Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/274

256 [Enter Hercules in the extremity of suffering.]

Hercules: Turn back thy panting steeds, thou shining sun, And bid the night come forth. Blot out the day, And let the heavens, with pitchy darkness filled, Conceal my dying pains from Juno's eyes. Now, father, wire it fitting to recall Dark chaos; now the joinings of the skies Should be asunder rent, and pole from pole Be cleft. Why, father, dost thou spare the stars? Thy Hercules is lost. Now, Jupiter, Look well to every region of the heavens, Lest any Gyas hurl again the crags Of Thessaly, and Othrys be again An easy missile for Enceladus. Now, even now will haughty Pluto loose The gates of hell, strike off his father's chains, And give him back to heaven. Since Hercules, Who on the earth has seen thy thunderbolt And lightning flash, must turn him back to Styx; Enceladus the fierce will rise again, And hurl against the gods that mighty weight Which now oppresses him. O Jupiter, My death throughout the kingdom of the sky Shall shake thy sovereignty. Then, ere thy throne Become the giants' spoil, give burial Beneath the ruined universe to me; Oh, rend thy kingdom ere 'tis rent from thee. Chorus: No empty fears, O Thunderer's son, Dost thou express: for soon again Shall Pelion on Ossa rest; And Athos, heaped on Pindus, thrust Its woods amidst the stars of heaven. Then shall Typhoeus heave aside The crags of Tuscan Ischia; Enceladus, not yet o'ercome By thunderbolts, shall bear aloft The huge Aetnaean furnaces, And rend the gaping mountain side.