Phoenissae
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~5,900 words · 28 passages
Cite this work
- APALucius Annaeus Seneca. (n.d.). Phoenissae. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/phoenissae
- MLALucius Annaeus Seneca. Phoenissae. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/phoenissae.
- ChicagoLucius Annaeus Seneca. Phoenissae. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/phoenissae.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
Oedipus's sons on their way to kill each other, and Jocasta trying to stop them.
Context and history
It reaches us incomplete — no choruses, and it breaks off — and that is one reason to read it: one sees how a Senecan tragedy was built before it was finished. Its brevity in the catalogue is not a defect of the copy. 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.
et si quid ultra Tartarum est; tandem libet quod olim oportet, morte prohiberi haud queo. ferrum negabis? noxias lapsu vias eludes et artis colla laqueis inseri prohibebis? herbas quae ferunt letum auferes? quid ista tandem cura proficiet tua? ubique mors est. optume hoc cavit deus: eripere vitam nemo non homini, potest, at nemo mortem; mille ad hanc aditus patent. nil quaero: dextra noster et nuda solet bene animus uti — dextra, nunc toto impetu, toto dolore, viribus totis veni. non destino unum vulneri nostro locum: totus nocens sum: qua Voles mortem exige. effringe pectus corque tot scelerum capax evelle, totos viscerum nuda sinus. fractum incitatis ictibus guttur sonet laceraeque fixis unguibus venae fluant. aut dirige iras quo soles: haec vulnera rescissa multo sanguine ac tabe inriga, hac extrahe animam duram, inexpugnabilem. et tu, parens, ubicumque poenarum arbiter adstas mearum; non ego hoc tantum scelus ulla expiari credidi poena satis umquam, nec ista morte contentus fui, nec me redemi parte: membratim tibi perire volui — debitum tandem exige. nunc solvo poenas, tunc tibi inferias dedi. ades atque inertem dexteram introrsus preme magisque merge: timida tunc parvo caput libavit haustu vixque cupientes sequi eduxit oculos, haeret etiam nunc mihi ille animus, haeret, cum recusantem manum (99) pressere vultus, audies verum, Oedipus: minus eruisti lumina audacter tua. quam praestitisti, nunc manum cerebro indue: hac parte mortem perage qua coepi mori. Antig. Pauca, o parens magnanime, miserandae precor ut verba natae mente placata audias. non te ut reducam veteris ad speciem domus habitumque regni flore pollentem inclito peto aut ut iras, temporum haut ipsa mora fractas, remisso pectore ac placido feras: at hoc decebat roboris tanti virum, non esse sub dolore nec victum malis dare terga; non est, ut putas, virtus, pater, timere vitam, sed malis ingentibus obstare nec se vertere ac retro dare.…