Part 5 (1/2)

_Meg_. 'Tis thus I'll meet my lord.

_Lyc_. Is that slave more to thee than I, a king?

_Meg_. How many kings has that slave given to death!

_Lyc_. Why does he serve a king and bear the yoke?

_Meg_. Remove hard tasks, and where would valour be?

_Lyc_. To conquer monsters call'st thou valour then?

_Meg_. 'Tis valour to subdue what all men fear.

_Lyc_. The shades of Hades hold that boaster fast.

_Meg_. No easy way leads from the earth to heaven.

MILLER

So, too, a little later (463) Amphitryon crushes Lycus with a true Stoic retort:--

_Lyc_. quemc.u.mque miserum videris, hominem scias.

_Amph_. quemc.u.mque fortem videris, miserum neges.[195]

_Lyc_. Whoe'er is wretched, him mayst thou know for mortal.

_Amph_. Whoe'er is brave, thou mayst not call him wretched.

Admirable as are the sentiments expressed by these virtuous and calamitous persons, they leave us cold: they are too self-sufficient to need our sympathy. Pain and death have no terrors for them; why should we pity them? But it would be unjust to lay the blame for this absence of pathetic power entirely on the influence of Stoicism. The scholastic rhetoric is not a good vehicle for pathos, and must bear a large portion of the blame, though even the rhetoric is due in no small degree to the Stoic type of dialectic. As Seneca himself says, speaking of others than himself, 'Philosophia quae fuit, facta philologia est.'[196] And it must further be remembered that of the few flights of real poetry in these plays some of the finest were inspired by Stoicism. The drama cannot nourish in the Stoic atmosphere, poetry can. Seneca was sometimes a poet. His best-known chorus, the famous _regem non faciunt opes_ of the _Thyestes_ (345), is directly inspired by Stoicism. The speeches of Agamemnon and Andromache, together with the chorus already quoted from the _Troades_, all bear the impress of the Stoic philosophy. The same is true of the scarcely inferior chorus on fate from the _Oedipus_ (980).

But there are other pa.s.sages of genuine poetry where the Stoic is silent. The chorus in the _Hercules Furens_ (838), giving the conventional view of death, will stand comparison with the chorus of the _Troades_, giving the philosophic view. The chorus on the dawn (_H.F._ 125) brings the fresh sounds and breezes of early morning into the atmosphere of the rhetorician's lecture-room. The celebrated

venient annis saecula seris quibus Ocea.n.u.s vincula rerum laxet et ingens pateat tellus Tethysque novos detegat orbes nec sit terris ultima Thule (_Med._ 375)

Late in time shall come an age, when Ocean shall unbar the world, and the whole wide earth be revealed, and Tethys shall show forth a new world, nor Thule be earth's limit any more.

has acquired a fict.i.tious importance since the discovery of the new world, but shows a fine imagination, even if--as has been maintained--it is merely a courtly reference to the British expedition of Claudius. And the invocation to sleep in the _Hercules Furens_ proved worthy to provide an inspiration for Shakespeare[197] (1063):

solvite tantis animum monstris solvite superi, caecam in melius flect.i.te mentem. tuque, o domitor Somne malorum, requies animi, pars humanae melior vitae, volucre o matris genus Astracae, frater durae languide Mortis, veris miscens falsa, futuri certus et idem pessimus auctor, pax errorum, portus vitae, lucis requies noctisque comes, qui par regi famuloque venis, pavidum leti genus humanum cogis longam discere noctem: placidus fessum lenisque fove, preme devinctum torpore gravi.

Save him, ye G.o.ds, from monstrous madness, save him, restore his darkened mind to sanity. And thou, O sleep, subduer of ill, the spirit's repose, thou better part of human life, swift-winged child of Astraca, drowsy brother of cruel death, mixing false with true, prescient of what shall be, yet oftener prescient of sorrow, peace mid our wanderings, haven of man's life, day's respite, night's companion, that comest impartially to king and slave, thou that makest trembling mankind to gain a foretaste of the long night of death; do thou bring gentle rest to his weariness, and sweet balm to his anguish, and overwhelm him with heavy stupor.

But the poetry is confined mainly to the lyrics. In them, though the metre be monotonous and the thought rarely more than commonplace, the feeling rings true, the expression is brilliant, and the never absent rhetoric is sometimes trans.m.u.ted to a more precious substance with a far-off resemblance to true lyrical pa.s.sion. In the iambics, with the exception of the pa.s.sages already quoted from the _Troades_ and the _Phaedra_, touches of genuine poetry are most rare.[198] In certain of the long descriptive pa.s.sages (_H.F._ 658 sqq., _Oed._ 530 sqq.) we get a stagey picturesqueness, but no more. It is for different qualities that we read the iambics of Seneca, if we read them at all.

Even in its worst moments the rhetoric is capable of extorting our unwilling admiration by its sheer cleverness and audacity. A good example is to be found in the pa.s.sage of the _Thyestes_, where Atreus meditates whether he shall call upon his sons Menelaus and Agamemnon to aid him in his unnatural vengeance on Thyestes. He has doubts as to whether he is their father, for Thyestes had seduced their mother Aerope (327):--

prolis incertae fides ex hoc petatur scelere: si bella abnuunt et gerere nolunt odia, si patruum vocant, pater est. eatur.

And by this test of crime, Let their uncertain birth be put to proof: If they refuse to wage this war of death And will not serve my hatred; if they plead He is their uncle--then he is their sire.

So to my work!

MILLER'S translation slightly altered.

Equally ingenious is the closing scene between Atreus and Thyestes after the vengeance is accomplished and Thyestes has feasted on the flesh of his own sons (1100):

_Thy_. quid liberi meruere?

_Atr_. quod fuerant tui.

_Thy_. natos parenti-- _Atr_. fateor et, quod me iuvat, certos.

_Thy_. piorum praesides testor deos.

_Atr_. quin coniugales?

_Thy_. scelere quid pensas scelus?

_Atr_. scio quid queraris: scelere praerepto doles, nec quod nefandas hauseris angit dapes; quod non pararis: fuerat hic animus tibi instruere similes inscio fratri cibos et adiuvante liberos matre aggredi similique leto sternere--hoc unum obst.i.tit: _tuos_ putasti.

_Thy_. What was my children's sin?