Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/237

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Hercules Oetaeus
219

In which I fared. How small a part I tell![1]
Exhausted is the air and can no more
Suffice to feed the hatred of thy wife;
The earth in fear brings forth no monster more
For me to conquer, no wild beasts of prey.
These are denied to me, and in the stead 55
Of monster have I come myself to be.
How many evils have I overcome,
Though all unarmed! Whatever monstrous thing
Opposed, these empty hands have overthrown;
Nor did there ever live a savage beast
Which I as boy or infant feared to meet.
My bidden labors have seemed always light,
And no day ever dawned that brought to me 60
No strenuous toil. How many monstrous tasks
Have I fulfilled which no king set to me!
A harder master has my courage been
Than ever Juno was. But what avails
That I have saved the human race from fear?
The gods in consequence have lost their peace.
The freed earth sees whatever she has feared 65
Now set in heaven; for Juno thitherward
Hath borne the beasts I slew. Restored to life,
The Crab fares safely in his torrid path,
A constellation now in southern skies,
And ripens Libya's waving fields of grain.
The Lion to the heavenly Virgin gives
The flying year; but he, with beaming mane 70
Upon his wild neck tossing, dries the winds
Which drip with moisture, and the clouds devours.
Behold, the beasts have all invaded heaven,
Forestalling me. Though victor, here I stand
Upon the earth, and view my labors there.
For Juno to the monsters and the beasts
Has given stars, that so the heavenly realm 75
Might be for me a place of terror made.
But no! Though in her wrath she fill the skies
With monsters, though she make the heavens worse

  1. Reading, quam prosequor.