Page:Ten Tragedies of Seneca (1902).djvu/167

Lines 1086—1112] THY. What had the children done, to have deserved all this?

ATR. Simply that they were thine!

THY. That children should suffer, for their parent's misdeeds?

ATR. I acknowledge this, and what gives me equal pleasure, the unmistakability of their origin!

THY. I call to witness the Gods, who preside over the innocent, the Conjugal Gods!

ATR. Dost thou mean Hymenæus?

THY. What dost thou argue, that crime should be punished by crime of greater intensity?

ATR. I know what thou wouldst have endeavoured to carry out—thou art regretting that thou wert forestalled in thy wickedness. Nor does it so much affect thee, that thou hast actually partaken of the feast, dreadful as it is (confessedly), but that it was not thy hand that was concerned in its preparation—it was in thy mind to get up a similar entertainment for thy unsuspecting brother! and, aided by the mother, to have made an onslaught on my children, and lay them low with a fate of like character, but there was only one thing that deterred thee—Thou thoughtest, they might be thy own!

THY. Ah! the revengeful gods will appear on the scene, my desire is to deliver thee over to be punished by them!

ATR. I consign thee to be punished, through the fate of thy children! 