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CH.
O Hellas, how I grieve for thy distress!
How thou wilt mourn in losing him we see!

HYL.
My father, since thy silence gives me leave,
Still hear me patiently, though in thy pain!
For my request is just. Lend me thy mind
Less wrathfully distempered than ’tis now;
Else thou canst never know, where thou art keen
With vain resentment and with vain desire

HER.
Speak what thou wilt and cease, for I in pain
Catch not the sense of thy mysterious talk

HYL.
I come to tell thee of my mother’s case,
And her involuntary unconscious fault.

HER.
Base villain! hast thou breathed thy mother’s name,
Thy father’s murderess, in my hearing too!

HYL.
Her state requires not silence, but full speech.

HER.
Her faults in former time might well be told.

HYL.
So might her fault to day, couldst thou but know.

HER.
Speak, but beware base words disgrace thee not.

HYL.
List! She is dead even now with new-given wound.

HER.
By whom? Thy words flash wonder through my woe.

HYL.
Her own hand slaughtered her, no foreign stroke.

HER.
Wretch! to have reft this office from my hands.

HYL.
Even your rash spirit were softened, if you knew.

HER.
This bodes some knavery. But declare thy thought!

HYL.
She erred with good intent. The whole is said.

HER.
Good, O thou villain, to destroy thy sire!

HYL.
When she perceived that marriage in her home,
She erred, supposing to enchain thy love.

HER.
Hath Trachis a magician of such might?

HYL.
Long since the Centaur Nessus moved her mind
To work this charm for heightening thy desire.

HER.
O horror, thou art here! I am no more.
My day is darkened, boy! Undone, undone!
I see our plight too plainly. woe is me!
Come, O my son! –thou hast no more a father,–
Call to me all the brethren of thy blood,
And poor Alcmena, wedded all in vain
Unto the Highest, that ye may hear me tell
With my last breath what prophecies I know.

HYL.
Thy mother is not here, but by the shore
Of Tiryns hath obtained a dwelling-place;
And of thy sons, some she hath with her there,
And some inhabit Thebe’s citadel.
But we who are with thee, sire, if there be aught
That may by us be done, will hear, and do.

HER.
Then hearken thou unto this task, and show
If worthily thou art reputed mine.
Now is time to prove thee. My great father
Forewarned me long ago that I should die
By none who lived and breathed, but from the will
Of one now dwelling in the house of death.
And so this Centaur, as the voice Divine
Then prophesied, in death hath slain me living.
And in agreement with that ancient word
I now interpret newer oracles
Which I wrote down on going within the grove
Of the hill-roving and earth-couching Selli,–
Dictated to me by the mystic tongue
Innumerous, of my Father’s sacred tree;
Declaring that my ever instant toils
Should in the time that new hath being and life
End and release me. And I look’d for joy.
But the true meaning plainly was my death.–
No labour is appointed for the dead.–
Then, since all argues one event, my son,
Once more thou must befriend me, and not wait
For my voice goading thee, but of thyself
Submit and second my resolve, and know
Filial obedience for thy noblest rule.