Savage on every side stretches the solitude vast;
Autumn ripens no fruits, nor summer prepares here a harvest.
Winter, hoary and chill, wants the Palladian gift;[I]
Never rejoices the spring in the coolness of shadowy verdure,
Here not a blade of grass pierces the desolate plain,
Water is none, nor bread, nor a funeral-pile for the stranger—
Two are there here, and no more—the Exile alone with his Wo."[J]
The Corsicans have not failed to take revenge on Seneca. Since he gives them and their country such a disgraceful character, they have connected a scandalous story with his name. Popular tradition has preserved only a single incident from the period of his residence in Corsica, and it is as follows:—As Seneca sat in his tower and looked down into the frightful island, he saw the Corsican virgins, that they were fair. Thereupon the philosopher descended, and he dallied with the daughters of the land. One comely shepherdess did he honour with his embrace; but the kinsfolk of the maiden came upon him suddenly, and took him, and scourged the philosopher with nettles.
Ever since, the nettle grows profusely and ineradicably round the Tower of Seneca, as a warning to moral philosophers. The Corsicans call it Ortica de Seneca.
Unhappy Seneca! He is always getting into tragi-comic situations. A Corsican said to me: "You have read what Seneca says of us? ma era un birbone—but he was a great rascal." Seneca morale, says Dante,—Seneca birbone, says the Corsican—another instance of his love for his country.