And helping hands.
But what avails
To escape the grasp of the savage sea?
By the sword of the son is she doomed to die,
Whose monstrous deed posterity
Will scarce believe. With rage and grief360
Inflamed, he raves that still she lives,
His mother, snatched from the wild sea's jaws,
And doubles crime on impious crime.
Bent on his wretched mother's death,
He brooks no tarrying of fate.365
His willing creatures work his will,
And in the hapless woman's breast
The fatal sword is plunged; but she
To that fell minister of death
Appeals with dying tongue: "Nay here,
Here rather strike the murderous blow,
Here sheathe thy sword, deep in the womb370
Which such a monster bore."
So spake the dying queen, her words
And groans commingling. So at last
Through gaping wounds her spirit fled375
In grief and agony.
ACT II
Seneca [alone]: Why hast thou, potent Fate, with flattering looks,
Exalted me, contented with my lot,
That so from this great height I might descend
With heavier fall, and wider prospect see380
Of deadly fears? Ah, better was I, hid
Far from the stinging lash of envy's tongue,
Amid the lonely crags of Corsica.
There was my spirit free to act at will,
Was master of itself, had time to think
And meditate at length each favorite theme.
Oh, what delight, than which none greater is,385
Of all that mother nature hath produced,
To watch the heavens, the bright sun's sacred rounds,
The heavenly movements and the changing night,
