Heracles
Euripides
Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley. Vol. II. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1891.
- O my dearest Heracles, to you I call, if perhaps mortal voice can make itself heard in Hades’ halls; your father and children are dying, and I am doomed, I who once because of you was counted blessed as men count bliss. Come to our rescue; appear, I pray, if only as a phantom,
- since your arrival, even as a dream, would be enough, for they are cowards who are slaying your children.
- Lady, prepare the funeral rites; but I, O Zeus, stretching out my hand to heaven, call on you to help these children,
- if such is your intention; for soon any aid of yours will be unavailing; and yet you have been often invoked; my toil is in vain; death seems inevitable. You aged friends, the joys of life are few; so take heed that you pass through it as gladly as you may,
- without a thought of sorrow from morning until night; for time takes little heed of preserving our hopes; and, when he has busied himself on his own business, away he flies. Look at me, a man who had made a mark among his fellows by deeds of note; yet fortune in a single day
- has robbed me of it as of a feather that floats away toward the sky. I know not any whose plenteous wealth and high reputation is fixed and sure; fare you well, for now you have seen the last of your old friend, my comrades.
- Ah! Old friend, is it my own, my dearest I see? or what am I to say?
- I do not know, my daughter; I too am struck dumb.
- Is this he who they told us was beneath the earth?It is, unless some day-dream mocks our sight. What am I saying? What visions do these anxious eyes behold? Old man, this is no one other than your own son.
- Come here, my children, cling to your father’s robe, hurry, never loose your hold, for here is one to help you, not at all behind our savior Zeus.
- All hail! my house and gates of my home, how glad I am to emerge to the light and see you.