Great Lines From Seneca’s Madness of Hercules

Posted: July 13, 2023 | Author: lexsemperaccusat | Filed under: Latin Translation | Tags: Madness of Hercules, Seneca, Translation | Leave a comment

I’ve decided to start a nice commonplace of great quotes from the play. Below I’ll be periodically adding great lines from the play.

Hercules: If only I was able to offer the blood of his hated head to the gods as a libation! No more pleasing libation would wet the altars; no victim more honorable and more rich can be sacrificed to Jupiter than a wicked king.

Hercules: Will he, who gave pardon to no one, pardon himself? Ordered I did my things which will be praised; this one deed is mine. Help, father, whether piety moves you or sad destiny or the dishonored glory of my virtue. Bring out my arms; let Fortune be conquered by my right hand.

Lycus: To wish for peace is expedient for the returning victor; it is necessary for the conquered.

Megara: No force will defeat our trust. I will die, Hercules, yours.

Megara: He has touched hell so that he can be able to gain heaven.

Megara: It is of virtue to master those things which all fear.

Theseus: If I know Hercules, Lycus will pay his penalty to Creon. “He will pay” is slow: he is paying. This also is slow: he has paid.

Amphitryon: Theseus, conquer whatever fear remains deep in your chest, and do not deprive yourself of the very greatest fruit of your labors: that which it was hard to suffer, it is sweet to recall.

Theseus: From there wide spaces are opened up into empty places into which the whole human race, once they have been buried, proceed. And it is not a struggle to go; the road itself draws you.

Theseus: And the foul land is numb in its eternal neglect—a gloomy end of things and the final condition of the world. The unmoving air clings, and the black night remains in the dull world. Everything is horrible with decay, and the place of death is worse than death itself.

Theseus: Whoever would rule, abstain from human blood; your crimes are considered in a greater way.

Chorus: Why does it delight us to rush stern fate?

Hercules: Will he, who gave pardon to no one, pardon himself? Ordered I did my things which will be praised; this one deed is mine. Help, father, whether piety moves you or sad destiny or the dishonored glory of my virtue. Bring out my arms; let Fortune be conquered by my right hand.

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