FullReads

[Exit DEANIRA.]

CH.
Why steal’st thou forth in silence? Know’st thou not
Thy silence argues thine accuser’s plea?

HYL.
Let her go off. Would that a sudden flood
Might sweep her far and swiftly from mine eye!
Why fondle vainly the fair-sounding name
Of mother, when her acts are all unmotherly?
Let her begone for me: and may she find
Such joy as she hath rendered to my sire!

[Exit HYLLUS]

CHORUS.
See where falls the doom, of old
By the unerring Voice foretold,–
‘When twelve troublous years have rolled,
Then shall end your long desire:
Toil on toil no more shall tire
The offspring of the Eternal Sire.’
Lo! the destined Hour is come!
Lo! it hath brought its burden home.
For when the eyes have looked their last
How should sore labour vex again?
How, when the powers of will and thought are past,
Should life be any more enthralled to pain?

And if Nessus’ withering shroud,
Wrought by destiny and craft,
Steep him in a poisonous cloud.
Steaming from the venomed shaft,
Which to Death in hideous lair
The many-wreathed Hydra bare,
How shall he another day
Feel the glad warmth of Helios’ ray?–
Enfolded by the Monster-Thing
Of Lerna, while the cruel sting
Of the shagg’d Centaur’s murderous-guileful tongue
Breaks forth withal to do him painful wrong.

And she, poor innocent, who saw
Checkless advancing to the gate
A mighty harm unto her state,–
This rash young bridal without fear of law,–
Gave not her will to aught that caused this woe,
But since it came through that strange mind’s conceiving,–
That ruined her in meeting,–deeply grieving,
She mourns with dewy tears in tenderest flow.
The approaching hour appeareth great with woe:
Some guile-born misery doth Fate foreshow.

The springs of sorrow are unbound,
And such an agony disclose,
As never from the hands of foes
To afflict the life of Heracles was found.
O dark with battle-stains, world-champion spear,
That from Oechalia’s highland leddest then
This bride that followed swiftly in thy train,
How fatally overshadowing was thy fear!
But these wild sorrows all too clearly come
From Love’s dread minister[4], disguised and dumb.

CH.
1.
Am I a fool, or do I truly hear
Lament new-rising from our master’s home?
Tell!

CH.
2.
Clearly from within a wailing voice
Peals piteously. The house hath some fresh woe.

CH.
3.
Mark!
How strangely, with what cloud upon her brow,
Yon aged matron with her tidings moves!

[Enter Nurse.]

NURSE.
Ah! mighty, O my daughters! was the grief
Sprung from the gift to Heracles conveyed!

LEADER OF CH.
What new thing is befallen? Why speak’st thou so?

NUR.
Our Queen hath found her latest journey’s end.
Even now she is gone, without the help of feet.

CH.
Not dead?

NUR.
You know the whole.

CH.
Dead! hapless Queen!

NUR.
The truth hath twice been told.

CH.
O tell us how!
What was her death, poor victim of dire woe?

NUR.
Most ruthless was the deed.

CH.
Say, woman, say!
What was the sudden end?

NUR.
Herself she slew.

CH.
What rage, what madness, clutched
The mischief-working brand?
How could her single thought
Contrive the accomplishment of death on death?