Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/443

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[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 bear90
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