Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/282

264 Within whose scorching zone the day comes not? O comrades, take and throw me in the sea, Or in the river's rushing stream alas, Where is the stream that will suffice for me? Though greater than all lands, not ocean's self Can cool my burning pains. To ease my woe All streams were not enough, all springs would fail. Why, O thou lord of Erebus, didst thou To Jove return me? Better had it been To hold me fast. Oh, take me back again, And show me as I am to those fell shades Whom I subdued. Naught will I take away. Thou hast no need to fear Alcides more. Come death, attack me; have no fear of me; For I at length am fain to welcome thee. Alcmena: Restrain thy tears at least; subdue thy pains. Come, show thyself unconqucred still by woe; And death and hell, as is thy wont, defy. Hercules: If on the heights of Caucasus I lay In chains, to greedy birds of prey exposed, While Scythia wailed in sympathy with me, No sound of woe should issue from my lips; Or should the huge, unfixed Symplegades Together clash and threaten me with death, I'd bear unmoved the threatened agony. Should Pindus fall upon me, Haemus too, Tall Athos which defies the Thracian seas, And Mimas at whose towering peaks are hurled The bolts of Jove—if e'en the sky itself Should fall upon my head, and Phoebus' car In blazing torture on my shoulders lie: No coward cry of pain would ever show The mind of Hercules subdued. Nay more: Although a thousand monstrous beasts at once Should rush upon and rend me limb from limb; Though here Stymphalus' bird with clangor wild, And there with all his strength the threat'ning bull, And all fierce, monstrous things, should press me hard; Nay, though the very soil of earth should rise