Do you need a further taste of grief, or do you cling so fast to life?AmphitryonYes, I love this life, and cling to its hopes.MegaraSo do I; but you should not expect the unexpected, old friend.AmphitryonIn these delays the only cure for our evils is left.MegaraIt is the biting pain of that interval I feel so.AmphitryonDaughter, there may yet be a happy escape from present troubles for me and you; my son, your husband, may yet arrive. So calm yourself, and wipe those tears from your children’s eyes, and soothe them with soft words, inventing a tale to delude then, piteous though such fraud be. Yes, for even men’s misfortunes often flag, and the stormy wind does not always blow so strong, nor are the prosperous ever so; for all things change, making way for each other. The bravest man is he who relies ever on his hopes, but despair is the mark of a coward.
ChorusTo the sheltering roof, to the old man’s couch, leaning on my staff have I set forth, chanting a plaintive dirge like some bird grown grey, I that am only a voice and a fancy bred of the visions of sleep by night, palsied with age, yet meaning kindly. All hail! you orphaned children! all hail, old friend! you too, unhappy mother, wailing for your husband in the halls of Hades!
ChorusDo not faint too soon upon your way, or let your limbs grow weary, as a colt beneath the yoke grows weary as he mounts some stony hill, dragging the weight of a wheeled chariot. Take hold of hand or robe, who ever feels his footsteps falter. Old friend, escort another like yourself, who once amid his toiling peers in the days of our youth would take his place beside you, no blot upon his country’s glorious record.
ChorusSee, how like their father’s sternly flash these children’s eyes! Misfortune has not failed his children, nor yet has his comeliness been denied them. O Hellas! if you lose these, of what allies will you rob yourself! ChorusBut I see Lycus, the ruler of this land, drawing near the house.LycusOne question, if I may, to this father of Heracles and his wife; and certainly as your lord and master I have a right to put what questions I choose. How long do you seek to prolong your lives? What hope, what aid do you see to save you from death? Do you trust that these children’s father, who lies dead in the halls of Hades, will return? How unworthily you show your sorrow at having to die, you to Amphitryon after your idle boasts, scattered broadcast through Hellas, that Zeus was partner in your marriage-bed and was your partner in children; and you, to Megara after calling yourself the wife of so peerless a lord.