Part 19 (1/2)

IRIS Courage, old men! beholding here--Night's birth-- Madness, and me the handmaid of the G.o.ds, Iris: since to your town we come no plague-- Wage war against the house of but one man From Zeus and from Alkmene sprung, they say.

Now, till he made an end of bitter toils Fate kept him safe, nor did his father Zeus Let us once hurt him, Here nor myself.

But since he has toiled through Eurustheus' task Here desires to fix fresh blood on him-- Slaying his children; I desire it too.

Up then, collecting the unsoftened heart, Unwedded virgin of black Night! Drive, drag, Frenzy upon the man here--whirls of brain Big with child-murder, while his feet leap gay.

Let go the b.l.o.o.d.y cable its whole length!

So that,--when o'er the Acherousian ford He has sent floating, by self-homicide, His beautiful boy-garland,--he may know First, Here's anger, what it is to him, And then learn mine. The G.o.ds are vile indeed And mortal matters vast if he 'scape free.

MADNESS Certes, from well-born sire and mother too Had I my birth, whose blood is Night's and Heaven's; But here's my glory,--not to grudge the good!

Nor love I raids against the friends of man.

I wish, then, to persuade, before I see You stumbling, you and Here: trust my words!

This man, the house of whom ye hound me to, Is not unfamed on earth, nor G.o.ds among; Since, having quelled waste land and savage sea, He alone raised again the falling rights Of G.o.ds--gone ruinous through impious men.

Desire no mighty mischief, I advise!

IRIS Give thou no thought to Here's faulty schemes!

MADNESS Changing her step from faulty to fault-free!

IRIS Not to be wise, did Zeus' wife send thee here!

MADNESS Sun, thee I cite to witness--doing what I loath to do!

But since indeed to Here and thyself I must subserve, And follow you quick, with a whizz, as the hounds a-hunt with the huntsman, --Go I will! and neither the sea, as it groans with its waves so furiously, Nor earthquake, no, nor the bolt of thunder gasping out heaven's labor-throe, Shall cover the ground as I, at a bound, rush into the bosom of Herakles!

And home I scatter and house I batter, Having first of all made the children fall,-- And he who felled them is never to know He gave birth to each child that received the blow, Till the Madness I am have let him go!

Ha, behold, already he rocks his head--he is off from the starting place!

Not a word, as he rolls his frightful orbs, from their sockets wrenched in the ghastly race!

And the breathings of him he tempers and times no more than a bull in act to toss, And hideously he bellows invoking the Keres, daughters of Tartaros.

Ay and I soon will dance thee madder, and pipe thee quite out of thy mind with fear!

So, up with the famous foot, thou Iris, march to Olu[y?]mpus, leave me here!

Me and mine, who now combine, in the dreadful shape no mortal sees, And now are about to pa.s.s, from without, inside of the home of Herakles!

CHORAL ODE

Otototoi,--groan: Away is mown Thy flower, Zeus' offspring, City!

Unhappy h.e.l.las, who dost cast (the pity!) Who worked thee all the good, Away from thee,--destroyest in a mood Of Madness him, to death whom pipings dance!

There goes she, in her chariot,--groans, her brood And gives her team the goad, as though adrift For doom, Night's Gorgon, Madness, she whose glance Turns man to marble! with what hissings lift Their hundred heads the snakes, her head's inheritance!

Quick has the G.o.d changed fortune: through their sire Quick will the children, that he saved, expire!

O miserable me! O Zeus! thy child-- Childless himself--soon vengeance, hunger-wild, Craving for punishment, will lay how low-- Loaded with many a woe!

O palace-roofs! your courts about, A measure begins all unrejoiced By the tympanies and the thyrsos hoist Of the Bromian revel-rout, O ye domes! and the measure proceeds For blood, not such as the cl.u.s.ter bleeds Of the Dionusian pouring-out!

Break forth! fly, children! fatal this-- Fatal the lay that is piped, I wis!

Ay, for he hunts a children-chase-- Never shall madness lead her revel And leave no trace in the dwelling-place!

Ai, ai, because of the evil!

Ai, ai, the old man--how I groan For the father, and not the father alone!

She who was nurse of his children small,--small Her gain that they never were born at all!

See! see!