Heracles Mad (225-259)

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.

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

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.

—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;