197. Cp. Macbeth ii. 2. 36, Macbeth does murder sleep, &c. For other Shakespearian parallels, cp. Macbeth, Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased? H.F. 1261 'nemo pollute queat | animo mederi.' Macbeth, I have lived long enough…. And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have. H.F. 1258 'Cur animam in ista luce detincam amplius | morerque nihil est; cuncta iam amisi bona, | mentem, arma, famam, coniugem, natos, manus.' J. Phil. vi. 70. Cunliffe, Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy.
198. An exception might be made in favour of the beautiful simile describing Polyxena about to die, notable as giving one of the very few allusions to the beauty of sunset to be found in ancient literature (Troad. 1137):
ipsa deiectos gerit vultus pudore, sed tamen fulgent genae magisque solito splendet extremus decor, ut esse Phoebi dulcius lumen solet iamiam cadentis, astra cum repetunt vices premiturque dubius nocte vicina dies.
Fine, too, are the lines describing the blind Oedipus (Oed. 971):
attollit caput cavisque lustrans orbibus caeli plagas noctem experitur.
199. pp. 52 sqq., 59.
200. Cp. Eur. H.F. 438 sqq.
201. For further examples cp. H.F. 5-18, Troades 215-19.
202. This terse stabbing rhetoric is characteristic of Stoicism; the same short, jerky sentences reappear in Epictetus. Seneca is doubtless influenced by the declamatory rhetoric of schools as well, but his philosophical training probably did much to form his style.
203. Exceptions are so few as to be negligible. The effect of this rule is aggravated by the fact that in nine cases out of ten the accent of the word and the metrical ictus 'clash', this result being obtained 'by most violent elisions, such as rarely or never occur in the other feet of the verse'. Munro, J. Phil. 6, 75.