Hercules Oetaeus: Act I

Hercules [about to sacrifice to Cenaean Jove]: O sire of gods,from whose almighty handBoth homes of Phoebus feel thy darting bolt:Rule now serene, for I have 'stablished peaceWherever Nereus checks the spreading lands.Now let thy thunders rest; for treacherous kingsAnd savage tyrants are in ruin laid.Whatever merited thy blasting dartsHave I o'erthrown and crushed. But, father, whyIs heaven still denied to me, thy son?For surely have I ever shown myselfA worthy child of Jove; and Juno's self,My hard task-mistress, testifies to this,That I am born of thee. Why dost thou stillContrive delays? Am I thy cause of fear?Will Atlas not avail to prop the skiesIf to their bulk the weight of HerculesBe superadded? Why, O father, whyDost thou deny the stars to me? To theeDid death restore me; every monstrous shapeWhich had its source in earth or sea or air,Or hell itself, has yielded to my arms.No lion treads the Arcadian cities now;Stymphalus fears no more its noxious birds;The wondrous stag of Maenalus is dead;The watchful dragon spattered with its bloodThe golden grove; the hydra's force is gone;Those famous horses to the Hebrus known,Which fattened on the blood of murdered guests,Have I destroyed, and spoils of war obtainedIn victory o'er my Amazonian foe.I saw the silent realms; nor all aloneDid I return, but shuddering day beheldDark Cerberus, and he beheld the sun.No more Antaeus, Libya's monarch huge,His strength renews; before his bloody shrinesBusiris lies o'erthrown; by my sole handThe threefold Geryon was o'ercome and slain,And that dread terror of a hundred tribes,The Cretan bull, yea all the monstrous thingsTo which the hostile world has given birth,Have fallen in utter ruin by my hand.If now the earth can show no monsters more,If now my stepdame has her wrath fulfilled,Restore the father to his son; yea, more--Admit the hero to his proper skies.I ask not that thou point the way to me;Permit it only, father, and the wayI'll find. Or, if thou fearest that the earthShall to the light new shapes of terror bring,Let them make haste to come, whate'er they be,While still the earth beholds her Hercules.For who will e'er again these fearsome thingsAttack, or who, throughout the towns of Greece,Will e'er be worthy of great Juno's hate?In truth, my praises have I safe bestowed,Since now there is no land but sings of me.The Scythian, dwelling in the frozen North,The Indian, smitten by the burning raysOf Phoebus, and the tropic African:All know my fame. O glowing Sun, I theeAs witness call: I have encountered theeWhere'er thou shin'st; nor have thy darting beamsAvailed to follow my triumphant course.I've gone beyond the reaches of the sun,And daylight halted far within my bounds.The world of nature yielded; for my stepsNo earth remained. She was exhausted first.But night and utter chaos met me there.From that dark realm whence no one e'er returns,Have I come back to earth. Old Ocean's threatsHave I endured; no raging storm of hisHas e'er prevailed to overcome the barkIn which I fared. How small a part I tell!Exhausted is the air and can no moreSuffice to feed the hatred of thy wife;The earth in fear brings forth no monster moreFor me to conquer, no wild beasts of prey.These are denied to me, and in the steadOf monster have I come myself to be.How many evils have I overcome,Though all unarmed! Whatever monstrous thingOpposed, these empty hands have overthrown;Nor did there ever live a savage beastWhich I as boy or infant feared to meet.My bidden labors have seemed always light,And no day ever dawned that brought to meNo strenuous toil. How many monstrous tasksHave I fulfilled which no king set to me!A harder master has my courage beenThan ever Juno was. But what availsThat I have saved the human race from fear?The gods in consequence have lost their peace.The freed earth sees whatever she has fearedNow set in heaven; for Juno thitherwardHath borne the beasts I slew. Restored to life,The Crab fares safely in his torrid path,A constellation now in southern skies,And ripens Libya's waving fields of grain.The Lion to the heavenly Virgin givesThe flying year; but he, with beaming maneUpon his wild neck tossing, dries the windsWhich drip with moisture, and the clouds devours.Behold, the beasts have all invaded heaven,Forestalling me. Though victor, here I standUpon the earth, and view my labors there.For Juno to the monsters and the beastsHas given stars, that so the heavenly realmMight be for me a place of terror made.But no! Though in her wrath she fill the skiesWith monsters, though she make the heavens worseThan earth and hell, yet shall a place be givenTo Hercules. If, after beasts and wars,If, after I subdued the Stygian dog,I have not earned a place among the stars,Then shall Sicilian Pelorus touchHesperia's shores, and both shall be one land.I'll put the intervening sea to flight;Or, if thou wilt that severed seas be joined,Then Isthmus shall give passage to the waves,And Attic vessels by a new-found wayShall sail united seas. I'll change the world.Along new channels shall the Hister flow,And Tanaïs find new passage to the sea.Grant, grant, O Jupiter, this boon to me,That I at least may shield the gods from harm.There mayst thou lay aside thy thunderbolts,Where I stand guard against thy enemies.Whether thou bid'st me guard the icy pole,Or o'er the torrid regions watch, be sureThat on that side the gods may be at rest.Apollo earned the shrine of PythiaAnd heaven, because he slew the Python huge;But Oh, how many Pythons did I slayIn that dire hydra! Bacchus, Perseus, too,Have found a place among the heavenly gods.How small that eastern portion of the earthWhich he subdued! How meager is the spoilWhich Perseus in the stony Gorgon gained!What son of thine from Juno born has earnedA place in heaven because of his renown?I seek the skies which I myself have borne.But thou, O Lichas, comrade of my toils,Go tell my triumphs over Eurytus,His lares conquered and his realm o'erthrown.Do you with speed the victims hurry onTo where the temple of Cenaean JoveLooks off upon the wild Euboean sea.

Band of captive Oechalian maidens: The mate of the immortals he,Whose life and fortune hand in handGo on apace. But worse than deathIs life, dragged on with many groans.Whoe'er has trodden under footThe greedy fates, and can disdainThe boat that plies on death's dark stream,Will never feel the galling chainsUpon his captive arms; nor grace,As noble spoil, the victor's train.For he who faces death with joyCan ne'er be wretched. Should his barkBe wrecked upon the stormy seaWhere Africus with Boreas,And Zephyrus with Eurus strive,And rend the seas; he does not seekTo gather up the broken partsOf his wrecked ship, that, far at sea,He still may cherish hopes of land.For he, who ever ready standsTo give his life, alone is safeFrom all the perils of the storm.But we are held by shameful grief,The gaunt, drawn face, the streaming tears,By the ashes of our fatherlandBesprinkled. Us no whirling flame,Nor crash of falling walls o'erwhelms.Thou dost pursue the fortunate,O death, but fleest from wretched souls.Behold, we live: but Oh, no more,Our country's walls remain; their placeShall soon be hidden by the woods,And all our temples fall awayTo squalid hovels. Even nowThe cold Dolopian will comeAnd o'er the ashes, glowing yet,Sad remnants of Oechalia,Will drive his flocks. And soon, alas,Within our walls, the shepherd rudeShall sing upon his rustic pipes,With doleful voice, our history.And when the hand of God shall speedA few more generations on,The very place where once we dweltWill be forgotten. Happy once,I kept no barren hearth at home;Not mine the hungry acres thenOf Thessaly. But now I'm calledTo Trachin's rough and stony land,To ridges parched and jungle-set,To groves which e'en the mountain goatWould not inhabit. But, perchance,Some milder fate the captives calls.Then will they see the Inachus,Whose rapid waves shall bear them on,Or dwell within Dircaean wallsWhere flows Ismenus' scanty stream--And where was once the mother wedOf mighty Hercules.False is that tale of doubled night,When overlong the stars delayedWithin the skies, and HesperusIn place of Lucifer arose,And Delia with tardy carKept back the sun. What Scythian cragBegot thee, or what stony mount?Like some wild Titan wast thou bornOn Rhodope, or Athos rough?What savage beast on Caspian shores,What spotted tigress, suckled thee?Impervious to wounds is he.Sharp spears are blunted, steel is bentAgainst his heart; and glittering swords,Upon his naked members struck,In broken fragment drop apart;Stones strike, but harmlessly rebound.And so he scorns the deadly fates,And, all invincible, provokesHis death. No spears can pierce his heart,No arrow shot from Scythian bow,No darts which cold Sarmatians bear,Or they who dwell beneath the dawn,The Parthians, whose fatal shaftsMore deadly than the Cretan dart,The neighboring Nabathaeans wound.Oechalia's walls he overthrewWith his bare hands. Naught can withstandHis onslaught. For whate'er he plansTo overcome, is by that factAlready overcome. How fewThe foes who by his wounds have fallen!His angry countenance means death;And to have met his threatening gazeIs worse than death. What Gyas huge,What vast Briareus, who stoodUpon Thessalia's mountain heapAnd clutched at heaven with snaky hands,Would not have frozen at the glanceOf that dread face? But mighty illsHave mighty recompense: no moreIs left to suffer--we have seen,Oh, woe! the angry Hercules!

Iole: But I, unhappy one, must mourn,Not temples with their gods o'erthrown,Not scattered hearths and burning homes,Where lie in common ruin mixedFathers with sons, and gods with men,Temples and towns--the common woe;But fortune calls my tears awayTo other grief. Fate bids me weepO'er other ruins. What lamentShall I make first? What greatest illShall I bewail? All equallyI'll weep. Ah me, that mother earthHath not more bosoms given me,That worthily they might resoundUnto my grief. But, O ye gods,Transform me to a weeping rockOn Sipylus; or set me where,Between its grassy banks, the PoGlides on, where grieving woods respondTo the mourning of the sisters sadOf Phaëthon; or to the shoresOf Sicily transport me. There,Another Siren, let me mournThe woeful fate of Thessaly.Or bear me to the Thracian woods,Where, underneath Ismarian shade,The Daulian bird bewails her son.Give me a form to fit my tears,And let rough Trachin echo backMy cries of woe. The Cyprian maidStill soothes her grieving heart with tears;Still Ceyx's royal spouse bemoansHer vanished lord; and Niobe,Surviving life and grief, weeps on;Her human form has PhilomelEscaped, and now with doleful notesThe Attic maid bewails her dead.Oh, that my arms were feathered wings!Oh, then, how happy would I be,When, hidden in the forest depths,I might lament in plaintive strain,And live in fame as Iole,The maiden bird. I saw, alas,I saw my father's dreadful fate,When, smitten with that deadly club,He fell, in mangled fragments dashedThroughout the palace hall. If thenHis fate had granted burial,How often had I searched, O sire,For all thy parts!How could I look upon thy death,O Toxeus, with thy tender cheeksUnbearded yet, thy boyish veinsNot yet with manhood's vigor filled?But why do I bewail your fates,O parents, whom to safety nowKind death has borne? My fortune bidsThat I bewail myself instead.Soon, ah too soon, in captive state,Shall I the flying spindle turnFor some proud mistress in her hall.O cruel beauty, how hast thouDecreed my death! For thee aloneAm I and all my house undone,Since when my sire to HerculesRefused my hand, because he fearedGreat Hercules as son-in-law.And now, not wife, but captive maid,I seek my haughty mistress' home.

Chorus: Why dost thou, foolish, ever dwellUpon thy sire's illustrious realm,And on thy own unhappy fate?Forget thy former station now;For only is he happy who,As king or slave, knows how to bearHis lot, and fit his countenanceTo changing circumstance. For heWho bears his ills with steadfast soulHas from misfortune reft awayIts strength and heaviness.