O ’twas a gruesome deed!
Say woman, how?
By her own hand.
What rage, what fit of madness,
Whetted the felon blade, how compassed she
This death on death, herself alone the cause?
By the stroke of a dolorous sword.
Saw’st thou the horror, beldam?
I saw it; I was standing at her side.
Saw what? what did she? speak!
Herself upon herself she did the deed.
What dost thou say?
Plain truth.
Verily this new bride
Hath borne, as the fruit of her womb,
A curse, a curse to the house.
Too true; and had you been at hand to see,
The pity of it would have touched you more.
Could woman’s hand perform so bold a deed!
’Twas passing strange, but when ye hear the tale
Ye’ll bear me out. She went indoors alone,
And in the court she came upon her son
Preparing a deep litter wherewithal
To bear his sire back. Seeing him she fled,
And, crouching by the altar out of sight,
She groaned aloud, “O altars desolate!”
Then each familiar chattel in the house
She fingered tenderly, poor wretch, and wept.
Then roaming through the palace, up and down,
As one or other of her maids she met,
She gazed upon her long and wept again,
Bewailing her own fortunes and the house
Henceforth condemned to serve an alien lord.
Then she was silent, and I saw her speed
Within the bed chamber of Heracles.
I from a coign of spial, unobserved
Watched, and I saw her snatch a coverpane
And fling it on the bed of Heracles.
That done, she leapt upon it, sat her down
And loosed the floodgate of hot tears and spake:
“O bridal bed and chamber, fare ye well,
A long farewell; never again shall ye
Lap me to slumber in your soft embrace!”
That was her last word; with a sudden wrench
She tore the gold-wrought brooch above her breast
And laid her left arm and her side all bare.
I ran at once, as fast as age allowed,
In haste to warn the son of her intent.
Alack! between my going and return,
In that brief space, she had driven a two-edged sword
Home through the midriff to the very heart.
He saw and shrieked heart-stricken at the sight,
Knowing his wrath had goaded her to death.
For all too late from those about the queen
He learned that she in utter innocence
Had done according to the Centaur’s word.
Since then, poor boy, his misery has no end:
He mourned for her with sighs and sobs and groans,
He kissed her lips, he clasped her in his arms,
And prone beside her railed against himself:
“By my foul slander have I stricken her,”
He cried, “and now am I bereaved of both,
Of father and of mother, in one day.”
So fares it with us. And if any man
Counts on the morrow, or on morrows more,
He reckons rashly. Morrow is there none,
Until to-day its course has safely run.
Strophe 1
Which first of woes, which next,
Wherewith my soul is vext,
To wail, I am perplext,
Antistrophe 1
One here accomplishèd,
One hanging o’er my head,
One as the other dread.
Strophe 2
O that a gale might suddenly upspring
To waft me out of sight,
Lest when the Zeus-born hero home they bring,
I die of panic fright.
E’en now, they say, in pains no leech can quell,
Home is he borne, O piteous spectacle!
Antistrophe 2
Ah, not far off, but nigh,
The woe that stirred my cry,
A boding wail
As of some shrill-voiced nightingale.
Lo a foreign train appear,
And they move with muffled tread,
Mute as bearers of a bier.
Is it sleep, or is he dead?
Ah woe is me,
Woe, father, woe for thee!
Alack! I am undone,
Help know I none.
Hush, son, lest thou awake
The intolerable ache.
He lives, though nigh to death;
Hold hard thy breath.
What, is he still alive?
Hush, hush, lest thou revive
And waken from its fitful rest
The plague that racks his breast.
Beneath this weight of misery
My spirit sinks; it maddens me.
O Zeus, where am I? who
These strangers standing by,
As tortured here I lie?
Ah me! the foul fiend gnaws anew.
Did I not bid thee keep
Silence, nor scare the sleep
That over eyes and head
Awhile like balm was spread?
Nay, how can I refrain
At sight of such grim pain?
O altar on Cenaean height,
How ill dost thou requite
My sacrifice and offerings!
O Zeus, thy worship ruin brings.
Accursed headland, would that ne’er
My eyes had seen thine altar-stair!
So had I ’scaped this frenzied rage
No incantation can assuage.
Where is the charmer, where the leech,
Whose art a remedy could teach,
Save Zeus alone? If one could tell
Of such a wizard, ’twere a miracle.
Strophe 1
O leave me, let me lie
In my last agony!
Strophe 2
Ye touch me? have a care!
Would turn me? O forbear!
To agony ye wake
The slumbering ache.
Once more it has me in its grip, the fiend comes on apace.
O Greeks, if ye be Greeks indeed, most faithless of your race!
For you I laboured hugely and spent myself, to free
Your land from ravening beasts of prey and monsters of the sea;
And now in long drawn agony ye leave me to expire,
Will none of you deliver me with sword or kindly fire?
Antistrophe 1
Would God that I were dead!
Will no man sever at a stroke this head?
O help me, son of Heracles, for I am all too frail
To ease him; if thou lend thine aid, perchance we may prevail.
That will I, but nor thou nor I can rid him of the pain
That haunts him to the very end Such doom the gods ordain.
Strophe 3
My son, where art thou? Raise me, hold me here, here!
Antistrophe 2
Ah me! once more the pest doth leap
Upon me and its fangs bite deep.
Pallas! ’tis torture. O for pity save
Thy father; son, unsheath an innocent glaive,
Pierce thy sire’s heart and so the wild pain cure
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