Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/241

Rh And so he scorns the deadly fates, And, all invincible, provokes His death. No spears can pierce his heart, No arrow shot from Scythian bow, No darts which cold Sarmatians bear, Or they who dwell beneath the dawn, The Parthians, whose fatal shafts More deadly than the Cretan dart, The neighboring Nabathaeans wound. Oechalia's walls he overthrew With his bare hands. Naught can withstand His onslaught. For whate'er he plans To overcome, is by that fact Already overcome. How few The foes who by his wounds have fallen! His angry countenance means death; And to have met his threatening gaze Is worse than death. What Gyas huge, What vast Briareus, who stood Upon Thessalia's mountain heap And clutched at heaven with snaky hands, Would not have frozen at the glance Of that dread face? But mighty ills Have mighty recompense: no more Is left to suffer—we have seen, Oh, woe! the angry Hercules! Iole: But I, unhappy one, must mourn, Not temples with their gods o'erthrown, Not scattered hearths and burning homes, Where lie in common ruin mixed Fathers with sons, and gods with men, Temples and towns—the common woe; But fortune calls my tears away To other grief. Fate bids me weep O'er other ruins. What lament Shall I make first? What greatest ill Shall I bewail? All equally I'll weep. Ah me, that mother earth Hath not more bosoms given me,