Verse tragedy · c. AD 50

Hercules Furens

Mad Hercules

by Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Translated by Frank Justus Miller (1907)

Juno, furious that Hercules has returned alive from the underworld, sends a madness upon him. While the tyrant Lycus presses Hercules’ wife Megara and old Amphitryon at the altar, the hero comes home, kills the usurper, and is then driven by Juno to slaughter his own wife and children, taking them for the family of his enemy Eurystheus. He wakes in his right mind to see what he has done, and only the entreaties of his friend Theseus keep him from suicide.

Contents · 6 parts

• Persons of the Play9 lines
• Act Iabout 270 lines
• Act IIabout 500 lines
• Act IIIabout 380 lines
• Act IVabout 340 lines
• Act Vabout 280 lines

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