84-99

Juno calls on the Furies (Greek Erinyes or Eumenides).

According to Homer and other authors the Eumenides ​​​​​live in the Underworld, carry out curses, bring about madness or blindness, and punish offences, in particular crimes within a family. According to Aeschylus (Eumenides 273–5; 339–40) and Vergil (Aeneid 6.605–7) they punish malefactors in the Underworld. Juno also calls on a series of allegorical figures of crime, seen as dwelling in the Underworld.

84 vīcit: Hercules helped the gods in fighting the Giants, as on a red-figure kylix (c. 525 BC), which depicts Hercules on the left sneaking up on the unconscious giant Alkyoneus, with Hermes helping on the right.

85 gerat: jussive subjunctive (AG 439).

86-8 adsint … spargant … incutiant: jussive subjunctives (AG 439).

86 Tartarī: the home of the Furies in the Underworld.

87 Eumenides: in Greek, “kindly spirits,” a euphemism for the Furies. In ancient art, the Erinyes are generally depicted with wings, snake-like hair, hunting-boots and in a short chiton; sometimes they carry torches or whips. They are shown on a 4th century BC vase from Paestum in south Italy, attacking Orestes after his murder of his mother. flammeae … comae: as shown in the image, the Furies are typically imagined to have snakes for hair. Seneca imagines them with fiery hair and using snakes as whips.

89-90 ī … pete … temne: Juno addresses these sarcastic imperatives to Hercules as she urges him to proceed from the Labors to Olympus.

89 superbe: vocative, referring to Hercules.

90 hūmāna: “human affairs.” See note on 30 for the neuter substantive. Styga: Greek accusative; see note on 54.

91 Juno promises to show Hercules hell on earth.

92 conditam: modifying deam (93).

93 nocentum: poets often use the genitive plural ending -um for present participles in place of the expected –ium for metrical purposes, especially when the participle acts substantively as a noun. discordem deam: “the goddess of discord.” the goddess Discordia is frequently imagined to start civil war in Latin poetry, and so is an apt figure to force Hercules to attack his own family.

94 Juno will set Discordia free from her imprisonment within a mountain cave.

96 quidquid relictum est: in part for metrical reasons, Seneca substitutes est in place of the more expected erit or sit. Juno intends to hurl at Hercules whatever kind of evil she can find in the Underworld.

97 The image of Impietās “licking its own blood” foreshadows the violence that Hercules will commit against own family.

98 in sē … armātus: “armed against itself.” The emphasis on self-harm in 97–98 connects with one of the major themes in Seneca’s philosophical writings, namely that extreme emotions typically result in greater harm to the subject who experiences them rather than the objects of his or her hatred, anger, or rage.

99 hōc hōc ministrō: the verb ūtor typically governs an ablative of instrument (AG 409). The repetition indicates Juno’s agitation, as again at 110 mē mē.