Page:Ten Tragedies of Seneca (1902).djvu/463

Lines 567—602] and sharer in my various aspects of fortune, assist me in carrying out my wretched projects! Thou knowest, there is a cloak of mine, the gift to our celestial family, and the proud heirloom of our dynasty, a token given to Æeta by Phœbus, to commemorate his lofty descent; there is also a neck-ornament, interwoven with gold embroidery, and another article, a chaplet which I used to wear round my head, and in which the brilliant gems show off the gold to great advantage! The sons shall bear these presents from me to the bride, as my especial wedding gifts, but let these presents be dipped and impregnated beforehand with my destructive preparations, and got ready for their fatal purpose: then Hecate must be invoked! Let me prepare the funeral sacrifices—let the altars be got ready, and may the palace resound with the alacrity of the flames, as they play before the altar.

The Chorus sings of the inordinate anger entertained by a cast-off wife at her thwarted love, and what a furious woman is capable of to make it felt, and whilst the rest of the Argonauts have suffered punishment for having infringed the sanctity of the sea, Jason is fervently prayed for.

violence of the angry flames, no tempestuous winds—no arrow that was ever shot from the bow—are to be dreaded so much as a wife bereaved of her nuptial rights and who (at the same time) is obstinately clinging to her love, and is nursing her pent-up wrath, when it is unacknowledged. Not less, indeed, than when the south wind, charged with its cumulous nebulosities, bursts upon us with its winter rains,—nor when the swollen Danube rushes on in torrents, and breaks down the bridges built across it, and overflows its very banks! Nor when the angry Rhone is forcing back the waves, nor when Mount Hæmus denuded of its snowy mantle sends down in torrents towards the rivers the snows which have been melted by the fierce solar heat—following that of mid-spring.—The blind unreasoning passion is excited more and more by the rage engendered through its being thwarted, it does not care to be influenced by reason and will suffer no restraint—it does not even fear death, and is willing to face the point of the sword itself! Be merciful, oh! ye gods, we implore your pardon, that Jason who subdued the sea shall live in security, and although the Deity of the Ocean depths (Neptune) is angry that his, the second Kingdom, should have been triumphed 