Eksodos
Heracles
Come, make haste and lift me! This, in truth, is rest from troubles, this is the end, the last end, of Heracles!
1255
Hyllus
Nothing hinders the fulfillment of your wish, since your commandment strongly compels me, Father.
Heracles
Come, then, before you awaken this
plague, O my hardened soul, give me a bit of steel to bind my lips like stone to stone! Stop any cry, since the task you accomplish, though by constraint, gives cause for joy.
1260
Hyllus
Lift him, attendants!
Grant me ample forgiveness for this, but also recall the great cruelty of the gods in the deeds that are being done. They beget children and are hailed as fathers, and yet they can let such sufferings pass before their eyes.
1265
No man foresees the future; the present is full of mourning for us, and of shame for the powers above, and indeed of hardship beyond compare for him who endures this disaster.
1270
And you, maiden, do not be left at the house. You have seen immense, shocking death, with sorrows great in number and strange. And in all of them there is nothing that is not Zeus.
1275
