Trachiniae
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng3
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No, do this without laments or tears, if you are indeed my son. But if you fail to do this, even from the world below my curse and my wrath shall await you for ever.
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Hyllus
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Ah, Father, what have you said? What you have done to me!
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Heracles
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I have spoken that which you must perform. If you refuse,
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then get yourself some other father, and be called my son no longer!
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Hyllus
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Ah, me! What deeds you call on me to do, Father—that I should become your murderer, polluted with your blood!
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Heracles
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Not so, in truth, but healer of my sufferings, sole physician of my pain!
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Hyllus
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And how, by inflaming your body, shall I heal it?
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Heracles
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If your fear keeps you from this one task, at least perform the rest.
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Hyllus
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The service of carrying you will not be refused.
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Heracles
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And the heaping of the pyre which I have ordered?
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Hyllus
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Yes, except that I will not touch fire to it with my own hands.
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All else will I do, and you will have no hindrance on my part.
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Heracles
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Well, that much will be enough—yet add one small favor to your large benefits.
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Hyllus
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Even if it is tremendously large, it will be done.
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Heracles
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Do you know, then, the maiden, daughter of Eurytus?
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Hyllus
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You mean Iole, I would guess.
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Heracles
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You know her. Just this is the command that I impose upon you, my son: when I am dead, if you wish to show your piety by remembrance of your oath to your father, make this woman your wife and do not disobey your father.
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Let no other but you take her who has lain close at my side. You, my son, make that marriage-bond your own. Obey; for although you were obedient in great affairs, your disobedience in small ones cancels the gratitude already won.
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Hyllus
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Ah, me, it is wrong to be angry with a sick man, but who could bear to see him have thoughts like these?
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Heracles
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Your words show no willingness to do as I say.
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Hyllus
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Who on earth would, when she alone is to blame for my mother’s death, and for your present condition besides?
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Who would choose to do so, unless he were infected by avenging fiends? It would be better, Father, that I also die, rather than live united with those whom I most detest!
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Heracles
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The man will render no due respect, it seems, to my dying prayer. No, be sure that the curse of the gods
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will await you for disobeying my commands.
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Hyllus
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Ah, you will soon show, it seems, how diseased you are!
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Heracles
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Yes, for you stir me from my slumbering plague.
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Hyllus
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I am miserable! I have no way out of so many dilemmas!
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Heracles
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Yes, since you think it wrong to obey your begetter.
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Hyllus
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But must I then learn to be unholy, Father?
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Heracles
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It is not unholy, if you gladden my heart.
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Hyllus
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Do you, then, command me to do this as a clear duty?
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Heracles
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I do, and I call on the gods to bear me witness!
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Hyllus
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Then I will do it, and not refuse,
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—calling upon the gods to witness your deed. I can never be condemned for obeying you, Father.
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Heracles
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Your words make a fair ending, and to them, my son, quickly add the gracious deed itself, so that you may place me on the pyre before any pain returns to tear or sting me.
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Come, make haste and lift me! This, in truth, is rest from troubles, this is the end, the last end, of Heracles!
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Hyllus
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Nothing hinders the fulfillment of your wish, since your commandment strongly compels me, Father.
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Heracles
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Come, then, before you awaken this
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plague, O my hardened soul, give me a bit of steel to bind my lips like stone to stone! Stop any cry, since the task you accomplish, though by constraint, gives cause for joy.
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Hyllus
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Lift him, attendants!
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Grant me ample forgiveness for this, but also recall the great cruelty of the gods in the deeds that are being done. They beget children and are hailed as fathers, and yet they can let such sufferings pass before their eyes.
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No man foresees the future; the present is full of mourning for us, and of shame for the powers above, and indeed of hardship beyond compare for him who endures this disaster.
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And you, maiden, do not be left at the house. You have seen immense, shocking death, with sorrows great in number and strange. And in all of them there is nothing that is not Zeus.
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Chorus
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For just as one may see billow after billow
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advancing and passing over the wide deep before the tireless south-wind, or the north, so the great toil of his life, stormy as the Cretan sea, now whirls back the heir of Cadmus, now exalts him. But some god always
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keeps him unerring from the house of Hades.
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Chorus
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With respect I reproach you for your weeping, but still I will speak in dissent.
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You must not, I say, wear away fair hope. Remember that the all-accomplishing king, the son of Cronus, does not appoint a painless lot for mortals. Sorrow and joy revolve to all, as the stars of the Bear
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move in their circling paths.
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Chorus
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We thought him lost utterly to our land, a wanderer over sea, while we waited through twelve long months and knew nothing.
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She, his loving wife, miserable, was ever pining in her miserable heart, always weeping. But now Ares, stung to rage, has freed her days from their toil.
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Chorus
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May he come, may he come! Let him not halt the many-oared ship that carries him before he has reached this town, leaving the island altar where he is reported to be sacrificing!
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May he come from there full of desire, steeped in love on the pretext of the robe by Persuasion’s all-powerful ointment!
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Chorus
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In these matters this miserable lady had no apprehension, when she foresaw in the new marriage a great plague swiftly rushing upon her household. Her own hand applied the drug. But no doubt for the results yielded by a stranger’s
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counsel, given at a fatal meeting—for these she despairingly groans and sheds a tender dew of thickly-falling tears.
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And the coming fate foreshadows a great disaster, contrived by guile.
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Chorus
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Our streaming tears break forth. Ah, no! An infection pours over him, an illness more to be pitied
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than any suffering that adversaries ever brought upon that glorious hero. Ah, you dark head of the spear foremost in battle, who by your mighty point recently led that swift bride from Oechalia’s heights!
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But the Cyprian goddess, ministering in silence, has been plainly proved the author of these deeds.
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Chorus
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oh, that some strong breeze, a fair wind, might arise at our hearth
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to bear me far from this land, so that I might not die of terror when I look but once
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upon the mighty seed of Zeus! For they say that he is approaching the house in torments from which there is no deliverance, a wonder of unutterable woe.
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Chorus
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Ah, he was not far off, but close to us, he for whom I cried in advance, like the shrill nightingale! Here is a foreign procession of strange men. And in what manner, then, do they bring him? In sorrow, as for some loved one, they tread their mournful, noiseless tread. Ah, he is carried on in silence!
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Should I think that he is dead, or just asleep?
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Lichas
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Yes, it is only right to do so.
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Chorus
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Surely you do not mean she is dead?
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Nurse
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My tale is told.
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Chorus
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Dead, the poor woman?
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Nurse
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Again you hear me affirm it.
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Nurse
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Oh, it was most cruel in its execution!
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Chorus
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Speak,
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Nurse
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She destroyed herself.
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Chorus
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What impulse drove her? What disease of her mind seized her on the point of its evil shaft? How did she contrive
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Chorus
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What are you saying?
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Nurse
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The certain truth.
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Hyllus
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What do you say, old man—is he alive?
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Hyllus
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But the immense weight of this misery crushes me. My heart craves release!
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Hyllus
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No, I know no way to be patient when I witness this misery.
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more than mine.
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Hyllus
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My hands reach out to him, but no resource in myself or from another can help me make his life forget its agonies. So strong is the destiny appointed by Zeus!