Euripides' HERACLES Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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63 pages - You are on Page 59

Thee
too, unhappy wife, this hand hath slain, a poor return to make thee
for preserving mine honour so safe, for all the weary watch thou long
hast kept within my house. Alas for you, my wife, my sons! and woe
for me, how sad my lot, cut off from wife and child! Ah! these kisses,
bitter-sweet! these weapons which 'tis pain to own! I am not sure
whether to keep or let them go; dangling at my side they thus will
say, "With us didst thou destroy children and wife; we are thy children's
slayers, and thou keepest us." Shall I carry them after that? what
answer can I make? Yet, am I to strip me of these weapons, the comrades
of my glorious career in Hellas, and put myself thereby in the power
of my foes, to die a death of shame? No! I must not let them go, but
keep them, though it grieve me. In one thing, Theseus, help my misery;
come to Argos with me and aid in settling my reward for bringing Cerberus
thither; lest, if I go all alone, my sorrow for my sons do me some
hurt.

O land of Cadmus, and all ye folk of Thebes! cut off your hair, and
mourn with me; go to my children's burial, and with united dirge lament
alike the dead and me; for on all of us hath Hera inflicted the same
cruel blow of destruction.

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