Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/220

202 Messenger: My tongue can find do words to voice its woe. Theseus: But speak, what evil fortune still besets My shattered house? Messenger: Hippolytus is dead! Theseus: The father knew long since his son had died; But now the adulterer has met his end. Tell me, I pray, the manner of his death. Messenger: When, fleeing forth, he left the city's walls, With maddened speed he hurried on his way, And quickly yoked his chargers to his car, And curbed them to his will with close-drawn reins. And then, with much wild speech, and cursing loud His native land, oft calling on his sire, He fiercely shook the reins above his steeds; When suddenly, far out the vast sea roared, And heaved itself to heaven. No wind was there To stir the sea, no quarter of the sky Broke in upon its peace; the rising waves Were by their own peculiar tempest raised No blast so great had ever stirred the straits Of Sicily, nor had the deep e'er swelled With such wild rage before the north wind's breath, When high cliffs trembled with the shock of waves, And hoary foam smote high Leucate's top. The sea then rose into a mighty heap, And, big with monstrous birth, was landward borne. For no ship's wrecking was this swelling pest Intended; landward was its aim. The flood Rolled shoreward heavily, something unknown Within its laden bosom carrying. What land, new born, will lift its head aloft? Is some new island of the Cyclades Arising? Now the rocky heights are hid, Held sacred to the Epidaurian god, And those high crags well known for Sciron's crime; No longer can be seen that land whose shores Are washed by double seas. While in amaze We look in fear and wonder, suddenly The whole sea bellows, and on every side