Page:Ten Tragedies of Seneca (1902).djvu/111

Lines 84—121] to declare my paternity, is it necessary that my tongue, already visited with a great punishment for my past loquacity be further doomed to silence? I shall not, however, be silent over this matter. I shall conjure my grandsons not to violate the sacred altars, with their hands reeking with slaughter, and not to besprinkle them with the blood of their victims, under the evil instigation of the wicked furies (addressing Megæra); I shall be in attendance and will stop this sanguinary work—why dost thou attempt to frighten me with thy scourging whips and savagely threaten me with thy wriggling serpents? Why dost thou revive the hunger already searching out the very marrow of my bones? Why increase the thirst, which now burns up my inside, and the flames that play about my scorched entrails?— after all I suppose I shall have to comply! I comply then!

MEG. The fury that now possesses thee, spread it over the entire palace, for as thou thirstest for water so let others be brought into a similar craving condition, and so raging with thirst, that they shall crave for each other's blood, out of very hatred! The palace already has been aware of thy approach, and completely shudders at thy wicked proximity! Everything is abundantly provided for, go now to thy infernal cave, and the river thou knowest so well, already the sad Earth is oppressed with thy footsteps! Dost thou not see, how the very streams return to their springs, so that the river-banks are forsaken? and now a fiery wind bears onward the dried-up clouds, every tree grows pale (loses its verdancy) and there stands with its ranches denuded of the fruit, which falls off, and the Isthmus (Corinth) which keeps up a constant roaring here and there with the near waves of the two seas, which it divides with its narrow strip of land, now only listens to the far-off waves, from the waters, that have receded from its banks! Now the sources of the Lerna are dried up, and the streams of Inachus (Phoronides) have quite disappeared. Nor does the sacred Alpheus pour forth its waters any more—And the summits of Cithæron present no white anywhere, the snow having disappeared, and the noble people of Argos fear a return of the drought with which they were afflicted once before; and Titan himself is in doubt whether he shall command the day to follow in due course, or whether he shall keep back die horses of the sun, tightly reined, and not to enter upon another day which he fancies, he will not be able to carry through!

