Ch. 15: The Line of Tantalos
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♠ Loukianos, De astrologia 12 – Lucian 5, pp. 356-59, ed. A. M. Harmon.
Greek Text Greek Text and English Translation
♠ Sophokles fr 738 R – Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta vol. 4, p. 520, ed. S. L. Radt. Göttingen 1977.
♠ Byz Σ Or 812 – Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta 4, p. 162, ed. S.L. Radt. Göttingen 1977.
♠ Seneca, Thyestes 1ff.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
THYESTES, brother of Atreus, in exile from his fatherland.
THE GHOST OF TANTALUS, doomed for his sins to come back to earth and inspire his house to greater sin.
THE FURY, who drives the ghost on to do his allotted part.
AN ATTENDANT OF ATREUS.
THREE SONS OF THYESTES, Tantalus, Plisthenes, and another, only one of whom, Tantalus, takes part in the dialogue.
A MESSENGER.
CHORUS, Citizens of Mycenae.
THE SCENE is laid partly without the city of Argos, and partly within the royal palace.
ARGUMENT
Pelops, the son of Tantalus, had banished his sons for the murder of their half-brother, Chrysippus, with a curse upon them, that they and their posterity might perish by each others’ hands. Upon the death of Pelops, Atreus returned and took possession of his father’s throne. Thyestes, also, claimed the throne, and sought to gain it by the foulest means. For he seduced his brother’s wife, Aërope, and stole by her assistance the magical, gold-fleeced ram from Atreus’ flocks, upon the possession of which the right to rule was said to rest. For this act he was banished by the king.
But Atreus has long been meditating a more complete revenge upon his brother; and now in pretended friendship has recalled him from banishment, offering him a place beside himself upon the throne, that thus he may have Thyestes entirely in his power.
THE GHOST OF TANTALUS
[1] Who from the accursed regions of the dead haleth me forth, snatching at food which ever fleeth from my hungry lips? What god for his undoing showeth again to Tantalus the abodes of the living? Hath something worse been found than parching thirst midst water, worse than ever-gaping hunger? Cometh the slippery stone of Sisyphus to be borne upon my shoulders? or the wheel stretching apart my limbs in its swift round? or Tityus’ pangs, who, stretched in a huge cavern, with torn out vitals feeds the dusky birds and, by night renewing whate’er he lost by day, lies an undiminished banquet for new monsters? To what new suffering am I shifted? O whoe’er thou art, harsh judge of shades, who doest allot fresh punishments to the dead, if aught can be added to my sufferings whereat e’en the guardian of our dread prison-house would quake, whereat sad Acheron would be seized with dread, with fear whereof I, too, should tremble, seek thou it out. Now from my seed a multitude is coming up which its own race shall out-do, which shall make me seem innocent, and dare things yet undared. Whatever space is still empty in the unholy realm, I shall fill up; never while Pelops’ house is standing, will Minos be at rest. Continue Reading Latin Text
♠ Fab 88 – Hyginus, Fabulae
At this crime even the Sun turned aside his car. Latin Text
♠ Ovid, Ibis 429
And may you commit an act to make the frantic horses
of the Sun hurtle back from west to east. Latin Text
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Edited by Elena Bianchelli, Retired Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, April 2024.
