ACT IV
[Enter Hercules in the extremity of suffering.]
Hercules: Turn back thy panting steeds, thou shining sun,
And bid the night come forth. Blot out the day,
And let the heavens, with pitchy darkness filled,
Conceal my dying pains from Juno's eyes.
Now, father, wire it fitting to recall
Dark chaos; now the joinings of the skies 1135
Should be asunder rent, and pole from pole
Be cleft. Why, father, dost thou spare the stars?
Thy Hercules is lost. Now, Jupiter,
Look well to every region of the heavens,
Lest any Gyas hurl again the crags
Of Thessaly, and Othrys be again 1140
An easy missile for Enceladus.
Now, even now will haughty Pluto loose
The gates of hell, strike off his father's chains,
And give him back to heaven. Since Hercules,
Who on the earth has seen thy thunderbolt
And lightning flash, must turn him back to Styx;
Enceladus the fierce will rise again, 1145
And hurl against the gods that mighty weight
Which now oppresses him. O Jupiter,
My death throughout the kingdom of the sky
Shall shake thy sovereignty. Then, ere thy throne
Become the giants' spoil, give burial
Beneath the ruined universe to me;
Oh, rend thy kingdom ere 'tis rent from thee. 1150
Chorus: No empty fears, O Thunderer's son,
Dost thou express: for soon again
Shall Pelion on Ossa rest;
And Athos, heaped on Pindus, thrust
Its woods amidst the stars of heaven.
Then shall Typhoeus heave aside 1155
The crags of Tuscan Ischia;
Enceladus, not yet o'ercome
By thunderbolts, shall bear aloft
The huge Aetnaean furnaces,
And rend the gaping mountain side.
