Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/57

Rh An impious brood of arméd men. The battle call resounded loud From the curving horn, and the piercing notes Of the brazen trumpet shrill were heard. Their new-created, nimble tongues, And voices strange, they first employ In hostile clamor; and the fields, The plains, their kindred soil, they fill. This monster brood, consorting well With that dire seed from which they sprung, Their life within a day's brief span Enjoyed; for after Phoebus rose They had their birth, but ere he set They perished. At the dreadful sight Great terror seized the wanderer; And much he feared to face in war His new-born foes. Until, at length The savage youth in mutual strife Fell down, and mother earth Beheld her sons, but now produced, Returned again to her embrace. And Oh, that with their fall might end All impious strife within the state! May Thebes, the land of Hercules, Such fratricidal strife behold No more! Why sing Actaeon's fate, Whose brow the new-sprung antlers crowned Of the long-lived stag, and whom his hounds, Though their hapless master still, pursued? In headlong haste through the mountains and woods, He flees in fear, and with nimble feet He scours the glades and rocky passes, In fear of the wind-tossed feathers hung Among the trees; but most he shuns The snares which he himself has set; Until at last in the still, smooth pool He sees his horns and his features wild, The pool where the goddess, too sternly chaste, Had bathed her virgin limbs.