Thyestes
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Some parts illegible · 5 illegible passages, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~8,630 words · 41 passages
Cite this work
- APALucius Annaeus Seneca. (n.d.). Thyestes. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/thyestes
- MLALucius Annaeus Seneca. "Thyestes." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/thyestes.
- ChicagoLucius Annaeus Seneca. Thyestes. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/thyestes.
What it is about
A man feeds his brother that brother's own children, cooked. The blackest tragedy surviving from the Latin stage.
Context and history
Seneca is not after Greek tragic measure: he is after sustained horror and the rhetoric of rage, which is why Shakespeare and the Elizabethan dramatists read him far more than Sophocles. The English revenge tragedy comes from here.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
(281) – Quis inferorum sede ab infausta extrahit avido fugaces ore captantem cibos, quis male deorum Tantalo visas domos ostendit iterum? peius inventum est siti arente in undis aliquid et peius fame hiante semper? Sisyphi numquid lapis gestandus umeris lubricus nostris venit aut membra celeri differens cursu rota, aut poena Tityi qui specu vasto patens visceribus atras pascit effossis aves et nocte reparans quicquid amisit die plenum recenti pabulum monstro iacet? in quod malum transcribor? o quisquis nova supplicia functis durus umbrarum arbiter disponis, addi si quid ad poenas potest quod ipse custos carceris diri horreat, quod maestus Acheron paveat, ad cuius metum nos quoque tremamus, quaere: iam nostra subit e stirpe turba quae suum vincat genus ac me innocentem faciat et inausa audeat. (282) regione quicquid impia cessat loci complebo — numquam stante Pelopea domo Minos vacabit. – Perge, detestabilis umbra, et penates impios furiis age. certetur omni scelere et alterna vice stringatur ensis; ne sit irarum modus pudorve, mentes caecus instiget furor, rabies parentum duret et longum nefas eat in nepotes; nec vacet cuiquam vetus odisse crimen: semper oriatur novum, nec unum in uno, dumque punitur scelus, crescat, superbis fratribus regna excidant repetantque profugos; dubia violentae domus fortuna reges inter incertos labet: miser ex potente fiat, ex misero potens fluctuque regnum casus assiduo ferat, ob scelera pulsi, cum dabit patriam deus (289) hunc facinus ingens ausus assumpta in scelus consorte nostri perfidus thalami avehit. hinc omne cladis mutuae fluxit malum: per regna trepidus exul erravi mea, pars nulla generis tuta ab insidiis vacat, corrupta coniunx, imperi quassa est fides, domus aegra, dubius sanguis est — certi nihil nisi frater hostis, quid stupes? tandem incipe animosque sume: Tantalum et Pelopem aspice; ad haec manus exempla poscuntur meae. profare, dirum qua caput mactem via. – Ferro peremptus spiritum inimicum expuat. – De fine poen← Back to Lucius Annaeus Seneca