Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/39

Rh And in the stilly night we heard The baying of Amphion's hounds. Oh, cruel, strange new form of death, And worse than death! The sluggish limbs Are with a weary languor seized; The sickly cheek with fever burns, And all the head with loathsome sores Is blotched. Now heated vapors rise And scorch with fever's flames the brain Within the body's citadel, And the throbbing temples swell with blood. The eyeballs start; the accursed fire Devours the limbs; the cars resound, And from the nostrils dark blood drips And strains apart the swelling veins. Now quick convulsions rend and tear The inmost vitals. Now to their burning hearts they strain Cold stones to soothe their agony; And they, whom laxer care permits, Since they who should control are dead, The fountains seek, and feed their thirst With copious draughts. The smitten throng All prostrate at the altars lie And pray for death; and this alone The gods, compliant, grant to them. Men seek the sacred fanes, and pray, Not that the gods may be appeased, But glutted with their feast of death. [Creon is seen approaching.]

But who with hasty step the palace seeks? Is this our Creon, high in birth and deed, Or does my sickened soul see false for true? 'Tis Creon 's self, in answer to our prayer.

[Enter Creon.]

Oedipus: I quake with horror, and I fear to know The tendency of fate. My trembling soul Strives 'neath a double load; for joy and grief