Octavia

OCTAVIA: Already glorious Aurora chases the wandering stars from the sky. Titan, with radiant hair, rises and returns a clear day to the world. Come, thou who art burdened by so many great misfortunes, utter once more thy sad lamentations. Surpass the kingfishers and the swift nightingales, for thy fate is more grievous than theirs. O, mother, for whom I have always mourned, the first cause of my misfortunes, (if any consciousness exists in the shades) hear the sad lamentations of thy daughter. Would that Clotho had broken my threads with her own aged hand before I saw thy features sprinkled with loathsome blood. O, day always fatal to me, from that time thou hast been to me more hateful than the lower regions. I have endured commands, hostility, and fierce glances from my cruel stepmother. That gloomy Erinys has brought to my bridal room Stygian fires and has destroyed thee, wretched father, whom recently the whole world beyond the Ocean obeyed, before whom retreated the Britains, ignorant of our leaders and their own rights. Woe to me, father, that I am overwhelmed by the treachery of thy wife, and that thou liest prostrate, and that thy conquered home and daughter obey the tyrant.