Hercules furens
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~4,840 words · 23 passages
Cite this work
- APALucius Annaeus Seneca. (n.d.). Hercules furens. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/hercules-furens
- MLALucius Annaeus Seneca. "Hercules furens." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/hercules-furens.
- ChicagoLucius Annaeus Seneca. Hercules furens. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/hercules-furens.
What it is about
Hercules returns victorious from the underworld and, in a madness sent by Juno, kills his wife and children.
Context and history
The scene where he comes to his senses and sees what he has done is among the hardest in ancient theatre. The question it leaves — whether a man can bear to live with that, and whether suicide would be courage or flight — is Stoic through and through. The tragedies are not a literary appendix to Seneca's philosophy: they are the main road by which he set it out. Anger, the fear of death and fate, argued for in the letters, are here shown at work.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Personae I Hercules Lycus II Amphitryon Iuno III Theseus Megara Chorus Thebanorum v. 1 (3) Iuno. Soror Tonantis (hoc enim solum mihi nomen relictum est) semper alienum Iovem ac templa summi vidua deserui aetheris locumque caelo pulsa paelicibus dedi; tellus colenda est: paelices caelum tenent, hinc Arctos alta parte glacialis poli sublime classes sidus Argolicas agit; hinc, qua tepenti vere labatur dies, Tyriae per undas vector Europae nitet; illinc timendum ratibus ac ponto gregem passim vagantes exerunt Atlantides. ferro minax hinc terret Orion deos suasque Perseus aureus stellas habet; hinc clara gemini signa Tyndaridae micant quibusque natis mobilis tellus stetit. nec ipse tantum Bacchus aut Bacchi parens adiere superos: ne qua pars probro vacet, mundus puellae serta Gnosiacae gerit, sed vetera sero querimur… …una me dira ac fera (4) Thebana tellus nuribus a! sparsa impiis quotiens novercam fecit! escendat licet meumque victrix teneat Alcmene locum, pariterque natus astra promissa occupet, in cuius ortus mundus impendit diem tardusque Eoo Phoebus effulsit mari retinere mersum iussus Oceano iubar. non sic abibunt odia; vivaces aget violentus iras animus et saevus dolor aeterna bella pace sublata geret. Quae bella? quicquid horridum tellus creat inimica, quicquid pontus aut aer tulit terribile dirum pestilens atrox ferum, fractum atque domitum est. superat et crescit malis iraque nostra fruitur; in laudes suas mea vertit odia: dum nimis saeva impero, patrem probavi, gloriae feci locum, qua Sol reducens quaque deponens diem
What is Hercules furens about?Summarize Hercules furens brieflyWhat are the key ideas in Hercules furens?
← Back to Lucius Annaeus Seneca