Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/123

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Whose crags were spattered with Prometheus' gore;
⁠the herbs 710
Within whose deadly juice the Arab dips his darts,
And the quiver-bearing Mede and fleeing Parthian;
Those potent juices, too, which, near the shivering pole,
The Suabian chieftains gather in Hyrcanian groves.
The seasons, too, have paid their tribute to her stores:
Whatever earth produces in the nesting time,
And when the stiff'ning hand of winter's frost has stripped 715
The glory from the trees and fettered all the land
With icy bonds; whatever flow'ring plant conceals
Destruction in its bloom, or in its twisted roots
Distils the juice of death, she gathers to her use.
These pestilential herbs Haemonian Athos gave; 720
And these on lofty Pindus grew; a bloody knife
Clipped off these slender leaves on Macedonia's heights;
Still others grew beside the Tigris, whirling on
His flood to meet the sea; the Danube nourished some;
These grew on bright gem-starred Hydaspes' tepid stream; 725
And these the Baetis bore, which gave the land its name,
Displacing with its langourous tide, the western sea.
These felt the knife when early dawn begins to break;
The fruit of these was cut in midnight's gloomy hour;
This fatal crop was reaped with sickle magic-edged. 730
These deadly, potent herbs she takes and sprinkles o'er
With serpent vernom, mixing all; and in the broth
She mingles unclean birds: a wailing screech owl's heart,
A ghastly vampire's vitals torn from living flesh.
Her magic poisons all she ranges for her use. 735
The ravening power of hidden fire is held in these,
While deep in others lurks the numbing chill of frost.
Now magic runes she adds more potent far.
⁠But lo!
Her voice resounds! and, as with maddened step she comes,
She chants her charms, while heaven and earth convulsive rock.
⁠[Enter Medea, chanting her incantations.]
Medea: ⁠I supplicate the silent throng, and you, the gods 740
Of death's sad rites, and groping chaos, and the home
Of gloomy Pluto, and the black abyss of death