The Tragedies of Seneca
- Language:
- English
- 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:
- ~180,000 words · 845 passages
Cite this work
- APALucius Annaeus Seneca. (n.d.). The Tragedies of Seneca. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/the-tragedies-of-seneca
- MLALucius Annaeus Seneca. The Tragedies of Seneca. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/the-tragedies-of-seneca.
- ChicagoLucius Annaeus Seneca. The Tragedies of Seneca. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/the-tragedies-of-seneca.
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
The tragedies transmitted under Seneca's name: Medea, Phaedra, Thyestes, Oedipus, The Trojan Women and the rest, in English translation.
Context and history
Two things to know. The first concerns authorship: of the ten plays transmitted, the Octavia cannot be his — Seneca appears in it as a character and it narrates Nero's death, which came after his own — and the Hercules on Oeta is disputed. The second is that these are not plays for staging: they seem made to be read aloud, which explains the enormous speeches and the explicit cruelty that on the Greek stage happened offstage. They were the model for Elizabethan revenge tragedy, Shakespeare included.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Oh, cruel, strange new form of death, 180 And worse than death! The sluggish limbs Are with a weary languor seized; The sickly cheek with fever burns, And all the head with loathsome sores Is blotched. Now heated vapors rise And scorch with fever's flames the brain Within the body's citadel, And the throbbing temples swell with blood. 185 The eyeballs start; the accurséd fire Devours the limbs; the ears resound, And from the nostrils dark blood drips And strains apart the swelling veins. 190 Now quick convulsions rend and tear The inmost vitals. Now to their burning hearts they strain Cold stones to soothe their agony; And they, whom laxer care permits, Since they who should control are dead, The fountains seek, and feed their thirst 195 With copious draughts. The smitten throng All prostrate at the altars lie And pray for death; and this alone The gods, compliant, grant to them. Men seek the sacred fanes, and pray, Not that the gods may be appeased, But glutted with their feast of death. 200 [Creon _is seen approaching_.] But who with hasty step the palace seeks? Is this our Creon, high in birth and deed, Or does my sickened soul see false for true? 'Tis Creon's self, in answer to our prayer. 205 FOOTNOTES: [1] Reading, _caudam_. ACT II [_Enter_ Creon.] _Oedipus_: I quake with horror, and I fear to know The tendency of fate. My trembling soul Strives 'neath a double load; for joy and grief Lie mingled still in dark obscurity. I shrink from knowing what I long to know.…