The Tragedies of Seneca / Translated into English Verse, to Which Have Been Appended Comparative Analyses of the Corresponding Greek and Roman Plays, and a Mythological Index

by Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The Suabian chieftains gather in Hyrcanian groves.

The seasons, too, have paid their tribute to her stores:

Whatever earth produces in the nesting time,

And when the stiff'ning hand of winter's frost has stripped715

The glory from the trees and fettered all the land

With icy bonds; whatever flow'ring plant conceals

Destruction in its bloom, or in its twisted roots

Distils the juice of death, she gathers to her use.

These pestilential herbs Haemonian Athos gave;720

And these on lofty Pindus grew; a bloody knife