Euripides — Plays II

Contents — 15 sections

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3
4. Part 4
5. Part 5
6. Part 6
7. Part 7
8. Part 8
9. Part 9
10. Part 10
11. Part 11
12. Part 12
13. Part 13
14. Part 14
15. Part 15

Part 1

AMPHITRYON: What mortal has not heard of the one who shared a wife with Zeus, Amphitryon of Argos, whom once Alcaeus, son of Perseus, begot, Amphitryon the father of Heracles? Who lived here in Thebes, where from the sowing of the dragon’s teeth grew up a crop of earth-born giants; and of these Ares saved a scanty band, and their children’s children people the city of Cadmus. Hence sprung Creon, son of Menoeceus, king of this land; and Creon became the father of this lady Megara, whom once all Cadmus’ race escorted with the glad music of lutes at her wedding, when the famous Heracles led her to my halls. Now he, my son, left Thebes where I was settled, left his wife Megara and her kin, eager to make his home in Argolis, in that walled town which the Cyclopes built, from which I am exiled for the slaying of Electryon; so he, wishing to lighten my affliction and to find a home in his own land, offered Eurystheus a mighty price for my recall: to free the world of savage monsters, whether it was that Hera goaded him to submit to this, or that fate was leagued against him. Other toils he has accomplished, and last of all has he passed through the mouth of Taenarus into the halls of Hades to drag to the light that hound with three bodies, and from there he has never returned. Now there is an ancient legend among the race of Cadmus that a certain Lycus in days gone by was husband to Dirce, and he was king of this city with its seven towers, before Amphion and Zethus, sons of Zeus, lords of the milk-white steeds, became rulers in the land. His son, called by the same name as his father, although no Theban but a stranger from Euboea, slew Creon, and after that seized the government, having fallen on this city when weakened by dissension. So this family connection with Creon is likely to prove to us a serious evil; for now that my son is in the bowels of the earth, this new monarch Lycus is bent on extirpating the children of Heracles, to quench one bloody feud with another, likewise his wife and me, if useless age like mine is to rank among men, that the boys may never grow up to exact a blood-penalty of their uncle’s family. So I, left here by my son, while he is gone into the pitchy darkness of the earth, to tend and guard his children in his house, am taking my place with their mother, that the race of Heracles may not perish, here at the altar of Zeus the Savior, which my own gallant child set up to commemorate his glorious victory over the Minyae. And here we are careful to keep our station, though in need of everything, of food, drink and clothes, huddled together on the hard bare ground; for we are barred out from our house and sit here for want of any other safety. As for friends, some I see are unreliable; while others, who are staunch, have no power to help us further. This is what misfortune means to man; may it never fall to the lot of any who bears the least goodwill to me, to apply this never-failing test of friendship!

MEGARA: Old warrior, who once razed the citadel of the Taphians leading on the troops of Thebes to glory, how uncertain are the gods’ dealings with man! I, for instance, as far as concerned my father, was never an outcast of fortune, for he was once accounted a man of might by reason of his wealth, possessed as he was of royal power, for which long spears are launched at the lives of the fortunate through love of it; children too he had; and he gave me to your son, matching me in glorious marriage with Heracles. And now all that is dead and gone from us; and I and you, old friend, are doomed to die, and these children of Heracles, whom I am guarding beneath my wing as a bird keeps her tender chicks under her. And they one after another keep asking me: Mother, tell us, where is our father gone from the land? what is he doing? when will he return? Thus they inquire for their father, in childish perplexity; while I put them off with excuses, inventing stories; but still I wonder if it is he whenever a door creaks on its hinges, and up they all start, thinking to embrace their father’s knees. What hope or way of salvation are you now devising, old friend? for I look to you. We can never steal beyond the boundaries of the land unseen, for there is too strict a watch set on us at every outlet, nor have we any longer hopes of safety in our friends. Whatever your scheme is, declare it, lest our death be made ready.

AMPHITRYON: It is by no means easy, my daughter, to give one’s earnest advice on such matters off hand, without weary thought; but let us prolong the time, since we are powerless to escape.

MEGARA: Do you need a further taste of grief, or do you cling so fast to life?

AMPHITRYON: Yes, I love this life, and cling to its hopes.

MEGARA: So do I; but you should not expect the unexpected, old friend.

AMPHITRYON: In these delays the only cure for our evils is left.

MEGARA: It is the biting pain of that interval I feel so.

AMPHITRYON: Daughter, there may yet be a happy escape from present troubles for me and you; my son, your husband, may yet arrive. So calm yourself, and wipe those tears from your children’s eyes, and soothe them with soft words, inventing a tale to delude then, piteous though such fraud be. Yes, for even men’s misfortunes often flag, and the stormy wind does not always blow so strong, nor are the prosperous ever so; for all things change, making way for each other. The bravest man is he who relies ever on his hopes, but despair is the mark of a coward.

CHORUS: To the sheltering roof, to the old man’s couch, leaning on my staff have I set forth, chanting a plaintive dirge like some bird grown grey, I that am only a voice and a fancy bred of the visions of sleep by night, palsied with age, yet meaning kindly. All hail! you orphaned children! all hail, old friend! you too, unhappy mother, wailing for your husband in the halls of Hades!

CHORUS: Do not faint too soon upon your way, or let your limbs grow weary, as a colt beneath the yoke grows weary as he mounts some stony hill, dragging the weight of a wheeled chariot. Take hold of hand or robe, who ever feels his footsteps falter. Old friend, escort another like yourself, who once amid his toiling peers in the days of our youth would take his place beside you, no blot upon his country’s glorious record.

CHORUS: See, how like their father’s sternly flash these children’s eyes! Misfortune has not failed his children, nor yet has his comeliness been denied them. O Hellas! if you lose these, of what allies will you rob yourself!

CHORUS: But I see Lycus, the ruler of this land, drawing near the house.

LYCUS: One question, if I may, to this father of Heracles and his wife; and certainly as your lord and master I have a right to put what questions I choose. How long do you seek to prolong your lives? What hope, what aid do you see to save you from death? Do you trust that these children’s father, who lies dead in the halls of Hades, will return? How unworthily you show your sorrow at having to die, you to Amphitryon after your idle boasts, scattered broadcast through Hellas, that Zeus was partner in your marriage-bed and was your partner in children; and you, to Megara after calling yourself the wife of so peerless a lord. After all, what was the fine exploit your husband achieved, if he did kill a water-snake in a marsh or that monster of Nemea? which he caught in a snare, for all he says he strangled it to death in his arms. Are these your weapons for the hard struggle? Is it for this then that Heracles’ children should be spared? A man who has won a reputation for valor in his contests with beasts, in all else a weakling; who never buckled shield to arm nor faced the spear, but with a bow, that coward’s weapon, was ever ready to run away. Archery is no test of manly bravery; no! he is a man who keeps his post in the ranks and steadily faces the swift wound the spear may plough. My policy, again, old man, shows no reckless cruelty, but caution; for I am well aware I slew Creon, the father of this woman, and am in possession of his throne. So I have no wish that these children should grow up and be left to take vengeance on me in requital for what I have done.

AMPHITRYON: Let Zeus defend his his own share in his son; but as for me, Heracles, it is my concern on your behalf to prove by what I say this tyrant’s ignorance; for I cannot allow you to be ill spoken of. First then for that which should never have been said—for to speak of you, Heracles, as a coward is, I think, outside the pale of speech—of that must I clear you with heaven to witness. I appeal then to the thunder of Zeus, and the chariot in which he rode, when he pierced the Giants, earth’s brood, to the heart with his winged shafts, and with gods uplifted the glorious triumph song; or go to Pholoe and ask the insolent tribe of four-legged Centaurs, you craven king, ask them who they would judge the bravest of men; will they not say my son, who according to you is but a pretender? Were you to ask Euboean Dirphys, your native place, it would not sing your praise, for you have never done a single gallant deed to which your country can witness. Next you disparage that clever invention, an archer’s weapon; come, listen to me and learn wisdom. A man who fights in line is a slave to his weapons, and if his fellow-comrades want for courage he is slain himself through the cowardice of his neighbors, or, if he breaks his spear, he cannot defend his body from death, having only one means of defence; whereas all who are armed with the trusty bow, though they have but one weapon, yet is it the best; for a man, after discharging countless arrows, still has others with which to defend himself from death, and standing at a distance keeps off the enemy, wounding them for all their watchfulness with invisible shafts, and never exposing himself to the foe, but keeping under cover; and this is by far the wisest course in battle, to harm the enemy and keep safe oneself, independent of chance. These arguments completely contradict yours with regard to the matter at issue. Next, why are you desirous of slaying these children? What have they done to you? One piece of wisdom I credit you with, your coward terror of a brave man’s descendants. Still it is hard on us, if for your cowardice we must die; a fate that ought to have overtaken you at our braver hands, if Zeus had been fairly disposed towards us. But, if you are so anxious to make yourself supreme in the land, let us go into exile; abstain from all violence, else you will suffer by it whenever the god causes fortune’s breeze to veer round. Ah! you land of Cadmus—for to you too will I turn, distributing my words of reproach—is this your defense of Heracles and his children? the man who faced alone all the Minyans in battle and allowed Thebes to see the light with free eyes. I cannot praise Hellas, nor will I ever keep silence, finding her so craven as regards my son; she should have come with fire and sword and warrior’s arms to help these tender chicks, to requite him for all his labors in purging land and sea. Such help, my children, neither Hellas nor the city of Thebes affords you; to me a feeble friend you look, and I am empty sound and nothing more. For the vigor which once I had, has gone from me; my limbs are palsied with age, and my strength is decayed. If I were young and still powerful in body, I would have seized my spear and dabbled those flaxen locks of his with blood, so that the coward would now be flying from my spear beyond the bounds of Atlas.

CHORUS LEADER: Have not the brave among mankind a fair occasion for speech, although slow to begin?

LYCUS: Say what you will of me in your exalted phrase, but I by deeds will make you rue those words. Calling to his servants Go, some to Helicon, others to the glens of Parnassus, and bid woodmen to cut me logs of oak, and when they are brought to the town, pile up a stack of wood all round the altar on either side, and set fire to it and burn them all alive, that they may learn that the dead no longer rules this land, but that for the present I am king. Angrily to the Chorus As for you, old men, since you thwart my views, not for the children of Heracles alone shall you lament, but likewise for your own misfortunes, and you shall never forget you are slaves and I your prince.

CHORUS: —You sons of Earth, whom Ares once sowed, when from the dragon’s ravening jaw he had torn the teeth, up with your staves, on which you lean your hands, and dash out this villain’s brains! a fellow who, without even being a Theban, but a foreigner, lords it shamefully over the younger men; but my master shall you never be to your joy. —Nor shall you reap the harvest of all my toil; Go back to where you came from, in your insolence. For never while I live, shall you slay these sons of Heracles; not so deep beneath the earth has their father disappeared from his children’s ken. —You are in possession of this land which you have ruined, while he, its benefactor, has missed his just reward. —And yet do I take too much upon myself because I help those I love after their death, when most they need a friend? —Ah! right hand, how you desire to wield the spear, but your weakness is a death-blow to your desire. For then I would have stopped you calling me slave, and I would have governed Thebes with credit. In which you now rejoice; for a city sick with dissension and evil counsels does not think aright; otherwise it would never have accepted you as its master.

MEGARA: Old men, I thank you; it is right that friends should feel virtuous indignation on behalf of those they love; but do not on our account vent your anger on the tyrant to your own undoing. Hear my advice, Amphitryon, if there appears to you to be anything in what I say. I love my children; strange if I did not love those whom I bore, whom I labored for! Death I count a dreadful fate; but the man who strives against necessity I esteem a fool. Since we must die, let us do so without being burnt alive, a source of mockery to our enemies, which to my mind is an evil worse than death; for much good do we owe our family. You have always had a warrior’s fair fame, so it is not to be endured that you should die a coward’s death; and my husband’s reputation needs no one to witness that he would never consent to save these children’s lives by letting them incur the stain of cowardice; for the noble are afflicted by disgrace on account of their children, nor must I shrink from following my lord’s example. As to your hopes consider how I weigh them. Do you think your son will return from beneath the earth? And who ever has come back from the dead out of the halls of Hades? But would you soften this man by entreaty? Oh no! better to fly from one’s enemy when he is so brutish, but yield to men of breeding and culture; for you would more easily conclude a friendly truce by accepting regard. True, a thought has already occurred to me that we might by entreaty obtain a sentence of exile for the children; yet this too is misery, to compass their deliverance with dire penury as the result; for it is a saying that hosts look sweetly on banished friends for a day and no more. Endure to die with us, for that awaits you after all. By your brave soul I challenge you, old friend; for whoever struggles hard to escape destiny sent by the gods shows zeal no doubt, but it is zeal with a taint of folly; for what must be, no one will ever avail to alter.

CHORUS LEADER: If a man had insulted you, while yet my arms were strong, there would have been an easy way to stop him; but now am I am nothing ; and so you henceforth, Amphitryon, must scheme how to avert misfortune.

Part 2

AMPHITRYON: It is not cowardice or any longing for life that hinders my dying, but my wish to save my son’s children, though no doubt I am longing for the impossible. See! here is my neck ready for the sword to pierce, to hack, to hurl from the rock; only one favor I crave for both of us, king; slay me and this hapless mother before you slay the children, that we may not see the hideous sight, as they gasp out their lives, calling on their mother and their father’s father; for the rest work your will if so you are inclined; for we have no defense against death.

MEGARA: I too implore you add a second favor, that by your single act you may put us both under a double obligation; allow me to deck my children in the robes of death, first opening the palace gates, for now we are shut out, so that this at least they may obtain from their father’s halls.

LYCUS: I grant it, and bid my servants undo the bolts. Go in and deck yourselves; robes do not grudge. But as soon as you have clothed yourselves, I will return to you to consign you to the nether world. Exit Lycus.

MEGARA: Children, follow the footsteps of your hapless mother to your father’s house, where others possess his substance, though his name is still ours. Exit Megara with her children.

AMPHITRYON: O Zeus, in vain, it seems, did I get you to share my bride with me; in vain used we to call you partner in my son. After all you are less our friend than you pretended. Great god as you are, I, a mortal, surpass you in true worth. For I did not betray the children of Heracles; but you by stealth found your way to my bed, taking another’s wife without leave given, while to save your own friends you have no skill. Either you are a god of little sense, or else naturally unjust. Exit Amphitryon.

CHORUS: Phoebus is singing a dirge, after his happier strains, for Linus dead in his beauty, striking his lyre with key of gold; but I wish to sing a song of praise, a crown to all his toil, on the one who has gone to the gloom beneath the nether world, whether I am to call him son of Zeus or of Amphitryon. For the virtue of noble toils is a glory to the dead.

CHORUS: First he cleared the grove of Zeus of a lion, and put its skin upon his back, hiding his yellow auburn hair in its fearful gaping jaws.

CHORUS: And then one day with murderous bow he wounded the race of wild Centaurs, that range the hills, slaying them with winged shafts. Peneus, the river of fair eddies, knows him well, and those far fields unharvested, and the steadings on Pelion and neighboring caves of Homole, from where the Centaurs rode forth to conquer Thessaly, arming themselves with pines.

CHORUS: And he slew that dappled deer with horns of gold, that preyed upon the country-folk, glorifying Artemis, huntress queen of Oenoe.

CHORUS: Next he mounted on a chariot and tamed with the bit the horses of Diomedes, that greedily champed their bloody food at gory mangers with unbridled jaws, devouring with hideous joy the flesh of men; then crossing the heights of Hebrus that flow with silver, he still toiled on for the tyrant of Mycenae.

CHORUS: And at the strand of the Pelian gulf by the streams of Anaurus, he slew with his arrows Cycnus, murderer of his guests, the savage wretch who dwelt in Amphanae.

CHORUS: And he came to those minstrel maids, to their orchard in the west, to pluck from the leafy apple-tree its golden fruit, when he had slain the tawny dragon, whose terrible coils were twined all round to guard it; and he made his way into ocean’s lairs, bringing calm to men that use the oar.

CHORUS: And he stretched out his hands to uphold the firmament, seeking the home of Atlas, and on his manly shoulders took the starry mansions of the gods.

CHORUS: Then he went through the waves of heaving Euxine against the mounted host of Amazons dwelling round Maeotis, the lake that is fed by many a stream, having gathered to his standard all his friends from Hellas, to fetch the gold-embroidered raiment of the warrior queen, a deadly quest for a girdle. Hellas won those glorious spoils of the barbarian maid, and they are safe in Mycenae.

CHORUS: He burned to ashes Lerna’s murderous hound, the many-headed water-snake, and smeared its venom on his darts, with which he slew the shepherd of Erytheia, a monster with three bodies.

CHORUS: And many another glorious achievement he brought to a happy issue; to Hades’ house of tears has he now sailed, the goal of his labors, where he is ending his career of toil, nor does he come back again. Now your house is left without a friend, and Charon’s boat awaits your children to bear them on that journey out of life, without return, contrary to the gods’ law and man’s justice; and it is to your prowess that your house is looking although you are not here.

CHORUS: Had I been strong and lusty, able to brandish the spear in battle’s onset, and my Theban companions too, I would have stood by your children to champion them; but now my happy youth is gone and I am left.

CHORUS LEADER: But look! I see the children of Heracles who was once so great, wearing the clothes of the dead, and his loving wife dragging her babes along at her side, and Heracles’ aged father. Ah! woe is me! no longer can I stem the flood of tears that spring to my old eyes.

MEGARA: Come now, who is to sacrifice or butcher these poor children? These victims are ready to be led to Hades’ halls. O my children! an ill-matched company are we hurried off to die, old men and young ones and mothers, all together. Alas! for my sad fate and my children’s, whom these eyes now for the last time behold. So I gave you birth and reared you only for our foes to mock, to jeer at, and slay. Ah me! how bitterly my hopes have disappointed me in the expectation I once formed from the words of your father. Addressing each of her three sons in turn. To you your dead father was for giving Argos; and you were to dwell in the halls of Eurystheus, lording it over the fair fruitful land of Argolis; and over your head would he throw that lion’s skin with which he himself was armed. And you were to be king of Thebes, famed for its chariots, receiving as your heritage my broad lands, for so you coaxed your dear father; and to your hand he used to resign the carved club, his sure defence, pretending to give it to you. And to you he promised to give Oechalia, which once his archery had wasted. Thus with three principalities would your father exalt you, his three sons, proud of your manliness; while I was choosing the best brides for you, scheming to link you by marriage to Athens, Thebes, and Sparta, that you might live a happy life with a fast sheet-anchor to hold by. And now that is all vanished; fortune’s breeze has veered and given to you for brides the maidens of death in their stead, and my tears will be the marriage bath; woe is me for my foolish thoughts! and your grandfather here is celebrating your marriage-feast, the cares of a father, accepting Hades as the father of your brides. Ah me! which of you shall I first press to my bosom, which last? on which bestow my kiss, or clasp close to me? Oh! would that like the bee with russet wing, I could collect from every source my sighs in one, and, blending them together, shed them in one copious flood! O my dearest Heracles, to you I call, if perhaps mortal voice can make itself heard in Hades’ halls; your father and children are dying, and I am doomed, I who once because of you was counted blessed as men count bliss. Come to our rescue; appear, I pray, if only as a phantom, since your arrival, even as a dream, would be enough, for they are cowards who are slaying your children.

AMPHITRYON: Lady, prepare the funeral rites; but I, O Zeus, stretching out my hand to heaven, call on you to help these children, if such is your intention; for soon any aid of yours will be unavailing; and yet you have been often invoked; my toil is in vain; death seems inevitable. You aged friends, the joys of life are few; so take heed that you pass through it as gladly as you may, without a thought of sorrow from morning until night; for time takes little heed of preserving our hopes; and, when he has busied himself on his own business, away he flies. Look at me, a man who had made a mark among his fellows by deeds of note; yet fortune in a single day has robbed me of it as of a feather that floats away toward the sky. I know not any whose plenteous wealth and high reputation is fixed and sure; fare you well, for now you have seen the last of your old friend, my comrades.

Part 3

MEGARA: Ah! Old friend, is it my own, my dearest I see? or what am I to say?

AMPHITRYON: I do not know, my daughter; I too am struck dumb.

MEGARA: Is this he who they told us was beneath the earth?It is, unless some day-dream mocks our sight. What am I saying? What visions do these anxious eyes behold? Old man, this is no one other than your own son. Come here, my children, cling to your father’s robe, hurry, never loose your hold, for here is one to help you, not at all behind our savior Zeus.

HERACLES: All hail! my house and gates of my home, how glad I am to emerge to the light and see you. Ah! what is this? I see my children before the house in the robes of death, with chaplets on their heads and my wife amid a throng of men, and my father weeping—what misfortune? Let me draw near to them and inquire; lady, what strange stroke of fate has fallen on the house?

MEGARA: Dearest of all mankind to me!

AMPHITRYON: O ray of light appearing to your father!

MEGARA: Are you safe and is your coming just in time to help your dear ones?

HERACLES: What do you mean? What is this confusion I find on my arrival, father?

MEGARA: We are being ruined; forgive me, old friend, if I have anticipated that to which you had a right to tell him; for women’s nature is perhaps more prone to grief than men’s and they are my children that were being led to death, which was my own lot too.

HERACLES: Apollo! what a prelude to your story!

MEGARA: My brothers are dead, and my old father.

HERACLES: How so? what did he do? whose spear did he meet?

MEGARA: Lycus, our new monarch, slew him.

HERACLES: Did he meet him in fair fight, or was the land sick and weak?

MEGARA: Yes, from faction; now he is master of the city of Cadmus with its seven gates.

HERACLES: Why has panic fallen on you and my aged father?

MEGARA: He meant to kill your father, me, and my children.

HERACLES: What are you saying? What did he have to fear from my orphan babes?

MEGARA: He was afraid they might some day avenge Creon’s death.

HERACLES: What is this dress they wear, suited to the dead?

Part 4

MEGARA: It is the garb of death we have already put on.

HERACLES: And were you being forced to die? O woe is me!

MEGARA: Yes, deserted by every friend, and informed that you were dead.

HERACLES: What put such desperate thoughts into your heads?

MEGARA: That was what the heralds of Eurystheus kept proclaiming.

HERACLES: Why did you leave my hearth and home?

MEGARA: He forced us; your father was dragged from his bed.

HERACLES: Had he no shame, to ill-use the old man so?

MEGARA: Shame indeed! that goddess and he dwell far enough apart.

HERACLES: Was I so poor in friends in my absence?

MEGARA: Who are the friends of a man in misfortune?

HERACLES: Do they make so light of my hard warring with the Minyans?

MEGARA: Misfortune, to repeat it to you, has no friends.

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. 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, 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 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 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: 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, 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: Little I care if the whole city saw me; but happening to see a bird perched in an unlucky position, from it I learned that some trouble had befallen my house; so on purpose I made my entry to the land by stealth.

AMPHITRYON: Well done; now, on your arrival, go salute your household altar, and let your father’s halls behold your face. For soon the king will be here in person to drag away your wife and children and murder them, and to add me to the bloody list. But if you remain on the spot all will go well, and you will profit by this security; but do not rouse your city before you have these matters well in train, my son.

Part 5

HERACLES: I will do so; your advice is good; I will enter my house. After my return at length from the sunless den of Hades and the maiden queen of hell, I will not neglect to greet first of all the gods beneath my roof.

AMPHITRYON: Did you really go to the house of Hades, my son?

HERACLES: Yes, and brought to the light that three-headed monster.

AMPHITRYON: Did you conquer him in fight, or receive him from the goddess?

HERACLES: In fight; for I had been lucky enough to witness the rites of the initiated.

AMPHITRYON: Is the monster really lodged in the house of Eurystheus?

HERACLES: The grove of Demeter and the city of Hermione have him now.

AMPHITRYON: Eurystheus does not know that you have returned to the upper world?

HERACLES: He does not; I came here first to learn your news.

AMPHITRYON: How is it you were so long beneath the earth?

HERACLES: I stayed awhile attempting to bring back Theseus from Hades, father.

AMPHITRYON: Where is he? gone to his native land?

HERACLES: He set out for Athens, glad to have escaped from the lower world. Come now, children, attend your father to the house. My entering in is fairer in your eyes, I think, than my going out. Oh, take heart, and no more let the tears stream from your eyes; you too, my wife, collect your courage, cease from fear; leave go my robe; for I cannot fly away, nor have I any wish to flee from those I love. Ah! they do not loose their hold, but cling to my garments all the more; were you on the razor’s edge of danger? Well, I must lead them, taking them by the hand to draw them after me, my little boats, like a ship when towing; for I too do not reject the care of my children; here all mankind are equal; all love their children, both those of high estate and those who are nothing; it is wealth that makes distinctions among them; some have, others want; but all the human race loves its offspring.

CHORUS: Dear to me is youth always, but old age is hanging over my head, a burden heavier than Aetna’s crags, casting its pall of gloom upon my eyes. Oh! never may the wealth of Asia’s kings tempt me to barter for houses stored with gold my happy youth, which is in wealth and poverty alike most fair! But old age is gloomy and deadly; I hate it; let it sink beneath the waves! Would it had never found its way to the homes and towns of mortal men, but were still drifting on for ever down the wind.

CHORUS: Had the gods shown discernment and wisdom, as mortals count these things, men would have won youth twice over, a visible mark of worth among whomever found, and after death these would have run a double course once more to the sun-light, while the low born would have had a single portion of life; and thus would it have been possible to distinguish the good and the bad, just as sailors know the number of the stars amid the clouds. But, as it is, the gods have set no certain boundary between good and bad, but time’s onward roll brings increase only to man’s wealth.

CHORUS: Never will I cease to link in one the Graces and the Muses, sweetest union. Never may I live among uneducated boors, but ever may I find a place among the crowned! Yes, still the aged singer lifts up his voice of bygone memories: still is my song of the triumphs of Heracles, whether Bromius the giver of wine is near, or the strains of the seven-stringed lyre and the Libyan pipe are rising; not yet will I cease to sing the Muses’ praise, my patrons in the dance.

CHORUS: The maids of Delos raise their song of joy, circling round the temple gates in honor of Leto’s fair son, the graceful dancer; so I with my old lips will cry aloud songs of joy at your palace-doors, like the swan, aged singer; for there is a good theme for minstrelsy; he is the son of Zeus; yet high above his noble birth tower his deeds of prowess, for his toil secured this life of calm for man, having destroyed all fearsome beasts.

LYCUS: Amphitryon, it is high time you came forth from the palace; you have been too long arraying yourselves in the robes and trappings of the dead. Come, bid the wife and children of Heracles show themselves outside the house, to die on the conditions you yourselves offered.

AMPHITRYON: Lord, you persecute me in my misery and heap insult upon me over and above the loss of my son; you should have been more moderate in your zeal, though you are my lord and master. But since you impose death’s necessity on me, I must acquiesce; what you wish must be done.

LYCUS: Now, where is Megara? where are the children of Alcmena’s son?

Part 6

AMPHITRYON: She, I believe, so far as I can guess from outside—

LYCUS: What grounds do you have to base your fancy on?

AMPHITRYON: Is sitting as a suppliant on the altar’s hallowed steps—

LYCUS: Imploring them quite uselessly to save her life.

AMPHITRYON: And calling on her dead husband, in vain.

LYCUS: He is nowhere near, and he certainly will never come.

AMPHITRYON: No, unless perhaps a god should raise him from the dead.

LYCUS: Go to her and bring her from the palace.

AMPHITRYON: By doing so I should become an accomplice in her murder.

LYCUS: Since you have this scruple, I, who have left fear behind, will myself bring out the mother and her children. Follow me, servants, that we may joyfully put an end to this delay of our work.

AMPHITRYON: Then go your way along the path of fate; for what remains, maybe another will provide. Expect for your evil deeds to find some trouble yourself. Ah! my aged friends, he is marching fairly to his doom; soon will he lie entangled in the snare of the sword, thinking to slay his neighbors, the villain! I will go, to see him fall dead; for the sight of a foe being slain and paying the penalty of his misdeeds affords pleasurable feelings.

CHORUS: Evil has changed sides; he who was once a mighty king is now turning his life backward into the road to Hades. Hail to you! Justice and heavenly retribution. At last have you reached the goal where your death will pay the penalty, for your insults against your betters. Joy makes my tears burst forth. He has come back— which I never once thought in my heart would happen—the prince of the land. Come, old friends, let us look within to see if someone has met the fate I hope.

LYCUS: Ah me! ah me!

CHORUS: Ha! how sweet to hear that opening note of his within the house; death is not far off him now. The prince cries out, wailing a prelude of death.

LYCUS: O kingdom of Cadmus, I am perishing by treachery!

CHORUS: You were yourself for making others perish; endure your retribution; it is only the penalty of your own deeds you are paying. Who was he, only a mortal, that aimed his silly saying at the blessed gods of heaven with impious blasphemy, maintaining that they are weaklings after all? Old friends, our godless foe is now no more. The house is still; let us turn to the dance. Yes, for fortune smiles upon my friends as I desire.

CHORUS: Dances, dances and banquets now prevail throughout the holy town of Thebes. For change from tears, change from sorrow give birth to song. The new king is gone; our former monarch rules, having made his way even from the harbor of Acheron. Hope beyond all expectation is fulfilled.

CHORUS: The gods, the gods take care to heed the right and wrong. It is their gold and their good luck that lead men’s hearts astray, bringing in their train unjust power. For no man ever had the courage to reflect what reverses Time might bring; but, disregarding law to gratify lawlessness, he shatters the black chariot of prosperity.

CHORUS: O Ismenus, deck yourself with garlands! Break forth into dancing, you paved streets of our seven-gated city! come Dirce, fount of waters fair; and joined with her you nymphs of Asopus, come from your father’s waves to add your voices to our hymn, the victor’s prize that Heracles has won. O Pythian rock with forests crowned, and haunts of the Muses on Helicon! you will come to my city and her walls with cries of joy; where the earth-born crop sprang to view, a warrior-host with shields of brass, who are handing on their realm to children’s children, a divine light to Thebes.

CHORUS: All hail the marriage! in which two bridegrooms shared; the one, a mortal; the other, Zeus, who came to wed the bride sprung from Perseus; for that marriage of yours, O Zeus, in days gone by has been proved to me a true story beyond all expectation; and time has shown the brightness of Heracles’ strength; for he emerged from caverns beneath the earth after leaving Pluto’s halls below. To me you are a worthier lord than that base-born king, who now lets it be plainly seen in this struggle between armed warriors, whether justice still finds favor in heaven.

Part 7

CHORUS: —Ha! see there, my old comrades! is the same wild panic fallen on us all; what phantom is this I see hovering over the house? —Fly, fly, bestir your tardy steps! begone! away! —O savior prince, avert calamity from me!

IRIS: Courage, old men! she, whom you see, is Madness, daughter of Night, and I am Iris, the handmaid of the gods. We have not come to do your city any hurt, but our warfare is against the house of one man only, against him whom they call the son of Zeus and Alcmena. For until he had finished all his grievous labors, Destiny was preserving him, nor would father Zeus ever suffer me or Hera to harm him. But now that he has accomplished the labors of Eurystheus, Hera wishes to brand him with the guilt of shedding kindred blood by slaying his own children, and I wish it also. Come then, unwed maid, child of black Night, harden your heart relentlessly, send forth frenzy upon this man, confound his mind even to the slaying of his children, drive him, goad him wildly on his mad career, shake out the sails of death, that when he has conveyed over Acheron’s ferry that fair group of children by his own murderous hand, he may learn to know how fiercely against him the wrath of Hera burns and may also experience mine; otherwise, if he should escape punishment, the gods will become as nothing, while man’s power will grow.

MADNESS: Of noble parents was I born, the daughter of Night, sprung from the blood of Ouranos; and these prerogatives I hold, not to use them in anger against friends, nor do I have any joy in visiting the homes of men; and I wish to counsel Hera, before I see her make a mistake, and you too, if you will hearken to my words. This man, against whose house you are sending me, has made himself a name alike in heaven and earth; for, after taming pathless wilds and raging sea, he by his single might raised up again the honors of the gods when sinking before man’s impiety; . . . wherefore I counsel you, do not wish him dire mishaps.

IRIS: Spare us your advice on Hera’s and my schemes.

MADNESS: I seek to turn your steps into the best path instead of into this one of evil.

IRIS: It was not to practice self-control that the wife of Zeus sent you here.

MADNESS: I call the sun-god to witness that here I am acting against my will; but if indeed I must at once serve you and Hera and follow you in full cry as hounds follow the huntsman, then I will go; neither ocean with its fiercely groaning waves, nor the earthquake, nor the thunderbolt with blast of agony shall be like the headlong rush I will make into the breast of Heracles; through his roof will I burst my way and swoop upon his house, after first slaying his children; nor shall their murderer know that he is killing the children he begot, till he is released from my madness. Behold him! see how even now he is wildly tossing his head at the outset, and rolling his eyes fiercely from side to side without a word; nor can he control his panting breath, like a fearful bull in act to charge; he bellows, calling on the goddesses of nether hell. Soon will I rouse you to yet wilder dancing and pipe a note of terror in your ear. Soar away, O Iris, to Olympus on your honored course; while I unseen will steal into the halls of Heracles.

CHORUS: Alas alas! lament; the son of Zeus, flower of your city, is being cut down. Woe to you, Hellas! that will cast from you your benefactor, and destroy him as he dances in the shrill frenzy of Madness. She is mounted on her chariot, the queen of sorrow and sighing, and is goading on her steeds, as if for outrage, the Gorgon child of Night, with a hundred hissing serpent-heads, Madness of the flashing eyes. Soon has the god changed his good fortune; soon will his children breathe their last, slain by a father’s hand.

AMPHITRYON: Ah me! alas!

CHORUS: O Zeus, unjust Vengeance, mad, relentless, will soon give your childless son up to misery.

AMPHITRYON: Alas, O house!

CHORUS: The dance begins without the cymbals’ crash, with no glad waving of the wine-god’s staff—

AMPHITRYON: Woe to these halls!

CHORUS: Toward bloodshed, and not to pour libations of Dionysus’ grape.

AMPHITRYON: O children, make haste to fly!

CHORUS: That is the chant of death, of death, to the music of pipes. Ah, yes! he is hunting the children down. Never will Madness lead her revel rout in vain.

AMPHITRYON: Ah misery!

CHORUS: Ah me! how I lament that aged father, that mother too that bore his children in vain. Look! look! A tempest rocks the house; the roof is falling with it.

HERACLES: Oh, oh! what are you doing, Pallas, child of Zeus, to the house? You are sending hell’s confusion against the halls, as once you did on Enceladus.

MESSENGER: O white-haired old men!

Part 8

CHORUS: Why this loud address to me?

MESSENGER: It is dreadful within!

CHORUS: No need for me to call another prophet for that.

MESSENGER: The children are dead.

CHORUS: Alas!

MESSENGER: Ah weep! for here is cause for weeping.

CHORUS: A cruel murder, cruel parents’ hands!

MESSENGER: No words can utter more than we have suffered.

CHORUS: How came the ruin you reveal, the ruin that must be lamented, from a father to his children? Tell me how these heaven-sent woes came rushing on the house; say how the children met their sad mischance.

MESSENGER: Victims to purify the house were stationed before the altar of Zeus, for Heracles had slain and cast from his halls the king of the land. There stood his group of lovely children, with his father and Megara; and already the basket was being passed round the altar, and we were keeping holy silence. But just as Alcmena’s son was bringing the torch in his right hand to dip it in the holy water, he stopped without a word. And as their father lingered, his children looked at him; he was no longer himself; his eyes were rolling; he was quite distraught; his eyeballs were bloodshot, and foam was oozing down his bearded cheek. He spoke with a madman’s laugh: Father, why should I offer the purifying flame before I have slain Eurystheus, and have the toil twice over? It is the work of my unaided arm to settle these things well; as soon as I have brought the head of Eurystheus here, I will cleanse my hands for those already slain. Spill the water, cast the baskets from your hands. Ho! give me now my bow and club! To Mycenae will I go; I must take crow-bars and pick-axes, for I will shatter again with iron levers those city-walls which the Cyclopes squared with red plumb-line and mason’s tools. Then he set out, and though he had no chariot there, he thought he had, and was for mounting to its seat, and using a goad as though his fingers really held one. A twofold feeling filled his servants’ breasts, amusement and fear at once; and one looking to his neighbor said: Is our master making sport for us, or is he mad? But he was pacing to and fro in his house; and, rushing into the men’s chamber, he said he had reached the city of Nisus; and going into the house, he threw himself upon the floor, as he was, and made ready to feast. But after waiting a brief space he began saying he was on his way to the plains amid the valleys of the Isthmus; and then stripping himself of his mantle, he fell to competing with no one, and he proclaimed himself victor with his own voice, calling on no one to listen. Next, fancy carrying him to Mycenae, he was uttering fearful threats against Eurystheus. Meantime his father caught him by his stalwart arm, and thus addressed him: My son, what do you mean by this? What strange doings are these? Can it be that the blood of your late victims has driven you frantic? But he, supposing it was the father of Eurystheus striving in abject supplication to touch his hand: thrust him aside, and then against his own children aimed his bow and made ready his quiver, thinking to slay the sons of Eurystheus. And they in wild fright darted here and there, one to his hapless mother’s skirts, another to the shadow of a pillar, while a third cowered beneath the altar like a bird. Then cried their mother: O you who begot them, what are you doing? do you mean to slay your children? Likewise his aged father and all the gathered servants cried aloud. But he, hunting the child round and round the column, in dreadful circles, and coming face to face with him shot him to the heart; and he fell upon his back, sprinkling the stone pillars with blood as he gasped out his life. Then Heracles shouted in triumph and boasted loud: Here lies one of Eurystheus’ brood dead at my feet, atoning for his father’s hatred. Then he aimed his bow against a second, who had crouched at the altar’s foot thinking to escape unseen. But before he fired, the poor child threw himself at his father’s knees, and, flinging his hand to reach his beard or neck, cried: Oh! hear me, dearest father, do not kill me! I am your child, your own; it is no son of Eurystheus you will slay. But that other, with savage Gorgon-scowl, as the child now stood in range of his baleful archery, smote him on the head, as a smith strikes his molten iron, bringing down his club upon the fair-haired boy, and crushed the bones. The second caught, away he goes to add a third victim to the other two. But before he could, the poor mother caught up her child and carried him within the house and shut the doors. But he, as though he really were at the Cyclopean walls, prized open the doors with levers, and, hurling down their posts, with one shaft laid low his wife and child. Then in wild gallop he starts to slay his aged father; but there came a phantom, as it seemed to us on-lookers, of Pallas, with plumed helm, brandishing a spear; and she hurled a rock against the breast of Heracles, which held him from his frenzied thirst for blood and plunged him into sleep; to the ground he fell, striking his back against a column that had fallen on the floor shattered in two when the roof fell in. Then we rallied from our flight, and with the old man’s aid bound him fast with knotted cords to the pillar, so that on his awakening he might do no further mischief. So there he sleeps, poor wretch! a sleep that is not blessed, having murdered wife and children; no, for my part I do not know any mortal more miserable than he. Exit messenger.

CHORUS: That murder wrought by the daughters of Danaus, which the rock of Argos keeps, was once the most famous and notorious in Hellas; but this has surpassed, has outrun those former horrors . . . for the unhappy son of Zeus. I could tell of the murder done by Procne, mother of an only child, offered to the Muses; but you had three children, wretched parent, and all of them have you in your frenzy slain. Alas! What groans or wails, what funeral dirge, or dance of death am I to raise? Ah, ah! see, the bolted doors of the lofty palace are being rolled apart. Ah me! see the wretched children lying before their unhappy father, who is sunk in dreadful slumber after shedding their blood. Round him are bonds and cords, made fast with many knots about the body of Heracles, and lashed to the stone columns of his house.

CHORUS LEADER: But he, the aged father, like mother-bird wailing her unfledged brood, comes hastening here with halting steps on his bitter journey.

AMPHITRYON: Softly, softly! you aged sons of Thebes, let him sleep on and forget his sorrows.

CHORUS: For you, old friend, I weep and mourn, for the children too and that victorious chief.

AMPHITRYON: Stand further off, make no noise nor outcry, do not rouse him from his calm deep slumber.

CHORUS: O horrible! all this blood—

AMPHITRYON: Hush, hush! you will be my ruin.

CHORUS: That he has spilled is rising up against him.

AMPHITRYON: Gently raise your dirge of woe, old friends; or he will wake, and, bursting his bonds, destroy the city, rend his father, and dash his house to pieces.

CHORUS: I cannot, cannot—

Part 9

AMPHITRYON: Hush! let me note his breathing; come, let me put my ear close.

CHORUS: Is he sleeping?

AMPHITRYON: Yes, he is sleeping, a deadly sleepless sleep, having slain wife and children with the arrows of his twanging bow.

CHORUS: Ah! mourn—

AMPHITRYON: Indeed I do.

CHORUS: The children’s death—

AMPHITRYON: Ah me!

CHORUS: And your own son’s doom.

AMPHITRYON: Alas!

CHORUS: Old friend—

AMPHITRYON: Hush! hush! he is turning over, he is waking! Oh! let me hide myself, concealed beneath the roof.

CHORUS: Courage! darkness still holds your son’s eye.

AMPHITRYON: Oh beware! it is not that I shrink from leaving the light after my miseries, poor wretch! but if should he slay me, his father, then he will be devising mischief on mischief, and to the avenging curse will add a parent’s blood.

CHORUS: Well for you if you had died in that day, when, for your wife, you went forth to exact vengeance for her slain brothers by sacking the Taphians’ sea-beat town.

AMPHITRYON: Fly, fly, my aged friends, from before the palace, escape his waking fury. Or soon he will heap up fresh slaughter on the old, ranging wildly once more through the streets of Thebes.

CHORUS LEADER: O Zeus, why have you shown such savage hate against your own son and plunged him in this sea of troubles?

HERACLES: Aha! I am alive and breathing; and my eyes resume their function, opening on the sky and earth and the sun’s darting beam; but how my senses reel! in what strange turmoil am I plunged! my fevered breath in quick spasmodic gasps escapes my lungs. How now? why am I lying here, my brawny chest and arms made fast with cables like a ship, beside a half-shattered piece of masonry, with corpses for my neighbors; while over the floor my bow and arrows are scattered, that once like trusty squires to my arm both kept me safe and were kept safe by me? Surely I have not come a second time to Hades’ halls, having just returned from there for Eurystheus? To Hades? From where? No, I do not see Sisyphus with his stone, or Pluto, or his queen, Demeter’s child. Surely I am distraught; where am I, so helpless? Ho, there! which of my friends is near or far to cure me in my perplexity? For I have no clear knowledge of things once familiar.

AMPHITRYON: My aged friends, shall I approach the scene of my sorrow?

CHORUS LEADER: Yes, and let me go with you, not desert you in your trouble.

HERACLES: Father, why do you weep and veil your eyes, standing far from your beloved son?

Part 10

AMPHITRYON: My child! mine still, for all your misery.

HERACLES: Why, what is there so sad in my case that you weep?

AMPHITRYON: That which might make any of the gods weep, if he were to learn it.

HERACLES: A bold assertion that, but you are not yet explaining what has happened.

AMPHITRYON: Your own eyes see that, if by this time you are restored to your senses.

HERACLES: Fill in your sketch if any change awaits my life.

AMPHITRYON: I will explain, if you are no longer mad as a fiend of hell.

HERACLES: Oh! what suspicions these dark hints of yours again excite!

AMPHITRYON: I am still doubtful whether you are in your sober senses.

HERACLES: I have no recollection of being mad.

AMPHITRYON: Am I to loose my son, old friends, or what shall I do?

HERACLES: Loose me, yes, and say who bound me; for I feel shame at this.

AMPHITRYON: Rest content with what you know of your woes; the rest forego.

HERACLES: No. for is silence sufficient to learn what I wish?

AMPHITRYON: O Zeus, do you behold these deeds proceeding from the throne of Hera?

HERACLES: What! have I suffered something from her enmity?

AMPHITRYON: A truce to the goddess! attend to your own troubles.

HERACLES: I am undone; you will tell me some mischance.

AMPHITRYON: See here the corpses of your children.

HERACLES: O horror! what sight is here? ah me!

Part 11

AMPHITRYON: My son, against your children you have waged unnatural war.

HERACLES: War! what do you mean? who killed these?

AMPHITRYON: You and your bow and some god, whoever is to blame.

HERACLES: What are you saying? what have I done? Speak, father, you messenger of evil!

AMPHITRYON: You were insane; it is a sad explanation you are asking.

HERACLES: Was it I that slew my wife also?

AMPHITRYON: Your own unaided arm has done all this.

HERACLES: Alas! a cloud of mourning wraps me round.

AMPHITRYON: For this reason I lament your fate.

HERACLES: Did I dash my house to pieces in my frenzy?

AMPHITRYON: I know nothing but this, that you are utterly undone.

HERACLES: Where did the madness seize me? where did it destroy me?

AMPHITRYON: When you were purifying yourself with fire at the altar.

HERACLES: Ah me! why do I spare my own life when I have become the murderer of my dear children? Shall I not hasten to leap from some sheer rock, or aim the sword against my heart and avenge my children’s blood, or burn my body, which she drove mad, in the fire and so avert from my life the infamy which now awaits me? But here I see Theseus coming to check my deadly counsels, my kinsman and friend. Now shall I stand revealed, and the dearest of my friends will see the pollution I have incurred by my children’s murder. Ah, woe is me! what am I to do? Where can I find freedom from my sorrows? shall I take wings or plunge beneath the earth? Come, let me veil my head in darkness; for I am ashamed of the evil I have done, and, since for these I have incurred fresh blood-guiltiness, I do not want to harm the innocent.

THESEUS: I have come, and others with me, young warriors from the land of Athens, encamped at present by the streams of Asopus, to bring an allied army to your son, old friend. For a rumour reached the city of the Erechtheidae, that Lycus had usurped the scepter of this land and had become your enemy even to battle. Wherefore I came making recompense for the former kindness of Heracles in saving me from the world below, if you have any need of such aid as I or my allies can give, old man. Ha! why this heap of dead upon the floor? Surely I have not delayed too long and come too late to check a revolution? Who slew these children? whose wife is this I see? Boys do not go to battle; no, it must be some other strange mischance I here discover.

AMPHITRYON: O king, whose home is that olive-clad hill!

THESEUS: Why this piteous prelude in addressing me?

AMPHITRYON: The gods have afflicted us with grievous suffering.

THESEUS: Whose are these children, over whom you weep?

AMPHITRYON: My own son’s children, woe is him! he was their father and butcher both, hardening his heart to the bloody deed.

Part 12

THESEUS: Hush! good words only!

AMPHITRYON: I would I could obey!

THESEUS: What dreadful words!

AMPHITRYON: Fortune has spread her wings, and we are ruined, ruined.

THESEUS: What do you mean? what has he done?

AMPHITRYON: Slain them in a wild fit of frenzy with arrows dipped in the venom of the hundred-headed hydra.

THESEUS: This is Hera’s work; but who lies there among the dead, old man?

AMPHITRYON: My son, my own enduring son, that marched with gods to Phlegra’s plain, there to battle with giants and slay them, warrior that he was.

THESEUS: Ah, ah! whose fortune was ever so cursed as his?

AMPHITRYON: Never will you find another mortal that has suffered more or been driven harder.

THESEUS: Why does he veil his head, poor wretch, in his robe?

AMPHITRYON: He is ashamed to meet your eye; his kinsman’s kind intent and his children’s blood make him abashed.

THESEUS: But I come to sympathize; uncover him.

AMPHITRYON: My son, remove that mantle from your eyes, throw it from you, show your face to the sun. As a counterweight, fighting along with my tears, I entreat you as a suppliant, as I grasp your beard, your knees, your hands, and let fall the tear from my old eyes. O my child! restrain your savage lion-like temper, for you are rushing forth on an unholy course of bloodshed, eager to join mischief to mischief, child.

THESEUS: What! Enough! To you I call who are huddled there in your misery, show to your friends your face; for no darkness is black enough to hide your sad mischance. Why do you wave your hand at me, signifying murder? is it that I may not be polluted by speaking with you? If I share your misfortune, what is that to me? For once I had good fortune with you. I must refer to the time when you brought me safe from the dead to the light of life. I hate a friend whose gratitude grows old; one who is ready to enjoy his friends’ prosperity but unwilling to sail in the same ship with them when they are unfortunate. Arise, unveil your head, poor wretch! and look on me. The gallant soul endures such blows as heaven deals and does not refuse them.

HERACLES: O Theseus, did you see this struggle with my children?

THESEUS: I heard of it, and now I see the horrors you mean.

HERACLES: Why then have you unveiled my head to the sun?

THESEUS: Why have I? you, a mortal, can not pollute what is of the gods.

HERACLES: Try to escape, luckless wretch, from my unholy taint.

Part 13

THESEUS: The avenging fiend does not go forth from friend to friend.

HERACLES: For this I thank you; I do not regret the service I did you.

THESEUS: While I, for kindness then received, now show my pity for you.

HERACLES: Ah yes! I am piteous object, a murderer of my sons.

THESEUS: I weep for you in your changed fortunes.

HERACLES: Did you ever find another more afflicted?

THESEUS: Your misfortunes reach from earth to heaven.

HERACLES: Therefore I am resolved on death.

THESEUS: Do you suppose the gods attend to your threats?

HERACLES: The god has been remorseless to me; so I will be the same to the gods.

THESEUS: Hush! lest your presumption add to your sufferings.

HERACLES: My ship is freighted full with sorrow; there is no room to stow anything further.

THESEUS: What will you do? Where is your fury drifting you?

HERACLES: I will die and return to that world below from which I have just come.

THESEUS: Such language is fit for any common fellow.

HERACLES: Ah! yours is the advice of one outside sorrow.

THESEUS: Are these indeed the words of Heracles, the much-enduring?

HERACLES: Though never so much as this. Endurance must have a limit.

THESEUS: Is this the benefactor and great friend to mortals?

HERACLES: Mortals bring no help to me; no! Hera has her way.

Part 14

THESEUS: Never would Hellas allow you to die through sheer perversity.

HERACLES: Hear me a moment, that I may enter the contest with arguments in answer to your admonitions; and I will unfold to you why life now as well as formerly has been unbearable to me. First I am the son of a man who incurred the guilt of blood, before he married my mother Alcmena, by slaying her aged father. Now when the foundation is badly laid at birth, it is necessary for the race to be cursed with woe; and Zeus, whoever this Zeus may be, begot me as an enemy to Hera; yet do not be vexed, old man; for you rather than Zeus I regard as my father. Then while I was being suckled, that bedfellow of Zeus foisted into my cradle fearsome snakes to cause my death. After I took on a cloak of youthful flesh, of all the toils I then endured what need to tell? what did I not destroy, whether lions, or triple-bodied Typhons, or giants or the battle against the hosts of four-legged Centaurs? or how when I had killed the hydra, that monster with a ring of heads with power to grow again, I passed through a herd of countless other toils besides and came to the dead to fetch to the light at the bidding of Eurystheus the three-headed hound, hell’s porter. Last, ah, woe is me! I have dared this labor, to crown the sorrows of my house with my children’s murder. I have come to this point of necessity; no longer may I dwell in Thebes, the city that I love; for suppose I stay, to what temple or gathering of friends shall I go? For mine is no curse that invites greetings. Shall I go to Argos? how can I, when I am an exile from my country? Well, is there a single other city I can rush to? Am I then to be looked at askance as a marked man, held by cruel stabbing tongues: Is not this the son of Zeus that once murdered children and wife? Plague take him from the land! Now to one who was once called happy, such changes are a grievous thing; though he who is always unfortunate feels no such pain, for sorrow is his birthright. This, I think, is the piteous pass I shall one day come to; for earth will cry out forbidding me to touch her, the sea and the river-springs will refuse me a crossing, and I shall become like Ixion who revolves in chains upon that wheel. And so this is best, that I should be seen by no one of the Hellenes, among whom in happier days I lived in bliss. What right have I to live? what profit can I have in the possession of a useless, impious life? So let that noble wife of Zeus dance, beating her foot in its shoe; for now has she worked her heart’s desire in utterly confounding the first of Hellas’ sons. Who would pray to such a goddess? Her jealousy of Zeus for his love of a woman has destroyed the benefactors of Hellas, guiltless though they were.

CHORUS LEADER: This is the work of none other of the gods than the wife of Zeus; you are right in that surmise.

THESEUS: I cannot counsel you . . . rather than to go on suffering. There is not a man alive that has wholly escaped misfortune’s taint, nor any god either, if what poets sing is true. Have they not intermarried in ways that law forbids? Have they not thrown fathers into ignominious chains to gain the sovereign power? Still they inhabit Olympus and brave the issue of their crimes. And yet what shall you say in your defence, if you, a child of man, take your fate excessively hard, while they, as gods, do not? No, then, leave Thebes in compliance with the law, and come with me to the city of Pallas. There, when I have purified you of your pollution, I will give you homes and the half of all I have. Yes, I will give you all those presents I received from the citizens for saving their fourteen children, when I slew the bull of Crete; for I have plots of land assigned me throughout the country; these shall henceforth be called after you by men, while you live; and at your death, when you have gone to Hades’ halls, the whole city of Athens shall exalt your honor with sacrifices and a monument of stone. For it is a noble crown of a good reputation for citizens to win from Hellas, by helping a man of worth. This is the return that I will make you for saving me, for now you are in need of friends. But when the gods honor a man, he has no need of friends; for the god’s aid, when he chooses to give it, is enough.

HERACLES: No! this is quite beside the question of my troubles. For my part, I do not believe that the gods indulge in unholy unions; and as for putting bonds on hands, I have never thought that worthy of credit nor will I now be so persuaded, nor again that one god is naturally lord and master of another. For the deity, if he be really such, has no wants; these are miserable tales of the poets. But I, for all my piteous plight, reflected whether I should let myself be branded as a coward for giving up my life. For whoever does not withstand disasters will never be able to withstand even a man’s weapon. I will be steadfast in living; I will go to your city, with grateful thanks for all you offer me. But I have tasted of countless troubles, as is well known; never yet did I faint at any or shed a single tear; no, nor did I ever think that I should come to this, to let the tear-drop fall. But now, it seems, I must be fortune’s slave. Well, let it pass; my old father, you see me go forth to exile, and in me you see my own children’s murderer. Give them burial, and lay them out in death with the tribute of a tear, for the law forbids my doing so. Rest their heads upon their mother’s bosom and fold them in her arms, sad fellowship, which I, alas! unwittingly did slay. And when you have buried these dead, live on here still, in bitterness maybe, but still constrain your soul to share my sorrows. O children! he who begot you, your own father, has been your destroyer, and you have had no profit of my triumphs, all my restless toil to win for you by force a fair name, a glorious advantage from a father. You too, unhappy wife, this hand has slain, a poor return to make you for preserving the honor of my bed so safely, for all the weary watch you long have kept within my house. Alas for you, my wife, my sons! alas for me, how sad my lot, cut off from wife and child! Ah! these kisses, bitter-sweet! these weapons which it is pain to own! I am not sure whether to keep or let them go; dangling at my side they thus will say, With us you destroyed children and wife; we are your children’s slayers, and you keep us. Shall I carry them after that? what answer can I make? Yet, am I to strip myself of these weapons, the comrades of my glorious career in Hellas, and put myself in the power of my foes, to die a death of shame? No! I must not let them go, but keep them, though it grieves me. In one thing, Theseus, help my misery; come to Argos and help me to manage the conveyance of the wretched dog; lest, if I go all alone, my sorrow for my sons may do me some hurt. O land of Cadmus, and all you people of Thebes! cut off your hair, and mourn with me; go to my children’s burial, and with one dirge lament us all, the dead and me; for on all of us has Hera inflicted the same cruel blow of destruction.

THESEUS: Rise, unhappy man! you have had your fill of tears.

HERACLES: I cannot rise; my limbs are rooted here.

THESEUS: Yes, even the strong are overthrown by misfortunes.

HERACLES: Ah! Would I could become a stone upon this spot, oblivious of trouble.

THESEUS: Peace! give your hand to a friend and helper.

HERACLES: No, let me not wipe off the blood upon your robe.

THESEUS: Wipe it off and spare not; I will not refuse you.

HERACLES: Bereft of my own sons, I find you as a son to me.

THESEUS: Throw your arm about my neck; I will be your guide.

HERACLES: A pair of friends indeed, but one a man of sorrows. Ah! aged father, this is the kind of man to make a friend.

AMPHITRYON: Blessed in her sons, the country that gave him birth!

HERACLES: Theseus, turn me back again to see my children.

THESEUS: What for? Do you think to find a drug in this to soothe your soul?

HERACLES: I long to do so, and would embrace my father.

AMPHITRYON: Here am I, my son; your wish is no less dear to me.

Part 15

THESEUS: Have you so short a memory for your troubles?

HERACLES: All that I endured before was easier to bear than this.

THESEUS: If anyone sees you play the woman, they will scoff.

HERACLES: Have I by living grown so abject in your sight? It was not so once, I think.

THESEUS: Yes, too much so; in your sickness you are not the glorious Heracles.

HERACLES: What about you? What kind of hero were you when in trouble in the world below?

THESEUS: I was worse than anyone as far as courage went.

HERACLES: How then can you say of me, that I am abased by my troubles?

THESEUS: Forward!

HERACLES: Farewell, my aged father!

AMPHITRYON: Farewell to you, my son!

HERACLES: Bury my children as I said.

AMPHITRYON: But who will bury me, my son?

HERACLES: I will.

AMPHITRYON: When wil you come?

HERACLES: After you have buried my children.

AMPHITRYON: How?

HERACLES: I will fetch you from Thebes to Athens. But carry my children within, a grievous burden to the earth. And I, after ruining my house by deeds of shame, will follow as a little boat in the wake of Theseus, a total wreck. Whoever prefers wealth or might to the possession of good friends, thinks wrongly.

CHORUS: With grief and many a bitter tear we go our way, robbed of all we prized most dearly.

Contents — 14 sections

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3
4. Part 4
5. Part 5
6. Part 6
7. Part 7
8. Part 8
9. Part 9
10. Part 10
11. Part 11
12. Part 12
13. Part 13
14. Part 14

Part 1

AETHRA: O Demeter, guardian of this Eleusinian land, and ye servants of the goddess who attend her fane, grant happiness to me and my son Theseus, to the city of Athens and the country of Pittheus, wherein my father reared me, Aethra, in a happy home, and gave me in marriage to Aegeus, Pandion’s son, according to the oracle of Loxias. This prayer I make, when I behold these aged dames, who, leaving their homes in Argos, now throw themselves with suppliant branches at my knees in their awful trouble; for around the gates of Cadmus have they lost their seven noble sons, whom on a day Adrastus, king of Argos, led thither, eager to secure for exiled Polynices, his son-in-law, a share in the heritage of Oedipus; so now their mothers would bury in the grave the dead, whom the spear hath slain, but the victors prevent them and will not allow them to take up the corpses, spurning Heaven’s laws. Here lies Adrastus on the ground with streaming eye, sharing with them the burden of their prayer to me, and bemoaning the havoc of the sword and the sorry fate of the warriors whom he led from their homes. And he doth urge me use entreaty, to persuade my son to take up the dead and help to bury them, either by winning words or force of arms, laying on my son and on Athens this task alone. Now it chanced, that I had left my house and come to offer sacrifice on behalf of the earth’s crop at this shrine, where first the fruitful corn showed its bristling shocks above the soil. And here at the holy altars of the twain goddesses, Demeter and her daughter, I wait, holding these sprays of foliage, a bond that bindeth not, in compassion for these childless mothers, hoary with age, and from reverence for the sacred fillets. To call Theseus hither is my herald to the city gone, that he may rid the land of that which grieveth them, or loose these my suppliant bonds, with pious observance of the gods’ will; for such as are discreet amongst women should in all cases invoke the aid of men.

CHORUS: At thy knees I fall, aged dame, and my old lips beseech thee; arise, rescue from the slain my children’s bodies, whose limbs, by death relaxed, are left a prey to savage mountain beasts,

CHORUS: beholding the bitter tears which spring to my eyes and my old wrinkled skin torn by my hands; for what can I do else? who never laid out my children dead within my halls, nor now behold their tombs heaped up with earth.

CHORUS: Thou too, honoured lady, once a son didst bear, crowning thy lord’s marriage with fond joy; then share, O share with me thy mother’s feelings, in such measure as my sad heart grieves for my own dead sons; and persuade thy son, whose aid we implore, to go unto the river Ismenus, there to place within my hapless arms the bodies of my children, slain in their prime and left without a tomb.

CHORUS: Though not as piety enjoins, yet from sheer necessity I have come to the fire-crowned altars of the gods, falling on my knees with instant supplication, for my cause is just, and ’tis in thy power, blest as thou art in thy children, to remove from me my woe; so in my sore distress I do beseech thee of my misery place in my hands my son’s dead body, that I may throw my arms about his hapless limbs.

CHORUS: Behold a rivalry in sorrow! woe takes up the tale of woe; hark! thy servants beat their breasts. Come ye who join the mourners’ wail, come, O sympathetic band, to join the dance, which Hades honours; let the pearly nail be stained red, as it rends your cheeks, let your skin be streaked with gore; for honours rendered to the dead are a credit to the living.

CHORUS: Sorrow’s charm doth drive me wild, insatiate, painful, endless, even as the trickling stream that gushes from some steep rock’s face; for ’tis woman’s way to fall a-weeping o’er the cruel calamity of children dead. Ah me! would I could die and forget my anguish!

THESEUS: What is this lamentation that I hear, this beating of the breast, these dirges for the dead, with cries that echo from this shrine? How fluttering fear disquiets me, lest haply my mother have gotten some mischance, in quest of whom I come, for she hath been long absent from home. Ha! what now? A strange sight challenges my speech; I see my aged mother sitting at the altar and stranger dames are with her, who in various note proclaim their woe; from aged eyes the piteous tear is starting to the ground, their hair is shorn, their robes are not the robes of joy. What means it, mother? ’Tis thine to make it plain to me, mine to listen; yea, for I expect some tidings strange.

AETHRA: My son, these are the mothers of those chieftains seven, who fell around the gates of Cadmus’ town. With suppliant boughs they keep me prisoner, as thou seest, in their midst.

THESEUS: And who is yonder man, that moaneth piteously in the gateway?

AETHRA: Adrastus, they inform me, king of Argos.

THESEUS: Are those his children, those boys who stand round him?

AETHRA: Not his, but the sons of the fallen slain.

THESEUS: Why are they come to us, with suppliant hand outstretched?

AETHRA: I know; but ’tis for them to tell their story, my son.

THESEUS: To thee, in thy mantle muffled, I address my inquiries; unveil thy head, let lamentation be, and speak; for naught can be achieved save through the utterance of thy tongue.

ADRASTUS: Victorious prince of the Athenian realm, Theseus, to thee and to thy city I, a suppliant, come.

THESEUS: What seekest thou? What need is thine?

ADRASTUS: Dost know how I did lead an expedition to its ruin?

THESEUS: Assuredly; thou didst not pass through Hellas, all in silence.

Part 2

ADRASTUS: There I lost the pick of Argos’ sons.

THESEUS: These are the results of that unhappy war.

ADRASTUS: I went and craved their bodies from Thebes.

THESEUS: Didst thou rely on heralds, Hermes’ servants, in order to bury them?

ADRASTUS: I did; and even then their slayers said me nay.

THESEUS: Why, what say they to thy just request?

ADRASTUS: Say! Success makes them forget how to bear their fortune.

THESEUS: Art come to me then for counsel? or wherefore?

ADRASTUS: With the wish that thou, O Theseus, shouldst recover the sons of the Argives.

THESEUS: Where is your Argos now? were its vauntings all in vain?

ADRASTUS: Defeat and ruin are our lot. To thee for aid we come.

THESEUS: this thy own private resolve, or the wish of all the city?

ADRASTUS: The sons of Danaus, one and all, implore thee to bury the dead.

THESEUS: Why didst lead thy seven armies against Thebes?

ADRASTUS: To confer that favour on the husbands of my daughters twain.

THESEUS: To which of the Argives didst thou give thy daughters in marriage?

ADRASTUS: I made no match for them with kinsmen of my family.

THESEUS: What! didst give Argive maids to foreign lords?

ADRASTUS: Yea, to Tydeus, and to Polynices, who was Theban-born.

THESEUS: What induced thee to select this alliance?

Part 3

ADRASTUS: Dark riddles of Phoebus stole away my judgment.

THESEUS: What said Apollo to determine the maidens’ marriage?

ADRASTUS: That I should give my daughters twain to a wild boar and a lion.

THESEUS: How dost thou explain the message of the god?

ADRASTUS: One night came to my door two exiles.

THESEUS: The name of each declare; thou art speaking of both together.

ADRASTUS: They fought together, Tydeus with Polynices.

THESEUS: Didst thou give thy daughters to them as to wild beasts?

ADRASTUS: Yea, for, as they fought, I likened them to those monsters twain.

THESEUS: Why had they left the borders of their native land and come to thee?

ADRASTUS: Tydeus was exiled for the murder of a kinsman.

THESEUS: Wherefore had the son of Oedipus left Thebes?

ADRASTUS: By reason of his father’s curse, not to spill his brother’s blood.

THESEUS: Wise no doubt that voluntary exile.

ADRASTUS: But those who stayed at home were for injuring the absent.

THESEUS: What! did brother rob brother of his inheritance?

ADRASTUS: To avenge this I set out; hence my ruin.

THESEUS: Didst consult seers, and gaze into the flame of burnt-offerings?

ADRASTUS: Ah me! thou pressest on the very point, wherein I most did fail.

THESEUS: It seems thy going was not favoured by heaven.

Part 4

ADRASTUS: Worse; I went in spite even of Amphiaraus.

THESEUS: And so heaven lightly turned its face from thee.

ADRASTUS: I was carried away by the clamour of younger men.

THESEUS: Thou didst favour courage instead of discretion.

ADRASTUS: O king of Athens, bravest of the sons of Hellas, I blush to throw myself upon the ground and clasp thy knees, I a grey-haired king, blest in days gone by; yet needs must I yield to my misfortunes. I pray thee save the dead; have pity on my sorrows and on these, the mothers of the slain, whom hoary eld finds reft of their sons; yet they endured to journey hither and tread a foreign soil with aged tottering steps, bearing no embassy to Demeter’s mysteries; only seeking burial for their dead, which lot should have been theirs, e’en burial by the hands of sons still in their prime. And ’tis wise in the rich to see the poor man’s poverty, and in the poor man to turn ambitious eyes toward the rich, that so he may himself indulge a longing for property; and they, whom fortune frowns not on, should gaze on misery’s presentment; Mayhap thou’lt say, Why pass the land of Pelops o’er, and lay this toil on Athens? This am I bound to declare. Sparta is cruel, her customs variable; the other states are small and weak. Thy city alone would be able to undertake this labour; for it turns an eye on suffering, and hath in thee a young and gallant king, for want whereof to lead their hosts states ere now have often perished.

CHORUS: I too, Theseus, urge the same plea to thee; have pity on my hard fate.

THESEUS: Full οft have I argued out this subject with others. For there are who say, there is more bad than good in human nature, to the which I hold a contrary view, that1 good o’er bad predominates in man, for if it were not so, we should not exist. He hath my praise, whoe’er of gods brought us to live by rule from chaos and from brutishness, first by implanting reason, and next by giving us a tongue to declare our thoughts, so as to2 know the meaning of what is said, bestowing fruitful crops, and drops of rain from heaven to make them grow, wherewith to nourish earth’s fruits and to water her lap; and more than this, protection from the wintry storm, and means to ward from us the sun-god’s scorching heat; the art of sailing o’er the sea, so that we might exchange with one another whatso our countries lack. And where sight fails us and our knowledge is not sure, the seer foretells by gazing on the flame, by reading signs in folds of entrails, or by divination from the flight of birds. Are we not then too proud, when heaven hath made such preparation for our life, not to be content therewith? But our presumption seeks to lord it over heaven, and in the pride of our hearts we think we are wiser than the gods. Methinks thou art even of this number, a son of folly, seeing that thou, though obedient to Apollo’s oracle in giving thy daughters to strangers, as if gods really existed, yet hast hurt thy house by mingling the stream of its pure line with muddy waters; no! never should the wise man have joined the stock of just and unjust in one, but should have gotten prosperous friends for his family. For the deity, confusing their destinies, doth oft destroy by the sinner’s fate him who never sinned nor committed injustice. Thou didst lead all Argos forth to battle, though seers proclaimed the will of heaven, and then in scorn of them and in violent disregard of the gods hast ruined thy city, led away by younger men, such as court distinction, and add war to war unrighteously destroying their fellow-citizens; one aspires to lead an army; another fain would seize the reins of power and work his wanton will; a third is bent on gain, careless of any mischief the people thereby suffer. For there are three ranks of citizens; the rich, a useless set, that ever crave for more; the poor and destitute, fearful folk, that cherish envy more than is right, and shoot out grievous stings against the men who have aught, beguiled as they are by the eloquence of vicious leaders; while the class that is midmost of the three preserveth cities, observing such order as the state ordains. Shall I then become thy ally? What fair pretext should I urge before my countrymen? Depart in peace! For why shouldst thou, having been ill-advised thyself, seek to drag our fortune down?

CHORUS: He erred; but with the young men rests this error, while he may well be pardoned.

ADRASTUS: I did not choose thee, king, to judge my affliction, but came to thee to cure it; no! nor if in aught my fortunes prove me wrong, came I to thee to punish or correct them, but to seek thy help. But if thou wilt not, I must be content with thy decision; for how can I help it? Come, aged dames, away! Yet leave behind you here the woven leaves of pale green foliage, calling to witness heaven and earth, Demeter, that fire-bearing goddess, and the sun-god’s light, that our prayers to heaven availed us naught.

CHORUS: . . . . who was Pelops’ son, and we are of the land of Pelops and share with thee the blood of ancestors. What art thou doing? wilt thou betray these suppliant symbols, and banish from thy land these aged women without the boon they should obtain? Do not so; e’en the wild beast finds a refuge in the rock, the slave in the altars of the gods, and a state when tempest-tossed cowers to its neighbour’s shelter; for naught in this life of man is blest unto its end.

CHORUS: Rise, hapless one, from the sacred floor of Persephone; rise, clasp him by the knees and implore him, O recover the bodies of our dead sons, the children that I lost—ah, woe is me!—beneath the walls of Cadmus’ town. Ah me! ah me! Take me by the hand, poor aged sufferer that I am, support and guide and raise me up. By thy beard, kind friend, glory of Hellas, I do beseech thee, as I clasp thy knees and hands in my misery; O pity me as I entreat for my sons with my tale of wretched woe, like some beggar; nor let my sons lie there unburied in the land of Cadmus, glad prey for beasts, whilst thou art in thy prime, I implore thee. See the teardrop tremble in my eye, as thus I throw me at thy knees to win my children burial.

THESEUS: Mother mine, why weepest thou, drawing o’er thine eyes thy veil? Is it because thou didst hear their piteous lamentations? To my own heart it goes. Raise thy silvered head, weep not where thou sittest at the holy altar of Demeter.

AETHRA: Ah woe!

THESEUS: ’Tis not for thee their sorrows to lament.

AETHRA: Ye hapless dames!

THESEUS: Thou art not of their company.

AETHRA: May I a scheme declare, my son, that shall add to thy glory and the state’s?

THESEUS: Yea, for oft even from women’s lips issue wise counsels.

AETHRA: Yet the word, that lurks within my heart, makes me hesitate.

THESEUS: Shame! to hide from friends good counsel.

Part 5

AETHRA: Nay then, I will not hold my peace to blame myself hereafter for having now kept silence to my shame, nor will I forego my honourable proposal, from the common fear that it is useless for women to give good advice. First, my son, I exhort thee give good heed to heaven’s will, lest from slighting it thou suffer shipwreck; Further, I would have patiently endured, had it not been my duty to venture somewhat for injured folk; and this, my son, it is that brings thee now thy honour, and causes me no fear to urge that thou shouldst use thy power to make men of violence, who prevent the dead from receiving their meed of burial and funeral rites, perform this bounden duty, and check those who would confound the customs of all Hellas; for this it is that holds men’s states together,—strict observance of the laws. And some, no doubt, will say, ’twas cowardice made thee stand aloof in terror, when thou mightest have won for thy city a crown of glory, and, though thou didst encounter a savage swine, labouring for a sorry task, yet when the time came for thee to face the helmet and pointed spear, and do thy best, thou wert found to be a coward. Nay! do not so if thou be son of mine. Dost see how fiercely thy country looks on its revilers when they mock her for want of counsel? Yea, for in her toils she groweth greater. But states, whose policy is dark and cautious, have their sight darkened by their carefulness. My son, wilt thou not go succour the dead and these poor women in their need? I have no fears for thee, starting as thou dost with right upon thy side; and although I see the prosperity of Cadmus’ folk, still am I confident they will throw a different die; for the deity reverses all things again.

CHORUS: Ah! best of friends, right well hast thou pleaded for me and for Adrastus, and hence my joy is doubled.

THESEUS: Mother, the words that I have spoken are his fair deserts, and I have declared my opinion of the counsels that ruined him; yet do I perceive the truth of thy warning to me, that it ill suits my character to shun dangers. For by a long and glorious career have I displayed this my habit among Hellenes, of ever punishing the wicked. Wherefore I cannot refuse toil. For what will spiteful tongues say of me, when thou, my mother, who more than all others fearest for my safety, bidst me undertake this enterprise? Yea, I will go about this business and rescue the dead by words persuasive; or, failing that, the spear forthwith shall decide this issue, nor will heaven grudge me this. But I require the whole city’s sanction also, which my mere wish will ensure; still by communicating the proposal to them I shall find the people better disposed. For them I made supreme, when I set this city free, by giving all an equal vote. So I will take Adrastus as a text for what I have to say and go to their assembly, and when I have won them to these views, I will return hither, after collecting a picked band of young Athenians; and then remaining under arms I will send a message to Creon, begging the bodies of the dead. But do ye, aged ladies, remove from my mother your holy wreaths, that I may take her by the hand and conduct her to the house of Aegeus; for a wretched son is he who rewards not his parents by service; for, when he hath conferred on them the best he hath, he in his turn from his own sons receives all such service as he gave to them.

CHORUS: O Argos, home of steeds, my native land! ye have heard with your ears these words, the king’s pious will toward the gods in the sight of great Pelasgia and throughout Argos.

CHORUS: May he reach the goal! yea, and triumph o’er my sorrows, rescuing the gory corpse, the mother’s idol, and making the land of Inachus his friend by helping her.

CHORUS: For pious toil is a fair ornament to cities, and carries with it a grace that never wastes away. What will the city decide, I wonder? Will it conclude a friendly truce with me, and shall we obtain burial for our sons?

CHORUS: Help, O help, city of Pallas, the mother’s cause, that so they may not pollute the laws of all mankind. Thou, I know, dost reverence right, and to injustice dealest out defeat, a protection at all times to the afflicted.

THESEUS: (to a herald.) Forasmuch as with this thy art thou hast ever served the stat£ and me by carrying my proclamations far and wide, so now cross Asopus and the waters of Ismenus, and declare this message to the haughty king of the Cadmeans: Theseus, thy neighbour, one who well may win the boon he craves, begs as a favour thy permission to bury the dead, winning to thyself thereby the love of all the Erechthidae. And if they will acquiesce, come back again, but if they hearken not, thy second message runneth thus, they may expect my warrior host; for at the sacred fount of Callichorus my army camps in readiness and is being reviewed. Moreover, the city gladly of its own accord undertook this enterprise, when it perceived my wish. Ha! who comes hither to interrupt my speech? A Theban herald, so it seems, though I am not sure thereof. Stay; haply he may save thee thy trouble. For by his coming he meets my purpose half-way.

HERALD: Who is the despot of this land? To whom must I announce the message of Creon, who rules o’er the land of Cadmus, since Eteocles was slain by the hand of his brother Polynices, at the sevenfold gates of Thebes?

THESEUS: Sir stranger, thou hast made a false beginning to thy speech, in seeking here a despot. For this city is not ruled by one man, but is free. The people rule in succession year by year, allowing no preference to wealth, but the poor man shares equally with the rich.

HERALD: Thou givest me here an advantage, as it might be in a game of draughts; for the city, whence I come, is ruled by one man only, not by the mob; none there puffs up the citizens with specious words, and for his own advantage twists them this way or that,—one moment dear to them and lavish of his favours, the next a bane to all; and yet by fresh calumnies of others he hides his former failures and escapes punishment. Besides, how shall the people, if it cannot form true judgments, be able rightly to direct the state? Nay, ’tis time, not haste, that affords a better understanding. A poor hind, granted he be not all unschooled, would still be unable from his toil to give his mind to politics. Verily the better sort count it no healthy sign when the worthless man obtains a reputation by beguiling with words the populace, though aforetime he was naught.

THESEUS: This herald is a clever fellow, a dabbler in the art of talk. But since thou hast thus entered the lists with me, listen awhile, for ’twas thou didst challenge a discussion. Naught is more hostile to a city than a despot; where he is, there are in the first place no laws common to all, but one man is tyrant, in whose keeping and in his alone the law resides, and in that case equality is at an end. But when the laws are written down, rich and poor alike have equal justice, and it is open to the weaker to use the same language to the prosperous when he is reviled by him, and the weaker prevails over the stronger if he have justice on his side. Freedom’s mark is also seen in this: Who hath wholesome counsel to declare unto the state? And he who chooses to do so gains renown, while he, who hath no wish, remains silent. What greater equality can there be in a city? Again, where the people are absolute rulers of the land, they rejoice in having a reserve of youthful citizens, while a king counts this a hostile element, and strives to slay the leading men, all such as he deems discreet, for he feareth for his power. How then can a city remain stable, where one cuts short all enterprise and mows down the young like meadow-flowers in spring-time? What boots it to acquire wealth and livelihood for children, merely to add to the tyrant’s substance by one’s toil? Why train up virgin daughters virtuously in our homes to gratify a tyrant’s whim, whenso he will, and cause tears to those who rear them? May my life end if ever my children are to be wedded by violence! This bolt I launch in answer to thy words. Now say, why art thou come? what needest thou of this land? Had not thy city sent thee, to thy cost hadst thou come with thy outrageous utterances; for it is the herald’s duty to tell the message he is bidden and hie him back in haste. Henceforth forth let Creon send to my city some other messenger less talkative than thee.

CHORUS: Look you! how insolent the villains are, when Fortune is kind to them, just as if it would be well with them for ever.

HERALD: Now will I speak. On these disputed points hold thou this view, but I the contrary. So I and all the people of Cadmus forbid thee to admit Adrastus to this land, but if he is here, drive him forth in disregard of the holy suppliant bough he bears, ere sinks yon blazing sun, and attempt not violently to take up the dead, seeing thou hast naught to do with the city of Argos. And if thou wilt hearken to me, thou shalt bring thy barque of state into port unharmed by the billows; but if not, fierce shall the surge of battle be, that we and our allies shall raise. Take good thought, nor, angered at my words, because forsooth thou rulest thy city with freedom, return a vaunting answer from thy feebler means. Hope is man’s curse; many a state hath it involved in strife, by leading them into excessive rage. For whenso the city has to vote on the question of war, no man ever takes his own death into account, but shifts this misfortune on to his neighbour; but if death had been before their eyes when they were giving their votes, Hellas would ne’er have rushed to her doom in mad desire for battle. And yet each man amongst us knows which of the two to prefer, the good or ill, and how much better peace is for mankind than war,—peace, the Muses’ chiefest friend, the foe of sorrow, whose joy is in glad throngs of children, and its delight in prosperity. These are the blessings we cast away and wickedly embark on war, man enslaving his weaker brother, and cities following suit. Now thou art helping our foes even after death, trying to rescue and bury those whom their own acts of insolence haye ruined. Verily then it would seem Capaneus was unjustly blasted by the thunderbolt and charred upon the ladder he had raised against our gates, swearing he would sack our town, whether the god would or no; nor should the yawning earth have snatched away the seer, opening wide her mouth to take his chariot and its horses in, nor should the other chieftains be stretched at our gates, their skeletons to atoms crushed ’neath boulders. Either boast thy wit transcendeth that of Zeus, or else allow that gods are right to slay the ungodly. The wise should love their children first, next their parents and country, whose fortunes it behoves them to increase rather than break down. Rashness in a leader, as in a pilot, causeth shipwreck; who knoweth when to be quiet is a wise man. Yea and this too is bravery, even forethought.

CHORUS: The punishment Zeus hath inflicted was surely enough; there was no need to heap this wanton insult on us.

ADRASTUS: Abandoned wretch!

THESEUS: Peace, Adrastus! say no more; set not thy words before mine, for ’tis not to thee this fellow is come with his message, but to me, and I must answer him. Thy first assertion will I answer first: I am not aware that Creon is my lord and master, or that his power outweigheth mine, that so he should compel Athens to act on this wise; nay! for then would the tide of time have to flow backward, if we are to be ordered about, as he thinks. ’Tis not I who choose this war, seeing that I did not even join these warriors to go unto the land of Cadmus; but still I claim to bury the fallen dead, not injuring any state nor yet introducing murderous strife, but preserving the law of all Hellas. What is not well in this? If ye suffered aught from the Argives—lo! they are dead; ye took a splendid vengeance on your foes and covered them with shame, and now your right is at an end. Let the dead now be buried in the earth, and each element return to the place from whence it came to the body, the breath to the air, the body to the ground; for in no wise did we get it for our own, but to live our life in, and after that its mother earth must take it back again. Dost think ’tis Argos thou art injuring in refusing burial to the dead? Nay! all Hellas shares herein, if a man rob the dead of their due and keep them from the tomb; for, if this law be enacted, it will strike dismay into the stoutest hearts. And art thou come to cast dire threats at me, while thy own folk are afraid of giving burial to the dead? What is your fear? Think you they will undermine your land in their graves, or that they will beget children in the womb of earth, from whom shall rise an avenger? A silly waste of words, in truth it was, to show your fear of paltry groundless terrors. Go, triflers, learn the lesson of human misery; our life is made up of struggles; some men there be that find their fortune soon, others have to wait, while some at once are blest. Fortune lives a dainty life; to her the wretched pays his court and homage to win her smile; her likewise doth the prosperous man extol, for fear the favouring gale may leave him. These lessons should we take to heart, to bear with moderation, free from wrath, our wrongs, and do naught to hurt a whole city. What then? Let us, who will the pious deed perform, bury the corpses of the slain. Else is the issue clear; I will go and bury them by force. For never shall it be proclaimed through Hellas that heaven’s ancient law was set at naught, when it devolved on me and the city of Pandion.

CHORUS: Be of good cheer; for if thou preserve the light of justice, thou shalt escape many a charge that men might urge.

HERALD: Wilt thou that I sum up in brief all thou wouldst say?

THESEUS: Say what thou wilt; for thou art not silent as it is.

Part 6

HERALD: Thou shalt never take the sons of Argos from our land.

THESEUS: Hear, then, my answer too to that, if so thou wilt.

HERALD: I will hear thee; not that I wish it, but I must give thee thy turn.

THESEUS: I will bury the dead, when from Asopus’ land I have removed them.

HERALD: First must thou adventure somewhat in the front of war.

THESEUS: Many an enterprise and of a different kind have I ere this endured.

HERALD: Wert thou then begotten of thy sire to cope with every foe?

THESEUS: Ay, with all wanton villains; virtue I punish not.

HERALD: To meddle is aye thy wont and thy city’s too.

THESEUS: Hence her enterprise on many a held hath won her frequent success.

HERALD: Come then, that the warriors of the dragon-crop may catch thee in our city.

THESEUS: What furious warrior-host could spring from dragon’s seed?

HERALD: Thou shalt learn that to thy cost. As yet thou art young and rash.

THESEUS: Thy boastful speech stirs not my heart at all to rage. Yet get thee gone from my land, taking with thee the idle words thou broughtest; for we are making no advance. [Exit Herald.] ’Tis time for all to start, each stout footman, and whoso mounts the car; ’tis time the bit, dripping with foam, should urge the charger on toward the land of Cadmus. For I will march in person to the seven gates thereof with the sharp sword in my hand, and be myself my herald. But thee, Adrastus, I bid stay, nor blend with mine thy fortunes, for I will take my own good star to lead my host, a chieftain famed in famous deeds of arms. One thing alone I need, the favour of all gods that reverence right, for the presence of these things insures victory. For their valour availeth men naught, unless they have the god’s goodwill. [Exit Theseus.

1ST HALF-CHORUS: Unhappy mothers of those hapless chiefs! How wildly in my heart pale fear stirs up alarm!

2ND HALF-CHORUS: What is this new cry thou utterest?

1ST HALF-CHORUS: I fear the issue of the strife, whereto the hosts of Pallas march.

2ND HALF-CHORUS: Dost speak of issues of the sword, or interchange of words?

1ST HALF-CHORUS: That last were gain indeed; but if the carnage of battle, fighting, and the noise of beaten breasts again be heard in the land, what, alas! will be said of me, who am the cause thereof?

2ND HALF-CHORUS: Yet may fate again bring low the brilliant victor; ’tis this brave thought that twines about my heart.

Part 7

1ST HALF-CHORUS: Thou speak’st of the gods as if they were just.

2ND HALF-CHORUS: For who but they allot whate’er betides?

1ST HALF-CHORUS: I see many a contradiction in their dealings with men.

2ND HALF-CHORUS: The former fear hath warped thy judgment. Vengeance calls vengeance forth; slaughter calls for slaughter, but the gods give respite from affliction, holding in their own hands each thing’s allotted end.

1ST HALF-CHORUS: Would I could reach yon plains with turrets crowned, leaving Callichorus, fountain of the goddess!

2ND HALF-CHORUS: O that some god would give me wings to fly to the city of rivers twain!

1ST HALF-CHORUS: So might’st thou see and know the fortunes of thy friends.

2ND HALF-CHORUS: What fate, what issue there awaits the valiant monarch of this land?

1ST HALF-CHORUS: Once more do we invoke the gods we called upon before; yea, in our fear this is our first and chiefest trust.

2ND HALF-CHORUS: O Zeus, father to the child the heifer-mother bore in days long past, that daughter of Inachus!

1ST HALF-CHORUS: O be gracious, I pray, and champion this city!

2ND HALF-CHORUS: ’Tis thy own darling, thy own settler in the city of Argos that I am striving to rescue for the funeral pyre from outrageous insult.

MESSENGER: Ladies, I bring you tidings of great joy, myself escaped—for I was taken prisoner in the battle which cost those chieftains seven their lives near Dirce’s fount—to bear the news of Theseus’ victory. But I will save thee tedious questioning; I was the servant of Capaneus, whom Zeus with scorching bolt to ashes burnt.

CHORUS: Friend of friends, fair thy news of thy own return, nor less the news about Theseus; and if the host of Athens, too, is safe, welcome will all thy message be.

MESSENGER: ’Tis safe, and all hath happened as I would it had befallen Adrastus and his Argives, whom from Inachus he led, to march against the city of the Cadmeans.

CHORUS: How did the son of Aegeus and his fellow-warriors raise their trophy to Zeus? Tell us, for thou wert there and canst gladden us who were not.

MESSENGER: Bright shone the sun, one levelled line of light, upon the world, as by Electra’s gate I stood to watch, from a turret with a far outlook. And lo! I saw the host in three divisions, deploying its mail-clad warriors on the high ground by the banks of Ismenus; this last I heard; and with them was the king himself, famous son of Aegeus; his own men, natives of old Cecropia, were ranged upon the right; while on the left, hard by the fountain of Ares, were the dwellers by the sea, harnessed spearmen they; on either wing were posted cavalry, in equal numbers, and chariots were stationed in the shelter of Amphion’s holy tomb. Meantime, the folk of Cadmus set themselves before the walls, placing in the rear the bodies for which they fought. Horse to horse, and car to car stood ranged. Then did the herald of Theseus cry aloud to all: Be still, ye folk! hush, ye ranks of Cadmus, hearken! we are come to fetch the bodies of the slain, wishing to bury them in observance of the universal law of Hellas; no wish have we to lengthen out the slaughter. Not a word would Creon let his herald answer back, but there he stood in silence under arms. Then did the drivers of the four-horse cars begin the fray; on, past each other they drave their chariots, bringing the warriors at their sides up into line. Some fought with swords, some wheeled the horses back to the fray again for those they drove. Now when Phorbas, who captained the cavalry of the Erechthidae, saw the thronging chariots, he and they who had the charge of the Theban horse met hand to hand, and by turns were victors and vanquished. The many horrors happening there I saw, not merely heard about, for I was at the spot where the chariots and their riders met and fought, but which to tell of first I know not,—the clouds of dust that mounted to the sky, the warriors tangled in the reins and dragged this way and that, the streams of crimson gore, when men fell dead, or when, from shattered chariot-seats, they tumble headlong to the ground, and, mid the splinters of their cars, gave up the ghost. But Creon, when he marked our cavalry’s success on one wing, caught up a shield and rushed into the fray, ere that despondency should seize his men; but not for that did Theseus recoil in fear; no! snatching up at once his glittering harness he hied him on. And the twain, clashing their shields together as they met in the midst of the assembled host, were dealing death and courting it, shouting loudly each to his fellow the battle-cry: Slay, and with thy spear strike home against the sons of Erechtheus. Fierce foes to cope with were the warriors whom the dragon’s teeth to manhood reared; so fierce, they broke our left wing, albeit theirs was routed by our right and put to flight, so that the struggle was evenly balanced. Here again our chief deserved all praise, for this success was not the only advantage he gained; no! next he sought that part of his army which was wavering; and loud he called to them, that the earth rang again, My sons, if ye cannot restrain the earth-born warriors’ stubborn spear, the cause of Pallas is lost. His word inspired new courage in all the Danaid host. Therewith himself did seize a fearsome mace, weapon of Epidaurian warfare, and swung it to and fro, and with that club, as with a sickle, he shore off necks and heads and helmets thereupon. Scarce even then they turned them- selves to fly. For joy cried I, and danced and clapped my hands; while to the gates they ran. Throughout the town echoed the shrieks of young and old, as they crowded the temples in terror. But Theseus, when he might have come inside the walls, held back his men, for he had not come, said he, to sack the town, but to ask for the bodies of the dead. Such the general men should choose, one who shows his bravery in danger, yet hates the pride of those that in their hour of fortune lose the bliss they might have enjoyed, through seeking to scale the ladder’s topmost step.

CHORUS: Now do I believe in the gods after seeing this unexpected day, and I feel my woes are lighter now that these have paid their penalty.

ADRASTUS: O Zeus, why do men assert the wisdom of the wretched human race? On thee we all depend, and all we do is only what thou listest. We thought our Argos irresistible, ourselves a young and lusty host, and so when Eteocles was for making terms, in spite of his fair offer we would not accept them, and so we perished. Then in their turn those foolish folk of Cadmus, to fortune raised, like some beggar with his newly-gotten wealth, waxed wanton, and, waxing so, were ruined in their turn. Ye foolish sons of men! who strain your bow like men who shoot beyond their mark, and only by suffering many evils as ye deserve, though deaf to friends, yet yield to circumstances; ye cities likewise, though ye might by parley end your mischief, yet ye choose the sword instead of reason to settle all disputes. But wherefore these reflections? This I fain would learn, the way thou didst escape; and after that I will ask thee of the rest.

MESSENGER: During the uproar which prevailed in the city owing to the battle, I passed the gates, just as the host had entered them.

Part 8

ADRASTUS: Are ye bringing the bodies, for the which the strife arose?

MESSENGER: Ay, each of the seven chiefs who led their famous hosts.

ADRASTUS: What sayest thou? the rest who fell—say, where are they?

MESSENGER: They have found burial in the dells of Cithseron.

ADRASTUS: On this or that side of the mount? And who did bury them?

MESSENGER: Theseus buried them ’neath the shadow of Eleutherae’s cliff.

ADRASTUS: Where didst thou leave the dead he hath not buried?

MESSENGER: Not far away; earnest haste makes every goal look close.

ADRASTUS: No doubt in sorrow slaves would gather them from the carnage.

MESSENGER: Slaves! not one of them was set to do this toil.

ADRASTUS: [...]

MESSENGER: Thou wouldst say so, hadst thou been there to see his loving tendance of the dead.

ADRASTUS: Did he himself wash the bloody wounds of the hapless youths?

MESSENGER: Ay, and strewed their biers and wrapped them in their shrouds.

ADRASTUS: An awful burden this, involving some disgrace.

MESSENGER: Why, what disgrace to men are their fellows’ sorrows?

ADRASTUS: Ah me! how much rather had I died with them!

MESSENGER: ’Tis vain to weep and move to tears these women.

ADRASTUS: Methinks ’tis they who give the lesson. Enough of that! My hands I lift at meeting of the dead, and pour forth a tearful dirge to Hades, calling on my friends, whose loss I mourn in wretched solitude; for this one thing, when once ’tis spent, man cannot recover, the breath of life, though he knoweth ways to get his wealth again.

CHORUS: Joy is here and sorrow too,— for the state fair fame, and for our captains double meed of honour. Bitter for me it is to see the limbs of my dead sons, and yet a welcome sight withal, because I shall behold the unexpected day after sorrow’s cup was full.

Part 9

CHORUS: Would that Father Time had kept me unwed from my youth up e’en till now when I am old! What need had I of children? Methinks I should not have suffered excessively, had I never borne the marriage-yoke; but now I have my sorrow full in view, the loss of children dear.

CHORUS: Lo! I see the bodies of the fallen youths. Woe is me! would I could join these children in their death and descend to Hades with them!

ADRASTUS: Mothers, raise the wail for the dead departed; cry in answer when ye hear my note of woe.

CHORUS: My sons, my sons! O bitter words for loving mothers to address to you! To thee, my lifeless child, I call.

ADRASTUS: Woe! woe!

CHORUS: Ah me, my sufferings!

ADRASTUS: Alas!

CHORUS: [...]

ADRASTUS: We have endured, alas!—

CHORUS: Sorrows most grievous.

ADRASTUS: O citizens of Argos! do ye not behold my fate?

CHORUS: They see thee, and me the hapless mother, reft of her children.

ADRASTUS: Bring near the blood-boltered corpses of those hapless chiefs, foully slain by foes unworthy, with whom lay the decision of the contest.

CHORUS: Let me embrace and hold my children to my bosom in my enfolding arms.

ADRASTUS: There, there! thou hast—

CHORUS: Sorrows heavy enough to bear.

ADRASTUS: Ah me!

CHORUS: Thy groans mingle with those of their parents.

ADRASTUS: Hear me.

CHORUS: O’er both of us thou dost lament.

Part 10

ADRASTUS: Would God the Theban ranks had laid me dead in the dust!

CHORUS: Oh that I had ne’er been wedded to a husband!

ADRASTUS: Behold this sea of troubles! Ah! hapless mothers.

CHORUS: Our nails have ploughed our cheeks in furrows, and o’er our heads have we strewn ashes.

ADRASTUS: Ah me! ah me! Oh that earth’s floor would swallow me, or the whirlwind snatch me away, or Zeus’s flaming bolt descend upon my head!

CHORUS: Bitter the marriages thou didst witness, bitter the oracle of Phoebus! The curse of Oedipus, fraught with sorrow, after desolating his house, is come on thee.

THESEUS: I meant to question thee when thou wert venting thy lamentations to the host, but I will let it pass; yet, though I dropped the matter then and left it alone, I now do ask Adrastus, Of what lineage sprang those youths, to shine so bright in chivalry? Tell it to our younger citizens of thy fuller wisdom, for thou art skilled to know. Myself beheld their daring deeds, too high for words to tell, whereby they thought to capture Thebes. One question will I spare thee, lest I provoke thy laughter; the foe that each of them encountered in the fray, the spear from which each received his death-wound. These be idle tales alike for those who hear or him who speaks, that any man amid the fray, when clouds of darts are hurtling before his eyes, should declare for certain who each champion is. I could not ask such questions, nor yet believe those who dare assert the like; for when a man is face to face with the foe, he scarce can see even that which ’tis his bounden duty to observe.

ADRASTUS: Hearken then. For in giving this task to me thou findest a willing eulogist of friends, whose praise I would declare in all truth and sincerity. Dost see yon corpse by Zeus’s bolt transfixed? That is Capaneus; though he had ample wealth, yet was he the last to boast of his prosperity; nor would he ever vaunt himself above a poorer neighbour, but shunned the man whose sumptuous board had puffed him up too high and made him scorn mere competence, for he held that virtue lies not in greedy gluttony, but that moderate means suffice. True friend was he, alike to present or to absent friends the same; of such the number is not great. His was a guileless character, a courteous address, that left no promise unperformed either towards his own household or his fellow-citizens. The next I name is Eteocles; a master he of other kinds of excellence; young, nor richly dowered with store, yet high in honour in the Argive land. And though his friends oft offered gifts of gold, he would not have it in his house, to make his character its slave by taking wealth’s yoke upon him. Not his city, but those that sinned against her did he hate, for a city is no wise to be blamed if it get an evil name by reason of an evil governor. Such another was Hippomedon, third of all this band; from his very boyhood he refrained from turning towards the allurements of the Muses, to lead a life of ease; his home was in the fields, and gladly would he school his nature to hardships with a view to manliness, aye hasting to the chase, rejoicing in his steeds or straining of his bow, because he would make himself of use unto his state. Next behold the huntress Atalanta’s son, Parthenopaeus, a youth of peerless beauty; from Arcady he came even to the streams of Inachus, and in Argos spent his boyhood. There, when he grew to man’s estate, first, as is the duty of strangers settled in another land, he showed no pique or jealousy against the state, became no quibbler, chiefest source of annoyance citizen or stranger can give, but took his stand amid the host, and fought for Argos as he were her own son, glad at heart whenso the city prospered, deeply grieved if e’er reverses came; many a lover though he had midst men and maids, yet was he careful to avoid offence. Of Tydeus next the lofty praise I will express in brief; no brilliant spokesman he, but a clever craftsman in the art of war, with many a shrewd device; inferior in judgment to his brother Meleager, yet through his warrior skill lending his name to equal praise, for he had found in arms a perfect science; his was an ambitious nature, a spirit rich in store of deeds, with words less fully dowered. From this account then wonder not, Theseus, that they dared to die before the towers; for noble nurture carries honour with it, and every man, when once he hath practised virtue, scorns the name of villain. Courage may be learnt, for even a babe doth learn to speak and hear things it cannot comprehend; and whatso’er a child hath learnt, this it is his wont to treasure up till he is old. So train up your children in a virtuous way.

CHORUS: Alas! my son, to sorrow I bare thee and carried thee within my womb, enduring the pangs of travail; but now Hades takes the fruit of all my hapless toil, and I that; had a son am left, ah me! with none to nurse my age.

THESEUS: As for the noble son of Oecleus, him, while yet he lived, the gods snatched hence to the bowels of the earth, and. his chariot too, manifestly blessing him; while I myself may truthfully tell the praises of the son of Oedipus, that is, Polynices, for he was my guest-friend ere he left the town of Cadmus and crossed to Argos in voluntary exile. But dost thou know what I would have thee do in this matter?

ADRASTUS: I know naught save this,—to yield obedience to thy hests.

THESEUS: As for yon Capaneus, stricken by the bolt of Zeus—

ADRASTUS: Wilt bury him apart as a consecrated corpse?

THESEUS: Even so; but all the rest on one funeral pyre.

ADRASTUS: Where wilt thou set the tomb apart for him?

THESEUS: Here near this temple have I builded him a sepulchre.

ADRASTUS: Thy thralls forthwith must undertake this toil.

THESEUS: Myself will look to those others; let the biers advance.

ADRASTUS: Approach your sons, unhappy mothers.

THESEUS: This thy proposal, Adrastus, is anything but good.

Part 11

ADRASTUS: Must not the mothers touch their sons?

THESEUS: It would kill them to see how they are altered.

ADRASTUS: ’Tis bitter, truly, to see the dead even at the moment of death.

THESEUS: Why then wilt thou add fresh grief to them?

ADRASTUS: Thou art right. Ye needs must patiently abide, for the words of Theseus are good. But when we have committed them unto the flames, ye shall collect their bones. O wretched sons of men! Why do ye get you weapons and bring slaughter on one another? Cease therefrom, give o’er your toiling, and in mutual peace keep safe your cities. Short is the span of life, so ’twere best to run its course as lightly as we may, from trouble free.

CHORUS: No more a happy mother I, with children blest; no more I share, among Argive women, who have sons, their happy lot; nor any more will Artemis in the hour of travail kindly greet these childless mothers. Most dreary is my life, and like some wandering cloud I drift before the howling blast.

CHORUS: The seven noblest sons in Argos once we had, we seven hapless mothers; but now my sons are dead, I have no child, and on me steals old age in piteous wise, nor ’mongst the dead nor ’mongst the living do I count myself, having as it were a lot apart from these.

CHORUS: Tears alone are left me; in my house sad memories of my son are stored; mournful tresses shorn from his head, chaplets that he wore, libations for the dead departed, and songs, but not such as golden-haired Apollo welcometh; and when I wake to weep, my tears will ever drench the folds of my robe upon my bosom.

CHORUS: Ah! there I see the sepulchre ready e’en now for Capaneus, his consecrated tomb, and the votive offerings Theseus gives unto the dead outside the shrine, and nigh yon lightning-smitten chief I see his noble bride, Evadne, daughter of King Iphis. Wherefore stands she on the towering rock, which o’ertops this temple, advancing along yon path?

EVADNE: What light, what radiancy did the sun-god’s car dart forth, and the moon athwart the firmament, while round her in the gloom swift stars careered, in the day that the city of Argos raised the stately chant of joy at my wedding, in honour of my marriage with mail-clad Capaneus? Now from my home in frantic haste with frenzied mind I rush to join thee, seeking to share with thee the fire’s bright flame and the self-same tomb, to rid me of my weary life in Hades’ halls, and of the pains of existence; yea, for ’tis the sweetest end to share the death of those we love, if only fate will sanction it.

CHORUS: Behold yon pyre, which thou art overlooking, nigh thereto, set apart for Zeus! There is thy husband’s body, vanquished by the blazing bolt.

EVADNE: Life’s goal I now behold from my station here; may fortune aid me in my headlong leap from this rock in honour’s cause, down into the fire below, to mix my ashes in the ruddy blaze with my husband’s, to lay me side by side with him, there in the couch of Persephone; for ne’er will I, to save my life, prove untrue to thee where thou liest in thy grave. Away with life and marriage too! Oh! may my children live to see the dawn of a fairer, happier wedding-day in Argos! May loyalty inspire the husband’s heart, his nature fusing with his wife’s!

CHORUS: Lo! the aged Iphis, thy father, draweth nigh to hear thy startling scheme, which yet he knows not and will grieve to learn.

IPHIS: Unhappy child! lo! I am come, a poor old man, with twofold sorrow in my house to mourn, that I may carry to his native land the corpse of my son Eteocles, slain by the Theban spear, and further in quest of my daughter who rushed headlong from the house, for she was the wife of Capaneus and longed with him to die. Ere this she was well guarded in my house, but, when I took the watch away in the present troubles, she escaped. But I feel sure that she is here; tell me if ye have seen her.

EVADNE: Why question them? Lo, here upon the rock, father, o’er the pyre of Capaneus, like some bird I hover lightly, in my wretchedness.

IPHIS: What wind hath blown thee hither, child? Whither away? Why didst thou pass the threshold of my house and seek this land?

EVADNE: It would but anger thee to hear what I intend, and so I fain would keep thee ignorant, my father.

IPHIS: What! hath not thy own father a right to know?

EVADNE: Thou wouldst not wisely judge my intention.

IPHIS: Why dost thou deck thyself in that apparel?

Part 12

EVADNE: A purport strange this robe conveys, father.

IPHIS: Thou hast no look of mourning for thy lord.

EVADNE: No, the reason why I thus am decked is strange, maybe.

IPHIS: Dost thou in such garb appear before a funeral-pyre?

EVADNE: Yea, for hither it is I come to take the meed of victory.

IPHIS: Victory! what victory? This would I learn of thee.

EVADNE: A victory o’er all women on whom the sun looks down.

IPHIS: In Athena’s handiwork or in prudent counsel?

EVADNE: In bravery; for I will lay me down and die with my lord.

IPHIS: What dost thou say? What is this silly riddle thou propoundest?

EVADNE: To yonder pyre where lies dead Capaneus, I will leap down.

IPHIS: My daughter, speak not thus before the multitude!

EVADNE: The very thing I wish, that every Argive should learn it.

IPHIS: Nay, I will ne’er consent to let thee do this deed.

EVADNE: (as she is throwing herself). ’Tis all one; thou shalt never catch me in thy grasp. Lo! I cast me down, no joy to thee, but to myself and to my husband blazing on the pyre with me.

CHORUS: O lady, what a fearful deed!

IPHIS: Ah me! I am undone, ye dames of Argos!

CHORUS: Alack, alack! a cruel blow is this to thee, but thou must yet witness, poor wretch, the full horror of this deed.

IPHIS: A more unhappy wretch than me ye could not find.

CHORUS: Woe for thee, unhappy man! Thou, old sir, hast been made partaker in the fortune of Oedipus, thou and my poor city too.

Part 13

IPHIS: Ah, why are mortal men denied this boon, to live their youth twice o’er, and twice in turn to reach old age? If aught goes wrong within our homes, we set it right by judgment more maturely formed, but our life we may not so correct. Now if we had a second spell of youth and age, this double term of life would let us then correct each previous slip. I, for instance, seeing others blest with children, longed to have them too, and found my ruin in that wish. Whereas if I had had my present experience, and by a father’s light had learnt how cruel a thing it is to be bereft of children, never should I have fallen on such evil days as these,—I who did beget a brave young son, proud parent that I was, and after all am now bereft of him. Enough of this. What remains for such a hapless wretch as me? Shall I to my home, there to see its utter desolation and the blank within my life? or shall I to the halls of that dead Capaneus?—halls I smiled to see in days gone by, when yet my daughter was alive. But she is lost and gone, she that would ever draw down my cheek to her lips, and take my head between her hands; for naught is there more sweet unto an aged sire than a daughter’s love; our sons are made of sterner stuff, but less winning are their caresses. Oh! take me to my house at once, in darkness hide me there, to waste and fret this aged frame with fasting! What shall it avail me to touch my daughter’s bones? Old age, resistless foe, how do I loathe thy presence! Them too I hate, whoso desire to lengthen out the span of life, seeking to turn the tide of death aside by philtres, drugs, and magic spells,—folk that death should take away to leave the young their place, when they no more can benefit the world.

CHORUS: Woe, woe! Behold your dead sons’ bones are brought hither; take them, servants of your weak old mistress, for in me is no strength left by reason of my mourning for my sons; time’s comrade long have I been, and many a tear for many a sorrow have I shed. For what sharper pang wilt thou ever find for mortals than the sight of children dead?

CHILDREN: Poor mother mine, behold I bring my father’s bones gathered from the fire, a burden grief has rendered heavy, though this tiny urn contains my all.

CHORUS: Ah me! ah me! Why bear thy tearful load to the fond mother of the dead, a handful of ashes in the stead of those who erst were men of mark in Mycenae?

CHILDREN: Woe worth the hour! woe worth the day! Reft of my hapless sire, a wretched orphan shall I inherit a desolate house, torn from my father’s arms.

CHORUS: Woe is thee! Where is now the toil I spent upon my sons? what thank have I for nightly watch? Where the mother’s nursing care? the sleepless vigils mine eyes have kept? the loving kiss upon my children’s brow?

CHILDREN: Thy sons are dead and gone. Poor mother! dead and gone; the boundless air now wraps them round.

CHORUS: Turned to ashes by the flame, they have winged their flight to Hades.

CHILDREN: Father, thou hearest thy children’s lamentation; say, shall I e’er, as warrior dight, avenge thy slaughter?

CHORUS: God grant it, O my child!

CHILDREN: Some day, if god so will, shall the avenging of my father be my task; not yet this sorrow sleeps.

CHORUS: Alas! Fortune’s sorrows are enough for me, I have troubles and to spare already.

CHILDREN: Shall Asopus’ laughing tide ever reflect my brazen arms as I lead on my Argive troops?

CHORUS: To avenge thy fallen sire.

CHILDREN: Methinks I see thee still before my eyes, my father—

CHORUS: Printing a loving kiss upon thy cheek.

CHILDREN: But thy words of exhortation are borne on the winds away.

CHORUS: Two mourners hath he left behind, thy mother and thee, bequeathing to thee an endless legacy of grief for thy father.

CHILDREN: The weight of grief I have to bear hath crushed me utterly.

CHORUS: Come, let me clasp the ashes of my son to my bosom.

Part 14

CHILDREN: I weep to hear that piteous word; it stabs me to the heart.

CHORUS: My child, thou art undone; no more shall I behold thee, thy own fond mother’s treasure.

THESEUS: Adrastus, and ye dames from Argos sprung, ye see these children bearing in their hands the bodies of their valiant sires whom I redeemed; to thee I give these gifts, I and Athens. And ye must bear in mind the memory of this favour, marking well the treatment ye have had of me. And to these children I repeat the self-same words, that they may honour this city, to children’s children ever handing on the kindness ye received from us. Be Zeus the witness, with the gods in heaven, of the treatment we vouchsafed you ere you left us.

ADRASTUS: Theseus, well we know all the kindness thou hast conferred upon the land of Argos in her need, and ours shall be a gratitude that never waxeth old, for your generous treatment makes us debtors for a like return.

THESEUS: What yet remains, wherein I can serve you?

ADRASTUS: Fare thee well, for such is thy desert and such thy city’s too.

THESEUS: Fare thee well, for such is thy desert and such thy city’s too.

ATHENA: Hearken, Theseus, to the words that I Athena utter, telling thee thy duty, which, if thou perform it, will serve thy city. Give not these bones to the children to carry to the land of Argos, letting them go so lightly; nay, take first an oath of them that they will requite thee and thy city for your efforts. This oath must Adrastus swear, for as their king it is his right to take the oath for the whole realm of Argos. And this shall be the form thereof: We Argives swear we never will against this land lead on our mail-clad troops to war, and, if others come, we will repel them. But if they violate their oath and come against the city, pray that the land of Argos may be miserably destroyed. Now hearken while I tell thee where thou must slay the victims. Thou hast within thy halls a tripod with brazen feet, which Heracles, in days gone by, after he had o’erthrown the foundations of Ilium and was starting on another enterprise, enjoined thee to set up at the Pythian shrine. O’er it cut the throats of three sheep; then grave within the tripod’s hollow belly the oath; this done, deliver it to the god who watches over Delphi to keep, a witness and memorial unto Hellas of the oath. And bury the sharp-edged knife, wherewith thou shalt have laid the victims open and shed their blood, deep in the bowels of the earth, hard by the pyres where the seven chieftains burn; for its appearance shall strike them with dismay, if e’er against thy town they come, and shall cause them to return with sorrow. When thou hast done all this, dismiss the dead from thy land. And to the god resign as sacred land the spot where their bodies were purified by fire, there by the meeting of the triple roads that lead unto the Isthmus. Thus much to thee, Theseus, I address; next to the sons of Argos I speak; when ye are grown to men’s estate, the town beside Ismenus shall ye sack, avenging the slaughter of your dead sires; thou too, Aegialeus, shalt take thy father’s place and in thy youth command the host, and with thee Tydeus’ son marching from Aetolia,—him whom his father named Diomedes. Soon as the beards your cheeks o’ershadow must ye lead an armed Danaid host against the battlements of Thebes with sevenfold gates. For to their sorrow shall ye come like lion’s whelps in full-grown might to sack their city. No otherwise is it to be; and ye shall be a theme for minstrels’ songs in days to come, known through Hellas as the After-born so famous shall your expedition be, thanks to Heaven.

THESEUS: Queen Athena, I will hearken to thy bidding; for thou it is dost set me up, so that I go not astray. And I will bind this monarch by an oath; do thou but guide my steps aright. For if thou art friendly to our state, we shall henceforth live secure.

CHORUS: Let us go, Adrastus, and take the oath to this monarch and his state; for the service they have already done us claims our warm regard.

Contents — 12 sections

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3
4. Part 4
5. Part 5
6. Part 6
7. Part 7
8. Part 8
9. Part 9
10. Part 10
11. Part 11
12. Part 12

Part 1

POSEIDON: From the depths of salt Aegean floods I, Poseidon, have come, where choirs of Nereids dance in a graceful maze; for since the day that Phoebus and I with exact measurement set towers of stone about this land of Troy and ringed it round, never from my heart has passed away a kindly feeling for my Phrygian town, which now is smouldering and overthrown, a prey to Argive might. For, from his home beneath Parnassus, Phocian Epeus, aided by the craft of Pallas, framed a horse to bear within its womb an armed army, and sent it within the battlements, a deadly statue; Groves stand forsaken and temples of the gods run down with blood, and at the altar’s very base, before the god who watched his home, Priam lies dead. While to Achaean ships great store of gold and Phrygian spoils are being conveyed, and they who came against this town, those sons of Hellas, only wait a favoring breeze to follow in their wake, that after ten long years they may with joy behold their wives and children. Vanquished by Hera, Argive goddess, and by Athena, who helped to ruin Phrygia, I am leaving Ilium, that famous town, and my altars; for when dreary desolation seizes on a town, the worship of the gods decays and tends to lose respect. Scamander’s banks re-echo long and loud the screams of captive maids, as they by lot receive their masters. Arcadia takes some, and some the people of Thessaly; others are assigned to Theseus’ sons, the Athenian chiefs. And such of the Trojan women as are not portioned out are in these tents, set apart for the leaders of the army; and with them Spartan Helen, daughter of Tyndareus, justly counted among the captives. And if you would see that queen of misery, Hecuba, you can; for there she lies before the gates, weeping many tears for many sorrows; at Achilles’ tomb, without her knowledge, her daughter Polyxena has died most piteously; Priam is gone, and her children too; Cassandra, whom the lord Apollo left to be a virgin, frenzied maid, has been forced by Agamemnon, in contempt of the god’s ordinance and of piety, to a dishonored wedlock. Farewell, O city once prosperous! farewell, you ramparts of polished stone! if Pallas, daughter of Zeus, had not decreed your ruin, you would be standing firmly still.

ATHENA: May I address the mighty god whom the gods revere and who to my own father is very near in blood, laying aside our former enmity?

POSEIDON: You may; for over the soul the ties of kin exert no feeble spell, great queen Athena.

ATHENA: For your forgiving mood my thanks! I have messages to impart affecting both yourself and me, lord.

POSEIDON: Do you bring fresh tidings from some god, from Zeus, or from some lesser power?

ATHENA: From none of these; but on behalf of Troy, whose soil we tread, I have come to seek your mighty aid, to make it one with mine.

POSEIDON: What! have you laid your former hate aside to take compassion on the town now that it is burnt to ashes?

ATHENA: First go back to the former point; will you make common cause with me in the scheme I purpose?

POSEIDON: Yes, surely; but I want to learn your wishes, whether you have come to help Achaeans or Phrygians.

ATHENA: I wish to give my former foes, the Trojans, joy, and on the Achaean army impose a bitter return.

POSEIDON: Why do you leap thus from mood to mood? Your love and hate both go too far, on whomever centred.

ATHENA: Do you not know the insult done to me and to the shrine I love?

POSEIDON: I do: when Aias dragged away Cassandra by force.

ATHENA: Yes, and the Achaeans did nothing, said nothing to him.

POSEIDON: And yet it was by your mighty aid they sacked Ilium.

ATHENA: For which cause I would join with you to do them harm.

POSEIDON: My powers are ready at your will. What is your intent?

ATHENA: I will impose on them a return that is no return.

POSEIDON: While they stay on shore, or as they cross the salt sea?

ATHENA: When they have set sail from Ilium for their homes. On them will Zeus also send his rain and fearful hail, and inky tempests from the sky; and he promises to grant me his thunder-bolts to hurl on the Achaeans and fire their ships. And you, for your part, make the Aegean strait to roar with mighty billows and whirlpools, and fill Euboea’s hollow bay with corpses, that Achaeans may learn henceforth to reverence my temples and regard all other deities.

Part 2

POSEIDON: So shall it be, for this favor needs only a few words. I will vex the broad Aegean sea; and the beach of Myconos and the reefs round Delos, Scyros and Lemnos too, and the cliffs of Caphareus shall be strewn with many a corpse. You go to Olympus, and taking from your father’s hand his lightning bolts, keep careful watch against the hour when Argos’ army lets slip its cables. A fool is he who sacks the towns of men, with shrines and tombs, the dead man’s hallowed home, for at the last he makes a desert round himself and dies.

HECUBA: Lift your head, unhappy one, from the ground; raise up your neck; this is Troy no more, no longer am I queen in Ilium. Though fortune change, endure your lot; sail with the stream, and follow fortune’s tack, do not steer your ship of life against the tide, since chance must guide your course. Ah me! ah me! What else but tears is now my hapless lot, whose country, children, husband, all are lost? Ah! the high-blown pride of ancestors, humbled! how brought to nothing after all! What woe must I suppress, or what declare? Ah, woe is me! the anguish I suffer lying here stretched upon this hard pallet! O my head, my temples, my side! How I long to turn over, and lie now on this, now on that, to rest my back and spine, while ceaselessly my tearful wail ascends. For even this is music to the wretched, to chant their cheerless dirge of sorrow.

HECUBA: You swift-prowed ships, rowed to sacred Ilium over the deep dark sea, past the fair havens of Hellas, to the flute’s ill-omened music and the dulcet voice of pipes, to the bays of Troy, alas! where you tied your hawsers, twisted handiwork from Egypt, in quest of that hateful wife of Menelaus, who brought disgrace on Castor, and on Eurotas foul reproach; who murdered Priam, the father of fifty children; the cause why I, the unhappy Hecuba, have wrecked my life upon this disastrous strand. Oh that I should sit here, over against the tent of Agamemnon! As a slave I am led away from my home, an old woman, while from my head the hair is piteously shorn for grief. Ah! unhappy wives of those armored sons of Troy! Ah! poor maidens, luckless brides, come weep, for Ilium is now a smouldering ruin; and I, like some mother-bird that over her fledgelings screams, will begin the strain; not the same as that I once sang to the gods, as I leaned on Priam’s staff and beat with my foot in Phrygian time to lead the dance!

FIRST SEMI-CHORUS: O Hecuba! why these cries, these piercing shrieks? What do your words mean? For I heard your piteous wail echo through the building, and a pang of terror shoots through each captive Trojan’s breast, as within these walls they mourn their slavish lot.

HECUBA: My child, even now at the ships of the Argives—

FIRST SEMI-CHORUS: The rower’s hand is busy? Ah, woe is me! what is their intent? Will they really carry me away from my country in their fleet?

HECUBA: I do not know, though I guess our doom.

FIRST SEMI-CHORUS: O misery! woe to us Trojan women, soon to hear of our troubles: Come out of the house, the Argives are preparing to return.

HECUBA: Oh! please do not bid the wild Cassandra leave her chamber, the frantic prophetess, for Argives to insult, nor to my griefs add yet another. Woe to you, ill-fated Troy, Troy, your sun is set; and woe to your unhappy children, living and dead alike, who are leaving you behind!

SECOND SEMI-CHORUS: With trembling step, alas! I leave this tent of Agamemnon to learn of you, my royal mistress, whether the Argives have resolved to take my wretched life, or whether the sailors at the prow are making ready to ply their oars.

HECUBA: My child, your wakeful heart!

SECOND SEMI-CHORUS: I have come, stricken with terror. Has a herald from the Danaids already arrived? To whom am I, poor captive, given as a slave?

HECUBA: You are not far from being allotted now.

SECOND SEMI-CHORUS: Alas! What man of Argos or Phthia will bear me in sorrow far from Troy, to his home, or to some island fastness?

HECUBA: Ah! ah! Whose slave shall I become in my old age? in what land? a poor old drone, the wretched copy of a corpse, alas! set to keep the gate or tend their children, I who once held royal rank in Troy.

CHORUS: Alas, alas! What piteous dirge will you devise to mourn the outrage done you? No more through Ida’s looms shall I ply the shuttle to and fro. I look my last on my children’s bodies, my last; I shall endure surpassing misery, it may be as the unwilling bride of some Hellene (perish the night and fortune that brings me to this!); it may be as a wretched slave from Peirene’s sacred fount I shall draw their store of water. Oh! may it be ours to come to Theseus’ famous realm, a land of joy. Never, never let me see Eurotas’ swirling tide, hateful home of Helen, there to meet and be the slave of Menelaus, whose hand laid Troy waste!

CHORUS: That holy land by Peneus fed, nestling in all its beauty at Olympus’ foot, is said, so have I heard, to be a very granary of wealth and teeming fruitfulness; next to the sacred soil of Theseus, I could wish to reach that land. They tell me too Hephaestus’ home, beneath the shadow of Aetna, fronting Phoenicia, the mother of Sicilian hills, is famous for the crowns it gives to valor. Or may I find a home on that shore which lies very near Ionia’s sea, a land watered by Crathis, lovely stream, that dyes the hair an auburn tint, feeding with its holy waves and making glad the home of heroes.

CHORUS LEADER: But see! a herald from the army of Danaids, with a store of fresh proclamations, comes hastening here. What is his errand? What does he say? For we are indeed slaves now to Dorian lords.

TALTHYBIUS: Hecuba, you know me from my many journeys to and fro as herald between the Achaean army and Troy; I was no stranger to you, lady, even before: I, Talthybius, now sent with a fresh message.

HECUBA: Ah, kind friends, it has come! what I so long have dreaded.

Part 3

TALTHYBIUS: The lot has decided your fates already, if that was what you feared.

HECUBA: Ah me! What city did you say, Thessalian, Phthian, or Cadmean?

TALTHYBIUS: Each warrior took his prize in turn; you were not all at once assigned.

HECUBA: To whom has the lot assigned us severally? Which of us Trojan women does a happy fortune await?

TALTHYBIUS: I know, but ask your questions separately, not all at once.

HECUBA: Then tell me, whose prize is my daughter, hapless Cassandra?

TALTHYBIUS: King Agamemnon has chosen her out for himself.

HECUBA: To be the slave-girl of his Spartan wife? Ah me!

TALTHYBIUS: No, to share with him his stealthy love.

HECUBA: What! Phoebus’ virgin-priestess, to whom the god with golden locks granted the gift of maidenhood?

TALTHYBIUS: The dart of love has pierced his heart, love for the frenzied maid.

HECUBA: Daughter, cast from you the sacred keys, and from your body tear the holy wreaths that drape you in their folds.

TALTHYBIUS: Why! is it not an honor that she should win our monarch’s love?

HECUBA: What have you done to her whom recently you took from me, my child?

TALTHYBIUS: Do you mean Polyxena, or whom do you inquire about?

HECUBA: Yes, that one; to whom has the lot assigned her?

TALTHYBIUS: To minister at Achilles’ tomb has been appointed her.

HECUBA: Woe is me! I the mother of a dead man’s slave! What custom, what ordinance is this among Hellenes, friend?

TALTHYBIUS: Count your daughter happy; it is well with her.

HECUBA: What wild words are these? Please tell me, is she still alive?

Part 4

TALTHYBIUS: Her fate is one that sets her free from trouble.

HECUBA: And what of the wife of Hector skilled in arms, sad Andromache? declare her fate.

TALTHYBIUS: She too was a chosen prize; Achilles’ son took her.

HECUBA: As for me whose hair is white with age, who need to hold a staff to be to me a third foot, whose servant am I to be?

TALTHYBIUS: Odysseus, king of Ithaca, has taken you to be his slave.

HECUBA: Oh, oh! Now smite the close-shorn head! tear your cheeks with your nails! Ah me! I have fallen as a slave to a treacherous foe I hate, a monster of lawlessness, one that by his double tongue has turned against us all that once was friendly in his camp, changing this for that and that for this again. Oh weep for me, you Trojan women! Lost and ill-fated! Ah woe! a victim to a most unhappy lot!

CHORUS LEADER: Your fate, royal mistress, now you know; but for me, what Helene or Achaean is master of my destiny?

TALTHYBIUS: Go, servants, and bring Cassandra forth to me here at once, that I may place her in our captain’s hands, and then conduct to the rest of the chiefs the captives each has had assigned. Ha! what is the blaze of torches there within? What are they doing? Are they firing the chambers, because they must leave this land and be carried away to Argos? Are they setting themselves aflame in their longing for death? Truly the free bear their troubles in cases like this with a stiff neck. Open up! lest their deed, which suits them well but finds small favor with the Achaeans, bring blame on me.

HECUBA: It is not that they are setting anything ablaze, but my child Cassandra, frenzied maid, comes rushing wildly here.

CASSANDRA: Bring the light, uplift and show its flame! I am doing the god’s service, see! see! making his shrine to glow with tapers bright. O Hymen, lord of marriage! blessed is the bridegroom; blessed am I also, soon to wed a princely lord in Argos. Hail Hymen, lord of marriage! Since you, my mother, are busied with tears and lamentations in your mourning for my father’s death and for our country dear, I at my own nuptials am making this torch to blaze and show its light, giving to you, O Hymen, giving, O Hecate, a light, at the maiden’s wedding, as the custom is. Nimbly lift the foot; lead the dance on high, with cries of joy, as if to greet my father’s happy fate. The dance is sacred. Come, Phoebus, now, for it is in your temple among your bay-trees that I minister. Hail Hymen, god of marriage! Hymen, hail! Dance, mother, and laugh! link your steps with me, and circle in the delightful measure, now here, now there. Salute the bride on her wedding-day with hymns and cries of joy. Come, you maids of Phrygia in fair raiment, sing my marriage with the husband fate ordains that I should wed.

CHORUS LEADER: Hold the frantic maiden, royal mistress, lest with nimble foot she rush to the Argive army.

HECUBA: You god of fire, it is yours to light the bridal torch for men, but piteous is the flame you kindle here, beyond my blackest expectation. Ah, my child! how little did I ever dream that such would be your marriage, a captive, and of Argos too! Give up the torch to me; you do not bear its blaze aright in your wild frantic course, nor have your afflictions left you in your sober senses, but still you are as frantic as before. Take in those torches, Trojan friends, and for her wedding madrigals weep your tears instead.

CASSANDRA: O mother, crown my head with victor’s wreaths; rejoice in my royal match; lead me and if you find me unwilling at all, thrust me there by force; for if Loxias is indeed a prophet, Agamemnon, that famous king of the Achaeans, will find in me a bride more vexatious than Helen. For I will slay him and lay waste his home to avenge my father’s and my brothers’ death. But let that go; I will not tell of that axe which shall sever my neck and the necks of others, or of the conflict ending in a mother’s death, which my marriage shall cause, nor of the overthrow of Atreus’ house. But I, for all my frenzy, will so far rise above my frantic fit, that I will prove this city happier far than those Achaeans, who for the sake of one woman and one passion have lost a countless army in hunting Helen. Their captain too, whom men call wise, has lost for what he hated most what most he prized, yielding to his brother for a woman’s sake—and she was willing and not taken by force—the joy he had of his own children in his home. For from the day that they landed upon Scamander’s strand, their doom began, not for loss of stolen frontier nor yet for fatherland with high towers; whomever Ares took, those never saw their children again, nor were they shrouded for the tomb by hand of wife, but in a foreign land they lie. At home the case was still the same; wives were dying widows, parents were left childless in their homes, having reared their sons for others, and none is left to make libations of blood upon the ground before their tombs. Truly to such praise as this their army can make an ample claim. It is better to pass by their shame in silence, nor may mine be the Muse to tell that evil tale. But the Trojans were dying, first for their fatherland, fairest fame to win; whomever the sword took, all these found friends to bear their bodies home and were laid to rest in the embrace of their native land, their funeral rites all duly paid by duteous hands. And all such Phrygians as escaped the warrior’s death lived always day by day with wife and children by them, joys the Achaeans had left behind. As for Hector and his griefs, hear how the case stands; he is dead and gone, but still his fame remains as bravest of the brave, and this was a result of the Achaeans’ coming; for had they remained at home, his worth would have gone unnoticed. And Paris married the daughter of Zeus, whereas, had he never done so, the alliance he made in his family would have been forgotten. Whoever is wise should fly from making war; but if he come to this, a noble death will crown his city with glory, a coward’s end with shame. Therefore, mother, you should not pity your country or my bed, for this my marriage will destroy those whom you and I most hate.

CHORUS LEADER: How sweetly at your own sad lot you smile, chanting a strain, which, in spite of you, may prove you wrong!

TALTHYBIUS: Had not Apollo turned your wits to maenad revelry, you would not for nothing have sent my chiefs with such ominous predictions forth on their way. But, after all, these lofty minds, reputed wise, are nothing better than those that are held as nothing. For that mighty king of all Hellas, dear son of Atreus, has yielded to a passion for this mad maiden of all others; though I am poor enough, yet would I never have chosen such a wife as this. As for you, since your senses are not whole, I give your taunts against Argos and your praise of Troy to the winds to carry away. Follow me now to the ships to grace the wedding of our chief. And you too follow, whenever the son of Laertes demands your presence, for you will serve a mistress most discreet, as all declare who came to Ilium.

CASSANDRA: A clever fellow, this servant! Why is it heralds hold the name they do? All men unite in hating with one common hate the attendants of kings or governments. You say my mother shall come to the halls of Odysseus? Where then are Apollo’s words, so clear to me in their interpretation, which declare that she shall die here? What else remains, I will not taunt her with. Unhappy Odysseus, he does not know the sufferings that await him; or how these ills I and my Phrygians endure shall one day seem to him precious as gold. For beyond the ten long years spent at Troy he shall drag out other ten and then come to his country all alone . . . where dreadful Charybdis lurks in a narrow channel between the rocks; past Cyclops the savage shepherd, and Ligurian Circe who turns men to swine; shipwrecked often upon the salt sea-wave; longing to eat the lotus, and the sacred cattle of the sun, whose flesh shall utter in the days to come a human voice, bitter to Odysseus. In brief, he shall descend alive to Hades, and, though he shall escape the waters’ flood, yet shall he find a thousand troubles in his country when he arrives.

CASSANDRA: Enough! why do I recount the troubles of Odysseus? Lead on at once, that I may wed my husband for his home in Hades’ halls. Base you are, and basely shall you be buried, in the dead of night when day is done, you captain of that army of Danaids, who think so proudly of your fortune! Yes, and the rocky chasm with its flood of wintry waters shall give my corpse cast forth in nakedness to wild beasts to make their meal upon, near my husband’s tomb, I, Apollo’s servant. O garlands of that god most dear to me! farewell, you mystic symbols! I here resign your feasts, my joy in days gone by. Go, I tear you from my body, that, while yet mine honor is intact, I may give them to the rushing winds to waft to you, my prince of prophecy! Where is that general’s ship? Where must I go to take my place there? Lose no further time in watching for a favoring breeze to fill your sails, doomed as you are to carry from this land one of the three avenging spirits. Fare you well, mother! dry your tears. O dear country! my brothers below the earth and my own father, it will not be long before you shall welcome me; victory shall crown my advent among the dead, when I have overthrown the home of our destroyers, the house of the sons of Atreus.

CHORUS LEADER: You guardians of the grey-haired Hecuba, see how your mistress is sinking speechless to the ground! Take hold of her! will you let her fall, you worthless slaves? lift up again, from where it lies, her withered body.

HECUBA: Leave me, my maidens—unwelcome service does not grow welcome—lying where I fell; my sufferings now, my troubles past, afflictions yet to come, all claim this lowly posture. Gods of heaven! small help I find in calling such allies, yet is there something in the form of invoking heaven, whenever we fall on evil days. First I will sing of my former blessings; so shall I inspire the greater pity for my present woes. Born to royal estate and wedded to a royal lord, I was the mother of a race of gallant sons; no mere ciphers they, but Phrygia’s chiefest pride, children such as no Trojan or Hellenic or barbarian mother ever had to boast. All these have I seen slain by the spear of Hellas, and at their tombs have I shorn off my hair; with these my eyes I saw their father, Priam, butchered on his own hearth, and my city captured, nor did others bring this bitter news to me. The maidens I brought up to see chosen for some marriage high, for strangers have I reared them, and seen them snatched away. Nevermore can I hope to be seen by them, nor shall my eyes behold them ever in the days to come. And last, to crown my misery, I shall be brought to Hellas, a slave in my old age. And there the tasks that least befit the evening of my life will they impose on me, Hector’s mother, to watch their gates and keep the keys, or bake their bread, and on the ground instead of my royal bed lay down my shrunken limbs, with tattered rags about my wasted frame, a shameful garb for those who once were prosperous. Ah, woe is me! and this is what I bear and am to bear for one woman’s marriage! O my daughter, O Cassandra! whom gods have summoned to their frenzied train, how cruel the lot that ends your virgin days! And you, Polyxena! my child of sorrow, where, oh! where are you? None of all the many sons and daughters I have born comes to aid a wretched mother. Why then raise me up? What hope is left us? Guide me, who before trod so daintily the streets of Troy, but now am a slave, to a bed upon the ground, near some rocky ridge, that from there I may cast myself down and perish, after I have wasted my body with weeping. Of all the prosperous crowd, count none a happy man before he die.

CHORUS: Sing me, Muse, a tale of Troy, a funeral dirge in strains unheard as yet, with tears; for now I will uplift for Troy a piteous chant, telling how I met my doom and fell a wretched captive to the Argives by reason of a four-footed beast that moved on wheels, when Achaea’s sons left at our.gates that horse, loud rumbling to the sky, with its trappings of gold and its freight of warriors; and our people cried out as they stood upon the rocky citadel, Up now, you whose toil is over, and drag this sacred image to the shrine of the Zeus-born maiden, goddess of our Ilium! Forth from his house came every youth and every grey-head too; and with songs of joy they took the fatal snare within.

Part 5

CHORUS: Then hastened all the race of Phrygia to the gates, to make the goddess a present of an Argive band ambushed in the polished mountain-pine, Dardania’s ruin, a welcome gift to be to her, the virgin queen of deathless steeds; and with nooses of cord they dragged it, as it had been a ship’s dark hull, to the stone-built temple of the goddess Pallas, and set it on that floor so soon to drink our country’s blood. But, as they labored and made merry, came on the pitchy night; loud the Libyan flute was sounding, and Phrygian songs awoke, while maidens beat the ground with airy foot, uplifting their glad song; and in the halls a blaze of torchlight shed its flickering shadows on sleeping eyes.

CHORUS: In that hour around the house I was singing as I danced to that maiden of the hills, the child of Zeus; when there rang along the town a cry of death which filled the homes of Troy, and babies in terror clung about their mothers’ skirts, as forth from their ambush came the warrior-band, the handiwork of maiden Pallas. Soon the altars ran with Phrygian blood, and desolation reigned over every bed where young men lay beheaded, a glorious crown for Hellas won, for her, the nurse of youth, but for our Phrygian fatherland a bitter grief.

CHORUS LEADER: Hecuba, do you see Andromache advancing here on a foreign chariot? and with her, clasped to her throbbing breast, is her dear Astyanax, Hector’s child. Where are you being carried, unhappy wife, mounted on that chariot, side by side with Hector’s brazen arms and Phrygian spoils of war, with which Achilles’ son will deck the shrines of Phthia on his return from Troy?

ANDROMACHE: My Achaean masters are leading me away.

HECUBA: Ah me!

ANDROMACHE: Why do you in note of woe utter the dirge that is mine?

HECUBA: Alas—

ANDROMACHE: For these sorrows—

HECUBA: O Zeus—

ANDROMACHE: And for this calamity.

HECUBA: O my children!

ANDROMACHE: Our day is past.

HECUBA: Joy is gone, Troy is gone.

ANDROMACHE: Unhappy!

HECUBA: For my gallant sons

ANDROMACHE: Alas!

HECUBA: Alas indeed, for my

ANDROMACHE: Misery!

HECUBA: Piteous the fate

ANDROMACHE: Of our city,

Part 6

HECUBA: Smouldering in the smoke.

ANDROMACHE: Come to me, my husband, come to me!

HECUBA: Ah, hapless wife! you call on my son who lies in the tomb.

ANDROMACHE: Your wife’s defender!

HECUBA: Oh, you, who before made the Achaeans grieve, eldest of the sons I bore to Priam, take me to your rest in Hades’ halls!

ANDROMACHE: These great griefs—

HECUBA: Unhappy one, bitter these woes to bear.

ANDROMACHE: Our city ruined—

HECUBA: And sorrow to sorrow added.

ANDROMACHE: Through the will of angry heaven, since the day that son of yours escaped death, he that for a hated bride brought destruction on the Trojan citadel. There lie the gory corpses of the slain by the shrine of Pallas for vultures to carry off; and Troy has come to slavery’s yoke.

HECUBA: O my country, O unhappy land—

ANDROMACHE: I weep for you now left behind.

HECUBA: Now do you behold your piteous end.

ANDROMACHE: And you, my house, where I gave birth.

HECUBA: O my children! bereft of her city as your mother is, she now is losing you. Oh, what mourning and what sorrow! . . . oh, what endless streams of tears in our houses! The dead alone forget their griefs .

CHORUS LEADER: What sweet relief to sufferers it is to weep, to mourn, lament, and chant the dirge that tells of grief!

ANDROMACHE: Do you see this, mother of that man, Hector, who once laid low in battle many a son of Argos?

HECUBA: I see that it is heaven’s way to exalt what men accounted nothing, and ruin what they most esteemed.

ANDROMACHE: Hence with my child as booty am I borne; the noble are brought to slavery—a bitter change.

HECUBA: This is necessity’s grim law; it was just now that Cassandra was torn with brutal violence from my arms.

Part 7

ANDROMACHE: Alas, alas! it seems a second Aias has appeared to wrong your daughter; but there are other ills for you.

HECUBA: Yes, beyond all count or measure are my sorrows; evil vies with evil in the struggle to be first.

ANDROMACHE: Your daughter Polyxena is dead, slain at Achilles’ tomb, an offering to his lifeless corpse.

HECUBA: O woe is me! This is that riddle Talthybius long ago told me, a truth obscurely uttered.

ANDROMACHE: I saw her myself; so I alighted from the chariot, and covered her corpse with a mantle, and struck upon my breast.

HECUBA: Alas! my child, for your unhallowed sacrifice! and yet again, alas! for your shameful death!

ANDROMACHE: Her death was even as it was, and yet that death of hers was after all a happier fate than my life.

HECUBA: Death and life are not the same, my child; the one is annihilation, the other keeps a place for hope.

ANDROMACHE: Hear, O mother of children! give ear to what I urge so well, that I may cheer my drooping spirit. It is all one, I say, never to have been born and to be dead, and better far is death than life with misery. For the dead feel no sorrow any more and know no grief; but he who has known prosperity and has fallen on evil days feels his spirit straying from the scene of former joys. Now that child of yours is dead as though she never had seen the light, and little she knows of her calamity; whereas I, who aimed at a fair repute, though I won a higher lot than most, yet missed my luck in life. For all that stamps the wife a woman chaste, I strove to do in Hector’s home. In the first place, whether there is a slur upon a woman, or whether there is not, the very fact of her not staying at home brings in its train an evil name; therefore I gave up any longing to do so, and stayed within my house; nor would I admit indoors the clever gossip women love, but conscious of a heart that told an honest tale I was content. And ever would I keep a silent tongue and modest eye before my husband; and well I knew where I might rule him, and where it was best to yield. Report of this has reached the Achaean army, and proved my ruin; for when I was taken captive, Achilles’ son would have me as his wife, and I must serve in the house of murderers. And if I set aside my love for Hector, and open my heart to this new lord, I shall appear a traitress to the dead, while, if I hate him, I shall incur my master’s displeasure. And yet they say a single night removes a woman’s dislike for her husband; I despise the woman who, when she has lost her former husband, transfers her love by marrying another. Not even the horse, if parted from her stablemate, will cheerfully draw the yoke; and animals have neither speech nor sense to help them, and are by nature man’s inferiors. O my dear Hector, in you I found a husband amply dowered with wisdom, noble birth and fortune, a brave man and a mighty; while you took from my father’s house a spotless bride, yourself the first to make this maiden wife. But now death has claimed you, and I am soon to sail to Hellas, a captive doomed to wear the yoke of slavery. Has not then the dead Polyxena, for whom you wail, less evil to bear than I? I have not so much as hope, the last resource of every human heart, nor do I beguile myself with dreams of future bliss, the very thought of which is sweet.

CHORUS LEADER: You are in the same plight as I; your lamentations for yourself remind me of my own sad case.

HECUBA: I never yet have set foot on a ship’s deck, though I have seen such things in pictures and know of them from hearsay. Now sailors, if there comes a storm of moderate force, are all eagerness to save themselves by toil; one stands at the tiller, another sets himself to work the sheets, a third meanwhile is baling out the ship; but if tempestuous waves arise to overwhelm them, they yield to fortune and commit themselves to the driving billows. Even so I, by reason of my countless troubles, am speechless and forbear to say a word; for this surge of misery from the gods is too strong for me. Cease, my darling child, to speak of Hector’s fate; no tears of yours can save him; honor your present master, offering your sweet nature as the bait to win him. If you do this, you will cheer your friends as well as yourself and you shalt rear my Hector’s child to lend stout aid to Ilium, that so your children in the aftertime may build her up again, and our city yet be established. But our talk must take a different turn; who is this Achaean servant I see coming here again, sent to tell us of some new design?

TALTHYBIUS: You that once were the wife of Hector, bravest of the Phrygians, do not hate me, for I am not a willing messenger. The Danaids and sons of Pelops both command—

ANDROMACHE: What is it? your prelude bodes evil news.

TALTHYBIUS: It is decreed your son is—how can I tell my news?

ANDROMACHE: Surely not to have a different master from me?

TALTHYBIUS: None of all Achaea’s chiefs shall ever lord it over him.

ANDROMACHE: Is it their will to leave him here, a remnant of Phrygia’s race?

TALTHYBIUS: I know no words to break the sorrow lightly to you.

ANDROMACHE: I thank you for your consideration, unless indeed you have good news to tell.

TALTHYBIUS: They mean to slay your son; there is my hateful message to you.

Part 8

ANDROMACHE: Oh me! this is worse tidings than my forced marriage.

TALTHYBIUS: So spoke Odysseus to the assembled Hellenes, and his word prevails.

ANDROMACHE: Oh, once again alas! there is no measure in the woes I bear.

TALTHYBIUS: He said they should not rear so brave a father’s son.

ANDROMACHE: May such counsels prevail about children of his!

TALTHYBIUS: He must be thrown from Troy’s battlements. Let it be so, and you will show more wisdom; do not cling to him, but bear your sorrows with heroic heart, nor in your weakness think that you are strong. For nowhere do you have any help; consider this you must; your husband and your city are no more, so you are in our power, and I alone am match enough for one woman; therefore I would not see you bent on strife, or any course to bring you shame or hate, nor would I hear you rashly curse the Achaeans. For if you say anything to anger the army, this child will find no burial nor pity either. But if you hold your peace and with composure take your fate, you will not leave his corpse unburied, and you yourself will find more favor with the Achaeans.

ANDROMACHE: My dearest! my own sweet child and priceless treasure! your death the foe demands, and you must leave your wretched mother. That which saves the lives of others, proves your destruction—your father’s nobility; to you your father’s valiancy has proved no gift. O my unlucky bed and marriage, that brought me once to Hector’s home, hoping to be the mother of a son that should rule over Asia’s fruitful fields instead of serving as a victim to the Danaids! Do you weep, my child? do you know your hapless fate? Why clutch me with your hands and to my garment cling, nestling like a tender chick beneath my wing? Hector will not rise from the earth and come gripping his famous spear to bring you salvation; no kinsman of your father appears, nor might of Phrygian hosts; one dreadful headlong leap from the dizzy height and you will dash out your life with none to pity you! Oh to clasp your tender limbs, a mother’s fondest joy! Oh to breathe your fragrant breath! In vain it seems these breasts did suckle you, wrapped in your swaddling-clothes; all for nothing I used to toil and wear myself away! Kiss your mother now for the last time, nestle to her that bore you, twine your arms about my neck and join your lips to mine! O you Hellenes, cunning to devise new forms of cruelty, why slay this child who never wronged any? You daughter of Tyndareus, you are no child of Zeus, but I say you were born of many a father, first of some evil demon, next of Envy, then of Murder and of Death, and every horror that the earth breeds. That Zeus was never father of yours I boldly do assert, bane as you have been to many a Hellene and barbarian too. Destruction catch you! Those fair eyes of yours have brought a shameful ruin on the fields of glorious Troy. Take the child and bear him hence, hurl him down if you wish, then feast upon his flesh! It is the gods’ will we perish, and I cannot ward the deadly stroke from my child. Hide me and my misery; cast me into the ship’s hold; for it is to a fair wedding I am going, now that I have lost my child!

CHORUS LEADER: Unhappy Troy! you have lost countless men for the sake of one woman and her hateful bed.

TALTHYBIUS: Come, child, leave fond embracing of your woeful mother, and mount the high coronal of your ancestral towers, there to draw your parting breath, as is ordained. Take him away. His should the duty be to do such herald’s work, whose heart knows no pity and who loves ruthlessness more than my soul does. Exeunt Andromache and Talthybius with Astyanax.

HECUBA: O child, son of my hapless boy, an unjust fate robs me and your mother of your life. How is it with me? What can I do for you, luckless one? For you I strike upon my head and beat my breast, my only gift; for that is in my power. Woe for my city! woe for you! What sorrow do we not have? What is wanting now to our utter and immediate ruin?

CHORUS: O Telamon, King of Salamis, the feeding-ground of bees, who have your home in a seagirt isle that lies near the holy hills where first Athena made the grey olive branch to appear, a crown for heavenly heads and a glory to happy Athens, you came, you came in knightly brotherhood with that great archer, Alcmena’s son, to sack our city Ilium, in days gone by, ;

CHORUS: When he led the chosen flower of Hellas, vexed for the steeds, and at the fair stream of Simois he stayed his sea-borne ship and fastened cables to the stern, and forth from the ship he took the bow his hand could deftly shoot, to be the doom of Laomedon; and with the ruddy breath of fire he wasted the masonry squared by Phoebus’ line and chisel, and sacked the land of Troy; so twice in two attacks has the blood-stained spear destroyed Dardania’s walls.

CHORUS: In vain, it seems, you Phrygian boy pacing with dainty step among your golden chalices, do you fill high the cup of Zeus, a lovely service; the land of your birth is being consumed by fire. The shore re-echoes to our cries; and, as a bird bewails its young, so we bewail our husbands or our children, or our old mothers. The dew-fed springs where you bathed, the course where you trained, are now no more; but you beside the throne of Zeus are sitting with a calm, sweet smile upon your fair young face, while the spear of Hellas has destroyed the land of Priam.

CHORUS: Ah! Love, Love, who once sought these Dardanian halls, deep-seated in the hearts of heavenly gods, how high you made Troy to tower in those days, allying her with deities! But I will cease to urge reproaches against Zeus; for white-winged dawn, whose light is dear to man, turned a baleful eye upon our land and watched the ruin of our citadel, though she had within her bridal bower a husband to give her children, from this land, whom once a chariot of gold spangled stars caught up and carried there, great source of hope to his native country ; but all the love the gods once had for Troy is passed away.

MENELAUS: Hail! you radiant flare of the sun, by whose fair light I now shall capture her that was my wife, Helen; for I am that Menelaus, who has toiled so hard, I and Achaea’s army. I came to Troy, not so much as men suppose for, the sake of a woman, but to punish the man who from my house stole my wife, traitor to my hospitality. But he, by the gods’ will, has paid the penalty, ruined, and his country too, by the spear of Hellas. And I have come to bear that wretched woman away—wife I have no mind to call her, though she once was mine—for now she is one among the other Trojan women who share these tents as captives. For they, the very men who who toiled to take her with the spear, have granted to me to slay her, or, if I will, to spare and carry back with me to Argos. Now my purpose is not to put her to death in Troy, but to carry her to Hellas in my sea-borne ship, and then surrender her to death, a recompense to all whose friends were slain in Ilium. Ho! my servants, enter the tent, and drag her out to me by her hair foul with murder; and when a favoring breeze shall blow, to Hellas will we convey her.

HECUBA: O you that do support the earth and rest thereupon, whoever you are, a riddle past our knowledge! Zeus, owhether you are natural necessity, or man’s intellect, to you I pray; for, though you tread over a noiseless path, all your dealings with mankind are guided by justice.

MENELAUS: What is this? Strange the prayer you offer to the gods!

HECUBA: I thank you, Menelaus, if you will slay that wife of yours. Yet shun the sight of her, lest she strike you with longing. For she ensnares the eyes of men, overthrows their towns, and burns their houses, so potent are her witcheries! Well I know her; so do you and those her victims too.

HELEN: Menelaus! this prelude well may fill me with alarm; for I am taken with violence by your servants’ hands and brought before these tents. Still, though I am sure you hate me, yet I want to inquire what you and Hellas have decided about my life.

MENELAUS: To judge your case required no great exactness; the army with one consent, that army whom you wronged, handed you over to me to die.

Part 9

HELEN: May I answer this decision, proving that my death, if I am to die, will be unjust?

MENELAUS: I came not to argue, but to slay you.

HECUBA: Hear her, Menelaus; let her not die for want of that, and let me answer her again, for you know nothing of her villainies in Troy; and the whole case, if summed up, will insure her death against all chance of an escape.

MENELAUS: This gift needs leisure; still, if she wishes to speak, she may. Yet I will grant her this because of your words, that she may hear them, and not for her own sake.

HELEN: Perhaps you will not answer me, from counting me a foe, whether my words seem good or ill. Yet I will put my charges and yours over against each other, and then reply to the accusations I suppose you will advance against me. First, then, that woman was the author of these troubles by giving birth to Paris; next, old Priam ruined Troy and me, because he did not slay his child Alexander, baleful semblance of a fire-brand, long ago. Hear what followed. This man was to judge the claims of three rival goddesses; so Pallas offered him command of all the Phrygians, and the destruction of Hellas; Hera promised he should spread his dominion over Asia, and the utmost bounds of Europe, if he would decide for her; but Cypris spoke in rapture of my loveliness, and promised him this gift, if she should have the preference over those two for beauty. Now mark the inference I deduce from this; Cypris won the day over the goddesses, and thus far has my marriage proved of benefit to Hellas, that you are not subject to barbarian rule, neither vanquished in the strife, nor yet by tyrants crushed. What Hellas gained, was ruin to me, sold for my beauty, and now I am reproached for that which should have set a crown upon my head. But you will say I am silent on the real matter at hand, how it was I started forth and left your house by stealth. With no small goddess at his side he came, my evil genius, call him Alexander or Paris, as you will; and you, villain, left him behind in your house, and sailed away from Sparta to the land of Crete. Enough of this! For all that followed I must question myself, not you; what thought led me to follow the stranger from your house, traitress to my country and my home? Punish the goddess, show yourself more mighty even than Zeus, who, though he lords it over the other gods, is her slave; therefore I may well be pardoned. Still, from this you might draw a specious argument against me; when Paris died, and earth concealed his corpse, I should have left his house and sought the Argive fleet, since my marriage was no longer in the hands of gods. That was what I was eager to do; and the warders on the towers and watchmen on the walls can bear me witness, for often they found me seeking to let myself down stealthily by cords from the battlements . How then, my lord, could I be justly put to death . . . by you, with any show of right, seeing that he wedded me against my will, and those my other natural gifts have served a bitter slavery, instead of leading on to triumph? If it is your will indeed to master gods, that very wish displays your folly.

CHORUS LEADER: O my royal mistress, defend your children’s and your country’s cause, bringing to nothing her persuasive arguments, for she pleads well in spite of all her villainy; this is monstrous!

HECUBA: First I will take up the cause of those goddesses, and prove how she perverts the truth. For I can never believe that Hera or the maiden Pallas would have been guilty of such folly, the one to sell her Argos to barbarians, or that Pallas ever would make her Athens subject to the Phrygians, coming as they did in mere wanton sport to Ida to contest the palm of beauty. For why should goddess Hera set her heart so much on such a prize? Was it to win a nobler lord than Zeus? or was Athena hunting down among the gods a husband, she who in her dislike of marriage won from her father the gift of remaining unwed? Do not seek to impute folly to the goddesses, in the attempt to adorn your own sin; never will you persuade the wise. Next you have said—what well may make men jeer—that Cypris came with my son to the house of Menelaus. Could she not have stayed quietly in heaven and brought you and Amyclae as well to Ilium? No! my son was exceedingly handsome, and when you saw him your mind straight became your Aphrodite; for every folly that men commit, they lay upon this goddess, and rightly does her name begin the word for senselessness; so when you caught sight of him in gorgeous foreign clothes, ablaze with gold, your senses utterly forsook you. Yes, for in Argos you had moved in simple state, but, once free of Sparta, it was your hope to deluge by your lavish outlay Phrygia’s town, that flowed with gold; nor was the palace of Menelaus rich enough for your luxury to riot in. Enough of this! My son carried you off by force, so you say; what Spartan saw this? what cry for help did you ever raise, though Castor was still alive, a vigorous youth, and his brother also, not yet among the stars? Then when you had come to Troy, and the Argives were on your track, and the mortal combat had begun, whenever tidings came to you of Menelaus’ prowess, you would praise him, to grieve my son, because he had so powerful a rival in his love; but if the Trojans prospered, Menelaus was nothing to you. Your eye was fixed on Fortune, and by such practice you were careful to follow in her steps, careless of virtue’s cause. And then you assert that you tried to let yourself down from the towers by stealth with twisted cords, as if unwilling to stay? Where were you ever found fastening the noose about your neck, or whetting the knife, as a noble wife would have done in regret for her former husband? And yet often I advised you saying, Get away, daughter; my sons will take other brides, and I will belp you to steal away, and convey you to the Achaean fleet; oh, end the strife between us and Hellas! But this was bitter to you. For you were wantoning in Alexander’s house, wishing to have obeisance done you by barbarians. Yes, it was a proud time for you; and now after all this you have adorned yourself, and come forth and have dared to appear under the same sky as your husband, revolting wretch! Better if you had come in tattered raiment, cowering humbly in terror, with hair cut short, and if your feeling for your past sins were one of shame rather than effrontery. Menelaus, hear the conclusion of my argument; crown Hellas by slaying her as she deserves, and establish this law for all other women: death to every one who betrays her husband.

CHORUS LEADER: Avenge yourself, Menelaus, on your wife, as is worthy of your home and ancestors, clear yourself from the reproach of effeminacy at the lips of Hellas, and let your foes see your spirit.

MENELAUS: Your thoughts coincide with mine, that she, without constraint, left my palace, and sought a stranger’s bed, and now Cypris is introduced for mere bluster. Away to those who shall stone you, and by your speedy death requite the weary toils of the Achaeans, so that you may learn not to bring shame on me!

HELEN: Oh, by your knees, I implore you, do not impute that heaven-sent affliction to me, or slay me; forgive me!

HECUBA: Do not betray your allies, whose death this woman caused; on their behalf, and for my children’s sake, I entreat you.

MENELAUS: Peace, revered lady; to her I pay no heed. I bid my servants take her away, aboard the ship, in which she is to sail.

HECUBA: Oh never let her set foot within the same ship as you.

MENELAUS: Why is that? is she heavier than before?

HECUBA: The one who loves once, must love always.

MENELAUS: Why, that depends how those we love are minded. But your wish shall be granted; she shall not set foot upon the same ship with me; for your advice is surely sound; and when she comes to Argos she shall die a shameful death as is her due, and impress the need of chastity on all women. No easy task; yet shall her fate strike their foolish hearts with terror, even though they are more lost to shame than she. Exit Menelaus, dragging Helen with him.

CHORUS: So then you have delivered into Achaea’s hand, O Zeus, your shrine in Ilium and your fragrant altar, the offerings of burnt sacrifice with smoke of myrrh to heaven uprising, and holy Pergamos, and glens of Ida tangled with the ivy’s growth, where rills of melting snow pour down their flood, a holy sun-lit land that bounds the world and takes the god’s first rays!

CHORUS: Gone are your sacrifices! gone the dancer’s cheerful shout! gone the vigils of the gods as night closed in! your images of carven gold are now no more; and Phrygia’s holy festivals, twelve times a year, at each full moon, are ended now. It is this, it is this that fills me with anxious thought whether you, lord, seated on the sky, your heavenly throne, care at all that my city is destroyed, a prey to the furious fiery blast.

CHORUS: Ah! my loved husband, you are a wandering spectre; unwashed, unburied lies your corpse, while over the sea the ship sped by wings will carry me to Argos, land of steeds, where stand Cyclopian walls of stone reaching to heaven. There in the gate the children gather, and weep their piteous lamentation; they cry, they cry: Mother, alas! torn from your sight, the Achaeans bear me away from you to their dark ship to row me over the deep to sacred Salamis or to the hill on the Isthmus, that overlooks two seas, the seat that holds the gates of Pelops.

CHORUS: Oh may the sacred blazing thunderbolt of the Aegean, hurled in might, smite the ship of Menelaus full in the middle, on its way in mid-sea, since he is carrying me away in bitter sorrow from the shores of Ilium to be a slave in Hellas, while the daughter of Zeus still keeps her golden mirrors, delight of maidens’ hearts. Never may he reach his home in Laconia or his father’s hearth and home, nor come to the town of Pitane or the temple of the goddess with the gates of bronze, having taken as his captive the one whose marriage brought disgrace on Hellas through its length and breadth and woful anguish on the streams of Simois!

Part 10

CHORUS LEADER: All me! ah me! new troubles fall on my country, to take the place of those that still are fresh! Behold, you hapless wives of Troy, the corpse of Astyanax, whom the Danaids have cruelly slain by hurling him from the battlements.

TALTHYBIUS: Hecuba, one ship alone delays its plashing oars, and it is soon to sail to the shores of Phthia freighted with the remnant of the spoils of Achilles’ son; for Neoptolemus is already out at sea, having heard that new calamities have befallen Peleus, for Acastus, son of Pelias, has banished him from the realm. Therefore he is gone, too quick to indulge in any delay, and with him goes Andromache, who drew many tears from me when she set out from the land, wailing her country and crying her farewell to Hector’s tomb. And she begged her master leave to bury this poor dead child of Hector who breathed his last when hurled from the turrets; entreating too that he would not carry this shield, the terror of the Achaeans—this shield with plates of brass with which his father would gird himself—to the home of Peleus or to the same bridal bower where she, Andromache, the mother of this corpse, would be wed, a bitter sight to her, but let her bury the child in it instead of in a coffin of cedar or a tomb of stone, and to your hands commit the corpse that you may deck it with robes and garlands as best you can with your present means; for she is far away and her master’s haste prevented her from burying the child herself. So we, when you have decked the corpse, will heap the earth above and set upon it a spear; but do you with your best speed perform your allotted task; one toil however I have already spared you, for I crossed Scamander’s stream and bathed the corpse and cleansed its wounds. But now I will go to dig a grave for hiin, that our united efforts shortening our task may speed our ship towards home. Exit Talthybius.

HECUBA: Place the shield upon the ground, Hector’s shield so deftly rounded, a piteous sight, a bitter grief for me to see. O you Achaeans, more reason have you to boast of your prowess than your wisdom. Why have you in terror of this child been guilty of a murder never matched before? Did you fear that some day he would rear again the fallen walls of Troy? It seems then you were nothing after all, when, though Hector’s fortunes in the war were prosperous and he had ten thousand other arms to back him, we still were daily overmatched; and yet, now that our city is taken and every Phrygian slain, you fear a tender child like this! I do not commend the fear of one who fears but never yet has reasoned out the cause. Ah! my beloved, yours is a piteous death indeed! If you had died for your city, when you had tasted of the sweets of manhood, of marriage, and of godlike power over others, then were you blessed, if anything here is blessed. But now after one glimpse, one dream of them, you know them no more, my child, and have no joy of them, though heir to all. Ah, poor child! how sadly have your own father’s walls, those towers that Loxias reared, shorn from your head the locks your mother fondled, and so often caressed, from which through fractured bones the face of murder grins—briefly to dismiss my shocking theme. O hands, how sweet the likeness you retain of his father, and yet you lie Iimp in your sockets before me! Dear mouth, so often full of words of pride, death has closed you, and you have not kept the promise you made, when nestling in my robe, Ah, mother, many a lock of my hair I will cut off for you, and to your tomb will lead my troops of friends, taking a fond farewell of you. But now I am not to be buried by you, but you, the younger one, a wretched corpse, are buried by me, on whom old age has come with loss of home and children. Ah me, those kisses numberless, the nurture that I gave to you, those sleepless nights—they all are lost! What shall the bard inscribe upon your tomb about you? Argives once for fear of him slew this child? Foul shame should that inscription be to Hellas. O child, though you have no part in all your father’s wealth, yet shall you have his brazen shield in which to find a tomb. Ah! shield that kept safe the comely arm of Hector, now have you lost your valiant keeper! How fair upon your handle lies his imprint, and on the rim that circles around are marks of sweat, that trickled often from Hector’s brow as he pressed it against his beard in battle’s stress. Come, bring forth, from such store as you have, adornment for the hapless dead, for fortune gives no chance now for lovely offerings; yet of such as I possess, you shall receive these gifts. He is a foolish mortal who thinks his luck secure and so rejoices; for fortune, like a madman in her moods, springs towards this man, then towards that; and no one ever experiences the same unchanging luck.

CHORUS LEADER: Look! all is ready and they are bringing at your bidding from the spoils of Troy adornment to put upon the dead.

HECUBA: Ah! my child, it is not as victor over your comrades with horse or bow—customs Troy esteems, without pursuing them to excess—that Hector’s mother decks you now with ornaments from the store that once was yours, though now Helen, whom the gods abhor, has bereft you of your own, yes, and robbed you of your life and caused your house to perish root and branch.

CHORUS: Woe! thrice woe! my heart is touched, and you the cause, my mighty prince in days now passed!

HECUBA: About your body now I swathe this Phrygian robe of honor, which should have clad you on your marriage-day, wedded to the noblest of Asia’s daughters. You too, dear shield of Hector, victorious parent of countless triumphs past, accept your crown, for though you share the dead child’s tomb, death cannot touch you; for you merit honors far beyond those arms that the crafty villain Odysseus won.

CHORUS: Alas! alas! you, O child, shall earth take to her breast, a cause for bitter weeping. Mourn, you mother!

HECUBA: Alas!

CHORUS: Wail for the dead.

HECUBA: Woe is me!

CHORUS: Woe indeed for your unending sorrow!

HECUBA: Your wounds in part I will bind up with bandages, a wretched healer in name alone, without reality; but for the rest your father must look to that among the dead.

CHORUS: Smite, oh smite upon your head with frequent blow of hand. Woe is me!

HECUBA: My kind, good friends—

CHORUS: Speak out, Hecuba, the word that was on your lips.

HECUBA: It seems the only things that heaven concerns itself about are my troubles and Troy hateful in their eyes above all other cities. In vain did we sacrifice to them. But if the god had not caught us in his grip and plunged us headlong beneath the earth, we should have been unheard of, and not ever sung in Muses’ songs, furnishing to bards of after-days a subject for their minstrelsy. Go, bury now in his poor tomb the dead, wreathed all duly as befits a corpse. And yet I think it makes little difference to the dead, if they get a gorgeous funeral; but this is a cause of idle pride to the living. The corpse is carried off to burial.

CHORUS LEADER: Alas! for your unhappy mother, who over your corpse has closed the high hopes of her life! Born of a noble stock, counted most happy in your lot, ah! what a tragic death is yours! Ha! who are those I see on yonder pinnacles darting to and fro with flaming torches in their hands? Some new calamity wiII soon alight on Troy.

TALTHYBIUS: You captains whose allotted task it is to fire this town of Priam, to you I speak. No longer keep the fire-brand idle in your hands, but launch the flame, that when we have destroyed the city of Ilium we may set forth in gladness on our homeward voyage from Troy. And you, you sons of Troy, to let my orders take at once a double form—start for the Achaean ships for your departure from the land, as soon as the leaders of the army blow loud and clear upon the trumpet. And you, unhappy grey-haired lady, follow; for here come servants from Odysseus to fetch you, for to him you are assigned by lot to be a slave far from your country.

HECUBA: Ah, woe is me! This surely is the last, the utmost limit, of all my sorrows; I go forth from my land; my city is ablaze with flame. Yet, you aged foot, make one painful struggle to haste, that I may say a farewell to this wretched town. O Troy, that before had such a grand career among barbarian towns, soon will you be bereft of that splendid name. They are burning you, and leading us even now from our land to slavery. O gods! Yet why do I call on the gods? They did not hearken ever before to our call. Come, let us rush into the flames, for to die with my country in its blazing ruin would be a noble death for me.

Part 11

TALTHYBIUS: Your sorrows drive you frantic, poor lady. Go, lead her away, make no delay, for you must deliver her into the hand of Odysseus, conveying to him his prize.

HECUBA: Woe! oh woe! Son of Cronos, prince of Phrygia, father of our race, do you behold our sufferings now, unworthy of the stock of Dardanus?

CHORUS: He sees them, but our mighty city is a city no more, and Troy’s day is done.

HECUBA: Woe! oh woe! Ilium is ablaze; the homes of Pergamos and its towering walls are now one sheet of flame.

CHORUS: As the smoke soars on wings to heaven, so sinks our city to the ground before the spear. With furious haste both fire and enemy spear devour each house.

HECUBA: Oh, earth, nourisher of my children!

CHORUS: Ah, ah!

HECUBA: Hearken, my children, hear your mother’s voice.

CHORUS: You are calling on the dead with voice of lamentation.

HECUBA: Yes, as I stretch my aged limbs upon the ground, and beat upon the earth with both my hands.

CHORUS: I follow you and kneel, invoking from the nether world my hapless husband.

HECUBA: I am being dragged and hurried away—

CHORUS: The sorrow, the sorrow of that cry!

HECUBA: To dwell beneath a master’s roof!

CHORUS: From my own country!

HECUBA: Woe is me! O Priam, Priam, slain, unburied, left without a friend, nothing do you know of my cruel fate.

CHORUS: No, for over his eyes black death has drawn his pall, a pure man slain by the impure.

HECUBA: Woe for the temples of the gods and for our dear city!

CHORUS: Ah, ah!

HECUBA: Murderous flame and enemy spear are now your lot.

Part 12

CHORUS: Soon will you tumble to your own loved soil, and be forgotten.

HECUBA: And the dust, mounting to heaven on wings like smoke, will rob me of the sight of my home.

CHORUS: The name of my country wiII pass into obscurity; all is scattered far and wide, and hapless Troy has ceased to be.

HECUBA: Did you know, did you hear?

CHORUS: Yes, it was the crash of the citadel.

HECUBA: The shock, the shock—

CHORUS: Will overwhelm our city utterly.

HECUBA: O woe is me! trembling, quaking limbs, support my footsteps! away! to face the day that begins your slavery.

CHORUS: Woe for our unhappy town! And yet let us advance to the Achaean fleet.

Contents — 29 sections

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3
4. Part 4
5. Part 5
6. Part 6
7. Part 7
8. Part 8
9. Part 9
10. Part 10
11. Part 11
12. Part 12
13. Part 13
14. Part 14
15. Part 15
16. Part 16
17. Part 17
18. Part 18
19. Part 19
20. Part 20
21. Part 21
22. Part 22
23. Part 23
24. Part 24
25. Part 25
26. Part 26
27. Part 27
28. Part 28
29. Part 29

Part 1

HERMES: Atlas, who bears upon his brazen back the pressure of the sky, ancient dwelling of the gods, begat Maia from a daughter of one of those gods, and she bare me Hermes to mighty Zeus, to be the servant of the powers divine. Lo! I am come to this land of Delphi where sits Phoebus on the centre of the world and giveth oracles to men, ever chanting lays prophetic of things that are to be. Now there is a city in Hellas of no small note, called after Pallas, goddess of the golden lance; there did Phoebus force his love on Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, beneath the rock of Pallas, northward of Athens’ steep realm, called Macrae by the kings of Attica. And she without her father’s knowledge—for such was the god’s good pleasure,— bore the burden in her womb unto the end, and when her time came, she brought forth a child in the house and carried him away to the selfsame cave wherein the god declared his love to her, and she cradled him in the hollow of a rounded ark and cast him forth to die, observant of the custom of her ancestors and of earth-born Erichthonius, whom the daughter of Zeus gave into the charge of the daughters of Agraulus, after setting on either side, to keep him safe, a guard of serpents twain. Hence in that land among the Erechthidae ’tis a custom to protect their babes with charms of golden snakes. But ere she left the babe to die, the young mother tied about him her own broidered robe. And this is the request that Phoebus craves of me, for he is my brother, Go, brother, to those children of the soil that dwell in glorious Athens, for well thou knowest Athena’s city, and take a new-born babe from out the hollow rock, his cradle and his swaddling-clothes as well, and bear him to my prophetic shrine at Delphi, and set him at the entering-in of my temple. What else remains shall be my care, for that child is mine, that thou mayst know it. So I, to do my brother Loxias a service, took up the woven ark and bore it off, and at the threshold of the shrine I have laid the babe, after opening the lid of the wicker cradle that the child might be seen. But just as the sun-god was starting forth to run his course, a priestess chanced to enter the god’s shrine; and when her eyes lit upon the tender babe she thought it strange that any Delphian maid should dare to cast her child of shame down at the temple of the god; wherefore her purpose was to remove him beyond the altar, but from pity she renounced her cruel thought, and the god to help his child did second her pity to save the babe from being cast out. So she took and brought him up, but she knew not that Phoebus was his sire nor of the mother that bare him, nor yet did the child know his parents. While yet he was a child, around the altar that fed him he would ramble at his play, but when he came to man’s estate, the Delphians made him treasurer of the god and steward of all his store, and found him true, and so until the present day he leads a holy life in the god’s temple. Meantime Creusa, mother of this youth, is wedded to Xuthus; and thus it came to pass; a war broke out ’twixt Athens and the folk of Chalcodon who dwell in the land of Euboea; and Xuthus took part therein and helped to end it, for which he received the hand of Creusa as his guerdon, albeit he was no native, but an Achaean, sprung from Aeolus, the son of Zeus; and after many years of wedded life he and Creusa still are childless; wherefore they are come to this oracle of Apollo in their desire for offspring. To this end is Loxias guiding their destiny nor hath it escaped his ken, as some suppose. For when Xuthus enters this shrine, the god will give him his own son and declare that Xuthus is the sire, that so the boy may come to his mother’s home and be acknowledged by Creusa, while the marriage of Loxias remains a secret and the child obtains his rights; and he shall cause him to be called Ion, founder of a realm in Asia, through all the breadth of Hellas. But now will I get me to yon grotto ’neath the laurel’s shade that I may learn what is decreed about the child. For I see the son of Loxias now coming forth to cleanse the gateway in front of the temple with boughs of laurel. I greet him first of all the gods by his name Ion which he soon shall bear.

ION: Lo! the sun-god is e’en now turning towards the earth his chariot-car resplendent; before yon fire the stars retire to night’s mysterious gloom from forth the firmament; the peaks of Parnassus, where no man may set foot, are all ablaze and hail the car of day for mortal’s service. Up mounts the smoke of myrrh, offering of the desert; to Phoebus’ roof; there on the holy tripod sits the Delphian priestess, chanting to the ears of Hellas in numbers loud, whate’er Apollo doth proclaim. Ye Delphians, votaries of Phoebus, away! to Castalia’s gushing fount as silver clear, and, when ye have bathed you in its waters pure, enter the shrine; and keep your lips in holy silence that it may be well, careful to utter words of good omen amongst yourselves to those who wish to consult the oracle; while I with laurel-sprays and sacred wreaths and drops of water sprinkled o’er the floor will purify the entrance to the shrine of Phoebus, my task each day from childhood’s hour; and with my bow will I put to flight the flocks of feathered fowls that harm his sacred offerings; for here in Phoebus’ shrine, which nurtured me, I minister, an orphan, fatherless and motherless.

ION: Come, thou tender laurel-shoot, gathered from gardens divine to wait upon the glorious god, thou that sweepest clean the altar of Phoebus hard by his shrine, where holy founts, that ever gush with ceaseless flow, bedew the myrtle’s hallowed spray wherewith I cleanse the temple-floor the livelong day, so soon as the swift sun-god wings his flight on high, in my daily ministration. Hail Paean, prince of healing! blest, ah! doubly blest be thou, child of Latona!

ION: Fair the service that I render to thee, Phoebus, before thy house, honouring thy seat of prophecy; a glorious task I count it, to serve not mortal man but deathless gods; wherefore I never weary of performing holy services. Phoebus is to me as the father that begot me, for as such I praise the god that gives me food. Whom I call by that helpful name of father, Tis Phoebus, who dwelleth in the temple, Hail Paean, healing god, good luck to thee and blessing, child of Latona!

ION: My task is nearly done of sweeping with the laurel broom, so now from a golden ewer will I sprinkle o’er the ground water from Castalia’s gushing spring, scattering the liquid dew with hands from all defilement free. Oh may I never cease thus to serve Phoebus, or, if I do, may fortune smile upon me! Ha! they come, the feathered tribes, leaving their nests on Parnassus. I forbid ye to settle on the coping or enter the gilded dome. Thou herald of Zeus, that masterest the might of other birds with those talons of thine, once more shall my arrow o’ertake thee. Lo! another comes sailing towards the altar, a swan this time; take thy bright plumes elsewhere; the lyre that Phoebus tuneth to thy song shall never save thee from the bow; so fly away, and settle at the Delian mere, for if thou wilt not hearken, thy blood shall choke the utterance of thy fair melody. Ha! what new bird comes now? Does it mean to lodge a nest of dry straw for its brood beneath the gables? Soon shall my twanging bow drive thee away. Dost not hear me? Away and rear thy young amid the streams of swirling Alpheus, or get thee to the woody Isthmian glen, that Phoebus’ offerings and his shrine may take no hurt. I am loth to slay ye, ye messengers to mortal man of messages from heaven; still must I serve Phoebus, to whose tasks I am devoted, nor will I cease to minister to those that give me food.

(FIRST) CHORUS: It is not in holy Athens only that there are courts of the gods with fine colonnades, and the worship of Apollo, guardian of highways; but here, too, at the shrine of Loxias, son of Latona, shines the lovely eye of day on faces twain.

(SECOND) CHORUS: Just look at this! here is the son of Zeus killing with his scimitar of gold the watersnake of Lerna. Do look at him, my friend!

(FIRST) CHORUS: Yes, I see. And close to him stands another with a blazing torch uplifted; who is he? Can this be the warrior Iolaus whose story is told on my broidery, who shares with the son of Zeus his labours and helps him in the moil?

(THIRD) CHORUS: Oh! but look at this! a man mounted on a winged horse, killing a fire-breathing monster with three bodies.

(FIRST) CHORUS: I am turning my eyes in every direction. Behold the rout of the giants carved on these walls of stone.

(FOURTH) CHORUS: Yes, yes, good friends, I am looking.

(FIFTH) CHORUS: Dost see her standing over Enceladus brandishing her shield with the Gorgon’s head?

(SIXTH) CHORUS: I see Pallas, my own goddess.

(SEVENTH) CHORUS: Again, dost see the massy thunderbolt all aflame in the far-darting hands of Zeus?

(EIGHTH) CHORUS: I do; ’tis blasting with its flame Mimas, that deadly foe.

(NINTH) CHORUS: Bromius too, the god of revelry, is slaying another of the sons of Earth with his thyrsus of ivy, never meant for battle.

(FIRST) CHORUS: Thou that art stationed by this fane, to thee I do address me, may we pass the threshold of these vaults, with our fair white feet?

ION: Nay, ye must not, stranger ladies.

(TENTH) CHORUS: May I ask thee about something I have heard?

ION: What wouldst thou ask?

Part 2

(ELEVENTH) CHORUS: Is it really true that the temple of Phoebus stands upon the centre of the world?

ION: Aye, there it stands with garlands decked and gorgeous all around.

(TWELFTH) CHORUS: E'en so the legend saith.

ION: If ye have offered a sacrificial cake before the shrine and have aught ye wish to ask Phoebus, approach the altar; but enter not the inmost sanctuary, save ye have sacrificed sheep.

(THIRTEENTH) CHORUS: I understand; but we have ho mind to trespass against the god’s law; the pictures here without will amuse us.

ION: Feast your eyes on all ye may.

(FOURTEENTH) CHORUS: My mistress gave me leave to see these vaulted chambers.

ION: Whose handmaids do ye avow yourselves?

(FIFTEENTH) CHORUS: The temple, where Pallas dwells, is the nursing-home of my lords. But lo! here is she of whom thou askest.

ION: Lady, whosoe’er thou art, I see thou art of noble birth, and thy bearing proves thy gentle breeding. For from his bearing one may mostly judge whether a man is nobly born. Yet am I much amazed to see thee close thine eyes in grief and with tears bedew thy noble face, when thou standest face to face with the holy oracle of Loxias. Why, lady, art thou thus disquieted? Here, where all others show their joy at sight of Phoebus’ sanctuary, thine eye is wet with tears.

CREUSA: Most courteously, sir stranger, dost thou express surprise at these my tears; the sight of this temple of Apollo recalled to me a memory of long ago, and somehow my thoughts went wandering home, though I am here myself. Ah, hapless race of women! ah, ye reckless gods! What shall I say? to what standard shall we refer justice if through the injustice of our lords and masters we are brought to ruin?

ION: Why, lady, art thou thus cast down, past all finding out?

CREUSA: ’Tis naught; I have shot my bolt; for what remains, I say no more, nor seek thou further to inquire.

ION: Who art thou and whence? who is the father that begat thee? by what name are we to call thee?

CREUSA: Creusa is my name, the daughter of Erechtheus I; my native land is Athens.

ION: A glorious city thine, lady, a noble line of ancestry! with what reverence I behold thee!

CREUSA: Thus far, no further goes my luck, good sir.

ION: Pray, is the current legend true—

CREUSA: What is thy question? I fain would learn.

ION: Was thy father’s grandsire really sprung from Earth?

Part 3

CREUSA: Yes, Erichthonius was; but my high birth avails me not

ION: Is it true Athena reared him from the ground?

CREUSA: Aye, and into maidens’ hands, though not his mother’s—

ION: Consigned him, did she? as ’tis wont to be set forth in painting.

CREUSA: Yes, to the daughters of Cecrops, to keep him safe unseen.

ION: I have heard the maidens opened the ark wherein the goddess laid him.

CREUSA: And so they died, dabbling with their blood the rocky cliff.

ION: Even so. But what of this next story? Is it true or groundless?

CREUSA: What is thy question? Ask on, I have no calls upon my leisure.

ION: Did thy sire Erechtheus offer thy sisters as a sacrifice?

CREUSA: For his country’s sake he did endure to slay the maids as victims.

ION: And how didst thou, alone of al thy sisters, escape?

CREUSA: I was still a tender babe in my mother’s arms.

ION: Did the earth really open its mouth and swallow thy father?

CREUSA: The sea-god smote and slew him with his trident.

ION: Is there a spot there called Macrae?

CREUSA: Why ask that? what memories thou recallest!

ION: Doth the Pythian god with his flashing fire do honour to the place?

CREUSA: Honour, yes! Honour, indeed! would I had never seen the spot!

ION: How now? dost thou abhor that which the god holds dear?

Part 4

CREUSA: No, no; but I and that cave are witnesses of a deed of shame.

ION: Lady, who is the Athenian lord that calls thee wife?

CREUSA: No citizen of Athens, but a stranger from another land.

ION: Who is he? he must have been one of noble birth.

CREUSA: Xuthus, son of Aeolus, sprung from Zeus.

ION: And how did he, a stranger, win thee a native born?

CREUSA: Hard by Athens lies a neighbouring township, Euboea.

ION: With a bounding line of waters in between, so I have heard.

CREUSA: This did he sack, making common cause with Cecrops’ sons.

ION: Coming as an ally, maybe; he won thy hand for this?

CREUSA: Yes, this was his dower of battle, the prize of his prowess.

ION: Art thou come to the oracle alone, or with thy lord?

CREUSA: With him. But he is now visiting the cavern of Trophonius.

ION: As a spectator merely, or to consult the oracle?

CREUSA: ’Tis his wish to hear the self-same answer from Trophonius and Phoebus too.

ION: Is it to seek earth’s produce or fruit of offspring that ye come?

CREUSA: We are childless, though wedded these many years.

ION: Hast thou never been a mother? art thou wholly childless?

CREUSA: Phoebus knows whether I am childless.

ION: Unhappy wife! how this doth mar thy fortune else so happy!

Part 5

CREUSA: But who art thou? how blest I count thy mother!

ION: Lady, I am called the servant of Apollo, and so I am.

CREUSA: An offering of thy city, or sold to him by some master?

ION: Naught know I but this, that I am called the slave of Loxias.

CREUSA: Then do i in my turn pity thee, sir stranger.

ION: Because I know not her that bare me, or him that begat me.

CREUSA: Is thy home here in the temple, or hast thou a house to dwell in?

ION: The god’s whole temple is my house, wherever sleep o’ertakes me.

CREUSA: Was it as a child or young man that thou earnest to the temple?

ION: Those who seem to know the truth, say I was but a babe.

CREUSA: What Delphian maid, then, weaned thee?

ION: I never knew a mother’s breast. But she who brought me up—

CREUSA: Who was she, unhappy youth? I see thy sufferings in my own.

ION: The priestess of Phoebus; I look oh her as my mother.

CREUSA: Until thou earnest unto man’s estate, what nurture hadst thou?

ION: The altar fed me, and the bounty of each casual guest.

CREUSA: Woe is thy mother, then, whoe’er she was!

ION: Maybe my birth was some poor woman’s wrong.

CREUSA: Hast thou any store, for thy dress is costly enough?

ION: The god I serve gives me these robes to wear.

Part 6

CREUSA: Wert thou never eager to inquire into thy birth?

ION: Ah! yes, lady! but I have no clue at all to guide me.

CREUSA: Alas! I know another woman who hath suffered as thy mother did.

ION: Who is she? If she would but help me in the task, how happy should I be!

CREUSA: ’Tis she on whose account I have preceded my husband hither.

ION: What are thy wishes? be sure I will serve thee, lady.

CREUSA: I would fain obtain a secret answer from Apollo’s oracle.

ION: Name it, then; the rest will I undertake for thee.

CREUSA: Hear, then, this story. Yet am I ashamed.

ION: Thus wilt thou accomplish naught, for shame is a goddess slow to act.

CREUSA: A friend of mine asserts that Phoebus lay with her.

ION: Phoebus with a mortal woman? Stranger lady, say not so.

CREUSA: Yea, and she bare the god a child without her father’s knowledge.

ION: It cannot be; some man did wrong her, and she is ashamed of it.

CREUSA: This she denieis herself; and she hath suffered further woe.

ION: How so, if she was wedded to a god?

CREUSA: The babe she bare she did expose.

ION: Where is the child who was thus cast forth? is he yet alive?

CREUSA: No man knoweth. That is the very thing I would ask the oracle.

ION: But if he be no more, how did he perish?

Part 7

CREUSA: She supposes that beasts devoured the hapless babe.

ION: What proof led her to form this opinion?

CREUSA: She came to the place where she exposed him, but found him no longer there.

ION: Were any drops of blood upon the path?

CREUSA: None, she says; and yet she ranged the ground to and fro.

ION: How long is it since the babe was destroyed?

CREUSA: Thy age and his would measure out the self-same span, were he alive.

ION: Hath she given birth to no other child since then?

CREUSA: The god doth wrong her, and wretched is she in having no child.

ION: But what if Phoebus privily removed her child, and is rearing it?

CREUSA: Then is he acting unfairly in keeping to himself alone a joy he ought to share.

ION: Ah me! this misfortune sounds so like my own.

CREUSA: Thee too, fair sir, thy poor mother misses, I am sure.

ION: Oh! call me not back to piteous thoughts I had forgotten.

CREUSA: I am dumb; proceed with that which touches my inquiry.

ION: Dost know the one weak point in this thy story?

CREUSA: ’Tis all weak in that poor lady’s case.

ION: How should the god declare that which he wishes hidden?

CREUSA: He must, if here upon the tripod he sits for all Hellas to seek to.

ION: He is ashamed of the deed; do not question him.

Part 8

CREUSA: Aye, but his victim has her sorrows too.

ION: There is none who will act as thy medium in this. For were Phoebus in his own temple proved a villain, he would justly wreak his vengeance on the man who expounded to thee his oracles; desist then, lady; we must not prophesy against the god’s will, for it would be the height of folly in us, were we to try and make the gods against their will declare reluctant truths either by sacrifice of sheep at their altars, or by omens from birds. For those answers we strive to extort from heaven, lady, are goods that bring no blessing on our getting; but what they freely offer, thereby we profit.

CHORUS: Many are the chances that befall the many tribes of men, and diverse are their forms. But scarce one happy scene canst thou find in all the life of man.

CREUSA: Ah! Phoebus, here as there, art thou unjust to that absent sufferer, whose cause I now am pleading. Thou didst not preserve thy child, as in duty bound, nor wilt thou, for all thy prophetic skill, answer his mother’s questioning, that, if he be no more, a mound may be raised o’er him, or, if he live, he may some day be restored to his mother’s eyes. In vain is this the home of oracles if the god prevents me from learning what I wish to ask. But lo! I see my noble lord, Xuthus, nigh at hand, returning 278 from the lair of Trophonius; say nothing, sir, to my husband of what I have told thee, lest I incur reproach for troubling about secrets, and the matter take a different turn to that which I sought to give it. For women stand towards men in a difficult position, and the virtuous from being mingled with the wicked amongst us are hated; such is our unhappy destiny.

XUTHUS: First to the god all hail! for he must receive the first-fruits of my salutation, and next all hail to thee, my wife! Has my delay in arriving caused thee alarm?

CREUSA: By no means; but thou art come at an anxious time. Tell me what response thou bringest from Trophonius, touching our future hopes of mutual offspring.

XUTHUS: He deigned not to forestal the prophecies of Phoebus. This only did he say, that neither thou nor I should return unto our house childless from the shrine.

CREUSA: Majestic mother of Phoebus, to our journey grant success, and may our previous dealings with thy son now find a better issue!

XUTHUS: It will be so; but who acts as the god’s spokesman here?

ION: I serve outside the shrine, others within, who stand near the tripod, even the noblest of the Delphians chosen by lot, sir stranger.

XUTHUS: ’Tis well; I have attained the utmost of my wishes. I will go within; for I am told that a victim has been slain in public before the temple for strangers, and to-day,—for it is a lucky day,—I would fain receive the god’s oracle. Do thou, my wife, take branches of laurel, and seated at the altars pray to the gods that I may carry home from Apollo’s shrine an answer that bodeth well for offspring.

CREUSA: All this shall be. Now, at any rate, if Loxias would retrieve his former sins, e’en though he cannot be my friend entirely, yet will I accept whate’er he deigns to give, because he is a god.

ION: Why doth this stranger lady hint dark reproaches against the god unceasingly, either out of affection for her on whose behalf she seeks the oracle, or maybe because she is hiding something needing secrecy? Yet what have I to do with the daughter of Erectheus? She is naught to me. No, I will go to the laver, and from golden ewers sprinkle the holy water. Yet must I warn Phoebus of what is happening to him; he ravishes a maid and proves unfaithful to her, and after secretly begetting a son leaves him to die. O! Phoebus, do not so, but as thou art supreme, follow in virtue’s track; for whosoever of mortal men transgresses, him the gods punish. How, then, can it be just that you should enact your laws for men, and yourselves incur the charge of breaking them? Now I will put this case, though it will never happen. Wert thou, wert Poseidon, and Zeus, the lord of heaven, to make atonement to mankind for every act of lawless love, ye would empty your temples in paying the fines for your misdeeds. For when ye pursue pleasure in preference to the claims of prudence, ye act unjustly; no longer is it fair to call men wicked, if we are imitating the evil deeds of gods, but rather those who give us such examples. [Exit Ion

CHORUS: On thee I call, Athena mine, at whose birth-throes no kindly goddess lent her aid, delivered as thou wert by Titan Prometheus from the forehead of Zeus. Come, O lady Victory, come to the Pythian shrine, winging thy way from the gilded chambers of Olympus to the city’s streets, where Phoebus at his altar on the centre of the world brings his oracles to pass beside the dance-encircled tripod; come, too, thou daughter of Latona, together come, ye virgin goddesses, fair sisters of Phoebus! And be this your prayer, fair maidens, that the ancient house of Erechtheus may obtain by clear oracles the blessing of children, though late it come.

CHORUS: For this brings to man a settled source of all-surpassing bliss, even to such as see in their ancestral halls a splendid race of strong young parents blest with offspring, to inherit from their sires their wealth in due succession after other children; yea, for they are a defence in time of trouble, and add a charm to weal, affording to their fatherland a saving help in battle. Give me before the pomp of wealth or royal marriages the careful nurture of noble children. The childless life I do abhor, and him who thinks it good I blame; to a happy life amongst my children, blest with moderate wealth, may I hold fast.

CHORUS: Ye haunts of Pan, and rocks hard by the grots of Macrae, where Agraulos’ daughters three trip it lightly o’er the green grass-lawns before the shrine of Pallas, to the music of the piper’s varied note, what time thou, Pan, art piping in those caves of thine, where a maiden once that had a child by Phoebus, unhappy mother! exposed her babe, forced issue of her woful wooing, for birds to tear and beasts to rend, a bloody banquet! Never have I seen it told in woven tale or legend that children born to gods by daughters of earth have any share in bliss.

ION: Attendant maids, that watch and wait your mistress here at the steps of the temple fragrant with incense, say, hath Xuthus already left the holy tripod and the sanctuary, or doth he still abide within to ask yet further of his childlessness?

CHORUS: He is still in the temple, sir, nor hath he passed this threshold yet. But hark! I hear a footstep at the outlet of the door, and lo! thou mayst see my master this moment coming out.

XUTHUS: All hail! my son; that word suits well as my first greeting to thee.

ION: ’Tis well with me; do but restrain thyself, and then both of us will be happy.

Part 9

XUTHUS: Give me thy hand to grasp, thy body to embrace.

ION: Art thou in thy senses, sir, or hath some spiteful god reft thee of them?

XUTHUS: I am in my senses, for I have found what I hold most dear, and am eager to show my love.

ION: Cease! touch me not, nor tear these garlands of the god!

XUTHUS: I will embrace thee, for I am not seizing what is not my own, but only finding my own that I love full well.

ION: Hands off! or thou shalt feel an arrow pierce thy ribs.

XUTHUS: Why dost thou shun me, now that thou findest in me thy nearest and dearest?

ION: I am not fond of schooling boors and crazy strangers.

XUTHUS: Kill me, burn me, if thou wilt; for, if thou dost, thou wilt be thy father’s murderer.

ION: Thou my father, indeed i Oh! is not news like this enough to make me laugh?

XUTHUS: Not so; my tale, as it proceeds, will prove to thee what I assert.

ION: Pray, what hast thou to tell me?

XUTHUS: That I am thy own father, and thou my very child.

ION: Who says so?

XUTHUS: Loxias, who gave thee nurture, though thou wert my son.

ION: Thou art thy own witness.

XUTHUS: Nay, I have learnt the answer of the god.

ION: Thou art mistaken in the dark riddle thou hast heard.

XUTHUS: It seems then I do not hear aright.

ION: What said Phoebus?

Part 10

XUTHUS: That the man who met me—

ION: When and where?

XUTHUS: As I came forth from the god’s temple—

ION: Well! what should happen to him?

XUTHUS: Should be my own true son.

ION: Thy own true son, or a gift from others?

XUTHUS: A gift, but mine for all that.

ION: Am I the first that thou didst meet?

XUTHUS: I have met no other, my son.

ION: Whence came this piece of luck?

XUTHUS: To both of us alike it causes surprise.

ION: Ah I but who was my mother?

XUTHUS: I cannot tell.

ION: Did not Phoebus tell thee that?

XUTHUS: I was so pleased with this, I did not ask him that.

ION: I must have sprung from mother earth.

XUTHUS: The ground brings forth no children.

ION: How can I be thine?

XUTHUS: I know not; I refer it to the god.

ION: Come, let us try another theme.

Part 11

XUTHUS: Better hold to this, my son.

ION: Didst thou e’er indulge in illicit amours?

XUTHUS: Yes, in the folly of youth.

ION: Ere thou didst win Erechtheus’ daughter?

XUTHUS: Never since.

ION: Could it be, then, thou didst beget me?

XUTHUS: The time coincides therewith.

ION: In that case, how came I hither?

XUTHUS: That puzzles me.

ION: After that long journey too?

XUTHUS: That, too, perplexes me.

ION: Didst thou in days gone by come to the Pythian rock?

XUTHUS: Yes, to join in the mystic rites of Bacchus.

ION: Didst thou lodge with one of the public hosts?

XUTHUS: With one who at Delphi—

ION: Initiated thee? or what is it thou sayest?

XUTHUS: Among the frantic votaries of Bacchus.

ION: Wert thou sober, or in thy cups?

XUTHUS: I had indulged in the pleasures of the wine-cup.

ION: That is just the history of my birth.

Part 12

XUTHUS: Fate hath discovered thee, my son.

ION: How came I to the temple?

XUTHUS: Maybe the maid exposed thee.

ION: I have escaped the shame of slavish birth.

XUTHUS: Acknowledge then thy father, my son.

ION: It is not right that I should mistrust the god.

XUTHUS: Thou art right there.

ION: What more can I desire—

XUTHUS: Thine eyes now open to the sights they should.

ION: Than from a son of Zeus to spring?

XUTHUS: Which is indeed thy lot.

ION: May I embrace the author of my being?

XUTHUS: Aye, put thy trust in the god.

ION: Hail to thee, father mine.

XUTHUS: With joy that title I accept.

ION: This day—

XUTHUS: Hath made me blest.

ION: Ah, mother dear! shall I ever see thee too? Now more than ever do I long to gaze upon thee, whoe’er thou art. But thou perhaps art dead, and I shall never have the chance.

CHORUS: We share the good luck of thy house; but still I could have wished my mistress too, and Erechtheus’ line, had been blest with children.

XUTHUS: My son, albeit the god hath for thy discovery brought his oracle to a true issue, and united thee to me, while thou, too, hast found what most thou dost desire, till now unconscious of it; still, as touching this anxiety so proper in thee, I feel an equal yearning that thou, my child, mayst find thy mother, and I the wife that bare thee unto me. Maybe we shall discover this, if we leave it to time. But now leave the courts of the god, and this homeless life of thine, and come to Athens, in accordance with thy fathers wishes, for there his happy realm and bounteous wealth await thee; nor shalt thou be taunted with base origin and poverty to boot, because in one of these respects thou something lackest, but thou shalt be renowned alike for birth and wealth. Art silent? why dost fix thy eyes upon the ground? Thou art lost in thought, and by this sudden change from thy former cheerfulness, thou strikest thy father with dismay.

Part 13

ION: Things assume a different form according as we see them before us, or far off. I am glad at what has happened, since I have found in thee a father; but hear me on some points which I am now deciding. Athens, I am told,—that glorious city of a native race,—owns no aliens; in which case I shall force my entrance there under a twofold disadvantage, as an alien’s son and base-born as I am. Branded with this reproach, while as yet I am unsupported, I shall get the name of a mere nobody, a son of nobodies; and if I win my way to the highest place in the state, and seek to be some one, I shall be hated by those who have no influence, for superiority is galling; while ’mongst men of worth who could show their wisdom, but are silent, and take no interest in politics, I shall incur ridicule and be thought a fool for not keeping quiet in such a fault-finding city. Again, if I win a name amongst the men of mark who are engaged in politics, still more will jealous votes bar my progress; for thus, father, is it ever wont to be; they who have the city’s ear, and have already made their mark, are most bitter against all rivals. Again, if I, a stranger, come to a home that knows me not, and to that childless wife who before had thee as partner in her sorrow, but now will feel the bitterness of having to bear her fortune all alone,—how, I ask, shall I not fairly earn her hatred, when I take my stand beside thee; while she, still childless, sees thy dear pledge with bitter eyes; and then thou have to choose between deserting me and regarding her, or honouring me and utterly confounding thy home? How many a murder, and death by deadly drugs have wives devised for husbands! Besides, I pity that wife of thine, father, with her childless old age beginning; she little deserves to pine in barrenness, a daughter of a noble race. That princely state we fondly praise is pleasant to the eye; but yet in its mansions sorrow lurks; for who is happy, or by fortune blest, that has to live his life in fear of violence with many a sidelong glance? Rather would I live among the common folk, and taste their bliss, than be a tyrant who delights in making evil men his friends, and hates the good, in terror of his life. Perchance thou wilt tell me, Gold outweighs all these evils, and wealth is sweet. I have no wish to be abused for holding tightly to my pelf, nor yet to have the trouble of it. Be mine a moderate fortune free from annoyance! Now hear the blessings, father, that here were mine; first, leisure, man’s chiefest joy, with but moderate trouble; no villain ever drove me from my path, and that is a grievance hard to bear, to make room and give way to sorry knaves. My duty was to pray unto the gods, or with mortal men converse, a minister to their joys, not to their Sorrows. And I was ever dismissing one batch of guests, while another took their place, so that I was always welcome from the charm of novelty. That honesty which men must pray for, even against their will, custom and nature did conspire to plant in me in the sight of Phoebus. Now when I think on this, I deem that I am better here than there, father. So let me live on here, for ’tis an equal charm to joy in high estate, or in a humble fortune find a pleasure.

CHORUS: Well said! if only those I love find their happiness in thy statement of the case.

XUTHUS: Cease such idle talk, and learn to be happy; for on that spot where I discovered thee, my son, will I begin the rites, since I have chanced on the general banquet, open to all comers, and I will offer thy birth sacrifice which aforetime I left undone. And now will I bring thee to the banquet as my guest and rejoice thy heart, and take thee to the Athenian land as a visitor forsooth, not as my own son. For I will not grieve my wife in her childless sorrow by my good fortune. But in time will I seize a happy moment and prevail on her to let thee wield my sceptre o’er the realm. Thy name shall be Ion, in accordance with what happened, for that thou wert the first to cross my path as I came forth from Apollo’s sanctuary. Go, gather every friend thou hast, and with them make merry o’er the flesh of sacrifice, on the eve of thy departure from the town of Delphi. On you, ye handmaids, silence I enjoin, for, if ye say one word to my wife, death awaits you.

ION: Well, I will go; one thing my fortune lacks, for if I find not her that gave me birth, life is no life to me, my father; and, if I may make the prayer, Oh may that mother be a daughter of Athens! that from-her I may inherit freedom of speech. For if a stranger settle in a city free from aliens, e’en though in name he be a citizen, yet doth he find him-setf tongue-tied and debarred from open utterance.

CHORUS: Weeping and lamentation and the beginning of mourning I foresee, when my mistress shall see her lord blest with a son, while she is childless and forlorn. What was this oracle thou didst vouchsafe, prophetic son of Latona? Whence came this boy, thy foster-child who lingers in thy temple? who was his mother? I like not thy oracle; I fear there is some treachery. In terror I await the issue of this chance; for strange are these tidings and strange it is that the god declares them to me. There is guile connected with this waif’s fortune. All must allow that.

CHORUS: Shall we, good friends, throw off disguise and tell our mistress this story about her husband in whom her all was centred and whose hopes, poor lady, she once shared? But now in misery is she plunged, while he enjoys the smiles of fortune; to hoary eld she drifteth fast, while he, her lord, pays no regard to his loved ones,—the wretch, who came an alien to her house to share great wealth and failed to guard her fortunes! Perdition catch this traitor to my lady! never may he succeed in offering to the gods upon their blazing altar a hallowed cake with flames that augur well! He shall know to his cost my regard for my mistress. Now are sire and new-found son bent on the approaching feast.

CHORUS: Ho! ye peaks of Parnassus that rear your rocky heads to heaven, where Bacchus with uplifted torch of blazing pine bounds nimbly amid his bacchanals, that range by night! Never to my city come this boy! let him die and leave his young life as it dawns! For should our city fall on evil days, this bringing-in of strangers would supply it with a reason. Enough, enough for us Erechtheus’ line that erst held sway!

CREUSA: Aged retainer of my father Erechtheus while yet he lived and saw the light of day, mount to the god’s prophetic shrine that thou mayst share my gladness, if haply Loxias, great king, vouchsafe an answer touching my hopes of offspring; for sweet it is to share with friends prosperity, and sweet likewise to see a friendly face if any ill betide,—which God forbid! As thou of yore didst tend my sire, so now, thy mistress though I am, I take his place in tending thee.

OLD SERVANT: Daughter, thy manners bear good witness still to thy noble lineage; thou hast never brought shame upon those ancestors of thine, the children of the soil. A hand, I prithee, to the shrine! a hand to lean upon!’Tis a steep path thither, truly; but lend thy aid to guide my steps and make me young again.

CREUSA: Come follow then, and look where thou art treading.

OLD SERVANT: Behold! though my steps loiter, my thoughts take wings.

CREUSA: Lean on thy staff as thou climbest this winding path.

OLD SERVANT: Even this staff is a blind guide when I myself can scarcely see.

CREUSA: True, but do not yield through fatigue.

OLD SERVANT: Never willingly, but I am not master of that which is mine no more.

CREUSA: Maidens mine, my trusty servants at the loom and web, declare to me how my lord hath fared as touching the question of offspring which brought us hither: for if ye give me good news, ye will cause joy to a mistress who will not prove faithless to her word.

CHORUS: O fortune!

OLD SERVANT: This prelude to your speech is unlucky.

CHORUS: Woe is me!

OLD SERVANT: Can it be that the oracles delivered to my master wound me at all?

Part 14

CHORUS: Enough! why have aught to do with that which brings down death?

CREUSA: What means this piteous strain? wherefore this alarm?

CHORUS: Are we to speak or keep silence? What shall we do?

CREUSA: Speak; for thou hast somewhat to tell that touches me.

CHORUS: Then speak I will, though twice to die were mine. O mistress mine! never shalt thou hold a babe within thy arms or clasp him to thy breast.

CREUSA: Ah me! would I were dead!

OLD SERVANT: My daughter!

CREUSA: O woe is me for my calamity! Mine is a heritage of suffering and woe that poisons life, good friends.

OLD SERVANT: Ah, my child, ’tis death to us!

CREUSA: Ah me! ah me! grief drives its weapon through this heart of mine.

OLD SERVANT: Stay thy lamentations.

CREUSA: Nay, but sorrow lodges here.

OLD SERVANT: Till we learn—

CREUSA: Ah, what further news is there for me?

OLD SERVANT: Whether our master is in the same plight and shares thy misfortune, or thou art alone in thy misery.

CHORUS: On him, old sir, Loxias hath bestowed a son, and he is enjoying his good fortune apart from her.

CREUSA: Herein hast thou declared a further evil crowning all, a grief for me to mourn.

OLD SERVANT: The child of whom thou speakest—is he some woman’s destined babe, or did the god declare the fate of one already born?

CHORUS: A youth already born and grown to man’s estate doth Phoebus give to him; for I was there myself.

CREUSA: What sayest thou? nor tongue nor lip should speak the word thou tellest me.

Part 15

OLD SERVANT: And me. But declare more clearly how this oracle is finding its fulfilment, and say who is the child.

CHORUS: Whomso thy husband first should meet as he issued from the shrine, him the god gave him for his son.

CREUSA: Ah me! my fate, it seems, has doomed me to a childless life, and all forlorn am I to dwell in ray halls, without an heir.

OLD SERVANT: To whom did the oracle refer? whom did our poor lady’s husband meet? how and where did he see him?

CHORUS: Dear mistress mine, dost know that youth that was sweeping yonder shrine? He is that son.

CREUSA: Oh! for wings to cleave the liquid air beyond the land of Hellas, away to the western stars, so keen the anguish of my soul, my friends!

OLD SERVANT: Dost know the name his father gave to him, or is that left as yet unsettled and unsaid?

CHORUS: He called him Ion, because he was the first to cross his path.

OLD SERVANT: Who is his mother?

CHORUS: That I cannot say. But,—to tell thee all I know, old sir,— her lord is gone, with furtive step, into the hallowed tent, there to offer on this child’s behalf such gifts and victims as are offered for a birth, and with his new-found son to celebrate the feast.

OLD SERVANT: Mistress mine, we are betrayed by thy husband, fellow-sufferers thou and I; ’tis a deep-laid plot to outrage us and drive us from Erechtheus’ halls. And this I say not from any hatred of thy lord but because I bear thee more love than him; for he, after coming as a stranger to thy city and thy home, and wedding thee, and of thy heritage taking full possession, has been detected in a secret marriage with another woman, by whom he hath children. His secret will I now disclose; when he found thee barren, he was not content to share with thee thy hard lot, but took to himself a slave to be his stealthy paramour and thus begat a son, whom he sent abroad, giving him to some Delphian maid to nurse; and, to escape detection, the child was dedicated to the god and reared in his temple. But when he heard his boy was grown to manhood, he persuaded thee to come hither to inquire about thy childless state. And after this, ’twas not the god that lied, but thy husband, who long had been rearing the child, and he it was that wove this tissue of falsehood, intending, if he were detected, to refer it to the god, whereas if he escaped exposure, to repel all odium, he meant to vest the sovereignty in this son of his. Likewise he devised anew his name, coined to suit the circumstances, Ion, because, as he asserts, he met him on his way.

CHORUS: Ah! how I ever hate the wicked who plot unrighteousness and then cunningly trick it out. Far rather would I have a virtuous friend of no great intellect than a knave of subtler wit.

OLD SERVANT: Of all thy wretched fate this will be the crowning sorrow, the bringing to thy house to be its lord some slave-girl’s child, whose mother is unknown, himself of no account. For this evil had been to itself confined, had he persuaded thee, pleading thy childlessness, to let him establish in the house some high-born mother’s son; or if this had displeased thee, he ought to have sought a daughter of Aeolus in marriage. Wherefore must thou now put thy woman’s wit to work; either take the dagger, or by guile or poison slay thy husband and his son, ere they deal out death to thee; since if thou spare him, thou wilt lose thy own life; for when two foes meet beneath one roof, one or the other must rue it. Myself too am ready to share this labour with thee, and to help destroy the child when I have made my way into the chamber where he is furnishing the feast, and so repaying my masters for my maintenance I am willing either to die or still behold the light of life. ’Tis but a single thing that brands the slave with shame— his name; in all else no upright slave is a whit worse than freeborn men.

CHORUS: I too, beloved mistress, am ready to share thy fate, be it death or victory.

CREUSA: Ah! my suffering soul! how am I to keep silence? Am I to disclose the secrets of my love and lose all claim to modesty? What is there to keep me back any longer? With whom have I to pit myself in virtue’s lists? Hath not my husband proved untrue? Home and children, both are torn from me; all hope is dead; I have not realized my wish to set the matter straight, by hushing up my former union and saying naught about my son of sorrow. No! by the starry seat of Zeus, by her whose home is on my rocks, and by the hallowed strand of Triton’s mere with brimming flood, I will no more conceal my love; for if I can lift that burden from my breast I shall rest easier. With tears my eyes are streaming and my heart is wrung with anguish for the treacherous counsels both of men and gods,—traitors they! as I will show, ungrateful traitors to their loves! O! thou who dost awake that tuneful lyre with seven strings till to its sweet note of music the lifeless pegs of wild ox-hom resound again, thou child of Latona, to yon 293 bright orb of thine will I publish thy reproach. Yes, I saw thee come, the glint of gold upon thy locks, as I was gathering in my folded robe the saffron blooms that blazed like flowers of gold; and by my lily wrist didst thou catch me and ledst me to the cavern’s bed, what time I cried aloud upon my mother’s name,—thou a god to mate with me in shameless wise to pleasure lady Cypris! Then to my sorrow I bore thee a son, whom, though anguish thrilled my mother’s breast, I cast upon that bed of thine, where thou didst join in woful wedlock this unhappy maid. Ah! woe is me! that poor babe I bare thee is now no more; winged fowls have tom and devoured him, but thou art gaily carolling unto thy lyre some song of joy. Hark! thou son of Latona, to thee I call, for that thou dispensest warnings; there at thy golden throne on earth’s centre planted will I proclaim a word into thy ear. O! thou wicked bridegroom who art bringing to my husband’s house an heir, though from him thou hast received no boon; while that child of thine and mine hath died unrecognized, a prey to carrion birds, his mother’s swaddling-clothes all lost. Delos hates thee now, thy bay-tree loves thee not, whose branches sprout beside the tufted palm, where in holy throes Latona, big with child by Zeus, gave birth to thee.

CHORUS: Ah me! what store of sorrows is here disclosed, enough to draw a tear from every eye!

OLD SERVANT: Daughter, with pity am I filled as a gaze upon thy face; my reason leaves me; for just as I am striving to lighten my spirit of its sea of troubles, comes another wave astern and catches me by reason of thy words; for no sooner hadst thou uttered this tale of present troubles than thou didst turn aside into a fresh a track of other woes. What is it thou sayest? What charge against Apollo dost thou bring? What child is this thou dost assert that thou didst bear? Where was it in the city that thou didst expose him, for beasts to rejoice o’er his burial? Tell me once again.

CREUSA: Old friend, although to meet thine eye, I am ashamed, yet will I tell thee.

OLD SERVANT: Full well I know how to lend my friends a generous sympathy.

CREUSA: Then hearken; dost know a cave toward the north of Cecrops’ rock, that we call Macrae?

Part 16

OLD SERVANT: I know it; there is the shrine of Pan, and his altar hard by.

CREUSA: That was the scene of my dire conflict.

OLD SERVANT: What conflict? see how my tears start forth to meet thy words.

CREUSA: Phoebus forced me to a woful marriage.

OLD SERVANT: Was it then this, my daughter, that I noticed myself?

CREUSA: I know not; but I will tell thee if thou speak the truth.

OLD SERVANT: At the time thou wert mourning in secret some hidden complaint?

CREUSA: Yes, ’twas then this trouble happened, which now I am declaring to thee.

OLD SERVANT: How then didst conceal thy union with Apollo?

CREUSA: I bore a child; hear me patiently, old friend.

OLD SERVANT: Where? and who helped thy travail? or didst thou labour all alone?

CREUSA: All alone, in the cave where I became a wife.

OLD SERVANT: Where is the child? that thou mayst cease thy childless state.

CREUSA: Dead, old friend, to beasts exposed.

OLD SERVANT: Dead? did Apollo, evil god, no help afford?

CREUSA: None; my boy is in the halls of Hades.

OLD SERVANT: Who then exposed him? surely not thyself.

CREUSA: Myself, when ’neath the gloom of night I had wrapped him in my robe.

OLD SERVANT: Did no one share thy secret of the babe’s exposure?

CREUSA: Ill-fortune and secrecy alone.

Part 17

OLD SERVANT: How couldst thou in the cavern leave thy babe?

CREUSA: Ah! how? but still I did, with many a word of pity uttered o’er him.

OLD SERVANT: Oh for thy hard heart! Oh for the god’s, more hard than thine!

CREUSA: Hadst thou but seen the babe stretch forth his hands to me!

OLD SERVANT: To find thy mother’s breast, to nestle in thy arms?

CREUSA: By being kept therefrom he suffered grievous wrong from me.

OLD SERVANT: How earnest thou to think of casting forth thy babe?

CREUSA: Methought the god would save his own begotten child.

OLD SERVANT: Ah me! what storms assail thy family’s prosperity!

CREUSA: Why weepest thou, old man, with head close-veiled?

OLD SERVANT: To see the sorrows of thy sire and thee.

CREUSA: Such is our mortal life; naught abideth in one stay.

OLD SERVANT: Daughter, let us cease to dwell on themes of woe.

CREUSA: What must I do? Misfortune leaves us helpless.

OLD SERVANT: Avenge thee on the god who first did injure thee.

CREUSA: How can I, weak mortal as I am, outrun those mightier powers?

OLD SERVANT: Set fire to Apollo’s awful sanctuary.

CREUSA: I am afraid; my present sorrows are enough for me.

OLD SERVANT: Then what thou canst, that dare—thy husband’s death.

CREUSA: Nay, I do respect his former love in the days when he was good and true.

Part 18

OLD SERVANT: At least, then, slay the boy who hath appeared to supplant thee.

CREUSA: How can I? would it were possible! how I wish it were!

OLD SERVANT: Arm thy followers with daggers.

CREUSA: I will about it; but where is the deed to be done?

OLD SERVANT: In the sacred tent, where he is feasting his friends.

CREUSA: The murder will be too public, and slaves are poor support.

OLD SERVANT: Ah! thou art turning coward. Devise some scheme thyself.

CREUSA: Well, I too have subtle plans that cannot fail.

OLD SERVANT: If both conditions they fulfil, I will assist thee.

CREUSA: Hearken then; knowest thou the battle of the earth-born men?

OLD SERVANT: Surely; the fight at Phlegra waged by giants against the gods.

CREUSA: There Earth brought Gorgon forth, dreadful prodigy.

OLD SERVANT: To aid her sons maybe, and cause the gods hard toil?

CREUSA: Yea, and Pallas, daughter of Zeus, slew the monster.

OLD SERVANT: What savage form had it assumed?

CREUSA: A breast-plate of vipers fenced its body.

OLD SERVANT: Is this the tale I heard in days of yore?

CREUSA: That Athena wears its skin upon her corslet.

OLD SERVANT: Is it this that Pallas wears, called by men her aegis?

CREUSA: This was the name it received, that day she came to do battle for the gods.

Part 19

OLD SERVANT: How, daughter, can this harm thy enemies?

CREUSA: Hast heard of Erichthonius, or no? of course thou hast.

OLD SERVANT: Him whom Earth produced, the founder of thy race?

CREUSA: To him whilst yet a babe did Pallas give—

OLD SERVANT: Ha! what? thou hast something yet to add?

CREUSA: Two drops of Gorgon’s blood.

OLD SERVANT: What power could they exert on the nature of a human creature?

CREUSA: The one with death is fraught, the other cures disease.

OLD SERVANT: What held them when she tied them to the child’s body?

CREUSA: With links of gold she fastened them; this to my sire did Erichthonius give.

OLD SERVANT: And at his death it came to thee?

CREUSA: Yea, and here at my wrist I wear it.

OLD SERVANT: How works the spell of this double gift of Pallas?

CREUSA: Each drop of gore which trickled from the hollow vein—

OLD SERVANT: What purpose does it serve? what virtue does it carry?

CREUSA: Wards off disease, and nourishes man’s life.

OLD SERVANT: What doth that second drop effect, of which thou madest mention?

CREUSA: It kills, for it is venom from the Gorgon’s snakes.

OLD SERVANT: Dost thou carry this charm mixed in one phial, or separate?

CREUSA: Separate; for good is no companion for evil.

Part 20

OLD SERVANT: Daughter dear, thou art fully armed with all thou needest.

CREUSA: By this must the boy die, and thou must do the deadly deed.

OLD SERVANT: How and where? thine it is to speak, and mine to dare and do.

CREUSA: In Athens, when to my house he comes.

OLD SERVANT: That is not wisely said; I may object to thy plan as thou to mine.

CREUSA: How so? Hast thou the same mistrust that I experience?

OLD SERVANT: Thou wilt get the credit of his death, although thou slay him not.

CREUSA: True; men say stepdames are jealous of their husband’s children.

OLD SERVANT: Kill him here then, that so thou mayst deny the murder.

CREUSA: Well, thus I do anticipate the pleasure.

OLD SERVANT: Yea, and thou wilt from thy husband keep the very secret he would keep from thee.

CREUSA: Dost know then what to do? Take from my arm this golden bracelet, Athena’s gift, some ancient craftsman’s work, and seek the spot where my lord is offering secret sacrifice; then when their feasting is o’er and they are about to pour drink-offering to the gods, take this phial in thy robe and pour it into the young man’s goblet; who thinks to lord it o’er my house. And if once it pass his lips, never shall he come to glorious Athens, but here abide, of life bereft.

OLD SERVANT: Go thou within the house of our public hosts; I the while will set about my appointed task. On! aged foot, grow young again in action, for all that time saith no to thee. Go, aid thy mistress against her enemy, help slay and drag him from her house. ’Tis well to honour piety in the hour of fortune, but when thou wouldst harm thy foe, no law doth block thy path.

CHORUS: Daughter of Demeter, goddess of highways, queen as thou art of haunting powers of darkness, oh! guide as well the hand that fills by day a cup of death, against those to whom my revered mistress is sending a philtre of the gore that dripped from hellish Gorgon’s severed head, yea, ’gainst him who would obtrude upon the halls of the Erechthidae. Never may alien, from alien stock, lord it o’er my city, no! none save noble Erechtheus’ sons!

CHORUS: For if this deadly deed and my lady’s aims pass unfulfilled, and the right moment for her daring go by, and with it the hope which now sustains her, either will she seize the whetted knife or fasten the noose about her neck, and by ending one sorrow by another will go down to other phases of existence. For never will that daughter of a noble line, while life is hers, endure within the sunshine of her eyes the sight of alien rulers in her halls.

CHORUS: I blush for that god of song, if this stranger is to witness the torch-dance, that heralds in the twentieth dawn, around Callichorus’ fair springs, a sleepless votary in midnight revels, what time the star-lit firmament of Zeus, the moon, and Nereus’ fifty daughters, that trip it lightly o’er the sea and the eternal rivers’ tides, join the dance in honour of the maiden with the crown of gold and her majestic mother; where this vagabond, by Phoebus favoured, thinks to reign, entering into other men’s hard toil.

CHORUS: Look to it, all ye bards, who, in malicious strains, expose our amours and unholy bonds of lawless love; see how far our virtue surpasses man’s disloyalty. Change the burden of your song and keep your spiteful verse to brand man’s faithlessness. For this scion of the stock of Zeus shows himself a heedless wight, denying to the mistress of his halls the lot of mutual offspring, and, paying all his court to some strange love, hath gotten him a bastard son.

SERVANT: Ladies of another land, where may I find your mistress, daughter of Erechtheus? For I have searched each nook and corner of this town, and cannot find her.

CHORUS: What news, my fellow-thrall? why that hurried gait? what tidings bringest thou?

SERVANT: I am pursued; the rulers of this land are seeking her to stone her to death.

Part 21

CHORUS: Alas, what is thy tale? say not we are detected in our secret plot for murdering the boy?

SERVANT: Thou hast guessed aright; nor wilt thou be the last to share the trouble.

CHORUS: How was the hidden scheme laid bare?

SERVANT: The god found means to master wrong with right, unwilling to see his shrine polluted.

CHORUS: How so? I do conjure thee, tell us all. For if to die or yet to live be ours, ’twere sweeter so, when we know all.

SERVANT: Soon as Xuthus, husband of Creusa, had left the god’s prophetic shrine, taking with him his new-found son, to hold the feast and sacrifice that he designed to offer to the gods, himself departed to the place where leaps the Bacchic flame, with blood of sacrifice to dew the double peaks of Dionysus for the son now offered to his gaze, and thus he spake, My son, abide thou here, and raise a spacious tent by craftsmen’s toiling skill; and if I remain long time away after I have sacrificed to the gods of thy birth, let the feast be spread for all friends present. Therewith he took the heifers and went his way. Meantime his stripling son in solemn form set up with upright stays the tent, inclosed but not with walls, taking good heed to guard it ’gainst the blazing midday sun, nor less against his westering beams, the limit of his course; an oblong space of five score feet he meted out , intending to invite all Delphi to the feast. Then from the temple-treasury tapestry he took and therewith made a shelter, wondrous sight to see. First o’er the roof-tree he threw a canopy of robes, an offering Heracles, the son of Zeus, had brought unto the god from his Amazonian spoils. On them was broidered many a pictured scene, to wit, Heaven marshalling his host of stars upon the vaulted sky; there was the sun-god urging on his steeds toward his fiery goal, the bright star of evening at his heels. Night too in sable robes went hurrying by, drawn by a single pair, and the stars did bear her company. Across the zenith a Pleiad sailed, and Orion too with falchion dight was there; above was the bear making his tail to turn upon the golden pole. Up shot the moon’s full face, that parts the months in twain; there too the Hyades showed their unerring light to mariners; arid Dawn, that brings the morning back, was chasing the stars before her. Next on the sides he hung yet other tapestry; barbarian ships bearing down on the fleet of Hellas; and monsters half-man, half-beast; the capture of the Thracian steeds; the hunting of savage stags and lions fierce; while at the entry Cecrops close to his daughters was wreathing his coils, an offering of some Athenian votary; and in the midst of the banquet-hall he set goblets of gold, while a herald hasted and invited to the feast all citizens who would come. Then, when the tent was full, they decked themselves with garlands and took their fill of the rich viands. Anon after they had put from them the pleasure of eating came an old man and stood in the midst, where his officious zeal provoked loud laughter among the guests; for he would draw from the drinking-pitchers water to wash the hands withal and was wasting as incense the liquid myrrh, and in his charge he took the golden beakers, setting himself unasked to this office. Now when they were come to the time for the flute-players and the general libation, cried out that aged servitor, Hence with these tiny cups! bring larger goblets, that our guests may find a quicker route to joyousness. Thereon came servants bending ’neath the weight of goblets chased with silver and golden chalices; and that old man, as if to do his youthful lord a special service, chose out and offered to him a brimming bumper, when he had cast into the wine that potent philtre which, men say, his mistress gave to him to end the young man’s days on earth; and no man knew of this; but just as he so lately found held in his hand the drink-offering, the others following suit, some servant there uttered a word of evil import; whereat the stripling, as one who had been reared within the shrine amid reputed seers, deemed this an omen and bade them fill a fresh goblet, but that first drink-offering to the god he poured upon the ground and bade all others do the like. And silence stole upon them; while we with water and Phoenician wine were filling high the sacred bowls. While thus we were busied, comes a flight of doves and settles in the tent, for these dwell fearlessly in the courts of Loxias. Soon as the guests had poured away the luscious juice, those thirsty birds did dip their beaks therein, drawing it up into their feathered throats. Now all the rest received no hurt from the god’s libation, but one that settled on the spot where the son newfound had poured his wine, no sooner had tasted thereof, than convulsions seized her feathered form and she went triad, and screaming aloud uttered strange unwonted cries; and all the feasters gathered there marvelled to see the bird’s cruel agony, for she lay writhing in the toils of death, and her red claws relaxed their hold. Forthwith the son, vouchsafed by oracles, bared his arm by casting off his cloak and stretched it out across the board crying Who was it strove to slay me? Proclaim it, old sirrah, for thine was the officious zeal and thine the hand from which I took the cup. With that he caught the grey-beard by the arm and set to searching him that he might take the old man red-handed in the act. So was he detected, and under strong constraint declared Creusa’s daring deed and all the trick of the poisoned draught. Forth rushed the young man, whom the oracle of Loxias to his sire assigned, taking with him the banqueters, and standing mid the Delphic nobles made harangue, O! hallowed soil, a stranger woman, daughter of Erechtheus, seeks to poison me. And the lords of Delphi decreed by general vote that my mistress should be hurled from the rock to die, because she strove to slay the priest and compass his death in the temple. So now is the whole city seeking her, who hath to her sorrow sped a hapless journey; for, coming to crave the boon of offspring from Phoebus, she hath lost her life and children too.

CHORUS: Ah me! I see no way at all to turn death’s hand aside; all, all, ere this, is brought to light owing to that fatal draught of the wine-god’s juice mixed for death with drops of viper’s gore, quick to slay; detected is our offering to the dead; for me my life must end in woe, while death by stoning waits my mistress. How can I escape? Shall I take wings and fly away, or creep beneath the darksome caverns of the earth, striving to shun the doom of death by stoning? or shall I mount the car drawn by swiftest steeds, or embark upon a ship?

CHORUS: No man may hide his guilt, save when some god of his own will steals him away. Ah! my poor mistress! what suffering now awaits thy soul? Must then our wish to work another harm end in our own discomfiture, as justice doth decree?

CREUSA: My trusty maids, the men of death are on my track; the vote of Delphi goes against me; they give me up to die.

CHORUS: Unhappy one! we know thy sad mischance, how thou art placed.

CREUSA: Oh! whither can I fly? for scarce had I the start of my pursuers from the house in my race for life; ’tis by stealth alone that I have thus far escaped my foes.

CHORUS: Where shouldst thou fly except to the altar?

CREUSA: What good is that to me?

CHORUS: To slay a suppliant is forbidden.

CREUSA: Aye, but the law has given me over to death.

CHORUS: Only if thou fall into their hands.

CREUSA: Look! here they come, cruel champions of vengeance, eagerly brandishing their swords.

CHORUS: Sit thee down upon the altar of burnt-offering! for if thou art slain there, thou wilt fix upon thy murderers the stain of bloodguiltiness; but we must bear our fortune.

ION: O father Cephissus, with the bull-shaped head, what a viper is this thy child, or dragon with fiery eyes that dart a murderous gleam, in whose heart is throned incarnate daring, noxious as those Gorgon drops of venom wherewith she sought to compass my death. Seize her, that the peaks of Parnassus may card the flowing tresses of her hair, for thence shall she be hurled headlong amid the rocks. My lucky star hath kept me from going to Athens, there to fall beneath the power of a step-mother. For I have gauged thy feelings towards me—the full extent of thy bitter hostility—whilst yet amongst my friends; for hadst thou once shut me tip within thy house, my road to Hades’ halls had led direct from thence. This altar shall not save thee, nor yet Apollo’s courts, for that pity thou implorest cries out more loudly for me and my mother, who, though absent in the flesh, is never in name far from me. Behold this cursed woman, see the web of trickery she hath woven! yet comes she cowering to Apollo’s altar, thinking to escape the punishment of her misdeeds.

CREUSA: I warn thee not to slay me, both in my own name and in his at whose altar I am stationed.

Part 22

ION: What hast thou to do with Phoebus?

CREUSA: This body I devote unto that god to keep.

ION: And yet thou wert for poisoning his minister?

CREUSA: But thou wert not Apollo’s any longer, but thy father’s.

ION: Nay, I was his son, that is, in absence of a real father.

CREUSA: Thou wert so then; now ’tis I, not thou, who am Apollo’s.

ION: Well, thou art not guiltless now, whereas I was then.

CREUSA: I sought to slay thee as an enemy to my house.

ION: And yet I never invaded thy country, sword in hand.

CREUSA: Thou didst; and thou it was that wert casting a firebrand into the halls of Erechtheus.

ION: What sort of brand or flaming fire was it?

CREUSA: Thou didst design to seize my home against my will, and make it thine.

ION: What! when my father offered me a kingdom of his getting.

CREUSA: How had the sons of Aeolus any share in the realm of Pallas?

ION: Arms, not words, he brought to champion it.

CREUSA: No mere ally could enter into an inheritance in my land.

ION: And was it then from fear of consequences that thou didst try to slay me?

CREUSA: Yes, lest I should myself perish if thou wert spared.

ION: Doth thy childlessness make thee envious that my father found me?

CREUSA: And thou, wilt thou rob the childless of her home?

Part 23

ION: Had I then no share at all in my father’s heritage?

CREUSA: All that his sword and shield had won was thine, and thine alone.

ION: Quit the altar and sanctuary built for gods.

CREUSA: Go bid thy own mother, wherever she is, do that.

ION: Shalt thou escape all punishment, after trying to kill me?

CREUSA: Not if thou choose to butcher me within this shrine.

ION: What joy can it give thee to be slain amid the sacred wreaths?

CREUSA: There is one whom I shall grieve of those who have grieved me.

ION: Oh! ’tis passing strange how badly the deity hath enacted laws for mortal men, contrary to all sound judgment; for instance, they should ne’er have suffered impious men to sit at their altars, but should have driven them away; for it was nowise right that hands unclean should touch the altars of the gods, though the righteous deserved to find a refuge there from their oppressors, instead of good and bad alike having recourse to the same divine protection with equal success.

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: Refrain thyself, my son; for I, the priestess of Phoebus, chosen from all the maids of Delphi in accordance with the tripod’s ancient rite, have left that prophetic seat, and am passing o’er this threshold.

ION: Hail to thee, dear mother mine,—mother, though thou didst not give me birth.

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: Yes, so have I ever been called, and the title causes me no regret.

ION: Hast heard how this woman plotted my death?

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: I have; thou, too, art wrong because of thy harshness.

ION: Am I not to pay back murderers in their coin?

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: Wives ever hate the children of a former marriage.

ION: As I hate step-dames for their evil treatment of me.

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: Do not so; but leaving, as thou art, the shrine, and setting forth for thy country—

ION: What then wouldst thou advise me do?

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: With clean hands seek Athens, attended by good omens.

Part 24

ION: Surely any man hath clean hands who slays his enemies.

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: Do not thou do this; but take the counsel that I have for thee.

ION: Say on; whate’er thou say’st will be prompted by thy good will.

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: Dost see this basket that I carry in my arms?

ION: An ancient ark with chaplets crowned.

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: Herein I found thee long ago, a newborn babe.

ION: What sayest thou? there is novelty in the story thou art introducing.

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: Yea, for I was keeping these relics a secret, but now I show them.

ION: How earnest thou to hide them on that day, now long ago, when thou didst find me?

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: The god wished to have thee as his servant in his courts.

ION: Does he no longer wish it? How am I to know this?

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: By declaring to thee thy sire, he dismisses thee from this land.

ION: Is it by his command thou keepest these relics, or why?

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: Loxias put in my heart that day—

ION: What purpose? Oh! speak, finish thy story.

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: To preserve what I had found until the present time.

ION: What weal or woe doth this import to me?

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: Herein were laid the swaddling-clothes in which thou wert enwrapped.

ION: These relics thou art producing may help me to find my mother.

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: Yes, for now the deity so wills it, though not before.

Part 25

ION: Hail! thou day of visions blest to me!

PYTHIAN PRIESTESS: Take then the relics and seek thy mother diligently. And when thou hast traversed Asia and the bounds of Europe, thou wilt learn this for thyself; for the god’s sake I reared thee, my child, and now to thee do I entrust these relics, which he willed that I should take into my safe keeping, without being bidden; why he willed it I cannot tell thee. For no living soul wist that I had them in my possession, nor yet their hiding-place. And now farewell! as a mother might her child, so I greet thee. The starting-point of thy inquiry for thy mother must be this; first, was it a Delphian maid that gave birth to thee, and exposed thee in this temple; next, was it a daughter of Hellas at all? That is all that I and Phoebus, who shares in thy lot, can do for thee. [Exit Pythian Priestess.

ION: Ah me! the tears stream from my eyes when I think of the day my mother bore me, as the fruit of her secret love, only to smuggle her babe away privily, without suckling it; nameless I led a servant’s life in the courts of the god. His service truly was kindly, yet was my fortune heavy; for just when I ought to have lain softly in a mother’s arms, tasting somewhat of the joys of life, was I deprived of a fond mother’s fostering care. Nor less is she a prey to sorrow that bare me, seeing she hath suffered the self-same pang in losing all the joy a son might bring. Now will I take and bear this ark unto the god as an offering, that herein I may discover naught that I would rather not. For if haply my mother proves to be some slave-girl, ’twere worse to find her out than let her rest in silence. O! Phoebus, to thy temple do I dedicate this ark. Yet why? this is to war against the god’s intention, who saved these tokens of my mother for my sake. I must undo the lid and bear the worst. For that which fate ordains, I may ne’er o’erstep. O! hallowed wreaths and fastenings, that have kept so safe these relics dear to me; why, ah! why were ye hidden from me? Behold the covering of this rounded ark! No signs of age are here, owing to some miracle; decay hath not touched these chaplets; and yet ’tis long enough since these were stored away.

CREUSA: Ha! what unlooked-for sight is here?

ION: Peace, woman! now, as erst, thou art my enemy.

CREUSA: Silence is not for me. Bid me not be still; for lo! I see the ark wherein I did expose thee, my child, in days gone by, whilst yet a tender babe . So now will I leave this altar, though death await me.

ION: Seize her; she is mad, springing thus from the shelter of the carved altar. Bind her arms.

CREUSA: Kill! spare not! for I to thee will cleave, and to this ark, and all that is within it.

ION: Is not this monstrous? here am I laid claim to on a specious pretext.

CREUSA: Nay, nay, but as a friend art thou by friends now found.

ION: I a friend of thine! and wouldst thou, then, have slain me privily?

CREUSA: Thou art my child, if that is what a parent holds most dear.

ION: An end to thy web of falsehood! Right well will I convict thee.

CREUSA: My child, that is my aim; God grant I reach it!

ION: Is this ark empty, or hath it aught within?

CREUSA: Thy raiment wherein I exposed thee long ago.

ION: Wilt put a name thereto before thou see it?

CREUSA: Unless I describe it, I offer to die.

ION: Say on; there is something strange in this thy confidence.

CREUSA: Behold the robe my childish fingers wove.

Part 26

ION: Describe it; maidens weave many a pattern.

CREUSA: ’Tis not perfect, but a first lesson, as it were, in weaving.

ION: Describe its form; thou shalt not catch me thus.

CREUSA: A Gorgon figures in the centre of the warp.

ION: Great Zeus! what fate is this that dogs my steps?

CREUSA: ’Tis fringed with snakes like an aegis.

ION: Lo! ’tis the very robe; how true we find the voice of God!

CREUSA: Ah! woven work that erst my virgin shuttle wrought.

ION: Is there aught beside, or stays thy lucky guessing here?

CREUSA: There be serpents, too, with jaws of gold, an old-world symbol.

ION: Is that Athena’s gift, bidding her race grow up under their guardianship?

CREUSA: Yes, to copy our ancestor Erichthonius.

ION: What is their object? what the use of these golden gauds? pray, tell.

CREUSA: Necklaces for the new-born babe to wear, my child.

ION: Lo! here they lie. Yet would I know the third sign.

CREUSA: About thy brow I bound an olive-wreath that day, plucked from the tree Athena first made grow on her own rock. If haply that is there, it hath not lost its verdure yet, but still is fresh, for it came from the stock that grows not old.

ION: Mother, dearest mother, with what rapture I behold thee, as on thy cheeks, that share my joy, I press my lips!

CREUSA: My son, light that in thy mother’s eye outshinest yonder sun,— I know the god will pardon me,—in my arms I hold thee, whom I never hoped to find, for I thought thy home was in that nether world, among the ghosts with Queen Persephone.

ION: Ah, dear mother mine! within thy arms I rest, the dead now brought to light, and dead no more.

CREUSA: Hail, thou broad expanse of bright blue sky! What words can I find to utter my joy aloud? Whence comes to me such unexpected rapture? To what do I owe this bliss?

Part 27

ION: This is the last thing that ever would have occurred to me, mother, that I was thy child.

CREUSA: With fear I tremble still.

ION: Dost thou doubt my reality?

CREUSA: Far from me had I banished these hopes. Whence, O whence, lady, didst thou take my babe into thy arms? Who carried him to the courts of Loxias?

ION: ’Tis a miracle! Oh! may we for the rest of our career be happy, as we were hapless heretofore.

CREUSA: In tears wert thou brought forth, my child, and with sorrow to thy mother didst thou leave her arms; but now I breathe again as I press my lips to thy cheek, in full enjoyment of happiness.

ION: Thy words express our mutual feelings.

CREUSA: No more am I of son and heir bereft; my house is stablished and my country hath a prince; Erechtheus groweth young again; no longer is the house of the earth-born race plunged in gloom, but lifts its eyes unto the radiant sun.

ION: Mother mine, since my father too is here, let him share the joy I have brought to thee.

CREUSA: My child, my child, what sayst thou? How is my sin finding me out!

ION: What meanest thou?

CREUSA: Thou art of a different, for different stock.

ION: Alas for me! Am I a bastard, then, bom in thy maiden days?

CREUSA: Nor nuptial torch nor dance, my child, ushered in my wedding and thy birth.

ION: O mother, mother! whence do I draw my base origin?

CREUSA: Be witness she who slew the Gorgon,

ION: What meanest thou?

CREUSA: She that on my native rocks makes the olive-clad hill her seat.

ION: Thy words to me are but as cunning riddles. I cannot read them.

CREUSA: Hard by the rock with nightingales melodious, Phoebus,

Part 28

ION: Why dost thou mention Phoebus?

CREUSA: Forced on me his secret love.

ION: Say on; for thy story will crown me with fame and fortune.

CREUSA: And as the tenth month came round I bore a child to Phoebus in secret.

ION: Oh! thy happy tidings, if thy story is true.

CREUSA: And about thee as swaddling-clothes I fastened this my maiden work, the faulty efforts of my loom. But to my breast I never held thy lips, or suckled or washed thee with a mother’s care; but in a desert cave wert thou cast out to die, for taloned kites to rend and feast upon.

ION: An awful deed! O mother!

CREUSA: Fear held me captive, and I cast thy life away, my child; I would, though loth, have slain thee too.

ION: Thou too wert all but slain by me most impiously.

CREUSA: O the horror of all I suffered then! O the horror of what is to follow now! To and fro from bad to good we toss, though now the gale is shifting round. May it remain steady! the past brought sorrows enough; but now hath a fair breeze sprung up, my son, to waft us out of woe.

CHORUS: Let no man ever deem a thing past hoping for, when he turns an eye towards what is happening now.

ION: O Fortune! who ere now hast changed the lot of countless mortals first to grief, and then to joy again, to what a goal my life had come, even to staining my hands with a mother’s blood and enduring sufferings ill-deserved! Ah well! may we not learn these truths daily in all that the bright sun embraces? O mother, in thee have I made a happy discovery, and from my point of view there is no fault to find with my birth; but what remains I fain would speak to thee apart. Come hither, for I would say a word in thine ear, and o’er these matters cast the veil of silence. Bethink thee, mother, carefully; didst thou make the fatal slip, that maidens will, as touching secret amours, and then upon the god wouldst foist the blame, in thy anxiety to escape the shame of my birth asserting that Phoebus is my sire, albeit the god was not the parent.

CREUSA: Nay, by our queen of Victory, Athena, that fought by Zeus, in days gone by, high on his car against the earth-born giants I swear, no mortal is thy father, my son, but King Loxias himself who brought thee up.

ION: How then is it he gave his own child to another father, declaring that I was begotten of Xuthus?

CREUSA: Begotten he never said, but as a gift he doth bestow thee his own son on him; for friend might give to friend even his own son to rule his house.

ION: Mother mine, this thought disturbs my breast, as well it may, whether the god speaks truth or gives an idle oracle.

CREUSA: Hear, then, my son, the thought that hath occurred to me; Loxias out of kindness is establishing thee in a noble family, for hadst thou been called the god’s son, thou hadst never inherited a father’s home and name. How couldst thou, when I strove to hide my marriage with him and would have slain thee privily? But he for thy interest is handing thee over to another father.

ION: Not thus lightly do I pursue the inquiry; nay, I will enter Apollo’s shrine and question him whether I am the child of a mortal sire or his own son. Ha! who is that hovering o’er the incense-smoking roof, and showing to our gaze a heavenly face, bright as the sun? Let us fly, mother, that we see not sights divine, unless haply it is right we should.

ATHENA: Fly not! I am no foe ye seek to shun, but alike in Athens and this place your kindly friend. ’Tis I, Pallas, after whom your land is named, that am here, by Apollo sent in headlong haste; for he thought not fit to appear before you twain, lest his coming might provoke reproaches for the past; but me he sends to proclaim to you his words, how that this is thy mother, and Apollo thy sire; while thyself he doth bestow, as seems him good, not indeed on him that begat thee, nay, but that he may bring thee to a house of high repute. For when this matter was brought to light, he devised a way of deliverance, fearing that thou wouldst be slain by thy mother’s wiles and she by thine. Now it was King Apollo’s wish to keep this matter secret awhile, and then in Athens to acknowledge this lady as thy mother and thyself as the child of her and Phoebus. But to end the business and discharge his oracles for the god, I bid you hearken; for such was my purpose in yoking my chariot-steeds. Do thou, Creusa, take this stripling and to Cecrops’ land set forth; and there upon the monarch’s throne establish him, for from Erechtheus’ stock is he sprung, and therefore hath a right to rule that land of mine. Through Hellas shall his fame extend; for his children,—four branches springing from one root,—shall give their names to the land and to the tribes of folk therein that dwell upon the rock I love. Teleona shall be the first; and next in order shall come the Hopletes and Argades; and then the Aegicores, called after my aegis, shall form one tribe. And their children again shall in the time appointed found an island home amid the Cyclades and on the sea-coast, thereby strengthening my country; for they shall dwell upon the shores of two continents, of Europe and of Asia, on either side the strait; and in honour of Ion’s name shall they be called Ionians and win them high renown. From Xuthus too and thee I see a common stock arise; Dorus, whence the famous Dorian state will spring; and after him Achaeus in the land of Pelops; he shall lord it o’er the seaboard nigh to Rhium, and his folk, that bear his name, shall win the proud distinction of their leader’s title. Thus in all hath Apollo rightly done; first did he deliver thee of thy babe without sickness, so that thy friends knew naught; and after thou didst bear this child and in swaddling-clothes hadst laid him, he bade Hermes carry him in his arms hither, and did rear him, suffering him not to die. Now therefore hold thy peace as to this thy child’s real parentage, that Xuthus may delight in his fond fancy, and thou, lady, continue to enjoy thy blessing. So fare ye well! for to you I bring tidings of a happier fate after this respite from affliction.

ION: O Pallas, daughter of almighty Zeus, in full assurance will we accept thy words; for I am convinced of my parentage from Loxias and this lady; which even before was not incredible.

Part 29

CREUSA: To what I say give ear. My former blame of Phoebus now is turned to praise, because he now restores to me the babe whom erst he slighted. Now are these portals fair unto mine eyes and this oracle of the god, though before I hated them. With joy now I even cling to the knocker on the door and salute the gates.

ATHENA: I commend thee for thy sudden change, and thy fair words about the god. ’Tis ever thus; Heaven’s justice may tarry awhile, yet comes it at the last in no wise weakened.

CREUSA: My son, let us set out for home.

ATHENA: Go; I will follow.

ION: A guide we well may prize.

CREUSA: Aye, and one that holds our city dear.

ATHENA: Go, sit thee down upon the throne of thy ancestors.

ION: ’Tis my heritage and I value it.

CHORUS: All hail, Apollo, son of Zeus and Latona! ’Tis only right that he, whose house is sore beset with trouble, should reverence God and keep good heart; for at the last the righteous find their just reward, but the wicked, as their nature is, will never prosper.

Contents — 25 sections

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3
4. Part 4
5. Part 5
6. Part 6
7. Part 7
8. Part 8
9. Part 9
10. Part 10
11. Part 11
12. Part 12
13. Part 13
14. Part 14
15. Part 15
16. Part 16
17. Part 17
18. Part 18
19. Part 19
20. Part 20
21. Part 21
22. Part 22
23. Part 23
24. Part 24
25. Part 25

Part 1

HELEN: These are the lovely pure streams of the Nile, which waters the plain and lands of Egypt, fed by white melting snow instead of rain from heaven. Proteus was king of this land when he was alive, living on the island of Pharos and lord of Egypt; and he married one of the daughters of the sea, Psamathe, after she left Aiakos’ bed. She bore two children in his palace here: a son Theoklymenos, and a noble daughter, her mother’s pride, called Eido in her infancy. But when she came to youth, the season of marriage, she was called Theonoe; for she knew whatever the gods design, both present and to come, having received this honor from her grandfather Nereus. My own fatherland, Sparta, is not without fame, and my father is Tyndareus; but there is indeed a story that Zeus flew to my mother Leda, taking the form of a bird, a swan, which accomplished the deceitful union, fleeing the pursuit of an eagle, if this story is true. My name is Helen; I will tell the evils I have suffered. For the sake of beauty, three goddesses came to a deep valley on Mount Ida, to Paris: Hera and Kypris, and the virgin daughter of Zeus, wishing to have the judgment of their loveliness decided. Kypris offered my beauty, if misfortune is beautiful, for Paris to marry, and so she won. Paris, the shepherd of Ida, left his ox-stalls and came to Sparta, to have me in marriage. But Hera, indignant at not defeating the goddesses, made an airy nothing of my marriage with Paris; she gave to the son of king Priam not me, but an image, alive and breathing, that she fashioned out of the sky and made to look like me; and he thinks he has me—an idle fancy, for he doesn’t have me. And in turn the plans of Zeus added further troubles to these; for he brought a war upon the land of the Hellenes and the unhappy Phrygians, so that he might lighten mother earth of her crowded mass of mortals, and bring fame to the bravest man of Hellas. So I was set up as the Hellenes’ spear-prize, to test the courage of the Trojans; or rather not me, but my name. Hermes caught me up in the folds of the air and hid me in a cloud—for Zeus was not neglectful of me—and he set me down here in the house of Proteus, having selected the most self-controlled of all mankind, so that I might keep my bed pure for Menelaos. And so I am here, while my wretched husband has gathered an army and gone over to the towers of Ilion to hunt down and recover me. And many lives have been lost for my sake by the streams of Skamandros; and I who have endured all this am accursed, and have in appearance betrayed my husband and brought a great war to the Hellenes. Why then am I still alive? I heard the god Hermes declare that I would yet live in the glorious country of Sparta, with my husband—for Hermes knew I never went to Ilion—so that I would not go to bed with another man. Well, as long as Proteus saw this light of the sun, I was safe from marriage; but now that he is hidden in the dark earth, the dead man’s son hunts after a marriage with me. But I, out of regard to my husband of long ago, am throwing myself down as a suppliant before this tomb of Proteus, for him to keep my bed safe for my husband, so that, if I bear a name infamous throughout Hellas, at least my body may not incur disgrace here.

TEUCER: Who holds power over this fortified house? The dwelling is worthy of comparison with Ploutos’, its royal enclosures and towering buildings. Ah! Oh gods, what sight is here? I see the hateful deadly likeness of the woman who ruined me and all the Achaeans. May the gods spurn you, so much do you look like Helen! If I were not in a foreign land, you would have died by this well-aimed arrow as a reward for your likeness to the daughter of Zeus.

HELEN: What is it, poor man—who are you, that you have turned away from me and loathe me for the misfortunes of that one?

TEUCER: I was wrong; I gave way to my anger more than I should, for all Hellas hates that daughter of Zeus. Forgive me for what I said, lady.

HELEN: Who are you? Where have you come from, to visit this land?

TEUCER: I am one of those unfortunate Achaeans, lady.

HELEN: Then it is no wonder that you loathe Helen. But who are you and where do you come from? Whose son should I call you?

TEUCER: My name is Teucer, my father is Telamon, and Salamis is the land that nurtured me.

HELEN: Then why are you visiting these lands of the Nile?

TEUCER: I am an exile, driven out of my native land.

HELEN: You must be unhappy! Who banished you from your fatherland?

TEUCER: My father Telamon. Could you find anyone closer to me?

HELEN: But why? This matter is surely an unfortunate one.

TEUCER: The death of my brother Aias at Troy was my ruin.

HELEN: How so? You didn’t take his life with your sword, did you?

TEUCER: He threw himself on his own sword and died.

HELEN: Was he mad? For what sensible man would dare such a thing?

TEUCER: Do you know a certain Achilleus, the son of Peleus?

HELEN: Yes; he came to woo Helen once, so I hear.

TEUCER: When he died, he left a contest for his armor to his allies.

Part 2

HELEN: Well, if he did, what harm is this to Aias?

TEUCER: When someone else got the arms, he took his own life.

HELEN: Then are you ill through his suffering?

TEUCER: Yes, because I did not die together with him.

HELEN: So you went to the famous city of Ilion, stranger?

TEUCER: Yes, and by helping to sack it, I destroyed myself as well.

HELEN: Has it already been set alight and completely consumed by fire?

TEUCER: So that not even a trace of the walls is evident.

HELEN: O miserable Helen! Because of you, the Phrygians have been destroyed.

TEUCER: And also the Achaeans; great evils have been committed.

HELEN: How long is it since the city was sacked?

TEUCER: Almost seven years have gone full circle, with their harvests.

HELEN: And how much longer were you waiting at Troy?

TEUCER: For many months; the moon held its course through ten years.

HELEN: And did you capture the Spartan woman?

TEUCER: Menelaos caught her by the hair to drag her away.

HELEN: Did you yourself see the wretched creature? Or do you speak from hearsay?

TEUCER: I saw her with my own eyes, just as I see you, no less.

HELEN: Consider whether you had some fancy, sent by the gods.

TEUCER: Think of some other topic, not that woman still!

Part 3

HELEN: Are you so sure this fancy was reliable?

TEUCER: I saw it with my own eyes; and the mind has sight.

HELEN: Is Menelaos already at home with his wife?

TEUCER: No; he is neither in Argos nor by the streams of the Eurotas.

HELEN: Alas! This is evil news for those to whom you bring it.

TEUCER: He is said to have disappeared with his wife.

HELEN: Wasn’t there the same passage for all the Argives?

TEUCER: Yes; but a tempest scattered them in every direction.

HELEN: On which surface of the salty ocean?

TEUCER: While they were crossing the Aegean in mid-channel.

HELEN: And from that time does no one know of Menelaos’ arrival?

TEUCER: No one; but throughout Hellas he is reported to be dead.

HELEN: I am wholly lost. Is the daughter of Thestius alive?

TEUCER: You speak of Leda? She is dead and gone, indeed.

HELEN: It wasn’t Helen’s disgraceful fame that killed her, surely?

TEUCER: Yes, they say she tied a noose around her noble neck.

HELEN: Are the sons of Tyndareus still alive or not?

TEUCER: They are dead, and not dead: it is a double story.

HELEN: Which report is the stronger? I am so unhappy at these evils!

TEUCER: Men say that they are gods in the likeness of stars.

Part 4

HELEN: That is good news; but what is the other story?

TEUCER: That they killed themselves because of their sister. But enough of such talk! I do not need to grieve twice. As to why I came to this royal palace, wanting to see the prophetess Theonoe, you be my patron, so I might obtain an oracle: how I should steer a favorable course to the island of Cyprus, where Apollo has declared I am to live, giving it the island name of Salamis in honor of that fatherland over there.

HELEN: The voyage itself will explain that, stranger; leave this land and escape, before the son of Proteus, the ruler of this land, catches sight of you; now he is away with his trusty hounds tracking his savage quarry to the death; for he kills every visitor from Hellas that he catches. Do not seek to learn his reason, and I will not say; for how could I help you?

TEUCER: Lady, you have spoken well. May the gods grant you a return for your kindness! Although you have a body like Helen’s, your heart is not like hers, but very different. May she die miserably, and never reach the streams of Eurotas! But may you always have good fortune, lady.

HELEN: Oh, as I begin the great lament of my great distress, what mourning shall I strive to utter? or what Muse shall I approach with tears or songs of death or woe? Alas!

HELEN: Winged maidens, virgin daughters of Earth, the Sirens, may you come to my mourning with Libyan flute or pipe or lyre, tears to match my plaintive woes; grief for grief and mournful chant for chant, may Persephone send choirs of death in harmony with my lamentation, so that she may receive as thanks from me, in addition to my tears, a paean for the departed dead beneath her gloomy roof.

CHORUS: Beside the deep-blue water and on the tangled grass, I happened to be drying purple robes in the sun’s golden blaze near the young reed shoots; from my mistress, from where she cried aloud her misery, I heard a sound, a mournful song not fit for the lyre, because she was then shrieking, lamenting with her wails; just as a Naiad nymph, who sends a song of woe ringing over the hills, cries out, under the rocky hollows, with screams at the rape of Pan.

HELEN: Oh! Oh! Maidens of Hellas, the prey of barbarian sailors! An Achaean sailor came, he came bringing tears upon tears to me. Ilion has been destroyed and is left to the enemy’s fire through me, the death-giver, through my name, full of suffering. Leda sought death by hanging, in anguish over my disgrace. My husband, after much wandering in the sea, has died and is gone; and Castor and his brother, twin glory of their native land, have vanished, vanished, leaving the plains that shook to their galloping horses, and the schools of reed-fringed Eurotas, scene of youthful labors.

CHORUS: Alas, alas! for your mournful fate and destiny, lady! You were fated, fated to have a life full of pain, when Zeus begot you on your mother, shining through the air on the wings of a snow-white swan. What evil is not yours? What life have you not endured? Your mother is dead; the twin beloved sons of Zeus do not enjoy happiness; and you do not see your fatherland, while through the cities a rumor goes, mistress, which hands you over to the bed of a barbarian; your husband has lost his life in the salty waves, and never again will you bring glee to your father’s halls and Athene of the Bronze House.

HELEN: Ah! Who was it, either from Phrygia or from Hellas, who cut the pine that brought tears to Ilion? From this wood the son of Priam built his deadly ship, and sailed by barbarian oars to my home, to that most ill-fated beauty, to win me as his wife; and with him sailed deceitful and murderous Kypris, bearing death for the Danaans. Oh, unhappy in my misfortune! But Hera, the holy beloved of Zeus on her golden throne, sent the swift-footed son of Maia. I was gathering fresh rose leaves in the folds of my robe, so that I might go to the goddess of the Bronze House; he carried me off through the air to this luckless land, and made me an object of miserable strife, of strife between Hellas and the sons of Priam. And my name beside the streams of Simois bears a false rumor.

CHORUS LEADER: You have sorrows, I know; but it is best to bear as lightly as we can the necessary evils of life.

HELEN: Dear friends, to what a fate am I yoked? Did my mother bear me as a wonder to mankind? My life and all I do is a wonder, partly because of Hera, and partly my beauty is to blame. If only I could be rubbed out like a painting, and have again in turn a plainer form instead of beauty, and the Hellenes would have forgotten the evil fate that I now have, and would remember what part of my life is not evil, as they now remember what is. When someone looks to one event only, and is ill-treated by the gods, it is hard, but all the same it can be borne. But I am involved in countless troubles. First, although I never acted wrongly, my good name is gone. And this trouble is stronger than the reality, if someone incurs blame for wrongs that are not his own. Next, the gods have removed me from my native country to barbarian habits, and bereft of friends I have become a slave although I am free by birth; for among barbarians all are slaves except one. And the only anchor of my fortunes is gone, the hope that my husband would come one day and free me of my woes—he is dead, he no longer exists. My mother is dead, and I am called her murderer—unjustly, but that injustice is mine to bear; while the one who was born the glory of the house, my daughter, is growing gray as a virgin, without a husband; and those two Dioskouroi, called the sons of Zeus, are no more. But with all my misfortunes, I am as good as dead in my circumstances, though not in fact. And this is the last evil of all: if ever I should come home, I would be shut out by barred doors, for people would think I was that Helen of Troy, coming back with Menelaos. If my husband were still alive, we could have recognized each other by recourse to tokens which are evident to us alone. But now this is not so, and he can never be saved. Why then do I still live? What fortune do I have left? Shall I choose marriage in exchange for evils, and live with a barbarian man, seated at his sumptuous table? But whenever a husband she hates lives with a woman, her own body is also hateful to her. It is best to die; how could this not be well done? For I have come to such a depth of misery; other women have good fortune from their beauty, but the same thing has destroyed me.

CHORUS LEADER: Helen, do not suppose that stranger who came here, whoever he was, has spoken the whole truth.

HELEN: And yet he said very clearly that my husband was dead.

CHORUS LEADER: Many words might be said in falsehood also.

HELEN: And the opposite of falsehood is clear in its truth.

CHORUS LEADER: You are carried towards misfortune instead of what is good.

HELEN: Yes, for terror has embraced me and leads me to the thing I fear.

CHORUS LEADER: How much goodwill is there in this house for you?

HELEN: All are my friends, except the one who hunts me in marriage.

Part 5

CHORUS LEADER: Then do you know what you should do? Leave your seat at the monument—

HELEN: What sort of word of advice are you coming to?

CHORUS LEADER: Go inside and question the daughter of the sea-nymph, Theonoe, who knows all things, about your husband, whether he is still alive, or has left the light of day; and when you know for certain, rejoice or be full of mourning, according to your fortune. Before you know anything correctly, what good would it do you to grieve? But be persuaded by me; leave this tomb and join the girl; when you have someone in this house from whom you can learn the whole truth, why do you look further? And I myself want to go in and ask about the prophecies of the maiden with you; for, truly, women ought to help each other.

HELEN: Dear friends, I welcome your advice. Come in, come into the house, to learn within about my struggles.

CHORUS: You are calling on one who is wholly willing.

HELEN: Oh, what an unhappy day! What tearful word shall I hear, unhappy as I am?

CHORUS: Do not be a prophetess of sorrow, dear friend, anticipating lamentation.

HELEN: What has my poor husband suffered? Does he see the light and the sun’s chariot and the paths of the stars? Or does he have a lasting fate among the dead beneath the earth?

CHORUS: Take a brighter view of the future, whatever will happen.

HELEN: For I call on you, I swear to you, Eurotas green with watery reeds, if this rumor of my husband’s death is true—and what was obscure in those words?—I will stretch a deadly noose about my neck, or drive inward a murderous thrust of slaughter that gushes from the throat, a contest of the blade through my flesh, as a sacrifice to the three goddesses and to the son of Priam, who once sat on the hollows of Ida, near the ox-stalls.

CHORUS: May sorrow be turned aside elsewhere, and may your lot be fortunate!

HELEN: Oh, unhappy Troy! Through deeds not done by yourself, you are ruined, and have suffered pitiably; for the gift that Kypris gave me has caused much blood and many tears; it has added grief to grief and tear to tear, sorrows. . . . Mothers have lost their children and virgin sisters of the slain have cut off their hair by the swollen tide of Phrygian Skamandros. And Hellas has cried aloud, aloud, and broken forth in wailing, beating her head, and drenching her soft-skinned cheek with the bloody strokes of her nails. O maiden Kallisto, blessed once in Arcadia, who climbed into the bed of Zeus on four paws, how much happier was your lot than my mother’s, you who in the form of a shaggy-limbed beast—the bearing of a lioness with your fierce eye—changed your burden of sorrow; and also the one whom Artemis once drove from her chorus, as a deer with horns of gold, the Titan girl, daughter of Merops, because of her loveliness; but the beauty of my body has destroyed the Dardanian towers, it has destroyed them and the lost Achaeans.

MENELAOS: O Pelops, who once held that chariot-race contest with Oinomaos over Pisa, if only, when you were persuaded to make a banquet for the gods, you had left your life then, inside the gods, before you ever begot my father, Atreus, to whom were born, from his marriage with Airope, Agamemnon and myself, Menelaos, a famous pair; for I believe that I carried a mighty army—and I say this not in boast—in ships to Troy, no tyrant commanding any troops by force, but leading the young men of Hellas by voluntary consent. And some of these can be counted no longer alive, others as having a joyful escape from the sea, bringing home again names thought to be of the dead. But I wander miserably over the swelling waves of the gray ocean, ever since I sacked the towers of Ilion; and although I long to come home, I am not thought worthy by the gods to achieve this. I have sailed to Libya’s deserts and all its inhospitable landing-places; and whenever I draw near my native land, the blast drives me back again, and no favoring wind has ever entered my sails to let me come home. And now I am cast up on this shore, a miserable shipwrecked sailor who has lost his friends; and my ship is broken into many pieces against the rocks. But out of its cleverly-wrought fastenings the keel was left, on which I made my difficult escape by an unexpected chance, and also Helen with me, whom I dragged away from Troy. But I do not know the name of this country and its people; for I was embarrassed to burst into a crowd and make inquiries, and so I concealed these shabby clothes, in shame over my misfortune. For whenever a man of high degree is badly off, he falls into an unaccustomed state which is worse than that of one who has long been unfortunate. But poverty is wearing me away; for I have neither food, nor clothes around my body; one can compare what I am wearing to rags cast out of the ship. The sea snatched away all the robes I once wore, splendid clothes and ornaments. Deep in a cave I hid the woman who caused all my troubles, and have come here, after compelling those of my friends who survived to guard my wife. I have come alone, seeking help for those friends there, if I may find it somehow after careful search. When I saw this home, surrounded by walls, and the majestic gateways of some prosperous man, I came near; sailors can hope to get something from wealthy homes; but from those who have no livelihood—they could not help us, even if they wanted to. Hello! Is there some gatekeeper who might come from the house and announce my troubles within?

OLD WOMAN: Who’s at the door? Get away from the house and don’t annoy my master by standing at the court-yard gate! Or else you will die because you are a Hellene, and they have no business here.

MENELAOS: My good woman, you can say these same words in a different tone, for I shall be persuaded; but let go your angry speech.

OLD WOMAN: Go away! Stranger, my orders are to let no Hellene come near this house.

MENELAOS: Ah! Do not push me, or thrust me away by force.

OLD WOMAN: You are to blame, for not heeding what I say.

MENELAOS: Announce to your master inside—

OLD WOMAN: I think someone would be sorry, if I announced your words.

Part 6

MENELAOS: I come as a shipwrecked man and a guest; such people are safe from violence.

OLD WOMAN: Well, go to some other house instead of this one.

MENELAOS: No; I am going inside. You listen to me.

OLD WOMAN: Know that you’re only causing trouble; and soon you’ll be thrown out by force.

MENELAOS: Alas! Where are those glorious armies of mine?

OLD WOMAN: Perhaps you were grand somewhere, but not here.

MENELAOS: O my fortune, how we have been unworthily dishonored.

OLD WOMAN: Why are your eyes wet with tears? To whom are you lamenting?

MENELAOS: To my fortunes, which were happy before this.

OLD WOMAN: Well then, why don’t you go away and give these tears to your friends.

MENELAOS: What is this land? Whose palace is this?

OLD WOMAN: Proteus lives here, the land is Egypt.

MENELAOS: Egypt? O wretched, that I have sailed here!

OLD WOMAN: And why do you blame the bright gleam of the Nile?

MENELAOS: I do not blame it; I am sighing for my fate.

OLD WOMAN: Many people are doing badly; you are not the only one.

MENELAOS: Is the king you name in the house?

OLD WOMAN: This is his tomb; his son rules the land.

MENELAOS: And where might he be? Abroad, or in the house?

OLD WOMAN: He is not inside; he is most bitterly opposed to the Hellenes.

Part 7

MENELAOS: What cause does he have? I have felt the consequences of it!

OLD WOMAN: Helen, the daughter of Zeus, is in this house.

MENELAOS: What do you mean? What did you say? Tell me again.

OLD WOMAN: The daughter of Tyndareus, who once lived in Sparta.

MENELAOS: Where did she come from? What is the meaning of this?

OLD WOMAN: She came here from the land of Lakedaimon.

MENELAOS: When? Surely I have not been robbed of my wife from the cave?

OLD WOMAN: Before the Achaeans went to Troy, stranger. But get away from the house; for something is happening within, by which the palace is thrown into confusion. You have not come at the right time; and if my master catches you, death will be your guest-gift. For I am well-disposed to Hellenes, for all that I spoke harshly to you in fear of my master.

MENELAOS: What can I say? For after my former troubles, this present event that I hear of is an unhappy one, if I have come here, bringing my wife who was taken from Troy, and she is kept safe in the cave, but some other woman who has the same name as my wife lives in this house. She said the woman was born the child of Zeus. Can there be a man with the name of Zeus by the banks of Nile? For there is only one in heaven. Where in the world is there a Sparta, except by the streams of Eurotas, with its lovely reeds? The name of Tyndareus is the name of one alone. Is there any land of the same name as Lakedaimon or Troy? I do not know what to say; for there are probably many things in the wide world that have the same names, both cities and women; there is nothing, then, to marvel at. Besides, I will not run away from a servant’s fears; for no man is so barbaric at heart as to refuse me food when he has heard my name. The fire of Troy is famous, and I, Menelaos, who lighted it, am well known in every land. I will wait for the master of the house; he gives me two things to look out for: if he is a cruel sort of person, I will keep myself hidden and go back to the shipwreck; but if he shows any softening, I will ask for help in my present state. This is the worst evil for me in my misery, to beg the means of life from other kings, when I am myself a king; but it is necessary. The saying is not mine, but it is a wise word: nothing is stronger than dreadful necessity.

CHORUS: I have heard the prophetic maiden, who gave a clear answer within the palace: Menelaos is not yet dead and buried, gone to the land of shadows where darkness takes the place of light; but he is still wearing out his life on the ocean swell and has not yet reached the haven of his country, wretched in his wandering life, bereft of every friend, approaching every land in his sea-going ship from the land of Troy.

HELEN: Here I am, once again coming back to the sanctuary of this tomb, after learning the welcome words of Theonoe, who knows all things truly; she says my husband is alive and sees the light of day; he is roaming here and there on countless voyages, not without practice in wandering, and he shall come here when he finds an end to his suffering. But she left one thing unsaid: if he will escape when he has come? And I refrained from asking that question clearly; I was so glad when she told me he was safe. She said that he was near this land somewhere, cast up, shipwrecked, with a few friends. Oh, when will you come? How much I long for your arrival! Ah! Who is this? I am not being ambushed by the plots of Proteus’ impious son, am I? Shall I not, like a young racehorse or a worshipper of Bacchus, reach the tomb? There is something wild about the looks of this man who is hunting me down.

MENELAOS: You there! the one trying with fearful effort to reach the base of the tomb and the pillars of burnt sacrifice, stay where you are. Why do you flee? I am amazed and speechless at the sight of your body.

HELEN: Women, I am being ill-treated. This man is keeping me from the tomb, and he wants to take me and give me to the king, whose wooing I was seeking to avoid.

MENELAOS: I am no thief, nor a servant of evil men.

HELEN: And yet the clothes you are wearing are unsightly enough.

MENELAOS: Put fear aside and stop your rapid flight.

HELEN: I do so, now that I have reached this spot.

MENELAOS: Who are you? Whom do I see in you, lady?

HELEN: But who are you? The same reason prompts us both.

MENELAOS: I never saw a closer resemblance.

Part 8

HELEN: O gods! For the recognizing of friends is a god.

MENELAOS: Are you a woman from Hellas, or a native of this land?

HELEN: From Hellas; but I want to learn your story too.

MENELAOS: You seem to me very much like Helen, lady.

HELEN: And you seem to me like Menelaos; I don’t know what to say.

MENELAOS: Well, you have correctly recognized a most unfortunate man.

HELEN: Oh, at last you have come to the arms of your wife!

MENELAOS: What do you mean by wife? Do not touch my robe.

HELEN: The one whom Tyndareus, my father, gave to you.

MENELAOS: O torch-bearing Hekate, send visions that are favorable!

HELEN: You see in me no specter of the night, attendant on the queen of phantoms.

MENELAOS: As one man, I am certainly not the husband of two women.

HELEN: You are the master of what other wife?

MENELAOS: The one hidden in the cave, whom I am bringing from Troy.

HELEN: You have no other wife but me.

MENELAOS: Can it be that I am in my right mind, but my sight is failing?

HELEN: Don’t you think that when you look at me you see your wife?

MENELAOS: Your body resembles hers, but the real truth robs me of this belief.

HELEN: Look; what more do you need? Who knows better than you?

MENELAOS: You are like her; I will not deny that at least.

Part 9

HELEN: Who then shall teach you, if not your own eyes?

MENELAOS: It is there that I am ailing, because I have another wife.

HELEN: I did not go to Troy; that was a phantom.

MENELAOS: And who fashions living bodies?

HELEN: The air, out of which you have a wife that the gods labored over.

MENELAOS: What god’s handiwork? You are saying things beyond hope.

HELEN: Hera’s, as a substitute, so that Paris would not have me.

MENELAOS: How then could you be here and in Troy at the same time?

HELEN: The name may be in many places, though not the body.

MENELAOS: Let me go! I have come here with enough pain.

HELEN: Will you leave me, and take that phantom bride away?

MENELAOS: Yes, and fare well, for your likeness to Helen.

HELEN: I am ruined! I found you, my husband, but I will not have you.

MENELAOS: The greatness of my troubles over there convinces me; you do not.

HELEN: Ah me! Who was ever more miserable than I am? Those whom I love best are leaving me, and I shall never reach the Hellenes or my own country.

MESSENGER: (entering hurriedly.) Menelaos, I find you, after taking great trouble to look for you, wandering over the whole of this foreign land; I am sent by the comrades whom you left behind.

MENELAOS: What is it? Surely you are not being plundered by the foreigners?

MESSENGER: It is a miracle; what I say is of less account than what happened.

MENELAOS: Tell me; for, judging by this eagerness, you are certainly bringing something new.

MESSENGER: I say that you have suffered countless labors in vain.

Part 10

MENELAOS: You are mourning over old sorrows; what is your message?

MESSENGER: Your wife has disappeared, taken up into the folds of the unseen air; she is hidden in heaven, and as she left the hallowed cave where we were keeping her, she said this: Miserable Phrygians, and all the Achaeans! On my account you were dying by the banks of Skamandros, through Hera’s contrivance, for you thought that Paris had Helen when he didn’t. But I, since I have stayed my appointed time, and kept the laws of fate, will now depart into the sky, my father; but the unhappy daughter of Tyndareus, guilty in no way, has borne an evil name without reason. Welcome, daughter of Leda, were you here after all? I was just announcing your departure up to the hidden starry realms, not knowing that you had a winged body. I will not let you mock us like this again, for you gave your fill of trouble to your husband and his allies in Ilion.

MENELAOS: This is the meaning of that; her words have turned out to be true. O longed-for day, that has given you to my arms!

HELEN: O Menelaos, dearest of men, the time was long, but delight is just now ours. With joy I have found my husband, friends, I have embraced my dear one, after long days of blazing light.

MENELAOS: And I have found you; but I have many questions about t; now I do not know what to begin with first.

HELEN: I am so happy, the hair rises on my head and my tears run down. I fling my arms around your neck, dear husband, to have my delight.

MENELAOS: O dearest sight! I have no fault to find: I have my wife, the daughter of Zeus and Leda; your brothers on their snow-white steeds blessed you, blessed you at an earlier time, while torches blazed, but the god who took you from my home is driving us on to another fortune, better than this. An evil that was good brought you together with me, your husband after a long time, but may I still benefit by my good luck.

CHORUS: May you benefit indeed, and I join in the same prayer; for when there are two, it is not possible for one to be unhappy and the other not.

HELEN: My dear friends, I no longer sigh or grieve over what is past. I have my husband, for whom I have been waiting to come from Troy for many years.

MENELAOS: You have me, and I have you; although it was hard to live through so many days, I now understand the actions of the goddess. My joy is tearful; it has more delight than sorrow.

HELEN: What can I say? What mortal could ever have hoped for this? I hold you to my heart, little as I ever thought to.

MENELAOS: And I hold you, whom we thought to have gone to Ida’s city and the unhappy towers of Ilion. By the gods, how were you taken from my home?

HELEN: Ah! ah! You are setting out on a bitter beginning. Ah! ah! You are asking about a bitter tale.

MENELAOS: Speak; all gifts from the gods should be heard.

HELEN: I detest the story I am now to introduce.

MENELAOS: Tell it anyway. It is sweet to hear of troubles.

HELEN: Not to the bed of the young barbarian, on the wings of oars, on the wings of desire for lawless marriage—

MENELAOS: What god or fate tore you from your country?

HELEN: Ah, my husband! The son of Zeus, of Zeus, brought me to the Nile.

MENELAOS: Amazing! Who sent you there? O dreadful story!

Part 11

HELEN: I have wept bitterly, and my eyes are wet with tears; the wife of Zeus ruined me.

MENELAOS: Hera? Why did she want to bring trouble to the two of us?

HELEN: Alas for my terrible fate, the baths and springs, where the goddesses brightened the beauty from which the judgment came.

MENELAOS: Regarding the judgment, Hera made it a cause of these troubles for you?

HELEN: To take me away from Paris—

MENELAOS: How? Tell me.

HELEN: To whom Kypris had promised me.

MENELAOS: O unhappy one!

HELEN: Unhappy, unhappy; and so she brought me to Egypt.

MENELAOS: Then she gave him a phantom instead, as I hear from you.

HELEN: Sorrow, sorrow to your house, mother, alas.

MENELAOS: What do you mean?

HELEN: My mother is no more; through shame of my disgraceful marriage she tied a noose around her neck.

MENELAOS: Alas! Is our daughter Hermione alive?

HELEN: Ah, my husband! Unmarried, and without children, she mourns my fatal marriage.

MENELAOS: O Paris, who utterly destroyed my whole house, these things ruined you also, and countless bronze-clad Danaans.

HELEN: The god cast me out, ill-fated and accursed, from my country, from my city, and from you, when I left my home and bed—yet I did not leave them—for a shameful marriage.

CHORUS LEADER: If indeed you should find happiness in the future, it would be a match for the past.

MESSENGER: Menelaos, give me as well a share of that joy which I understand, but not clearly.

MENELAOS: Come and take part in our talk, old man, you too.

Part 12

MESSENGER: This woman is not the arbitrator of all the trouble in Troy?

MENELAOS: She is not; I was tricked by the gods and had in my arms the baneful image of a cloud.

MESSENGER: What are you saying? We suffered in vain for the sake of a cloud?

MENELAOS: It was the work of Hera, and the rivalry of the three goddesses.

MESSENGER: And the one who is truly your wife is this woman here?

MENELAOS: This is she; trust my word for that.

MESSENGER: O daughter, how intricate and hard to trace out is the nature of the god! In some way that is good, he twists everything about, now up, now down; one man suffers, and one who has not suffered comes afterwards to a bad end, having no security in his current fortune. You and your husband have had your share of trouble, you in repute, he in the heat of battle. In his eagerness, while he was eager, he got nothing; but now that he has achieved the greatest good fortune, he has it without cause. You did not, after all, bring shame upon your old father or on the twin sons of Zeus, nor did you do such things as were spoken of. Now again I renew your wedding rites and remember the blazing torch I bore, running beside the four yoked horses; and you, in the chariot as a bride, were leaving your happy home with this man here. Whoever pays no reverence to his master’s affairs, rejoicing with him and grieving with his troubles, is worthless. Although I was born a servant, let me still be numbered among honest slaves; my mind is free, if not my name. For this is better than to suffer double misery as one man: to have a worthless heart and, being a slave, to owe obedience to any other.

MENELAOS: Come, old man—often by my shield you have had your full share of trouble and hard work—now also have a share in my success, and go tell the friends I left behind the state of matters here, as you found them, and how my fortune stands; and bid them wait at the beach and watch eagerly for the struggle which I expect awaits me; and if we should be able somehow to steal this woman away from the land, tell them to keep good watch so that we may share the luck and escape, if we can, from the barbarians.

MESSENGER: It shall be done, lord. Now indeed I see how worthless the seers’ doings are, and how full of falsehood; there was no health in the blaze of sacrifice after all, or in the cry of winged birds; even to think that birds can help mankind is certainly foolish. For Calchas gave no word or sign to the army, when he saw his friends dying on behalf of a cloud, nor did Helenos; but the city was taken by storm in vain. You might say: because the god did not want them to? Then why do we consult prophets? We ought to sacrifice to the gods and ask a blessing, but leave divination alone; for this was invented otherwise, as a bait for a livelihood, and no man grows rich by sacrifices if he is idle. But sound judgment and discernment are the best of seers. Exit Messenger.

CHORUS LEADER: My views about seers coincide exactly with this old man’s; whoever has the gods as friends would have the best prophecy at home.

HELEN: All right; so far all is well. But how you were saved, my poor husband, from Troy, there is no gain in knowing, yet friends have a desire to learn what their friends have suffered.

MENELAOS: Truly you have asked a great deal all at once. Why should I tell you about our losses in the Aegean, and Nauplios’ beacons on Euboia, and my visits to Crete and the cities of Libya, and the mountain-peaks of Perseus? For I would not satisfy you with the tale, and by telling you these evils I would suffer still, as I did when I experienced them; and so my grief would be doubled.

HELEN: Your answer is better than my question. Leave out the rest, and tell me only this: how long were you a weary wanderer over the surface of the sea?

MENELAOS: Besides those ten years in Troy, I went through seven cycles of years on board ship.

HELEN: Alas, poor man, you have spoken of a long time; and, saved from there, you have come here to the slaughter.

MENELAOS: What do you mean? What will you say? Ah, my wife, you have ruined me.

HELEN: Escape from this land and flee as quickly as possible. The man who lives in this house will kill you.

MENELAOS: What have I done to deserve such a fate?

HELEN: You have come unexpectedly to hinder my marriage.

MENELAOS: What! Does someone plan to marry my wife?

Part 13

HELEN: And to act in violence against me, which I have endured.

MENELAOS: Does he have private power, or is he the ruler of the country?

HELEN: He is the lord of this land, the son of Proteus.

MENELAOS: This is that riddle I heard from the servant.

HELEN: Which one of the barbarian’s gates were you standing beside?

MENELAOS: This one, from which I was being driven away like a beggar.

HELEN: You were surely not begging for food, were you? How unhappy I am!

MENELAOS: That was the deed, though it did not have that name.

HELEN: Then you know everything, it seems, about my marriage.

MENELAOS: I do. But if you have escaped his bed—that I do not know.

HELEN: Know that I have saved myself untouched for you.

MENELAOS: What could persuade me of this? If true, your words are sweet.

HELEN: Do you see my wretched sanctuary at this tomb?

MENELAOS: I see a miserable bed of straw, but what do you have to do with it?

HELEN: Here, as a suppliant, I am asking for an escape from his bed.

MENELAOS: For want of an altar, or because it is the barbarians’ way?

HELEN: This was as good a protection to me as the temples of the gods.

MENELAOS: Then it’s not possible for me to take you home by ship?

HELEN: A sword is waiting for you, rather than my bed.

MENELAOS: So I would be the most wretched of mortals.

Part 14

HELEN: Do not feel shame now, but escape from this land.

MENELAOS: Leaving you behind? I ravaged Troy for your sake.

HELEN: Yes, for that is better than that our union should cause your death.

MENELAOS: Oh! these are coward’s words, unworthy of those days at Troy.

HELEN: You could not kill the tyrant, your possible intention.

MENELAOS: Does he then have a body that cannot be wounded by a sword?

HELEN: You will hear. But to undertake impossibilities is no mark of wisdom.

MENELAOS: And so I am to offer my hands to be bound, in silence?

HELEN: You are in a dilemma; we need some contrivance.

MENELAOS: Yes, for it is sweeter to die in action than by not acting.

HELEN: There is one hope, and only one, for our safety.

MENELAOS: Are we to buy it, or dare it, or win it with words?

HELEN: If the tyrant were not to learn of your arrival.

MENELAOS: Will any one tell him about me? He will certainly not know who I am.

HELEN: He has within an ally equal to the gods.

MENELAOS: A voice that has settled in the inmost parts of his house?

HELEN: No, but his sister; she is called Theonoe.

MENELAOS: The name is prophetic; tell me what she does.

HELEN: She knows everything, and she will tell her brother that you are here.

MENELAOS: We must die; for I cannot escape her notice.

Part 15

HELEN: Perhaps we might persuade her by supplication—

MENELAOS: To do what? What hope are you leading me to?

HELEN: Not to tell her brother that you are here in this land.

MENELAOS: If we persuade her, could we get away from this country?

HELEN: Easily, in common with her; but secretly we could not.

MENELAOS: The task is yours; it is suitable for women to deal with women.

HELEN: Be sure that I will clasp her knees.

MENELAOS: Well, then, what if she rejects our proposals?

HELEN: You will die. And I, the unhappy one, will be married by force.

MENELAOS: You would be a traitor; that force of yours is all an excuse.

HELEN: But I have sworn a sacred oath by your life—

MENELAOS: What do you mean? To die? And never to take his bed in exchange for mine?

HELEN: Yes, by the same sword; I will lie at your side.

MENELAOS: Then on these conditions touch my right hand.

HELEN: I touch it, swearing that I will leave the light of day if you die.

MENELAOS: And I will end my life if I lose you.

HELEN: How then shall we die so as to insure our reputation for this?

MENELAOS: I will kill you on the tomb’s surface, and then kill myself. But first I will fight a great contest for your bed. Let anyone who wishes come near! For I will not disgrace my Trojan fame, nor, on my return to Hellas, will I receive great blame—I who robbed Thetis of Achilleus, and saw the slaughter of Aias, son of Telamon, and the son of Neleus made childless; shall I not resolve to die for my wife? Most certainly; for if the gods are wise, they lightly bury in the earth a brave man who has been killed by his enemies, while cowards they cast up out of the earth onto a harsh rock.

CHORUS LEADER: O gods, may the race of Tantalos be fortunate at last, and may it be set free from evils!

HELEN: Ah, I am unhappy, for so is my fate! Menelaos, we are destroyed. The prophetess Theonoe is coming out of the house; it resounds as the bolts are unfastened. Try to escape! But what is the use of trying? For whether she is absent or present she knows of your arrival here. Oh, I am lost, unfortunate! Saved from Troy and from a barbarian land, you have come only to fall upon barbarian swords.

Part 16

THEONOE: Please lead the way with blazing torches, and purify, according to the sacred law, the inmost corners of the air, so I may receive the pure breath of heaven; and you in turn, if someone has harmed the path by treading with unholy foot, submit it to the cleansing fire, and strike the torch in front of me, so that I may pass through. And when you have paid back to the gods my customary observance, take the household flame within. Helen, what about my prophecy—how is it? This man, your husband Menelaos, has openly arrived, robbed of his ships and of your counterfeit. O unhappy man! What troubles you have escaped to come here; nor do you know whether you are to return home or to stay here. For there will be strife among the gods, and a solemn assembly held by Zeus on your account this very day. Hera, who was hostile to you before, is now friendly and wants to bring you safely home, with this woman, so that Hellas may learn that the marriage of Paris, Kypris’ gift, was false; but Kypris wishes to ruin your journey home, so that she may not be convicted, or seem to have bought the prize of beauty by a marriage that was profitless as regards Helen. Now the decision rests with me, whether to ruin you, as Kypris wishes, by telling my brother of your presence here, or to save your life by taking Hera’s side, keeping my brother in the dark, for his orders are for me to tell him, whenever you happen to come to this land. One of you, go show my brother this man is here, so that I may secure my position.

HELEN: Maiden, I fall at your knees as a suppliant, and seat myself in this sad posture on behalf of myself and of this man; I am on the point of seeing him slain, after I have found him with such difficulty. Please do not tell your brother that my husband has returned to my loving arms, but save us, I beseech you; do not forsake the piety that was once yours for your brother’s sake, buying favors that are wicked and unjust. For the god hates violence, and commands everyone to have their possessions without robbery. Heaven is common to all mortals, and so is the earth, where people ought to fill up their homes without having another’s property, or taking it away by force. At a critical time, but unhappily for me, Hermes gave me to your father to keep safe for my husband, this man who is here and wishes to have me back. But how could he recover me if he is dead? How could your father ever restore the living to the dead? Now examine the will of the god and of your father; would the deity and your dead father be willing to give back again their neighbor’s goods, or would they not? I think they would. It is not, therefore, right that you should attach more importance to a thoughtless brother more than a good father. If you, who are a prophet and believe in divine affairs, ruin the lawful intention of your father and gratify your lawless brother, it is disgraceful that you should have full knowledge of divine matters, both what is and what will be, and yet not know what is right. Save me, the unhappy one, enveloped in these troubles, and give me this addition to my fate; for there is no mortal who does not hate Helen; I am famous throughout Hellas as the one who betrayed my husband and lived in Phrygia’s golden halls. If I come to Hellas and set foot once more in Sparta, they will hear and see how they were ruined by the wiles of gods, while I was no traitor to my friends after all; and so they will lead me back to virtue again, and I shall betroth my daughter, whom no man now will marry; and, leaving this bitter beggar’s life here, shall enjoy the goods that are in my home. And if this man were dead and slaughtered on a funeral pyre, I would be cherishing his memory with tears far away; but shall I be robbed of him when he is now alive and safe? Ah! not that, maiden, I beseech you: grant me this favor, and imitate the character of a just father; for this is the fairest glory for children, when the child of a good father resembles its parents in character.

CHORUS LEADER: The arguments here proposed are worthy of pity, and so are you. But I am anxious to hear what Menelaos will say to save his life.

MENELAOS: I could not endure to fall at your knees, or wet my eyes with tears; for if I were cowardly, I would greatly dishonor Troy. And yet they say that it is fitting for a noble man to let tears fall from his eyes in misfortune. But I will not choose this honorable course, if it is honorable, in preference to bravery. But, if you think it right to save a stranger seeking justly to recover his wife, then restore her and save us in addition; if not, I would be wretched, not now for the first time but as often before, and you will seem to be an evil woman. What I consider honest and worthy of me, and what will touch your heart most closely, these things I will say at the tomb of your father, with regret for his loss. Old man, dwelling in this tomb of stone, give her back, I demand of you my wife, whom Zeus sent here for you to keep for me. I know you will never restore her to me yourself, for you are dead; but this woman here will not think it right that her father, invoked from below, once so glorious, should bear a tarnished name; for she is the one in authority now. You, too, Hades of the world below, I call as an ally; you who have received so many bodies slain by my sword for Helen’s sake, you have your payment; either restore them to life again now, or compel this woman to show herself better than her pious father, and give me back my wife. But if you will rob me of her, I will tell you what she omitted in her speech. So that you may know, maiden, I am bound by an oath, first to go into battle with your brother; he or I must die; the matter is simple. If he refuses to meet me face to face, but hunts us down, two suppliants at the tomb, by starvation, I am resolved to kill this woman, and then to plunge this two-edged sword through my heart, on the surface of the tomb, so that streams of blood may run down the grave; we will lie, two corpses side by side upon this polished slab, a deathless grief to you, and a reproach to your father. Your brother will never marry this woman, nor will any other; but I will carry her off, if not to my house, at any rate to death. Why do I say this? If I turned to women’s ways with tears, rather than being active, I would be pitied more. Kill me, if it seems good to you; you will not kill those who are without fame; but it is better to yield to what I say, so that you may act with justice, and I recover my wife.

CHORUS LEADER: You must judge these arguments, maiden. Decide in such a way as to please all.

THEONOE: My nature and my inclination lean towards piety; and I respect myself, and I would not defile my father’s fame, or gratify my brother at the cost of seeming infamous. There is a great temple of justice in my nature; and having this heritage from Nereus, I will try to keep it, Menelaos. Since Hera wishes to serve you, I will cast my vote on her side. May Kypris be gracious to me; but she has had nothing to do with me, and I will try to remain a virgin always. As for your reproaches against my father at this tomb, I have the same words to say. I would be doing wrong if I do not give her back; for that man, if he were alive, would have given her back for you to have, and you to her. For truly there is retribution for these things, both among the dead and among all men living. The mind of the dead does not live, yet it has eternal thought as it falls into eternal ether. So as not to give advice at length, I will be silent as to what you have entreated, and I will never aid my brother’s folly with my counsel. For I am doing him a service, though he does not think it, if I turn him from his godless life to holiness. You yourselves devise some course of action; I will stand out of your way by my silence. Begin with the gods, and beg Kypris to allow you to return to your country, and Hera that her intention to save you and your husband may remain the same. And you, my own dead father, never, as far as I have strength, shall you be called impious instead of pious. Exit Theonoe.

CHORUS LEADER: No one born lawless ever prospered, but in a lawful cause there is hope of safety.

HELEN: Menelaos, as far as the maiden is concerned, we are safe. For the rest, you must contribute your advice and frame a device to save ourselves.

MENELAOS: Then listen; you have been in the house for a long time and are intimate with the king’s servants.

HELEN: What do you mean by that? You are offering hope, as if you were really about to do something useful for both of us.

MENELAOS: Could you persuade someone in charge of the wagons and horses to give us a chariot?

HELEN: I might; but how will we escape, in our ignorance of the country and the barbarian land?

MENELAOS: You are right; a dilemma. Well, what if I were to hide in the house and kill the king with this two-edged sword?

HELEN: His sister would never be silent or allow you to intend her own brother’s death.

MENELAOS: Nor indeed is there a ship in which we might safely escape; for the sea holds the one we had.

HELEN: Listen to me, if even a woman can say something wise. Are you willing to be called dead in word, though you are not dead?

MENELAOS: It is a bad omen; but if I profit by it, I am ready to be called dead in word, though I am not dead.

HELEN: And truly I would mourn you, as women do, with hair cut short and laments before this impious man.

MENELAOS: What saving remedy does this have for us two? There is a flavor of deception in your scheme.

HELEN: I will beg the tyrant of this country for permission to bury you in an empty tomb, as if you had really died at sea.

Part 17

MENELAOS: Soppose he allows it; then how shall we escape with no ship, when we have buried my body in the empty tomb?

HELEN: I will urge him to give me a vessel, from which I shall have the offerings from your tomb let down into the sea’s embrace.

MENELAOS: You have spoken well, except for one thing: if he commands you to set up a tomb on the dry land, your pretext comes to nothing.

HELEN: But I will say it is not the custom in Hellas to bury those who have died at sea on the dry land.

MENELAOS: You are setting this right, too; then I will sail with you, and help let down the funeral offerings, in the same ship.

HELEN: You must above all be at hand, with your sailors who escaped from the wreck.

MENELAOS: Be sure that if I have a ship at anchor, they will be posted, man beside man, each with his sword.

HELEN: You must direct everything; only let there be winds in our sails to guide us, and a speedy ship.

MENELAOS: It will be so; for the deities will bring my troubles to an end. But from whom will you say that you heard I was dead?

HELEN: From you; allege that you were the only one to escape death, when you were sailing with the son of Atreus, and that you saw him dead.

MENELAOS: It is true that these rags thrown around my body will bear witness with me as to the shipwreck.

HELEN: They have come at the right time, although then they seemed an ill-timed loss. Perhaps that misery may turn to good fortune.

MENELAOS: Should I to enter the house with you, or am I to sit quietly here at this tomb?

HELEN: Stay here; for if he does something harsh to you, this tomb and your sword would protect you. But I will go into the house, cut off my hair, exchange my white robe for a dark one, and tear my cheek with nails that make the flesh bloody. For the contest is a great one, and I see two turns of the scale: either I must die if I am detected in my plot, or else come home and save you as well. Lady Hera, you who lie in the bed of Zeus, grant relief from their labors to two pitiable creatures; we beg you, casting our arms straight towards heaven, where you have your home in an embroidery of stars. And you, who won the prize of beauty at the price of my marriage, Kypris, daughter of Dione, do not destroy me utterly. You have maltreated me enough before now, handing over my name, though not my body, to barbarians. Let me die, if you want to kill me, in my native land. Why are you so insatiable for mischief, practising arts of love, deceits, and treacherous schemes, and magic spells that bring bloodshed on families? If you were only moderate, in other ways you are by nature the sweetest of gods for men; I don’t deny it. Exeunt Helen and Menelaos.

CHORUS: Let me call on you, beneath leafy haunts, sitting in your place of song, you, the most sweetly singing bird, tearful nightingale, oh, come, trilling through your tawny throat, to aid me in my lament, as I sing the piteous woes of Helen and the tearful fate of Trojan women under the Achaeans’ spears; when he sped over the surging plains with foreign oar, when he came, came bringing to Priam’s race from Lacedaemon you, Helen, his unhappy bride—Paris, fatally wedded, under the guidance of Aphrodite.

CHORUS: Many of the Achaeans have breathed out their last amid the spears and hurling stones and have gone to unhappy Hades; their wives have cut off their hair in sorrow, and their homes are left without a bride; an Achaean man, who had only a single ship, lit a blazing beacon on sea-girt Euboia, and destroyed many of them, casting them onto the rocks of Kaphareus and the sea-shores of the Aegean, by the treacherous flame he kindled. The mountains of Malea provided no harbor, in the gusts of the storm, when Menelaos sped far away from his country, bearing on his ships a prize of the barbarian expedition, no prize but strife with the Danaans, Hera’s holy phantom.

CHORUS: What is god, or what is not god, or what is in between— what mortal says he has found it by searching the farthest limit, when he sees divine affairs leaping here and there again and back, in contradictory and unexpected chances? You, Helen, are the daughter of Zeus; for a winged father begot you in Leda’s womb; and then you were proclaimed throughout Hellas, betrayer, faithless, lawless, godless. I do not know whatever certainty is among mortals, but the word of the gods I have found true.

CHORUS: You are fools, who try to win a reputation for virtue through war and marshalled lines of spears, senselessly putting an end to mortal troubles; for if a bloody quarrel is to decide it, strife will never leave off in the towns of men; by it they won as their lot bed-chambers of Priam’s earth, when they could have set right by discussion the strife over you, O Helen. And now they are below in Hades’ keeping, and fire has darted onto the walls like the bolt of Zeus, and you are bringing woe on woe . . . .

THEOKLYMENOS: Greetings, tomb of my father! For I buried you, Proteus, in the passageway so that I could address you; and always as I leave and enter the house, I, your son Theoklymenos, call on you, father. You servants, take the hounds and hunting nets into the palace. I have rebuked myself many times; for do we not punish evil men with death? And now I have heard that some Hellene has come openly to the land, without the guards’ notice, either as a spy or thievishly hunting after Helen; he will die if only I can catch him. Ah! But it seems I have found everything in ruins; for the daughter of Tyndareus has deserted her seat at the tomb and has been carried away from the land. Ho there! undo the bars; loose the horses from their stalls, servants, and bring out my chariot, so that the wife whom I long for may not be carried away from this land without my notice, for want of effort. Wait! for I see that the one I am pursuing is still in the house, and has not fled. You there, why have you put black robes instead of white on your body, and cut the hair from your noble head with a sword, and why do you drench your cheeks with pale tears, lamenting? Do you mourn, persuaded by dreams in the night, or have you broken your heart with grief because you heard some voice within?

HELEN: My lord—for now I give you that name—I am destroyed; everything of mine is gone and I am nothing.

Part 18

THEOKYLMENOS: In what misfortune are you plunged? What has happened?

HELEN: Menelaos—alas, how shall I say it?—is dead, my husband.

THEOKLYMENOS: I do not rejoice at your words, but it is good fortune for me. How do you know? Did Theonoe tell you this?

HELEN: Both she, and one who was there when he perished.

THEOKLYMENOS: Someone has come who announces this for certain?

HELEN: Someone has come; and may he go where I want him to go!

THEOKLYMENOS: Who is it? Where is he? so that I may learn this more clearly.

HELEN: That one, who is sitting crouched at this tomb.

THEOKLYMENOS: Apollo! He certainly has unattractive clothing.

HELEN: Alas! I think my husband is in the same situation also.

THEOKLYMENOS: What is this man’s country, and where did he come from, to land here?

HELEN: He is a Hellene, one of the Achaeans who saiIed with my husband.

THEOKLYMENOS: What kind of death does he say Menelaos died?

HELEN: The most piteous, in the watery waves at sea.

THEOKLYMENOS: On what part of the barbarous ocean was he sailing?

HELEN: He was cast up on the harborless rocks of Libya.

THEOKLYMENOS: How did this man not perish if he was sailing with him?

HELEN: There are times when common men have more luck than their betters.

THEOKLYMENOS: Where did he leave the wreckage of his ship before coming here?

HELEN: Where ruin may come upon it— but not on Menelaos!

Part 19

THEOKLYMENOS: He is already ruined. In what ship did this man come?

HELEN: Sailors happened to meet him and took him up, as he says.

THEOKLYMENOS: Where then is that mischievous creature that was sent to Troy in your place?

HELEN: You mean the cloud image? It has gone into the air.

THEOKLYMENOS: O Priam, and Trojan lands, how you have perished in vain!

HELEN: I too have shared misfortunes with Priam’s race.

THEOKLYMENOS: Did he leave your husband unburied, or did he hide him in the earth?

HELEN: He is unburied; I am so unhappy in my troubles!

THEOKLYMENOS: It is for this that you have cut your locks of golden hair?

HELEN: Yes, for he is dear to me, whoever he is, being here.

THEOKLYMENOS: She rightly weeps for this misfortune. . .

HELEN: It is certainly easy to escape your sister’s notice!

THEOKLYMENOS: No, indeed. Well, what now? Will you continue to live at this tomb?

HELEN: Why do you jeer at me? Won’t you let the dead man be?

THEOKLYMENOS: No, for you are loyal to your husband and avoid me.

HELEN: No longer; begin my wedding now.

THEOKLYMENOS: It has come after a long time, but still I commend you for it.

HELEN: Do you know what you should do? Let us forget what is past.

THEOKLYMENOS: On what terms? One good turn deserves another.

HELEN: Let us make a truce; be reconciled to me.

Part 20

THEOKLYMENOS: I relinquish my quarrel with you; may it go away on wings.

HELEN: Now by your knees, since you are indeed a friend—

THEOKLYMENOS: What thing do you hunt after, that you stretch out a suppliant hand to me?

HELEN: I wish to bury my dead husband.

THEOKLYMENOS: What? Is there a tomb for the absent? Or will you bury a shadow?

HELEN: It is customary among the Hellenes, whenever someone dies at sea—

THEOKLYMENOS: To do what? The race of Pelops is certainly clever in such matters.

HELEN: To carry out the funeral rites in empty woven robes.

THEOKLYMENOS: Hold the funeral; set up the tomb wherever you wish.

HELEN: We do not give burial like this to sailors who have perished.

THEOKLYMENOS: How then? I know nothing of the customs in Hellas.

HELEN: We take out of harbor to the sea all that is the dead man’s due.

THEOKLYMENOS: Then what am I to give you for the dead man?

HELEN: This man knows, but I have no experience, as I was fortunate before.

THEOKLYMENOS: Stranger, you have brought welcome news.

MENELAOS: Not for me, certainly, nor for the dead man.

THEOKLYMENOS: How do you bury those who have died at sea?

MENELAOS: Each according to his means.

THEOKLYMENOS: As far as wealth goes, say what you want, for her sake.

MENELAOS: There must be a blood-offering first to the dead.

Part 21

THEOKLYMENOS: Blood of what? Explain it to me, and I will obey.

MENELAOS: You decide that yourself; whatever you give will suffice.

THEOKLYMENOS: Among barbarians it is customary to sacrifice a horse or a bull.

MENELAOS: If you make a gift, take care to give nothing mean.

THEOKYLEMNOS: I have no lack of such in my rich herds.

MENELAOS: Next, a couch empty of the body is decked and carried in procession.

THEOKLYMENOS: It wall be done; what else is it customary to add?

MENELAOS: Bronze arms; for war was his delight.

THEOKLYMENOS: These will be worthy of the race of Pelops, and these we will give.

MENELAOS: And for the rest, all the lovely offspring that the earth bears.

THEOKLYMENOS: How then? In what way do you let them fall into the waves?

MENELAOS: A ship must be ready, and rowers.

THEOKLYMENOS: How far from the shore does the ship put out?

MENELAOS: So far that the foam in her wake can scarcely be seen from the land.

THEOKLYMENOS: But why? Why does Hellas observe this custom.

MENELAOS: So that the waves may not wash pollution back ashore.

THEOKLYMENOS: A swift Phoenician ship will be there.

MENELAOS: That would be well done, and pleasing to Menelaos, too.

THEOKLYMENOS: Can you not perform these rites well enough without Helen?

MENELAOS: This task belongs to mother, or wife, or children.

Part 22

THEOKLYMENOS: According to you, the work of burying her husband belongs to her.

MENELAOS: Yes indeed; piety demands that the dead be not robbed of their due.

THEOKLYMENOS: Let her go; it is in my interest to foster piety in a wife. Go inside and choose adornment for the dead; I will not send you away from the land empty-handed either, since you have done her a favor. As you have brought me good news, you will receive clothing instead of going in rags, and food, so that you may reach your country, since now I see you doing very badly indeed. As for you, poor lady, do not wear yourself out in a hopeless case; Menelaos has met his doom, and your dead husband could not return to life.

MENELAOS: This is your duty, young woman; you must be content with the husband at your side, and let go the one that no longer exists; for this is best for you, according to what has happened. And if I come to Hellas and find safety, I will put to an end your former bad reputation, if you are such a wife as you ought to be to your husband.

HELEN: I will; my husband will never find fault with me; you yourself will be at hand to know it. Now go inside, unhappy man, and find the bath, and change your clothes. I will show my kindness to you without delay. For you will perform the due services with more kindly feeling for my dearest Menelaos, if you get from me what you ought to have. Exeunt Theoklymenos, Helen, Menelaos.

CHORUS: Once with swift foot the mountain mother of the gods rushed through the wooded glen, and the river’s streams and the deep-thundering sea wave, yearning for her lost daughter, whose name may not be spoken. The loudly rattling castanets cried out a shrill sound, when they, swift-footed as whirlwinds, followed the goddess on her chariot yoked to wild creatures, after the girl that was snatched away from the circling chorus of maidens— here Artemis with her bow, and there the grim-eyed goddess, in full armor, with her spear. But Zeus, who sees clearly from his throne in heaven, brought to pass another destiny.

CHORUS: When the mother ceased from her wild wandering toil, searching for the treacherous rape of her daughter, she crossed the snow-capped heights of the nymphs of Mount Ida; and in sorrow cast herself down in the rocky woods deep in snow; and, by not making fruitful with crops the barren fields of the earth for mortals, she destroyed the human race. She would not send forth the rich nourishment of leafy tendrils for the herds, and life was leaving the cities. No sacrifice was offered to the gods, and on the altars were no cakes to burn; she made the dew-fed springs of clear water cease flowing, the avenger in sorrow for her child.

CHORUS: When she made an end to banquets for gods and the race of men, Zeus spoke out, appeasing the Mother’s gloomy wrath: Go, holy Graces, go and with a loud cry take from Demeter’s angry heart her grief for the maiden; and you, Muses, with song and dance. Then Kypris, fairest of the blessed gods, first took up the rumbling voice of bronze and the drum with tight-stretched skin; and the goddess smiled, and received in her hand the deep-toned flute, pleased with its loud note.

CHORUS: You made burnt offerings that were neither right nor holy, in the chambers of the gods, and you have incurred the wrath of the great mother, child, by not honoring her sacrifices. Oh! Great is the power of dappled fawn-skin robes, and green ivy that crowns a sacred thyrsos, the whirling beat of the tambourine circling in the air, hair streaming wildly for the revelry of Bromios, and the night-long festivals of the goddess. . . . You gloried in your beauty alone.

HELEN: My friends, all goes well for us inside; for the daughter of Proteus, who aids us in our theft, has told her brother nothing when questioned as to my husband’s coming; for my sake she said that he was not alive, but dead and buried. . . . My husband has snatched up by chance fine things indeed; for he is carrying away the armor he was intending to let fall into the sea, putting his noble arm through the shield-strap and holding a spear in his right hand, on pretence of joining in the service to the dead. He has equipped his body with weapons conveniently for the battle, in order to to set up the trophies of countless barbarians, whenever we embark on the oared ship. I adorned him with robes in place of his shipwrecked garments, and I washed him, a long-delayed bath in water from the stream. But I must be silent, for the man is coming from the house who thinks he holds my marriage ready in his hands; and I claim your goodwill and strict silence, so that, when we have saved ourselves, we may be able some day to save you also.

THEOKLYMENOS: Advance in order, servants, as the stranger directed, bearing the funeral gifts for the sea. But you, Helen, if you will agree with my words, be persuaded and stay here; for you will do your husband equal service whether you are present or not. For I am afraid that some sudden passion should persuade you to throw your body into the swelling waves, stricken by love for your former husband; you are grieving for him too much, although he is lost.

HELEN: O my new husband, I must honor my first marriage-bed and the one whose company I shared as a bride; for I could even die with my husband, I loved him so much. But how could he thank me, if I were to share death with him? Let me go and pay funeral rites to the dead in person. May the gods give to you the things I wish and also to this stranger here, for his assistance! And you will have in me such a wife at home as you ought to have, since you are doing a good service to Menelaos and to me; for surely these events are leading to some good fortune. But now appoint someone to give us a ship in which to carry these gifts, so that I may have your kindness in full.

THEOKLYMENOS: (to an attendant.) You, go and give them a Sidonian ship of fifty oars, and rowers also.

HELEN: This man who is ordering the funeral will be in command of the ship, won’t he?

THEOKLYMENOS: Most certainly; my sailors must obey him.

HELEN: Repeat the order, so that they may clearly understand you.

THEOKLYMENOS: I repeat the order, and a third time too, if you wish it.

HELEN: May you have benefit from it—and I from my plans!

THOEKLYMENOS: Do not ruin your skin with too much weeping now.

HELEN: This day will show my gratitude to you.

Part 23

THEOKLYMENOS: The state of the dead is nothingness; toil for them is vain.

HELEN: There is something of what I say both there and here.

THEOKLYMENOS: You will not find in me a husband at all inferior to Menelaos.

HELEN: You are not at fault in any way; good luck is all I need.

THEOKLYMENOS: That is in your power, if you show kindness to me.

HELEN: This is not a lesson I shall have to learn now, to love my friends.

THEOKLYMENOS: Would you like me to send out the equipment in person, working together with you?

HELEN: Not at all! Do not become a slave to your slaves, lord.

THEOKLYMENOS: Come then! I have no concern with the customs of the race of Pelops. My house is pure; for Menelaos did not die here. Let someone go and tell my chieftans to bring marriage-offerings to my house; the whole earth must ring with joyful wedding-songs in celebration of my wedding with Helen, so that it may be envied. You, stranger, go and give to the sea’s embrace these offerings to this woman’s husband, who was once alive; and then hurry back home with my wife, so that after sharing with me her marriage-feast, you may set out for home or remain here in happiness. Exit Theoklymenos.

MENELAOS: O Zeus, called father and god of wisdom, look on us and alter our woes! As we drag our fortunes to the rocky hill, make haste to join with us; if you touch us with your finger-tip only, we shall reach our longed-for goal. There has been enough distress in what we have suffered before. I have invoked you, gods, with many names, good and painful; I am not bound to be unfortunate forever, but to advance in a straight course. If you grant me one favor, you will make me fortunate hereafter. Exeunt Menelaos and Helen.

CHORUS: O swift Phoenician ship of Sidon, dear to the surging waves, mother of the oar, leader of the lovely dancing of dolphins, when the sea is clear of breezes and Ocean’s gray-green daughter, spirit of calm, says these words: Spread your sails to the sea-breezes, as you go on your way, grasp your oars of pine, oh! sailors, sailors, speeding Helen on her way to the shore with good harbor, where once Perseus lived..

CHORUS: Perhaps you may find the daughters of Leukippos beside the swell of the river or before the temple of Pallas, when at last you join in the dances or the revels of Hyakinthos in night-long joy—Hyakinthos, whom Phoebus killed with the round discus, contesting for the farthest throw—a day of the sacrifice of oxen in the Lakonian land; the son of Zeus declared that his race would be honored; and you may find the girl whom you left at home, Hermione, for as yet no torch has lit the way to her marriage.

CHORUS: Oh, that we had wings to cleave the air, where the birds of Libya go in their ranks, leaving the winter rain, obedient to the piping of their veteran leader, who raises his exultant cry as he wings his way over unmoistened and crop-bearing plains of the earth. O you winged long-necked comrades of the racing clouds, go on beneath the Pleiades in their central station and Orion of the night; deliver the message, as you settle on Eurotas’ banks, that Menelaos has sacked the city of Dardanos, and will come home.

CHORUS: May you come at last, speeding over your horses’ path through the sky, sons of Tyndareus, under the whirling of the radiant stars; you who dwell in heaven, Helen’s rescuers, go over the gray-green swell and the dark gray surge of sea-waves, sending the sailors favoring breezes from Zeus; and cast away from your sister her ill-fame from marriage with a barbarian, the punishment she received from the contest on Ida; but she never went to the land of Ilion, to the towers of Phoebus.

SECOND MESSENGER: (entering hurriedly.) O king, . . . troubles are you soon to hear from me.

THEOKLYMENOS: What is it?

MESSENGER: Go to work on the courtship of another woman; for Helen has left the country.

THEOKLYMENOS: Carried up on wings, or treading on the earth?

MESSENGER: Menelaos has taken her off as plunder, out of the land; he was the one that came with the news of his own death.

THEOKLYMENOS: O dreadful story! What ship carried her off from this land? Your story is unbelievable.

Part 24

MESSENGER: The very one that you gave to the stranger; and he has gone with your sailors, so that you may know everything in brief.

THEOKLYMENOS: How? I am eager to know; for I never expected that a single hand could excel over so many sailors, with whom you were sent.

MESSENGER: When the daughter of Zeus had left this royal house and started for the sea, delicately picking her way, she most cleverly began to mourn her husband, though he was close at hand and not dead. When we reached the enclosure of your dockyards, we began to launch the Sidonian ship on her first voyage, with her fifty benches and full measure of rowers. Task gave way to task: one set up the mast, another set up the oars . . . and the rudders were lowered by their cross-bars. And during this labor, men of Hellas who had been fellow-voyagers with Menelaos were watching us, it seems, and they drew near to the beach, clad in the rags of shipwrecked men, handsome, but rough to look upon. And the son of Atreus, when he saw them approach, spoke to them, craftily introducing the reason for his mourning: Unhappy sailors, how have you arrived? From the wreckage of what Achaean ship? Are you here to help bury the dead son of Atreus, whose missing body this lady, daughter of Tyndareus, is honoring with an empty grave? They wept in a feigned manner, and went to the ship, carrying aboard the offerings to be thrown into the sea for Menelaos. We were suspicious at this, and said to each other that there would be a crowd of those additional passengers; but still we remained silent, out of respect for your orders; for by bidding the stranger command the vessel, you threw everything into confusion. Well, we easily put the other victims on the ship, for they were light; but the bull did not want to go forward along the plank, but kept bellowing loudly, rolling his eyes around; and, arching his back and peering along his horns, he prevented us from touching him. But Helen’s husband called out: O you who sacked the town of Ilion, come pick up this bull on young shoulders, as is the way in Hellas, and cast him into the prow . . . the sacrifice to the dead man. Then they came at his summons, and caught up the bull and carried him on to the deck. And Menelaos stroked the horse on neck and brow, coaxing it to go aboard. Finally, when the ship was fully loaded, Helen climbed up the ladder with elegant step, and took her seat in the middle of the rowers’ benches, and he was near by, Menelaos who was called dead. The rest, equally divided on the right and left sides of the ship, sat down, each beside his man, with swords concealed beneath their cloaks, and the waves were filled with shouting as we heard the voice of the boatswain. Now when we had put out from land, neither very far nor very near, the helmsman asked, Shall we sail yet further, stranger, or is this far enough? For the command of this ship is yours. And he answered, Far enough for me. Holding a sword in his right hand, he stepped into the prow; and, standing over the bull to slay it, with no mention of any dead man, he cut its throat and prayed: O Poseidon of the sea, who lives in the deep, and you holy daughters of Nereus, bring me and my wife safe and sound from here to Nauplia’s shore! Streams of blood, a good omen for the stranger, darted into the waves. And someone said, There is treachery in this voyage; let us sail back again! You, give an order for the right oar, you, turn your rudder. But the son of Atreus, standing where he slew the bull, cried out to his comrades, Why do you, the pick of Hellas, delay to slaughter and kill the barbarians and hurl them from the ship into the waves? And the boatswain cried the opposite command to your rowers: Some of you catch up planks at the end, break up the benches, or snatch the oars from the locks, and make the heads of these foreign enemies bloody!. They all leapt upright, some with oars in their hands, others with swords; and the ship ran with blood. Helen cheered them on from the stern: Where is the fame you won in Troy? Show it against the barbarians! In their eagerness, some would fall, some stood upright, you would have seen others lying dead. But Menelaos, in full armor, wherever he spied that his comrades were suffering, would go there, sword in hand; and so we dived from the ship, and he cleared the benches of your rowers. Then going to the helmsman he told him to sail a straight course to Hellas. So they set up the mast, and favoring breezes blew. They are gone from here. But I escaped death and let myself down by the anchor into the sea; and just as I was worn out, some fisherman took me up, and put me out on land, to bring you this report. Nothing is more useful to mankind than a prudent distrust.

CHORUS LEADER: I never would have believed that Menelaos could have eluded both us and you, O king, the way he did on his arrival.

THEOKLYMENOS: Caught by a woman’s tricks, unhappy that I am! My bride has escaped me. If the ship could have been pursued and overtaken, I would have made an effort to catch the strangers at once; but now I will avenge myself upon my treacherous sister, for she saw Menelaos in my house and did not tell me. Therefore she will never deceive another man by her oracles.

SERVANT: You, there! Where are you rushing off to, my lord? to what bloody deed?

THEOKLYMENOS: Where justice calls me. Get out of my way!

SERVANT: I will not let go of your robe, for you are striving after great wickedness.

THEOKLYMENOS: Will you rule over your master, although you are a slave?

SERVANT: Yes, for I am in my right mind.

THEOKLYMENOS: Not in my opinion, if you will not let me—

SERVANT: No, I will not let you!

THEOKLYMENOS: Let me kill my most wicked sister—

SERVANT: No, she is most pious.

THEOKLYMENOS: Who betrayed me—

SERVANT: It was a noble betrayal, correctly done.

THEOKLYMENOS: When she gave my bride to another.

SERVANT: To the one who had a better right.

THEOKLYMENOS: Who has rights over my property?

SERVANT: The one who received her from her father.

Part 25

THEOKLYMENOS: But fortune gave her to me.

SERVANT: And necessity took her away.

THEOKLYMENOS: It is not for you to judge my affairs.

SERVANT: Yes, if my counsel is better.

THEOKLYMENOS: So I am your subject, not your ruler.

SERVANT: Subject to do right, not wrong.

THEOKLYMENOS: It seems you desire to be killed.

SERVANT: Kill me; you will not kill your sister with my consent, but me instead; to die for their masters is the most glorious act for noble slaves.

DIOSKOUROI: Restrain the anger that is wrongly carrying you away, Theoklymenos, king of this land. We, the twin sons of Zeus, are calling you; Leda once gave birth to us, with Helen, who has fled from your home. For you are angry about a marriage that is not destined for you; and your sister Theonoe, daughter of a Nereid goddess, does not wrong you when she honors the word of the gods and her father’s just commands. For it was ordained that Helen should live in your house up to the present time; but no longer, since Troy is wholly destroyed and she has provided her name to the gods; she must be united in her own marriage, and come home and live with her husband. But hold your black sword away from your sister, and believe that she is acting with discretion in this matter. Long ago, before this, we would have saved our sister, seeing that Zeus has made us gods; but we are weaker than fate and also than the gods, who decreed these things to happen in this way. This is my bidding to you, while I say to my sister: Sail on with your husband; and you shall have a favorable breeze; for we, your two savior brothers, riding over the sea, will send you to your fatherland. And when you make the last turn of the race-course and end your life, you will be named as a goddess, and share libations with the Dioskouroi, and receive gifts from men with us; for such is the will of Zeus. And the place where the son of Maia first set the boundary to your course through the air, when he took you away from Sparta, stealing your body so that Paris would not marry you—I mean the island stretched like a sentinel along the coast of Attica—shall be called by your name among men for the future, since it welcomed you when you were stolen from your home. And it is destined by the gods that the wanderer Menelaos will dwell in the islands of the blessed; for deities do not hate the well-born, but the sufferings of the multitude are greater.

THEOKLYMENOS: You sons of Leda and Zeus, I will let go my former quarrel over your sister; and mine I shall no longer try to kill. Let Helen go home, if the gods think it right. Know that you are born from the same blood as a sister who is the best and also most self-controlled; may you fare well, for the sake of Helen’s most noble mind, a quality not to be found in many women.

CHORUS: Many are the forms of divinities, and many things the gods bring to pass unhoped for. And what was expected has not been fulfilled; for what was not expected, a god finds a way. Such was the result of this action.

Contents — 21 sections

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3
4. Part 4
5. Part 5
6. Part 6
7. Part 7
8. Part 8
9. Part 9
10. Part 10
11. Part 11
12. Part 12
13. Part 13
14. Part 14
15. Part 15
16. Part 16
17. Part 17
18. Part 18
19. Part 19
20. Part 20
21. Part 21

Part 1

IPHIGENIA: Pelops, son of Tantalus, coming to Pisa with swift horses, married Oenomaus’ daughter, and she gave birth to Atreus, whose children are Menelaus and Agamemnon; from him I was born, his child Iphigenia, by the daughter of Tyndareus. Where Euripus rolls about its whirlpools in the frequent winds and twists the darkening waves, my father sacrificed me to Artemis for Helen’s sake, or so he thought, in the famous clefts of Aulis. For there lord Agamemnon mustered his expedition of a thousand ships of Hellas, wanting to take the crown of Troy in glorious victory and avenge the outrage to Helen’s marriage, doing this favor for Menelaus. But when he met with dreadful winds that would not let him sail, he went to burnt sacrifices, and Calchas had this to say: Lord and general of Hellas, Agamemnon, you will not set free your ships from land until Artemis has your daughter Iphigenia as a victim. For you once vowed to sacrifice to the torch-bearing goddess the most beautiful creature brought forth that year; then your wife, Clytemnestra, bore a child in your house—ascribing the prize of beauty to me—whom you must sacrifice. And by the craft of Odysseus, they took me from my mother, pretending a marriage with Achilles. I came to Aulis; held up high over the altar, I, the unhappy one, was about to die by the sword; but Artemis gave the Achaeans a deer in exchange for me and stole me from them; conducting me through the bright air, she settled me here in the land of the Taurians. A barbarian rules this land of barbarians: Thoas, who runs as quickly as the flight of birds, and so he received his name for his swiftness of foot. Artemis has made me the priestess in this temple. Here I begin the rites, which the goddess delights in, of a banquet noble in name only—I am silent as to the rest, for I fear the goddess— But others carry out the sacrifices, not to be spoken of, within the temple of the goddess. But the strange visions which the night brought with it, I will tell to the air, if that is any relief. I dreamed that I had left this land to live in Argos, and to sleep in the midst of the maidens’ rooms; but the earth’s back was shaken by a tossing swell. When I escaped and stood outside, I saw the cornice of the house fall, and the whole roof hurled in ruins on the ground, from the highest pillars. One support of my father’s house was left, I thought, and it had yellow locks of hair waving from its capital, and took on human voice. In observance of the art of slaughtering strangers that I practice here, I gave it holy water as if it were about to die, while I wept. This is my interpretation of this dream: Orestes, whom I consecrated by my rites, is dead. For male children are the supports of the house; and those whom I purify with holy water die. Now I wish to give libations to my brother, though he is absent from me—for I would be able to do this—with the attendants given me by the king, Hellene women. But why are they not yet here? I will go inside this temple of the goddess where I live. Exit Iphigenia.

ORESTES: (entering cautiously.) Look out, take care that no one is in the path.

PYLADES: I am looking, and turning my eyes everywhere, in examination.

ORESTES: Pylades, do you think this is the hall of the goddess, for which we set sail from Argos?

PYLADES: Yes, Orestes; and you must think so too.

ORESTES: And the altar, that drips with the slaughter of Hellenes?

PYLADES: Its dedications of hair, at least, are red with blood.

ORESTES: Do you see the spoils hanging from the very walls?

PYLADES: Trophies of strangers that have been slain. But I must look all around and keep careful watch.

ORESTES: O Phoebus, where have you again brought me into the snare, by your oracles, since I avenged my father’s blood by the murder of my mother, and was driven by successive Furies, a fugitive, away from the land, and completed many winding courses; and coming to you I asked how I might arrive at an end to whirling madness and my labors, which I have carried out, wandering all over Hellas. . . . And you told me to go to the boundaries of the Tauric land, where Artemis, your sister, has an altar, and to take the statue of the goddess, which is said here to have fallen to this temple from heaven; and, taking it by craft of some stroke of luck, to complete the venture by giving it to the Athenian land—what was to come next was not spoken of—and if I did this, I would have rest from my labors. I have come here, obedient to your words, to an unknown, inhospitable land. I ask you, Pylades, for you are my accomplice in this task, what shall we do? You see that the surrounding walls are high; shall we ascend the steps leading up to the house? But how might we escape notice? Or loosening the bronze bars of the door with levers, of which we know nothing? If we are caught opening the gates and contriving an entrance, we shall die. No, but before we die, let us escape on the ship in which we sailed here.

PYLADES: Flight is not to be endured, nor are we accustomed to it, and we must not bring reproach on the god’s oracle; let us leave the temple and hide in a cave which the black sea washes with its moisture—far from the ship, so that no one, seeing it, may tell the ruler, and then seize us by force. But when the eye of gloomy night comes on, then we must dare to take the polished statue from the shrine, by any means. See where between the triglyphs there is an empty space to let ourselves down. The brave endure their labors, the cowardly are worth nothing at all.

ORESTES: Yes, we did not come on a long sea voyage only to undertake a return home before the end; but you have spoken wel, we must obey. We should go wherever we can hide and escape notice. For it will not be the god’s fault if his sacred oracle falls to the ground without effect. We must endure. Exeunt Orestes and Pylades.

CHORUS: Keep a holy silence, you who inhabit the double clashing rocks of the Black Sea! O daughter of Leto, Dictynna of the mountains, to your hall, to the golden walls of your temple with beautiful pillars, I, the servant of the holy key-holder, bend my holy virgin steps. For I have left the towers and walls of Hellas, famous for horses, and Europe with its forests, my father’s home. I have come. What is the news? What is troubling you? Why have you brought me, brought me to the shrine, you who are the daughter of Atreus’ son, master of a thousand ships and ten thousand soldiers, who came to the towers of Troy with a famous fleet?

IPHIGENIA: Oh! My servants, how I am involved in mournful dirges, in laments unfit for the lyre, of a song that is not melodious, alas! alas! wailing for my family. Ruin has come to me; I am lamenting the life of my brother, such a vision I saw in my dreams, in the night whose darkness is now over. I am lost, lost! My father’s house is no more; alas for my vanished family, alas for the sufferings of Argos! O fate, I had one brother only and you carry him off and send him to Hades. For him, I am about to pour over the back of the earth these libations and the bowl of the dead: streams of milk from mountain cows, and offerings of wine from Bacchus, and the labor of the tawny bees; these sacrifices are soothing to the dead. (To a servant) Give me the golden vessel and the libation of Hades. O child of Agamemnon beneath the earth, I send these to you as one dead. Accept them; for I will not bring to your tomb my yellow hair or my tears. I live far indeed from your country and mine, where I am thought to lie, unhappily slaughtered.

CHORUS: I will sing for you, my mistress, responsive songs and a barbarian cry of Asian hymns; this song, dear to the dead, Hades sings in laments, in chants—not songs of triumph. Alas for the house of the Atreidae; the light of their scepter, alas, of the ancestral house, is lost. Once they ruled as prosperous kings in Argos, but troubles dart out from troubles: Pelops, on his horses swiftly whirling, made his cast; the sun changed from its seat the holy beam of its rays. One pain comes after another, to the house of the golden lamb. . . . from that earlier time when the Tantalids were killed, punishment came to the house, and fate presses what you do not want upon you.

IPHIGENIA: From the beginning my fate was unhappy, from that first night of my mather’s marriage; from the beginning the Fates attendant on my birth directed a hard upbringing for me, wooed by Hellenes, the first-born child in the home, whom the unhappy daughter of Leda, by my father’s fault, bore as a victim and a sacrifice not joyful, she brought me up as an offering. In the horse-drawn chariot, they set me as a bride on the sands of Aulis, oh woe, a wretched bride for the son of the Nereid, alas! But now, as a stranger I live in an unfertile home on this sea that is hostile to strangers, without marriage, or children, or city, or friends, not raising hymns to Hera at Argos, nor embroidering with my shuttle, in the singing loom, the likeness of Athenian Pallas and the Titans; but . . . a bloody fate, not to be hymned by the lyre, of strangers who wail a piteous cry and weep piteous tears. And now I must forget these things, and lament my brother, killed in Argos, whom I left at the breast, still a baby, still an infant, still a young child in his mother’s arms and at her breast, the holder of the scepter in Argos, Orestes.

CHORUS LEADER: Look, here comes a herdsman, who has left the shores of the sea to bring you some new message.

HERDSMAN: Daughter of Agamemnon, and of Clytemnestra, hear a strange report from me.

IPHIGENIA: And what is amazing in your news?

HERDSMAN: Two young men have come to this land, fleeing the dark Symplegades in their ship, an offering and sacrifice pleasing to the goddess Artemis. Be quick to prepare the purifications and the first offerings.

Part 2

IPHIGENIA: What country are the strangers from? How are they dressed?

HERDSMAN: They are Hellenes; I know this one thing, and nothing further.

IPHIGENIA: Can’t you tell me their names? Did you hear them?

HERDSMAN: One was called Pylades by the other.

IPHIGENIA: What is the name of his companion?

HERDSMAN: No one knows; we didn’t hear it.

IPHIGENIA: How did you see them? How did you come upon them and catch them?

HERDSMAN: At the edge of the breakers of the Black Sea—

IPHIGENIA: And what do herdsmen have to do with the sea?

HERDSMAN: We came to wash our cattle in the salt water.

IPHIGENIA: Go back to the earlier question, how did you take them, and in what way, for I want to know this. They have come after a long time; the altar of the goddess has not yet been reddened by streams of Hellene blood.

HERDSMAN: When we were driving the cattle, that feed in the forest, into the sea that flows through the Symplegades, there was a broken cleft, hollowed by the constant surge of waves, shelter for those who hunt the purple-fish. Here one of the herdsmen saw two youths, and made a retreat on tip-toe. He said: Don’t you see them? These are deities that sit there. One of us, who revered the gods, lifted up his hands and prayed, as he saw them: O son of the sea-goddess Leukothea, guardian of ships, lord Palaemon, be propitious to us! Or do you sit on our shores, twin sons of Zeus? Or the darlings of Nereus, father of the chorus of fifty Nereids? Another, who was foolish and bold in his lawlessness, laughed at the prayers and asserted that ship-wrecked sailors were sitting on the cliff, in fear of our custom, having heard that we sacrifice strangers here. Most of us thought that he spoke well, and that we ought to hunt down the customary offerings to the goddess. At this moment, one of the strangers left the rock, and stood, shaking his head up and down and groaning, with hands trembling, wandering in madness; and like a hunter, he cried aloud: Pylades, do you see her? Don’t you see hell’s dragon, how she wants to kill me, fringed with her dreadful vipers against me? and the one who breathes fire and slaughter from her robe and wings her way, my mother in her arms—the rocky mass, how she hurls it at me! Ah, she will kill me! Where can I escape? We could not see these shapes; but he alternated the sounds of sheep and howling of dogs . . . to send forth the Furies’ imitations. Astonished, we cowered together and sat in silence; but he drew his sword and rushed like a lion into the midst of our cattle, striking their flanks with his iron sword and thrusting it into their sides, thinking in this way to ward off the Furies, so that the waves of the sea blossomed red with blood. And all of us, as we saw our herds falling and ravaged, took arms, blew our conch shells, and collected the neighbors; for we thought cowherds would make a poor fight of it against well-grown and young foreigners. After a long time, our numbers were complete. But the stranger fell down, his pulsing beat of madness gone, his chin dripping with foam; when we saw him, so conveniently fallen, each of us went to work, hurling and striking at him. The other stranger wiped off the foam and tended his body, covering him with a finely-woven robe, looking out for the attacking blows, treating his friend kindly with his care. The stranger, now in his senses, started up from his fall and realized the surge of enemies close at hand and the present danger to them both, with a groan; we did not let up our attack with stones, pressing hard from all sides. Then we heard his dreadful exhortation: Pylades, we shall die, but let us die with glory; draw your sword, and follow me. But when we saw our enemies brandishing their two swords, we fled and filled up the rocky glens. But while some would flee, others pressed on and attacked them; if they drove those back, the ones who had just given way struck them with stones again. But it was hard to believe; with so many hands, no one succeeded in hitting these offerings to the goddess. We got the better of them with difficulty; not by daring, but by surrounding them in a circle, with stones we took away their swords; they sank on their knees to the ground, in weariness. Then we brought them to the lord of this land. He saw them, and at once sent them to you, for purification and slaughter. You have prayed for such sacrificial victims as these strangers, lady; if you destroy them, Hellas will make atonement for your murder and pay the penalty for the sacrifice in Aulis.

CHORUS LEADER: You have told an amazing story about this madman, whoever he is, who has come from Hellas to the Black Sea.

IPHIGENIA: Very well. You go and bring the strangers here; the holy rites will be my concern. Exit Herdsman. O my unhappy heart, you were gentle to strangers before, and always full of pity, measuring out tears for the sake of our common race, whenever Hellenes came into your hands. But now, after those dreams that have made me savage, thinking that Orestes is no longer alive, whoever comes here will find me harsh to them. This is true after all, my friends, I have realized: the unfortunate, when themselves doing badly, do not have kind thoughts towards those who are more unfortunate. But no breeze from Zeus ever came, or a boat, bringing Helen here, through the rocks of the Symplegedes—Helen who destroyed me, with Menelaus, so that I might avenge myself on them, setting an Aulis here against that one there, where the Danaids overpowered me and were going to sacrifice me like a calf, and my own father was the priest. Ah me!—I cannot forget those past evils—how often did I stroke my father’s cheek and, hanging on his knees, told him: O father, I am brought to a shameful betrothal by you; but while you are killing me, my mother and the Argive women are singing wedding hymns, and the whole house is filled with the music of flutes; but I am being destroyed by you. For Achilles was Hades after all, not the son of Peleus, whom you held out to me as a husband, and you brought me in a chariot to a bloody wedding by treachery. But I was modestly looking out through a fine veil, and did not take up my brother in my arms—and now he is dead—did not kiss my sister, because I was going to the house of Peleus; I put off many embraces to another time, thinking that I would come back again to Argos. My unhappy Orestes, if you are dead, what glories have you left, what achievements of a father! I blame the goddess’ subtleties; whichever mortal has engaged in murder, or has touched a woman in childbirth or a corpse, she drives from her altars, thinking him impure; but she herself delights in human sacrifices. It is not possible that Leto, the wife of Zeus, gave birth to such folly. I judge that the feast prepared by Tantalus for the gods is not to be believed, that they fed on the flesh of his son; and I think that the people here, who are themselves killers of men, ascribe to the goddess their sorry behavior. For I believe that no god is evil.

CHORUS: Dark straits of the sea, dark, where the gadfly flying from Argos crossed over the inhospitable wave . . . taking the Asian land in exchange for Europe. Whoever are the ones who left the lovely waters of Eurotas, green with reeds, or the holy streams of Dirce, to come here, to come to the unsociable land, where, for the divine maiden, the blood of mortals stains the altars and columned temples?

CHORUS: Did they sail the pine-wood oars with double beat of surge, over the waves of the sea, a chariot of a ship in breezes that move the linen sails, to increase the contest of wealth for their halls? For hope is sweet, and insatiable in mortals, to their hurt, for those who bear away the weight of wealth, wandering over the wave and crossing to barbarian cities, with one expectation. But thought of wealth comes at the wrong time for some, while for others it comes moderately.

CHORUS: The rocks that rush together, the sleepless shores of Phineus—how did they cross them, running along the salty coast on Amphitrite’s surge, where the fifty daughters of Nereus . . . the circular choruses sing, with wind in the sails, the guiding rudder creaking under the stern, with southern breezes or by the blasts of the west wind, to the land of many birds, the white strand, Achilles’ lovely race-course, over the Black Sea?

CHORUS: Would that, by my mistress’ prayers, Helen, Leda’s dear child, might happen to leave Troy and come here, where she might die, crowned over her hair by the bloody water, her throat cut by the hands of my mistress, and so pay her requital. But what a sweet message I should receive, if a sailor came from Hellas, to put an end to my wretched slavery! For may I even in dreams be at home and in my ancestral city, the enjoyment of pleasant sleep, a grace we have in common with prosperity.

CHORUS LEADER: But here come the two youths, with tightly bound hands, the new sacrifice for the goddess; silence, my friends. These first-fruits of Hellas are indeed approaching the temple; the herdman did not deliver a false message. Lady Artemis, if this city carries out the rites in a way pleasing to you, accept the victims, which the custom among us declares to be unholy.

IPHIGENIA: Enough; first, it will be my care to perform well the rites of the goddess. Unbind the strangers’ hands, so that, as holy victims, they may no longer be in chains. Then go into the temple and make ready what is necessary and customary at the present time. (Turning to the prisoners.) Ah! Who was your mother, who gave you birth, and your father? And your sister, if you happen to have one . . . such two youths as she has lost, and will be without a brother! Who knows where such fortunes will arrive? For all the gods’ affairs creep on in darkness, and no one knows evil . . . fate leads us on towards what we cannot know. Unhappy strangers, where have you come from? For you have sailed a long time to reach this land, and you will be away from your home a long time, in the world below.

Part 3

ORESTES: Why do you lament these things, and mourn for the evils about to come upon us, lady, whoever you are? I do not think the one who is about to die wise, if he wishes to conquer the fear of death by wailing, nor the one who laments when Hades is near and there is no hope of safety; for so he puts together two ills out of one, incurring a charge of folly and dying all the same; we must let fate alone. Do not grieve for us; for we are acquainted with the sacrifices here and we know them.

IPHIGENIA: Which of you is called by the name of Pylades? I want to know this first.

ORESTES: That one, if you have any pleasure in the knowledge.

IPHIGENIA: Of what city of Hellas were you born a citizen?

ORESTES: What would you gain by learning this, lady?

IPHIGENIA: Are you brothers, from one mother?

ORESTES: By friendship, yes; we are not brothers by birth, lady.

IPHIGENIA: What name did your father give you?

ORESTES: I might rightly be called Unfortunate.

IPHIGENIA: I do not ask that; ascribe that to fortune.

ORESTES: If I die unnamed, I would not be mocked at.

IPHIGENIA: Why do you begrudge this? Are you so proud?

ORESTES: You will sacrifice my body, not my name.

IPHIGENIA: Can you not say what city you are from?

ORESTES: You are seeking nothing profitable, since I am going to die.

IPHIGENIA: What hinders you from doing me this favor?

ORESTES: The famous Argos I claim as my native land.

IPHIGENIA: By the gods, truly, stranger, were you born there?

ORESTES: Yes, from Mycenae, which was once prosperous.

IPHIGENIA: Have you left your country as an exile, or by what fate?

Part 4

ORESTES: My flight is in some manner willed and unwilled.

IPHIGENIA: Could you then tell me something that I wish to know?

ORESTES: It will be no great addition to my own misfortune.

IPHIGENIA: Indeed, I am so glad that you have come from Argos!

ORESTES: I am not; but if you are, take pleasure in it.

IPHIGENIA: Perhaps you know Troy, whose fame is everywhere.

ORESTES: Would that I did not, even seen in a dream!

IPHIGENIA: They say it is no more, lost to the spear.

ORESTES: It is so; you have heard nothing that has not happened.

IPHIGENIA: Has Helen come back to Menelaus’ home?

ORESTES: She has; it was an unfortunate arrival for one dear to me.

IPHIGENIA: And where is she? She deserves an ill turn from me also.

ORESTES: She lives at Sparta with her former bedfellow.

IPHIGENIA: Creature hated by Hellas, not by me alone!

ORESTES: I have also had some benefit from the marriage of that woman!

IPHIGENIA: Have the Achaeans returned, as reported?

ORESTES: How you put everything together and ask me all at once!

IPHIGENIA: Before you die, I want to profit by your answers.

ORESTES: Question me, since you desire this; I will tell you.

IPHIGENIA: Has a certain Calchas, a prophet, come back from Troy?

Part 5

ORESTES: He is dead, as the story goes in Mycenae.

IPHIGENIA: O goddess, how good that is! What about Odysseus?

ORESTES: He has not yet returned, but is alive, they say.

IPHIGENIA: May he die and never achieve a return to his country!

ORESTES: Do not pray against that man; all is misery for him.

IPHIGENIA: But is the son of Thetis the Nereid still alive?

ORESTES: He is not; his marriage at Aulis was in vain.

IPHIGENIA: Yes, for it was a cheat, as those who experienced it know.

ORESTES: Who are you? How well you ask about Hellas!

IPHIGENIA: I am from there; while still a child I was lost.

ORESTES: Then rightly you desire to know what has happened there, lady.

IPHIGENIA: What about the general, who is said to be happy?

ORESTES: Who? The one I knew was not happy.

IPHIGENIA: There was said to be a certain lord, Agamemnon, son of Atreus.

ORESTES: I do not know; leave this subject, lady.

IPHIGENIA: No, by the gods, but tell me, stranger, to delight me.

ORESTES: The wretched man is dead, and in addition he destroyed another.

IPHIGENIA: Dead? By what fate? I am unhappy!

ORESTES: Why do you mourn for this? It doesn’t concern you, does it?

IPHIGENIA: I grieve for his former prosperity.

Part 6

ORESTES: Yes, for he was dreadfully murdered by a woman.

IPHIGENIA: O miserable the slayer . . . and the slain!

ORESTES: Stop now, and do not ask further.

IPHIGENIA: Only this much, if the wife of the wretched man is alive.

ORESTES: She is not; she was killed by the son that she bore.

IPHIGENIA: O house thrown into confusion! What was his intent?

ORESTES: To avenge on her the death of his father.

IPHIGENIA: Ah! How well he exacted an evil justice!

ORESTES: Though he is just, he does not have good fortune from the gods.

IPHIGENIA: Did Agamemnon leave any other children in his house?

ORESTES: He left one virgin daughter, Electra.

IPHIGENIA: What else? Is there any report of the daughter who was sacrificed?

ORESTES: None, except that she is dead and does not see the light.

IPHIGENIA: Unhappy girl, and also the father that killed her!

ORESTES: As a thankless favor to an evil woman, she died.

IPHIGENIA: Does the dead father’s son live at Argos?

ORESTES: He lives, the miserable one, both nowhere and everywhere.

IPHIGENIA: False dreams, farewell; after all, you were nothing.

ORESTES: And those who are called wise divinities are not less false than winged dreams. These is much confusion, both in divine affairs and in human; but only this is a grief to the one who was not foolish, but trusted in the words of prophets and died—as he died to those that know.

CHORUS LEADER: Ah! What about me, and my parents? Are they alive? Are they not? Who can say?

Part 7

IPHIGENIA: Listen to me; I have come to a subject which means benefit both to you, strangers, and to me, by your efforts. A good action is especially so, if the same matter is pleasing to all. Would you, if I should save you, go to Argos and take a report of me to my friends there, and bring a tablet, which a captive wrote for me in pity? He did not think my hand murderous, but that the victims of the goddess, who holds these things just, die under the law. For I have had no one to go back to Argos with that message, who, being saved, would send my letter to one of my friends. But you—if, as it seems, you are not hostile to me, and you know Mycenae and those whom I want you to know—be rescued, and have this reward, not a shameful one, safety for the sake of this small letter. But let him, since the city exacts it, be the offering to the goddess, separated from you.

ORESTES: Stranger, you have spoken all well but this: to sacrifice him would be a heavy grief to me. I am the pilot of these misfortunes, he sailed with me for the sake of my troubles. For it is not right for me to do you a favor and get out of danger, on condition of his death. But let it happen this way: give him the letter and he will take it to to Argos, for your well-being; let anyone who wishes kill me. It is most shameful for anyone to save himself by hurling his friends’ affairs into catastrophe. That man is my friend, and I wish him to live, no less than myself.

IPHIGENIA: O brave spirit! How you were born from some noble stock, and are rightly a friend to your friends! May that one of my relatives who is left be such as you! For I am not without a brother, strangers, except in so far as I do not see him. Since you wish it, I will send this man with the tablet, and you will die; a great eagerness for this seems to possess you.

ORESTES: Who will sacrifice me and dare such a dreadful deed ?

IPHIGENIA: I will; for I hold the office of this goddess.

ORESTES: It is not envied, lady, and not blessed.

IPHIGENIA: But I am dedicated to necessity, which must be kept.

ORESTES: Do you yourself, a woman, sacrifice men with the sword?

IPHIGENIA: No; but I sprinkle the holy water around your hair.

ORESTES: Who is the slayer? If I may ask this.

IPHIGENIA: That charge belongs to those within this temple.

ORESTES: What sort of tomb will receive me, when I die?

IPHIGENIA: The sacred fire within and the wide hollow of a cave.

ORESTES: Ah! Would that my sister’s hand might lay out my body!

IPHIGENIA: You have prayed in vain, unhappy youth, whoever you are; for she lives far from a barbarian land. Yet indeed, since you happen to be an Argive, I too will not leave out any favor that I can do. I will set much ornament on the tomb and quench your body with yellow oil, and throw onto your funeral pyre the gleaming honey, that streams from flowers, of the tawny mountain bee. But I will go and bring the tablet from the temple of the goddess; take care not to bear me ill-will. Guard them, attendants, without chains. Perhaps I will send unexpected news to one of my friends, whom I especially love, in Argos; and the tablet, in telling him that those whom he thought dead are alive, will report a joy that can be believed. Exit Iphigenia.

CHORUS: (to Orestes.) I raise a lament for you; the drops from the holy water, mingled with blood, will soon take you into their care.

ORESTES: This is not a case for pity, but farewell, strangers.

CHORUS: (to Pylades.) We honor you, young man, for your happy fate, because you will tread on your native land some day.

PYLADES: An unenviable fate indeed for a friend, when his friend is to die.

CHORUS: O cruel mission! Ah, ah! You are destroyed! Alas, alas! Which is better? For still my mind disputes a double argument, shall I mourn for you or rather for you.

Part 8

ORESTES: By the gods, Pylades, do you feel the same thing I do?

PYLADES: I do not know; I have no reply to your question.

ORESTES: Who is the girl? How like a Hellene she questioned me about the labors in Ilium and the return of the Achaeans, and Calchas, wise in omens, and Achilles’ name; and how she pitied the wretched Agamemnon, and asked me about his wife and children! This stranger is an Argive by race, and from that land; or she would not be sending the tablet and examining these things, as if she had some share in Argos’ prosperity.

PYLADES: You are not much ahead of me: I was about to say the same things you said, except this: all who move about in the world know what happens to kings. But I have arrived at another consideration.

ORESTES: What is it? Share it with me so that you may know better.

PYLADES: It is shameful for me to live when you are dead; I sailed together with you, and I ought to die together with you. For I will seem a coward and base in Argos and Phocis of the many mountain folds. Most will think—for most people are base—that I betrayed you and saved myself to come home alone, or I plotted your death, in the afflictions of your house, for the sake of your kingdom, since I married your sister and heiress. I fear these things and I am ashamed; and I must breathe my last with you, be slaughtered with you and consumed on the pyre; because I am your friend and I fear reproach.

ORESTES: Hush! I must bear my own ills, and when the grief is single, I will not bear it double. What you call vile and infamous, would be mine, if I cause you, who have toiled with me, to die; for it is not a hardship for me, suffering as I do at the hands of the gods, to give up my life. But you are prosperous, and you have a house that is pure, not afflicted, while mine is impious and unfortunate. If you are saved and get sons from my sister, whom I gave to you for wife, my name would remain and the whole house of my father would not be wiped out in childlessness. But go, and live, and dwell in my father’s house. And when you come to Hellas and to Argos of the horses, I charge you, by this right hand: heap up a tomb and build a memorial for me, and let my sister give her hair and tears to the tomb. Report that I died at the hand of an Argive woman, at an altar, purified for death. Do not ever betray my sister, when you see how lonely is my father’s house that you have joined by marriage. And now farewell; I have found you the dearest of my friends, you who have hunted with me, grown up with me, and borne with me many miseries. Phoebus, though a prophet, has deceived me; creating his plot, he drove me far away from Hellas, ashamed of his earlier prophecies. I gave him my all and trusted in his words, killed my mother, and myself perish in turn.

PYLADES: You will have a tomb, and I will never betray your sister’s bed, unhappy youth, since I will hold you dearer when dead than when alive. But the prophecy of the god has not destroyed you yet; although you stand near to slaughter. Great misfortune can offer great reversals, when it is fated; it can indeed.

ORESTES: Silence; the words of Phoebus are no benefit to me; here comes the woman out of the temple.

IPHIGENIA: (to the guard.) Go away and make the preparations within for those who attend to the sacrifice. Here are the many folds of the tablet, strangers. Hear what I want in addition. No man is the same when he is in troubles and when he falls out of fear into courage. I am afraid that when the one who is going to take this tablet to Argos leaves this land, he will put aside my letter as worth nothing.

ORESTES: What do you want, then? What are you perplexed about?

IPHIGENIA: Let him give me an oath that he will convey this letter to Argos, to the friends to whom I wish to send it.

ORESTES: And will you give in return the same words to him?

IPHIGENIA: To do what, or refrain from doing? Tell me.

ORESTES: To send him from this barbarous land alive.

IPHIGENIA: What you say is right; how else could he deliver it?

ORESTES: Will the king agree to this?

IPHIGENIA: Yes. I will persuade the king, and I myself will put this man on the ship.

ORESTES: (to Pylades.) Swear; begin a pious oath.

IPHIGENIA: (to Pylades.) You must say: I will give this to your friends.

Part 9

PYLADES: I will give this letter to your friends.

IPHIGENIA: And I will see you safely outside the dark rocks.

PYLADES: What god do you do you swear by, as witness to your oath?

IPHIGENIA: Artemis, in whose temple I hold office.

PYLADES: And I swear by the king of heaven, revered Zeus.

IPHIGENIA: But if you leave off your oath, and wrong me?

PYLADES: May I not return. What about you, if you do not save me?

IPHIGENIA: May I never set foot in Argos alive.

PYLADES: Now listen to a consideration we have passed over.

IPHIGENIA: But it will be something new, if it is good.

PYLADES: Give me this exception: if the ship suffers and the tablet is lost with its cargo in the waves, and I rescue myself only, may this oath not hinder me.

IPHIGENIA: Do you know what I will do? For many attempts hit many targets. I will tell you what is written in the folds of this tablet for you to report to my friends. For this is secure: if you preserve the writing, itself, though silent, will speak its message; if the writing is lost in the sea, when you save yourself, you will save my words.

PYLADES: You have spoken well, on behalf of the gods and me. Make clear to whom I must bring this letter in Argos, and what I must say when I have heard it from you.

IPHIGENIA: Report to Orestes, the son of Agamemnon: the one slain at Aulis sends you this, Iphigenia, who is alive, though no longer alive to those there—

ORESTES: Where is she? Has she come back from the dead??

IPHIGENIA: The one you are looking at; don’t confuse me by your talk. Bring me to Argos, my brother, before I die. Take me away from the barbarian land and the sacrifices of the goddess, where I hold the office of killing foreigners.

ORESTES: Pylades, what shall I say? Where have we found ourselves?

IPHIGENIA: Or I will be a curse to your house.

PYLADES: Orestes?

IPHIGENIA: (stopping to address Pylades.) So that you may know the name, hearing it twice.

Part 10

PYLADES: O gods!

IPHIGENIA: Why do you invoke the gods in my affairs?

PYLADES: No reason; finish your words; my thoughts were elsewhere. Perhaps, if I question you, I will not arrive at things I cannot believe.

IPHIGENIA: Tell him that Artemis saved me, by giving a deer in exchange for me; my father sacrificed it, thinking that he drove the sword sharply into me; and she settled me in this land. This is my letter, this is the writing in the tablet.

PYLADES: You have bound me with an easy oath, and sworn very well. I will not take much time to carry out the oath I swore. See, Orestes, I bring you a tablet from your sister here, and give it to you.

ORESTES: I do receive it, but first I will pass over the letter’s folds to take a joy that is not in words. (Approaching to embrace Iphigenia.) My dearest sister, with what astonishment and delight I hold you in my unbelieving arms, after learning these marvels!

CHORUS LEADER: Stranger, you are wrongly defiling the attendant of the goddess, by putting your hands on her robe that should not be touched.

ORESTES: My own sister, born from my father Agamemnon, do not turn away from me, when you hold your brother and thought you never would!

IPHIGENIA: You are my brother? Stop this talk! He is well known in Argos and Nauplia.

ORESTES: Unhappy girl, your brother is not there.

IPHIGENIA: But did Tyndareus’ daughter, the Spartan, give birth to you?

ORESTES: Yes, and my father was Pelops’ grandson.

IPHIGENIA: What are you saying? Do you have some proof of this for me?

ORESTES: I do; ask me something about our father’s home.

IPHIGENIA: Well, it is for you to speak, for me to learn.

ORESTES: I will say first what I have heard from Electra. Do you know of the strife that was between Atreus and Thyestes?

IPHIGENIA: I have heard of it; the quarrel concerned a golden ram.

ORESTES: Did you not weave these things in a fine-textured web?

IPHIGENIA: O dearest, you are bending your course near to my heart!

ORESTES: And the image of the sun in the middle of the loom?

Part 11

IPHIGENIA: I wove that shape also, in fine threads.

ORESTES: And you received a ceremonial bath from your mother, for Aulis?

IPHIGENIA: I know; for no happy marriage has taken that memory from me.

ORESTES: What about this? You gave locks of your hair to be brought to your mother?

IPHIGENIA: As a memorial, in place of my body, in the tomb.

ORESTES: What I myself have seen, I will say for proof: an old spear of Pelops, in my father’s house, which he brandished in his hand when he won Hippodamia, the maiden of Pisa, and killed Oenomaus; it was hung up in your rooms.

IPHIGENIA: O dearest, for you are my dearest, none other, I have you, Orestes, far from our country of Argos, my darling.

ORESTES: And I have you, who were thought to be dead. Tears, and laments mixed with joy, fill your eyes and also mine.

IPHIGENIA: I left you still a baby, young in the arms of your nurse, young in the house. O my soul, you have been more fortunate than words can say. I have come upon things that are beyond wonder, far from speech.

ORESTES: For the rest of time, may we be fortunate with each other!

IPHIGENIA: O my friends, I have found an extraordinary joy; I am afraid that he will fly from my hands into the air. O Cyclopean hearths; o my country, dear Mycenae, I thank you for his life, for his nourishment, because you brought up this light of the house, my brother.

ORESTES: We are fortunate in our family, but in our circumstances, my sister, we were born to be unfortunate in life.

IPHIGENIA: I was unhappy, I know, when my wretched father put the sword to my throat.

ORESTES: Alas! Though I was not present, I seem to see you there.

IPHIGENIA: O brother, when I was brought, not a bride, to the treacherous bed of Achilles; but beside the altar there were tears and wails. Alas for the libations there!

ORESTES: I also mourned for the daring act of our father.

IPHIGENIA: Fatherless was the fate I received, fatherless. One thing comes from another, by divine fortune.

ORESTES: Yes, if you had killed your brother, unhappy one!

IPHIGENIA: O wretched, in my dreadful daring! How dreadful were the things I endured, alas, my brother! By only a little you escaped an unholy death, slain by my hands. But how will these things end? What fortune will assist me? What way will I find to send you from this city, from slaughter, to your native Argos, before the sword draws near to your blood? This is your business, unhappy soul, to find out. On the dry land, not in a ship? But if you go on foot, through trackless paths and barbarian tribes, you will draw near to death. But through the dark rocks of the narrow passage is a long way for flight by ship. I am unhappy, unhappy! Who, either god or mortal or something unexpected, might accomplish a way that is no way, and reveal a release from troubles for the only two children of the house of Atreus?

CHORUS LEADER: It is marvelous and surpasses a fable, this event that I myself have have seen and shall relate, not as hearsay.

Part 12

PYLADES: When friends come into the sight of friends, Orestes, it is reasonable to embrace; but we must leave off wailing and turn to other matters: how we shall get the glorious name of safety and leave the foreign land. For wise men take opportunities, and do not overstep their fate to get other pleasures.

ORESTES: Well said; but I think fortune will take care of that with us; when one is eager, divine strength is likely to be greater.

IPHIGENIA: (to Pylades.) Let nothing hold me back; nor will it prevent me speaking before I first find out Electra’s fate, for you are all dear to me.

ORESTES: She lives with this man, (pointing to Pylades) and has a happy life.

IPHIGENIA: What country is he from, and who is his father?

ORESTES: Strophius of Phocis is the name of his father.

IPHIGENIA: He is related to me, by the daughter of Atreus?

ORESTES: He is a cousin, and my only true friend.

IPHIGENIA: He was not born when my father tried to kill me.

ORESTES: He was not; for Strophius was childless for some time.

IPHIGENIA: Welcome, husband of my sister!

ORESTES: And also my savior, not only a relation.

IPHIGENIA: But how did you dare that dreadful deed with our mother?

ORESTES: Let us be silent on that; I was avenging my father.

IPHIGENIA: What reason did she have to kill her husband?

ORESTES: Let our mother’s affairs be; nor is it good for you to hear.

IPHIGENIA: I am silent; does Argos now look to you?

ORESTES: Menelaus rules there; I am an exile from my country

IPHIGENIA: Our uncle has surely not maltreated our afflicted house, has he?

ORESTES: No, but fear of the Furies drives me out of the land.

Part 13

IPHIGENIA: That was the madness that they reported there on the shore?

ORESTES: That was not the first time that I was seen to be wretched.

IPHIGENIA: I know; the goddesses were driving you for the sake of your mother.

ORESTES: So as to put a bloody bit in my mouth.

IPHIGENIA: Why have you made a journey to this land?

ORESTES: I have come at the commands of Phoebus’ oracles.

IPHIGENIA: To do what? Can you speak of it, or must you be silent?

ORESTES: I will tell you; this is the beginning of my many troubles. When my mother’s evil deeds, that I cannot speak of, came into my hands, I was driven to flight by the Furies’ pursuit; then Loxias sent me to Athens, to stand trial with the goddesses who may not be named. For there is a holy tribunal there, which Zeus once established for Ares, when his hands were stained with blood-pollution. I came there . . . at first, no host would willingly take me in, as one hated by the gods; then some who felt shame offered me a table apart, as a guest, themselves being under the same roof, and in silence they kept me from speaking, so that I might be apart from them in food and drink, and into each private cup they poured an equal measure of wine and had their delight. And I did not think it right to blame my hosts, but I grieved in silence and seemed not to know, while I sighed deeply, that I was the murderer of my mother. I hear that my misfortunes have become a festival at Athens, and they still hold this custom and the people of Pallas honor the cup that belongs to the Feast of Pitchers. When I came to the hill of Ares to stand my trial, I took one seat, and the eldest of the Furies took the other. I spoke and heard arguments on the murder of my mother, and Phoebus saved me by bearing witness; Pallas counted out equal votes for me; and I went away victorious in my ordeal of blood. Some of the Furies who sat there, persuaded by the judgment, marked out a holy place for themselves beside this very tribunal; but others were not persuaded by the law, and drove me always in vagabond courses until I came to the holy plain of Phoebus in turn. Stretched out before his shrine and fasting, I swore to break off my life and die there, if Phoebus, who had destroyed me, did not save me. And then Phoebus cried out a golden voice from the tripod, and sent me here, to get the image Zeus hurled down, and set it up in Athena’s land. But what he marked out for my safety you must help me with; for if we possess the statue of the goddess, I will be released from madness and will put you on my ship of many oars and establish you again in Mycenae. But, my beloved sister, save our father’s house and save me; for so I perish and all the race of Pelops, unless we take the heavenly image of the goddess.

CHORUS LEADER: A terrible anger from the gods has boiled up against the race of Tantalus and drives them through torments.

IPHIGENIA: Before you came here, I was eager to be in Argos and see you, my brother. Your wish is mine: to release you from torment, and restore our father’s afflicted house, for I am not angry at the one who killed me; it is my wish. I would set my hand free from your slaughter and save our house. But I worry about concealment from the goddess and the king, when he finds the stone pedestal empty of the statue. How will I escape death? What argument will I have? But if this one thing happens all together, that you take the statue and bear me away on your lovely ship, the venture is a noble one. If I am separated from this, I am lost, but you might settle your affairs well and have a safe return. Indeed, I do not shrink from it, not even if I must die to save you. No, for when a man dies and is gone from the home, he is longed for; but women are powerless.

ORESTES: I would not be the murderer of you as well as my mother; her blood is enough; I would rather have an equal share of life or death, in common with you. I will bring you home, if I myself escape from here, or if I die, I will remain here with you. Listen to what I think: if Artemis were hostile to this, how could Loxias have prophesied that I would take the statue of the goddess to Pallas’ city . . . and see your face. Putting all these things together, I have hope of our return.

IPHIGENIA: But how may we live, and take what we want? For our return home suffers from this; but the will is present.

ORESTES: Could we murder the king?

IPHIGENIA: A fearful suggestion, for foreigners to kill their host!

ORESTES: But we must dare it, if it brings our safety.

IPHIGENIA: I could not; yet I approve your eagerness.

ORESTES: What if you were to hide me secretly in the shrine?

IPHIGENIA: So that we might take advantage of the darkness and escape?

ORESTES: Yes, for the night belongs to thieves, the light to truth.

IPHIGENIA: There are secred guards within, who will notice us.

Part 14

ORESTES: Alas, we are ruined! How can we be saved?

IPHIGENIA: I think I have a new stratagem.

ORESTES: What is it? Let me know; share your thought.

IPHIGENIA: I will use your sorrows as my contrivance.

ORESTES: Women are wonderfully good at devising crafty plans!

IPHIGENIA: I will say that you came from Argos after killing your mother.

ORESTES: Make use of my troubles, if you gain by it.

IPHIGENIA: And that it is not right to sacrifice you to the goddess.

ORESTES: With what reason? I have a suspicion.

IPHIGENIA: Because you are not pure; I will frighten what is sacred.

ORESTES: How does this help us to seize the statue of the goddess?

IPHIGENIA: I shall want to purify you in the waves of the sea—

ORESTES: The image that we have sailed for is still in the temple.

IPHIGENIA: I will say that I have washed that also, since you have touched it.

ORESTES: Where? Do you mean the watery inlet of the sea?

IPHIGENIA: Where your ship is moored by its roped anchor.

ORESTES: Will you or some other bear the image in your hands?

IPHIGENIA: I shall; it is holy for me alone to touch it.

ORESTES: But Pylades here—how will he be assigned to our labor?

IPHIGENIA: His hands, it will be said, are stained like yours with blood-pollution.

Part 15

ORESTES: Will you do all this secretly from the king, or with his knowledge?

IPHIGENIA: I shall persuade him; I could not hide it from him.

ORESTES: Well then, my ship, with its quick stroke of oars, is at hand.

IPHIGENIA: You must indeed take care of the rest, so that it goes well.

ORESTES: We need only one thing more, that these women conceal our plans; you approach them and find persuasive words. A woman has power over pity. The rest, perhaps—. May all turn out well!

IPHIGENIA: My dearest friends, I look to you; I am in your hands, whether I am to succeed, or come to nothing and lose my country, and my dear brother and dearest sister. And first of all, I begin my speech with this: we are women, and have hearts naturally formed to love each other, and keep our common interests most secure. Be silent for us and assist us in our flight. It is good to have trustworthy speech. You see how one fortune holds us three, most dear to each other, either to return to our native land, or to die. If I am saved, I will bring you safe to Hellas, so that you may share my fortune. By your right hand, I entreat you, and you, and you; (addressing different members of the Chorus.) you by your dear face, by your knees, by all that is dearest to you in your home: father, mother, child, if you have children. What do you reply? Who agrees with us, or is not willing to do this—speak! For if you do not acquiesce in my words, both I and my unhappy brother must die.

CHORUS LEADER: Have courage, dear mistress, only see to your safety; I will be silent on all that you have charged me with—great Zeus be my witness.

IPHIGENIA: Bless you for your words, may you be happy! It is your work now, and yours, To Orestes and Pylades to enter the temple; for soon the ruler of this land will come, inquiring if the sacrifice of the strangers has been carried out. Lady Artemis, you who saved me from my father’s slaughtering hand by the clefts of Aulis, save me now also, and these men; or through you Loxias’ prophetic voice will no longer be held true by mortals But leave this barbarian land for Athens with good will; it is not fitting for you to dwell here, when you could have so fortunate a city. Exeunt Iphigenia, Orestes, and Pylades.

CHORUS: Halcyon bird, you that sing your fate as a lament beside the rocky ridges of the sea, a cry easily understood by the wise, that you are always chanting for your husband; I, wingless bird that I am, compare my laments with yours, in my longing for the festivals of Hellas, and for Artemis of childbirth, who dwells beside the Cynthian mountain and the palm with delicate leaves and the well-grown laurel and the holy shoot of gray-green olive, Leto’s dear child, and the lake that rolls about its ripples, where the melodious swan serves the Muses.

CHORUS: O streams of tears that fell onto my cheeks, when my city was destroyed and the enemy forced me to sail, by their oars, by their spears! Purchased by gold, I came to a barbarian home, where I serve Agamemnon’s daughter, the attendant maid of the deer-killing goddess, and the altars where no sheep are sacrificed; and I envy ruin that is wretched throughout, for when you are brought up in harsh necessity, you do not suffer. Misery changes; life is hard for mortals, when they are treated badly after happiness.

CHORUS: And you, lady, the Argive penteconter will bear you home; the wax-bound reed of the mountain god Pan, piping, will shout to the oars, and Phoebus the prophet, with the ring of his seven-stringed lyre, singing, will guide you well to the gleaming land of the Athenians. Leaving me here, you will go with splashing oars. In the breeze, the forestays of the ship that carries you swiftly will spread out over the front beyond the prow.

CHORUS: May I come to the bright race-course, where the sun’s fire goes; over the chambers of my home, may I cease to flutter the wings on my back. May I take my stand in the dances of glorious marriages, where I stood as a maiden, twirling about in the dancing bands of other girls, away from my dear mother; rushing on to the contest of charms, the luxuriant strife of hair, I covered my cheeks with the multi-colored veil and shadowed them with the locks of my hair.

THOAS: Where is the gate-keeper of this temple, the woman of Hellas? Has she already begun the rites on the strangers? Are they glowing with fire in the holy sanctuary?

CHORUS LEADER: Here she is, to tell you everything clearly, lord.

THOAS: Oh! Daughter of Agamemnon, why have you lifted up in your arms the statue of the goddess from its pedestal that must not be moved?

IPHIGENIA: Lord, stand there in the entrance!

THOAS: Iphigenia, what has happened in the temple?

IPHIGENIA: I spit out the pollution; (turning to Thoas to explain.) I say this for Holiness.

THOAS: What is this news in your introduction? Tell it clearly.

IPHIGENIA: The victims you caught for me are not pure, lord.

Part 16

THOAS: What taught you this? Or are you only saying what you think?

IPHIGENIA: The image of the goddess turned back from its place.

THOAS: By itself, or did an earthquake turn it?

IPHIGENIA: By itself; it closed up its eyes.

THOAS: What was the reason? Was it the uncleanness of the strangers?

IPHIGENIA: That was the reason, and nothing else; for they have done dreadful things.

THOAS: What, have they killed one of the barbarians on the shore?

IPHIGENIA: They come with murder done at home.

THOAS: What murder? For I strongly want to know.

IPHIGENIA: They killed their mother together with their swords.

THOAS: Apollo! No barbarian would have dared this.

IPHIGENIA: They were driven in pursuit from all of Hellas.

THOAS: Is it for this that you bring the statue outside?

IPHIGENIA: Yes, to the holy air, to remove it from slaughter.

THOAS: How did you know the blood-pollution of the strangers?

IPHIGENIA: I questioned them, because the image of the goddess had turned back.

THOAS: Hellas has brought you up to be clever; how well you understood this.

IPHIGENIA: And yet they dangled a sweet lure for my heart.

THOAS: Reporting to you some charm of news from Argos?

IPHIGENIA: That Orestes, my only brother, is happy.

Part 17

THOAS: So that you might save them, for the delight of their messages.

IPHIGENIA: And that my father is alive and doing well.

THOAS: But you turned to the goddess, with reason.

IPHIGENIA: Yes, for I hate all Hellas, which has ruined me.

THOAS: Tell me, what shall we do with the strangers?

IPHIGENIA: We must reverence the law as it stands.

THOAS: But the libations and your sword are not at work?

IPHIGENIA: First I want to wash them, with holy purification.

THOAS: In fountain waters, or the drops of the sea?

IPHIGENIA: The sea washes away all men’s evils.

THOAS: They would certainly be holier victims for the goddess.

IPHIGENIA: And in this way my plans would succeed better.

THOAS: Doesn’t the wave beat against this very temple?

IPHIGENIA: This requires solitude; and I shall do more.

THOAS: Then where you wish; I do not want to see what should not be seen.

IPHIGENIA: I must purify the image of the goddess also.

THOAS: Yes, if a stain from the matricide has fallen on it.

IPHIGENIA: For I would not have lifted it from its base otherwise.

THOAS: Your piety and forethought are correct.

IPHIGENIA: Do you know what to do for me now?

Part 18

THOAS: It is for you to make it known.

IPHIGENIA: Put chains on the strangers.

THOAS: Where could they escape you?

IPHIGENIA: Hellas knows no faith.

THOAS: (to his servants.) Go to get chains, attendants.

IPHIGENIA: And let them bring the strangers here.

THOAS: It will be so.

IPHIGENIA: And veil their faces with their robes.

THOAS: Before the light of the sun.

IPHIGENIA: And send some of your servants with me.

THOAS: These will attend you.

IPHIGENIA: And send someone to announce to the city—

THOAS: That what has happened?

IPHIGENIA: That all remain indoors.

THOAS: So that they do not come in contact with murder?

IPHIGENIA: Yes, for such things are polluted.

THOAS: (to a servant.) Go and announce—

IPHIGENIA: That no one come near the sight. An attendant departs.

THOAS: You are taking good care of the city

IPHIGENIA: And of the friends to whom I owe the most.

Part 19

THOAS: You mean this for me.

IPHIGENIA: . . .

THOAS: The whole city marvels at you, with reason.

IPHIGENIA: You stay here before the shrine of the goddess.

THOAS: What shall I do?

IPHIGENIA: Purify the house with fire.

THOAS: So that you may return to find it pure.

IPHIGENIA: When the strangers come outside—

THOAS: What must I do?

IPHIGENIA: Hold your robe over your eyes.

THOAS: So that I do not receive the pollution.

IPHIGENIA: If I seem to delay too long—

THOAS: What limit of the delay should I keep in mind?

IPHIGENIA: Do not wonder at it.

THOAS: Carry out the rites of the goddess well, since you have leisure.

IPHIGENIA: May this purification fall out as I wish!

THOAS: I pray along with you.

IPHIGENIA: I see the strangers coming out of the temple now, and the ornaments of the goddess and the new-born lambs, because I will wash blood-pollution away with blood, and the flash of torches and all the rest that I have set out as purification for the strangers and the goddess. I proclaim to the citizens to keep away from this pollution, if any guard of the temple is purifying his hands for the gods, or if anyone is coming to form a marriage alliance, or is weighted down by childbirth— begone, stand away, so that this defilement does not fall on anyone. (Aside.) O lady, maiden daughter of of Leto and Zeus, if I cleanse the stain of murder from these men, and make the sacrifice where I ought to make it, you will dwell in a pure home, and we will be fortunate. I do not speak the rest, but I indicate it to those who know more, the gods and you, goddess. Exit Iphigenia.

CHORUS: Lovely is the son of Leto, whom she, the Delian, once bore in the fruitful valleys, golden-haired, skilled at the lyre; and also the one who glories in her well-aimed arrows. For the mother, leaving the famous birth-place, brought him from the ridges of the sea to the heights of Parnassus, with its gushing waters, which celebrate the revels for Dionysus. Here the dark-faced serpent with brightly colored back, his scales of bronze in the leaf-shaded laurel, huge monster of the earth, guarded Earth’s prophetic shrine. You killed him, o Phoebus, while still a baby, still leaping in the arms of your dear mother, and you entered the holy shrine, and sit on the golden tripod, on your truthful throne distributing prophecies from the gods to mortals, up from the sanctuary, neighbor of Castalia’s streams, as you dwell in the middle of the earth.

CHORUS: But when he came and sent Themis, the child of Earth, away from the holy oracle of Pytho, Earth gave birth to dream visions of the night; and they told to the cities of men the present, and what will happen in the future, through dark beds of sleep on the ground; and so Earth took the office of prophecy away from Phoebus, in envy, because of her daughter. The lord made his swift way to Olympus and wound his baby hands around the throne of Zeus, to take the wrath of the earth goddess from the Pythian home. Zeus smiled, that the child so quickly came to ask for worship that pays in gold. He shook his locks of hair, to put an end to the night voices, and took away from mortals the truth that appears in darkness, and gave the privilege back again to Loxias, and to mortals confidence in the songs of prophecy at the throne visited by many men.

Part 20

MESSENGER: O you that guard the temple and stand by the altar, where has Thoas, the lord of this land, gone? Open the well-fastened gates, and call forth from this shrine the ruler of the land.

CHORUS LEADER: What is it, if I may speak when not commanded?

MESSENGER: The two young men are gone away, through the plots of Agamemnon’s daughter; they are escaping from this land, with the holy image deep within a Hellene ship.

CHORUS LEADER: What you say is incredible; but the one you want to see, the lord of the country, has gone in haste from the temple.

MESSENGER: Where? For he should know what has been done.

CHORUS LEADER: We don’t know; but go after him, and report these things to him where you find him.

MESSENGER: See, what a faithless race you women are! You also have a share in what has been done.

CHORUS LEADER: You are mad! What do we have to do the the flight of the strangers? Go as quickly as you can to the ruler’s door!

MESSENGER: No! Not until this interpreter brings word if the king is inside or not. Ho there! Unbar the doors—I am speaking to those within— and inform the master that I am at the gate with a burden of bad news.

THOAS: (appearing at the temple door.) Who is raising this clamor at the temple of the goddess, striking at the gates and sending his noise within?

MESSENGER: Ah! These women told me that you were outside; they would have driven me away from the temple, but you were inside after all.

THOAS: What advantage were they expecting and hunting after?

MESSENGER: I will tell you about them later; hear what is currently at hand. The girl who presided at this altar, Iphigenia, has left the country with the strangers, and takes with her the holy statue of the goddess; the purification was a cheat.

THOAS: What are you saying? What influence in her character brought her to this?

MESSENGER: To save Orestes; here is a marvel for you!

THOAS: To save whom? Clytemnestra’s son?

MESSENGER: The one whom the goddess was dedicating to herself at this altar.

THOAS: Marvelous! for what more can it be called?

MESSENGER: Do not think of that, but listen to me; consider it clearly and when you hear, devise a pursuit to hunt down the strangers.

THOAS: Speak; you have said well; for their flight is not so brief a voyage as to escape my spear.

Part 21

MESSENGER: When we came to the sea-shore, where Orestes’ ship was moored in hiding, Agamemnon’s daughter motioned to those of us you sent with the strangers’ bonds to stand far off, as if her sacrifice of purifying flame, that she had come for, were secret. But she went on alone, holding the strangers’ chains in her hands, behind them. Your servants, lord, were suspicious, but we allowed it. After a while, so that we might think that she was accomplishing something, she raised a shout, and chanted strange songs and spells, as if she were washing off the pollution of murder. When we had sat a long time, it occurred to us that the strangers, loosed from their bonds, might kill her and escape by flight. But we were afraid of seeing what we ought not, and sat in silence. But at length we all resolved to go where they were, although we were not allowed. There we saw a Hellene ship, winged with ready blade for the stroke, and at the oar-locks were fifty rowers with their oars; the two youths stood by the stern, freed from their chains. Some were holding the prow in place with poles; others were fastening the anchor from the cat-heads; others were drawing the stern-cables through their hands, and making haste to let down the ladders into the sea for the strangers. Without sparing ourselves, when we saw their treacherous wiles, we seized the priestess and the cables, and tried to draw the ship’s rudder-oars out through their holes. Then there was a debate: What is your reason for carrying the statue and the priestess away from the land by theft? Who is your father, who are you, to smuggle her away? He said: Know that I am Orestes, her brother, Agamemnon’s son, and I have come to take my sister, whom I lost from her home. But we held her no less, and were leading her to you by force, for which I received these dreadful blows on my cheeks; they had no swords, nor did we. Both the youths gave rattling blows with their fists, darting their limbs against our sides and breasts, so that as soon as we joined battle, we were worn out. We were fleeing to the cliff, stamped with dreadful marks, some with bloody wounds on their heads, others on their eyes; when we stood on the on the heights, we fought more cautiously and hurled rocks at them. But, standing on the stern, the archers with their arrows kept us off and drove us away. And now an immense swelling wave ran the ship aground, and the maiden was afraid to get her feet wet. Orestes bore his sister on his left arm, going into the sea and quickly up the ladder, and he set her on the ship, along with the statue of Zeus’ daughter, fallen from heaven. From the middle of the ship, he cried out: Sailors of Hellas, seize the ship with the oars and make the waves white with foam; for we possess those things for which we sailed the inhospitable straits, within the clashing rocks. They gave a cheerful shout, and struck the salt wave. The ship, while it was within the harbor, was headed for the mouth; but when it had crossed, it met with a violent swell aand was hard pressed; and the wind, rising with sudden dreadful gusts, forced it astern. They beat the waves strongly; but the swell was driving the ship back towards the land. Agamemnon’s daughter stood up and prayed: O daughter of Leto, bring me, your priestess, safely to Hellas from this barbaric land, and forgive my thefts. For you, goddess, love your brother; believe that I love mine also. The sailors shouted the paean in response to her prayer, and applied their naked shoulders to the oars, at the command. But the ship came nearer and nearer to the rocks; some of us rushed into the sea, others grasped the woven ropes. And I set out here to you at once, lord, to tell you what has happened there. But go, take chains and nets with you; for if the swell does not become calm, there is no hope of safety for the strangers. Revered Poseidon, ruler of the sea, watches over Troy and is hostile to the race of Pelops; he will now allow you and your citizens, as is right, to have in your hands the son of Agamemnon and his sister; she stands convicted as betrayer of her unremembered sacrifice to the goddess in Aulis.

CHORUS LEADER: Unhappy Iphigenia, you will die with your brother, if you come again into the hands of the king.

THOAS: All citizens of this barbarian land, hurl the reins on your horses, rush to the coast and seize what the Hellene ship casts forth! With the goddess’ help, be eager to hunt down these impious men! Drag the swift ships to the sea! So that by sea and with pursuit on horseback by land, you may take them; and hurl their bodies from the hard rock, or impale them on the stake. (Turning to the Chorus.) As for you women, who knew about these plots, I will punish you later, when I am at leisure. But now in this present urgency, I will not remain still.

ATHENA: Where, where are you carrying this pursuit, lord Thoas? Listen the words of Athena, who is here. Cease to follow or to send an army pouring forth; for Orestes came here, destined by the oracles of Loxias, to flee from the anger of the Furies, and to bring his sister to Argos and take the holy statue to my land, thus gaining a release from his present miseries. Thoas, I am speaking to you: you expect to take Orestes in the sea-swell and kill him; but Poseidon, for my sake, now lets him sail over the back of the waveless sea. And you, Orestes, attend to my commands, for you hear the goddess’ voice even though not present: go away with the statue and your sister; and when you come to Athens, built by the gods, there is a place on the farthest borders of the Attic land, neighbor to the ridge of Carystia, sacred, and my people call it Halae. There build a temple and set up the image in it; it will have its name from the Tauric land and from your labors, which you have endured, wandering through Hellas and goaded by the Furies. And mortals will in future times celebrate Artemis Tauropolos with hymns. And establish this law: whenever the people keep the festival, let a sword be held to a man’s throat and draw out blood, in atonement for your sacrifice, so that the goddess may have her honors, and holiness is revered. You, Iphigenia, must be key-holder for this goddess on the hallowed stairs of Brauron, and will die there and be buried; and they will dedicate adornment to you, finely-woven robes which women who have died in childbirth leave in their homes. I charge you to send these Hellene women to their country, for their correct intentions. . . . For I saved you before also, Orestes, on Ares’ hill when the votes were equal; and this will be the custom, for the one with equal votes to win. But, son of Agamemnon, take your sister away from this land. And you, Thoas, do not be angry.

THOAS: Lady Athena, whoever hears the words of the gods and does not obey, is not thinking rightly. I am not angry at Orestes, for going off with the goddess’ image, or at his sister; for what good is it to contend against the strength of gods? Let them go to your land with the statue of the goddess, and let them establish it there, with good fortune. I will send these women also to fortunate Hellas, as you bid me. And I will stop the army and the ships I raised against the strangers, as you think this right, goddess.

ATHENA: I commend you; for necessity rules both you and the gods. Go, winds, carry the son of Agamemnon to Athens by sea; I will journey with them, and keep safe the holy image of my sister.

CHORUS: Go with good fortune, blessed in having your portion of safety. Pallas Athena, holy among immortals and mortals, we will do as you command. For we receive your voice in our ears with great and unexpected pleasure. Greatly revered Victory, may you occupy my life and never cease to crown me!