Status Updates From Seneca's Tragedies. Vol. 2 ...

نسخه پی دی افی که ازش پیدا کردم به قدری بی کیفیته که خوندنش عذاب الیمه.
متاسفانه دو تا نمایشنامه آگاممنون و هرکول در اوئتا از سنکا رو فقط این کتاب داره.

Octavia - maybe not written by Seneca, though the principal textual evidence against authorship is not very persuasive. Centerpiece is the confrontation of arrogant Nero and stoic Seneca. Definitely commentary on Virgil's katabasis; Nero lists out prior proscriptions and civil wars as authority for his extravagances. Best is his mom's ghost, who returns 'tellure rupta Tartaro.' Nice!

Phoenissae - a fragment, overlapping the various Oedipus plays. Stoic reminder that "tis the same as killing to forbid death to him who wants it [...] the right to live or die is in my own hands." Anticipates Machiavelli by many centuries in stating that "A people's love forbids a ruler many things; against theirrage he has more rights."

Hercules Oetaeus - the Senecan variant of Sophocles' Trachiniae (q.v.). Emphasizes the apotheosis, which the Greek predecessor suppressed. Apocalyptic insofar as Orphic nihilism joins his imminent decease to produce "death in some form and chaos shall overwhelm all gods in one destruction; and death shall at last bring doom upon itself [et mors fata novissima in se constituet sibi]."

Agamemnon - skips over most of the aeschylean preamble, for an equally cool prologue containing the ghost of Thyestes, a self-doubting Klytaemnestra, and tyrannicide Aegisthus. Reiterates the injunction of the Thyestes that "open to view is a royal house's every sin." Ends with the disposition of fugitive Orestes post-assassination, which does not disappoint for senecan gore.

Thyestes - it does not get any more hard fuckin core than this. Runs contrary to Poe in proclaiming that "there is no sin but it shall be revealed"--which is a good motto for classical theater as a whole, concerned as many ancient plays tend to be with the presentation of an awful crime--not of its solving by a detective or punishment or prevention, but of its occurrence--and disclosure.