The house of Claudius is overthrown,
To whose control the world was subjugate, 40
Whose rule an ocean, long to sway unknown,
Obeyed, and bore our ships with subject will.
Lo, he, who first the savage Britains curbed,
And filled an unknown ocean with his fleet,
And passed in safety 'mid barbaric tribes—
By his own wife's impiety was slain. 45
And she is destined by her son to fall,
Whose hapless brother lies already slain
By poison's hand, whose sister-wife alone
Is left to mourn. Nor may she hide her grief,
By bitter wrath impelled to speak. She shuns
Her cruel lord's society, and, fired 50
With equal hate, with mutual[1] loathing burns.
Our pious faithfulness in vain consoles
Her grieving heart; her cruel woes reject
Our aid; the noble passion of her soul
Will not be ruled, but grows on ills renewed.
Alas, my fears forebode some desperate deed, 55
Which may the gods forbid!
Octavia [heard speaking from within her chamber]: O fate of mine,
that can no equal know!
Thy woes, Electra, were no match for these;
For thou couldst soothe with tears the grief thou hadst 60
For thy dear father's fall; thou couldst avenge
The murder by thy brother's ready hand,
Who by thy piety was saved from death,
And whom thy faith concealed. But me base fear
Forbids to weep my parents reft away 65
By cruel fate; forbids to weep the death
Of him, my brother, who my sole hope was,
My fleeting comfort of so many woes.
And now, surviving but to suffer still,
I live, the shadow of a noble name. 70
Nurse: Behold, the voice of my sad foster-child
Falls on my list'ning ears. Slow steps of age,
Why haste ye not within her chamber there?
- ↑ Reading, mariti mutua.
