Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/260

242 With pulsing veins. As when the storm-tossed sea Still heaves and swells, although the skies are clear And winds have died away; so is my mind Still tossed and restless, though my fear is stayed. When once the fortunate begin to feel The wrath of god, their sorrows never cease. For so does fortune ever end in woe. Nurse: What new distress, poor soul, has come to thee? Deianira: But now, when I had sent away the robe With Nessus' poisoned blood besmeared, and I, With sad forebodings, to my chamber went, Some nameless fear oppressed my anxious heart, A fear of treachery. I thought to prove The charm. Fierce Nessus, I bethought me then, Had bidden me to keep the blood from flame; And this advice itself foreboded fraud. It chanced the sun was shining, bright and warm, Undimmed by clouds. As I recall it now, My fear scarce suffers me to tell the tale. Into the blazing radiance of the sun I cast the blood-stained remnant of the cloth With which the fatal garment had been smeared. The thing writhed horribly, and burst aflame As soon as Phoebus warmed it with his rays. Oh, 'tis a dreadful portent that I tell! As when the snows on Mimas' sparkling sides Are melted by the genial breath of spring; As on Leucadia's crags the heaving waves Are dashed and break in foam upon the beach; Or as the incense on the holy shrines Is melted by the warming altar fires: So did the woolen fragment melt away. And while in wonder and amaze I looked, The object of my wonder disappeared. Nay, e'en the ground itself began to foam, And what the poison touched to shrink away. [Hyllus is seen approaching.] But hither comes my son with face of fear,