Euripides Heracles 1039-1428

Amphitryon

Softly, softly! you aged sons of Thebes , let him sleep on and forget his sorrows.

Chorus

For you, old friend, I weep and mourn, for the children too and that victorious chief.

1045

Amphitryon

Stand further off, make no noise nor outcry, do not rouse him from his calm

deep slumber.

1050

Chorus

O horrible! all this blood—

Amphitryon

Hush, hush! you will be my ruin.

Chorus

That he has spilled is rising up against him.

Amphitryon

Gently raise your dirge of woe, old friends;

or he will wake, and, bursting his bonds, destroy the city, rend his father, and dash his house to pieces.

1055

Chorus

I cannot, cannot—

Amphitryon

Hush! let me note his breathing;

come, let me put my ear close.

1060

Chorus

Is he sleeping?

Amphitryon

Yes, he is sleeping, a deadly sleepless sleep, having slain wife and children with the arrows of his twanging bow.

Chorus

Ah! mourn—

1065

Amphitryon

Indeed I do.

Chorus

The children’s death—

Amphitryon

Ah me!

Chorus

And your own son’s doom.

Amphitryon

Alas!

Chorus

Old friend—

Amphitryon

Hush! hush! he is turning over, he is waking! Oh!

let me hide myself, concealed beneath the roof.

1070

Chorus

Courage! darkness still holds your son’s eye.

Amphitryon

Oh beware! it is not that I shrink from leaving the light after my miseries, poor wretch! but if should he slay me, his father,

then he will be devising mischief on mischief, and to the avenging curse will add a parent’s blood.

1075

Chorus

Well for you if you had died in that day, when, for your wife, you went forth to exact vengeance for her slain brothers

by sacking the Taphians’ sea-beat town.

1080

Amphitryon

Fly, fly, my aged friends, from before the palace, escape his waking fury. Or soon he will heap up fresh slaughter on the old,

ranging wildly once more through the streets of Thebes .

1085

Chorus Leader

O Zeus, why have you shown such savage hate against your own son and plunged him in this sea of troubles?

Heracles

waking

Aha! I am alive and breathing; and my eyes resume their function, opening on

the sky and earth and the 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, my brawny chest and arms made fast with cables like a ship,

1090

beside a half-shattered piece of masonry, with corpses for my neighbors; while over the floor my bow and arrows are scattered, that once like trusty squires to my arm

1095

both kept me safe and were kept safe by me? Surely I have not come a second time to Hades’ halls, having just returned from there for Eurystheus? To Hades? From where? No, I do not see Sisyphus with his stone, or Pluto, or his queen, Demeter’s child.

1100

Surely I am distraught; where am I, so helpless? Ho, there! which of my friends is near or far to cure me in my perplexity? For I have no clear knowledge of things once familiar.

1105

Amphitryon

My aged friends, shall I approach the scene of my sorrow?

Chorus Leader

Yes, and let me go with you, not desert you in your trouble.

1110

Heracles

Father, why do you weep and veil your eyes, standing far from your beloved son?

Amphitryon

My child! mine still, for all your misery.

Heracles

Why, what is there so sad in my case that you weep?

Amphitryon

That which might make any of the gods weep, if he were to learn it.

1115

Heracles

A bold assertion that, but you are not yet explaining what has happened.

Amphitryon

Your own eyes see that, if by this time you are restored to your senses.

Heracles

Fill in your sketch if any change awaits my life.

Amphitryon

I will explain, if you are no longer mad as a fiend of hell.

Heracles

Oh! what suspicions these dark hints of yours again excite!

1120

Amphitryon

I am still doubtful whether you are in your sober senses.

Heracles

I have no recollection of being mad.

Amphitryon

Am I to loose my son, old friends, or what shall I do?

Heracles

Loose me, yes, and say who bound me; for I feel shame at this.

Amphitryon

Rest content with what you know of your woes; the rest forego.

1125

Heracles

No. for is silence sufficient to learn what I wish?

Amphitryon

O Zeus, do you 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 your own troubles.

Heracles

I am undone; you will tell me some mischance.

1130

Amphitryon

See here the corpses of your children.

Heracles

O horror! what sight is here? ah me!

Amphitryon

My son, against your children you have waged unnatural war.

Heracles

War! what do you mean? who killed these?

Amphitryon

You and your bow and some god, whoever is to blame.

1135

Heracles

What are you saying? what have I done? Speak, father, you messenger of evil!

Amphitryon

You were insane; it is a sad explanation you are asking.

Heracles

Was it I that slew my wife also?

Amphitryon

Your own unaided arm has done all this.

Heracles

Alas! a cloud of mourning wraps me round.

1140

Amphitryon

For this reason I lament your fate.

Heracles

Did I dash my house to pieces in my frenzy?

Amphitryon

I know nothing but this, that you are utterly undone.

Heracles

Where did the madness seize me? where did it destroy me?

Amphitryon

When you were purifying yourself with fire at the altar.

1145

Heracles

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

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?

1150

But here 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 freedom from my sorrows? shall I take wings or plunge beneath the earth? Come, let me veil my head in darkness;

1155

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.

1160

Theseus

I have come, and others with me, young warriors from the land of Athens , encamped at present by the streams of Asopus,

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

1165

in saving me from the world below, if you have any need of such aid as I or my allies can give, old man.

1170

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?

whose wife is this I see? Boys do not go to battle; no, it must be some other strange mischance I here discover.

1175

Amphitryon

O king, whose home is that olive-clad hill!

Theseus

Why this piteous prelude in addressing me?

Amphitryon

The gods have afflicted us with grievous suffering.

1180

Theseus

Whose are these children, over whom you weep?

Amphitryon

My own son’s children, woe is him! he was their father and butcher both, hardening his heart to the bloody deed.

Theseus

Hush! good words only!

Amphitryon

I would I could obey!

1185

Theseus

What dreadful words!

Amphitryon

Fortune has spread her wings, and we are ruined, ruined.

Theseus

What do you mean? what has he done?

Amphitryon

Slain them in a wild fit of frenzy

with arrows dipped in the venom of the hundred-headed hydra.

1190

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, ah! whose fortune was ever so cursed as his?

1195

Amphitryon

Never will you find another mortal that has suffered more or been driven harder.

Theseus

Why does he veil his head, poor wretch, in his robe?

Amphitryon

He is ashamed to meet your eye;

his kinsman’s kind intent and his children’s blood make him abashed.

1200

Theseus

But I come to sympathize; uncover him.

Amphitryon

My son, remove that mantle

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

1205

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.

1210

Theseus

What! Enough! To you I call who are huddled there in your misery,

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?

1215

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

1220

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.

1225

Heracles

O Theseus, did you see this struggle with my children?

Theseus

I heard of it, and now I see the horrors you mean.

1230

Heracles

Why then have you unveiled my head to the sun?

Theseus

Why have I? you, a mortal, can not pollute what is of the gods.

Heracles

Try to escape, luckless wretch, from my unholy taint.

Theseus

The avenging fiend does not go forth from friend to friend.

Heracles

For this I thank you; I do not regret the service I did you.

1235

Theseus

While I, for kindness then received, now show my pity for you.

Heracles

Ah yes! I am piteous object, a murderer of my sons.

Theseus

I weep for you in your changed fortunes.

Heracles

Did you ever find another more afflicted?

Theseus

Your misfortunes reach from earth to heaven.

1240

Heracles

Therefore I am resolved on death.

Theseus

Do you suppose the gods attend to your threats?

Heracles

The god has been remorseless to me; so I will be the same to the gods.

Theseus

Hush! lest your presumption add to your sufferings.

Heracles

My ship is freighted full with sorrow; there is no room to stow anything further.

1245

Theseus

What will you do? Where is your fury drifting you?

Heracles

I will die and return to that world below from which I have just come.

Theseus

Such language is fit for any common fellow.

Heracles

Ah! yours is the advice of one outside sorrow.

Theseus

Are these indeed the words of Heracles, the much-enduring?

1250

Heracles

Though never so much as this. Endurance must have a limit.

Theseus

Is this the benefactor and great friend to mortals?

Heracles

Mortals bring no help to me; no! Hera has her way.

Theseus

Never would Hellas allow you to die through sheer perversity.

Heracles

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,

1255

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;

1260

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,

1265

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,

1270

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,

1275

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.

1280

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

1285

and wife? Plague take him from the land!

1290

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;

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,

1295

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;

1300

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

1305

the benefactors of Hellas , guiltless though they were.

1310

Chorus Leader

This is the work of none other of the gods than the wife of Zeus; you are right in that surmise.

Theseus

I cannot counsel you . . . rather than to go on suffering. There is not a man alive that has wholly escaped misfortune’s taint,

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.

1315

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,

1320

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

1325

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

1330

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.

1335

Heracles

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.

1340

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

1345

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.

1350

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

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.

1355

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,

1360

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

1365

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,

1370

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,

1375

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?

1380

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.

1385

O land of Cadmus, and all you people of Thebes !

cut off your hair, and mourn with me; go to my children’s burial, and with one dirge lament us all, the dead and me; for on all of us has Hera inflicted the same cruel blow of destruction.

1390

Theseus

Rise, unhappy man! you have had your fill of tears.

Heracles

I cannot rise; my limbs are rooted here.

1395

Theseus

Yes, even the strong are overthrown by misfortunes.

Heracles

Ah! Would I could become a stone upon this spot, oblivious of trouble.

Theseus

Peace! give your hand to a friend and helper.

Heracles

No, let me not wipe off the blood upon your robe.

Theseus

Wipe it off and spare not; I will not refuse you.

1400

Heracles

Bereft of my own sons, I find you as a son to me.

Theseus

Throw your arm about my neck; I will be your guide.

Heracles

A pair of friends indeed, but one a man of sorrows. Ah! aged father, this is the kind of man to make a friend.

Amphitryon

Blessed in her sons, the country that gave him birth!

1405

Heracles

Theseus, turn me back again to see my children.

Theseus

What for? Do you think to find a drug in this to soothe your soul?

Heracles

I long to do so, and would embrace my father.

Amphitryon

Here am I, my son; your wish is no less dear to me.

Theseus

Have you so short a memory for your troubles?

1410

Heracles

All that I endured before was easier to bear than this.

Theseus

If anyone sees you play the woman, they will scoff.

Heracles

Have I by living grown so abject in your sight? It was not so once, I think.

Theseus

Yes, too much so; in your sickness you are not the glorious Heracles.

Heracles

What about you? What kind of hero were you when in trouble in the world below?

1415

Theseus

I was worse than anyone as far as courage went.

Heracles

How then can you say of me, that I am abased by my troubles?

Theseus

Forward!

Heracles

Farewell, my aged father!

Amphitryon

Farewell to you, my son!

Heracles

Bury my children as I said.

Amphitryon

But who will bury me, my son?

Heracles

I will.

1420

Amphitryon

When wil you come?

Heracles

After you have buried my children.

Amphitryon

How?

Heracles

I will fetch you from Thebes to Athens . But carry my children within, a grievous burden to the earth. And I, after ruining my house by deeds of shame, will follow as a little boat in the wake of Theseus, a total wreck.

Whoever prefers wealth or might to the possession of good friends, thinks wrongly.

1425

Chorus

With grief and many a bitter tear we go our way, robbed of all we prized most dearly.