Complete Works of Euripides
Page 34
But that other, with savage Gorgon-scowl, as the child now stood in range of his baleful archery, smote him on the head, as smites a smith his molten iron, bringing down his club upon the fair-haired boy, and crushed the bones. The second caught, away he hies to add a third victim to the other twain. But ere he could, the poor mother caught up her babe and carried him within the house and shut the doors; forthwith the madman, as though he really were at the Cyclopean walls, prizes open the doors with levers, and, hurling down their posts, with one fell shaft laid low his wife and child. Then in wild career he starts to slay his aged sire; but lo! there came a phantom,-so it seemed to us on-lookers,-Of Pallas, with plumed helm, brandishing a spear; and she hurled a rock against the breast of Heracles, which stayed him from his frenzied thirst for blood and plunged him into sleep; to the ground he fell, smiting his back against a column that had fallen on the floor in twain when the roof fell in. Thereon we rallied from our flight, and with the old man’s aid bound him fast with knotted cords to the pillar, that on his awakening he might do no further evil. So there he sleeps, poor wretch! a sleep that is not blest, having murdered wife and children; nay, for my part know not any son of man more miserable than he.
(The MESSENGER withdraws.)
CHORUS (singing) That murder wrought by the daughters of Danaus, whereof my native Argos wots, was formerly the most famous and notorious in Hellas; but this hath surpassed and outdone those previous horrors. I could tell of the murder of that poor son of Zeus, whom Procne, mother of an only child, slew and offered to the Muses; but thou hadst three children, wretched parent, and all of them hast thou in thy frenzy slain. What groans or wails, what funeral dirge, or chant of death am I to raise? Alas and woe! see, the bolted doors of the lofty palace are being rolled apart. Ah me! behold these children lying dead before their wretched father, who is sunk in awful slumber after shedding their blood. Round him are bonds and cords, made fast with many a knot about the body of Heracles, and lashed to the stone columns of his house. While he, the aged sire, like mother-bird wailing her unfledged brood, comes hasting hither with halting steps on his bitter journey.
(The central doors of the palace have opened and have disclosed HERACLES lying asleep, bound to a shattered column. AMPHITRYON steps out. The following lines between AMPHITRYON and the CHORUS are chanted responsively.)
AMPHITRYON
Softly, softly! ye aged sons of Thebes, let him sleep on and forget his sorrows.
CHORUS
For thee, old friend, I weep and mourn, for the children too and that victorious chief.
AMPHITRYON
Stand further off, make no noise nor outcry, rouse him not from his calm deep slumber.
CHORUS O horrible! all this blood-
AMPHITRYON
Hush, hush! ye will be my ruin.
CHORUS
That he has spilt is rising up against him.
AMPHITRYON
Gently raise your dirge of woe, old friends; lest he wake, and, bursting his bonds, destroy the city, rend his sire, and dash his house to pieces.
CHORUS I cannot, cannot-
AMPHITRYON
Hush! let me note his breathing; come, let me put my ear close.
CHORUS
Is he sleeping?
AMPHITRYON
Aye, that is he, a deathly sleep, having slain wife and children with the arrows of his twanging bow.
CHORUS
Ah! mourn-
AMPHITRYON I do.
CHORUS
The children’s death;
AMPHITRYON
Ah me!
CHORUS
And thy own son’s doom.
AMPHITRYON
Ah misery!
CHORUS
Old friend-
AMPHITRYON
Hush! hush! he is turning, he is waking! Oh Oh! let me hide myself beneath the covert of yon roof.
CHORUS
Courage! darkness still broods o’er thy son’s eye.
AMPHITRYON
Oh! beware; ’tis not that I shrink from leaving the light after my miseries, poor wretch! but should he slay me that am his father, then will he be devising woe on woe, and to the avenging curse will add a parent’s blood.
CHORUS
Well for thee hadst thou died in that day, when, to win thy wife, thou didst go forth to exact vengeance for her slain brethren by sacking the Taphians’ sea-beat town.
AMPHITRYON
Fly, fly, my aged friends, haste from before the palace, escape his waking fury! For soon will he heap up fresh carnage on the old, ranging wildly once more through the streets of Thebes.
CHORUS O Zeus, why hast thou shown such savage hate against thine own son and plunged him in this sea of troubles?
HERACLES (waking) Aha! my breath returns; I am alive; and my eyes see, opening on the sky and earth and yon sun’s darting beam; but how my senses reel! in what strange turmoil am I plunged! my fevered breath in quick spasmodic gasps escapes my lungs. How now? why am I lying here, made fast with cables like a ship, my brawny chest and arms tied to a shattered piece of masonry, with corpses for my neighbours; while o’er the floor my bow and arrows are scattered, that erst like trusty squires to my arm both kept me safe and were kept safe of me? Surely I am not come a second time to Hades’ halls, having just returned from thence for Eurystheus? No, I do not see Sisyphus with his stone, or Pluto, or his queen, Demeter’s child. Surely I am distraught; I cannot remember where I am. Ho, there! which of my friends is near or far to help me in my ignorance? For I have no clear knowledge of things once familiar.
AMPHITRYON
My aged friends, shall I approach the scene of my sorrow?
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Yes, and let me go with thee, nor desert thee in thy trouble.
HERACLES
Father, why dost thou weep and veil thy eyes, standing aloof from thy beloved son?
AMPHITRYON
My child! mine still, for all thy misery.
HERACLES
Why, what is there so sad in my case that thou dost weep?
AMPHITRYON
That which might make any of the gods weep, were he to suffer so.
HERACLES A bold assertion that, but thou art not yet explaining what has happened.
AMPHITRYON
Thine own eyes see that, if by this time thou are restored to thy senses.
HERACLES
Fill in thy sketch if any change awaits my life.
AMPHITRYON I will explain, if thou art no longer mad as a fiend of hell.
HERACLES
God help us! what suspicions these dark hints of thine again excite!
AMPHITRYON I am still doubtful whether thou art in thy sober senses.
HERACLES I never remember being mad.
AMPHITRYON
Am I to loose my son, old friends, or what?
HERACLES
Loose and say who bound me; for I feel shame at this.
AMPHITRYON
Rest content with what thou knowest of thy woes; the rest forego.
HERACLES
Enough! I have no wish to probe thy silence.
AMPHITRYON O Zeus, dost thou behold these deeds proceeding from the throne of Hera?
HERACLES
What! have I suffered something from her enmity?
AMPHITRYON A truce to the goddess! attend to thy own troubles.
HERACLES I am undone; what mischance wilt thou unfold?
AMPHITRYON
See here the corpses of thy children.
HERACLES O horror! what hideous sight is here? ah me!
AMPHITRYON
My son, against thy children hast thou waged unnatural war.
HERACLES
War! what meanst thou? who killed these?
AMPHITRYON
Thou and thy bow and some god, whoso he be that is to blame.
HERACLES
What sayst thou? what have I done? Speak, father, thou messenger of evil.
AMPHITRYON
HERACLES
Was it I that slew my wife also?
AMPHITRYON
Thy own unaided arm hath done all this.
HERACLES
Ah, woe is me! a cloud of sorrow wraps me round.
AMPHITRYON
The reason this that I lament thy fate.
HERACLES
Did I dash my house to pieces or incite others thereto?
AMPHITRYON
Naught know I save this, that thou art utterly undone.
HERACLES
Where did my frenzy seize me? where did it destroy me?
AMPHITRYON
In the moment thou wert purifying thyself witb fire at the altar.
HERACLES
Ah me! why do I spare my own life when I have taken that of my dear children? Shall I not hasten to leap from some sheer rock, or aim the sword against my heart and avenge my children’s blood, or burn my body in the fire and so avert from my life the infamy which now awaits me?
But hither I see Theseus coming to check my deadly counsels, my kinsman and friend. Now shall I stand revealed, and the dearest of my friends will see the pollution I have incurred by my children’s murder. Ah, woe is me! what am I to do? Where can I find release from my sorrows? shall I take wings or plunge beneath the earth? Come, let me veil my head in darkness; for I am ashamed of the evil I have done, and, since for these I have incurred fresh blood-guiltiness, I would fain not harm the innocent.
(THESEUS and his retinue enter.)
THESEUS I am come, and others with me, young warriors from the land of Athens, encamped by the streams of Asopus, to help thy son, old friend. For a rumour reached the city of the Erechtheidae, that Lycus had usurped the sceptre of this land and was become your enemy even to battle. Wherefore I came making recompense for the former kindness of Heracles in saving me from the world below, if haply ye have any need of such aid as I or my allies can give, old prince.
Ha! what means this heap of dead upon the floor? Surely I have not delayed too long and come too late to check new ills? Who slew these children? whose wife is this I see? Boys do not go to battle; nay, it must be some other strange mischance I here discover.
(The following lines between THESEUS and AMPHITRYON are chanted responsively.)
AMPHITRYON O king, whose home is that olive-clad hill!
THESEUS
Why this piteous prelude in addressing me?
AMPHITRYON
Heaven has afflicted us with grievous suffering.
THESEUS
Whose be these children, o’er whom thou weepest?
AMPHITRYON
My own son’s children, woe to him! their father and butcher both was he, hardening his heart to the bloody deed.
THESEUS
Hush good words only!
AMPHITRYON I would I could obey!
THESEUS
What dreadful words!
AMPHITRYON
Fortune has spread her wings, and we are ruined, ruined.
THESEUS
What meanest thou? what hath he done?
AMPHITRYON
Slain them in a wild fit of frenzy with arrows dipped in the venom of the hundred-headed hydra.
THESEUS
This is Hera’s work; but who lies there among the dead, old man?
AMPHITRYON
My son, my own enduring son, that marched with gods to Phlegra’s plain, there to battle with giants and slay them, warrior that he was.
THESEUS
Ah, woe for him! whose fortune was e’er so curst as his?
AMPHITRYON
Never wilt thou find another that hath borne a larger share of suffering or been more fatally deceived.
THESEUS
Why doth he veil his head, poor wretch, in his robe?
AMPHITRYON
He is ashamed to meet thine eye; his kinsman’s kind intent and his children’s blood make him abashed.
THESEUS
But I come to sympathize; uncover him.
AMPHITRYON
My son, remove that mantle from thine eyes, throw it from thee, show thy fare unto the sun; a counterpoise to weeping is battling for the mastery. In suppliant wise I entreat thee, as I grasp thy beard, thy knees, thy hands, and let fall the tear from my old eyes. O my child! restrain thy savage lion-like temper, for thou art rushing forth on an unholy course of bloodshed, eager to join woe to woe.
THESEUS
Ho! To thee I call who art huddled there in thy misery, show to they friends thy face; for no darkness is black enough to hide thy sad mischance. Why dost thou wave thy hand at me, signifying murder? is it that I may not be polluted by speaking with thee? If I share thy misfortune, what is that to me? For if I too had luck in days gone by, must refer it to the time when thou didst bring me safe from the dead to the light of life. I hate a friend whose gratitude grows old; one who ready to enjoy his friends’ prosperity but unwilling to sail in the same ship with them when their fortune lours. Arise, unveil thy head, poor wretch! and look on me. The gallant soul endures without a word such blows as heaven deals.
HERACLES O Theseus, didst thou witness this struggle with my children?
THESEUS I heard of it, and now I see the horrors thou meanest.
HERACLES
Why then hast thou unveiled my head to the sun?
THESEUS
Why have I? Thou, a man, canst not pollute what is of God.
HERACLES
Fly, luckless wretch, from my unholy taint.
THESEUS
The avenging fiend goes not forth from friend to friend.
HERACLES
For this I thank thee; I do not regret the service I did thee.
THESEUS
While I, for kindness then received, now show my pity for thee.
HERACLES
Ah yes! I am piteous, a murderer of my sons.
THESEUS I weep for thee in thy changed fortunes.
HERACLES
Didst ever find another more afflicted?
THESEUS
Thy misfortunes reach from earth to heaven.
HERACLES
Therefore am I resolved on death.
THESEUS
Dost thou suppose the gods attend to these thy threats?
HERACLES
Remorseless hath heaven been to me; so I will prove the like to it.
THESEUS
Hush! lest thy presumption add to thy sufferings.
HERACLES
My barque is freighted full with sorrow; there is no room to stow aught further.
THESEUS
What wilt thou do? whither is thy fury drifting thee?
HERACLES I will die and return to that world below whence I have just come.
THESEUS
Such language is fit for any common fellow.
HERACLES
Ah! thine is the advice of one outside sorrow’s pale.
THESEUS
Are these indeed the words of Heracles, the much-enduring?
HERACLES
Though never so much as this. Endurance must have a limit.
THESEUS
Is this man’s benefactor, his chiefest friend?
HERACLES
Man brings no help to me; no! Hera has her way.
THESEUS
Never will Hellas suffer thee to die through sheer perversity.
HERACLES
Hear me a moment, that I may enter the lists with words in answer to thy admonitions; and I will unfold to thee why life now as well as formerly has been unbearable to me. First I am the son of a man who incurred the guilt of blood, before he married my mother Alcmena, by slaying her aged sire. Now when the foundation is badly laid at birth, needs must the race be cursed with woe; and Zeus, whoever this Zeus may be, begot me as a butt for Hera’s hate; yet be not thou vexed thereat, old man; for thee rather than Zeus do I regard as my father. Then whilst I was yet being suckled, that bride of Zeus did foist into my c
radle fearsome snakes to compass my death. After I was grown to man’s estate, of all the toils I then endured what need to tell? of all the lions, Typhons triple-bodied, and giants that I slew; or of the battle I won against the hosts of four-legged Centaurs? or how when I had killed the hydra, that monster with a ring of heads with power to grow again, I passed through countless other toils besides and came unto the dead to fetch to the light at the bidding of Eurystheus the three-headed hound, hell’s porter. Last, ah, woe is me have I perpetrated this bloody deed to crown the sorrows of my house with my children’s murder. To this sore strait am I come; no longer may I dwell in Thebes, the city that I love; for suppose I stay, to what temple or gathering of friends shall I repair? For mine is no curse that invites address. Shall I to Argos? how can I, when I am an exile from my country? Well, is there a single other city I can fly to? And if there were, am I to be looked at askance as a marked man, branded by cruel stabbing tongues, “Is not this the son of Zeus that once murdered wife and children? Plague take him from the land!”