Lucius Seneca - Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2)

Straight from amid white eddies arose wild faces of Ocean,

Nereid, earnest-eyed, in wonderous admiration.

Then, not after again, saw ever mortal unharmed

Sea-born Nymphs unveil limbs flushing naked about them.

Stark to the nursing breasts from foam and billow arising.

Then, so stories avow, burn'd Peleus hotly to Thetis,

Then to a mortal lover abode not Thetis unheeding,

Then did a father agree Peleus with Thetis unite him.

O in an aureat hour, O born in bounteous ages,

God-sprung heroes, hail: hail, mother of all benediction,

You my song shall address, you melodies everlasting.

Thee most chiefly, supreme in glory of heavenly bridal,

Peleus, stately defence of Thessaly. Iuppiter even

Gave thee his own fair love, thy mortal pleasure approving.

Thee could Thetis inarm, most beauteous Ocean-daughter?

Tethys adopt thee, her own dear grandchild's wooer usurping?

Ocean, who earth's vast globe with a watery girdle inorbeth?

When the delectable hour those days did fully determine,

Straightway then in crowds all Thessaly flock'd to the palace,

Thronging hosts uncounted, a company joyous approaching.

Many a gift they carry, delight their faces illumines.

Left is Scyros afar, and Phthia's bowery Tempe,

Vacant Crannon's homes, unvisited high Larisa,

Towards Pharsalia's halls, Pharsalia's only they hie them.

Bides no tiller afield; necks soften of oxen in idlesse;

Feel not a prong'd crook'd hoe lush vines all weedily trailing;

Tears no steer deep clods with a downward coulter unearthed;

Prunes no hedger's bill broad-verging verdurous arbours;

Steals a deforming rust on ploughs left rankly to moulder.

But that sovran abode, each sumptuous inly retiring

Chamber, aflame with gold, with silver is all resplendent;

Thrones gleam ivory-white; cup-crown'd blaze brightly the tables;

All the domain with treasure of empery gaudily flushes.

There, set deeply within the remotest centre, a bridal

Bed doth a goddess inarm; smooth ivory glossy from Indies,

Robed in roseate hues, rich seashells' purple adorning.

It was a broidery freak'd with tissue of images olden,

One whose curious art did blazon valour of heroes.

Gazing forth from a beach of Dia the billow-resounding,

Look'd on a vanish'd fleet, on Theseus quickly departing,

Restless in unquell'd passion, a feverous heart, Ariadne.

Scarcely her eyes yet seem their seeming clearly to vision.

You might guess that arous'd from slumber's drowsy betrayal,

Sand-engirded, alone, then first she knew desolation.

He the betrayer—his oars with fugitive hurry the waters

Beat, each promise of old to the winds given idly to bear them.

Him from amid shore-weeds doth Minos' daughter, in anguish

Rigid, a Bacchant-form, dim-gazing stonily follow,

Stonily still, wave-tost on a sea of troublous affliction.

Holds not her yellow locks the tiara's feathery tissue;

Veils not her hidden breast light brede of drapery woven;

Binds not a cincture smooth her bosom's orbed emotion.

Widely from each fair limb that footward-fallen apparel

Drifts its lady before, in billowy salt loose-playing.

Not for silky tiara nor amice gustily floating

Recks she at all any more; thee, Theseus, ever her earnest

Heart, all clinging thought, all chained fancy requireth.

Ah unfortunate! whom with miseries ever crazing,

Thorns in her heart deep planted, affray'd Erycina to madness,

From that earlier hour, when fierce for victory Theseus

Started alert from a beach deep-inleted of Piræus,

Gain'd Gortyna's abode, injurious halls of oppression.

Once, 'tis sung in stories, a dire distemper atoning

Death of an ill-blest prince, Androgeos, angrily slaughter'd,

Taxed of her youthful array, her maidenly bloom fresh-glowing,

Feast to the monster bull, Cecropia, ransom-laden.

Then, when a plague so deadly, the garrison undermining,

Spent that slender city, his Athens dearly to rescue,

Sooner life Theseus and precious body did offer,

Ere his country to Crete freight corpses, a life in seeming.

So with a ship fast-fleeted, a gale blown gently behind him,

Push'd he his onward journey to Minos' haughty dominion.

Him for very delight when a virgin fondly desiring

Gazed on, a royal virgin, in odours silkily nestled,

Pure from a maiden's couch, from a mother's pillowy bosom,

Like some myrtle, anear Eurotas' water arising,

Like earth's myriad hues, spring's progeny, rais'd to the breezes;

Droop'd not her eyes their gaze unquenchable, ever-burning

Save when in each charm'd limb to the depths enfolded, a sudden

Flame blazed hotly within her, in all her marrow abiding.

O thou cruel of heart, thou madding worker of anguish,

Boy immortal, of whom joy springs with misery blending,

Yea, thou queen of Golgi, of Idaly leaf-embower'd,

O'er what a fire love-lit, what billows wearily tossing,

Drave ye the maid, for a guest so sunnily lock'd deep sighing.

What most dismal alarms her swooning fancy did echo!

Oft what a sallower hue than gold's cold glitter upon her!

Whiles, heart-hungry in arms that monster deadly to combat,

Theseus drew towards death or victory, guerdon of honour.

Yet not lost the devotion, or offer'd idly the virgin's

Gifts, as her unvoic'd lips breathed incense faintly to heaven.

As on Taurus aloft some oak agitatedly waving

Tosses his arms, or a pine cone-mantled, oozily rinded,

When as his huge gnarled trunk in furious eddies a whirlwind

Riving wresteth amain; down falleth he, upward hoven,

Falleth on earth; far, near, all crackles brittle around him,

So to the ground Theseus his fallen foeman abasing,

Slew, that his horned front toss'd vainly, a sport to the breezes.

Thence in safety, a victor, in height of glory returned,

Guiding errant feet to a thread's impalpable order.

Lest, upon egress bent thro' tortuous aisles labyrinthine,

Walls of blindness, a maze unravell'd ever, elude him.

Yet, for again I come to the former story, beseems not

Linger on all done there; how left that daughter a gazing

Father, a sister's arms, her mother woefully clinging,

Mother, who o'er that child moan'd desperate, all heart-broken;

How not in home that maid, in Theseus only delighted;

How her ship on a shore of foaming Dia did harbour;

How, when her eyes lay bound in slumber's shadowy prison,

He forsook, forgot her, a wooer traitorous-hearted:

Oft, say stories, at heart with frenzied fantasy burning,

Pour'd she, a deep-wrung breast, clear-ringing cries of oppression;

Sometimes mournfully clomb to the mountain's rugged ascension,

Straining thence her vision across wide surges of ocean;

Now to the brine ran forth, upsplashing freshly to meet her,

Lifting raiment fine her thighs which softly did open;

Last, when sorrow had end, these words thus spake she lamenting,

While from a mouth tear-stain'd chill sobs gushed dolorous ever.

'Look, is it here, false heart, that rapt from country, from altar,

Household altar ashore, I wander, falsely deserted?

Ah! is it hence, Theseus, that against high heaven a traitor

Homeward thou thy vileness, alas thy perjury bearest?

Might not a thought, one thought, thy cruel counsel abating

Sway thee tender? at heart rose no compassion or any

Mercy, to bend thy soul, or me for pity deliver?

Yet not this thy promise of old, thy dearly remembered

Voice, not these the delights thou bad'st thy poor one inherit;

Nay, but wedlock happy, but envied joy hymeneal;