Girt by the banks of Tartarus! Ye storied shades,
Your torments leave and haste to grace the festival
At Hymen's call! Let stop the whirling wheel that holds
Ixion's limbs and let him tread Corinthian ground;
Let Tantalus unfrighted drink Pirene's stream. 745
On Creon's stock alone let heavier torments fall,
And backward o'er the rocks let Sisyphus be hurled.
You too, the seed of Danaüs, whose fruitless toil
The ever-empty urns deride, I summon you;
This day requires your helping hands. Thou radiant moon, 750
Night's glorious orb, my supplications hear and come
To aid; put on thy sternest guise, thou goddess dread
Of triple form! Full oft have I with flowing locks,
And feet unsandaled, wandered through thy darkling groves
And by thy inspiration summoned forth the rain
From cloudless skies; the heaving seas have I subdued, 755
And sent the vanquished waves to ocean's lowest depths.
At my command the sun and stars together shine,
The heavenly law reversed; while in the Arctic sea
The Bears have plunged. The seasons, too, obey my will:
I've made the burning summer blossom as the spring, 760
And hoary winter autumn's golden harvests bear.
The Phasis sends his swirling waves to seek their source,
And Ister, flowing to the sea with many mouths,
His eager water checks and sluggish rolls along.
The billows roar, the mad sea rages, though the winds 765
All silent lie. At my command primeval groves
Have lost their shade;[1] the sun, abandoning[2] the day,
Has stood in middle heaven; while falling Hyades
Attest my charms.
But now thy sacred hour is come, 770
O Phoebe. Thine these bonds with bloody hand entwined
With ninefold serpent coils; these cords I offer thee,
Which on his hybrid limbs Typhoeus bore, who shook
The throne of Jove. This vessel holds the dying blood
Of Nessus, faithless porter of Alcides' bride. 775
Here are the ashes of the pyre on Oeta's top
Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/124
106
The Tragedies of Seneca
