_A sad dialogue between Megara the wife and Alcmena the mother of the
wandering Heracles_. _Megara had seen her own children slain by her
lord_, _in his frenzy_, _while Alcmena was constantly disquieted by
ominous dreams_.
* * * * *
MY mother, wherefore art thou thus smitten in thy soul with exceeding
sorrow, and the rose is no longer firm in thy cheeks as of yore? why,
tell me, art thou thus disquieted? Is it because thy glorious son is
suffering pains unnumbered in bondage to a man of naught, as it were a
lion in bondage to a fawn? Woe is me, why, ah why have the immortal gods
thus brought on me so great dishonour, and wherefore did my parents get
me for so ill a doom? Wretched woman that I am, who came to the bed of a
man without reproach and ever held him honourable and dear as mine own
eyes,—ay and still worship and hold him sacred in my heart—yet none other
of men living hath had more evil hap or tasted in his soul so many
griefs. In madness once, with the bow Apollo’s self had given him—dread
weapon of some Fury or spirit of Death—he struck down his own children,
and took their dear life away, as his frenzy raged through the house till
it swam in blood. With mine own eyes, I saw them smitten, woe is me, by
their father’s arrows—a thing none else hath suffered even in dreams.
Nor could I aid them as they cried ever on their mother; the evil that
was upon them was past help. As a bird mourneth for her perishing little
ones, devoured in the thicket by some terrible serpent while as yet they
are fledglings, and the kind mother flutters round them making most
shrill lament, but cannot help her nestlings, yea, and herself hath great
fear to approach the cruel monster; so I unhappy mother, wailing for my
brood, with frenzied feet went wandering through the house. Would that
by my children’s side I had died myself, and were lying with the
envenomed arrow through my heart. Would that this had been, O Artemis,
thou that art queen chief of power to womankind. Then would our parents
have embraced and wept for us and with ample obsequies have laid us on
one common pyre, and have gathered the bones of all of us into one golden
urn, and buried them in the place where first we came to be. But now
they dwell in Thebes, fair nurse of youth, ploughing the deep soil of the
Aonian plain, while I in Tiryns, rocky city of Hera, am ever thus wounded
at heart with many sorrows, nor is any respite to me from tears. My
husband I behold but a little time in our house, for he hath many labours
at his hand, whereat he laboureth in wanderings by land and sea, with his
soul strong as rock or steel within his breast. But thy grief is as the
running waters, as thou lamentest through the nights and all the days of
Zeus.
Nor is there any one of my kinsfolk nigh at hand to cheer me: for it is
not the house wall that severs them, but they all dwell far beyond the
pine-clad Isthmus, nor is there any to whom, as a woman all hapless, I
may look up and refresh my heart, save only my sister Pyrrha; nay, but
she herself grieves yet more for her husband Iphicles thy son: for
methinks ’tis thou that hast borne the most luckless children of all, to
a God, and a mortal man. {205}
Thus spake she, and ever warmer the tears were pouring from her eyes into
her sweet bosom, as she bethought her of her children and next of her own
parents. And in like manner Alcmena bedewed her pale cheeks with tears,
and deeply sighing from her very heart she thus bespoke her dear daughter
with thick-coming words:
‘Dear child, what is this that hath come into the thoughts of thy heart?
How art thou fain to disquiet us both with the tale of griefs that cannot
be forgotten? Not for the first time are these woes wept for now. Are
they not enough, the woes that possess us from our birth continually to
our day of death? In love with sorrow surely would he be that should
have the heart to count up our woes; such destiny have we received from
God. Thyself, dear child, I behold vext by endless pains, and thy grief
I can pardon, yea, for even of joy there is satiety. And exceedingly do
I mourn over and pity thee, for that thou hast partaken of our cruel lot,
the burden whereof is hung above our heads. For so witness Persephone
and fair-robed Demeter (by whom the enemy that wilfully forswears
himself, lies to his own hurt), that I love thee no less in my heart than
if thou hadst been born of my womb, and wert the maiden darling of my
house: nay, and methinks that thou knowest this well. Therefore say
never, my flower, that I heed thee not, not even though I wail more
ceaselessly than Niobe of the lovely locks. No shame it is for a mother
to make moan for the affliction of her son: for ten months I went
heavily, even before I saw him, while I bare him under my girdle, and he
brought me near the gates of the warden of Hell; so fierce the pangs I
endured in my sore travail of him. And now my son is gone from me in a
strange land to accomplish some new labour; nor know I in my sorrow
whether I shall again receive him returning here or no. Moreover in
sweet sleep a dreadful dream hath fluttered me; and I exceedingly fear
for the ill-omened vision that I have seen, lest something that I would
not be coming on my children.
It seemed to me that my son, the might of Heracles, held in both hands a
well-wrought spade, wherewith, as one labouring for hire, he was digging
a ditch at the edge of a fruitful field, stripped of his cloak and belted
tunic. And when he had come to the end of all his work and his labours
at the stout defence of the vine-filled close, he was about to lean his
shovel against the upstanding mound and don the clothes he had worn. But
suddenly blazed up above the deep trench a quenchless fire, and a
marvellous great flame encompassed him. But he kept ever giving back
with hurried feet, striving to flee the deadly bolt of Hephaestus; and
ever before his body he kept his spade as it were a shield; and this way
and that he glared around him with his eyes, lest the angry fire should
consume him. Then brave Iphicles, eager, methought, to help him,
stumbled and fell to earth ere he might reach him, nor could he stand
upright again, but lay helpless, like a weak old man, whom joyless age
constrains to fall when he would not; so he lieth on the ground as he
fell, till one passing by lift him up by the hand, regarding the ancient
reverence for his hoary beard. Thus lay on the earth Iphicles, wielder
of the shield. But I kept wailing as I beheld my sons in their sore
plight, until deep sleep quite fled from my eyes, and straightway came
bright morn. Such dreams, beloved, flitted through my mind all night;
may they all turn against Eurystheus nor come nigh our dwelling, and to
his hurt be my soul prophetic, nor may fate bring aught otherwise to
pass.