Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/190

---

He might seduce and bear away his queen.
With such mad folly linked he went away,
Restrained by neither fear nor shame. And so,
In deepest Acheron, illicit love
This father of Hippolytus desires.
But other, greater griefs than this oppress
Thy sorrowing soul; no quiet rest by night, 100
No slumber deep comes to dissolve my cares;
But woe is fed and grows within my heart,
And there burns hot as Aetna's raging fires.
My loom stands empty and my listless hands
Drop idly from their tasks. No more I care 105
To make my votive offerings to the gods,
Nor, with the Athenian women mingled, dance
Around their sacred shrines, and conscious brands
Toss high in secret rites. I have no heart
With chaste and pious prayers to worship her,
That mighty goddess who was set to guard
This Attic land. My only joy is found 110
In swift pursuit of fleeing beasts of prey,
My soft hands brandishing the heavy spear.
But what will come of this? Why do I love
The forest glades so madly? Ah, I feel
The fatal malady my mother felt;
For both have learned within the forest depths
To sin in love. O mother, now my heart 115
Doth ache for thee; for, swept away by sin
Unspeakable, thou boldly didst conceive
A shameful passion for the savage lord
Of the wild herd. Untamable was he,
That stern and lustful leader of the flock;
And yet he loved. But in my passion's need 120
What god can help me? Where the Daedalus
Who can my love relieve? Should he return
Who shut our monster in the labyrinth,
He could not by his well-known Attic skill
Avail to save me from this dire mischance.
For Venus, filled with deadly hate of us,
The stock of Phoebus, seeks through me to avenge 125