Trachiniae (1218-1275)

Even if it is tremendously large, it will be done.

Do you know, then, the maiden, daughter of Eurytus?

You mean Iole, I would guess.

You know her. Just this is the command that I impose upon you, my son: when I am dead, if you wish to show your piety by remembrance of your oath to your father, make this woman your wife and do not disobey your father.

Let no other but you take her who has lain close at my side. You, my son, make that marriage-bond your own. Obey; for although you were obedient in great affairs, your disobedience in small ones cancels the gratitude already won.

Ah, me, it is wrong to be angry with a sick man, but who could bear to see him have thoughts like these?

Your words show no willingness to do as I say.

Who on earth would, when she alone is to blame for my mother’s death, and for your present condition besides?

Who would choose to do so, unless he were infected by avenging fiends? It would be better, Father, that I also die, rather than live united with those whom I most detest!

The man will render no due respect, it seems, to my dying prayer. No, be sure that the curse of the gods

will await you for disobeying my commands.

Ah, you will soon show, it seems, how diseased you are!

Yes, for you stir me from my slumbering plague.

I am miserable! I have no way out of so many dilemmas!

Yes, since you think it wrong to obey your begetter.

But must I then learn to be unholy, Father?

It is not unholy, if you gladden my heart.

Do you, then, command me to do this as a clear duty?

I do, and I call on the gods to bear me witness!

Then I will do it, and not refuse,

—calling upon the gods to witness your deed. I can never be condemned for obeying you, Father.

Your words make a fair ending, and to them, my son, quickly add the gracious deed itself, so that you may place me on the pyre before any pain returns to tear or sting me.

Come, make haste and lift me! This, in truth, is rest from troubles, this is the end, the last end, of Heracles!

Nothing hinders the fulfillment of your wish, since your commandment strongly compels me, Father.

Come, then, before you awaken this

plague, O my hardened soul, give me a bit of steel to bind my lips like stone to stone! Stop any cry, since the task you accomplish, though by constraint, gives cause for joy.

Lift him, attendants!

Grant me ample forgiveness for this, but also recall the great cruelty of the gods in the deeds that are being done. They beget children and are hailed as fathers, and yet they can let such sufferings pass before their eyes.

No man foresees the future; the present is full of mourning for us, and of shame for the powers above, and indeed of hardship beyond compare for him who endures this disaster.

And you, maiden, do not be left at the house. You have seen immense, shocking death, with sorrows great in number and strange. And in all of them there is nothing that is not Zeus.