HER. O altar on the Euboean strand,
High-heaped with offerings from my hand,
What meed for lavish gifts bestowed
From thy new sanctuary hath flowed!
Father of Gods! thy cruel power
Hath foiled me with an evil blight.
Ah! would mine eyes had closed in night
Ere madness in a fatal hour
Had burst upon them with a blaze,
No help or soothing once allays!
What hand to heal, what voice to charm,
Can e'er dispel this hideous harm?
Whose skill save thine,
Monarch Divine?
Mine eyes, if such I saw,
Would hail him from afar with trembling awe.
Ah! ah!
O vex me not, touch me not, leave me to rest,
To sleep my last sleep on Earth's gentle breast.
You touch me, you press me, you turn me again,
You break me, you kill me! O pain! O pain!
You have kindled the pang that had slumbered still.
It comes, it hath seized me with tyrannous will!
Where are ye, men, whom over Hellas wide
This arm hath freed, and o'er the ocean-tide,
And through rough brakes, from every monstrous thing?
Yet now in mine affliction none will bring
A sword to aid, a fire to quell this fire,
O most unrighteous! nor to my desire
Will come and quench the hateful life I hold
With mortal stroke! Ah! is there none so bold?
OLD M. Son of our hero, this hath mounted past
My feeble force to cope with. Take him thou!
Fresher thine eye and more the hope thou hast
Than mine to save him.
HYL. I support him now
Thus with mine arm: but neither fleshly vest
Nor inmost spirit can I lull to rest
From torture. None may dream
To wield this power, save he, the King supreme.
HER. Son!
Where art thou to lift me and hold me aright?
It tears me, it kills me, it rushes in might,
This cruel, devouring, unconquered pain
Shoots forth to consume me. Again! again!
O Fate! O Athena!--O son, at my word
Have pity and slay me with merciful sword!
Pity thy father, boy; with sharp relief
Smite on my breast, and heal the wrathful grief
Wherewith thy mother, God-abandoned wife,
Hath wrought this ruin on her husband's life.
O may I see her falling, even so
As she hath thrown me, to like depth of woe!
Sweet Hades, with swift death,
Brother of Zeus, release my suffering breath!
CH. Horror hath caught me as I hear this, woe,
Racking our mighty one with mightier pain.
HER. Many hot toils and hard beyond report,
With sturdy thews and sinews I have borne,
But no such labour hath the Thunderer's wife
Or sour Eurystheus ever given, as this,
Which Oeneus' daughter of the treacherous eye
Hath fastened on my back, this amply-woven
Net of the Furies, that is breaking me.
For, glued unto my side, it hath devoured
My flesh to the bone, and lodging in the lungs
It drains the vital channels, and hath drunk
The fresh life-blood, and ruins all my frame,
Foiled in the tangle of a viewless bond.
Yet me nor War-host, nor Earth's giant brood,
Nor Centaur's monstrous violence could subdue,
Nor Hellas, nor the Stranger, nor all lands
Where I have gone, cleansing the world from harms.
But a soft woman without manhood's strain
Alone and weaponless hath conquered me.
Son, let me know thee mine true-born, nor rate
Thy mother's claim beyond thy sire's, but bring
Thyself from out the chambers to my hand
Her body that hath borne thee, that my heart
May be assured, if lesser than my pain
It will distress thee to behold her limbs
With righteous torment agonized and torn.
Nay, shrink not, son, but pity me, whom all
May pity--me, who, like a tender girl,
Am heard to weep aloud! This none could say
He knew in me of old; for, murmuring not,
I went with evil fortune, silent still.
Now, such a foe hath found the woman in me!
Ay, but come near; stand by me, and behold
What cause I have for crying. Look but here!
Here is the mystery unveiled. O see!
Ye people, gaze on this poor quivering flesh,
Look with compassion on my misery!
Ah me!
Ah! ah! Again!
Even now the hot convulsion of disease
Shoots through my side, and will not let me rest
From this fierce exercise of wearing woe.
Take me, O King of Night!
O sudden thunderstroke.
Smite me! O sire, transfix me with the dart
Of thy swift lightning! Yet again that fang
Is tearing; it hath blossomed forth anew,
It soars up to the height!
O breast and back,
O shrivelling arms and hands, ye are the same
That crushed the dweller of the Némean wild,
The lion unapproachable and rude,
The oxherd's plague, and Hydra of the lake
Of Lerna, and the twi-form prancing throng
Of Centaurs,--insolent, unsociable,
Lawless, ungovernable:--the tuskèd pest
Of Erymanthine glades; then underground
Pluto's three-headed cur--a perilous fear,
Born from the monster-worm; and, on the verge
Of Earth, the dragon, guarding fruits of gold.
These toils and others countless I have tried,
And none hath triumphed o'er me. But to-day,
Jointless and riven to tatters, I am wrecked
Thus utterly by imperceptible woe;
I, proudly named Alcmena's child, and His
Who reigns in highest heaven, the King supreme!
Ay, but even yet, I tell ye, even from here,
Where I am nothingness and cannot move,
She who hath done this deed shall feel my power.
Let her come near, that, mastered by my might,
She may have this to tell the world, that, dying,
As living, I gave punishment to wrong.
CH. O Hellas, how I grieve for thy distress!
How thou wilt mourn in losing him we see!
HYL. My father, since thy silence gives me leave,
Still hear me patiently, though in thy pain!
For my request is just. Lend me thy mind
Less wrathfully distempered than 'tis now;
Else thou canst never know, where thou art keen
With vain resentment and with vain desire
HER. Speak what thou wilt and cease, for I in pain
Catch not the sense of thy mysterious talk
HYL. I come to tell thee of my mother's case,
And her involuntary unconscious fault.
HER. Base villain! hast thou breathed thy mother's name,
Thy father's murderess, in my hearing too!
HYL. Her state requires not silence, but full speech.
HER. Her faults in former time might well be told.
HYL. So might her fault to day, couldst thou but know.
HER. Speak, but beware base words disgrace thee not.
HYL. List! She is dead even now with new-given wound.
HER. By whom? Thy words flash wonder through my woe.
HYL. Her own hand slaughtered her, no foreign stroke.
HER. Wretch! to have reft this office from my hands.
HYL. Even your rash spirit were softened, if you knew.
HER. This bodes some knavery. But declare thy thought!
HYL. She erred with good intent. The whole is said.
HER. Good, O thou villain, to destroy thy sire!
HYL. When she perceived that marriage in her home,
She erred, supposing to enchain thy love.
HER. Hath Trachis a magician of such might?
HYL. Long since the Centaur Nessus moved her mind
To work this charm for heightening thy desire.
HER. O horror, thou art here! I am no more.
My day is darkened, boy! Undone, undone!
I see our plight too plainly. woe is me!
Come, O my son! --thou hast no more a father,--
Call to me all the brethren of thy blood,
And poor Alcmena, wedded all in vain
Unto the Highest, that ye may hear me tell
With my last breath what prophecies I know.
HYL. Thy mother is not here, but by the shore
Of Tiryns hath obtained a dwelling-place;
And of thy sons, some she hath with her there,
And some inhabit Thebè's citadel.
But we who are with thee, sire, if there be aught
That may by us be done, will hear, and do.
HER. Then hearken thou unto this task, and show
If worthily thou art reputed mine.
Now is time to prove thee. My great father
Forewarned me long ago that I should die
By none who lived and breathed, but from the will
Of one now dwelling in the house of death.
And so this Centaur, as the voice Divine
Then prophesied, in death hath slain me living.
And in agreement with that ancient word
I now interpret newer oracles
Which I wrote down on going within the grove
Of the hill-roving and earth-couching Selli,--
Dictated to me by the mystic tongue
Innumerous, of my Father's sacred tree;
Declaring that my ever instant toils
Should in the time that new hath being and life
End and release me. And I look'd for joy.
But the true meaning plainly was my death.--
No labour is appointed for the dead.--
Then, since all argues one event, my son,
Once more thou must befriend me, and not wait
For my voice goading thee, but of thyself
Submit and second my resolve, and know
Filial obedience for thy noblest rule.
HYL. I will obey thee, father, though my heart
Sinks heavily in approaching such a theme.
HER. Before aught else, lay thy right hand in mine.
HYL. Why so intent on this assurance, sire?
HER. Give it at once and be not froward, boy.
HYL. There is my hand: I will gainsay thee nought.
HER. Swear by the head of him who gave me life.
HYL. Tell me the oath, and I will utter it.
HER. Swear thou wilt do the thing I bid thee do.
HYL. I swear, and make Zeus witness of my troth.
HER. But if you swerve, pray that the curse may come.
HYL. It will not come for swerving:--but I pray.
HER. Now, dost thou know on Oeta's topmost height
The crag of Zeus?
HYL. I know it, and full oft
Have stood there sacrificing.
HER. Then even there,
With thine own hand uplifting this my body,
Taking what friends thou wilt, and having lopped
Much wood from the deep-rooted oak and rough
Wild olive, lay me on the gathered pile,
And burn all with the touch of pine-wood flame.
Let not a tear of mourning dim thine eye;
But silent, with dry gaze, if thou art mine,
Perform it. Else my curse awaits thee still
To weigh thee down when I am lost in night.
HYL. How cruel, O my father, is thy tongue!
HER. 'Tis peremptory. Else, if thou refuse,
Be called another's and be no more mine.
HYL. Alas that thou shouldst challenge me to this,
To be thy murderer, guilty of thy blood!
HER. Not I, in sooth: but healer of my pain,
And sole preserver from a life of woe.
HYL. How can it heal to burn thee on the pyre?
HER. If this act frighten thee, perform the rest.
HYL. Mine arms shall not refuse to carry thee.
HER. And wilt thou gather the appointed wood?
HYL. So my hand fire it not. In all but this,
Not scanting labour, I will do my part.
HER. Enough. 'Tis well. And having thus much given
Add one small kindness to a list so full.
HYL. How great soe'er it were, it should be done.
HER. The maid of Eurytus thou knowest, I ween.
HYL. Of Iolè thou speak'st, or I mistake.
HER. Of her. This then is all I urge, my son.
When I am dead, if thou wouldst show thy duty,
Think of thine oath to me, and, on my word,
Make her thy wife: nor let another man
Take her, but only thou; since she hath lain
So near this heart. Obey me, O my boy!
And be thyself the maker of this bond.
To spurn at trifles after great things given,
Were to confound the meed already won.
HYL. Oh, anger is not right, when men are ill!
But who could bear to see thee in this mind?
HER. You murmur, as you meant to disobey.
HYL. How can I do it, when my mother's death
And thy sad state sprang solely from this girl?
Who, not possessed with furies, could choose this?
Far better, father, for me too to die,
Than to live still with my worst enemy.
HER. This youth withdraws his reverence in my death.
But, if thou yield'st not to thy father's best,
The curse from Heaven shall dog thy footsteps still.
HYL. Ah! thou wilt tell me that thy pain is come.
HER. Yea, for thou wak'st the torment that had slept.
HYL. Ay me! how cross and doubtful is my way!
HER. Because you will reject your father's word.
HYL. Must I be taught impiety from thee?
HER. It is not impious to content my heart.
HYL. Then you require this with an absolute will?
HER. And bid Heaven witness to my strong command.
HYL. Then I will do it, for the act is thine.
I will not cast it off. Obeying thee,
My sire, the Gods will ne'er reprove my deed.
HER. Thou endest fairly. Now, then, O my son,
Add the performance swiftly, that, before
Some spasm or furious onset of my pain
Have seized me, ye may place me on the pyre.
Come, loiter not, but lift me. Now my end
Is near, the last cessation of my woe.
HYL. Since thy command is urgent, O my sire!
We tarry not, but bear thee to the pyre.
HER. Stubborn heart, ere yet again
Wakes the fierce rebound of pain,
While the evil holds aloof,
Thou, with bit of diamond proof,
Curb thy cry, with forcèd will
Seeming to do gladly still!
HYL. Lift him, men, and hate not me
For the evil deeds ye see,
Since the Heavens' relentless sway
Recks not of the righteous way.
He who gave life and doth claim
From his seed a Father's name
Can behold this hour of blame.
Though the future none can tell,
Yet the present is not well:
Sore for him who bears the blow,
Sad for us who feel his woe,
Shameful to the Gods, we trow.
CH. Maidens from the palace-hall,
Come ye forth, too, at our call!
Mighty deaths beyond belief,
Many an unknown form of grief,
Ye have seen to-day; and nought
But the power of Zeus hath wrought.
* * * * *