Heracles

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 537 sections

1140
Alas! a cloud of mourning wraps me round.
1141
For this reason I lament your fate.
1142
Did I dash my house to pieces in my frenzy?
1143
I know nothing but this, that you are utterly undone.
1144
Where did the madness seize me? where did it destroy me?
1145
When you were purifying yourself with fire at the altar.
1146
Ah me! why do I spare my own life when I have become the murderer of my dear children? Shall I not hasten to leap from some sheer rock, or aim the sword against my heart
1150
and avenge my children’s blood, or burn my body, which she drove mad, in the fire and so avert from my life the infamy which now awaits me?
1153
But here I see Theseus coming to check my deadly counsels, my kinsman and friend.
1155
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 freedom from my sorrows? shall I take wings or plunge beneath the earth? Come, let me veil my head in darkness;
1160
for I am ashamed of the evil I have done, and, since for these I have incurred fresh blood-guiltiness, I do not want to harm the innocent.
1163
I have come, and others with me, young warriors from the land of Athens, encamped at present by the streams of Asopus,
1165
to bring an allied army to your son, old friend. For a rumour reached the city of the Erechtheidae, that Lycus had usurped the scepter of this land and had become your enemy even to battle. Wherefore I came making recompense for the former kindness of Heracles
1170
in saving me from the world below, if you have any need of such aid as I or my allies can give, old man.
1172
Ha! why this heap of dead upon the floor? Surely I have not delayed too long and come too late to check a revolution? Who slew these children?
1175
whose wife is this I see? Boys do not go to battle; no, it must be some other strange mischance I here discover.
1178
O king, whose home is that olive-clad hill!
1179
Why this piteous prelude in addressing me?
1180
The gods have afflicted us with grievous suffering.
1181
Whose are these children, over whom you weep?
1182
My own son’s children, woe is him! he was their father and butcher both, hardening his heart to the bloody deed.
1184
Hush! good words only!
1185
I would I could obey!
1186
What dreadful words!
1187
Fortune has spread her wings, and we are ruined, ruined.
1188
What do you mean? what has he done?
1189
Slain them in a wild fit of frenzy
1190
with arrows dipped in the venom of the hundred-headed hydra.
1191
This is Hera’s work; but who lies there among the dead, old man?
1192
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.
1195
Ah, ah! whose fortune was ever so cursed as his?
1196
Never will you find another mortal that has suffered more or been driven harder.
1198
Why does he veil his head, poor wretch, in his robe?
1199
He is ashamed to meet your eye;
1200
his kinsman’s kind intent and his children’s blood make him abashed.
1202
But I come to sympathize; uncover him.
1204
My son, remove that mantle
1205
from your eyes, throw it from you, show your face to the sun. As a counterweight, fighting along with my tears, I entreat you as a suppliant, as I grasp your beard, your knees, your hands, and let fall
1210
the tear from my old eyes. O my child! restrain your savage lion-like temper, for you are rushing forth on an unholy course of bloodshed, eager to join mischief to mischief, child.
1214
What! Enough! To you I call who are huddled there in your misery,
1215
show to your friends your face; for no darkness is black enough to hide your sad mischance. Why do you wave your hand at me, signifying murder? is it that I may not be polluted by speaking with you?
1220
If I share your misfortune, what is that to me? For once I had good fortune with you. I must refer to the time when you brought me safe from the dead to the light of life. I hate a friend whose gratitude grows old; one who is ready to enjoy his friends’ prosperity
1225
but unwilling to sail in the same ship with them when they are unfortunate. Arise, unveil your head, poor wretch! and look on me. The gallant soul endures such blows as heaven deals and does not refuse them.
1229
O Theseus, did you see this struggle with my children?
1230
I heard of it, and now I see the horrors you mean.
1231
Why then have you unveiled my head to the sun?
1232
Why have I? you, a mortal, can not pollute what is of the gods.
1233
Try to escape, luckless wretch, from my unholy taint.
1234
The avenging fiend does not go forth from friend to friend.
1235
For this I thank you; I do not regret the service I did you.
1236
While I, for kindness then received, now show my pity for you.
1237
Ah yes! I am piteous object, a murderer of my sons.
1238
I weep for you in your changed fortunes.
1239
Did you ever find another more afflicted?
1240
Your misfortunes reach from earth to heaven.
1241
Therefore I am resolved on death.
1242
Do you suppose the gods attend to your threats?
1243
The god has been remorseless to me; so I will be the same to the gods.
1244
Hush! lest your presumption add to your sufferings.
1245
My ship is freighted full with sorrow; there is no room to stow anything further.
1246
What will you do? Where is your fury drifting you?
1247
I will die and return to that world below from which I have just come.
1248
Such language is fit for any common fellow.
1249
Ah! yours is the advice of one outside sorrow.
1250
Are these indeed the words of Heracles, the much-enduring?
1251
Though never so much as this. Endurance must have a limit.
1252
Is this the benefactor and great friend to mortals?
1253
Mortals bring no help to me; no! Hera has her way.
1254
Never would Hellas allow you to die through sheer perversity.
1255
Hear me a moment, that I may enter the contest with arguments in answer to your admonitions; and I will unfold to you 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,
1260
by slaying her aged father. Now when the foundation is badly laid at birth, it is necessary for the race to be cursed with woe; and Zeus, whoever this Zeus may be, begot me as an enemy to Hera; yet do not be vexed, old man;
1265
for you rather than Zeus I regard as my father. Then while I was being suckled, that bedfellow of Zeus foisted into my cradle fearsome snakes to cause my death. After I took on a cloak of youthful flesh,
1270
of all the toils I then endured what need to tell? what did I not destroy, whether lions, or triple-bodied Typhons, or giants or the battle against the hosts of four-legged Centaurs? or how when I had killed the hydra,
1275
that monster with a ring of heads with power to grow again, I passed through a herd of countless other toils besides and came to the dead to fetch to the light at the bidding of Eurystheus the three-headed hound, hell’s porter. Last, ah, woe is me! I have dared this labor,
1280
to crown the sorrows of my house with my children’s murder. I have come to this point of necessity; 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 go? For mine is no curse that invites greetings.
1285
Shall I go to Argos? how can I, when I am an exile from my country? Well, is there a single other city I can rush to? Am I then to be looked at askance as a marked man, held by cruel stabbing tongues: Is not this the son of Zeus that once murdered children
1290
and wife? Plague take him from the land!
1291
Now to one who was once called happy, such changes are a grievous thing; though he who is always unfortunate feels no such pain, for sorrow is his birthright. This, I think, is the piteous pass I shall one day come to;
1295
for earth will cry out forbidding me to touch her, the sea and the river-springs will refuse me a crossing, and I shall become like Ixion who revolves in chains upon that wheel. And so this is best, that I should be seen by no one of the Hellenes,
1300
among whom in happier days I lived in bliss. What right have I to live? what profit can I have in the possession of a useless, impious life? So let that noble wife of Zeus dance, beating her foot in its shoe;
1305
for now has she worked her heart’s desire in utterly confounding the first of Hellas’ sons. Who would pray to such a goddess? Her jealousy of Zeus for his love of a woman has destroyed
1310
the benefactors of Hellas, guiltless though they were.
1311
This is the work of none other of the gods than the wife of Zeus; you are right in that surmise.
1313
I cannot counsel you . . . rather than to go on suffering. There is not a man alive that has wholly escaped misfortune’s taint,
1315
nor any god either, if what poets sing is true. Have they not intermarried in ways that law forbids? Have they not thrown fathers into ignominious chains to gain the sovereign power? Still they inhabit Olympus and brave the issue of their crimes.
1320
And yet what shall you say in your defence, if you, a child of man, take your fate excessively hard, while they, as gods, do not? No, then, leave Thebes in compliance with the law, and come with me to the city of Pallas. There, when I have purified you of your pollution,
1325
I will give you homes and the half of all I have. Yes, I will give you all those presents I received from the citizens for saving their fourteen children, when I slew the bull of Crete; for I have plots of land assigned me throughout the country; these shall henceforth
1330
be called after you by men, while you live; and at your death, when you have gone to Hades’ halls, the whole city of Athens shall exalt your honor with sacrifices and a monument of stone. For it is a noble crown of a good reputation
1335
for citizens to win from Hellas, by helping a man of worth. This is the return that I will make you for saving me, for now you are in need of friends. But when the gods honor a man, he has no need of friends; for the god’s aid, when he chooses to give it, is enough.
1340
No! this is quite beside the question of my troubles. For my part, I do not believe that the gods indulge in unholy unions; and as for putting bonds on hands, I have never thought that worthy of credit nor will I now be so persuaded, nor again that one god is naturally lord and master of another.
1345
For the deity, if he be really such, has no wants; these are miserable tales of the poets. But I, for all my piteous plight, reflected whether I should let myself be branded as a coward for giving up my life. For whoever does not withstand disasters
1350
will never be able to withstand even a man’s weapon. I will be steadfast in living; I will go to your city, with grateful thanks for all you offer me.
1353
But I have tasted of countless troubles, as is well known; never yet did I faint at any or shed a single tear; no, nor did I ever think
1355
that I should come to this, to let the tear-drop fall. But now, it seems, I must be fortune’s slave. Well, let it pass; my old father, you see me go forth to exile, and in me you see my own children’s murderer.
1360
Give them burial, and lay them out in death with the tribute of a tear, for the law forbids my doing so. Rest their heads upon their mother’s bosom and fold them in her arms, sad fellowship, which I, alas! unwittingly did slay. And when you have buried these dead,
1365
live on here still, in bitterness maybe, but still constrain your soul to share my sorrows. O children! he who begot you, your own father, has been your destroyer, and you have had no profit of my triumphs, all my restless toil to win for you by force
1370
a fair name, a glorious advantage from a father. You too, unhappy wife, this hand has slain, a poor return to make you for preserving the honor of my bed so safely, for all the weary watch you long have kept within my house. Alas for you, my wife, my sons! alas for me,
1375
how sad my lot, cut off from wife and child! Ah! these kisses, bitter-sweet! these weapons which it is pain to own! I am not sure whether to keep or let them go; dangling at my side they thus will say,
1380
With us you destroyed children and wife; we are your children’s slayers, and you keep us. Shall I carry them after that? what answer can I make? Yet, am I to strip myself of these weapons, the comrades of my glorious career in Hellas, and put myself in the power of my foes, to die a death of shame?
1385
No! I must not let them go, but keep them, though it grieves me. In one thing, Theseus, help my misery; come to Argos and help me to manage the conveyance of the wretched dog; lest, if I go all alone, my sorrow for my sons may do me some hurt.

Perseus Greek. CTS URN tlg0006.tlg009.perseus-eng2. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source.