Juno. Hercules,
re-entering, exults in his supposed victory over his enemies, and
then sinks down in a deep faint.
Third choral interlude.--All is now joy and exultation. Fear has
departed, hope has come back again, and faith in the protecting care of
the gods is restored. Therefore, let all Thebes give herself up to the
rapture and triumph of this hour.
But now two specters are seen hovering over the palace, one of whom
introduces herself to the chorus as Iris, the ambassadress of Juno, and
announces that her companion is a fiend, daughter of the night. Their
mission hither is, at the command of Juno, to drive Hercules into a
madness in which he shall slay his children. The fiend, indeed, makes
a weak protest against such a mission, but speedily yields and goes
darting into the palace, where we know that she begins at once her
deadly work within the breast of Hercules.
The chorus bemoans the city's short-lived joy, and the new and terrible
disaster that has fallen upon their hero's house. Soon they hear the
mad shouts of Hercules, and know by these that the fiend has already
done her fatal work.
_Third choral interlude._--The chorus calls upon heaven, earth, and
sea to mourn for Hercules in this new disaster that has befallen
him. They pray that he may be restored to sanity. In a long
apostrophe to Sleep they pray that the soothing influences of this
god may hold and subdue him until his former mind returns to its
accustomed course. They watch his feverish tossings, and suffer
with him in the grief which he so soon must realize. They close
with a pathetic lament over the dead children.
Exode.--A messenger hurries out of the palace, and describes the
dreadful scenes that have just been enacted there. Hercules was
offering sacrifices of purification before Jove's altar, with his three
sons and Megara beside him. All was propitious, when suddenly a madness
seized on Hercules. He ceased his present sacrifice, declaring that
he must first go to Mycenae and kill Eurystheus and his sons, and so
make an end of all his enemies at once. In fancy he mounted a chariot
and speedily arrived at Mycenae. His own sons seemed to his disordered
vision to be Eurystheus' sons; and, rushing savagely upon them, he
soon had slain them all, and Megara herself. Then did he fall into a
deep, swoonlike slumber, prostrate beside a mighty column, to which the
attendants tied him securely with cords, lest he awake and do further
mischief.
The palace doors are now thrown open, and the prostrate, sleeping
Hercules is seen. Amphitryon warns the chorus not to wake him lest they
restore him to his miseries. Soon Hercules awakes, and in his right
mind. He seems to himself to have had a dreadful dream. He looks in
wonder at the cords which bind his arms, at the fresh-slain corpses
lying near, at his own arrows scattered on the floor. He calls aloud
for someone to explain these things to him. Amphitryon advances and
informs him that in his madness, sent by Juno's hate, he has destroyed
his wife and all his sons.
And now Theseus, having heard that Lycus has usurped the throne of
Thebes, and grateful for his own deliverance from the world of shades
by Hercules, has come with an army of Athenian youth to aid his friend.
He is shocked to find the hero sitting in deepest dejection, with head
bowed low, and covered with a mourning-veil. Quickly he inquires and
learns the truth from Amphitryon. With noble and unselfish friendship,
he offers his sympathy and help to Hercules, although the latter warns
him to avoid the contagion which his own guilty presence engenders. He
bids Hercules be a man, and give over his threats of self-destruction.
Hercules gives the reasons why it is impossible for him to live. First,
Juno's inveterate hate, which attacked him in his very cradle, pursues
him still, relentlessly; but, most and worst of all, he has incurred
such odium because of the murder of his wife and children, that he will
be henceforth an outcast on the earth. No land will give him refuge
now. Why should he live? Let him die; and let Juno's cup of happiness
be full.
Theseus reminds him that no man escapes unscathed by fate. Nay, even
the gods themselves have done unlawful things, and yet live on and
do not feel the obloquy their deeds should cause. As for a place of
refuge, Athens shall be his home. There shall he obtain full cleansing
for his crimes, a place of honor, and ample provision for his wants.
All that a generous and grateful friend can give shall be his own.
Hercules accepts this offer of Theseus, reflecting also that he might
be charged with cowardice should he give up to his troubles and seek
refuge in death. He accordingly takes a mournful farewell of his dead
wife and children, commends their bodies to Amphitryon for burial,
which it is not lawful for him to give, and so commits himself to the
hands of his faithful friend:
I will follow Theseus,
Towed like a battered skiff. Whoe'er prefers
Wealth or dominion to a steadfast friend
Judges amiss.
_Exode._--Hercules wakes up in his right mind, bewildered and
uncertain where he is. His eyes fall on the murdered children,
though he does not as yet recognize them as his own. He misses
his familiar club and bow, and wonders who has been bold enough
to remove these and not to fear even a sleeping Hercules. Now he
recognizes in the corpses his own wife and children:
Oh, what sight is this?
My sons lie murdered, weltering in their blood;
My wife is slain. What Lycus rules the land?
Who could have dared to do such things in Thebes,
And Hercules returned?
He notices that Theseus and Amphitryon turn away and will not meet
his gaze. He asks them who has slain his family. At last, partly
through their half-admissions, and partly through his own surmise,
it comes to him that this dreadful deed is his own. His soul reels
with the shock, and he prays wildly for death. No attempts of his
two friends to palliate his deed can soothe his grief and shame.
At last the threat of old Amphitryon instantly to anticipate the
death of Hercules by his own leads the hero to give over his deadly
purpose.
He consents to live--but where? What land will receive a polluted
wretch like him? He appeals to Theseus:
O Theseus, faithful friend, seek out a place,
Far off from here where I may hide myself.
Theseus offers his own Athens as a place of refuge, where his
friend may find at once asylum and cleansing from his sin:
My land awaits thy coming; there will Mars
Wash clean thy hands and give thee back thy arms.
That land, O Hercules, now calls to thee,
Which even gods from sin is wont to free.
THE HIPPOLYTUS OF EURIPIDES, AND THE HIPPOLYTUS OF SENECA
Prologue.--Venus complains that Hippolytus alone of all men sets her
power at naught and owns allegiance to her rival, Diana. She announces
her plan of revenge: that Phaedra shall become enamored of her stepson,
that Theseus shall be made aware of this and in his rage be led to slay
his son. If Phaedra perish too, it will but add to the triumph of the
goddess' slighted power.
Hippolytus comes in from the chase and renders marked homage to Diana.
He is warned by an aged officer of the palace "to loathe that pride
which studies not to please." Inquiring the meaning of this warning, he
is told to recognize the presence of Venus, too, and to include her in
his devotions; but from this advice he turns away in scorn.
_Prologue._--Hippolytus, in hunting-costume, appears in the court
of the palace, which is filled with huntsmen bearing nets and all
sorts of hunting-weapons, and leading dogs in leash. The young
prince, in a long, rambling speech, assigns places for the hunt,
and their duties to his various servants and companions. He ends
with an elaborate ascription of praise to his patroness Diana, as
goddess of the chase, and with a prayer to her for success in his
own present undertaking. The whole speech is in lyric strain, the
anapestic measure, most commonly employed by Seneca.
Parode, or chorus entry.--The chorus of Troezenian women deplores the
strange malady that has befallen the young queen. They relate how
This is the third revolving day,
Since, o'erpowered by lingering pains,
She from all nourishment abstains,
Wasting that lovely frame with slow decay.
At the conclusion of the lyric part of the chorus, the queen, closely
veiled, in company with her aged nurse, is seen coming from the palace
gates.
_Parode, or chorus entry._--The technical chorus entry is entirely
lacking in this play. While the chorus may be assumed to have
entered and to have been present during the long interview between
Phaedra and her nurse, which forms the first episode, still its
presence is in no way manifested until the end of this interview.
First episode.--Full of anxiety, the nurse strives to indulge her
mistress' every whim. Phaedra answers feebly at first, but suddenly,
to the amazement of her companion, her speech is filled with language
of the chase, and she again relapses into her mute lethargy. At last,
under the insistence of the nurse to probe her mystery, Phaedra
confesses that the wretched fate of her house pursues her, too, and
that she now feels the torments of love; and, though she does not speak
his name, the truth at last is clear that Hippolytus is the object of
her passion. The nurse recoils in horror and shame from this confession.
Phaedra describes how she has struggled against her unhappy love, but
in vain, and is now resolved on death in order to save her honor. At
this the nurse throws all her influence in the opposite scale, arguing
that, after all, the sway of Venus is universal, that it is only human
to love, and that this is no reason why one should cast his life away.
She even proposes to acquaint Hippolytus with her mistress' feelings,
and strive to win his love in return. This proposal Phaedra indignantly
rejects. The nurse then offers to fetch from the house certain philters
which will cure the queen of her malady. The queen reluctantly consents
to this, and the nurse retires into the palace.
_First episode._--Phaedra bewails her present lot, in that she has
been forced to leave her native Crete, and live in wedlock with
her father's enemy. And even he has now deserted her, gone to the
very realms of Dis, in company with a madcap friend, to seduce and
bear away the gloomy monarch's queen. But a worse grief than this
is preying on her soul. She feels in her own heart the devastating
power of unlawful love, which has already destroyed all the natural
interests of her life. She recalls her mother's unhappy passion;
but this was bearable compared with her own. For Venus has, from
deadly hatred of her family, filled her with a far more hopeless
love. She does not name the object of her passion, but, from her
guarded references, it is clear that Hippolytus, her stepson, is
meant.
The nurse urges her mistress to drive this passion from her breast,
moralizing upon the danger of delay. Has not her house already
known sinful love enough? Such love is dangerous for it cannot long
be hid. Granting that Theseus may never return to earth, can her
sin be concealed from her father? from her grandsires, both gods of
heaven? And what of her own conscience? Can she ever be happy or
at peace with such a sin upon her soul? She pictures her mistress'
passion in all its hideousness. Besides, it is most hopeless, since
Hippolytus, woman-hater that he is, can never be brought to respond
to it. Phaedra yields to these arguments and entreaties of the
nurse, and says that now she is resolved upon death as her only
refuge. Hereupon the nurse (the usual rôle) begs her not to take
this desperate course, and undertakes to bend Hippolytus to their
will.
First choral interlude.--The chorus prays that love may never come
upon its breast with immoderate power, and relates instances of the
resistless sway of Venus and her son.
_First choral interlude._--The chorus sings at length upon the
universal and irresistible sway of love.
Second episode.--Phaedra, standing near the doors of the palace,
suddenly becomes agitated, and utters despairing cries. The chorus,
inquiring the cause of these, is told to listen. At first there is
only a confused murmur from within; but this soon resolves itself into
the angry denunciations of Hippolytus and the pleading tones of the
nurse. By these Phaedra learns that the nurse has indeed revealed the
fatal secret to Hippolytus under an oath that he will not betray the
truth to anyone, and that the youth has received the announcement with
horror and scorn. He breaks forth into bitter reproaches against all
womankind. He regrets that his lips are sealed by his oath, else would
he straightway reveal to Theseus all his wife's unfaithfulness.
Phaedra, on her side, reproaches the nurse for betraying her secret.
She angrily dismisses her, and, after exacting an oath of silence from
the chorus, goes out, reiterating her resolve to die, and suggests that
she has one expedient left by which her name may be preserved from
infamy, and her sons from dishonor.
_Second episode._--On the inquiry of the chorus as to how the queen
is faring, the nurse describes the dreadful effect which this
malady of love has already produced upon her. Then the palace doors
open, and Phaedra is seen reclining upon a couch, attended by her
tiring-women. She rejects all the beautiful robes and jewels which
they offer, and desires to be dressed as a huntress, ready for the
chase.
The nurse prays to Diana to conquer the stubborn soul of Hippolytus
and bend his heart toward her mistress. At this moment the youth
himself enters and inquires the cause of the nurse's distress.
Thereupon ensues a long debate, in which the nurse chides
Hippolytus for his austere life and argues that the pleasures of
life were meant to be enjoyed, and that no life comes to its full
fruition unless youth is given free rein. The young man replies by
a rhapsody on the life of the woods, so full of simple, wholesome
joys, and so free from all the cares of life at court and among
men. He compares this with the Golden Age, and traces the gradual
fall from the innocence of that time to the abandoned sin of the
present. He concludes with laying all the blame for this upon woman.
Phaedra now comes forth, and, seeing Hippolytus, falls fainting,
but is caught in the young man's arms. He attempts to reassure her
and inquires the cause of her evident grief. After much hesitation,
she at last confesses her love for him and begs him to pity her.
With scorn and horror he repulses her and starts to kill her with
his sword; but, deciding not so to stain his sword, he throws the
weapon away and makes off toward the forest.
The nurse now plans to save her mistress by inculpating Hippolytus.
She accordingly calls loudly for help, and tells the attendants who
come rushing in that the youth has attempted an assault upon the
queen, and shows his sword in evidence.
Second choral interlude.--The chorus prays to be wafted far away from
these scenes of woe; and laments that the hapless queen had ever come
from Crete, for then she would not now be doomed by hopeless love to
self-inflicted death.
_Second choral interlude._--The chorus dwells upon and praises the
beauty of Hippolytus, and discourses upon the theme that beauty has
always been a dangerous possession, citing various mythological
instances in proof of this.
Third episode.--A messenger hurriedly enters with the announcement
that the queen has destroyed herself by the noose. The chorus,
though grieved, manifests no surprise at this, and is divided as to
a plan of action. And now enters Theseus, who demands the cause of
the lamentations of the servants, which may be heard from within the
palace. He learns from the chorus the fact and manner, but not the
cause, of Phaedra's death.
The palace doors are now thrown open and the shrouded body of the queen
is discovered within. Theseus, in an agony of lamentations, seeks to
know the cause of his queen's death. He at length discovers a letter
clasped in her dead hand, by which he is informed that Phaedra has
slain herself in grief and shame because her honor has been violated
by the king's own son, Hippolytus. Thereupon Theseus curses his son,
and calls on Neptune to destroy him, offering this as one of the three
requests which, in accordance with the promise of the god, should not
be denied.
Here enters Hippolytus, hearing the sound of his father's voice. He
looks in amazement upon the corpse of Phaedra, and begs his father
to explain her death. Theseus, supposing that his son conceals a
guilty conscience, makes no direct answer, but inveighs against the
specious arts of man. This strange speech, and still more the manner
of his father, now show Hippolytus that he himself is connected in his
father's mind with Phaedra's death; and he seeks to know who has thus
calumniated him. The wrath of Theseus now breaks over all bounds. He
charges his son with the dishonor and murder of his wife, and with
withering scorn taunts him with his former professions of purity.
Hippolytus protests his innocence, but Theseus continues obdurate, and
produces the fatal letter in proof of his statements. Then the youth
realizes the terrible mesh of circumstances in which he is taken; but,
bound by his oath of secrecy, he endures in silence. After Theseus has
pronounced the doom of exile upon him, and retired within the gates, he
himself goes forth to seek his comrades and acquaint them with his fate.
_Third episode._--Theseus, just returned to earth from hades, and
with all the horrors of the lower world still upon him, briefly
refers to his dreadful experiences and his escape by the aid of
Hercules. Then, hearing the sounds of lamentation, he asks the
cause. He is told by the nurse that Phaedra, for some reason which
she will not disclose, has resolved on immediate self-destruction.
Rushing into the palace, he encounters Phaedra just within. After
urgent entreaties and threats from Theseus, she confesses that she
is determined to die in order to remove the stain upon her honor;
and without mentioning the name of him who has ruined her, she
shows the sword which Hippolytus has left behind in his flight.
This is at once recognized by Theseus, who flies into a wild
passion of horror, rage, and bitter scorn. He vows dire vengeance
upon his son, which shall reach him wherever he may flee; and ends
by claiming from Neptune, as the third of the boons once granted
him, that the god will destroy Hippolytus.
Third choral interlude.--The chorus reflects upon the precarious life
of man, lauds the golden mean, and prays for the blessings of life
without conspicuous fame. No man can hope for continued security in
life, when such a youth as Hippolytus is driven off by Theseus' ire. It
laments that no longer will his steeds, his lyre, his wonted woodland
haunts know the well-loved youth; and reproaches the gods that they did
not better screen their guiltless votary.
_Third choral interlude._--The chorus complains that while nature
is so careful to maintain the order of the heavenly bodies, the
atmospheric phenomena, the seasons, and the productiveness of
wealth, for the affairs of men alone she has no care. These go all
awry. Sin prospers and righteousness is in distress. Verily, it
does not at all profit a man to strive to live uprightly, since all
the rewards of life go to the vain and profligate. While the case
of Hippolytus is not mentioned, it is clearly in mind throughout.
Exode.--The last words of the chorus are interrupted by the approach
of a messenger who hastily inquires for the king. As the latter comes
forth from the palace, the messenger announces the death of his son.
At the king's request he gives a detailed account of the disaster: how
Hippolytus was driving his fiery coursers along the shore, when Neptune
sent a monstrous bull from out the sea, which drove the horses to a
panic of fear; how the car was at length dashed against a ragged cliff,
and Hippolytus dragged, bruised and bleeding, by the maddened horses;
how, though yet living, he could not long survive. Theseus expresses
pleasure at his son's sufferings, and bids that he be brought into his
presence that he may behold his punishment.
The chorus interjects a single strophe, acknowledging Venus as the
unrivaled queen of heaven and earth.
Diana now appears to Theseus and reveals to him the whole truth,
explaining the infatuation of the queen, the fatal letter, and the
wiles of Venus. The father is filled with horror and remorse. Diana
tells him that he may yet hope for pardon for his sin, since through
the wiles of Venus, which she herself could not frustrate, the deed was
done.
Here the dying Hippolytus is borne in by his friends. In his agony he
prays for death; but by the voice of his loved goddess he is soothed
and comforted. After a touching scene of reconciliation between the
dying prince and his father, the youth perishes, leaving Theseus
overcome with grief.
_Exode._--A messenger, hurrying in, announces to Theseus the
death of his son. Theseus receives the news calmly and asks for a
detailed account. The messenger relates how Hippolytus had yoked
his horses to his car and was driving madly along the highway by
the sea, when suddenly the waves swelled up and launched a strange
monster in the form of a bull upon the land. This monster charged
upon Hippolytus, who fronted the beast with unshaken courage. But
in the end the horses became unmanageable through fright, and
dragged their master to his death among the rocks. The body of the
hapless Hippolytus has been torn in pieces and scattered far and
wide through the fields; and even now attendants are bringing these
in for burning on the pyre. Theseus laments, not because his son is
dead, but because it is through his, the father's, act.
The chorus expatiates upon the fact that the blows of fate fall
heavily upon men of exalted condition, but spare the humble. The
great Theseus, once so mighty a monarch, but now so full of woe, is
an example of this truth. It has not profited him to escape from
hades, since now his son has hastened thither.
But now their attention is turned to Phaedra who appears, wailing
aloud, and with a drawn sword in hand. She rails at Theseus as
the destroyer of his house, weeps over the mangled remains of
Hippolytus, confesses to Theseus that her charge against his son
was false, and ends by falling upon the sword.
Theseus, utterly crushed by the weight of woe that has fallen upon
him, prays only that he may return to the dark world from which he
has just escaped.
The chorus reminds him that he will find ample time for mourning,
and that he should now pay due funeral honors to his son. Whereat
Theseus bids all the fragments be hunted out and brought before
him. These he fits together as best he can, lamenting bitterly as
each new gory part is brought to him.
He ends by giving curt command for the burial of Phaedra, with a
prayer that the earth may rest heavily upon her.
THE MAIDENS OF TRACHIN OF SOPHOCLES, AND THE HERCULES OETAEUS OF
SENECA
Prologue.--In the courtyard of her palace in Trachin, Deianira
recounts to her attendants and the chorus of Trachinian maidens how her
husband had won her from the river god, Acheloüs, and how, during all
these years, she has lived in fear and longing for her husband, who has
been kept constantly wandering over the earth by those who hold him in
their power; and even now he has been for many months absent, she knows
not where.
An old servant proposes that she send her son, Hyllus, abroad to seek
out his father. This the youth, who enters at this juncture, readily
promises to do, especially on hearing from his mother that the oracle
declares this is the year in which his father shall end his life,
Or, having this his task accomplished,
Shall, through the coming years of all his life,
Rejoice and prosper.
_Prologue._--Hercules, about to sacrifice to Cenaean Jove after
having conquered Eurytus, king of Oechalia, recounts at length his
mighty toils on earth, and prays that now at last he may be given
his proper place in heaven. He dispatches his herald, Lichas, home
to Trachin, to tell the news of his triumph, and to conduct the
train of captives thither.
Parode, or chorus entry.--The chorus prays to Helios, the bright
sun-god, for tidings of Hercules, for Deianira longs for him, and
"ever nurses unforgetting dread as to her husband's paths." Hercules
is tossed upon the stormy sea of life, now up, now down, but ever
kept from death by some god's hands. Deianira should, therefore, be
comforted:
For who hath known in Zeus forgetfulness
Of those he children calls?
_Parode, or chorus entry._--The place of the chorus entry, which
should be filled by the chorus proper, composed of Aetolian
maidens, is taken by the band of captive Oechalian maidens. They
bewail their lot and long for death; they dwell upon the utter
desolation of their fatherland, and upon the hard-heartedness of
Hercules who has laid it waste.
Iole, their princess, joins in their lamentations, recalls the
horrors of her native city's overthrow, and looks forward with
dread to her captivity.
First episode.--Deianira confides to the chorus her special cause for
grief: she feels a strong presentiment that Hercules is dead; for, when
he last left home, he left a tablet, as it were a will, disposing of
his chattels and his lands,
and fixed a time,
That when for one whole year and three months more
He from his land was absent, then 'twas his
Or in that self-same hour to die, or else,
Escaping that one crisis, thenceforth live with life unvexed.
At this moment, however, a messenger enters and announces the near
approach of Hercules accompanied by his spoils of victory.
_First episode._--During the interval just preceding this episode,
the captives have been led to Trachin, Deianira has seen the beauty
of Iole, and learned of Hercules' infatuation for her. She has by
this news been thrown into a mad rage of jealousy, and counsels
with her nurse as to how she may take vengeance upon her faithless
husband, while the nurse vainly advises moderation.
The nurse at last suggests recourse to magic, professing herself
to be proficient in these arts. This suggests to Deianira the use
of that blood of Nessus which the dying centaur had commended to
her as an infallible love-charm. She takes occasion to relate at
length the Nessus incident. She at once acts upon her decision to
use the charm; and speedily, with the nurse's aid, a gorgeous robe
is anointed with the blood, and this is sent by Lichas' hand to
Hercules.
First choral interlude.--The chorus voices its exultant joy over this
glad and unexpected news.
_First choral interlude._--The chorus of Aetolian women, who
have followed Deianira from her girlhood's home to this refuge
in Trachin, now tender to her their sympathy in her present
sufferings. They recall all their past intercourse with her, and
assure her of their undying fidelity.
This suggests the rarity of such fidelity especially in the courts
of kings, and they discourse at large upon the sordidness and
selfishness of courtiers in general. The moral of their discourse
is that men should not aspire to great wealth and power, but should
choose a middle course in life, which only can bring happiness.
Second episode.--Lichas, the personal herald of Hercules, now enters,
followed by Iole and a company of captive women. He explains to
Deianira how Hercules had been driven on by petty persecutions to slay
Iphitus, the son of Eurytus, treacherously; how he had for this been
doomed by Zeus to serve Omphale, queen of Lydia, for a year; and how in
revenge he has now slain Eurytus, and even now is sending home these
Oechalian captives as spoil; Hercules himself is delaying yet a little
while in Euboea, until he has sacrificed to Cenaean Jove.
Deianira looks in pity upon the captives praying that their lot may
never come to her or hers; and is especially drawn in sympathy to one
beautiful girl, who, however, will answer no word as to her name and
state.
As all are passing into the palace, the messenger detains Deianira and
tells her the real truth which Lichas has withheld: that this seemingly
unknown girl is Iole, daughter of Eurytus; that it was not in revenge
but for love of Iole that Hercules destroyed her father's house, and
that he is now sending her to his own home not as his slave, but
mistress, and rival of his wife.
Lichas, returning from the palace, on being challenged by the messenger
and urged by Deianira to speak the whole truth, tells all concerning
Hercules' love for Iole.
Deianira receives this revelation with seeming equanimity and
acquiescence.
_Second episode._--Deianira comes hurrying distractedly out of the
palace, and relates her discovery as to the horrible and deadly
power of the charm which she has sent to her husband.
While she is still speaking, Hyllus rushes in and cries out to
his mother to flee from the wrath of Hercules, whose dreadful
sufferings, after putting on the robe which his wife had sent to
him, the youth describes at length. He narrates also the death
of Lichas. The suffering hero is even now on his way by sea from
Euboea, in a death-like swoon, and will soon arrive at Trachin.
Deianira, smitten with quick repentance, begs Jupiter to destroy
her with his wrathful thunderbolts. She resolves on instant
self-destruction, though Hyllus and the nurse vainly try to
dissuade her, and to belittle her responsibility for the disaster;
and in the end she rushes from the scene, Hyllus following.
Second choral interlude.--The chorus briefly reverts to the battle of
Acheloüs and Hercules for the hand of Deianira.
_Second choral interlude._--The chorus, contemplating the changing
fates of their prince's house, is reminded of the saying of
Orpheus, "that naught for endless life is made." This leads to an
extended description of Orpheus' sweet music and its power over all
things, both animate and inanimate, and suggests the story of his
unsuccessful attempt to regain Eurydice.
Returning to the original theme, the chorus speculates upon the
time when all things shall fall into death, and chaos resume her
primeval sway.
It is startled out of these thoughts by loud groans, which prove to
be the outcries of Hercules, borne home to Trachin.
Third episode.--Deianira tells to the chorus the story of how Nessus,
the centaur, had once insulted her, and for this had been slain by
Hercules with one of his poisoned arrows; how, also, the centaur in
dying had given her a portion of his blood, saying this would be a
charm able to restore to her her husband's wandering love. She now
resolves to use this charm. She anoints a gorgeous robe with the blood
which she has preserved through all these years, and bids Lichas carry
this to her lord as a special gift from her. He is to wear it as he
offers his sacrifices to Cenaean Jove, Lichas departs upon this mission.
_Third episode._--Hercules in his ravings warns Jove to look well
to his heavens, since now their defender is perishing. The giants
will be sure to rise again and make another attempt upon the skies.
He bitterly laments that he, who has overcome so many monsters,
must die at last, slain by a woman's hand, and that woman not Juno,
nor even an Amazon:
Ah, woe is me,
How often have I 'scaped a glorious death!
What honor comes from such an end as this?
His burning pains coming on again, he cries out in agony, and
describes the abject misery and weakness that have come upon him.
Are these the shoulders, the hands, the feet, that were once so
strong to bear, so terrible to strike, so swift to go? He strives
to apprehend and tear away the pest that is devouring him, but it
is too deep-hidden in his frame. He curses the day that has seen
him weep and beseeches Jove to smite him dead with a thunderbolt.
Alcmena enters, and, while she herself is full of grief, she
strives to soothe and comfort her suffering son. He falls into a
delirium, and thinks that he is in the heavens, looking down upon
Trachin. But soon he awakes, and, realizing his pains once more,
calls for the author of his misery, that he may slay her with his
own hands.
Hyllus, who has just entered from the palace, now informs his
father that Deianira is already dead, and by her own hand; that
it was not her fault, moreover, but by the guile of Nessus, that
Hercules is being done to death. The hero recognizes in this the
fulfilment of an oracle once delivered to him:
By the hand of one whom thou hast slain, some day,
Victorious Hercules, shalt thou lie low.
And he comforts himself with the reflection that such an end as
this is meet, for
Thus shall no conqueror of Hercules
Survive to tell the tale.
He now bids Philoctetes prepare a mighty pyre on neighboring Mount
Oeta, and there take and burn his body, still in life. Hyllus he
bids to take the captive princess, Iole, to wife. He calls upon his
mother, Alcmena, to comfort her grief by pride in her great son's
deeds on earth, and the noble fame which he has gained thereby.
Third choral interlude.--The chorus prays for the early and safe
return of Hercules from where he lingers:
Thence may lie come, yea, come with strong desire,
Tempered by suasive spell
Of that rich unguent, as the monster spake.
_Third choral interlude._--The chorus bids all nature mourn the
death of Hercules. Verily the earth is bereft of her defender, and
there is no one left to whom she may turn if again harassed by
monsters. They speculate upon the place of the departed Hercules.
Shall he sit in judgment among the pious kings of Crete in hades,
or shall he be given a place in heaven? At least on earth he shall
live in deathless gratitude and fame.
Fourth episode.--Deianira discovers by experiment, now that it is too
late, the destructive and terrible power of the charm which she has
sent, and is filled with dire forebodings as to the result.
Her lamentations are interrupted by Hyllus, who comes hurrying in; he
charges his mother with the murder of his father, and curses her. He
then describes the terrible sufferings that have come upon the hero
through the magic robe, and how Hercules, in the madness of pain, has
slain Lichas, as the immediate cause of his sufferings. He has brought
his father with him from Euboea to Trachin. Deianira withdraws into the
palace, without a word, in an agony of grief.
Fourth choral interlude.--The chorus recalls the old oracle that
after twelve years the son of Zeus should gain rest from toil, and sees
in his impending death the fulfilment of this oracle. They picture the
grief of Deianira over her act, and foresee the great changes that are
coming upon their prince's house.
Fifth episode.--The nurse rushes in from the palace, and tells how
Deianira has slain herself with the sword, bewailing the while the
sufferings which she has unwittingly brought on Hercules; and how
Hyllus repents him of his harshness toward his mother, realizing that
she was not to blame.
Fifth choral interlude.--The chorus pours out its grief for the
double tragedy. And now it sees Hyllus and attendants bearing in the
dying Hercules.
Exode.--Hercules, awaking from troubled sleep, laments the calamity
that has befallen him; he chides the lands which he has helped, that
now they do not hasten to his aid; and prays Hyllus to kill him with
the sword, and so put him out of his misery.
He denounces Deianira because she has brought suffering and destruction
upon him which no foe, man or beast, has ever been able to bring. He
curses his own weakness, and laments that he must weep and groan like a
woman.
He marvels that his mighty frame, which for years has withstood so many
monsters, which he recounts at length, can now be so weak and wasted.
Reverting to his wife, he bids that she be brought to him that he may
visit punishment upon her.
Hyllus informs his father that Deianira has died by her own hand, for
grief at what she has unwittingly brought upon her dear lord. It was,
indeed, through Nessus' guile that the deed was done.
Hercules, on hearing this, recognizes the fulfilment of the oracle;
Long since it was revealéd of my sire
That I should die by hand of none that live,
But one who, dead, had dwelt in hades dark.
He exacts an oath of obedience from Hyllus, and then bids him bring
his father to Mount Oeta, and there place him upon a pyre for burning.
Hyllus reluctantly consents in all but the actual firing of the pyre.
The next request is concerning Iole, that Hyllus should take her as his
wife. This mandate he indignantly refuses to obey, but finally yields
assent. And in the end Hercules is borne away to his burning, while the
chorus mournfully chants its concluding comment:
What cometh no man may know;
What is, is piteous for us,
Base and shameful for them;
And for him who endureth this woe,
Above all that live hard to bear.
_Exode._--Philoctetes enters, and, in response to the questions of
the nurse, describes the final scene on Oeta's top. There a mighty
pyre is built, on which Hercules joyfully takes his place. There he
reclines, gazing at the heavens, and praying his father, Jupiter,
to take him thither, in compensation for his service on the earth.
His prayer seems to be answered, and he cries aloud:
"But lo, my father calls me from the sky,
And opens wide the gates. O sire, I come!"
And as he spake his face was glorified.
He presents his famous bow and arrows to Philoctetes, bidding him
for this prize apply the torch and light the pyre, which his friend
most reluctantly does. The hero courts the flames, and eagerly
presses into the very heart of the burning mass.
In the midst of this narrative, Alcmena enters, bearing in her
bosom an urn containing the ashes of Hercules. The burden of her
lament is that so small a compass and so pitiful estate have come
to the mighty body of her son, which one small urn can hold. But
when she thinks upon his deeds, her thoughts fly to the opposite
pole:
What sepulcher, O son, what tomb for thee
Is great enough? Naught save the world itself.
Then she takes up in quickened measures her funeral song of
mourning in the midst of which the deified Hercules, taking shape
in the air above, speaks to his mother, bidding her no longer
mourn, for he has at last gained his place in heaven.
The chorus strikes a fitting final note, that the truly brave are
not destined to the world below:
But when life's days are all consumed,
And comes the final hour, for them
A pathway to the gods is spread
By glory.
THE TROADES OF EURIPIDES, AND THE TROADES OF SENECA
Prologue.--Neptune appearing from the depths of the sea, briefly
recounts the story of the overthrow of Troy, which he laments, states
the present situation of the Trojan women, dwells upon the especial
grief of Hecuba, and places the blame for all this ruin upon Minerva:
But, oh my town, once flourishing, once crowned
With beauteous-structured battlements, farewell!
Had not Minerva sunk thee in the dust,
On thy firm base e'en now thou mightst have stood.
To him appears Minerva, who, though she had indeed helped the Greeks
to their final triumph over Troy, had been turned against them by the
outrage of Cassandra on the night of Troy's overthrow. She now makes
common cause with Neptune, and plans for the harassing of the Greek
fleet by storm and flood on the homeward voyage. The Greeks are to be
taught a lesson of reverence:
Unwise is he, whoe'er of mortals storms
Beleaguered towns, and crushed in ruins wastes
The temples of the gods, the hallowed tombs
Where sleep the dead; for he shall perish soon.
[The two gods disappear.]
Hecuba, lying prone upon the ground before Agamemnon's tent, gives
voice to her sufferings of body and of spirit; laments her accumulated
losses of home, friends, station, liberty; blames Helen for all, and
calls upon the chorus of captive women to join her in lamentation.
_Prologue._--Hecuba bewails the fall of Troy, and draws from it a
warning to all who are high in power:
For of a truth did fortune never show
In plainer wise the frailty of the prop
That doth support a king.
She graphically describes the mighty power and mighty fall of her
husband's kingdom, and portrays the awe with which the Greeks
behold even their fallen foe. She asserts that the fire by which
her city has been consumed sprang from her, the brand that she
had dreamed of in her dream before the birth of Paris. She dwells
horribly upon the death of Priam which she had herself witnessed.
But still the heavenly powers are not appeased.
The captives are to be allotted to the Greek chiefs, and even now
the urn stands ready for the lots.
Hecuba next calls upon the chorus of Trojan women to join her in
lamenting their fallen heroes, Hector and Priam.
Parode, or chorus entry.--The chorus with Hecuba indulges in
speculation as to the place of their future home, speaking with hope of
some Greek lands, and deprecating others.
_Parode, or chorus entry._--The chorus, under the direction of
Hecuba as chorus leader, in true oriental fashion, bewails the
downfall of Troy, and in particular the death of Priam and Hector.
First episode.--Talthybius, the herald, enters and announces that the
lots have been drawn, and reveals to each captive her destined lord:
that Cassandra has fallen to Agamemnon, Andromache to Pyrrhus, Hecuba
to Ulysses. At news of this her fate, Hecuba is filled with fresh
lamentations, counting it an especial hardship that she should fall
to the arch-enemy of her race. The herald also darkly alludes to the
already accomplished fate of Polyxena,
At the tomb raised to Achilles doomed to serve.
Hecuba does not as yet catch the import of these words.
Cassandra now enters, waving a torch, and celebrates in a mad refrain
her approaching union with Agamemnon. Hecuba remonstrates with her for
her unseemly joy; whereupon Cassandra declares that she rejoices in the
prospect of the vengeance upon Agamemnon which is to be wrought out
through this union. She contrasts the lot of the Greeks and Trojans
during the past ten years, and finds that the latter have been far
happier; and even in her fall, the woes of Troy are far less than
those that await the Greek chieftains. She then prophesies in detail
the trials that await Ulysses, and the dire result of her union with
Agamemnon:
Thou shalt bear me
A fury, an Erinys from this land.
Hecuba here falls in a faint, and, upon being revived, again recounts
her former high estate, sadly contrasts with that her present
condition, and shudders at the lot of the slave which awaits her:
Then deem not of the great
Now flourishing as happy, ere they die.
_First episode._--Talthybius announces that the shade of Achilles
has appeared with the demand that Polyxena be sacrificed upon the
hero's tomb.
Enter Pyrrhus and Agamemnon, the former demanding that his father's
request be carried out, the latter resisting the demand as too
barbarous to be entertained. It is finally agreed to leave the
decision to Calchas. He is accordingly summoned, and at once
declares that only by the death of the maiden can the Greeks be
allowed to set sail for home. And not this alone, but Astyanax also
must be sacrificed--hurled from the lofty Scaean tower of Troy.
First choral interlude.--The chorus graphically describes the wooden
horse, its joyful reception by the Trojans into the city, their sense
of relief from danger, and their holiday spirit; and at last their
horrible awakening to death at the hands of the Greeks within the walls.
_First choral interlude._--The chorus maintains that all perishes
with the body; the soul goes out into nothingness:
For when within the tomb we're laid,
No soul remains, no hov'ring shade.
Like curling smoke, like clouds before the blast,
This animating spirit soon has passed.
The evident purpose of these considerations is to discount the
story that Achilles' shade could have appeared with its demand for
the death of Polyxena.
Second episode.--The appearance of Andromache with Astyanax in her
arms, borne captive on a Grecian car, is a signal for general mourning.
She announces her own chief cause of woe:
I, with my child, am led away, the spoil
Of war; th' illustrious progeny of kings,
Oh, fatal change, is sunk to slavery.
Her next announcement comes as a still heavier blow to Hecuba:
Polyxena, thy daughter, is no more;
Devoted to Achilles, on his tomb,
An offering to the lifeless dead, she fell.
Andromache insists that Polyxena's fate is happier than her own; argues
that in death there is no sense of misery:
Polyxena is dead, and of her ills
Knows nothing;
while Andromache still lives to feel the keen contrast between her
former and her present lot.
Hecuba is so sunk in woe that she can make no protest, but advises
Andromache to forget the past and
honor thy present lord,
And with thy gentle manners win his soul;
this with the hope that she may be the better able to rear up Astyanax
to establish once more some day the walls and power of Troy.
But the heaviest stroke is yet to fall. Talthybius now enters and
announces with much reluctance that Ulysses has prevailed upon the
Greeks to demand the death of Astyanax for the very reason that he may
grow up to renew the Trojan war. The lad is to be hurled from a still
standing tower of Troy. The herald warns Andromache that if she resist
this mandate she may be endangering the boy's funeral rites. She yields
to fate, passionately caressing the boy, who clings fearfully to her,
partly realizing his terrible situation. The emotional climax of the
play is reached, as she says to the clinging, frightened lad:
Why dost thou clasp me with thy hands, why hold
My robes, and shelter thee beneath my wings
Like a young bird?
She bitterly upbraids the Greeks for their cruelty, and curses Helen as
the cause of all her woe, and then gives the boy up in an abandonment
of defiant grief:
Here, take him, bear him, hurl him from the height,
If ye must hurl him; feast upon his flesh:
For from the gods hath ruin fall'n on us.
And now what more can happen? Surely the depth of misfortune has been
sounded. In the voice of Hecuba:
Is there an ill
We have not? What is wanting to the woes
Which all the dreadful band of ruin brings?
_Second episode._--Andromache appears with Astyanax and recounts a
vision of Hector which she has had, in which her dead husband has
warned her to hide the boy away beyond the reach of threatening
danger. After discussion with an old man as to the best place of
concealment, she hides Astyanax in Hector's tomb which is in the
near background.
Enter Ulysses, who reluctantly announces that Calchas has warned
the Greeks that they must not allow the son of Hector to grow to
manhood; for if they do so, the reopening of the Trojan war will
be only a matter of time, and the work will have to be done all
over again. He therefore asks Andromache to give up the boy to
him. Then ensues a war of wits between the desperate mother and
the crafty Greek. She affects not to know where the boy is--he is
lost. But if she knew, no power on earth should take him from her.
Ulysses threatens death, which she welcomes; he threatens torture,
which she scorns. She at last states that her son is "among the
dead." Ulysses, taking these words at their face meaning, starts
off gladly to tell the news to the Greeks, but suddenly reflects
that he has no proof but the mother's word. He therefore begins to
watch Andromache more narrowly, and discovers that her bearing is
not that of one who has put her grief behind her, but of one who is
still in suspense and fear. To test her, he suddenly calls to his
attendants to hunt out the boy. Looking beyond her he cries: "Good!
he's found! bring him to me." Whereat Andromache's agitation proves
that the boy is indeed not dead but in hiding. Where is he hid?
Ulysses forces her to choose between the living boy and the dead
husband; for, unless her son is forthcoming, Hector's tomb will be
invaded and his ashes scattered upon the sea. To her frantic prayer
for mercy he says:
Bring forth the boy--and pray.
Follows a _canticum_, in which Andromache brings Astyanax out of
the tomb and sets him in Ulysses' sight:
Here, here's the terror of a thousand ships!
and prays him to spare the child. Ulysses refuses, and, after
allowing the mother time for a passionate and pathetic farewell to
her son, he leads the boy away to his death.
Second choral interlude.--The chorus first tells of the former fall
of Troy under Hercules and Telamon; and then refers to the high honors
that had come to the city through the translation of Ganymede to be the
cupbearer of Jove, and through the special grace of Venus. But these
have not availed to save the city from its present destruction.
_Second choral interlude._--The chorus discusses the various places
to which it may be its misfortune to be carried into captivity. It
professes a willingness to go anywhere but to the homes of Helen,
Agamemnon, and Ulysses.
Third episode.--Menelaüs appears, announcing that the Greeks have
alotted to him Helen, his former wife, the cause of all this strife, to
do with as he will. He declares his intention to take her to Greece,
and there destroy her as a warning to faithless wives.
Hecuba applauds this decision, and thinks that at last heaven has sent
justice to the earth:
Dark thy ways
And silent are thy steps to mortal man;
Yet thou with justice all things dost ordain.
Helen, dragged forth from the tent at the command of Menelaüs, pleads
her cause. She lays the blame for all upon Hecuba and Priam:
She first, then, to these ills
Gave birth, when she gave Paris birth; and next
The agéd Priam ruined Troy and thee,
The infant not destroying, at his birth
Denounced a baleful firebrand.
Blame should also fall upon Venus, since through her influence Helen
came into the power of Paris.
Hecuba refutes the excuses of Helen. She scouts the idea that Venus
brought Paris to Sparta. The only Venus that had influenced Helen was
her own passion inflamed by the beauty of Paris:
My son was with surpassing beauty graced;
And thy fond passion, when he struck thy sight,
Became a Venus.
As for the excuse that she was borne away by force, no Spartan was
aware of that, no cries were heard. Hecuba ends by urging Menelaüs to
carry out his threat. This, he repeats, it is his purpose to do.
_Third episode._--Helen approaches the Trojan women, saying that
she has been sent by the Greeks to deck Polyxena for marriage with
Pyrrhus, this being a ruse to trick the girl into an unresisting
preparation for her death. This news Polyxena, though mute,
receives with horror.
Andromache bitterly cries out upon Helen and her marriages as the
cause of all their woe. But Helen puts the whole matter to this
test:
Count this true,
If 'twas a Spartan vessel brought me here.
Under the pointed questions of Andromache she gives up deception,
and frankly states the impending doom of Polyxena to be slaughtered
on Achilles' tomb, and so to be that hero's spirit bride. At this
the girl shows signs of joy, and eagerly submits herself to Helen's
hands to be decked for the sacrificial rite.
Hecuba cries out at this, and laments her almost utter
childlessness; but Andromache envies the doomed girl her fate.
Helen then informs the women that the lots have been drawn and
their future lords determined; Andromache is to be given to
Pyrrhus, Cassandra to Agamemnon, Hecuba to Ulysses.
Pyrrhus now appears to conduct Polyxena to her death, and is
bitterly scorned and cursed by Hecuba.
Third choral interlude.--The chorus sadly recalls the sacred rites in
Troy and within the forests of Mount Ida, and grieves that these shall
be no more. They lament the untimely death of their warrior husbands,
whose bodies have not received proper burial rites, and whose souls
are wandering in the spirit-world, while they, the hapless wives, must
wander over sea to foreign homes. They pray that storms may come and
overwhelm the ships, and especially that Helen may not live to reach
the land again.
_Third choral interlude._--The chorus enlarges upon the comfort of
company to those in grief. Hitherto they have had this comfort; but
now they are to be scattered, and each must suffer alone. And soon,
as they sail away, they must take their last, sad view of Troy, now
but a smouldering heap; and mother to child will say, as she points
back to the shore:
See, there's our Troy, where smoke curls high in air,
And thick, dark clouds obscure the distant sky.
Exode.--Enter Talthybius, with the dead body of Astyanax borne upon
the shield of Hector. He explains that Pyrrhus has hastened home,
summoned by news of insurrection in his own kingdom, and has taken
Andromache with him. He delivers Andromache's request to Hecuba that
she give the boy proper burial, and use the hollow shield as a casket
for the dead.
Hecuba and the chorus together weep over the shield, which recalls
Hector in his days of might, and over the poor, bruised body of the
dead boy, sadly contrasting his former beauty with this mangled form.
They then wrap it in such costly wrappings as their state allows, place
him upon the shield, and consign him to the tomb.
Talthybius then orders bands of men with torches to burn the remaining
buildings of Troy; and in the light of its glaring flames and with
the crashing sound of its falling walls in their ears, Hecuba and her
companions make their way to the waiting ships, while the messenger
urges on their lagging steps.
_Exode._--The messenger relates with much detail to Hecuba,
Andromache and the rest, the circumstances of the death of Astyanax
and Polyxena: how crowds of Greeks and Trojans witnessed both
tragedies, how both sides were moved to tears at the sad sight, and
how both victims met their death as became their noble birth.
Andromache bewails and denounces the cruel death of her son, and
sadly asks that his body be given her for burial; but she is told
that this is mangled past recognition.
But Hecuba, having now drained her cup of sorrow to the dregs, has
no more wild cries to utter; she almost calmly bids the Grecians
now set sail, since nothing bars their way. She longs for death,
complaining that it ever flees from her, though she has often been
so near its grasp.
The messenger interrupts, and bids them hasten to the shore and
board the ships, which wait only their coming to set sail.
THE AGAMEMNON OF AESCHYLUS, AND THE AGAMEMNON OF SENECA
Prologue.--A watchman, stationed upon the palace roof at Argos,
laments the tedium of his long and solitary task; and prays for the
time to come when, through the darkness of the night, he shall see the
distant flashing of the beacon fire, and by this sign know that Troy
has fallen and that Agamemnon is returning home. And suddenly he sees
the gleam for which so long he has been waiting. He springs up with
shouts of joy and hastens to tell the queen. At the same time he makes
dark reference to that which has been going on within the palace, and
which must now be hushed up.
_Prologue._--The ghost of Thyestes coming from the lower regions
recites the _motif_ of the play: how he had been most foully dealt
with by Agamemnon's father, Atreus, and how he had been promised
revenge by the oracle of Apollo through his son Aegisthus, begotten
of an incestuous union with his daughter. The ghost announces that
the time for his revenge is come with the return of Agamemnon from
the Trojan war, and urges Aegisthus to perform his fated part.
Parode, or chorus entry.--A chorus of twelve Argive elders sings of
the Trojan War, describing the omens with which the Greeks started on
their mission of vengeance. They dwell especially upon the hard fate
which forced Agamemnon to sacrifice his daughter. And in this they
unconsciously voice one of the motives which led to the king's own
death.
_Parode, or chorus entry._--The chorus of Argive women complains
of the uncertain condition of exalted fortune, and recommends the
golden mean in preference to this.
First episode.--Clytemnestra appears with a stately procession
of torch-bearers, having set the whole city in gala attire, with
sacrificial incense burning on all the altars. The chorus asks the
meaning of this. Has she had news from Troy? The queen replies that
this very night she has had news, and describes at length how the
signal fires had gleamed, and thus the news had leaped from height to
height, all the long way from Troy to Argos.
And this sure proof and token now I tell thee,
Seeing that my lord hath sent it me from Troy.
She expresses the hope that the victors in their joy will do nothing to
offend the gods and so prevent their safe return:
May good prevail beyond all doubtful chance!
For I have got the blessing of great joy.
With these words she covers up the real desires of her own false heart,
while at the same time voicing the principle on which doom was to
overtake the Greeks.
The chorus receives Clytemnestra's news with joy and prepares to sing
praises to the gods, as the queen with her train leaves the stage.
_First episode._--Clytemnestra, conscious of guilt, and fearing
that her returning husband will severely punish her on account of
her adulterous life with Aegisthus, resolves to add crime to crime
and murder Agamemnon as soon as he comes back to his home. She is
further impelled to this action by his conduct in the matter of her
daughter, Iphigenia, and by his own unfaithfulness to her during
his long absence. Throughout this scene the nurse vainly tries to
dissuade her.
Clytemnestra is either influenced to recede from her purpose by
the nurse, or else pretends to be resolved to draw back in order
to test Aegisthus who now enters. In the end, the two conspirators
withdraw to plan their intended crime.
First choral interlude.--The chorus sings in praise of Zeus, who has
signally disproved the skeptic's claim that
The gods deign not to care for mortal men
By whom the grace of things inviolable
Is trampled under foot.
The shameful guilt of Paris is described, the woe of the wronged
Menelaüs, and the response of all Greece to his cry for vengeance. But,
after all, the chorus is in doubt as to whether the good news can be
true--when a herald enters with fresh news.
_First choral interlude._--The chorus sings in praise of Apollo
for the victory over Troy. To this are added the praises of Juno,
Minerva, and Jove. In the end the chorus hails the approach of the
herald Eurybates.
Second episode.--The herald describes to the chorus the complete
downfall of Troy, which came as a punishment for the sin of Paris and
of the nation which upheld him in it. At the same time the sufferings
of the Greeks during the progress of the war are not forgotten.
Clytemnestra, entering, prompted by her own guilty conscience, bids
the herald tell Agamemnon to hasten home, and take to him her own
protestation of absolute faithfulness to him:
who has not broken
One seal of his in all this length of time.
The herald, in response to further questions of the chorus, describes
the great storm which wrecked the Greek fleet upon their homeward
voyage.
_Second episode._--Eurybates announces to Clytemnestra the return
and approach of Agamemnon, and describes the terrible storm which
overtook the Greeks upon their homeward voyage. At the command of
the queen victims are prepared for sacrifice to the gods, and a
banquet for the victorious Agamemnon. At last the captive Trojan
women headed by Cassandra are seen approaching.
Second choral interlude.--The chorus sings of Helen as the bane of
the Trojans:
Dire cause of strife with bloodshed in her train.
And now
The penalty of foul dishonor done
To friendship's board and Zeus
has been paid by Troy, which is likened to a man who fosters a lion's
cub, which is harmless while still young, but when full grown "it shows
the nature of its sires," and brings destruction to the house that
sheltered it.
_Second choral interlude._--A chorus of captive Trojan women sings
the fate and fall of Troy; while Cassandra, seized with fits of
prophetic fury, prophesies the doom that hangs over Agamemnon.
Third episode.--Agamemnon is seen approaching in his chariot,
followed by his train of soldiers and captives. The chorus welcomes
him, but with a veiled hint that all is not well in Argos. Agamemnon
fittingly thanks the gods for his success and for his safe return, and
promises in due time to investigate affairs at home.
Clytemnestra, now entering, in a long speech of fulsome welcome,
describes the grief which she has endured for her lord's long absence
in the midst of perils, and protests her own absolute faithfulness
to him. She explains the absence of Orestes by saying that she has
intrusted him to Strophius, king of Phocis, to be cared for in the
midst of the troublous times. She concludes with the ambiguous prayer:
Ah Zeus, work out for me
All that I pray for; let it be thy care
To look to that thou purposest to work.
Agamemnon, after briefly referring to Cassandra and bespeaking kindly
treatment for her, goes into the palace, accompanied by Clytemnestra.
_Third episode._--Agamemnon comes upon the scene, and, meeting
Cassandra, is warned by her of the fate that hangs over him; but
she is not believed.
Third choral interlude.--The chorus, though it sees with its own eyes
that all is well with Agamemnon, that he is returned in safety to his
own home, is filled with sad forebodings of some hovering evil which it
cannot dispel.
_Third choral interlude._--Apropos of the fall of Troy, the chorus
of Argive women sings the praises of Hercules whose arrows had been
required by fate for the destruction of Troy.
Exode.--Clytemnestra returns and bids Cassandra, who still remains
standing in her chariot, to join the other slaves in ministering at the
altar. But Cassandra stands motionless, paying no heed to the words of
the queen, who leaves the scene saying:
I will not bear the shame of uttering more.
Cassandra now descends from her chariot and bursts into wild and
woeful lamentations. By her peculiar clairvoyant power she foresees
and declares to the chorus the death of Agamemnon at the hands of
Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, as well as the manner of it; she also
foretells the vengeance which Orestes is destined to work upon the
murderers. Her own fate is as clearly seen and announced, as she passes
through the door into the palace.
Soon the chorus hears the death cry of Agamemnon, that he is
"struck down with deadly stroke." They are faint-heartedly and with
a multiplicity of counsel discussing what it is best to do when
Clytemnestra, with blood-stained garments and followed by a guard of
soldiers, enters to them from the palace. The corpses of Agamemnon
and Cassandra are seen through the door within the palace. The queen
confesses, describes, and exults in the murder of her husband. The
chorus makes elaborate lamentation for Agamemnon, and prophesies that
vengeance will light on Clytemnestra. But she scorns their threatening
prophecies. In the end Aegisthus enters, avowing that he has plotted
this murder and has at last avenged his father, Thyestes, upon the
father of Agamemnon, Atreus, who had so foully wronged Thyestes. The
chorus curses him and reminds him that Orestes still lives and will
surely avenge his father.
_Exode._--Cassandra, either standing where she can see within
the palace, or else by clairvoyant power, reports the murder of
Agamemnon, which is being done within.
Electra urges Orestes to flee before his mother and Aegisthus shall
murder him also. Very opportunely, Strophius comes in his chariot,
just returning as victor from the Olympic games. Electra intrusts
her brother to his care, and betakes her own self to the altar for
protection.
Electra, after defying and denouncing her mother and Aegisthus, is
dragged away to prison and torture, and Cassandra is led out to her
death.
INDEX
INDEX OF MYTHOLOGICAL SUBJECTS
[References are to the lines of the Latin text. If the passage is
longer than one line, only the first line is cited. Line citations to
passages of especial importance to the subject under discussion are
starred. A few historical characters from the Octavia are included in
the Index. The names of the characters appearing in these tragedies are
printed in large capitals, with the name of the tragedy in which the
character occurs following in parentheses.]
ABSYRTUS, a son of Aeëtes, and brother of Medea. Medea, fleeing with
Jason from Colchis, slew her brother and scattered his mangled remains
behind her, in order to retard her father's pursuit, Med. 121, 125,
*131, 452, 473, 911; his dismembered ghost appears to the distracted
Medea, ibid. 963.
ABYLA, see CALPE.
ACASTUS, son of Pelias, king of Thessaly. He demands Jason and Medea
from Creon, king of Corinth, for vengeance on account of the murder of
his father through the machinations of Medea, Med. 257, 415, 521, 526.
ACHELŌUS, the river-god of the river of the same name. He fought with
Hercules for the possession of Deianira, changing himself into various
forms, H. Oet. *299; defeated by Hercules, ibid. *495.
ACHERON, one of the rivers of hades, Thy. 17; described by Theseus,
H. Fur. 715.
ACHILLES, son of Peleus and Thetis, and one of the celebrated Greek
heroes in the Trojan War. He was connected by birth with heaven
(Jupiter), the sea (Thetis), and the lower world (Aeacus), Tro. 344;
educated by Chiron, the centaur, ibid. 832 hidden by his mother in
the court of Lycomedes, king of Scyros, in the disguise of a girl's
garments, in order to keep him from the war, ibid. 213; while there,
became the father of Pyrrhus by Deïdamia, daughter of the king, ibid.
342; his activities in the early period of the Trojan War, ibid.
182; wounds and cures Telephus, ibid. *215; overthrows Lyrnessus and
Chrysa, taking captive Briseïs and Chryseïs, ibid. 220; effect of
his anger on account of the loss of Briseïs, ibid. 194 318; example
of the taming power of love, Oct. 814; slays Memnon and trembles at
his own victory, Tro. *239; slays Penthesilea, the Amazon, ibid.
243; works dire havoc among Trojans in revenge for death of Patroclus,
Agam. 619; slays Hector and drags his dead body around walls of Troy,
Tro. 189; is slain by Paris, ibid. 347; his ghost appears to the
Greeks on the eve of their homeward voyage, and demands the sacrifice
of Polyxena upon his tomb, ibid. *170.
ACTAEON, a grandson of Cadmus, who accidentally saw Diana bathing in a
pool near Mt. Cithaeron. For this he was changed by the angry goddess
into a stag, and in this form was pursued and slain by his own dogs,
Oed. *751; Phoen., 14.
ACTE, the mistress of Nero who displaced Poppaea, Oct. 195.
ADMĒTUS, see ALCESTIS.
ADRASTUS, king of Argos. He received the fugitive Polynices at his
court, gave him his daughter in marriage, and headed the expedition of
the Seven against Thebes, in order to reinstate his son-in-law upon the
throne, Phoen. 374.
AEACUS, son of Jupiter and Europa, father of Peleus; on account of his
just government on earth he was made one of the judges of spirits in
hades, H. Oet. 1558; H. Fur. 734. See under JUDGES IN HADES.
AEĒTES, king of Colchis, son of Phoebus and Persa, and father of Medea,
Med. 210; grandeur, extent, and situation of kingdom described,
ibid. 209; wealth of his kingdom, ibid. 483; had received a
wonderful gold-wrought robe from Phoebus as proof of fatherhood; this
Medea anoints with magic poison, and sends to Creüsa, ibid. 570; he
was despoiled of his realm through the theft of the golden fleece,
ibid. 913.
AEGEUS, see THESEUS.
AEGISTHUS (Agamemnon), son of an incestuous union between Thyestes
and his daughter. His birth was the result of Apollo's advice to
Thyestes, that only thus could he secure vengeance upon the house of
Atreus, Agam. 48, 294; at opening of play he recognizes that the
fatal day is come for which he was born, ibid. 226; lived in guilty
union with Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon, ibid. passim.
AEGOCEROS, a poetic expression for the more usual Capricornus, the
zodiacal constellation of the Goat, Thy. 864.
AEGYPTUS, see DANAÏDES.
AESCULAPIUS, son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis; he was versed in
the knowledge of medicine, was deified, and had the chief seat of his
worship at Epidaurus, Hip. 1022.
AETNA, a volcano in Sicily, Phoen. 314; its fires were used as a
type of raging heat, Hip. 102; H. Oet. 285; considered as the seat
of the forge of Vulcan, H. Fur. 106; supposed to be heaped upon the
buried Titan's breast, Med. 410.
AGAMEMNON (Troades, Agamemnon), king of Mycenae, son of Atreus,
brother of Menelaüs, commander of the Greek forces at Troy. He and
Menelaüs used by Atreus to entrap Thyestes, Thy. 325; tamed by the
power of love, Oct. 815; took captive Chryseïs, daughter of the
priest of Apollo, Agam. 175; compelled to give her up, he took from
Achilles by force his maiden Briseïs, ibid. 186; attempts to dissuade
Pyrrhus from the sacrifice of Polyxena to Achilles' ghost, Tro. *203;
inflamed by love for Cassandra, Agam. 188, 255; his power magnified
as the great king who has come unscathed out of a thousand perils,
ibid. 204; his homeward voyage and wreck of his fleet described,
ibid. *421; returns to Mycenae and hails his native land, ibid.
782; his murder described by Cassandra who either beholds it through
the palace door, or sees it by clairvoyant power, ibid. *867. See
CASSANDRA, CLYTEMNESTRA, IPHIGENIA, PYRRHUS.
AGĀVE, a daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, mother of Pentheus, king
of Thebes. She, with her sisters, in a fit of Bacchic frenzy, slew
Pentheus on Mt. Cithaeron, rent away his head, and bore it back to
Thebes, Oed. 1006; Phoen. 15, 363; her shade appears from hades,
raging still, Oed. 616. See PENTHEUS.
AGRIPPINA I, daughter of M. Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia, the daughter
of Augustus, mother of the emperor Caligula. She died in exile at
Pandataria, Oct. *932.
AGRIPPINA II (Octavia), daughter of the preceding, wife of Cn.
Domitius Ahenobarbus, and mother of Nero. She married the emperor
Claudius, whom she murdered by poison, Oct. 26, 45, 165, 340; she
was the stepmother of Octavia, and the cause of all her woes, ibid.
22; plotted the murder of Silanus, the betrothed lover of Octavia, and
forced the latter into marriage with Nero, ibid. 150; she sought in
all this her own power and world-wide sway, ibid. 155, 612; murdered
by her own son, Nero, ibid. 46, 95, 165; her murder briefly
described and attributed to Poppaea's influence, ibid. 126; described
in full detail, ibid. *310, *600; former high estate and pitiable
death contrasted, ibid. 952; her ghost appears to curse Nero for his
impieties, ibid. *593.
AJAX, son of Oïleus, called simply Oïleus; his death described, Med.
660; for his blasphemous defiance of the gods he was destroyed by
Pallas and Neptune in the great storm which wrecked the Greek fleet on
its homeward voyage, Agam. *532.
AJAX, son of Telamon, crazed with rage because the armor of the dead
Achilles was awarded to Ulysses, Agam. 210.
ALCESTIS, wife of Admetus, king of Pherae, for the preservation of
whose life she resigned her own, Med. 662.
ALCĪDES, see HERCULES.
ALCMĒNA (Hercules Oetaeus), wife of Amphitryon, a Theban prince,
beloved of Jupiter, and mother by him of Hercules, H. Fur. 22, 490.
See HERCULES.
ALCYONE, see CEYX.
ALTHAEA, wife of Oeneus, king of Calydonia, and mother of Meleager. In
revenge for the latter's slaughter of her two brothers, she burned the
charmed billet of wood on which her son's life depended, and so brought
to pass his death, Med. 779; on this account considered as a type of
unnatural woman, H. Oet. 954.
AMALTHĒA, the goat of Olenus which fed with its milk the infant Jove,
and was set as constellation in the sky; not yet known as such in the
golden age, Med. 313. See OLENUS.
AMAZONS, a race of warlike women who dwelt on the river Thermodon,
Med. 215; even they have felt the influence of love, Hip. 575;
conquered by Bacchus, Oed. 479; Clytemnestra compared to them,
Agam. 736; allies of Troy, Tro. 12; their queen, Penthesilea, slain
by Achilles, ibid. 243; Hercules laments that if he was fated to die
by a woman's hand he had not been slain by the Amazon, Hippolyte, H.
Oet. 1183. See ANTIOPE, PENTHESILEA, HIPPOLYTE.
AMPHĪON, son of Antiope by Jupiter, king of Thebes, and husband of
Niobe; renowned for his music; built the walls of Thebes by the magic
of his lyre, Phoen. 566; H. Fur. 262; his hounds are heard baying
at the time of the great plague at Thebes, Oed. 179; his shade arises
from hades holding still in his hand the wonderful lyre, ibid. 612.
AMPHITRYON (Hercules Furens), a Theban prince, husband of Alcmena,
the mother of Hercules, H. Fur. 309; he proves that not he but
Jupiter is the father of Hercules, ibid. 440; welcomes Hercules upon
his return from hades, ibid. 618.
ANCAEUS, an Arcadian hero, one of the Argonauts, slain by the
Calydonian boar, Med. 643.
ANDROMACHE (Troades), wife of Hector and mother of Astyanax; attempts
to hide and save her son from Ulysses, Tro. *430; given by lot to
Pyrrhus, ibid. 976. See ASTYANAX.
ANTAEUS, a Libyan giant, son of Neptune and Terra, a famous wrestler,
who gained new strength by being thrown to mother earth; strangled by
Hercules, who held him aloft in the air, H. Fur. 482, 1171; H. Oet.
24, 1899; Alcmena fears that a possible son of his may come to vex the
earth, H. Oet. 1788. See HERCULES.
ANTIGONE (Phoenissae), the daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta; she
refuses to desert her father in his blindness and exile, Phoen. 51;
Oedipus wonders that such a pure girl should have sprung from so vile a
house, ibid. 80; she argues her father's innocence, ibid. 203.
ANTIOPE, an Amazon, wife of Theseus and slain by him, Hip. 226,
927, 1167; mother of Hippolytus by Theseus, ibid. 398; her personal
appearance and dress described, ibid. *398; her stern and lofty
beauty inherited by Hippolytus, ibid. 659.
ANTONIUS (Marc Antony), a great Roman general, defeated by Octavianus
at the battle of Actium; fled with Cleopatra to Egypt, Oct. 518.
APOLLO, son of Jupiter and Latona, born in Delos, a "roving land," H.
Fur. 453; twin brother of Diana, Med. 87; the laurel his sacred
tree, Agam. 588; god of the prophetic tripod, Med. 86; inspirer
of priestess at his oracle, Oed. 269; god of the bow, is himself
pierced by the arrows of Cupid, Hip. 192; killed the dragon Python,
H. Fur. 455; exiled from heaven and doomed to serve a mortal for
killing the Cyclopes, he came to earth and kept the flocks of Admetus,
king of Pherae, ibid. 451; Hip. 296; hymn in praise of, Agam.
310; worshiped as the sun, lord of the sky, under the name of Phoebus
Apollo. See PHOEBUS.
AQUARIUS, the zodiacal constellation, known as the Water-bearer, Thy.
865.
ARABES, the inhabitants of Arabia, famed for their spice groves, Oed.
117; sun-worshipers, H. Oet. 793; use poisoned darts, Med. 711.
ARCTOPHYLAX, the Bear-keeper, a northern constellation, called also
Boötes, according as the two adjacent constellations are called
the Bears (Arctos, Ursae), or the Wagons (Plaustra). By a
strange mixture of the two conceptions, this constellation is called
Arctophylax and custos plaustri ("the wagon's guardian") in the
same connection, Thy. 874. See BOÖTES.
ARCADIANS, the most ancient race of men, older than the moon, H. Oet.
1883; Hip. 786.
ARCADIAN BEARS, the constellations of the Great and Little Bears, which
wheel round their course in the northern sky, but do not set, H. Fur.
129. See ARCTOS, BEARS, and CALLISTO.
ARCADIAN BOAR, captured by Hercules and brought alive to Eurystheus
as his fourth labor, Agam. 832; H. Fur. 229; H. Oet. 1536. See
HERCULES.
ARCADIAN STAG, captured by Hercules, H. Fur. 222. See HERCULES.
ARCTOS, a name given to the double constellation of the Great and
Little Bears, Oed. 507; called also Arcadian stars, ibid. 478. See
BEARS and CALLISTO.
ARGO, the name of the ship in which the Greek heroes under Jason sailed
to Colchis in quest of the golden fleece, Med. 361; chorus comments
upon the rashness of the man who first intrusted his life to a ship,
and recalls the adventure of the Argonautic heroes, ibid. *301; this
voyage was impious, since it broke the law of the golden age, that
the lands should be severed, not connected by the seas, ibid. 335;
Tiphys was the builder and the pilot of the Argo, ibid. 3, 318; he
was instructed by Minerva, patron goddess of the arts and crafts,
ibid. 3, 365; the Argo had its keel made of wood from the talking oak
of Dodona, ibid. 349; the sailing of the new ship described, ibid.
*318; how it escaped the Symplegades, ibid. *341; the roll of the
Argonautic heroes, "the bulwark of the Greeks, the offspring of the
gods," ibid. *227; nearly all came to a violent death, ibid. *607.
ARGOS, the capital of Argolis, sacred to Juno, the home of heroes,
Agam. 808; paid homage to Bacchus, after the favor of Juno had been
won by him, Oed. 486.
ARIADNE, daughter of Minos, king of Crete; she fell in love with
Theseus, and supplied him with a thread by which to find his way out
of the labyrinth, Hip. 662; she fled with Theseus, but was ruined
and deserted by him on the island of Naxos, ibid. 665; and there
found and beloved by Bacchus, Oed. 448; who made her his wife and
immortalized her by setting her as a constellation in the heavens,
ibid. 497; H. Fur. 18; Hip. 663; pardoned by her father for her
love of Theseus, ibid. 245.
ARIES, the golden-fleeced ram which bore Phrixus and Helle through the
air, and which was afterward set in the heavens as one of the zodiacal
constellations, Thy. 850.
ASTRAEA, the goddess of Justice, who lived among men during the golden
age, but finally left the earth because of the sins of man, Oct.
424; she is the zodiacal constellation, Virgo, H. Oet. 69; called,
incorrectly and perhaps figuratively, the mother of Somnus, H. Fur.
1068. See JUSTICE.
ASTYANAX (Troades), the young son of Hector and Andromache, pictured
as leading his youthful playmates in joyful dance around the wooden
horse, Agam. 634; compared with his father, Tro. 464; his death
demanded by the Greeks, as announced by Calchas, ibid. 369; reasons
for his death from the standpoint of the Greeks, ibid. 526; the doom
of Astyanax announced to his mother, ibid. 620; she pathetically
recounts all the activities into which he would have grown, but which
must now be given up, ibid. *770; his death described by messenger,
ibid. *1068.
ATLANTIADES, see PLEIADES.
ATLAS, a high mountain in the north-west of Libya, conceived as a giant
upon whose head the heavens rested, H. Oet. 12, 1599; eased awhile of
his burden by Hercules, ibid. 1905.
ATREUS (Thyestes), a son of Pelops, father of Agamemnon and Menelaüs,
and brother of Thyestes, between whom and himself existed a deadly
feud. He plans how he will avenge himself upon his brother, Thy. 176;
describes his brother's sins against himself, ibid. 220; his revenge
takes shape and expression, ibid. 260; the place and scene of his
murder of the sons of Thyestes described at length, ibid. *650; he
gloats over the horrible agony of his brother, ibid. 1057.
ATTIS, a young Phrygian shepherd, mourned by the priests of Cybele,
Agam. 686.
AUGE, an Arcadian maiden, loved by Hercules, and mother by him of
Telephus, H. Oet. 367.
AUGĒAN STABLES, the stables of Augeas, king of Elis, containing three
thousand head of cattle, and uncleansed for thirty years; they were
cleaned by Hercules in a single day, H. Fur. 247.
AUGUSTUS, the first emperor of Rome; his rule cited by Seneca to Nero
as a model of strong but merciful sway, Oct. *477; his bloody path to
power described by Nero, ibid. *505; deified at death, ibid. 528.
AULIS, a seaport of Boeotia, the rendezvous of the Greek fleet, whence
they sailed to Troy. Here they were stayed by adverse winds until they
were appeased by the sacrifice of Iphigenia, Agam. 567; Tro. 164; the
hostility of Aulis to all ships because her king, Tiphys, had met death
on the Argonautic expedition, assigned as a reason for her detention of
the Greek fleet, Med. 622. See IPHIGENIA.
B
BACCHUS, son of Jupiter and Semele, the daughter of Cadmus. The unborn
infant was saved from his dying mother who had been blasted by the
lightnings of her lover, Oed. 502; Med. 84; H. Fur. 457; to
escape the wrath of Juno, he was hid in Arabian (or Indian) Nysa,
where, disguised as a girl, he was nourished by the nymphs, Oed.
418; in childhood captured by Tyrian pirates, who, frightened by
marvelous manifestations of divine power on board their ship, leaped
overboard and were changed into dolphins, ibid. *449; visited
India, accompanied by Theban heroes, ibid. *113; H. Fur. 903;
visited Lydia and sailed on the Pactolus, Oed. 467; conquered the
Amazons and many other savage peoples, ibid. 469; god of the flowing
locks, crowned with ivy, carrying the thyrsus, ibid. 403; H. Fur.
472; Hip. *753; marvelous powers of the thyrsus described, Oed.
*491; attended by his foster father Silenus, ibid. 429; called
Bassareus, Oed. 432; Bromius, Hip. 760; Ogygian Iacchus, Oed.
437; Nyctelius, ibid. 492; destroyed Lycurgus, king of Thrace,
because of that king's opposition to him, H. Fur. 903; inspired his
maddened worshipers, the women of Thebes, to rend Pentheus in pieces,
Oed. 441, 483; helped Jupiter in war against the giants, H. Fur.
458; found Ariadne on island of Naxos, where she had been deserted
by Theseus, made her his wife, and set her as a constellation in the
heavens, Oed. 488, 497; Hip. 760; H. Fur. 18; dithyrambic chorus
in his praise, giving numerous incidents in his career, Oed. **403;
won the favor of Juno and the homage of her city of Argos, ibid.
486; gained a place in heaven, H. Oet. 94. See ARIADNE, BASSARIDES,
BROMIUS, NYCTELIUS, OGYGES, PENTHEUS, PROETIDES, SEMELE, SILENUS.
BASSARIDES, female worshipers of Bacchus, so called because they were
clad in fox skins, Oed. 432. Hence Bacchus was called Bassareus.
BEARS, the northern constellations of the Great and Little Bears;
they were forbidden by the jealous Juno to bathe in the ocean (an
explanation of the fact that these constellations never set), H. Oet.
281, 1585; Thy. 477; Med. 405; have plunged into the sea under
the influence of magic, ibid. 758; shall some day, by a reversal of
nature's laws, plunge beneath the sea, Thy. 867; the Great Bear used
for steering ships by the Greeks, the Little Bear by the Phoenicians,
Med. 694. See ARCADIAN BEARS, ARCTOS, CALLISTO.
BELIAS, one of the Belides, or grand-daughters of Belus, the same as
the Danaïdes, since Danaüs was the son of Belus, H. Oet. 960.
BELLONA, the bloody goddess of war, conceived of as dwelling in hell,
H. Oet. 1312; haunts the palace of kings, Agam. 82.
BOEOTIA, land named from the heifer which guided Cadmus to the place
where he should found his city, Oed. 722.
BOŌTES, the northern constellation of the Wagoner, driving his wagons,
under which form also the two Bears are conceived, Oct. 233; Agam.
70; unable to set beneath the sea, ibid. 69; not yet known as a
constellation in the golden age, Med. 315.
BRIAREUS, one of the giants pictured as storming heaven, H. Oet. 167.
BRISĒIS, a captive maiden, beloved by her captor, Achilles, from whom
she was taken by Agamemnon, Tro. 194, 220, 318.
Britannicus, son of the emperor Claudius and Messalina, brother
of Octavia, and stepbrother of Nero, by whom, at the instigation of
Agrippina, the mother of Nero, he was murdered, in order that Nero
might have undisputed succession to the throne, Oct. 47, 67, *166,
242, 269.
BROMIUS (the "noisy one"), an epithet of Bacchus, on account of the
noisy celebration of his festivals, Hip. 760.
BRUTUS, the friend of Julius Caesar, and yet the leader of the
conspirators against him, Oct. 498.
BUSĪRIS, a king of Egypt who sacrificed strangers upon his altars, and
was himself slain by Hercules, Tro. 1106, H. Fur. 483; H. Oet.
26; Alcmena fears that a possible son of his may come to vex the earth
now that Hercules is dead, ibid. 1787.
C
CADMEÏDES, daughters of Cadmus, e. g., Agave, Autonoë, Ino, who in
their madness tore Pentheus in pieces, H. Fur. 758.
CADMUS, son of Agenor, the king of Phoenicia. Being sent by his father
to find his lost sister, Europa, with the command not to return unless
successful, he wandered over the earth in vain, and at last founded a
land of his own (Boeotia), guided thither by a heifer sent by Apollo.
Here he kills the great serpent sacred to Mars, sows its teeth in the
earth from which armed men spring up, Oed. **712; H. Fur. 917;
Phoen. 125; he was at last himself changed to a serpent, H. Fur.
392; his house was cursed, so that no king of Thebes from Cadmus on
held the throne in peace and happiness, Phoen. 644.
CAESAR, Julius, quoted as a mighty general, unconquered in war, but
slain by the hands of citizens, Oct. 500.
CALCHAS (Troades), a distinguished seer among the Greeks before Troy;
his prophetic power described, Tro. *353; he decides that Polyxena
must be sacrificed, ibid. 360.
CALLISTO, a nymph of Arcadia, beloved of Jove, changed into a bear by
Juno, and set in the heavens by her lover as the constellation of the
Great Bear, while her son Arcas was made the Little Bear, H. Fur. 6;
is the constellation by which the Greek sailors guided their ships,
ibid. 7; called the frozen Bear, ibid. 1139. See JUPITER, ARCTOS,
BEARS.
CALPE, one side of a rocky passage rent by Hercules, thus letting the
Mediterranean Sea into the outer ocean. Calpe was one of the so-called
"pillars of Hercules," or Gibraltar, while the opposite mass in Africa
from which it was rent was called Abyla, H. Fur. 237; H. Oet. 1240,
1253, 1569.
CANCER, the zodiacal constellation of the Crab, in which the sun is
found in the summer solstice, Thy. 854; Hip. 287; H. Oet. 41, 67,
1219, 1573.
CAPHEREUS, a cliff on the coast of Euboea, where Nauplius lured the
Greek fleet to destruction by displaying false fires, Agam. 560. See
NAUPLIUS.
CAPNOMANTĪA, a method of divining by observation of the smoke of the
sacrifice, described, Oed. *325.
CASSANDRA (Agamemnon), beloved by Apollo, but false to him; for
this, the gift of prophecy bestowed by him was made of no avail by
his decree that she should never be believed, Tro. 34; Agam. 255,
588; given by lot to Agamemnon in the distribution of the captives,
Tro. 978; raves in prophetic frenzy and describes the murder of
Agamemnon in progress, Agam. *720; is led away to death, rejoicing in
the prospect, and predicting the death of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus,
ibid. 1004.
CASTOR, one of the twin sons of Jupiter and Leda, wife of Tyndarus,
king of Sparta; his brother was Pollux, Phoen. 128; Castor was the
rider of the famous horse, Cyllarus, given to him by Juno, Hip. 810;
the twins were members of the Argonautic expedition, Med. 230; called
Tyndaridae, from the name of their reputed father, H. Fur. 14; Castor
a famous horseman, Pollux, a famous boxer, Med. 89; the two were set
as constellations in the sky to the grief of Juno, Oct. 208.
CAUCASUS, a rough mountain range between the Black and Caspian Seas,
Thy. 1048; here Prometheus was chained, H. Oet. 1378; Med. 709.
See PROMETHEUS.
CECROPS, the mythical founder and first king of Athens; hence the
Athenians were called Cecropians, Med. 76; Thy. 1049.
CENAEUM, a promontory on the north-west point of the island of Euboea;
here Hercules sacrificed to Jove, who was called Cenaean Jove from
the position of his temple, after his victory over Eurytus, H. Oet.
102; while sacrificing here, Hercules donned the poisoned robe sent by
Deianira, ibid. 782.
CENTAURS, a race of wild people in Thessaly, half man, half horse, H.
Oet. 1049, 1195, 1925; fight of, with the Lapithae, H. Fur. 778; the
centaur, Nessus, killed by Hercules, H. Oet. *503 See CHIRON, NESSUS.
CERBERUS, the monstrous three-headed dog, guardian of hades, Thy. 16;
H. Oet. 23; H. Fur. 1107; his existence denied, Tro. 404; said
to have broken out of hades, and to be wandering abroad in the Theban
land, Oed. 171; his clanking chains heard on earth, ibid. 581;
Hercules, in the accomplishment of his twelfth labor, brought the dog
in chains to the upper world, H. Oet. 1245; Agam. 859; H. Fur.
*50, 547; Theseus describes the dog in great detail, and how he was
brought to the upper world by Hercules, ibid. *760; his actions in
the light of day, ibid. *813. See HERCULES.
CERES, the daughter of Saturn, sister of Jupiter, mother of Proserpina,
and goddess of agriculture; her vain and anxious search for her
daughter, H. Fur. 659; taught Triptolemus the science of agriculture,
Hip. 838; the mystic rites of her worship, H. Fur. 845. Her name
used frequently by metonymy for grain. See ELEUSIN, PROSERPINA,
TRIPTOLEMUS.
CEYX, king of Trachin who suffered death by shipwreck. His wife
Alcyone, mourned him incessantly, until finally both he and she were
changed into kingfishers, H. Oet. 197; Agam. 681; Oct. 7.
CHAONIAN OAKS, a sacred grove in Chaonia of Epirus containing a temple
and oracle of Jupiter, said to be the oldest oracle in Greece; the
oracle was supposed to be given out by the oaks themselves, which were
endowed with the miraculous power of speech, or by the doves which
resorted there. These great "Chaonian trees" are used as a type of tall
trees in general, Oed. 728; the "talking oak" of Chaonia, H. Oet.
1623. See DODONA.
CHARON, the aged man who ferries souls across the river Styx, H. Fur.
555; his personal appearance described by Theseus, ibid. *764; forced
by Hercules to bear him across the Lethe (not Styx), ibid. *770;
overwearied by his toil of transporting such throngs of Theban dead,
Oed. 166; charmed by the music of Orpheus, H. Oet. 1072; Cassandra
prophesies that his skiff shall on that day carry two royal souls
across the river of death, Agam. 752.
CHARYBDIS, a whirlpool between Italy and Sicily, opposite to Scylla,
alternately sucking in and vomiting up the sea, Med. 408; H. Oet.
235; Thy. 581. See SCYLLA.
CHIMAERA, a monster combining a lion, a dragon, and a goat, which
vomited forth fire, Med. 828.
CHIRON, a centaur dwelling in a cavern on Mt. Pelion, famous for his
knowledge of plants, medicine, and divination. To his training was
intrusted the young Jason, Hercules, Aesculapius, and Achilles, H.
Fur. 971; Tro. 832; set in the sky as the zodiacal constellation of
Sagittarius, the "Archer," Thy. 860.
CHRYSĒIS, the daughter of Chryses, a priest of Apollo at Chrysa. She
was taken captive by the Greeks and fell to the lot of Agamemnon, who,
being forced by a pestilence sent by Apollo to give her up, claimed
Briseïs, the captive maid of Achilles. Hence arose a deadly strife
between the two, Tro. 223. See ACHILLES.
CIRRHA, a very ancient town in Phocis, near Delphi, where were the
famous temple and oracle of Apollo, Oed. 269; H. Oet. 92, 1475.
CITHAERON, a mountain near Thebes where the infant Oedipus had been
exposed, Phoen. 13; the scene of many wild and tragic deeds. See
ACTAEON, AGAVE, DIRCE, PENTHEUS.
CLAUDIUS, the fourth Roman emperor, father of Octavia, murdered by his
second wife, Agrippina, Oct. 26, 45, 269.
CLOTHO, one of the three fates or Parcae, supposed to hold the distaff
and spin the thread of life, H. Oet. 768; Oct. 16; Thy. 617.
CLYTEMNESTRA (Agamemnon), the daughter of Tyndarus and Leda, wife
of Agamemnon, mother of Orestes, Iphigenia, and Electra. During the
absence of her husband at the Trojan War, she engaged in a guilty
conspiracy with Aegisthus to murder Agamemnon. She deliberates whether
she shall give up her course of crime or carry it out to the end,
Agam. 108; tests the courage and determination of Aegisthus ibid.
239; her murder of Agamemnon prophesied and described by Cassandra,
ibid. *734. See AGAMEMNON and AEGISTHUS.
COCȲTUS, "the river of lamentation," a gloomy, repulsive river of
hades, H. Oet. 1963; "sluggish, vile," H. Fur. 686; conceived as
the river over which spirits cross to the land of the dead, ibid. 870.
COLCHIAN BULL, the fire-breathing monster which Jason was set to tame
and yoke to the plow; Medea claims to have preserved some of his fiery
breath for her magic uses, Med. 829.
COLCHIAN WOMAN, See MEDEA.
CREON (Medea), king of Corinth, to whose court Jason and Medea fled
after they were driven out of Thessaly; father of Creüsa, for whom
he selected Jason as a husband, decreeing the banishment of Medea;
headstrong and arbitrary, he breaks the most sacred ties to work his
own will, Med. 143; after a stormy interview with Medea, he finally
allows her a single day of respite from exile, ibid. *190; called the
son of Sisyphus, ibid. 512; his death and that of his daughter by
means of magic fire announced and described, ibid. *879.
CREON (Oedipus), a Theban prince, brother of Queen Jocasta, Oed.
210; sent by Oedipus to consult the oracle as to the cause of the
plague at Thebes, he reports that it is because of the unavenged murder
of their former king, Laïus, ibid. *210; he returns from necromantic
rites which Tiresias had performed, and announces that Oedipus himself
is guilty of the murder of Laïus. He is thereupon thrown into prison by
Oedipus on the charge of conspiracy with Tiresias, ibid. *509; slain
by the usurper, Lycus, as described by his daughter, Megara, who had
been given as wife to Hercules, H. Fur. 254.
CRETAN BULL, a wild bull of prodigious size, which laid waste the
island of Crete; caught and taken alive to Eurystheus by Hercules as
his seventh labor, H. Fur. 230; Agam. 833; See HERCULES.
CREŪSA (Medea), daughter of Creon, king of Corinth, for whom Creon
chose Jason as husband, Med. 105; Jason's wife, Medea, bitterly
protests that Creüsa shall not bear brothers to her children, ibid.
509; Jason is charged by his wife with love for Creüsa, ibid. 495;
Medea prepares a magic robe as a present for Creüsa by which she
shall be burned to death, ibid. *816; Creüsa's death announced and
described, ibid. 879.
CRISPĪNUS, a Roman knight, the husband of Poppaea, Oct. 731.
CUPID, the god of love, son of Venus; addressed and characterized by
Deianira, H. Oet. *541; all powerful over the hearts of gods and men,
Hip. *185; hymn recounting his wide sway, with special instances of
his irresistible power, ibid. **275; his dire power, Oct. 806;
there is no such god; he is created by the error of men, who seek to
hide their own lustful passions behind such a being, ibid. **557;
Hip. **275.
CYBELE, a goddess worshiped in the Phrygian groves, Hip. 1135; the
pines of Ida were sacred to her, Tro. 72; crowned with a turreted
crown, her worship described, Agam. 686.
CYCLOPES, a fabulous race of giants on the coast of Sicily, having each
but one eye in the middle of the forehead; they are said to have built
the walls of Mycenae, H. Fur. 997; Thy. 407; Polyphemus, one of the
Cyclopes, is pictured as sitting on a crag of Mt. Aetna, ibid. 582.
CYCNUS, a son of Mars, slain by Hercules, H. Fur. 485.
CYCNUS, a son of Neptune, slain by Achilles and changed at the moment
of death into a swan, Agam. 215; Tro. 184.
CYLLARUS, a famous horse which Juno received from Neptune and presented
to Castor, Hip. 811.
CYNOSŪRA, the constellation of the Lesser Bear, Thy. 872.
D
DAEDALUS, an Athenian architect, the father of Icarus, in the time of
Theseus and Minos. He helped Pasiphaë, wife of Minos, to accomplish her
unnatural desires, Hip. 120; built the labyrinth for the Minotaur,
ibid. 122, 1171; story of his escape from Crete on wings which he
himself had constructed Oed. *822; safe because he pursued a middle
course, H. Oet. 683.
DANAË, daughter of Acrisius, and mother of Perseus by Jupiter who
approached her in the form of a golden shower, Oct. 207, 772. See
PERSEUS.
DANAÏDES, the fifty daughters of Danaüs, brother of Aegyptus. These
fifty daughters, being forced to marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus,
slew their husbands on their wedding night, with the single exception
of Hypermnestra, H. Fur. 498; their punishment in hades for this
crime was the task of filling a bottomless cistern with water carried
in sieves, ibid. 757; Medea summons these to her aid in getting
vengeance upon her own husband, Med. 749; Deianira would fill up the
vacant place in their number left by the absence of Hypermnestra, H.
Oet. 948; called also Belides, ibid. 960. See BELIAS, HYPERMNESTRA.
DARDANUS, the son of Jupiter and Electra, one of the ancestors of the
royal house of Troy. He is represented as exulting in hades over the
impending doom of Agamemnon, the enemy of his house, Agam. 773.
DAULIAN BIRD, i. e., Philomela, who was changed into a nightingale
after the sad tragedy connected with her name, which was enacted at
Daulis, a city of Phocis. She mourns continually, in her bird form, for
Itys, H. Oet. 192. See PHILOMELA and ITYS.
DEIANĪRA (Hercules Oetaeus), the daughter of Oeneus, king of
Calydonia, sister of Meleager, wife of Hercules, and mother of Hyllus,
pictured as playing with her maidens on the banks of the Acheloüs, H.
Oet. 586; relates to her nurse the affair of her abduction by Nessus,
ibid. *500; her wild rage when she hears of Hercules' infatuation for
Iole, ibid. 237; ignorant of its real power, she prepares to send the
charmed robe to Hercules, ibid. *535; she gives it to Lichas to bear
to his master, ibid. 569; makes test of the remnant of the poisoned
blood of Nessus after the anointed robe has been sent away and is
horrified to discover its terrible power, ibid. *716; later learns
from Hyllus the terrible effects of the poison on Hercules, ibid.
*742; she prays for death, ibid. 842; begs Hyllus to slay her,
ibid. 984; goes distracted and seems to see the furies approaching,
ibid. 1002; her death by her own hand reported by Hyllus, ibid.
1420.
DEÏDAMĪA, daughter of Lycomedes, king of Scyros, and mother of Pyrrhus
by Achilles while the latter was hiding in the disguise of maidens'
garments at that court, Tro. 342.
DEÏPHOBUS, a son of Priam and Hecuba and husband of Helen after the
death of Paris; slain and mangled by the Greeks through the treachery
of his wife, Agam. 749.
DELOS, a small island in the Aegean Sea, formerly floating about from
place to place, in which condition it became the birthplace of Apollo
and Diana, H. Fur. 453; made firm at the command of Diana, Agam.
384.
DELPHIC ORACLE, the famous oracle of Apollo at Delphi in Phocis;
expressed in enigmatic form, Oed. 214; the giving-out of an oracle
described, ibid. *225.
DEUCALION, son of Prometheus, husband of Pyrrha; this pair were alone
saved of all mankind from the flood, Tro. 1039. See PYRRHA.
DIĀNA, daughter of Jupiter and Latona; twin sister of Apollo, H.
Fur. 905; hymn in praise of, Agam. *367; caused her native Delos
to be a firm island, ibid. 369; punished Niobe for her impiety,
ibid. 375; conceived as in triple manifestation, Luna or Phoebe
in heaven, Diana on earth, and Hecate in hades, Hip. 412; hence
called Trivia and worshiped where three ways meet, Agam. 367;
Hippolytus prays to her as goddess of the chase, Hip. 54; her wide
sway described, ibid. *54; nurse of Phaedra prays that she may turn
Hippolytus to love, ibid. 406; in form of Luna, an object of attack
by Thessalian witchcraft, ibid. 421; being slighted by Oeneus, king
of Aetolia or Calydon, she sent a huge boar to ravage the country.
Hence Pleuron, a city of Aetolia, is said to be hostile to her, Tro.
827.
DICTYNNA, "goddess of the nets," an epithet applied to Diana, Med.
795; assumed from Britomartys, a Cretan nymph, sometimes called the
Cretan Diana, who, to escape from the pursuit of her lover, leaped over
a cliff into the sea, where she fell into a fishing-net.
DIOMĒDES, a bloody king of the Bistones, in Thrace, who fed his
captives to fierce, man-eating horses which he kept in his stalls, H.
Oet. 1538; Tro. 1108; Hercules, as his eighth labor, captured these
horses, having previously fed their master to them, Agam. 842; H.
Fur. 226, 1170; Alomena fears that she may be given to these horses
now that Hercules is dead, H. Oet. 1790. See HERCULES.
DIRCE, the wife of Lycus, king of Thebes, who, on account of her
cruelty to Antiope, was tied by her sons, Zethus and Amphion, by the
hair to a wild bull, and so dragged to death on Mt. Cithaeron, Phoen.
19; changed to a fountain of the same name, ibid. 126; H. Fur. 916;
the water of this fountain was said to flow with blood at the time of
the great plague at Thebes, Oed. 177.
DISCORD, one of the furies, summoned by Juno from hades to drive
Hercules to madness, H. Fur. 93; her abode described, ibid. *93.
DODŌNA, a city of Chaonia in Epirus, famous for its ancient oracle of
Jupiter, situated in a grove of oaks. The oracle was given in some
mysterious way as if by the talking of these sacred oaks, H. Oet.
1473; Minerva aided in the construction of the Argo, and set in the
prow a piece of timber cut from the speaking oak of Dodona, and this
piece had itself the power of giving oracles; hence the "voice" which
it is said that the Argo lost through fear of the clashing Symplegades,
Med. 349. See CHAONIAN OAKS.
DOMITIUS, the father of Nero, Oct. 249.
DRAGON, (1) the guardian of the apples of the Hesperides, slain by
Hercules, and afterward set in the heavens as the constellation, Draco,
lying between the two Bears, Thy. 870; Med. 694; (2) the dragon
of Colchis, guardian of the Golden Fleece, put to sleep by the magic
of Medea, Med. 703; (3) dragon sacred to Mars killed by Cadmus near
the site of his destined city of Thebes. The teeth of this dragon were
sown in the earth by Cadmus, and from these armed men sprung up, Oed.
**725; H. Fur. 260; a part of these same teeth were sown by Jason in
Colchis with a similar result, Med. 469; the brothers who sprang up
against Cadmus are described as living in hades, Oed. 586.
DRUSUS, Livius, the fate of, Oct. 887, 942.
DRYADS, a race of wood-nymphs, H. Oet. 1053; Hip. 784.
E
ECHO, a nymph who pined away to a mere voice for unrequited love of
Narcissus. She dwells in mountain caves, and repeats the last words of
all that is said in her hearing, Tro. 109.
ELECTRA (Agamemnon), daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, and
sister of Orestes; gives her brother to Strophius, king of Phocis,
that he may be rescued from death at the hands of Clytemnestra and
Aegisthus, Agam. 910; defies her mother, and scorns both her threats
and those of Aegisthus, ibid. 953; is taken away to imprisonment,
ibid. 1000; Octavia compares her woes with Electra's, to the
advantage of the latter, Oct. 60.
ELEUSIN, an ancient city of Attica, famous for its mysteries of Ceres,
H. Oet. 599; Tro. 843; H. Fur. 300; Hip. 838; the celebration
of the mysteries described, H. Fur. *842. See CERES, TRIPTOLEMUS.
ELYSIUM, the abode of the blest in the spirit world, Tro. 159, 944;
H. Oet. 1916; H. Fur. 744; Deianira thinks that she should be
expelled from Elysium by all faithful wives, H. Oet. 956.
ENCELADUS, one of the giant Titans who attempted to dethrone Jove,
overthrown and buried under Sicily, H. Fur. 79; H. Oet. 1140, 1145,
1159, 1735.
ERIDANUS, the mythical and poetical name of the river Po, H. Oet.
186. See PHAËTHONTIADES.
ERINYES, the furies, H. Fur. 982; Med. 952; Oed. 590; Agam.
83; Thy. 251; H. Oet. 609, 671; Oet. 23, 161, 263, 619, 913. See
FURIES.
ERYX, the son of Butes and Venus, a famous boxer, overcome by Hercules,
H. Fur. 481; a mountain in Sicily, said to have been named from the
preceding, Oed. 600.
ETEOCLES (Phoenissae), one of the two sons of Oedipus and Jocasta.
After Oedipus went into voluntary banishment, abandoning the throne
of Thebes (Phoen. 104), Eteocles and Polynices agreed to reign
alternately, each a year. Eteocles, the elder, first ascended the
throne, but when his year was up refused to give way to his brother,
Phoen. 55, 280, 389. See POLYNICES.
EUMENIDES ("the gracious ones"), a euphemistic name for the furies, H.
Fur. 87; H. Oet. 1002.
EURŌPA, daughter of Agenor, king of Tyre, beloved of Jupiter, who, in
the form of a bull, carried her away to Crete, Oct. 206, 766; H.
Oet. 550; this episode is immortalized by the constellation of Taurus,
which rises in April, H. Fur. 9; sought in vain by her brother
Cadmus, Oed. 715; the continent of Europe named after her, Agam.
205, 274; Tro. 896.
EURYBATES (Agamemnon), a messenger of Agamemnon who announces the
victory of the Greeks over Troy, and the near approach of the hero to
Mycenae, Agam. 392; he relates at great length the sufferings of the
Greek fleet by storm and shipwreck on the homeward voyage, ibid. *421.
EURYDICE, the wife of Orpheus, slain by a serpent's sting on her
wedding day; story of Orpheus' quest for her in hades, H. Fur. *569;
rescued by Orpheus from the lower world, but lost again, H. Oet.
*1084. See ORPHEUS.
EURYSTHEUS, the son of Sthenelus and grandson of Perseus, who, by a
trick of Juno, was given power over Hercules, and, at Juno's instance,
set to Hercules his various labors, H. Oet. 403; H. Fur. 78, 479,
526, 830; lord of Argos and Mycenae, ibid. 1180; H. Oet. 1800; his
time of punishment will come, ibid. 1973.
EURYTUS, king of Oechalia and father of Iole, H. Oet. 1490; he and
his house destroyed by Hercules because he refused the latter's suit
for Iole, ibid. 100, 207, 221; H. Fur. 477. See HERCULES.
F
FESCENNINE, of Fescennia, an ancient town of Etruria, famous for a
species of coarse, jeering dialogues in verse which bear its name,
Med. 113.
FORTUNE, the goddess of fate, ruling over the affairs of men, H. Fur.
326, 524; Tro. *1, *259, 269, 697, 735; Phoen. 82, 308, 452; Med.
159, 176, 287; Hip. 979, 1124, 1143; Oed. 11, 86, 674, 786, 825,
934; Agam. 28, 58, 72, 89, 101, 248, 594, 698; H. Oet. 697; Oet.
36, 377, 479, 563, 888, 898, 931, 962; Thy. 618.
FURIES, avenging goddesses, dwelling in hades, set to punish and
torment men both on earth and in the lower world; described and
appealed to for aid in punishment of Jason, Med. 13; Juno plots to
summon them from hades in order to drive Hercules to madness, H.
Fur. 86; described as to their horrible physical aspect, ibid. 87;
described in clairvoyant vision by Cassandra, Agam. *759; moving
in bands, Thy. 78, 250; Med. 958; one of the furies used as a
character in dramatic prologue, driving the ghost of Thyestes on to
perform his mission, Thy. *23. See EUMENIDES, ERINYES, MEGAERA,
TISIPHONE.
G
GEMINI, the zodiacal constellation of the Twins, Castor and Pollux,
Thy. 853.
GERYON, a mythical king in Spain having three bodies; Hercules slew
him and brought his famous cattle to Eurystheus as his tenth labor,
H. Fur. 231, 487, 1170; Agam. 837; H. Oet. 26, 1204, 1900. See
HERCULES.
GHOSTS. The ghost appears as a dramatis persona in the following
plays: Agamemnon, in which the ghost of Thyestes appears in the
prologue to urge Aegisthus on to fulfil his mission; Thyestes,
in which the ghost of Tantalus similarly appears in the prologue;
Octavia, in which the ghost of Agrippina appears. In the following
plays the ghost affects the action though not actually appearing upon
the stage: Troades, in which the ghost of Achilles is reported to
have appeared to the Greeks and demanded the sacrifice of Polyxena, 168
ff.; Andromache also claims to have seen the ghost of Hector warning
her of the impending fate of Astyanax, 443 ff.; Oedipus, in which the
ghost of Laïus and other departed spirits are described as set free
by the necromancy of Tiresias, 582 ff.; Medea, in which the mangled
ghost of Absyrtus seems to appear to the distracted Medea, 963; ghosts
appear larger than mortal forms, Oed. 175.
GIANTS, monstrous sons of Earth, fabled to have made war upon the gods,
scaling heaven by piling mountains (Pelion, Ossa, and Olympus) one on
another, Tro. 829; Thy. 804, 810, 1084; H. Fur. 445; they were
overthrown by the thunderbolt of Jupiter, H. Oet. 1302; Oed. 91;
with the help of Hercules, H. Oet. 1215; buried under Sicily, ibid.
1309; seem to the mad Hercules to be again in arms, and to be hurling
mountains, H. Fur. 976; after death of Hercules there is danger that
they will again pile up mountains and scale heaven, H. Oet. 1139,
*1151. See BRIAREUS, ENCELADUS, GYAS, MIMAS, OTHRYS, TYPHOEUS, TITANS.
GOLDEN AGE, the first age of mankind, when peace and innocence reigned
on the earth; described, Hip. *525; Oet. *395; Med. *329.
GOLDEN-FLEECED RAM, (1) the ram on which Phrixus and his sister, Helle,
escaped from Boeotia; as they fled through the air Helle fell off into
the sea, Tro. 1035; on arrival at Colchis Phrixus sacrificed the ram
and gave his wonderful fleece to King Aeëtes, who hung it in a tree
sacred to Mars. This fleece was the prize sought by the Argonauts under
Jason, Med. 361, 471. See PHRIXUS, HELLE, ARGONAUTS. (2) The emblem
and pledge of sovereignty in the house of Pelops, Thy. *225.
GORGON, Medusa, one of the three daughters of Phorcys, whose head was
covered with snaky locks, and sight of whom had power to turn to stone.
She was killed by Perseus, and her head presented to Minerva who fixed
it upon her shield, H. Oet. 96; Agam. 530. See PERSEUS.
GRACCHI, two popular leaders of the Sempronian gens, quoted as examples
of men brought to ruin by popular renown, Oet. 882.
GRADĪVUS, a surname of Mars, H. Fur. 1342.
GYAS, one of the giants who sought to dethrone Jove, H. Oet. 167,
1139.
H
HADES, the place of departed spirits, situated in the under world;
the upper world entrance to, and downward-leading passage, H. Fur.
662; description of, ibid. 547; Theseus, returned with Hercules
from hades, describes in great detail the places and persons of the
lower world, ibid. **658; chorus sings of the world of the dead and
of the thronging peoples who constantly pour into its all-holding
depths, ibid. *830; its torments and personages described by ghost of
Tantalus, Thy. 1; its regions and inhabitants seen by Creon through
the yawning chasm in the earth made by Tiresias' incantations, Oed.
*582.
HARPIES, mythical monsters, half woman and half bird; driven from
Phineus by Zetes and Calaïs, Med. 782; still torment Phineus in hades
as upon earth, H. Fur. 759; used as type of winged speed, Phoen.
424.
HEBE, the daughter of Juno, cupbearer to the gods, and given as bride
to the deified Hercules, Oct. 211.
HECATE, daughter of Perses, presider over enchantments; often
identified with Proserpina as the underworld manifestation of the
deity seen in Diana on earth and Luna in heaven, H. Oet. 1519; Med.
6, 577, 833, 841; Tro. 389; Hip. 412; Oed. 569.
HECTOR, the son of Priam and Hecuba, husband of Andromache, the
bravest warrior and chief support of Troy, Tro. 125; burns the Greek
fleet, ibid. 444; Agam. 743; slays Patroclus, Tro. 446; slain by
Achilles and his body dragged around the walls of Troy, ibid. *413;
Agam. 743; his body ransomed by Priam, ibid. 447; lamented by the
band of captive Trojan women, Tro. 98; his ghost warns Andromache in
a dream of the danger of their son Astyanax, ibid. 443; she hides the
boy in Hector's tomb, ibid. 498; she loves Astyanax for the boy's
resemblance to his father, ibid. 646.
HECUBA (Troades), the wife of Priam, unhappily survives Troy; as
one of the captive Trojan women, leads them in a lament for Troy's
downfall, for Hector and Priam, Tro. *1; before the birth of Paris,
dreamed that she had given birth to a firebrand, ibid. 36; her once
happy estate described, and contrasted with her present wretchedness,
ibid. *958; given to Ulysses by lot, ibid. 980; having suffered the
loss of all her loved ones she is at last changed into a dog, Agam.
*705; rejoices for the first time after Hector's death on occasion of
wooden horse being taken into Troy, ibid. 648.
HELEN (Troades), daughter of Jupiter and Leda, sister of
Clytemnestra, wife of Menelaüs, reputed the most beautiful woman in
Greece; given by Venus to Paris as a reward for his judgment in her
favor, Oct. 773; fled from her husband for love of Paris, Agam.
123; afterward pardoned by Agamemnon and returned home with Menelaüs,
ibid. 273; sent by Greeks to deceive Polyxena and prepare her for
sacrifice on tomb of Achilles, Tro. 861; cursed by Andromache as
the common scourge of Greeks and Trojans, ibid. *892; bewails and
describes her own hard lot, ibid. 905; she is not to blame for the
woes of Troy, ibid. 917.
HELLE, sister of Phrixus, who fled with him on the golden-fleeced ram,
and fell off into the sea which thereafter bore her name (Hellespont),
Tro. 1034; Thy. 851. See PHRIXUS.
HERCĒAN JOVE, an epithet of Jupiter as the protector of the house; it
was at his altar in the courtyard of his own palace that Priam was
slain, Tro. 140; Agam. 448, 793.
HERCULES (Hercules Furens, Hercules Oetaeus), the son of Jupiter
and Alcmena, H. Fur. 20; H. Oet. 7 and passim; night unnaturally
prolonged at his conception, Agam. 814; H. Fur. 24, 1158; H. Oet.
147, 1500, 1697, 1864; in his infancy he strangled the two serpents
which Juno sent against him in his cradle, H. Fur. *214; H. Oet.
1205; by a trick of Juno who hastened the birth of Eurystheus, made
subject to Eurystheus who set him various labors, H. Oet. 403; H.
Fur. 78, 524, *830. These twelve labors are as follows: (1) The
killing of the Nemean lion, H. Fur. 46, 224; H. Oet. 16, 411,
1192, 1235, 1885; Agam. 829; (2) the destruction of the hydra of
Lerna, Agam. 835; Med. 701; H. Fur. 46, 241, 529, 780, 1195; H.
Oet. 19, 918, 1193, 1534, 1813; (3) the capture alive of the Arcadian
stag, famous for its fleetness and its golden antlers, H. Fur. 222;
H. Oet. 17, 1238; Agam. 831; (4) the capture of the wild boar of
Erymanthus, H. Fur. 228; H. Oet. 1536, 1888; Agam. 832; (5) the
cleansing of the Augean stables, H. Fur. 247; (6) the killing of
the Stymphalian birds, H. Fur. 244; H. Oet. 17, 1237, 1813, 1889;
Agam. 850; (7) the capture of the Cretan bull, H. Fur. 230; H.
Oet. 27; Agam. 834; (8) the obtaining of the mares of Diomedes which
fed on human flesh and the slaying of Diomedes himself, H. Fur. 226;
H. Oet. 20, 1538, 1814, 1894; Agam. 842; (9) the securing of the
girdle of Hippolyte, H. Fur. 245, 542; H. Oet. 21, 1183, 1450;
Agam. 848; (10) the killing of Geryon and the capture of his oxen,
H. Fur. 231, 487; H. Oet. 26, 1204, 1900; Agam. 837; (11) the
securing of the golden apples of the Hesperides, H. Fur. 239, 530;
H. Oet. 18; Phoen. 316; Agam. *852; (12) the descent to hades and
bringing to the upper world of the dog Cerberus, H. Fur. *46, **760;
H. Oet. 23, 1162, 1244; Agam. 859. Other heroic deeds done by
Hercules are as follows: he bore up the heavens upon his shoulders in
place of Atlas, H. Fur. *69, 528, 1101; H. Oet. 282, 1241, 1764,
1905; burst a passage for the river Peneus between Ossa and Olympus,
H. Fur. *283; rent Calpe and Abyla (the "Pillars of Hercules") apart
and made a passage for the Mediterranean Sea into the ocean, H. Fur.
237; H. Oet. 1240, 1253, 1569; fought with and overcame the Centaurs,
ibid. 1195; fought with Acheloüs for the possession of Deianira,
ibid. 299, 495; slew the centaur Nessus who was carrying off his
bride, ibid. *500, 921; overcame Eryx, the famous boxer, H. Fur.
481; slew Antaeus, H. Fur. 482, 1171; H. Oet. 24, 1899; killed
Busiris, H. Fur. 483; H. Oet. 26; Tro. 1106; slew Cycnus, son
of Mars, H. Fur. 485; killed Zetes and Calaïs, Med. 634; killed
Periclymenus, ibid. 635; wounded Pluto, who was going to the aid of
the Pylians, H. Fur. 560; wrecked off the African coast, he made
his way on foot to the shore, ibid. 319; assisted the gods in their
fight against the giants, ibid. 444; capured Troy with aid of Telamon
during the reign of Laomedon, Tro. 136, 719; his arrows said to be
twice fated for the destruction of Troy, ibid. 825; Agam. 863;
forced Charon to bear him across the Lethe (not Styx), H. Fur. *762;
H. Oet. 1556; rescued Theseus from hades, Hip. 843; H. Fur. 806;
H. Oet. 1197, 1768; overcame Eurytus, king of Oechalia, H. Fur.
477; H. Oet. 422. More or less extended recapitulations of the deeds
of Hercules are found in the following passages: Agam. 808-866; H.
Fur. 205-308, 481-487, 524-560; H. Oet. 1-98, 410-435, 1161-1206,
1218-1257, 1518-1606, 1810-1830, 1872-1939. The loves of Hercules
are as follows: Hesione, daughter of Laomedon, rescued from the
sea-monster, and made captive to Hercules with the first fall of Troy;
he afterward gave her to Telamon, H. Oet. 363; Auge, daughter of
Aleus, king of Tegea, ibid. 367; the Thespiades, the fifty daughters
of Thespius, ibid. 369; Omphale, queen of Lydia, to whom Hercules,
in expiation of an act of sacrilege, went into voluntary servitude
for three years, ibid. *371, 573; H. Fur. *465; Hip. 317; Iole,
daughter of Eurytus, king of Oechalia, whom Hercules destroyed because
Iole was denied to him, H. Oet. 100, 207, 221; H. Fur. 477. His
wives were (1) Megara daughter of Creon, king of Thebes; Hercules, in a
fit of madness, brought upon him by Juno's machinations, slew her and
his children by her, H. Fur. *987, *1010; H. Oet. 429, 903; when
his sanity returned, Theseus promised him cleansing for his crime by
Mars at Athens, H. Fur. 1341; elsewhere said to have been cleansed by
washing in the Cinyps, a river in Africa, H. Oet. 907; (2) Deianira,
daughter of Oeneus, king of Calydonia. See DEIANIRA and ACHELOÜS. The
favorite tree of Hercules was the poplar, H. Fur. 894, 912; H. Oet.
1641. Hercules himself was destined to come to a tragic end after a
life of great deeds, Med. 637; his death was in accordance with an
oracle which declared that he should die by the hand of one whom he
had slain, H. Oet. 1473; Deianira, ignorantly seeking to regain her
husband's love from Iole, sends him a robe anointed with the poisoned
blood of Nessus, ibid. 535; Lichas bears the robe to his master,
ibid. 569; Hercules was worshiping Cenaean Jove in Euboea when the
robe was brought to him, ibid. 775; his sufferings caused by the
terrible burning poison described, ibid. *749, 1218; hurls Lichas,
the innocent cause of his pains, over a cliff, ibid. 809; after dire
suffering, is borne by boat from Euboea to Mt. Oeta where he was to
perish, ibid. 839; he orders a funeral pyre to be built for him on
the top of the mountain, ibid. 1483; speculation upon his probable
place in heaven after death, ibid. 1565; his glorious and triumphant
death in the midst of the flames described, ibid. **1610, 1726; his
fated bow is presented by the dying hero to his friend Philoctetes,
ibid. 1648; his ashes are collected into an urn by his mother,
Alcmena, ibid. 1758; Medea was said to have in her magical store some
of the ashes of Oeta's pyre soaked with the dying (poisoned) blood
of Hercules, Med. 777; the voice of the hero is heard from heaven,
declaring that he has been deified, H. Oet. *1940; now received into
heaven as a god, in spite of Juno's opposition, he is given Hebe as his
wife, Oct. 210.
HERMIONE, daughter of Menelaüs and Helen; the Trojans pray that she may
suffer the same doom as Polyxena, Tro. 1134.
HESIONE, daughter of Laomedon, exposed to a sea-monster sent by Neptune
to punish the perfidy of Laomedon. She was rescued by Hercules and
captured by him when he with Telamon's aid took Troy, H. Oet. 363.
HESPERIDES, APPLES OF, golden apples on certain islands far in the
west, watched over by three nymphs, and guarded by a sleepless dragon;
it was the eleventh labor of Hercules to get these apples and take them
to Eurystheus, Agam. 852; Phoen. 316; H. Fur. 239, 530.
HESPERUS, the evening star, messenger of night, Med. 878; Hip. 750;
H. Fur. 883; impatiently awaited by lovers, Med. 72; as example
of perverted nature, Hesperus will bring in the day, Phoen. 87;
functions of evening and morning stars interchanged at the conception
of Hercules, H. Fur. 821; H. Oet. 149.
HIEROSCOPÏA (extispicium), a method of prophesying by inspecting the
viscera of a newly slain sacrificial victim practiced by Tiresias in
his effort to discover the murderer of Laius, Oed. *353.
HIPPODAMĪA, daughter of Oenomaüs, king of Pisa. See MYRTILUS.
HIPPOLYTE, a queen of the Amazons, possessed of the belt of Mars;
Eurystheus imposed upon Hercules as his ninth labor that he should
secure and bring this belt, or girdle, to him; this the hero
accomplished, Agam. 848; H. Fur. 245, 542; H. Oet. 21, 1183, 1450.
HIPPOLYTUS (Hippolytus), son of Theseus and Hippolyte, or, according
to others, of Theseus and Antiope; represented as devoted to the
hunt, and to Diana, the goddess of the hunt, Hip. 1; the object of
the guilty love of Phaedra, his father's wife, ibid. *99; he hates
and avoids all womankind, ibid. 230; his severe life as a recluse
described, ibid. 435; sings the praises of the simple life in the
woods and fields, and contrasts this with city life, ibid. *483; is
charged with a criminal attack upon Phaedra, ibid. 725; his death
caused by a monster sent by Neptune in response to the prayer of
Theseus, ibid. 1000; his innocence discovered, ibid. 1191.
HYADES, daughters of Atlas and sisters of the Pleiades; a constellation
seemingly borne on the horns of Taurus, Thy. 852; a storm-bringing
constellation, but not yet recognized as such in the golden age, Med.
311; disturbed by the magic power of Medea, ibid. 769.
HYDRA, a monster which infested the marsh of Lerna; it had eight heads,
and one besides which was immortal. When any one of the eight heads was
severed there sprang forth two in its stead. After a desperate struggle
with this creature, Hercules killed it as his second labor assigned by
Eurystheus, Agam. 835; Med. 701; H. Fur. 46, 241, 529, 780, 1195;
H. Oet. 19, 94, 851, 914, 918, 1193, 1534, 1650, 1813, 1927.
HYLAS, a beautiful youth, beloved by Hercules, who accompanied that
hero on the Argonautic expedition; while stopping on the coast of Mysia
for water, the boy was seized and kept by the water-nymphs of a stream
into which he had dipped his urn, Hip. 780, Med. *647.
HYLLUS (Hercules Oetaeus), son of Hercules and Deianira; describes
to his mother the terrible sufferings of Hercules after putting on the
poisoned robe, H. Oet. 742; called the grandson of Jove, ibid.
1421; Iole is consigned to him as his wife by the dying Hercules,
ibid. 1490.
HYMEN, the god of marriage, Tro. 861, 895; Med. *66, 110, 116, 300.
HYPERMNESTRA, one of the fifty daughters of Danaüs, who refused to
murder her husband at her father's command, H. Fur. 500; for this act
of mercy, she is not suffering among her sisters in hades, H. Oet.
948. See DANAÏDES.
I
ICARUS, the son of Daedalus, who, attempting to escape from Crete on
wings which his father had made, melted the wax of his wings by a
flight too near the sun, and so fell into the sea which took its name
from him, Agam. 506; Oed. *892; H. Oet. 686. See DAEDALUS.
IDMON, son of Apollo and Asteria, one of the Argonauts, with prophetic
power; he died from the stroke of a wild boar, not, as Seneca says,
from a serpent's bite, Med. 652.
INO, daughter of Cadmus, sister of Semele, wife of Athamas, king of
Thebes. Her husband, driven mad by Juno, because Ino had nursed the
infant Bacchus, attempted to slay her, but she escaped him by leaping
off a high cliff into the sea with her son Melicerta. They were both
changed into sea-divinities, Phoen. 22; Oed. 445. See PALAEMON.
IOLE (Hercules Oetaeus), daughter of Eurytus, king of Oechalia. She
was sought in marriage by Hercules, who destroyed her father and all
his house because she was refused to him, H. Oet. 221; in captivity
to Hercules, she mourns her fate, ibid. 173; sent as a captive to
Deianira, ibid. 224; her reception by Deianira described, ibid.
237; is consigned to Hyllus as wife, by the dying Hercules, ibid.
1490.
IPHIGENĪA, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra; taken from her
mother to be sacrificed at Aulis, on the pretext that she was to be
married to Achilles, Agam. 158; sacrificed to appease Diana to the
end that the Greek fleet might be allowed to sail from Aulis, ibid.
160; Tro. 249, 360; her sacrifice described, Agam. *164; rescued by
Diana at the last moment and taken to serve in the goddess' temple at
Tauris, Oct. 972.
IRIS, the messenger of Juno, and goddess of the rainbow, Oed. 315.
ITYS, son of Tereus, king of Thrace, and Procne, who, to punish her
husband for his outrage upon her sister, Philomela, slew the boy Itys
and served him as a banquet to his father. The sisters, changed to
birds, ever bewail Itys, H. Oet. 192; Agam. 670.
IXĪON, for his insult to Juno fixed to an ever-revolving wheel in
hades, Hip. 1236; Thy. 8; Agam. 15; Oct. 623; H. Fur. 750;
H. Oet. 945, 1011; his wheel stood still at the music of Orpheus,
ibid. 1068; Medea prays that he may leave his wheel and come to
Corinth, and that Creon may take his place upon the wheel, Med. 744.
See NEPHELE.
J
JASON (Medea), son of Aeson, king of Thessaly, and nephew of the
usurping king, Pelias. He was persuaded by Pelias to undertake the
adventure of the Golden Fleece, for which he organized and led the
Argonautic expedition. He was able to perform the hard tasks in Colchis
which King Aeëtes set, through the aid of Medea: the taming of the
fire-breathing bull, Med. 121, 241, 466; overcoming of the giants
sprung from the sown serpents' teeth, ibid. 467; putting to sleep
of the ever-watchful dragon, ibid. 471; he had had no part in the
murder of Pelias for which he and Medea were driven out of Thessaly,
ibid. 262; but this and all Medea's crimes had been done for his
sake, ibid. *275; living in exile in Corinth, he is forced by Creon
into a marriage with the king's daughter, Creüsa, ibid. 137; Medea
imprecates a dreadful curse upon him, ibid. 19; he laments the hard
dilemma in which he finds himself placed, ibid. 431; and at last
decides to yield to Creon's demands for the sake of his children,
ibid. 441.
JOCASTA (Oedipus, Phoenissae), wife of Laïus, king of Thebes, mother
and afterward wife of Oedipus; on learning that Oedipus is her son, she
kills herself in an agony of grief and shame, Oed. 1024. According
to another version of the story, she is still living after the events
leading to the voluntary exile of Oedipus; she bewails the fratricidal
strife between her two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, and knows not with
which she ought to side, Phoen. 377; rushing between the two hosts,
she pleads with her sons to be reconciled with each other, ibid. *443.
JUDGES IN HADES, Aeacus, Minos, and Rhadamanthus, weep for the first
time on hearing Orpheus' plaintive strains, H. Fur. 579; Theseus
describes at length their persons and their judgments, the moral law
under which the souls of men are judged, and the punishments and
rewards meted out after judgment, ibid. **727.
JULIA, daughter of Drusus and Livia Drusilla, exiled and afterward
slain, Oct. 944.
JUNO (Hercules Furens), speaks the prologue, revealing her motive
in bringing about the catastrophe of the play; she recounts in order
Jove's infidelities with mortals whose constellations she points out,
and relates especially her fruitless struggles with Hercules; she
cannot overcome him by any toil which she can invent, H. Fur. *1;
she looks forward with hatred and dread to the time when Hercules will
force his entrance into heaven, ibid. 64; she is cited to Octavia
by her nurse as a type of wife who, by wise management, finally won a
wayward husband's love to herself again, Oct. *201; hymn in praise
of, Agam. 340; Argos is dear to her, ibid. 809.
JUPITER, lord of Olympus, ruler of the skies and seasons, Hip. *960;
ruler of heaven and earth, to whom victors consecrate their spoils,
Agam. *802; his mother, Rhea, brought him forth in Crete and hid
him in a cave of Mount Ida, lest his father, Saturn, should discover
and destroy him, H. Fur. 459; hymn in praise of, Agam. 381; his
thunderbolts are forged in Aetna, Hip. 156; his amours with mortals
are as follows: with Leda to whom he appeared in the form of a swan,
Hip. 301; H. Fur. 14; with Europa, in form of a bull, Hip. 303;
H. Fur. 9; H. Oet. 550; with Danaë, in form of a golden shower,
H. Fur. 13; with Callisto, ibid. 6; the Pleiades (Electra, Maia,
Taÿgete), ibid. 10; Latona, ibid. 15; Semele, ibid. 16;
Alcmena, ibid. 22. For his ancient oracle in Epirus, see DODONA; see
also HERCEAN JOVE and CENAEUM.
JUSTICE (Justitia), the goddess Astraea, who once lived on earth
during the innocence of man in the golden age of Saturn, Oct. 398;
she fled the earth when sin became dominant, ibid. 424. See ASTRAEA.
L
LABDACIDAE, a name for the Thebans, derived from Labdacus, king of
Thebes, father of Laïus, Oed. 710; Phoen. 53; H. Fur. 495.
LACHESIS, one of the three fates, or Parcae, who measured out the
thread of human life, Oed. 985. The other two were Clotho and
Atropos. See CLOTHO.
LAËRTES, the father of Ulysses, dwelling in Ithaca, Tro. 700; "feels
the shock of reeling Ithaca" in a storm, Thy. 587.
LAÏUS, king of Thebes, husband of Jocasta, father of Oedipus, whom,
fearing an oracle, he had exposed in infancy; at the time of the
opening of the play of Oedipus, he had been murdered by an unknown
man, and his murder must be avenged before the plague afflicting Thebes
can be relieved, Oed. *217; place and supposed manner of his death
described to Oedipus by Creon, ibid. *276; time and circumstances of
his murder described by Jocasta, ibid. 776; his shade is raised by
Tiresias and declares that Oedipus is his murderer, ibid. *619; his
shade seems to appear to the blind Oedipus in exile and call him to
death, Phoen. 39.
LAOMEDON, king of Troy, father of Priam; he deceived Apollo and
Neptune, who built the walls of Troy, and again cheated Hercules out of
his promised reward for delivering Hesione; hence his house is called a
"lying house," Agam. 864.
LAPITHAE, a tribe of Thessaly, associated in story with the Centaurs,
and both with a great struggle against Hercules in which they were
worsted by that hero; in hades they still fear their great enemy when
he appears, H. Fur. 779.
LATŌNA, beloved of Jupiter, to whom she bore Apollo and Diana; hence
these gods are called the children of Latona, Agam. 324; the floating
island, Delos, was the only spot allowed her by the jealous Juno for
the birth of her children, H. Fur. 15.
LEDA, the wife of Tyndarus, king of Sparta; she was beloved by Jupiter
in the form of a swan, Oct. 205, 764; and became by him the mother of
Castor and Pollux, who were falsely called Tyndaridae, and set in the
heavens as constellations, H. Fur. 14; Oct. 208; Clytemnestra was
the daughter of Leda and Tyndarus, Agam. 125, 234.
LEMNOS, an island in the Aegean Sea, the seat of fierce fires, as
connected with the fall of Vulcan on that island where he established
his forges, H. Oet. 1362; according to story all the Lemnian women at
one time, except Hypsipyle, murdered all their male relatives, Agam.
566.
LEO, the zodiacal constellation of the Lion, representing the Nemean
lion slain by Hercules, and set as a constellation in the sky, H.
Fur. 69, 945; Thy. 855; said to have fallen from the moon, where,
according to the opinion of the Pythagoreans, all monsters had their
origin, H. Fur. 83.
LETHE, a river of the lower world whose waters possessed the power of
causing those who drank of them to forget the past, H. Oet. 936; H.
Fur. 680; Hip. 1202; elsewhere it loses its distinctive meaning and
is used as equivalent to Styx or the lower world in general, ibid.
147; Oed. 560; H. Oet. 1162, 1208, 1550, 1985; Charon even plies
his boat over this river, H. Fur. 777.
LIBRA, the zodiacal constellation of the Scales, marking the autumnal
equinox, Hip. 839; Thy. 858.
LICHAS, the ill-fated bearer of the poisoned robe from Deianira to
Hercules, thrown over a cliff by the agonized hero, H. Oet. 567, 570,
809, 814, 978, 1460; he had previously been sent home by Hercules to
announce the hero's triumph over Eurytus, ibid. 99.
LIVIA, the wife of Drusus; her fate, Oct. 942.
LUCIFER, the morning star, or "light-bringer," the herald of the sun,
Hip. 752; Oed. 507, 741; H. Oet. 149.
LUCĪNA, the goddess who presides over child-birth, i. e., Diana or
Luna, Agam. 385; Med. 2; or Juno, ibid. 61.
LUCRETIA, daughter of Lucretius, wife of Collatinus, avenged by a
bloody war for the outrage committed upon her by Sextus Tarquinius,
Oct. 300.
LUNA, the goddess of the moon, identified with Diana upon the earth,
called also Phoebe as sister of Phoebus, Oed. 44; she reflects her
brother's fires, ibid. 253; and passes his car in shorter course,
Thy. 838; in love with Endymion, she seeks the earth, Hip. 309,
422, 785; and gives her chariot to her brother to drive, ibid. 310;
saved by the clashing of vessels from the influence of magic, ibid.
790.
LYCURGUS, a king of Thrace, who, for his opposition to Bacchus, was
destroyed by that god, H. Fur. 903; Oed. 471.
LYCUS (Hercules Furens), a usurper, who took advantage of the absence
of Hercules in hades, and slew Creon and his sons, and is, at the
opening of the play, ruler in Thebes, H. Fur. 270; he boasts that,
though low born, he has by conquest gained great power and wealth,
ibid. 332; he desires to repair his fault of birth by a union with
Megara, wife of the absent Hercules, and daughter of Creon, ibid.
345; proposes marriage to Megara, ibid. 360; is scorned by her,
ibid. 372; is slain by Hercules, ibid. 895.
LYNCEUS, one of the Argonautic heroes, renowned for his wonderful
keenness of vision, Med. 232.
M
MAEANDER, a river of Phrygia, celebrated for its exceedingly winding
course, Phoen. 606; used to illustrate the windings of the river
Lethe, H. Fur. 684.
MAENADS, female attendants and worshippers of Bacchus, Oed. 436;
their bewildered madness while under the inspiration of Bacchus, H.
Oet. 243; their unconsciousness of pain, Tro. 674; they go wildly
ranging over the mountain tops, Med. 383.
MAGIC ARTS, the powers of, as practiced by Medea, Med. 670-842; by
Tiresias, Oed. 548-625; by the nurse of Deianira, H. Oet. 452-64.
MANTO (Oedipus), the prophetic daughter of the seer Tiresias, Agam.
22; she leads her blind old father into the presence of Oedipus, Oed.
290; describes the appearance of the sacrifices which he interprets,
ibid. 303.
MARS, the son of Jupiter and Juno, god of war, Tro. 185, 783, 1058;
Phoen. 527, 626, 630; Med. 62; Hip. 465, 808; Oct. 293; Agam.
548; called also Mavors, Hip. 550; Thy. 557; Oed. 90; used of war
or battle itself, ibid. 275, 646; Agam. 921; the amour of Mars and
Venus was discovered by Phoebus, and by him with the aid of Vulcan they
two were caught in a cunningly wrought net; for this reason Venus hates
the race of Phoebus, Hip. 125; Mars, summoned to judgment by Neptune
for the murder of his son, was tried and acquitted by the twelve
gods sitting in judgment at Athens in the Areopagus (Mars Hill), _H.
Fur._1342; Mars is here called Gradivus.
MEDĒA (Medea), daughter of Aeëtes, king of Colchis, and granddaughter
of Sol and Perseïs, Med. 28, 210; the grandeur of her estate in her
father's kingdom, ibid. *209, 483; mistress of magic arts, ibid.
*750; by means of these arts she helped Jason perform the deadly tasks
set him by her father, ibid. 169, 467, 471; helped Jason carry off
the golden fleece upon the possession of which her father's kingdom
depended, ibid. 130; left her father's realm through crime for love
of Jason, ibid. 119; slew her brother, Absyrtus, and strewed his
dismembered body upon the sea to retard her father's pursuit, ibid.
121; H. Oet. 950; tricked the daughters of Pelias into murdering
their father, Med. 133, 201, *258; driven out of Thessaly and pursued
by Acastus, she with Jason sought and received a place of safety in
Corinth, ibid. 247, 257; did all her crimes not for her own but for
Jason's sake, ibid. 275; exiled now by Creon, she obtains one day of
respite, ibid. 295; prepares a deadly, enchanted robe for her rival,
Creüsa, ibid. 570; her magic incantations described, ibid. *675;
sends the robe to Creüsa, ibid. 816; and rejoices in its terrible
effect, ibid. 893; kills her two sons, ibid. 970, 1019; gloats over
her husband's misery and vanishes in the air in a chariot drawn by
dragons, ibid. 1025; goes to Athens and marries Aegeus; is a type of
an evil woman, Hip. 563; the stepmother of Theseus, ibid. 697.
MEDŪSA, one of the three Gorgons, slain by Perseus. He cut off her head
which had the power of petrifying whatever looked upon it, and gave it
to Minerva who set it upon her aegis, Agam. 530; her gall used by
Medea in magic, Med. 831.
MEGAERA, one of the furies, summoned by Juno to drive Hercules to
madness, H. Fur. 102; appears to the maddened Medea with scourge of
serpents, Med. 960; seems to appear to the distracted Deianira, H.
Oet. 1006, 1014; summoned by Atreus to assist him in his revenge upon
his brother, Thy. 252. See FURIES.
MEGARA (Hercules Furens), the daughter of Creon, king of Thebes,
and wife of Hercules, H. Fur. 202; laments the constant toils which
hold her husband from his home, and keep her anxious for his life,
ibid. *205; scorns the advances of Lycus who has usurped the throne
of Thebes, ibid. *372; slain by her husband in his fit of madness
brought upon him by the jealous Juno, ibid. 1010; H. Oet. 429,
*903, 1452.
MELEĀGER, son of Oeneus, king of Calydon, and Althaea; his tragic
death brought upon him by his mother's wrath because he had killed her
brothers, Med. 644, 779. See ALTHAEA.
MELICERTA, see INO.
MEMNON, the son of Aurora, slain by Achilles, Tro. 239; Agam. 212.
MENELĀUS, son of Atreus, brother of Agamemnon, husband of Helen, king
of Sparta, employed by his father to trick his uncle, Thyestes, Thy.
327; Helen looks forward with fear to his judgment, Tro. 923; he
pardoned Helen for her desertion of him for Paris, Agam. 273.
MEROPE, the wife of Polybus, king of Corinth; she adopted the infant
Oedipus and brought him up to manhood as her own child, Oed. 272,
661, 802.
MESSALĪNA, the wife of Claudius, and mother of Octavia, Oct. 10;
cursed by Venus with insatiate lust, ibid. 258; openly married Silius
in the absence of Claudius, ibid. *260; slain for this by the order
of her husband, ibid. 265; her former proud estate, as the wife of
Claudius, contrasted with her wretched fate; her death described,
ibid. *974.
MIMAS, one of the giants, H. Fur. 981. See GIANTS.
MINOS, a son of Jupiter, king of Crete; father of Phaedra, Hip. 149;
father of Ariadne, ibid. 245; widely ruling and powerful monarch,
ibid. 149; no daughter of Minos loved without sin, ibid. 127;
because of his righteousness on earth made one of the judges in hades,
Agam. 24; Thy. 23; H. Fur. 733. See JUDGES IN HADES.
MINOTAUR, a hybrid monster, born of the union of Pasiphaë, the wife of
Minos, and a bull; called brother of Phaedra, Hip. 174; confined in
the labyrinth in Crete, ibid. 649, 1171.
MOPSUS, a Thesalian soothsayer, one of the Argonauts, who died by the
bite of a serpent in Libya, Med. 655.
MULCIBER, one of the names of Vulcan. He gave to Medea the hidden fires
of sulphur for her magic, Med. 824.
MYCALE, a celebrated witch of Thessaly, H. Oet. 525.
MYCËNAE, a city of Argolis, near Argos; its walls were built by the
hands of the Cyclopes, Thy. 407; H. Fur. 997; ruled by the house of
Pelops, Thy. 188, 561, 1011; Tro. 855; the favorite city of Juno,
Agam. 351; the home of Agamemnon, ibid. 121, 251, 757, 871, 967,
998; Tro. 156, 245.
MYRRHA, a daughter of Cinyras, who conceived an unnatural passion for
her father. Pursued by him, she was changed into the myrrh tree, whose
exuding gum resembles tears, H. Oet. 196.
MYRTILUS, a son of Mercury, charioteer of Oenomaüs. Bribed by Pelops,
suitor for the hand of Hippodamia, daughter of Oenomaüs, he secretly
withdrew the linch-pins of his master's chariot, thus wrecking his
master's car in the race which was to decide the success of Pelop's
suit. His sin and fate described, Thy. 140; the wrecked chariot
preserved as a trophy in the palace of the Pelopidae, ibid. 660.
N
NAÏDES, deities, generally conceived as young and beautiful maidens,
inhabiting brooks and springs. _Hip._780. See HYLAS.
NAUPLIUS, a son of Neptune and king of Euboea; to avenge the death
of his son, Palamedes, he lured the Greek fleet to destruction by
displaying false beacon fires off the rocky coast of Euboea, Agam.
*567; when, however, Ulysses, whom he hated most, escaped, he threw
himself headlong from the cliff, Med. 659. See PALAMEDES.
NECROMANTĪA, necromancy, a raising of the dead for purposes of
consultation; practiced by Tiresias, in his effort to discover the
murderer of Laïus, Oed. **530.
NEMEAN LION, the beast slain by Hercules near Nemea, a city of Argolis,
as the first of his twelve labors, Agam. 830; H. Fur. 224: H. Oet.
1193, 1235, 1665, 1885; set in the heavens as a zodiacal constellation,
Oed. 40. See LEO.
NEPHELE, the cloud form of Juno, devised by Jupiter, upon which Ixion
begot the centaur, Nessus, in the belief that it was Juno herself, H.
Oet. 492.
NEPTUNE, son of Saturn, brother of Jupiter and Pluto, with whom, after
the dethronement of Saturn, he cast lots for the three great divisions
of his father's realm: the second lot, giving him the sovereignty over
the sea, fell to Neptune, Med. 4, 597; H. Fur. 515, 599; Oed.
266; Hip. 904, 1159; rides over the surface of the deep in his car,
Oed. 254; sends a monster out of the sea to destroy Hippolytus in
answer to the prayer of Theseus, Hip. 1015; assists Minerva in the
destruction of Ajax, the son of Oïleus, in the great storm which
assailed the Greek fleet upon its homeward voyage, Agam. 554; bidden
by Hercules to hide beneath his waves lest he behold Cerberus, H.
Fur. 600; is the father of Theseus, to whom he gave three wishes,
ibid. 942; other sons were Cycnus, Agam. 215; Tro. 183; and
Periclymenus, Med. 635.
NEREUS, a sea-deity, used often, by metonymy, for the sea itself,
Oed. 450, 508; H. Oet. 4; Hip. 88; he is the father by Doris of
Thetis and the other Nereïds, Tro. 882; Oed. 446; even they feel
the fires of love, Hip. 336.
NERO (Octavia), the son of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina,
Oct. 249; married his stepsister, Octavia, whom he treated with great
cruelty; his character depicted by her, ibid. 86; emperor from A.D.
54 until his death in 68; murdered his mother, ibid. 46, 95, 243;
lauds the beauty of Poppaea and announces her as his next wife, ibid.
544; his death prophesied and described by the ghost of Agrippina,
ibid. **618; decrees the banishment and death of Octavia, ibid. 861.
NESSUS, a centaur, son of Ixion and Nephele, H. Oet. 492; insults
Deianira, is slain by Hercules, and while dying gives a portion of his
blood, reeking with the poison of the arrow of Hercules, to Deianira as
a charm which shall recall to her her husband's wandering affections,
ibid. *500; some of this blood is in Medea's collection of charms,
Med. 775; the terrible power of this poisoned blood tested by
Deianira after she has innocently sent the fatal robe to her husband,
H. Oet. 716; Nessus declared to have been the one who conceived the
plot against Hercules, while Deianira was but the innocent instrument,
ibid. 1468.
NIOBE, daughter of Tantalus, wife of Amphion, king of Thebes; punished
by the loss of her seven sons and seven daughters by Diana for her
defiance of Latona, the mother of the goddess, Agam. 392; changed
to stone, she still sits on the top of Mt. Sipylus and mourns for her
lost children, Agam. 394; H. Fur. 390; H. Oet. 185, 1849; her shade
comes up from hades, still proudly counting her children's shades,
Oed. 613.
NYCTELIUS, an epithet of Bacchus, because his mysteries were celebrated
at night, Oed. 492.
O
OCTAVIA (Octavia), the daughter of the Emperor Claudius and
Messalina, the latter having been murdered by order of Claudius
himself, Oct. 10; and the former by his second wife, Agrippina,
ibid. 26, 45; she became first the stepsister and then the wife of
Nero, ibid. 47; with whom she led a most wretched life, ibid. *100;
she had previously been betrothed to Silanus, ibid. 145; but he was
murdered to make way for Nero, ibid. 154; She was beloved by her
people, ibid. 183; is compared with Juno in that she is both sister
and wife of her husband, ibid. 282; doomed by Nero to exile and
death, ibid. 868; banished to Panditaria, ibid. 971.
ODRYSIAN HOUSE, that is, of the Thracian king, Tereus, whose house was
polluted by a horrible banquet in which his own son was served up to
him, Thy. 273.
OEDIPUS (Oedipus, Phoenissae), the son of Jocasta and of Laïus,
king of Thebes. An oracle had declared that Laïus should meet death
at the hands of his son. Oedipus was accordingly doomed before birth
to be slain, Oed. 34, 235; Phoen. 243; at birth he was exposed upon
Mt. Cithaeron, ibid. 13, *27, with an iron rod through his ankles,
ibid. 254; Oed. 857; carried by a shepherd and given to Merope,
wife of the king of Corinth, by whom he was brought up as her own
son, ibid. 806; grown to young manhood, he fled the kingdom of his
supposed parents that he might not fulfil an oracle that had come to
him, that he should kill his father and wed his mother, ibid. 12,
263; in the course of his flight he met and killed Laïus, his real
father, Phoen. 166, 260; Oed. 768, 782; he answered the riddle of
the Sphinx, and so saved Thebes from that pest, Phoen. 120; Oed.
*92, 216; as a reward for this he gained the throne of Thebes, and
Jocasta (his real mother) as his wife, Oed. 104; Phoen. 50, 262;
Oed. 386; H. Fur. 388; attempts to find out the murderer of King
Laïus, and utters a mighty curse upon the unknown criminal, ibid.
*257; declared by the ghost of Laïus, which Tiresias had raised, to
be his father's murderer and his mother's husband, ibid. *634; he
refutes this charge by the assertion that his father and mother are
still living in Corinth, ibid. 661; learns by messenger that Polybus
and Merope are not his true parents, ibid. 784; rushes on his fate
and forces old Phorbas to reveal the secret of his birth, ibid. *848;
in a frenzy of grief, he digs out his eyes, ibid. 915; goes forth
into exile, thus lifting the curse from Thebes, ibid. 1042; Phoen.
104; he begs Antigone, who alone had followed him into exile, to leave
him, bewailing his fate and longing for death, ibid. 1.
OGYGES, a mythical founder and king of Thebes; hence--
OGYGIAN, i. e., Theban, an epithet of Bacchus, whose mother was a
Theban princess, Oed. 437; an epithet of the Thebans, ibid. 589.
OĪLEUS, used instead of his son, Ajax, Med. 662. See AJAX.
OLENUS, a city in Aetolia, Tro. 826; Oed. 283; hence--
OELENIAN GOAT, so called because it was nurtured in the vicinity of
this place. See AMALTHEA.
OMPHALE, a queen of Lydia, to whose service Hercules submitted for
three years, H. Oet. *371, 573; H. Fur. 465; Hip. 317. See
HERCULES.
OPHĪON, one of the companions of Cadmus, sprung from the serpent's
teeth; in adjectival form, it means simply Theban, H. Fur. 268;
referring to Pentheus, Oed. 485.
OPHIÜCHUS, the northern constellation of the "Serpent Holder,"
representing a man holding a serpent, Med. 698.
Orestes (Agamemnon), son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, Agam. 196;
Tro. 555; saved by his sister, through the agency of Strophius, king
of Phocis, from death at the hands of his mother and Aegisthus, Agam.
910; avenged his father's murder, Oct. 62.
ORĪON, said to have been miraculously generated by Jupiter, Neptune,
and Mercury, out of an ox's hide; set as a constellation in the
heavens, where his glittering sword menaces the heavenly ones, H.
Fur. 12.
ORPHEUS, the son of Apollo and the muse Calliope, Med. 625; king of
Thrace; one of the Argonauts; a sweet singer and harper, whose music
could draw to him the rocks and trees, ibid. 228; H. Oet. *1036;
dropped his lyre in fear of the Symplegades, Med. 348; played so
sweetly that the Argonauts were not enchanted by the Sirens, ibid.
*355; went to hades in search of his wife, Eurydice, and by the charm
of his music persuaded the gods of the lower world to release her; but
he lost her again, because he did not keep the condition imposed upon
him, H. Fur. **569; H. Oet. *1061; Med. 632; he sang that nothing
is everlasting, H. Oet. 1035, 1100; his tragic death at the hands of
the Thracian women, Med. *625.
P
PACTŌLUS, a river of Lydia, celebrated for its golden sands, Phoen.
604; Oed. 467.
PAEAN, an appellation given to Apollo, who gained the oracle at Delphi
and earned a place in heaven by slaying the Python, H. Oet. 92.
PALAEMON, once a mortal, called Melicerta, son of Athamas and Ino, but
changed by Neptune into a sea divinity, Oed. 448. SEE INO.
PALAMËDES, son of Nauplius, king of Euboea; he was put to death by the
Greeks on false charges brought by Ulysses, and was avenged by his
father, who displayed false lights to the Greek fleet, Agam. 568.
PALLAS, an appellation given to the goddess Minerva. She was the friend
and helper of Hercules in his various labors, H. Fur. 900; the
bearer of the terrible aegis upon which was set the horrible Medusa's
head, ibid. 902; Agam. 530; the patroness of woman's handicrafts,
Hip. 103; the patron goddess of the Athenians, ibid. 1149; helps
to overthrow Troy, Agam. 370; stirs up the storm at sea against the
Greek ships, ibid. 529; wields the thunderbolts of Jove, with which
she destroys Ajax, the son of Oïleus, ibid. *532; hymn in praise of,
ibid. 368-81; helped in the building of the Argo, Med. 2, 365.
PANDATARIA, a lonely island off the coast of Italy, used as a place of
exile under the Empire, Oct. 972.
PANDĪON, a mythical king of Athens, father of Procne and Philomela,
both of whom were changed to birds. These "Pandionian birds" are cited
as types of grief-stricken beings, Oct. 8.
PARCAE, the three personified fates ("harsh sisters"), who spin out the
threads of human life, H. Fur. 181; represented with the distaff in
hand, ibid. 559. SEE CLOTHO and LACHESIS.
PARIS, son of Priam and Hecuba. He was doomed before birth to destroy
his native land, Tro. 36; exposed to die on Mount Ida, but preserved
by shepherds and brought up in ignorance of his true parentage,
Agam. 733; the famous "judgment of Paris," Tro. 66; from Helen's
standpoint, ibid. 920; Cassandra, in her inspired ravings, describes
this scene, Agam. *730; goes to the court of Menelaüs and abducts
Helen, Tro. 70; slays Achilles, ibid. 347, 956.
PARRHASIAN (i. e., Arcadian) hind, captured by Hercules as his third
labor, Agam. 831; bear, Hip. 288; axis (i. e., Northern), H. Oet.
1281.
PASIPHAË, a daughter of the Sun and Perseïs, and wife of Minos, king
of Crete; conceived an unnatural passion for a bull, Hip. 113, 143;
mother of the bull-man monster, the Minotaur, ibid. *688.
PATRŌCLUS, one of the Grecian chiefs before Troy, beloved friend of
Achilles; he fought in disguise in Achilles' armor, Agam. 617; was
slain by Hector, Tro. 446.
PEGASUS, a winged horse, offspring of Neptune and Medusa; used to
illustrate extreme speed, Tro. 385.
PELEUS, son of Aeacus, and king of Thessaly; married the sea-goddess,
Thetis, Oct. 708; Med. 657; father of Achilles, Tro. 247, 882;
Agam. 616; one of the Argonauts, died in exile, Med. 657.
PELIAS, the usurping king of Iolchos in Thessaly, whence he drove the
rightful king, Aeson, the father of Jason. It was he who proposed the
Argonautic expedition, and for this he was doomed to suffer a violent
death, Med. 664; tricked by Medea, his daughters slew him, cut him in
pieces, and boiled these in a pot in the expectation that through the
magic of Medea Pelias would come forth rejuvenated, Med. 133, 201,
258, 475. 913.
PELION, a range of mountains in Thessaly whose principal summit rises
near Iolchos; the giants piled Pelion, Ossa, and Olympus, one on
another, in their attempt to scale the heavens, H. Fur. 971; Tro.
829; Agam. *346; Thy. 812; H. Oet. 1152; the home of the Centaur,
Chiron, who educated the young Achilles, H. Fur. 971; Tro. *830;
furnished the timbers for the Argo, Med. 609.
PELOPĪA, a daughter of Thyestes, who became by him the mother of
Aegisthus, Agam. 30, 294.
PELOPS, the son of Tantalus; he was slain by his father and served as
a banquet to the gods, Thy. *144; restored by the gods to life,
and Tantalus punished (see TANTALUS); Tantalus and Pelops models for
outrageous sin, ibid. 242; his house doomed to sin, ibid. 22;
degenerate and shameful, ibid. 625; supposed to have been the settler
of the Peloponnesus (whence the name of the land), having come from
Phrygia, H. Fur. 1165; Tro. 855; Agam. 563; his palace described
at length, Thy. *641.
PELŌRUS, a promontory in Sicily opposite the coast of Italy; Sicilian
Pelorus shall be one land with Italy--stated as type of the last
extreme of improbability, H. Oet. 81; the sea-monster Scylla was
supposed to dwell under this promontory, Med. 350.
PENTHESILĒA, a celebrated queen of the Amazons, who came to the aid of
Priam; she was armed with battle-axe and moon-shaped shield, Agam.
217; her fierce struggles in battle described, Tro. 672; slain by
Achilles, ibid. 243.
PENTHEUS, a king of Thebes, son of Echion and Agave; he opposed the
introduction of the worship of Bacchus into his kingdom; while spying
on his mother and her sisters who were engaged in the worship of
Bacchus on Mt. Cithaeron, he was torn in pieces by them whom Bacchus
had driven to madness, Phoen. 15, 363; Oed. 441, 483; his shade
comes up from hades, torn and bleeding still, ibid. 618.
PERICLYMENUS, a son of Neptune, who had power of changing into various
forms; he was one of the Argonauts, and was slain by Hercules, Med.
635.
PERSEUS, son of Danaë whom Jove approached in the form of a golden
shower, H. Fur. 13; earned a place in heaven by slaying the Gorgon,
H. Oet. 51, 94.
PHAEDRA (Hippolytus or Phaedra), daughter of Minos, king of Crete,
and Pasiphaë, daughter of the Sun, Hip. 155, 156, 678, 688, 888; the
Minotaur is her brother, ibid. 174; Ariadne was her sister, ibid.
760, 245; bewails her exile from Crete, and her marriage to a foreign
and a hostile prince (Theseus), ibid. 85; confesses to her nurse that
she is swayed by an unnatural passion, ibid. 113; confesses her love
to Hippolytus, ibid. 640; is scorned by him, ibid. *671; confesses
her sin to her husband and slays herself, ibid. 1159.
PHAËTHON, son of Clymene and Phoebus; desiring to prove his sonship to
Phoebus, he claimed the privilege of driving his father's chariot for
one day; he was hurled from the car by the runaway steeds, Hip. 1090;
and smitten to death by a thunderbolt of Jove, H. Oet. 854; he is a
warning against over-ambition and impious daring, ibid. 677; Med.
599; gave a magic fire to Medea, ibid. 826.
PHAËTHONTIADES, the sisters of Phaëthon, who immoderately wept for his
death where his charred body fell on the banks of the Po, and were
changed into poplar trees, H. Oet. 188.
PHASIS, a river of Colchis, the country of Medea, Med. 44, 211, 451,
762; Hip. 907; Agam. 120; Medea named from the river, H. Oet. 950.
PHERAE, a city in Thessaly, ruled over by Admetus, husband of Alcestis,
who died herself that so she might redeem him from death, Med. 663;
it was here that Apollo, being doomed to serve a mortal for a year,
kept the flocks of Admetus, H. Fur. 451.
PHILOCTĒTES (Hercules Oetaeus), a Thessalian prince, son of Poeas,
and a friend of Hercules; he appears upon the scene of the death
of Hercules, H. Oet. 1604; receives the famous bow and arrows of
Hercules, ibid. 1648; applies the torch to the pyre of his friend,
ibid. 1727; describes in detail to the nurse the death of Hercules,
ibid. *1610.
PHILIPPI, a city of Thrace, celebrated by the victory gained there by
Antony and Octavianus over the forces of Brutus and Cassius, Oct. 516.
PHILOMĒLA, a daughter of Pandion, king of Athens, and sister of Procne,
who had married Tereus, king of Thrace; she suffered outrage at his
hands, and, with her sister, punished him by slaying his son Itys and
serving him to the father; she was changed into a nightingale, and ever
mourns for Itys, Agam. 670; H. Oet. 199; described, except for her
name (Thracia pellex), purely as a nightingale singing at sunrise and
hovering over her young, H. Fur. 146.
PHINEUS, king of Salmydessus on the coast of Thrace; blind and
tormented by the Harpies, Thy. 154; still in hades, as on earth,
tormented, H. Fur. 759.
PHLEGETHON, a river in the lower world, flowing with streams as of
fire, Oed. 162; Thy. 73, 1018; it encircles the guilty with its
fiery streams, Hip. 1227; mentioned instead of the Styx, as the
river over which Charon rows his boat, Agam. 753; connotes hades in
general, Hip. 848.
PHLEGRA, a vale in Thrace where the giants fought with the gods, Thy.
810; Hercules assisted the gods in this struggle, H. Fur. 444.
PHOEBUS, one of the names of Apollo as the "shining one." Under this
name he is most frequently conceived of as the sun-god, driving his
fiery chariot across the sky, seeing all things, darkening his face
or withdrawing from the sky at sight of monstrous sin, lord of the
changing seasons, etc., H. Fur. 595, 607, 844, 940; Phoen. 87;
Med. 728, 874; Hip. 889; Oed. 250; Agam. 42, 816; Thy. 776,
789, 838; H. Oet. 2, 680, 792, 1387, 1439, 1442; his sister is Luna,
or Phoebe, H. Fur. 905; Med. 86; Hip. 311; Oed. 44; the name,
Phoebus, is frequently used merely of the sun, its bright light, its
burning heat, etc., without personification, H. Fur. 25, 940; Tro.
1140; Med. 298, 768; Oed. 122, 540, 545; Agam. 463, 577; Thy.
602; H. Oet. 41, 337, 666, 688, 727, 1022, 1581, 1624, 1699; he is
more intimately concerned in the affairs of men, and appears on earth;
he is the grandfather of Medea, Med. 512; the father of Pasiphaë,
Hip. 126, 154, 654, 889; the lover and inspirer of Cassandra, Tro.
978; Agam. 255, 722; he is god of prophesy, giving oracles to
mortals, Med. 86; Oed. 20, 34, 214, 222, 225, 231, 235, 269, 288,
291, 296, 719, 1046; Agam. 255, 294, 295; he is god of the lyre, H.
Fur. 906; Oed. 498; Agam. 327; and of the bow, H. Fur. 454;
Hip. 192; Agam. 327, 549; his tree is the laurel, Oed. 228, 453;
Agam. 588; Cilla is dear to him, Tro. 227; he is the beautiful
god of the flowing locks, Hip. 800; worshiped under the name of
Smintheus, Agam. 176; hymn in praise of, ibid. 310; slew the Python
with his arrows, H. Fur. 454; exposed the shame of Venus and for this
cause Venus' wrath is upon his descendants, Hip. 126; he kept the
flocks of Admetus, king of Pherae, for a year, ibid. 296.
PHORBAS (Oedipus), an old man, head shepherd of the royal flocks,
forced by Oedipus to tell the secret of the king's birth, Oed. 867.
PHRIXUS, son of Athamas and Nephele, and brother of Helle; persecuted
by his stepmother, Ino, he fled away through the air with his sister
upon a golden-fleeced ram obtained from Mercury, Tro. 1034; on the
way Helle fell into the sea, called Hellespont from this incident, H.
Oet. 776; for this same reason the Aegean Sea is called Phrixian Sea,
Agam. 565; Phrixus fared on alone to Colchis, where he sacrificed the
ram and presented the golden fleece to Aeëtes; the golden fleece was
the object of the quest of the Argonauts, Med. 361, 471.
PIRITHOÜS, a son of Ixion, Hip. 1235; a close friendship existed
between him and Theseus, and they shared all their adventures; when
Pirithoüs formed the mad project of stealing Proserpina from hades,
Theseus accompanied him thither, ibid. 94, 244, 831.
PISA, an ancient city of Elis where the Olympic games, sacred to Jove,
were held, H. Fur. 840; Thy. 123; Agam. 938.
PISCES, the zodiacal constellation of the Fish, Thy. 866.
PLEÏADES, called also Atlantides, the seven daughters of Atlas and
Pleione, three of whom, Electra, Maia, and Taÿgete, were beloved of
Jove, H. Fur. 10; spoken of as a constellation which pales before the
moon, Med. 96.
PLISTHENES, a son of Thyestes, slain by Atreus, Thy. 726.
PLUTO, brother of Jupiter and Neptune, and lord of the under world of
shades, H. Fur. 560, 658; Oed. 256, 869; Med. 11; Hip. 625,
1240; H. Oet. 559, 935, 938, 1142, 1369, 1954; he is called the "grim
Jove," H. Fur. 608, and the "dark Jove," H. Oet. 1705; he obtained
his kingdom by drawing lots with his two brothers, H. Fur. 833; his
wife is Proserpina, ibid. 658; Theseus and Pirithoüs try to steal his
wife, Hip. 95; they are punished by being placed upon an enchanted
rock, ibid. 625; he is prevailed upon by Hercules to give up Cerberus
to be led to the upper world, H. Fur. 805; H. Oet. 559; at the same
time he gives up Theseus to Hercules, H. Fur. 805; Hip. 1152; he
is the uncle of Hercules, H. Oet. 328; and of Pallas, Hip. 1152;
unmoved by tears, H. Fur. 578; conquered by the music of Orpheus,
ibid. 582; his court and appearance described, ibid. *721.
POLLUX, see CASTOR.
POLYBUS, king of Corinth, who adopted and reared the exposed infant,
Oedipus, Oed. 12, 270; his peaceful death announced by messenger to
Oedipus, ibid. 784.
POLYNĪCES (Phoenissae), son of Oedipus and Jocasta; wronged by his
brother Eteocles in the matter of the kingdom of Thebes, he fled
to Adrastus, king of Argos, who gave him refuge and made him his
son-in-law. To avenge Polynices, Adrastus marched against Thebes
with an army headed by seven famous chiefs of Greece, Phoen. 58,
320; Oedipus prophesies this fraternal strife and predicts that the
brothers will slay each other, ibid. 273, 334, 355; remains in exile
at the court of Adrastus three years before returning against Thebes
to enforce his rights, ibid. 370, *502; the hardships of his exile
described, ibid. *586; appears before the walls of Thebes at the head
of an army, ibid. 387; the battle pauses while Jocasta appeals to her
sons, ibid. 434. See ETEOCLES.
POLYXENA, a daughter of Priam and Hecuba, one of the captive Trojan
women; the ghost of Achilles, who in life had been enamored of her,
and with whom both Priam and Hector had had negotiations touching the
maiden, appears to the Greeks and demands that she be now sacrificed on
the tomb of Achilles, Tro. 170; Calchas ratifies her doom, ibid.
360; Helen announces this fate to her, and she receives it with joy,
ibid. 945; her death described in detail by a messenger, ibid.
*1117; she is described as gaily leading the Trojan maidens in a dance
about the wooden horse, unconscious of the doom so soon to come to her,
Agam. 641.
POPPAEA (Octavia), one of the most beautiful and unscrupulous women
of her time; she was first married to Rufus Crispinus, a prefect of
pretorian cohorts under Claudius; she abandoned him for Otho, and him,
in turn, she left to become the mistress of Nero, and the rival of
Nero's wife, Octavia, Oct. 125; in order to further her schemes she
influenced Nero to murder his mother, ibid. 126; demanded the death
of Octavia, ibid. 131; with child by Nero, ibid. 188, 591; her
rejection by Nero prophesied, ibid. 193; her beauty lauded by Nero,
who announced her as his next wife, ibid. 544; her wedding with Nero
cursed by the ghost of Agrippina, ibid. 595; her marriage described,
ibid. *698; is terrified by strange dream of Agrippina's ghost, and
of her former husband, Crispinus, ibid. *712.
PRIAM, king of Troy; in his youth, at the first taking of Troy, he
was spared by Hercules and allowed to retain the throne, Tro. 719;
pictured as viewing the contending hosts from the battlements of Troy
in company with his little grandson, Astyanax, ibid. *1068; sues
to Achilles for the dead body of Hector, ibid. 315, 324; his city
destroyed through the baleful power of love, Oct. 817; description
of his death at the hands of Pyrrhus, Tro. *44; Agam. 655; he fell
before the altar of Hercean Jove, Agam. 448, 792; pathetic contrast
of his death with his former greatness, Tro. 140.
PROCNE, daughter of Pandion, and wife of Tereus, king of Thrace; she,
in revenge for the outrage upon her sister, Philomela, committed by her
husband, served to him his own son, Itys, H. Oet. 953; Agam. 673;
Thy. 275.
PROCRUSTES, a famous robber of Attica, killed by Theseus, Hip. 1170;
Thy. 1050.
PROETIDES, daughters of Proetus, king of Argolis; they counted
themselves more beautiful than Juno, and also refused to worship
Bacchus. The god drove them to a madness in which they thought
themselves cows, and went wandering through the woods. This act won for
him the favor of Juno, Oed. 486.
PROMĒTHEUS, a son of Iapetus and Clymene; he gave the gift of fire to
mortals, Med. 821; for this act he was bound by Jove's command to
a crag of Mount Caucasus, where an eagle fed upon his ever-renewed
vitals, H. Fur. 1206; Med. 709; H. Oet. 1378.
PROSERPINA, daughter of Ceres and Jupiter; stolen away by Pluto and
made his queen in hades, Med. 12; H. Fur. 1105; sought in vain by
her mother over the whole world, ibid. 659; Pirithoüs and Theseus
attempted to steal her away from the lower world, Hip. 95.
PROTEUS, son of Oceanus and Tethys, shepherd and guardian of the
sea-calves, Hip. 1205.
PYLADES, son of Strophius, king of Phocis, and one of the sisters of
Agamemnon; he accompanied his father as charioteer on the occasion of
Strophius' visit to Argos just after Agamemnon's murder; they take
Orestes away and so save him from death, Agam. 940.
PYROMANTĪA, soothsaying by means of fire, practiced by Tiresias in his
effort to discover the murderer of Laïus, Oed. *307.
PYRRHA, the sister of Deucalion, saved with him from the flood, Tro.
1038. See DEUCALION.
PYRRHUS (Troades), a son of the young Achilles and Deïdamia, the
daughter of Lycomedes, king of Scyros; born on the island of Scyros,
Tro. 339; quarreled with Ulysses inside the wooden horse, Agam.
635; slew old Priam, Tro. 44, 310.
PYTHON, a huge serpent or dragon that sprang from the slime of the
earth after the flood had subsided; slain by Apollo, H. Oet. 93;
Med. 700.
R
RHADAMANTHUS, a son of Jupiter and Europa, and brother of Minos; he
was made one of three judges in hades, H. Fur. 734.
RHESUS, a king of Thrace who came, late in the Trojan War, to the aid
of Priam; there was an oracle that Troy could never be taken if the
horses of Rhesus should drink the waters of the Xanthus, and feed upon
the grass of the Trojan plain; this oracle was frustrated by Ulysses
and Diomedes, Agam. 216.
S
SATURN, son of Coelus and Terra, who succeeded to his father's kingdom
of the heavens and earth; the golden age was said to have been in his
reign, Oct. 395; had been dethroned by his three sons, Jupiter,
Neptune, and Pluto, who divided up his kingdom among themselves; he is
conceived of as chained in hades by Pluto, H. Oet. 1141; Hercules
threatens to unchain him against Jove unless the latter grant him a
place in heaven, H. Fur. 965.
SCALES (Libra), the zodiacal constellation marking the autumnal
equinox, H. Fur. 842.
SCIRON, a celebrated robber in Attica, who threw his victims over the
cliffs into the sea; he was slain by Theseus, Hip. 1023, 1225.
SCORPION, one of the zodiacal constellations, Thy. 859.
SCYLLA, one of the two shipwrecking monsters in the Sicilian Strait,
H. Fur. 376; H. Oet. 235; Med. 350, 407; Thy. 579. See
CHARYBDIS.
SCYTHIA, a name given by the ancients to a portion of northern Asia of
indefinite extent; a description of its nomadic tribes, frozen streams,
changing aspect of the country with the changing seasons, H. Fur.
*533.
SEMELE, a Theban princess, daughter of Cadmus, beloved of Jove by whom
she became the mother of Bacchus, H. Fur. 16; she was blasted by a
thunderbolt while the child, Bacchus, was still unborn, H. Fur. 457;
H. Oet. 1804. See BACCHUS.
SENECA (Octavia), introduced into the play in the character of Nero's
counselor, Oct. 377; he recalls his life in exile in Corsica, and
considers it far happier and safer than his present life, ibid. 381;
he strives in vain to prevent the marriage of Nero and Poppaea, ibid.
695.
SERES, a nation of Asia, supposed to be identical with the Chinese;
they gather silken threads (spun by the silkworm) from trees, H. Oet.
666; Hip. 389.
SILĀNUS, L. Junius, praetor in A.D. 49; he was the betrothed husband of
Octavia, but put out of the way by court intriguers that Octavia might
marry Nero, Oct. 145.
SILĒNUS, a demigod, the foster-father and constant attendant of
Bacchus, Oed. 429.
SINIS, a giant robber of the Isthmus of Corinth, who bent down treetops
and, fixing his victims to these, shot them through the air; he was
slain by Theseus, H. Oet. 1393; Hip., 1169, 1223.
SINON, a Greek warrior, who deceived the Trojans as to the character
and purpose of the wooden horse, and so procured the downfall of Troy,
Tro. 39; Agam. *626.
SIPYLUS, a mountain in Phrygia, on whose top Niobe, changed to stone,
was said to sit and weep eternally over her lost children, H. Oet.
185; Agam. 394; H. Fur. 391. See NIOBE.
SIRENS, mythical maidens dwelling on an island of the ocean, whose
beautiful singing lured sailors to destruction, H. Oet. 190; they
were passed in safety by the Argonauts because Orpheus played sweeter
music, Med. 355.
SISYPHUS, the son of Aeolus, was said to have been the founder of
ancient Corinth, and father of Creon, Med. 512, 776; Oed. 282; for
his disobedience to the gods he was set to rolling a huge stone up a
hill in hades, which ever rolled back again and so renewed his toil,
Med. 746; Hip. 1230; Agam. 16; H. Fur. 751; Thy. 6; Oct.
622; H. Oet. 942, 1010; the stone followed the magical music of
Orpheus, ibid. 1081.
SMINTHEUS, an epithet of Phoebus Apollo, Agam. 176.
SOL, the sun personified as the sun-god, used with the same force as
Phoebus, H. Fur. 37, 61; Med. 29, 210; Thy. 637, 776, 789, 822,
990, 1035; Hip. 124, 1091; H. Oet. 150.
SOMNUS, the god of sleep, brother of death, H. Fur. 1069; called the
son of Astraea, ibid. 1068; characteristics, symbols, and powers
described at length, ibid. *1065.
SPHINX, a fabulous monster with the face of a woman, the breast, feet,
and tail of a lion, and the wings of a bird; sent to harass Thebes,
slaying everyone who passed her and who could not answer her riddle,
Oed. 246; Phoen. 120, 131; Oedipus' encounter with her described,
Oed. *92; slain by Oedipus, ibid. 641; seen by Creon among the
shapes in hades, called by him the "Ogygian (i. e., Boeotian or Theban)
pest," ibid. 589; used as type of winged speed, Phoen. 422.
STROPHIUS (Agamemnon), see PYLADES.
STYMPHALIAN BIRDS, monstrous creatures haunting a pool near the town of
Stymphalus in Arcadia; they were killed by Hercules as his sixth labor,
H. Fur. 244; Med. 783; Agam. 850; H. Oet. 1237, 1890; used as
type of winged speed, Phoen. 422.
STYX, a river of hades, H. Fur. 780; Oed. 162; over which
spirits must pass into the world of the dead, the river of death; in
Seneca, this conception is not confined to the Styx, but is used of
that river in common with the Acheron, H. Fur. *713; Hip. 1180;
Agam. 608; the Lethe, Hip. 148; H. Oet. 1161, 1550; and the
Phlegethon, Agam. *750; it is upon the Styx alone, however, that
the gods swear their inviolable oaths, H. Fur. 713; Hip. 944;
Thy. 666; H. Oet. 1066; from meaning the river of death, it comes
to mean death itself, H. Fur. 185, 558; in its most frequent use,
the river signifies the lower world in general, the land of the dead;
so are found Stygian "shades," "homes," "caverns," "ports," "gates,"
"borders," "torches," "fires," etc., H. Fur. 54, 90, 104, 1131;
Tro. 430; Med. 632, 804; Hip. 477, 625, 928, 1151; Oed. 396,
401, 621; Agam. 493; Thy. 1007; H. Oet. 77, 560, 1014, 1145,
1198, 1203, 1711, 1766, 1870, 1919, 1983; Oct. 24, 79, 135, 162, 263,
594; Cerberus is the "Stygian dog" and "Stygian guardian," Agam.
13; Hip. 223; H. Oet. 79, 1245; the "deep embrace of Styx" is the
pit which Andromache prays may open up beneath Hector's tomb and hide
Astyanax, Tro. 520; the boat on which Agrippina was to meet her death
is called the Stygian boat, Oct. 127.
SYMPLEGADES (the "clashers"), two rocks or crags at the entrance of the
Euxine Sea which, according to tradition, clashed together when any
object passed between them; escaped by the Argo, Med. 341, 456, 610;
Hercules prays that he may be crushed to death between these rocks, H.
Fur. 1210; used as a type of a hard crag, H. Oet. 1273, 1380.
T
TAENARUS (also written TAENARA), a promontory on the southernmost point
of the Peloponnesus, near which was a cave, said to be the entrance
to the lower world, Tro. 402; H. Fur. 587, *663, 813; Oed. 171;
Hip. 1203; H. Oet. 1061, 1771.
TAGUS, a river of Spain, celebrated for its golden sands, H. Fur.
1325; Thy. 354; H. Oet. 626.
TANTALUS (Thyestes) (1), a king of Lydia, son of Jupiter and the
nymph, Pluto, father of Pelops and of Niobe, H. Fur. 390; Oed. 613;
Med. 954; Agam. 392; H. Oet. 198; because of his outrageous sin
against the gods (see PELOPS) he was doomed to suffer in hades endless
pangs of hunger and thirst, with fruit and water almost within reach of
his lips, H. Fur. *752; Hip. 1232; Agam. 19; Thy. 1011; Oct.
621; his sin described and punishment portrayed in detail, Thy. *137;
his ghost appears, describes his sufferings in hades, and is incited
by a fury to urge on his house to greater crimes, ibid. 1; Deianira
prays that she may take his punishment upon herself, H. Oet. 943;
Medea prays that he may come and drink of the waters of Corinth, and
that Creon may take his place in hades, Med. 745; used as type of
outrageous sinner, Thy. 242; he forgets his thirst in his grief for
the disasters which threaten his house, Agam. 769; he forgets his
thirst under the influence of Orpheus' music, H. Oet. 1075.
TANTALUS (Thyestes) (2), one of the sons of Thyestes, great-grandson
of Tantalus (1), encourages his father to hope for reconciliation with
his brother, Atreus, Thy. 421; slain by Atreus, ibid. 718.
TARTARUS (also written TARTARA), in its strict sense, that portion of
the lower world devoted to the punishment of the wicked, hell, the
abode of the furies and of those like Tantalus, Ixion, etc., who are
suffering torments, H. Fur. 86; Oed. 161; Med. 742; Oct. 965;
in the great majority of cases, however, Tartarus is the lower world in
general, whence ghosts come back to earth, Agam. 2; Oct. 593; to
which Orpheus went in search of his wife, Med. 632; H. Oet. 1064;
to which Hercules went to bring thence Cerberus, H. Oet. 461; Hip.
844; where was the palace of Dis, ibid. 951; Agam. 751; where
Cerberus stands guard, H. Fur. 649; H. Oet. 1770; where are the
"Tartarian pools," Hip. 1179; and so in general, H. Fur. 436, 710,
889, 1225; Oed. 869; Phoen. 144, 145; Thy. 1013, 1071; H. Oet.
1126, 1119, 1514, 1705, 1779; Oct. 223, 644.
TAURUS, the second zodiacal constellation, the Bull, which poets feign
was the bull in the form of which Jupiter bore Europa from Phoenicia to
Crete, H. Fur. 9, 952; Thy. 852.
TELEPHUS, a king of Mysia, wounded by Achilles' spear, and afterward
cured by application of the rust scraped from its point, Tro. 215.
TEREUS, a king of Thrace, whose barbarous feast upon his own son, Itys,
is called the "Thracian crime," Thy. 56. See PHILOMELA and PROCNE.
TETHYS, the goddess of the sea, used frequently for the sea itself, in
which the sun sets and from which it rises, Hip. 571, 1161; H. Fur.
887, 1328; Tro. 879; Med. 378; H. Oet. 1252, 1902.
THEBES, the capital city of Boeotia, founded by Cadmus, H. Fur. 268;
its walls built by the magic of Amphion's lyre, ibid. 262; famed
for frequent visits of the gods, especially of Jove, ibid. 265;
plague-smitten under Oedipus, who laments the disaster, Oed. *37;
plague described at length by the chorus, ibid. *125; a curse fell
upon Thebes from the time of Cadmus, ibid. *709; conquered by Lycus,
the usurper, who slew King Creon, the father of Megara, H. Fur. 270;
scene of the Hercules Furens, Oedipus, and Phoenissae (in part).
THESEUS (Hercules Furens, Hippolytus), king of Athens, son of
Aegeus and Aethra, daughter of Pittheus, king of Troezene; according to
tradition also reputed the son of Neptune, who had granted him three
wishes, Hip. 942, 943, 1252; the last of which he used against his
son, Hippolytus, ibid. 945; went to Crete to slay the Minotaur; his
beautiful appearance described, ibid. *646, 1067; finds his way out
of the labyrinth by aid of a thread given him by Ariadne, ibid. 650,
662; fled with Ariadne, but deserted her on Naxos, Oed. 488; was the
cause of his father's death, since he did not display the white sail on
his return to Athens from slaying the Minotaur, Hip. 1165; married
Antiope, the Amazon, who became the mother of Hippolytus, but afterward
slew her, ibid. 226, 927, 1167; married Phaedra, ibid. passim;
went to hades with his bosom friend, Pirithoüs, to assist the latter
in carrying away Proserpina, ibid. 91, 627; the two were apprehended
by Dis and set upon an enchanted rock which held them fast, H. Fur.
1339; Theseus was rescued by Hercules, ibid. 806; H. Oet. 1197,
1768; Hip. 843; returns from hades, ibid. 829.
THESPIADES, the fifty daughters of Thespius, loved by Hercules, H.
Oet. 369.
THETIS, a sea-goddess, daughter of Nereus; she was given as wife
to Peleus, Med. 657; Oct. 707; and became by him the mother of
Achilles, Tro. 346, 880; Agam. 616; to keep her son from the Trojan
War she hid him disguised in garments of a girl at the court of King
Lycomedes, Tro. 213; but this ruse was discovered and exposed by
Ulysses, ibid. 569.
THULE, the farthest known land, differing with different stages of
development of human knowledge; the time will come when all lands will
be known, and there will be no ultima Thule, Med. 379.
THYESTES (Thyestes, Agamemnon), see ATREUS.
TIPHYS, the pilot of the Argo, Med. 3, 318; picture of his management
of the vessel, ibid. *318; grew pale at sight of the Symplegades,
ibid. 346; his tragic death, *617.
TIRESIAS (Oedipus), a celebrated prophet of Thebes, father of
Manto; blind and old, he is led by his daughter into the presence
of Oedipus, where he attempts by various processes to discover the
murderer of Laïus, Oed. 288; practices pyromantia, capnomantia,
hieroscopia, and later necromantia, ibid. *307; discovers by the
last process that Oedipus himself slew Laïus, ibid. *530.
TISIPHONE, one of the furies who seems to appear to the distracted
Deianira, H. Oet. 1012; seems to appear to the mad Hercules, guarding
the door of hell since Cerberus has been removed, H. Fur. 984. See
FURIES.
TITANS, a name given to the sons of Coelus and Terra, one of whom was
Hyperion, identified by Homer with the sun. The Titans warred against
one of their own number, Saturn, who had succeeded to the throne of his
father. The word is, however, frequently confounded with the Giants,
who banded together to dethrone Jove; they piled up mountains in their
attempt to scale heaven, but were overthrown by Jove's thunderbolt and
buried under Sicily, H. Fur. 79, 967; Med. 410; Agam. 340; H.
Oet. 144, 1212, 1309; in all other passages in Seneca, Titan means
the sun, more or less completely personified as the sun-god, lord and
ruler of the day, H. Fur. 124, 133, 443, 1060, 1333; Med. 5; Tro.
170; Hip. 678, 779; Oed. 1, 40; Thy. 120, 785, 1095; Agam. 460,
908; H. Oet. 42, 291, 423, 488, 723, 781, 891, 968, 1111, 1131, 1163,
1287, 1512, 1518, 1566, 1575, 1760; Oct. 2. See GIANTS, PHOEBUS.
TITYUS, a giant, son of Earth, who offered violence to Latona; for
this he was punished in hades, where a vulture kept feeding upon his
ever-renewed vitals, H. Fur. 756, 977; H. Oet. 947; Hip. 1233;
Agam. 17; Thy. 9, 806; Oct. 622; relieved for a while by the
music of Orpheus, H. Oet. 1070.
TMOLUS, a mountain in Lydia, a favorite haunt of Bacchus, Phoen. 602.
TOXEUS, a youth slain by Hercules, H. Oet. 214.
TRIPTOLEMUS, son of the king of Eleusis, through whom Ceres gave the
arts of agriculture to mankind, Hip. 838.
TRITONS, sea-deities; they sung the marriage chorus of Achilles, Tro.
202.
TRIVIA, an epithet of Diana, because she presided over places where
three roads meet, Agam. 382; Oct. 978; applied by association to
Luna, the heavenly manifestation of Diana, Med. *787.
TROÏLUS, a son of Priam, slain by Achilles, Agam. 748.
TROY, an ancient city of Troas, whose walls were built by Neptune and
Apollo, Tro. 7; it was first destroyed under the reign of Laomedon,
father of Priam, by Hercules and Telamon, because of the perfidy of
Laomedon, Agam. 614, 862; Tro. 135, *719; its second fall was after
ten years of siege by the Greeks, Tro. 74; her festal day turned
out to be a day of doom, Agam. 791; it is not the Greek heroes who
destroyed Troy, but the lying traitor, Sinon, who deceived the Trojans
about the wooden horse, ibid. 615; mourning for the fall of Troy,
ibid. 589; distant view of the smouldering ruins as seen by the Greek
vessels from the sea on their homeward voyage, ibid. 456.
TULLIA, a daughter of Servius Tullius, king of Rome; her impious sin
and its punishment, Oct. 304.
TYNDARIDAE, Castor and Pollux, the sons of Jupiter and Leda, but
falsely named from Tyndarus, the mortal husband of Leda; their stars
give help to sailors, H. Fur. 14, 552; Oct. 208. See CASTOR, LEDA.
TYPHOEUS, one of the Giants who fought against Jove, Med. 773; Thy.
809.
TYPHON, a giant, apparently the same as Typhoeus, H. Oet. 1733;
Oct. 238.
TYRRHENE, an epithet applied to the band of Phoenician pirates who
attempted to kidnap Bacchus, Oed. 249; to the dolphin, in reference
to the story of how these pirates were changed into dolphins by the
power of Bacchus, Agam. 451; to the Tuscan Sea, because the Etrurians
were supposed to have been of Tyrrhenian stock, Oct. 311; and to
Inarime, an island, possibly to be identified with Ischia, lying in the
Tyrrhene sea off the coast of Campania, H. Oet. 1156.
U
ULYSSES (Troades), Tro. passim.
V
VENUS, a goddess, sprung from the foam of the sea, Hip. 274; she is
the goddess of love, ibid. 417, 576, 910; Oct. 545; the mother of
Cupid, the god of love, Hip. 275; H. Oet. 543; Oct. 697; called
Erycina, because Mt. Eryx in Sicily was sacred to her, Hip. 199; she
persecuted the stock of Phoebus (i. e., Pasiphaë and Phaedra), because
that god had published her amours with Mars, ibid. 124; cursed
Messalina with insatiate lust, Oct. 258; the effect upon the world
which the cessation of the power of Venus would produce, Hip. **469;
she has no existence, but is feigned by men as a goddess in order to
excuse their own lusts, ibid. 203; used frequently by metonymy for
the passion of love, either lawful or unlawful, ibid. 211, 237, 339,
447, 462, 721, 913; Agam. 183, 275, 927; Oct. 191, 433.
VIRGINIA, the daughter of Virginius, slain by her father to save her
from the lust of Appius Claudius the decemvir, Oct. 296.
VIRGO, the zodiacal constellation of the Virgin, Astraea, the daughter
of Jove and Themis, who left the earth last of all the gods on account
of man's sin, Thy. 857.
VULCAN, the god of fire; forges the thunderbolts of Jove, Hip. 190;
is pierced by Cupid's darts, ibid. 193; is called the father of Cupid
and husband of Venus, Oct. 560.
Z
ZETES, a winged son of Boreas, who, together with his brother Calaïs,
was a member of the Argonautic expedition; they were slain by Hercules,
Med. 634; they had previously driven away the harpies from Phineus,
king of Thrace, ibid. 782.
ZETHUS, a Theban prince, son of Antiope, the niece of Lycus, king of
Thebes; he and his twin brother, Amphion, were exposed in infancy on
Mt. Cithaeron, but were saved and brought up by shepherds. Arrived at
manhood they killed Lycus and Dirce, his wife, on account of their
cruelties to Antiope, and together reigned in Thebes. Reference is
made to their rustic life in H. Fur. 916; the shade of Zethus comes
up from hades, still holding by the horn the wild bull to which he had
tied Dirce, Oed. 610. See DIRCE.
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Variable spelling and hyphenation have been retained.
Minor punctuation inconsistencies have been silently corrected.
Corrections:
The first line indicates the original, the second the correction.
p. 31
Hating his bolts of flame at the coming of Bacchus.
Halting his bolts of flame at the coming of Bacchus.
p. 38
And not on thy acocunt hath fate
And not on thy account hath fate
p. 49
Whose hearts are fainting in your breats, behold,
Whose hearts are fainting in your breasts, behold,
p. 105
With serpent vernom, mixing all; and in the broth
With serpent venom, mixing all; and in the broth
p. 258
What honor comes from such an end at this?
What honor comes from such an end as this?
p. 263
Hercules: Whate're is great enough for woman's wrath.
Hercules: Whate'er is great enough for woman's wrath.
p. 338
Atreus: Because they were thy chidlren.
Atreus: Because they were thy children.
p. 501
See ASYTANAX.
See ASTYANAX.
p. 517
He was pursuaded by Pelias
He was persuaded by Pelias
Erratum
p. 512
There is no entry for Othrys in the Index