Chapter XXVI: Act I: On the Cenaean promontory of the island of Euboea

_Hercules_ [_about to sacrifice to Cenaean Jove_]: O sire of gods,
from whose almighty hand
Both homes of Phoebus feel thy darting bolt:
Rule now serene, for I have 'stablished peace
Wherever Nereus checks the spreading lands.
Now let thy thunders rest; for treacherous kings 5
And savage tyrants are in ruin laid.
Whatever merited thy blasting darts
Have I o'erthrown and crushed. But, father, why
Is heaven still denied to me, thy son?
For surely have I ever shown myself
A worthy child of Jove; and Juno's self,
My hard task-mistress, testifies to this,
That I am born of thee. Why dost thou still 10
Contrive delays? Am I thy cause of fear?
Will Atlas not avail to prop the skies
If to their bulk the weight of Hercules
Be superadded? Why, O father, why
Dost thou deny the stars to me? To thee
Did death restore me; every monstrous shape
Which had its source in earth or sea or air,
Or hell itself, has yielded to my arms. 15
No lion treads the Arcadian cities now;
Stymphalus fears no more its noxious birds;
The wondrous stag of Maenalus is dead;
The watchful dragon spattered with its blood
The golden grove; the hydra's force is gone;
Those famous horses to the Hebrus known,
Which fattened on the blood of murdered guests, 20
Have I destroyed, and spoils of war obtained
In victory o'er my Amazonian foe.
I saw the silent realms; nor all alone
Did I return, but shuddering day beheld
Dark Cerberus, and he beheld the sun.
No more Antaeus, Libya's monarch huge,
His strength renews; before his bloody shrines 25
Busiris lies o'erthrown; by my sole hand
The threefold Geryon was o'ercome and slain,
And that dread terror of a hundred tribes,
The Cretan bull, yea all the monstrous things
To which the hostile world has given birth,
Have fallen in utter ruin by my hand.
If now the earth can show no monsters more, 30
If now my stepdame has her wrath fulfilled,
Restore the father to his son; yea, more--
Admit the hero to his proper skies.
I ask not that thou point the way to me;
Permit it only, father, and the way
I'll find. Or, if thou fearest that the earth
Shall to the light new shapes of terror bring,
Let them make haste to come, whate'er they be, 35
While still the earth beholds her Hercules.
For who will e'er again these fearsome things
Attack, or who, throughout the towns of Greece,
Will e'er be worthy of great Juno's hate?
In truth, my praises have I safe bestowed,
Since now there is no land but sings of me.
The Scythian, dwelling in the frozen North, 40
The Indian, smitten by the burning rays
Of Phoebus, and the tropic African:
All know my fame. O glowing Sun, I thee
As witness call: I have encountered thee
Where'er thou shin'st; nor have thy darting beams
Availed to follow my triumphant course.
I've gone beyond the reaches of the sun,
And daylight halted far within my bounds. 45
The world of nature yielded; for my steps
No earth remained. She was exhausted first.
But night and utter chaos met me there.
From that dark realm whence no one e'er returns,
Have I come back to earth. Old Ocean's threats
Have I endured; no raging storm of his 50
Has e'er prevailed to overcome the bark
In which I fared. How small a part I tell![25]
Exhausted is the air and can no more
Suffice to feed the hatred of thy wife;
The earth in fear brings forth no monster more
For me to conquer, no wild beasts of prey.
These are denied to me, and in the stead 55
Of monster have I come myself to be.
How many evils have I overcome,
Though all unarmed! Whatever monstrous thing
Opposed, these empty hands have overthrown;
Nor did there ever live a savage beast
Which I as boy or infant feared to meet.
My bidden labors have seemed always light,
And no day ever dawned that brought to me 60
No strenuous toil. How many monstrous tasks
Have I fulfilled which no king set to me!
A harder master has my courage been
Than ever Juno was. But what avails
That I have saved the human race from fear?
The gods in consequence have lost their peace.
The freed earth sees whatever she has feared 65
Now set in heaven; for Juno thitherward
Hath borne the beasts I slew. Restored to life,
The Crab fares safely in his torrid path,
A constellation now in southern skies,
And ripens Libya's waving fields of grain.
The Lion to the heavenly Virgin gives
The flying year; but he, with beaming mane 70
Upon his wild neck tossing, dries the winds
Which drip with moisture, and the clouds devours.
Behold, the beasts have all invaded heaven,
Forestalling me. Though victor, here I stand
Upon the earth, and view my labors there.
For Juno to the monsters and the beasts
Has given stars, that so the heavenly realm 75
Might be for me a place of terror made.
But no! Though in her wrath she fill the skies
With monsters, though she make the heavens worse
Than earth and hell, yet shall a place be given
To Hercules. If, after beasts and wars,
If, after I subdued the Stygian dog,
I have not earned a place among the stars, 80
Then shall Sicilian Pelorus touch
Hesperia's shores, and both shall be one land.
I'll put the intervening sea to flight;
Or, if thou wilt that severed seas be joined,
Then Isthmus shall give passage to the waves,
And Attic vessels by a new-found way
Shall sail united seas. I'll change the world. 85
Along new channels shall the Hister flow,
And Tanaïs find new passage to the sea.
Grant, grant, O Jupiter, this boon to me,
That I at least may shield the gods from harm.
There mayst thou lay aside thy thunderbolts,
Where I stand guard against thy enemies.
Whether thou bid'st me guard the icy pole,
Or o'er the torrid regions watch, be sure 90
That on that side the gods may be at rest.
Apollo earned the shrine of Pythia
And heaven, because he slew the Python huge;
But Oh, how many Pythons did I slay
In that dire hydra! Bacchus, Perseus, too,
Have found a place among the heavenly gods. 95
How small that eastern portion of the earth
Which he subdued! How meager is the spoil
Which Perseus in the stony Gorgon gained!
What son of thine from Juno born has earned
A place in heaven because of his renown?
I seek the skies which I myself have borne.
[_Turning to_ Lichas.]
But thou, O Lichas, comrade of my toils,
Go tell my triumphs over Eurytus, 100
His lares conquered and his realm o'erthrown.
[_To his attendants._]
Do you with speed the victims hurry on
To where the temple of Cenaean Jove
Looks off upon the wild Euboean sea.

_Band of captive Oechalian maidens:_ The mate of the immortals he,
Whose life and fortune hand in hand
Go on apace. But worse than death 105
Is life, dragged on with many groans.
Whoe'er has trodden under foot
The greedy fates, and can disdain
The boat that plies on death's dark stream,
Will never feel the galling chains
Upon his captive arms; nor grace,
As noble spoil, the victor's train. 110
For he who faces death with joy
Can ne'er be wretched. Should his bark
Be wrecked upon the stormy sea
Where Africus with Boreas,
And Zephyrus with Eurus strive,
And rend the seas; he does not seek
To gather up the broken parts 115
Of his wrecked ship, that, far at sea,
He still may cherish hopes of land.
For he, who ever ready stands
To give his life, alone is safe
From all the perils of the storm.
But we are held by shameful grief,
The gaunt, drawn face, the streaming tears,
By the ashes of our fatherland
Besprinkled. Us no whirling flame, 120
Nor crash of falling walls o'erwhelms.
Thou dost pursue the fortunate,
O death, but fleest from wretched souls.
Behold, we live: but Oh, no more,
Our country's walls[26] remain; their place
Shall soon be hidden by the woods,
And all our temples fall away
To squalid hovels. Even now 125
The cold Dolopian will come
And o'er the ashes, glowing yet,
Sad remnants of Oechalia,
Will drive his flocks. And soon, alas,
Within our walls, the shepherd rude
Shall sing upon his rustic pipes,
With doleful voice, our history. 130
And when the hand of God shall speed
A few more generations on,
The very place where once we dwelt
Will be forgotten. Happy once,
I kept no barren hearth at home;
Not mine the hungry acres then
Of Thessaly. But now I'm called
To Trachin's rough and stony land, 135
To ridges parched and jungle-set,
To groves which e'en the mountain goat
Would not inhabit. But, perchance,
Some milder fate the captives calls.
Then will they see the Inachus,
Whose rapid waves shall bear them on,
Or dwell within Dircaean walls 140
Where flows Ismenus' scanty stream--
And where was once the mother wed
Of mighty Hercules.
False is that tale of doubled night,
When overlong the stars delayed
Within the skies, and Hesperus
In place of Lucifer arose,
And Delia with tardy car 145
Kept back the sun. What Scythian crag
Begot thee, or what stony mount?
Like some wild Titan wast thou born
On Rhodope, or Athos rough?
What savage beast on Caspian shores,
What spotted tigress, suckled thee? 150
Impervious to wounds is he.
Sharp spears are blunted, steel is bent
Against his heart; and glittering swords,
Upon his naked members struck,
In broken fragment drop apart;
Stones strike, but harmlessly rebound.
And so he scorns the deadly fates, 155
And, all invincible, provokes
His death. No spears can pierce his heart,
No arrow shot from Scythian bow,
No darts which cold Sarmatians bear,
Or they who dwell beneath the dawn,
The Parthians, whose fatal shafts
More deadly than the Cretan dart, 160
The neighboring Nabathaeans wound.
Oechalia's walls he overthrew
With his bare hands. Naught can withstand
His onslaught. For whate'er he plans
To overcome, is by that fact
Already overcome. How few
The foes who by his wounds have fallen!
His angry countenance means death; 165
And to have met his threatening gaze
Is worse than death. What Gyas huge,
What vast Briareus, who stood
Upon Thessalia's mountain heap
And clutched at heaven with snaky hands,
Would not have frozen at the glance
Of that dread face? But mighty ills 170
Have mighty recompense: no more
Is left to suffer--we have seen,
Oh, woe! the angry Hercules!

_Iole:_ But I, unhappy one, must mourn,
Not temples with their gods o'erthrown,
Not scattered hearths and burning homes,
Where lie in common ruin mixed
Fathers with sons, and gods with men, 175
Temples and towns--the common woe;
But fortune calls my tears away
To other grief. Fate bids me weep
O'er other ruins. What lament 180
Shall I make first? What greatest ill
Shall I bewail? All equally
I'll weep. Ah me, that mother earth
Hath not more bosoms given me,
That worthily they might resound
Unto my grief. But, O ye gods,
Transform me to a weeping rock
On Sipylus; or set me where, 185
Between its grassy banks, the Po
Glides on, where grieving woods respond
To the mourning of the sisters sad
Of Phaëthon; or to the shores
Of Sicily transport me. There,
Another Siren, let me mourn 190
The woeful fate of Thessaly.
Or bear me to the Thracian woods,
Where, underneath Ismarian shade,
The Daulian bird bewails her son.
Give me a form to fit my tears,
And let rough Trachin echo back 195
My cries of woe. The Cyprian maid
Still soothes her grieving heart with tears;
Still Ceyx's royal spouse bemoans
Her vanished lord; and Niobe,
Surviving life and grief, weeps on;
Her human form has Philomel
Escaped, and now with doleful notes
The Attic maid bewails her dead. 200
Oh, that my arms were feathered wings!
Oh, then, how happy would I be,
When, hidden in the forest depths,
I might lament in plaintive strain, 205
And live in fame as Iole,
The maiden bird. I saw, alas,
I saw my father's dreadful fate,
When, smitten with that deadly club,
He fell, in mangled fragments dashed 210
Throughout the palace hall. If then
His fate had granted burial,
How often had I searched, O sire,
For all thy parts!
How could I look upon thy death,
O Toxeus, with thy tender cheeks
Unbearded yet, thy boyish veins
Not yet with manhood's vigor filled?
But why do I bewail your fates, 215
O parents, whom to safety now
Kind death has borne? My fortune bids
That I bewail myself instead.
Soon, ah too soon, in captive state,
Shall I the flying spindle turn
For some proud mistress in her hall.
O cruel beauty, how hast thou 220
Decreed my death! For thee alone
Am I and all my house undone,
Since when my sire to Hercules
Refused my hand, because he feared
Great Hercules as son-in-law.
And now, not wife, but captive maid,
I seek my haughty mistress' home.

_Chorus:_ Why dost thou, foolish, ever dwell 225
Upon thy sire's illustrious realm,
And on thy own unhappy fate?
Forget thy former station now;
For only is he happy who,
As king or slave, knows how to bear
His lot, and fit his countenance
To changing circumstance. For he 230
Who bears his ills with steadfast soul
Has from misfortune reft away
Its strength and heaviness.

FOOTNOTES:

[25] Reading, _quam prosequor_.

[26] Reading, _patriae moenibus_.