Maidens, let your joyous shout
Of triumph from the hearth ring out,
Swell the choir of men who raise
Their paean to Apollo’s praise.
Sing, man and maid,
Phoebus our aid,
Lord of the quiver,
Strong to deliver!
Hymn his sister, maid and man,
Artemis Ortygian.
Slayer of deer,
With fiery brand
In either hand,
O goddess, hear!
Hymn ye the nymphs too, her attendant band
My spirit spurns the ground;
Bid the shrill fife outsound,
My sovereign I obey.
Evoë!
The thyrsus, see,
Calls me; I must away
To join the Bacchic rout,
With Maenads dance and shout,
Once more the paean raise;
For, lady, here,
In presence clear,
My joy takes shape and stands before thy gaze.
Kind friends, I see, nor have my wistful eyes
Failed to perceive this company’s approach—
Hail to thee, herald, if indeed thou bring’st
News that will gladden me, though long delayed.
Yea, lady, glad is our return and glad
Thy greeting, as befits the deed achieved.
He who speeds well a welcome fair deserves.
First tell me what I first would learn, best friend,
Shall I embrace my Heracles alive?
Surely; I left him both alive and hale,
In lusty strength and sound in every limb.
Where? upon Greek soil, tell me, or abroad?
Upon a headland in Euboea, where
He marks out altars to Cenaean Zeus,
And dedicates the fertile lands around.
In payment of some former vow, or warned
By oracles?
’Tis for a vow he made
When he went forth to conquer and despoil
Oechalia of these women whom thou see’st.
O tell me who these captives are and whose;
So piteous, to judge them by their plight.
He chose them for himself and for the gods,
When he had sacked the town of Eurytus.
Was it to take that city he delayed
All those interminable, countless days?
Not so; that time he mostly was detained
In Lydia; by his own account, not free,
But sold in bondage; nor shouldst thou resent
A tale of outrage, when the doer is Zeus.
Thus he fulfilled (these were his very words)
A year of servitude to Omphalè,
The barbarous queen. So grievous was the sting
Of his reproach, that by a mighty oath
He swore one day to enslave with wife and child
The author of this foul calamity.
Nor vain that vow. No sooner was he purged,
Than he enlisted straight an alien host,
And marched against the city of Eurytus;
For Eurytus alone of men he deemed
The guilty cause, who when he came a guest
To one by ties of ancient friendship bound,
With many a bitter taunt and bitter spite
Assailed him, saying, “Thou indeed hast shafts
Unerring, yet in feats of archery
My sons surpass thee,” or again he’d cry,
“Out on thee, slave, a freeman’s down-trod thrall.”
Once at a banquet too he cast him forth
When he was in his cups. Whereat incensed,
Encountering Iphitus upon the hill
Of Tiryns in pursuit of his strayed mares,
As the youth stood at gaze, his wits afield,
He hurled him from the craggy battlements.
That deed of violence provoked our King,
The sire of all, Olympian Zeus, who drave him
Forth to be sold, and spared him not, because
That once (his sole offence) he slew a foe
By treachery; had he slain him in fair fight,
Zeus had approved his righteous wrath, for gods
No more than men can suffer insolence.
So all those braggarts of outrageous tongue
Lie low in Hades and their town’s enslaved,
And these, the women whom thou seeest, fallen
To abject misery from their high estate,
Are to thy hands delivered. Thus my lord
Charged me, and I, his liegeman true, obey.
Doubt not himself, so soon as he has paid
Due sacrifices for his victory
To Zeus his sire, will presently be here.
This crowns and consummates my happy tale.
Now, lady, is thy joy assured, in part
Present, with promise sure for what remains.
Hearing these happy tidings of my lord
How can I but rejoice, as it is meet,
For our two fortunes run in parallels.
Yet one who thinks on change and chance must dread
Lest such success be prelude to a fall.
And a strange pity hath come o’er me, friends,
At sight of these poor wretches, motherless,
Fatherless, homeless, in an alien land,
Daughters, it well may be, of free-born sires,
And now condemned to live the life of slaves.
Never, O Zeus who turn’st the tide of war,
Never may I behold a child of mine
Thus visited, or if such lot must be,
May it not fall while Deianira lives.
Such dread, as I behold these maids, is mine.
Say, who art thou, most miserable girl,
Mother or maid? To judge thee by thy looks
Thou hast full warrant of virginity,
Yea and of high birth. Lichas, who is she?
Who was her father, and her mother? Speak.
Her most of all I pity, for she shows
Alone the sense of her calamity.
How should I know? Why question me? Perchance
She was of noblest lineage in that land.
What, of their kings? Had Eurytus a daughter?
I know not, did not question her at length.
Did’st thou not even learn her name from one
Of her companions?
No, I had my work
To do, and had no time for questioning.
Then speak to me and tell me who thou art,
Poor maid; it grieves me truly not to know.
Well, if she opens now her lips, ’twill be
Unlike her former self, for hitherto
She hath not uttered word or syllable;
But still in travail with her heavy grief
She weeps and stays not weeping since she left
Her wind-swept home. ’Tis sad and ill for her,
This melancholy, yet ’tis natural.
Leave her in peace and let her pass within,
As is her humour. Heaven forbid that I
Should add another to her present pains,
Enough God knows. Now let us all go in,
That thou may’st start at once upon thy way.
And I make all things ready in the house. Exeunt Lichas and Captives.
So be it, but first tarry here awhile
That thou may’st learn in private who are these
Whom thou dost welcome ’neath thy roof, and hear
Matters of
