662-679

Theseus describes how he and Hercules entered the Underworld at Taenarus (nōbile… iugum) in Sparta, one of the traditional entry points.

Seneca includes several details from previous Latin poems. For example, 664 invisi (“hateful”) recalls Horace (Odes 1.34.10-11 invīsī horrida Taenarī / sēdēs) and 666 faucibus (“jaws”) recalls Virgil (Georgics 4.467 Taenariās … faucēs).

663 premit: Taenarus is imagined to “press” against the water with its dense forests. Seneca probably imagines a bay surrounded by forested land, holding the cave described in 664–67.

665–66 immēnsō … patet: “and in an immense cave a giant chasm opens with its vast jaws.”

668–72 This realistic description of the light slowly fading during the journey to the Underworld features a series of careful sound repetitions: tenuis … tergō, relictae lūcis, nitor / fulgorque.

668 nōn caeca tenebrīs incipit prīmō via: “The road begins, not hidden by shadows at first.” The word order emphasizes nōn caeca. caecus has both an “active” meaning (“not able to see, blind”), and, as here, a “passive” meaning (“not able to be seen, dark, hidden”). See LS caecus I and II.

669–70 tenuis … nitor / fulgorque dubius … cadit: both nouns are the subject of cadit: daylight “falls” down the descending path and also “diminishes” (LS cado II.B).

669 relictae … ā tergō: “left behind.”

670 sōlis affectī: “weakened sunlight” (LS afficio II.A.β)

671 lūdit aciem: “deceives the eye”

671–72 Prose word order would be: sīc prīmus aut sērus diēs solet praebēre lūmen, nocte mixtā.

nocte … mixtā: ablative absolute (AG 419): “with night (i.e., the darkness of night) mixed in.” The sentence is carefully arranged with “night” and “day” placed at opposite ends.

673 vacuīs … locīs: locative ablative (AG 426)

674 in quae … pergat: relative clause of characteristic (AG 534), “the kind of spaces into which…” mersum: “once plunged into the earth” (Fitch 2018).

675–79 A variation of Virgil’s description of the road to the Underworld at Aeneid 6.126–29: easy on the way down but impossible on the way up.

676–77 ut … sīc: “just as … thus,” the typical markers of a simile. The current “seizes” (rapit) “unwilling” (invītās) ships, while the void is “greedy” (avidum) and the air “pushes” (urget) souls downwards. Note also the repeated a’s and o’s in 677: if you read the line out loud, you can feel your mouth open wide like the avidum chaos.

677 urget: supply tē as the object.

678 haud umquam sinunt: “do not ever allow (you) to…”

679 umbrae tenācēs: postponement to the end of the sentence and enjambment emphasize this nominative phrase. The image of the dead “clutching” at the living is unsettling, just as in a contemporary zombie movie.