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MAD HERCULES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The thunder's sister, for that name alone
Last Line: To make unspotted the immortal gods.
Alternate Author Name(s): Seneca
Subject(s): Hercules; Mythology - Classical; Mythology - Greek; Tragedy


DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

HERCULES.
AMPHITRYON.
LYCUS.
THESEUS.
JUNO.
MEGARA.
THE CHILDREN OF HERCULES.
CHORUS OF THEBANS.

SCENE: Thebes.

ACT I

SCENE I

Juno, alone.

THE Thunderer's sister, for that name alone
Is left me, widowed, I am driven forth
From heaven's heights and ever-faithless Jove;
Forced from the sky, have giv'n to concubines
My place, must dwell on earth while they hold heaven.
High in the zenith of the icy north
The star Arcturus guides the Argive fleet;
There where the day grows long with early spring,
The bull that bore away the Tyrian maid
Shines o'er the waves; there the Atlantides,
Aimlessly roaming, feared by ships at sea,
Rise, and Orion, threatening with his sword,
Affrights the gods; there golden Perseus gleams;
There shines the constellation of the twins,
The bright Tyndaridæ,—for birth of these
The floating land stood still. And not alone
Do Bacchus and his mother dwell with gods:
Lest any place be free from infamy,
The sky must wear the Gnosian maiden's crown.
But these are ancient griefs that we lament;
How often has the single land of Thebes,
Harsh and detested, full of impious ones,
Made me a stepdame! Jupiter permits
Victorious Alcmena to ascend
The skies and hold my place; the promised star
May be the habitation of her son,—
The world at his creation lost a day,
And Phœbus, bidden hold his light concealed
In ocean, slowly lit the western sky.
My hatred will not lightly die away,
Enduring anger stirs my wrathful soul;
Anger shall banish peace, my bitter rage
Shall wage eternal war. What war remains?
All fearful things the hostile earth brings forth,
Whatever dreadful, savage, harsh, or wild,
Or pestilential thing the sea or air
Creates, has been subdued and overthrown;
He conquers, waxes strong through ills, enjoys
Our anger, into glory turns our hate,
And I, in setting all too heavy tasks,
Increase his glory, prove him son of Jove.
Where with near torch the sun at rise and set
Touches at east and west the Ethiop's land,
Fame of his valor spreads, and all the world
Proclaim him god; already monsters fail.
A lighter task it is for Hercules
To do my bidding than for me to bid,—
With joy he undertakes to do my will.
What harsh or tyrannous decree can harm
This dauntless youth? The things he feared and slew
He bears as weapons, panoplied he comes
With hydra's spoil and lion's. Lands enough
Do not lie open, he has burst apart
Th' infernal monarch's portals, brought to light
The wealth of Hades' conquered king; I saw,
Myself I saw him at his father's feet
Lay down the spoils he snatched from night, and death,
And vanquished Dis. Why leads he not in chains
Him who by lot was equal made with Jove?
Why rules he not in conquered Erebus?
Why lays he not the Stygian kingdom bare?
'Tis not enough that he returns again,
The federation of the world of shades
Is broken, from the lowest depths a path
Leads upward for return, the secret ways
Of cruel death are opened. Ah! and he,
Bold since he burst the prison of the shades,
Now triumphs over me and proudly leads
Through Argive towns the fierce black dog of hell.
I've seen the day at sight of Cerberus
Fail and the sun grow fearful, terror woke
In me as well, I saw the threefold head
Of Pluto's vanquished monster, and I feared
Because I had commanded. But too long
I linger, grieving over petty ills;
I needs must fear for heav'n, lest he who took
Hell captive should be master of the skies,
And snatch the scepter from his father's hand.
He seeks no quiet pathway to the stars,
As Bacchus did, through ruin he would make
His way, would govern in an empty world.
Tried strength he boasts, by bearing up the sky
Learned that he might have gained it by his might:
Upon his head he bore the world nor bent
Beneath the burden of its mighty mass;
Lightly upon the neck of Hercules
The vault of heaven rested, on his back
He bore th' unshaken stars, the sky, yea, bore
My weight down-pressing. To the realms above
He seeks a path. Up vengeance, up and strike—
Strike him who meditates such wondrous deeds;
Join battle with him, with thine own hand strive,
Why delegate thy wrath? Wild beasts may go,
Eurystheus, wearied, cease to give new toils.
Let loose the Titans who dared storm Jove's realm,
Lay wide the hollow peak of Sicily,
Let Doria, trembling underneath the blows,
Set free the buried monster—but him too
Alcides conquered; dost thou seek to find
Alcides' peer? There is none but himself.
Alcides now must war against himself.
From lowest depths of Tartarus called forth,
Come, Furies, from your flaming locks spread fire,
And wield with cruel hand your serpent scourge.
Go, proud one, seek thyself a seat in heaven
And scorn thy human lot. Dost thou believe
The gloomy shades and Styx are left behind?
Here will I show thee hell; will call again
Discord from where she lies in deepest gloom,
Beyond the place of exile of the damned,
Imprisoned in a mighty mountain cave;
Will drag from lowest depths of Pluto's realm
Whatever there is left; come, loathsome crime,
Impiety that drinks the blood of kin,
Fierce frenzy, fury armed against itself—
Here, here, I find my ministers of wrath.
Come then, ye nimble servitors of Dis,
Wave high your glowing torch; Megæra, lead
Thy serpent-crowned and dreadful company;
Snatch from the funeral pyre with baleful hand
A huge and glowing brand; haste, seek revenge
For violated Styx; inflame his heart;
Impair his mind; so, fiercer than the fires
Of Ætna's forge he'll rage. But thus to move
Alcides, stung with bitter rage and crazed,
First, Juno, thou must be thyself insane.
Why rav'st thou not? Me first, me first o'erwhelm,
Ye sisters, overthrow my reason first,
That something worthy of a stepdame's wrath
I may at last attempt. My mind is changed,
With strength unbroken let him come again,
I pray, and see again, unharmed, his sons.
The day is come in which the hated strength
Of Hercules shall even make me glad.
Me he o'ercame, himself he shall o'ercome;
Returned from hell shall long again for death.
I glory now that he is son of Jove;
I will assist him, that with steady aim
His shafts may fly; my hand shall hold the bow,
Myself will guide the weapons of his rage,
And Hercules, when going forth to war,
Shall have at length my aid; the crime complete,
Then let his father to the skies admit
Those blood-stained hands. The war must be begun,
Day dawns and from his golden resting-place
Bright Titan comes.

SCENE II

Chorus of Thebans.

The stars are shining only here and there
In heaven, their light is pale; the conquered night
Collects at day's return her wandering fires,
Their shining ranks are closed by Lucifer;
The icy constellation of the north,
The Wagoner calls back the light of day;
Already leading forth his azure steeds,
From Œta's summit Titan looks abroad;
Already dewy morning stains with red
The brake that Theban mænads gave to fame,
And Phœbus' sister flies—but to return.
Hard toil arises bringing back all cares
And opening every door.
The shepherd, having sent his herd afield,
Gathers the grass still sparkling with the rime;
The hornless bullock sports at liberty
About the open meadows, while the dams
Refill their empty udders; aimlessly
In the soft herbage roams the wanton kid;
The Thracian Philomela sits and sings
On topmost bough, exults to spread her wings
In the new sun, near to her querulous nest;
The general chorus of the happy birds
With mingled voices greets the day's return.
When by the breeze the loosened sails are filled,
The sailor trusts his vessel to the winds,
Uncertain of his life. The fisher leans
Above the broken cliff and baits his hook,
Or waits with ready hand to seize the prey—
He feels the trembling fish upon his line.
Such tranquil peace is theirs who stainless live
Content at home with little. Boundless hopes
Wander through cities, and unmeasured fears.
At the proud portals, the stern gates of kings,
One sleepless waits; one, covetous of gold,
And poor amid his hoarded wealth, collects
Unending riches; popular applause,
The common voice more fickle than the waves,
Makes one man proud, puffed up with empty air;
Another, basely making merchandise
Of brawling quarrels in the noisy courts,
Sells wrath and empty words for gold. Few know
Repose untroubled; mindful of swift time,
Few use the years that never will return.
While fate permits, live happy; life's swift course
Is quickly run, and by the winged hours
The circle of the flying years is turned;
The cruel sisters ply their wheel, nor turn
Backward their thread; uncertain of their lot,
The race of men are borne by rapid fates
To meet their death, and of their own will seek
The Stygian waves. Alcides, strong of heart,
Too soon thou soughtest out the mournful shade—
The Parcæ come at the appointed hour,
And none may linger when their voice commands,
None stay the fatal day; the urn receives
The fleeting generations. Fair renown
May bear one's name through many distant lands,
And garrulous rumor praise him, to the skies
Advance his glory; in his lofty car
Another rides; me let my native land
Conceal within a safe and unknown home.
He who loves quiet lives to gray old age;
The lowly fortunes of a humble hearth,
Although obscure, are certain. From the heights
He falls who boasts a bolder heart. But see,
Sad, with loose hair, leading her little ones,
Comes Megara; advancing slow with age,
Alcides' father follows.

ACT II

SCENE I

Amphitryon, Megara, The Children.

Amphitryon. Great ruler of Olympus, Judge of earth,
Put to my heavy grief and misery
At length an end. For me untroubled light
Has never shined, one sorrow's end but marks
A step to future ills, straightway new foes
Are ready to be met. But late returned,
His happy home just reached, another foe
Must be subdued; he finds no quiet hour,
None free from toil save while he waits the word.
Unfriendly Juno, even from the first,
Pursued him; was his infancy exempt?
He conquered monsters ere he knew their name;
Twin serpents lifted up their crested heads—
The infant crept to meet them, with calm glance
And gentle, gazed upon their fiery eyes;
With face serene he grasped their twisted folds
And crushed with tender hand the swelling throats,
And so essayed the Hydra. In the chase
He took the swift wild beast of Mænalus,
Whose head was beautiful with branching gold;
The lion, terror of Nemea, groaned,
Crushed by the sinewy hand of Hercules;
The ghastly stables of the Thracian steeds—
Shall I recall them? Or the king who gave
Food to those horses? Or shall I recall
The wild Arcadian boar who from the heights
Of wooded Erymanthus caused the groves
Of Arcady to tremble? Or the bull,
The terror of a hundred Cretan towns?
Among the far Hesperian herds he slew
Tartessus' three-formed king and drove away
His booty from the farthest west—the slopes
Of Mount Cithæron pasture now those flocks.
When told to seek the land of summer suns
And torrid days, the sun-scorched realm, he rent
The hills apart; that barrier broken through,
He made a pathway for the raging seas.
Then the rich groves of the Hesperides
He rifled, from the sleepless dragon bore
The golden spoil; then Lerna's snake o'ercame
And forced it learn by fire the way to die.
The foul Stymphalian birds whose outspread wings
Obscured the sky, he sought among the clouds.
He was not conquered by the maiden queen
Who near Thermodon rules the virgin troops.
His hand, for every noble work prepared,
Shunned not the loathsome task of making clean
The stables of Augeas.—What avail
These labors? He is absent from a world
His hand preserved. The lands that claim him feel
The author of their peace is far away.
Crime, prosperous and happy, now is called
Virtue, the good must pay obedience
To evil doers, might makes right, and fear
Is stronger than the law. These eyes have seen
Children, avengers of their father's realm,
Slain by a savage hand, the king himself,
Last son of Cadmus' noble house, I saw
Slain, and the crown that decked his royal head
Torn from him. Who has tears enough for Thebes?
Land that abounds in gods, what master now
Is it that makes thee fear? This gracious land,
Out of the fertile bosom of whose fields
The new-born soldiery with drawn swords sprang,
Whose walls Jove's son, Amphion, built,—he brought
The stones together by his tuneful songs;
Into whose city from the heavens came,
Not once alone, the father of the gods;
Which has received and borne, and may again
(May it not be unlawful so to speak)
Bear gods; this land beneath the shameful yoke
Of tyrants now is bent. O Cadmus' race,
Ophion's hapless seed, how fall'n ye are.
Ye fear a craven exile, one who comes,
Shorn of his land, and yet a scourge to ours;
And he who followed up the criminal
By land and sea, whose arm was strong to break
The cruel scepter's might, is now afar
In servitude and bears himself the yoke,
While Thebes, the land of Hercules, is ruled
By exiled Lycus. But not long he rules,
Alcides will return and find revenge;
Will suddenly arise to upper day;
Will find or make a path. Return, I pray,
Unharmed, a conqueror to thy native Thebes.
Megara. Come forth, my husband, banish with thy hand
The scattered darkness. If no homeward way
Remains and if for thee the road is closed,
Yet break through earth and come, and with thee bring
Whate'er black night keeps hid. As thou hast stood
And through the sundered mountains made a way
For ocean's flood, when thy resistless might
Laid open riven Tempe—here and there
The mountain parted yielding to thy breast,
And through its broken banks Thessalia's stream
Rushed onward in new channels—seeking thus
Thy parents, children, fatherland, break forth
And with thee bring the buried past; restore
Whatever eager time has borne away
In the swift passage of the many years.
Drive forth the people who, forgetting all,
Now fear the light; unworthy spoils are thine,
If nought but what was ordered thou shouldst bring.
Too long I chatter, knowing not our fate.
When comes the day that I may once again
Embrace thee, clasp thy hand, nor make complaint
Of thy forgetfulness and slow return?
O ruler of the gods, to thee shall fall
A hundred untamed bulls; to thee be paid,
Grain-giver, secret rites, to thee shall wave
The torches in Eleusis' silent groves;
Then shall I deem my brother lives again,
My father flourishes and holds his throne.
If thou art stayed by greater strength than thine,
Thee would we follow. Save by thy return
Or drag us with thee—thou wilt drag us down,
Nor any god lift up the weak again.
Amphitryon. O sharer of our blood, with constancy
Keeping thy faith to great-souled Hercules,
Guarding his sons, take courage, have good hope!
He will return, and greater than before
As hitherto he came from easy tasks.
Megara. The things the wretched wish too eagerly,
They willingly believe.
Amphitryon. More oft they deem
That trouble endless which too much they fear,
And he who fears looks ever for the worst.
Megara. Buried, submerged, beneath the world shut in,
What pathway has he to the upper day?
Amphitryon. The same he had when through the arid plain,
The sands uncertain, and the stormy sea,
And gulfs that twice withdrew and twice returned,
He found a way when, taken unawares,
He ran aground on Syrtes' shoals and left
His stranded ships and crossed the sea on foot.
Megara. Unequal fortune rarely spares great worth;
None can with safety long expose himself
To frequent dangers; he who oft escapes
At last must meet misfortune. But behold,
Harsh Lycus comes, with threatening face, and mien
Like to his spirit; in his alien hand
He holds the scepter which that hand usurped.

SCENE II

Amphitryon, Lycus and his Followers, Megara, The Children.

Lycus. As king, I hold the rich domain of Thebes,
All lands the deep-soiled Phocian stretches bound,
All that Ismenus waters, and whate'er
Cithæron from her lofty summit sees.
Not by the land's old laws do I possess
My home, an idle heir; no noble blood
Nor far-famed race of royal name is mine,
But splendid valor. He who boasts his race
Boasts glory not his own. Yet who usurps
A scepter holds it in a trembling hand;
Safety is in the sword alone, it guards
That which is thine against the people's will.
A ruler who is king in alien lands
Scarce finds his throne secure. One thing there is
Can make our rule enduring: marriage made
With royal Megara, our newer line
May take its color from her royal race.
Nor do I deem that she will scorn our suit,
Yet should she, powerless yet firm, refuse,
The house of Hercules shall be destroyed.
What though the deed cause hatred and reproach
Among the people? He who rules needs first
The strength to bear a people's hate unmoved.
Chance gives the opportunity, make trial!
For see she stands, in mourning garments veiled,
Beside the altars of the guardian gods,
While near her Hercules' true father waits.
Megara. [Aside.] Scourge and destroyer of our royal race,
What unknown evil dost thou now prepare?
Lycus. O thou who bearest an illustrious name,
Kingly of lineage, for a moment hear
With patient kindliness my words. If hate
Must live eternal in the human heart,
If anger once conceived ne'er leaves the breast,
If happy and unhappy must alike
Bear arms, eternal wars would ruin all;
The devastated fields would lie untilled;
And homes be burned, and nations find a grave
Beneath the ashes. 'Tis expedient
For conquerors to wish for peace restored,
'Tis needful for the conquered:—share our realm,
Accept my hand. With sternly fixed regard,
Why silent stand?
Megara. And shall I touch the hand
My parents' blood has stained, the hand that slew
My brothers? Sooner will the sun go down
Behind the eastern sky, or rise again
From out the west, and sooner snow and fire
Make peaceful compact; sooner Scylla join
Sicilia and Ausonia; sooner far
Euripus with its swiftly changing tides
Shall wash with listless waves Eubœa's shores.
'Tis thou hast taken from me father, realm,
My brothers, home, and country; what remains?
One thing remains more dear than home or realm,
Father or brothers—'tis my hate of thee.
It grieves me that I share it with the land,
Measured by hers, how small a thing is mine.
Rule arrogantly, govern with proud heart,
Th' avenging god pursues the proud man's steps.
I know the Theban realm, what need to speak
Of mothers who have dared and suffered crimes;
Of double guilt, of him who mingled names
Of husband, son and father? Or to name
The brothers' hostile camp, their funeral pyres?
The haughty mother, child of Tantalus,
By sorrows burdened, stands a mournful stone
In Phrygian Sipylos, Cadmus still,
Lifting his head dreadful with serpents' crests,
Goes fleeing through Illyria's realm and leaves
The long trail of his dragging body's length.
Such precedents are thine, bear rule at will,
If but our realm's accustomed fate is thine.
Lycus. Thou ravest, cease thy savage words, and learn
From thy Alcides how thou shouldst obey
A king's command. Though my victorious hand
Wield here a captured sceptre, though I rule
The lands my arms have conquered without fear
Of law, yet briefly in my own defence
I'ld speak. In bloody war thy father died,
Thy brother fell? No bounds are kept by war,
Nor may the drawn sword's fury be restrained
Nor lightly tempered; war delights in blood.
He for his kingdom fought, while we were drawn
By base desire? We ask a war's results
And not its cause. But let remembrance die.
When arms are by the victor laid aside
'Tis meet the vanquished also bury hate.
We would not have thee do us reverence
With bended knee as sovereign; we rejoice
That with such great-souled courage thou hast borne
Thy ruin; thou art worthy of a king:
Be thou my queen.
Megara. Throughout my fainting limbs
An icy shudder runs, what sinful words
Assail my ears? I was not terrified
When peace was broken and the crash of war
Rang out around the city, that I bore
Fearless, but shudder at this marriage bed.
I feel myself a captive now indeed.
Let chains weigh down my limbs, let tardy death
Be brought by creeping famine, nought avails
To overcome my firm fidelity—
Alcides, I will still be thine in death.
Lycus. A husband plunged in Hades gives thee strength?
Megara. He went to hell that he might compass heaven.
Lycus. The burden of the earth's mass weighs him down.
Megara. No weight can weigh down him who bore the skies.
Lycus. I will compel thee.
Megara. Whom thou canst compel,
Has not yet learned to die.
Lycus. What princely gift
Can equal the new bridal I would give?
Megara. Thy death or mine.
Lycus. Then die, demented one.
Megara. I haste to meet my husband.
Lycus. Is a slave
Preferred by thee before our royal throne?
Megara. How many kings that slave has brought to death!
Lycus. Why serves he then a king? why bears the yoke?
Megara. If tyranny were not, would valor be?
Lycus. To conquer beasts and monsters then, thou think'st,
Is valorous?
Megara. To conquer what all fear,
Is valorous.
Lycus. The shades of Tartarus
Press heavy on the boaster.
Megara. None have found
The path from earth to heav'n an easy road.
Lycus. What father makes him hope a home in heaven?
Amphitryon. Unhappy wife of Hercules, be still;
'Tis mine to name the father and the race
Of great Alcides. Since that mighty man's
Illustrious deeds, since by his hand he made
Peace in whatever land sees Titan's rise
Or setting, since the gods were kept from harm,
And Phlegra reddened by the giant's blood,
Is not his father yet made manifest?
We have pretended Jove? Believe the hate
Of Juno.
Lycus. Why dost thou profane great Jove?
The race of mortals cannot wed with gods.
Amphitryon. Yet such the origin of many gods.
Lycus. Had they been slaves before they grew to gods?
Amphitryon. The Delian shepherded Admctus' sheep.
Lycus. But wandered not an exile through all lands.
Amphitryon. Upon a wandering island was he born,
His mother's self a wandering fugitive.
Lycus. Did beasts or monsters make Apollo fear?
Amphitryon. The dragon stained Apollo's earliest shafts.
Lycus. Thou knowest not the ills Alcides bore
While yet an infant?
Amphitryon. From his mother's womb
By lightning torn, young Bacchus later stood
Beside his father, thunder-bearing Jove;
And did not he who guides the moving stars
And makes the clouds to tremble lie concealed,
A child, within a cave on Ida's cliff?
Such high nativity costs heavy price,
And to be born of gods brings countless ills.
Lycus. Know, whom thou seest wretched is but man.
Amphitryon. Call not him wretched whom thou seest brave.
Lycus. And can we call him brave who put aside
His lion's skin and club to please a girl?
Who shone in vestments of Sidonian dye?
Shall we call brave the man whose bristling hair
Dripped nard, whose hands so famed for warlike deeds
Struck gentle music from the tambourine?
Who wreathed his warlike forehead with strange crowns?
Amphitryon. Young Bacchus did not blush to let his hair
Flow loose and in disorder, did not blush
To move with step unsteady, while his robe,
Bright with barbaric gold, behind him trailed.
The brave refresh themselves from heavy toil.
Lycus. Eurytus' ruined house gives proof of this,
And bands of maidens sacrificed like sheep—
No Juno, no Eurystheus ordered this,
These labors are his own.
Amphitryon. Thou knowest not all:
It was indeed his work that Eryx fell,
By his own gauntlets slain, and that to him
The Libyan Antæus soon was joined;
That altars dripping blood of slaughtered guests
Drank, too, Busiris' blood so justly due;
These are Alcides' labors, 'twas his work
That Cycnus, whom no sword might wound or slay,
Was forced though free from wounds to suffer death:
The triple monster, Geryon, by his hand
Was conquered; thou shalt share the fate of these,
Though they ne'er sinned against the marriage bed.
Lycus. Whate'er for Jove is lawful is for kings
As lawful; thou hast given Jove a wife,
Thou shalt give to the king. This truth, not new,
With thee for teacher, let thy son's wife learn:
Her husband willing even, she may take
A better husband. But if she refuse
With steadfastness the proffered marriage torch,
She shall be forced to bear me noble seed.
Megara. O shades of Creon, O ye household gods
Of Labdacus, O impious marriage torch
Of Œdipus, give ye the wonted fate
To such a marriage! O ye bloody wives
Of King Ægyptus' sons, be present now!
Of the Danaïdes one failed to act,
Let me fill up the measure of their crimes,
Lycus. Since still unbendingly thou dost refuse
Our offered marriage, threatenest thy king,
Thou shalt be made to feel a scepter's power.
Embrace the altars—no divinity
Shall snatch thee from me, not if Hercules
Could come, a victor, through the riven earth.
[To his followers] Heap wood and let the temples burn and fall
On those who suppliant seek them, let one pyre
Consume both wife and children with its flames.
Amphitryon. The father of Alcides asks of thee
One favor which beseems me well to ask:
Let me be first to die.
Lycus. The king who bids
That all should suffer punishment of death
Has yet to learn to tyrannize; seek out
Another vengeance, let the wretched live,
The happy die. While grow the funeral pyres
With high-heaped wood, I will, with votive gifts,
Go honor him who rules the angry seas.
Amphitryon. O thou of gods most strong, of heavenly powers
Ruler and king, whose thunder makes men fear,
Restrain the cruel king's ungodly hand.
Why thus in vain entreat the gods? O son,
Hear me in whatsoever place thou art!
Why groans the earth? Why tremble suddenly
The temples? We are heard. It is, it is
The sounding step of Hercules.

SCENE III

Chorus.

O Fortune, envious ever of the brave,
How ill thou meetest recompense to deed!
Eurystheus rules in rest and quietness;—
Alcmena's son, whose hand sustained the skies,
Must war with many monsters: he cut off
The Hydra's fruitful neck; and, when to sleep
The dragon guardian of the precious fruit
Had yielded up his ever-watchful eyes,
He bore from the beguiled Hesperides
The golden apples; he has visited
The wandering Scythians in their changing homes,
And peoples, dwellers in their native lands;
His foot has trod the frozen straits and seas
Silent on silent shores—there waves rise not
On the hard waters, for where ships have moved
With all sail set, a solid path is trod
By dwellers in Sarmatia, and the sea
That changes with the ever-changing year
Bears lightly sometimes horses, sometimes ships.
He overcame the maiden queen who leads
The virgin clans to war, who girds her loins
With golden baldrick; from her body took
Rich spoil, the armor of her snowy breast;—
She paid him honor on her bended knee.
By what hope driven headlong down to hell,
Daring to tread the way without return,
Saw'st thou Sicilian Proserpina's realm
There neither northern blasts nor western winds
Blow up the waters into swelling waves;
The shining of the twin Tyndarides
Brings there to timorous sailors no relief;
The sea lies languid there with gloomy depths,
And when with hungry teeth pale death bears down
The countless people to the land of shades,
One rower for so many is enough.
Would thou mightst bind the laws of the harsh Styx,
The distaff of the fates that turns not back!
When thou on Nestor's Pylos madest war,
The king who rules those many peoples fought
With thee, against thee in his baleful hand
Advanced his triple-pointed spear—he fled
At but a wound, death's ruler feared to die.
Seize with strong hand thy fate, let in the light
To Hades' mournful depths, to upper day
Through pathless stretches force an easy road.
With songs and supplications, Orpheus once
Prevailed upon the cruel king of shades:
He sought his wife Eurydice, the art
That moved birds, woods, and rocks, delayed the streams,
And caused the beasts to listen, calmed hell's self
With unaccustomed music, and sweet sound
Reëchoed clearly through the silent land.
The Thracian women mourned Eurydice,
And churlish gods wept unaccustomed tears,
The stern-browed judges, who relentlessly
Arraign the criminal and bring to light
Old crimes, sat weeping for Eurydice,
Until at length the arbiter of death
Said: 'We are conquered, rise to upper day,
I make but one condition; thou, O wife,
Follow thy husband; look not thou behind
To see thy wife, O husband, till thou seest
The sky and day, and gates of Tænarus
Are reached.' But true love cannot brook delay,
By hasting to possess, he lost the gift.
The castle that was conquered by a song,
That castle strength can conquer.

ACT III

SCENE I

Hercules, Theseus.

Hercules. O thou who governest the gracious light,
Heaven's ornament; who in thy flying car,
Running alternate courses, liftest up
Thy brilliant head above the world, forgive,
Phœbus, forgive, if aught thou seest amiss;
Commanded so to do, I bring to light
The secrets of the world. Thou, heaven's judge
And father, hide behind thy thunderbolt
Thy face. O thou whose scepter rules the sea,
Seek now its depths. Ye gods who from the skies
Look down on earth, avert your glances now.
Fearing pollution from the vision strange,
Look heavenward, shun so ominous a sight;
These two alone may look upon the crime:
She who commanded, he who brought to pass.
Earth offers space too small for Juno's hate
To find my labor and my chastisement.
I saw the kingdom to the sun unknown,
And inaccessible to all, the realm
Obscure, where Pluto reigns; and, so fate willed,
Subdued it. Chaos of eternal night,
And whatsoe'er is worse than night, I saw,—
The melancholy gods and death itself.
Death scorned, I come again, what more remains?
Hell I have seen and shown; if aught is left,
Give other labors. Long thou leavest my hands
Idle. What wouldst thou should be overcome?
But why does hostile soldiery surround
The temple? Why does fear of arms beset
The sacred portals?

SCENE II

Hercules, Theseus, Amphitryon, Megara, The Children.

Amphitryon. Does hope deceive my sight, or does he come
Earth's vanquisher, the glory of the Greeks?
Leaves he the gloomy, sad, and silent realm?
Is this my son? My limbs are numb with joy!
O son, the sure though tardy help of Thebes,
Do I indeed embrace thee, once again
Come forth to upper air? Or does a shade
Beguile me? Is it thou? I recognize
Thy breast, thy shoulders, and thy noble hands,
Thy heavy club!
Hercules. My father, whence this woe?
These mourning garments of my wife? Whence comes
This doleful raiment of my sons? What loss
Weighs down our house?
Amphitryon. The father of thy wife
Is dead, and Lycus now usurps the throne,
Death seeks thy sons, thy father, and thy wife.
Hercules. Ungrateful land, did no one come to aid
The house of Hercules? The world I saved
Looked on at such a crime? Why waste the day
In mourning? Slay the foe! I can endure
This stain—Alcides' latest foe shall be
This Lycus! Theseus, friend, I go to drink
His hostile blood; remain thou here with these,
Lest sudden violence should threaten them.
The battle calls me; father, wife, defer
Your loved embraces; Lycus shall announce
To Dis that I have safely come again.

SCENE III

Theseus, Amphitryon, Megara, The Children.

Theseus. Put by thy grief, O queen, and thou who seest
Thy son returned, restrain thy falling tears;
Lycus shall pay the debt to Creon due—
Shall pay? Nay pays.—Too slow the words, has paid!
Amphitryon. Whatever favoring god will hear our prayer,
Bring now assistance to our fallen house.
O great-souled comrade of my mighty son,
His deeds of valor tell; what weary path
Led downward to the gloomy land of shades,
And how the Tartarean dog has borne
His heavy chains.
Theseus. Thou bidst me call to mind
Those deeds that make me, though secure, afraid.
I hardly yet feel certain of my life;
Light blinds my sight, my weakened eyes scarce bear
The unaccustomed day.
Amphitryon. O Theseus, quench
Whate'er of fear still lingers in thy heart,
Rob not thyself of labor's richest fruit;
Most sweet it is to call to mind those things
Most hardly suffered. Tell me thy dread fate.
Theseus. Ye, I invoke, ye gods who rule the world,
And thee, the ruler of the realm of shades,
And thee whom, snatched from Enna, all in vain
Thy mother sought. O grant that I may speak
Truly of hidden things concealed in earth.
A well-known mountain lifts from Sparta's plains.
Its summits, where the heavy-wooded heights
Of Tænarus stretch downward to the sea;
Here lies the entrance to the hated home
Of Dis, the great cliff yawns, and open lies
With gaping jaws, the terrible abyss;
Through caverns limitless it shows to all
A pathway broad. At first not dark with shade—
A slender gleam from sunlight left behind,
A doubtful brightness from the troubled day,
Falls gently inward and deceives the eye—
So shines the light of dawn or failing day
With night commingled; here the boundless fields
Of empty space begin to open out,
Toward which haste ever all the human race.
Nor is the journey hard, the path itself
Leads on. As many times the tide impels
Unwilling ships, so here the flying air
And greedy chaos urge advance; retreat
Scarce ever do the constant shades permit.
Within the bosom of the vast abyss
Unruffled Lethe glides with placid shoals
And banishes all care; the languid stream
Winds ever as Mæander's sluggish waves
Flow onward, or recede, or stand in doubt
Whether to seek their source or seek the sea.
Here lies the slow Cocytus' ugly fen,
Here the sad owl laments, the vulture here,
Here sounds the horned owl's ill-fated cry,
The gloomy foliage bristles with dark leaves;
Under the overhanging yew dull Sleep
Dwells, and sad Hunger lies with sickly jaws,
And tardy Shame hides here her conscious face;
Alarm, and Fear, and dark and crushing Grief,
Black Sorrow, trembling Sickness, steel-girt War,
Follow, and, hidden at the end of all,
Age with his staff assists his trembling steps.
Amphitryon. And is no fruitful land of Ceres there,
Or Bacchus?
Theseus. There no happy fields grow green,
No ripe grain trembles in the gentle breeze,
No trees stretch out their boughs weighed down with fruit,
The sterile wastes of those sad depths are drear,
Eternally untilled that loathsome land;
The air is moveless, black night ever broods
Above a moveless world; the whole is dark
With mourning, and the land of Death is worse
Than Death himself.
Amphitryon. And what of him who reigns
Within the gloomy place? Upon what seat
Sits he enthroned to give his people laws?
Theseus. In an obscure recess of Tartarus
There lies a plain, dense vapors shut it in
With heavy gloom; here flow from single source
Two rivers; one is calm, its silent flood
Bears down the sacred waters of the Styx,
By this the gods make oath; but Acheron
Is hurried on with tumult wild and loud,
And in its course it carries rocks away,
Here is no path for backward-turning boats.
This double stream surrounds the royal seat
Of Dis, a darksome wood conceals his home.
The tyrant's threshold is a mighty cave;
Here lies the path the shades must take, and here
His kingdom's gates. An open place is here,
Where Pluto sits in cruel majesty
And to the new-come souls points out the way;
His brow is dark, but shows a kingliness
Like that of Jove, his brother, and declares
His noble race; his face is that of Jove,
But when he thunders. Of the fearful realm
The ruler is himself the greater part,
His glance gives fear to those whom others fear.
Amphitryon. And is it true that in the lower world
A tardy justice shall be measured out,
That guilty men shall pay the penalty
They owe for crimes forgotten by themselves?
Who is this judge of truth, this arbiter
Of justice?
Theseus. One inquisitor alone
Sits not to measure from that lofty seat
Late justice to the trembling criminal.
Minos of Gnosus sits in judgment there,
And Rhadamanthus, and that one whose son
Was Thetis' husband. Whatsoever wrong
A man has done he suffers; here the crime
Finds out its author, and the criminal
Is overtaken by his own ill deeds.
I saw fierce kings in prison, saw the backs
Of helpless tyrants by plebeians torn.
Who greatly governs, and, though lord of life,
Preserves his hands unstained, and mildly holds
A bloodless empire, nor puts men to death,
He, having lived a long and blessed life,
Seeks heaven, or, happy in the happy groves
Of fair Elysium, shall again be judge.
Ye who are kings abstain from human blood,
Your crimes, but greater, shall return on you.
Amphitryon. And is a place ordained where guilty men
Are prisoned, where, as rumor says, keen pain
Of ceaseless fetters punishes base souls?
Theseus. Ixion turns upon his flying wheel;
A stone weighs down the neck of Sisyphus;
In mid stream Tantalus, dry-lipped, pursues
The waves—the river reaches to his chin
And gives him hope, although so oft deceived,—
Upon his lips the water perishes,
Fruit fails him; Tityos affords a feast
Forever to the vultures, and in vain
The sad Danaïdes lift up full urns;
The impious Cadmean women raging roam,
And Phineas ever from his food must keep
The eager Harpies.
Amphitryon. Of my son's brave fight
Tell me. Does he bring back a willing gift,
Or spoils of war?
Thesus. A savage cliff o'erhangs
The stagnant shallows, where the waves move not,
And where the lazy waters ever sleep;
An old man hideous in mien and dress
Waits here and ferries o'er the silent stream
The trembling shades; his unkempt beard hangs low,
His filthy robe is gathered in a knot,
His hollow cheeks are soiled; the ferryman
With his long pole himself propels the boat;
Steering the vessel emptied of its freight
Shoreward, he seeks again the waiting shades;
The throng receding, Hercules demands
A way; hard Charon cries: 'Where goest thou,
Bold one? Thy swift feet stay.' Alcmena's son
Staid not, he seized the pole, and overcame
The ferryman, and stepped into the boat;
The skiff, for many ample, under one
Succumbed and settling heavily, each side
The reeling vessel drank the Lethe's waves.
Then conquered monsters fear, the Centaur grim,
The Lapithæ, inflamed with war and wine;
And Lerna's Hydra hides its fruitful heads
And seeks the Stygian fen's remotest part.
Then came to view the home of hungry Dis,
The Stygian dog affrights the manes here,
Lifts up with dreadful noise his threefold neck,
And guards the realm; snakes lick his head, his hair
Is bristling vipers, and a hissing snake
Forms his long tail, his rage is as his form.
He hears the sound of steps, his shaggy hair
Of waving adders stands erect, with ears
Lifted, he listens to the sound, no steps
But those of shades his ears are wont to catch.
As Jove's son nearer comes, within the cave
The dog sits doubtful and not unafraid,
Then with his baying wild he terrifies
The silent place, the threatening serpents hiss,
The dreadful clangor of his awful voice
Sent forth from triple mouths makes happy shades
To tremble. From his shoulder taking then
The lion's skin, the hero shields himself
With this protection from the hissing mouths;
In his victorious hand his mighty club
He lifts, now here, now there, with ceaseless blows
He whirls it, strikes again; the conquered dog
Gives o'er his threats and, wearied, hangs his heads,
And leaves the whole wide cavern free. Each lord
Sitting upon his throne is filled with fear,
And bids Alcides lead away the dog.
Me, too, at his request they give to him.
Then patting with his hand the monster's necks,
He binds him with an adamantine chain.
The dog, that dark realm's watchful guard, forgets
His wonted fierceness, droops his timorous ears,
And owns a master, quietly endures
To be led forth, and with submissive mien
Obeys, and strikes his flanks with serpent tail.
But when he reached the mouth of Tænarus
And the strange glow of unaccustomed light
Upon his eyelids shone, the conquered one
Resumed his former wrath and shook his chains
Raging; he almost dragged his victor back,
And drew him down, and forced him to the ground.
Alcides sought my aid, with doubled strength
We two bore up to earth the angry dog,
That struggled in an unavailing war.
But when he saw the day, and gazed upon
The sunlight's clear expanse, he closed his eyes,
Shut out the hated sun, and backward turned,
Bent earthward his three necks, then hid his head
Within Alcides' shadow. But there comes,
With many shouts, a throng of citizens,
They wear the laurel on their brows and sing
The praises of most glorious Hercules.

SCENE IV

Chorus of Thebans.

Eurystheus, born too soon into the world,
Commanded Hercules to pierce earth's depths—
The number of his labors lacked alone
This deed: to spoil the dark realm's king. He dared
To enter those black portals where the path
Leads downward to the distant land of shades,
A gloomy way with dreadful forests dark,
But filled with thronging people. As the crowd
Pass through the city eager for the games
At the new theater; as they rush to see
Elean Jove when the fifth summer brings
The sacred feast; as when the time returns
Of lengthening nights, and, coveting sweet sleep,
The balance holds the sun's car in the sea,
The people haste to Ceres' sacred rites,
And priests of Athens from the city pass
To render to the goddess of the night
Worship and honor, so the silent throng
Move onward through the plain; some slow with age,
And sad and sated with their length of days;
Some, younger, seem to hither come in haste,
Virgins who have not known the marriage yoke,
And youths with flowing hair, and little ones
Who scarcely yet can lisp their mother's name,—
To these is given to carry through the gloom
Light, that they less may fear; all others walk
In darkness, sadly. How then feels the soul
When light is gone and one must know himself
Buried beneath the world's weight? Chaos harsh,
Base shadows, the dun color of the night,
Reign there, the leisure of a silent world,
And empty gloom.
May old age bear us late to that dark land,
Too late none ever found the place from whence,
When found, none ever may return again.
What profit then to hasten cruel fate?
The wide earth's restless throngs shall seek the shades
And sail the still Cocytus; all things move,
O Death, from east and west toward thee alone;
Oh, come not! Let us be prepared for thee!
Though late thou comest, yet ourselves we haste,
The very hour of birth begin to die.
Thebes' happy day has come; O grateful ones,
Before the altars kneel, slay victims meet,
Ye men and maids the happy chorus join,
And let the rich earth from the ploughshare rest.
Peace by the hand of Hercules is made
Between Aurora's land and Hesperus'
And that where shadows are not, where the sun
Moves ever in the zenith.
Alcides' hand has conquered every land
That Thetis waters with her wide waves' sweep.
The streams of Tartarus are overpassed,
The lower world subdued, and he returns.
No fear remains, nought lies beyond that land.
Priests, crown your heads with holy poplar wreaths

ACT IV

SCENE I

Hercules, Theseus, Amphitryon, Megara, The Children.

Hercules. [Coming from the palace of Lycus.]
Felled by my conquering hand lies Lycus, dead;
Whatever comrades have in life been his
Shall be the tyrant's comrades still in death.
Victorious now, I pay the sacred rites
To thee, my father, and the holy gods,
And heap the altars with the victims slain.
To thee, my help and stay, I make my prayers,
O warlike Pallas, in whose stern left hand
The ægis threatens, turning men to stone.
Lord of Lycurgus and the crimson sea,
Be present, bearing in thy hand the spear
Wound with green vines! And ye, twin deities,
Phœbus and Phœbus' sister,—she more skilled
In archery, as he in melody!
And thou my brother, whatsoever one
Inhabits heaven, not of Juno born!
Drive hither well-fed herds; the Indian spice
And odorous woods from Araby heap high
Upon the altars, let rich perfumes rise.
The poplar binds our hair, crown thou thyself,
O Theseus, with thy country's olive leaves.
O Thunderer, we lift our hands to thee!
Thebes' builders, and grim Zethus' wooded caves,
And Dirce's noble fountain, and the home
Of Tyre's king who came as pilgrim here,
Protect. [To the servants.] Put incense now upon the flame.
Amphitryon. First, son, make clean thy hands that drip with blood
Of slaughtered foes.
Hercules. O would that I might pour
Libations to the gods of that loathed blood!
No liquor more acceptable could wet
The altars; hardly might one sacrifice
To Jove a worthier victim or more rich
Than this, an evil king.
Amphitryon. Lift up thy voice
And pray thy father that he end at last
Thy labors, to the wearied give repose.
Hercules. Prayers worthy of myself and Jove I make.
The sky and earth and ocean keep their place,
Unhindered in their course th' eternal stars
Move onward, peace profound be over all;
For tillage only be the iron used,
The sword be sheathed, no storm disturb the sea,
No lightning from an angry Jove flash forth,
No river swollen with the winter's snows
Lay bare the fields. All poisons die, no plant
With noxious juice be swelled, no tyrant harsh
Rule. If there yet lurk anywhere a crime,
Let it make haste; if any monster wait,
Let it be mine. But what has come to pass?
The morn is darkened, Phœbus moves obscured,
Although the sky is cloudless; who is this
Who makes the day flee backward to its rise?
Whence comes it night's black head is lifted up,
And stars are shining in the midday sky?
See where in heaven our earliest labor shines,
He flames with wrath, is ready to attack—
Some constellation he will seize, he stands
Threatening and from his mouth he belches flame.
Whatever stars the melancholy fall
Or frozen winter in her chilly course
Brings back, he covers in a single bound,
Seeking the bull, the bringer of the spring,
Whose neck he breaks.
Amphitryon. What sudden ill is this?
My son, why wanders so thy angry glance?
Why scan with troubled eyes the faithless heavens?
Hercules. The conquered earth and swelling floods give place,
Th' infernal realms have felt our force, the sky
Is free—a labor worthy Hercules.
To the high spaces of the heavenly world
I fly, my father promises a star.—
What if he now refuse? Earth has not room
For Hercules and gives him back at length
To the celestial ones. Behold, in vain
The entire number of the gods invites
And opens wide the doors of heaven, if one
Refuse me entrance. Wilt thou then unbar
The gates of heaven for me? Or shall I drag
The portals of the stubborn world away?
Why hesitate? Resistless, I will loose
The chains of Saturn and against the might
Of an unduteous father will set free
That father's father; I will lead to war
The raging Titans, rocks and trees I'll bring,
The Centaur's mountain in my right hand seize,
By hill on hill will make a path to heaven;
Already on his Pelion Chiron sees
Great Ossa piled, Olympus placed above
Shall make a third step and shall reach the sky,
Or I will hurl it there.
Amphitryon. Be far the thought!
A little calm thy great heart's forceful rage.
Hercules. Behold the dreaded giants come in arms,
And Tityos leaves the shades; how near the stars
He stands with empty, lacerated breast;
Cithæron totters, high Pallene shakes,
And Tempe fails, One tears up Pindus' ridge,
One seizes Œta. horribly he threats.
The flaming furies smite with sounding lash,
More near, more near they press their burning torch
Into my face, and wild Tisiphone,
Her head encircled with its serpent crown,
Fills up with torch opposed the empty door
Behind the ravished dog. [He sees his children.]
But see where lurk
The offspring of the hostile king, base seed
Of Lycus; to your hated father now
This right hand gives you back; swift shaft, fly forth,
So are Herculean weapons fitly used.
Amphitryon. Where blindly strikes his rage? His mighty bow
Is bent, the quiver opened, and the shaft
Flies singing forth, it passes through the neck
And leaves the wound. [Megara flies with the other child.]
Hercules. From every hiding place
I'll search the other out. Why make delay?
A greater war is mine: to overthrow
Mycene, that by my hand smitten down
The Cyclops' rocks may fall. Thither I go,
To break the doors and tear away the posts,
The stricken house shall fall. It open lies,
I see the wicked father's son concealed.
Amphitryon. Lo, stretching toward his knees be-seeching hands,
The child with piteous voice entreats,—base crime,
Of aspect sad and awful. His right hand
Seizes the kneeling child and whirls him round
Six times, then hurls him far, the child's head strikes,
The roof is moistened with the scattered brains.
Ill-fated Megara, like one insane,
To hiding flies, protecting on her breast
Her youngest born.
Hercules. Though thou shouldst fly to seek
The bosom of the Thunderer, this hand
Would bear thee thence.
Amphitryon. [To Megara.] Oh whither, wretched one?
What hiding dost thou seek? No place is safe
From angry Hercules. Embrace his knees,
With soft entreaty strive to soothe his wrath.
Megara. Spare, husband, spare, I pray thee! Recognize
Thy Megara! This child reflects thy form
And features, see his little hands stretched forth?
Hercules. I have thee, stepdame; give me my revenge!
From thy loathed yoke free troubled Jove; but first,
Before the mother, slay the wretched child.
Megara. What wouldst thou, wilt thou slay thy son?
Amphitryon. The child
Before his father's glance is terrified,
Fear slays him and he dies without a wound;
Now 'gainst the wife the heavy club is raised,
Her bones are crushed, nor does her headless trunk exist.
None live. Oh gray-beard, too long lived,
Dost dare see this? If mourning irks, death's near.
Sink in my heart thy dart, and wet thy club
With my blood; him whom falsely they proclaim
Thy father, slay; remove this shameful thing
That stains thy fame, lest longer it should dim
Thy glory.
Chorus. Wouldst thou fling thyself, old man,
Across the path of death? Insane with grief,
Where goest thou? Fly, hide thyself afar,
And spare the hand of Hercules this crime.
Hercules. 'Tis well, the base king's brood are all cut off.
Those vowed to thee, O wife of mighty Jove,
Are slain. A free gift, worthy thee, is brought,
And other victims still shall Argives give.
Amphitryon. My son, a worthy gift is not yet made,
Complete the sacrifice, the victim kneels
Before the altar, see he waits thy hand
With lowered head. I freely give myself,
Slay me. But what is this? His eyes' fierce glance
Wanders, and drowsiness makes dim his sight.
Do I behold the hand of Hercules
Tremble? His eyelids droop with sleep, his head
Sinks wearied on his breast, his knees give way,
He falls upon the earth like some great tree,
The glory of the woods, or mighty crag
That sinks into the sea. Dost thou still live
Or does the rage that hurled thine own to death
Give thee as well to Lethe? It is sleep,
He breathes—may calm be granted him a space,
That vigor, conquered by disease, return
In dreamless sleep to soothe his troubled breast.
Slaves, take his weapons, lest he wake and rave.

SCENE II

Chorus.

The heavens mourn, and heaven's great father mourns,
The fertile earth, and the unstable sea's
Unstable waves; thou mournest most of all
Who floodest earth and ocean with thy rays
And with thy brightness puttest night to flight,
Alcides saw with thee thy rise, he saw
Thy setting, Titan, knew thy two abodes.
Ye heaven-dwellers, from these tumults wild
Set free his spirit, turn his darkened mind
To better things. Thou vanquisher of ills,
Sweet sleep, the soul's repose, the better part
Of human life, Astræa's winged child,
Mild brother of harsh Death, confusing oft
The true and false, at once the best and worst
Foreteller of events, the wanderer's peace,
Rest after day, companion of the night,
Who comest to the slave as to the king,
Who teachest man, afraid of death, to learn
By slow degrees to know death's last long night,
O gently, softly soothe the wearied one,
Let heavy languor on the vanquished lie;
By slumber let his dauntless limbs be bound,
Leave not his savage breast before he finds
Again his former mind.
See, on the ground he lies, his wild heart filled
With dreadful dreams, his trouble not yet eased;
Accustomed on his heavy club to lean
His wearied head, he throws his arms about
And with his empty right hand seeks in vain
Its weight. The fever's tide has not yet ebbed,
But surges as the waves by storm wind vexed
Surge to and fro and their long anger keep,
Tumultuous even when the wind has ceased.
Depart, tempestuous madness, from his soul;
Return, O valor, gentleness, and health.
Better, perhaps, a mind by madness stirred,
Insanity alone can prove him free
From guilty stain. Most nearly pure is he
Who sins and knows it not.
Now, smitten by Herculean palms, his breast
Resounds, and blows from his all-conquering hand
Fall upon shoulders that once bore the world.
The heavens hear his heavy groans, the queen
Of the dark realm, and tameless Cerberus,
Who lurks within his cave's depths, bound in chains;
Chaos re-echoes with the mournful cries
And the great deeps that now uncovered lie.
Not lightly does he smite his mighty breast
By such calamity weighed down, three realms
Echo the blows. Now give him cruel wounds,
Thou weapon, ornament long hung about
His neck,—thou quiver strong, and gallant shaft;
Thou club, strong oak, with thy hard knots oppress
His breast, O serve him now, ye well-known arms,
In this his bitter need.
O boys, O children of a luckless race,
By the sad path thy father knew go hence;
Ye have not, sharer of your father's fame,
Wrecked vengeance on hard kings with harsher war,
Nor, brave with hand and cæstus, learned to bend
Your supple members in the Argive games;
Ye have but dared to balance the light shafts
From Scythian quivers, and with certain aim
To send them, and to shoot the flying stag.
Go, shadows, to the Stygian portals go,
Ye innocents who on life's threshold fall,
By crime and by a father's madness slain!
Go, seek the wrathful monarch!

ACT V

SCENE I

Hercules, Amphitryon, Theseus.

Hercules. [Awaking and looking around in wonder.] What place is
this?
What realm? What clime of earth?
Where am I? Underneath the eastern sky,
Or the cold constellation of the bear,
Or where the waters of the western seas
Wash up against the limits of the land?
What air is this I breathe? on what soil rest
My wearied limbs? 'Tis true, I have returned!
Why prostrate lie those bloody bodies there?
Has not my mind put by the shapes of hell?
Although returned does hell's sad throng still move
Before my eyes? It shames me to confess:—
I fear! I know not what my soul forebodes
Of heavy ill. My father, where art thou?
Where are my sons, my wife? Why is my side
Bare of the lion's spoil? Whither has fled
My lion's skin that served as cloak and couch?
Where are my bow and arrows? Who could take
My weapons from me and I still alive?
What man could bear away such spoil nor fear
The sleeping Hercules? May I but see
That man! Thou strong one, come; my father Jove,
Leaving his heaven, has begotten thee
At whose creation longer than at mine
The night endured. But what is this I see?
My sons lie bathed in blood, my wife is dead!
Does Lycus reign and Hercules returned?
Ye who beside Ismenus' waters dwell,
Or in Athenian meadows, or the realm
Of Trojan Pelops by two oceans wet,
Help; show the author of these savage deeds;
My anger else will kindle against all,
I count him foe who shows me not my foe.
Alcides' vanquisher, wouldst thou be hid?
Come forth; though thou seekst vengeance for the steeds
Of bloody Thrace, or Geryon's slaughtered flocks,
Or Libya's lord, I do not shun the fight.
I stand defenceless, with my weapons armed
Thou mayest fall upon me weaponless.
But why do Theseus and my father shun
My glance? Why hide their faces? Stay your tears,
Speak, who has slain my all? What, father, dumb?
Yet speak thou, Theseus, Theseus, faithful friend.
Each, silent, hides his face and weeps; what shame
Is mine? Has Argos tyrant, has the line
Of Lycus overwhelmed us with such woe?
By thine own self and by thy honored name,
To me propitious ever, by the fame
Of my great deeds, speak, who o'erthrew my house?
Whose prey am I?
Amphitryon. Unspoken be these ills.
Hercules. Shall I lack vengeance?
Amphitryon. Vengeance oft recoils.
Hercules. Who ever bore unmoved such wrongs as mine?
Amphitryon. Who stood in fear of heavier wrongs than these.
Hercules. O father, can aught worse than this be found?
Amphitryon. Thou knowest but a part of all thy woe.
Hercules. Have pity, father; supplicating hands
I stretch—but what is this? He turns away;
Here surely crime lies hid. Whence comes this blood?
What shaft is that with children's murder wet?
Alas! My own, in Hydra's venom dipped!
I need not ask what hand could bend that bow,
Or draw the bowstring that reluctant yields
To me. My father, speak, is mine the crime?
He speaks not, it is mine.
Amphitryon. The grief is thine,
The crime thy stepdame's, thou art free from fault.
Hercules. Now send thy thunders from all parts of heaven,
O great progenitor; forgetting me,
Avenge thy grandsons, though with tardy hand.
The starry heavens roar, the sky shoots flame.
To Caspian cliffs bound fast, let eager birds
Upon my body feed. Why now lies bare
Prometheus' rock, the steep and woodless height
Of Caucasus, where birds and beasts of prey
Are fed? Let the Symplegades which close
The Scythian waters stretch across the deep
Each way my fast bound hands, and when recurs
Th' alternate change, when the two rocks unite
And at the blow the sea in foam is flung
To heaven, I shall lie between the rocks!
Why, building high a pile of heaped-up wood,
Should not this blood-stained form be burned with fire?
Thus, thus, it must be done; to realms below
I will give back Alcides.
Amphitryon. Ah, not yet
Does madness leave him or his raving cease,
But all his raging burns against himself.
Hercules. Grim country of the Furies, prison house
Of hell-abiders, long decreed abode
Of guilty throngs, if place of banishment
Lies hid beyond the shades of Erebus,
Unknown to Cerberus and me, O earth,
There hide me. I will lurk beyond the bounds
Of Tartarus. O heart, too fiercely tried!
Who worthily might mourn for you, my sons,
Scattered through all the house? My tearless eyes
Have not the power to weep these heavy ills.
Give back my bow, my arrows; give my club.
For thee, my sons, I break my shaft, for thee
Destroy my bow; this heavy club shall burn
An offering to thy shades; this quiver, full
Of Hydra-poisoned arrows, shall be laid
Upon thy funeral pile; the arms that slew
Shall pay the penalty. You, too, shall burn,
O most unfortunate and cruel hands.
Amphitryon. Who ever called an act of madness crime?
Hercules. Great madness often gains the height of crime.
Amphitryon. Now, Hercules, thou needest all thy strength;
Bear patiently this heavy weight of woe.
Hercules. Frenzy has not so quenched my sense of shame
That I can see all peoples flee my face.
My weapons, Theseus! Give me back, I pray,
In haste my stolen arms; if I am sane,
Give back my spear; if madness holds me yet,
Fly, father, for I take the road to death.
Amphitryon. I pray thee by the sacred bond of blood,
And by the holy name that binds us twain—
Father or foster-father as you will—
By these gray hairs that call for reverence,
Spare a bereft old man, weighed down with years.
Thou only pillar of a falling house,
One star of the afflicted, live for me.
I never yet have reaped thy labor's fruit,
But ever have I feared unfriendly seas,
Or savage monsters, or some cruel king,
Or one proved faithless to the holy gods.
Ever the father of an absent son,
I long to see thee, touch thee, know thee mine.
Hercules. Why longer should my spirit see the light?
Nought now remains, my hand has banished all:
Intelligence and weapons, wife and sons,
My glory and my strength, my madness too.
There is no healing for a soul defiled,
The criminal must be by death made whole.
Amphitryon. Thou'lt slay thy father.
Hercules. Nay, but, lest I should,
I slay myself.
Amphitryon. Before thy father's eyes?
Hercules. Through me such crime is even now well known.
Amphitryon. Remember rather deeds that all must praise,
And seek forgiveness for a single crime.
Hercules. Shall he give pardon to himself, who found
Pardon for none? I did my much-praised deeds
Obedient to command, this deed is mine.
Have pity, father, whether thou art moved
By fatherly compassion, my sad fate,
Or by my loss of innocence: give back
My weapons, let my hand avenge my fate.
Theseus. Thy father's prayers have surely force enough,
Yet be by my entreaties also moved.
Rise, meet this new attack and overcome.
As thou art wont. Take courage, never yet
By evil was thy great heart put to shame.
Thou needest all thy valor, Hercules;
Prevent the anger of great Hercules.
Hercules. If yet I live, I have done grievous wrong;
But if I die, I have endured such wrong.
I haste to cleanse the land; before my eyes,
But now, a monster hovered, harsh and wild,
Unholy, cruel; up, my hand, begin
This heavy labor, greater than them all.
Dost stand inactive, brave in thy attack
On boys alone and trembling motherhood?
Unless my arms are given back to me,
The woods of Thracian Pindus I will fell,
And burn Cithæron's ridge and Bacchus' grove,
My funeral pyre; or all the Theban homes,
The citizens, the temples of the gods,
Above my body I will heap, will lie
Entombed beneath a city overthrown;
And if the ruined walls should prove too light
For my strong shoulders, and the seven gates
Too lightly rest, in the world's heart, I'll hide,
Pressed down beneath the burden of the earth.
Amphitryon. I give the weapons back.
Hercules. Those words become
The father of Alcides. Lo, this lad
Was smitten by this arrow.
Amphitryon. Juno sent
That arrow by thy hand.
Hercules. I see it now!
Amphitryon. Behold, his heart, o'erwhelmed with misery,
Swells in his troubled breast.
Hercules. The shaft is meet!
Amphitryon. Lo, now of thine own will thou doest sin
And consciously.
Hercules. What then wouldst thou command?
Amphitryon. We ask for nothing, all our grief is full.
Thou only canst preserve my son for me;
Thou canst not take him from me. Fear is gone,
Thou canst not make me wretched, glad thou mayest.
Whatever thou shouldst do, resolve to act
As knowing that thy fate and glory stand
At parting of the ways: live thou or die,
This spirit, wearied both by time and fate,
Trembles upon my lips to quickly pass.—
So slowly does one give a father life?
I will not longer bear delay, but thrust
The fatal iron in my breast—this crime
Will be the crime of no mad Hercules.
Hercules. O father, spare me, spare, call back thy hand.
Succumb, my valor, hear a father's words;
Add to thy other labors this one more,
Herculean,—let me live! O Theseus, friend,
Lift up my stricken father from the ground,
My guilty hands must shun that sacred head.
Amphitryon. I clasp thy hands most gladly; I will go
Leaning on this; embracing this, my heart
Will put away its sorrows.
Hercules. Whither fly?
Where hide myself? In what land lie concealed?
What Nile, or Tanais, or Persian flood,
Or fiercely flowing Tigris, or wild Rhine,
Or Tagus, or Iberis' turgid stream,
That flows with wealth, can wash this right hand clean?
Might cold Mæotis, pour its icy flood
Upon me, or the ocean through my hands
Flow ever, still they'ld show the stain of blood.
O murderer, whither flee? To east or west?
There is no place of exile, earth rejects
And all the stars flee from me; Titan saw
With milder face the hell dog Cerberus.
O Theseus, faithful friend, seek out for me
Some secret, far-remote abiding place;
Since, looking on another's guilt, thou still
Canst love the guilty, show me now, I pray,
The gratitude thou owest: take me back
To hell's dark shades, endue me in thy chains,
That place will hide me. But that knows me, too!
Theseus. One land awaits thee, there will Mars restore
The weapons to thy hands made clean from blood.
That land, Alcides, calls thee which is wont
To make unspotted the immortal gods.






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