Heracles
Cast from your heads these chaplets of death, look up to the light, for instead of the darkness below your eyes behold the welcome sun.
[565]
I, meanwhile, since here is work for my hand, will first go raze this upstart tyrant's halls, and when I have beheaded the villain, I will throw him to dogs to tear; and every Theban who I find has played the traitor after my kindness,
[570]
will I destroy with this victorious club; the rest will I tear apart with my feathered shafts and fill Ismenus full of bloody corpses, and Dirce's clear stream shall run red with gore. For whom ought I to help rather than wife
[575]
and children and aged father? Farewell my labors! for it was in vain I accomplished them rather than helping these. And yet I ought to die in their defence, since they for their father were doomed; or what shall we find so noble in having fought a hydra and a lion
[580]
at the commands of Eurystheus, if I make no effort to save my own children from death? No longer then, as before, shall I be called Heracles the victor.
Chorus Leader
It is only right that parents should help their children, their aged fathers, and the partners of their marriage.
Amphitryon
[585]
My son, it is like you to show your love for your dear ones and your hate for your enemies; only curb excessive hastiness.
Heracles
How, father, am I now showing more than fitting haste?
Amphitryon
The king has a host of allies, needy villains though pretending to be rich,
[590]
who sowed dissension and overthrew the state with a view to plundering their neighbors; for the wealth they had in their houses was all spent, dissipated by their sloth. You were seen entering the city; and, that being so, beware that you do not bring your enemies together and be slain unawares.
Heracles
[595]
Little I care if the whole city saw me; but chancing to see a bird perched in an ill-omened spot, from it I learned that some trouble had befallen my house; so on purpose I made my entry to the land by stealth.
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
Euripides. The Complete Greek Drama, edited by Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O'Neill, Jr. in two volumes. 1. Heracles, translated by E. P. Coleridge. New York. Random House. 1938.
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