Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/124

106 Girt by the banks of Tartarus! Ye storied shades, Your torments leave and haste to grace the festival At Hymen's call! Let stop the whirling wheel that holds Ixion's limbs and let him tread Corinthian ground; Let Tantalus unfrighted drink Pirene's stream. On Creon's stock alone let heavier torments fall, And backward o'er the rocks let Sisyphus be hurled. You too, the seed of Danaüs, whose fruitless toil The ever-empty urns deride, I summon you; This day requires your helping hands. Thou radiant moon, Night's glorious orb, my supplications hear and come To aid; put on thy sternest guise, thou goddess dread Of triple form! Full oft have I with flowing locks, And feet unsandaled, wandered through thy darkling groves And by thy inspiration summoned forth the rain From cloudless skies; the heaving seas have I subdued, And sent the vanquished waves to ocean's lowest depths. At my command the sun and stars together shine, The heavenly law reversed; while in the Arctic sea The Bears have plunged. The seasons, too, obey my will: I've made the burning summer blossom as the spring, And hoary winter autumn's golden harvests bear. The Phasis sends his swirling waves to seek their source, And Ister, flowing to the sea with many mouths, His eager water checks and sluggish rolls along. The billows roar, the mad sea rages, though the winds All silent lie. At my command primeval groves Have lost their shade; the sun, abandoning the day, Has stood in middle heaven; while falling Hyades Attest my charms. But now thy sacred hour is come, O Phoebe. Thine these bonds with bloody hand entwined With ninefold serpent coils; these cords I offer thee, Which on his hybrid limbs Typhoeus bore, who shook The throne of Jove. This vessel holds the dying blood Of Nessus, faithless porter of Alcides' bride. Here are the ashes of the pyre on Oeta's top