125-136

Ode 1

The ode begins with a description of dawn. The stars fade, and the Morning Star and Ursa Major change their position in the sky. The sun rises over Mount Oeta. The moon sets, but will return the next night.

As Fitch argues (1987: 163) this first ode is “indispensable for our understanding of the play. It establishes a standard of normality in the conduct of human life, and indicates that by that standard Hercules is condemned.”

125 rāra: “scattered” (L-S rarus II.A). Fewer stars are visible as the daylight brightens. The phrase rāra micant is also found in Virgil’s Aeneid (9.189) to describe the widely spaced campfires in a poorly defended military camp.

125bis sīdera prōnō languida mundō: in this carefully structured line, Seneca places the words in synchysis according to case (nom. – abl. – nom. – abl.) and chiasmus according to part of speech (noun – adj. – adj. – noun). This recalls a similarly careful structuring in line 124 (ortūque Tītān lūcidus croceō subit): at the end of Act 1, Seneca describes dawn by focusing on the rising of the sun; at the beginning of Ode 1, he describes the same event by focusing on the fading of the stars. prōnō … mundō: describing the stars setting in the western part of sky (L-S pronus I.B.1). The phrase may be read either as an ablative of place where (AG 426), emphasizing the location of the stars, or an ablative absolute (AG 419), emphasizing the movement of the heavens.

126-8 As the eastern sky brightens, stars remain visible only in the west. Seneca describes this phenomenon with a striking military metaphor: Night, defeated (vīcta) by the dawn, rallies (contrahit) her scattered (vagōs) forces in the western sky, while the Morning Star maintains order from the rear (cōgit … agmen).

126 contrahit: “diminishes” (OLD 2), although in the military metaphor operative in this passage night “musters” (OLD 4.a) her troops (the stars) after defeat by the dawn. ignēs: in poetry, “fire” can describe the brightness of the stars or the sun (L-S ignis I.B.1).

127 lūce: similarly, lūx most often describes the light of the sun, or daylight/day in general. renātā: perfect participle of the deponent renāscor.

128 Phōsphoros: a Greek nominative ending in –os (AG 52). The so-called “Morning Star” (really the planet Venus) was named Phōsphoros by the Greeks, literally “light bringer,” since the planet was visible just before dawn. This was usually translated literally into Latin as Lūcifer (from lūx, lūcis and ferō, ferre), but Seneca uses the rarer and more poetic Greek form.

129–31 Ursa Major was often used in Roman poetry to describe the time of night. Seneca structures his description of the constellation’s movement by starting each line with the same rhythm: two spondaic disyllabic words (signum celsī, septem stēllīs, lūcem versō). Note also the similarity in sounds of the first words signum, septem, lūcem. Seneca draws details from three different interpretations of the constellation: seven ploughing oxen (septem stēllis), the nymph Callisto after her transformation into a bear (Arcados Ursa), or a wagon (referred to metonymically by its wagon pole, tēmō).

129 signum celsī glaciāle polī: this phrase stands in apposition to Ursa in the next line. Seneca uses the same complex word order here as in line 125b (employing synchysis and chiasmus). signum: subtly continues the military metaphor of lines 126–8: signum can describe not only a constellation, but also a military standard.

130 septem stēllis: an ablative of description or quality (AG 415): “Arcas’ Bear with its seven stars.” Arcados Ursa: using the Greek genitive of Arcas, Arcados (AG 81), Seneca describes the constellation as “Arcas’ Bear”. He refers to the myth of Callisto (told at length in Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.401-507). This companion of Diana was raped by Jupiter, driven from Diana’s company, and turned into a bear by Juno after giving birth to a son, Arcas. Years later, Arcas encountered his transformed mother while out hunting and prepared to kill her; taking pity on his former victim (rather late), Jupiter turned mother and son into Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Diana’s discovery of Callisto’s pregnancy captured the imagination of artists from the Renaissance onwards; many different versions of the scene can be found here.

131 versō tēmōne: ablative absolute (AG 419). As night progresses, Ursa Major (here pictured as the Wain: a wagon with a wagon pole) turns in a small circle around the North Star. vocat: the subject is Ursa, in the previous line.

132-6 Seneca describes the sunrise in two groups of lines connected by anaphora of iam. The word after iam begins with a “c” in both line 132 and 134, and each of those lines have the same structure: iam – ablative adjective – participle/adjective – ablative noun.

132 caeruleīs … equīs: the Sun and the Moon were commonly represented riding chariots in Classical art and literature (as were other celestial divinities or personifications, including Dawn, Hesperos, Day, and Night). See, for example, this metope from the early Hellenistic temple of Athena at Ilion. Although caeruleus usually describes a dark blue color, here, the Sun’s horses are “sky-blue” to associate them with the caelum through which they fly.

132-3: ēvectus … Tītan: although Helios, the Sun, is in fact a child of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, poets often describe him as a Titan himself.

133 summā prōspicit Oetā: ablative of place from where (AG 428): “looks out from the top of Mount Oeta.” Poets regularly use an ablative without a preposition to express various ideas of separation. Mount Oeta is located about 100 km northwest of Thebes, so the chorus of Theban citizens could not in fact have witnessed the sun rising over it. Instead, Seneca mentions the mountain because it is closely associated with the death and apotheosis of Hercules (this myth appears in Latin poetry in sources such as the pseudo-Senecan Hercules Oetaeus and Ovid, Metamorphoses 9.159–272).

134-5 “Now the thickets made famous by Cadmean Bacchants turn red, spattered with daylight.” The thickets in question are on Mount Cithaeron, famous site of Bacchic worship in myth and ritual. The description features violent language: rubeo often describes the light of dawn, but also the colour of blood, while aspergo is very often used of spilled blood. This violence brings to mind, specifically, the myth of Pentheus, grandson of Cadmus, who was torn to pieces on the mountain by his mother Agave and her fellow Bacchants. The myth was popular in the ancient world (see, for instance, Euripides’ Bacchae, Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.629-733, and a wall painting in the House of the Vettii in Pompeii).

136 Phoebīque fugit … soror: the sister of Phoebus (a name for Apollo as god of the sun) is Phoebe (i.e., Diana as goddess of the moon). reditūra: future active participle of redeō: although the moon yields the sky at dawn, it will return the following night. This allusion to the cycles of nature recalls the common observation in Greek and Roman literature that a human life, unlike the natural world, is not continually renewed. The chorus uses the same future active participle later in Ode 1 to describe human mortality: tempora numquam reditūra (176). Catullus offers a famous statement of this contrast in his 5th poem, to Lesbia: sōlēs occidere et redīre possunt: / nōbīs cum semel occidit brevis lūx, / nox est perpetua ūna dormienda).