Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/177

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The tears flow stealthily. In so great ills
What cause for shame can be? Is this the work 1180
Of him who ruthlessly at Argos rules?
Has dying Lycus' hostile soldiery
With such disaster overwhelmed our house?
O father, by the praises of my deeds,
By thine own name which ever was to me
Propitious, tell, I pray thee, who it is
Who hath o'erthrown my house. Whose prey am I? 1185
Amphitr.: Let ills like these in silence pass away.
Hercules: And I be unavenged?
Amphitryon: But vengeance hurts.
Hercules: Who has, inactive, ever borne such wrongs?
Amphitr.: He who feared greater wrongs.
Hercules: Than these my wrongs
Can any greater, heavier be feared? 1190
Amphitr.: The part thou knowest of thy woes is least.
Hercules: Have pity. See, I stretch my suppliant hands.
But what is this? He will not touch my hands.
In these must be the sin.
But whence this blood?
Why is that shaft, once dipped in Hydra's gall, 1195
Now wet with infant gore? They are my own,
These arrows that I see; the guilty hand
I need no longer seek; for who but me
Could bend that mighty bow, or whose right hand
Could draw the string that scarcely yields to me?
[To Amphitryon and Theseus.]
To you I turn again. O father, tell:
Is this my deed? 1200
[Both men hesitate in silence.]
They hesitate—'tis mine.
Amphitr.: Thine is the grief; thy stepdame's is the crime.
From fault of thine this sad mischance is free.
Hercules: Now hurl thy wrathful bolts from all the heavens,
O sire, who hast forgotten me, thy son;
Avenge at least, though with a tardy hand,
Thy grandsons. Let the star-set heavens resound,
And darting lightnings leap from pole to pole. 1205