Senecan Madness

As I resume translating Seneca’s Hercules Furens, I can’t help but appreciate his use and thoughts on madness. It’s a motif that is present in Thyestes, but it’s a central component of this play. In order to successfully strike her hated stepson, Juno must embrace madness and turn upon the very institutions of which she is the patron: Juno must turn upon Juno in order to harm Hercules, and Hercules must become the instrument which will destroy Hercules. Only madness will allow her to transgress the natural moral laws which hinder her from destroying Hercules, and only in madness can Hercules, who is the exemplar of uncultivated virtue, deviate from his virtue and turn upon himself.