Page:Ten Tragedies of Seneca (1902).djvu/163

Lines 1009—1044] flow violently above us! in this place of our eternal exile. Oh! motionless Earth! Why dost thou rest as an idle mass? After all this, the Gods even have fled! (Phœbus Phœbe and the Stars.)

ATR. But it is better that thou shouldst accept, thankfully, thy long-desired sons; thou shalt have the full enjoyment of them, no obstacle lies in thy way on the part of thy brother, kiss them, divide thy caresses between the three!

THY. Oh I this horrible wickedness! Is this thy reconciliation? Is this a brother's sincerity? Is this the way thou markest thy hatred (revenge)? I do not ask, that as a father, I should naturally expect to receive my children safe and sound, or that it is now possible for them to be given up to me, free from this complicated villainy (crime and revenge), but as a brother, asking another brother, that he may be permitted the privilege of burying his own children, or what remains of them! Give then the remains to me, and thou shalt be an eye-witness that they are burnt, and as their father I crave, thou perceivest, not that I should have them to preserve, but, that I should have them to destroy (burn).

ATR. Whatsoever is left of thy children, thou shalt have, but whatever does not remain, thou possessest already.

THY. Whether are they lying as food for the terrible birds of prey? Are they preserved for the benefit of the fishes? Or to serve as a repast for the wild beasts?

ATR. Thou, thyself, hast feasted on them, at thy impious banquet.

THY. Really! this must put the very Gods to the blush! This is the crime then that has made the light remain in the east and kept back the day! (Phœbus refused to yoke his steeds.) Oh! what cries shall I vent in my misery? What wailing shall I display? What words are sufficient to record my feelings? I perceive, now, that their heads have been cut off, and their hands wrenched from their sockets, and the remains torn away from their broken legs. This is what a father, however hungry, could never sacrifice to his voracity—My very entrails are working round and round within me, and without any means of exit, my misery is struggling in my inside, and is seeking some way out of its imprisonment! Give me thy sword, brother, it has plenty of my blood on it already. I shall effect a way out for my children! Shall the sword be 