Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/311

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With verdant laural decked, proclaim their joy;
Let torches gleam in celebration meet 55
Of thy return—then let the Thracian crime
Be done again, but triply hideous.
Why stays the uncle's hand in idleness?
Not yet Thyestes weeps his murdered sons.
When will he act? The kettles o'er the fires
Should even now be boiling, severed limbs 60
Be broken up, the father's hearth be stained
With children's blood, the festal tables spread.
But at no untried carnival of crime
Wilt thou sit down as guest. This day be free,
And sate thy hunger at that festal board;
Go eat thy fill, and drink the blood and wine 65
Commingled in thy sight. A banquet this,
Which thou thyself wouldst look in horror on.—
But stay thee. Whither dost thou rush away?
Tantalus: Back to my pools and streams and ebbing waves,
Back to that tree whose ever-mocking fruit
Eludes my lips. Oh, let me seek again
The gloomy couch of my old prison-house; 70
And if too little wretched I appear,
Bid me my river change. Within thy stream,
O Phlegethon, hemmed round with waves of fire,
Let me be left to suffer.
⁠Ye, whoe'er
By fate's decrees are doomed to punishment,
Whoe'er thou art who 'neath the hollowed cave 75
Dost lie, in constant fear lest even now
The cavern's mass shall fall upon thy head;
Whoever fears the gaping, greedy jaws
Of lions, and in helpless horror looks
Upon the advancing furies' cruel lines;
Whoe'er, half burned, their threat'ning lurches shuns:
Oh, listen to the voice of Tantalus 80
Fast speeding to your realm; believe the words
Of one who knows, and love your punishment.
But now—Oh, when shall it be mine to flee
This upper world?