Stasimon 5
[Episode]
O white-haired old men!
910
Messenger
It is dreadful within!
Chorus
No need for me to call another prophet for that.
Messenger
The children are dead.
Messenger
Ah weep! for here is cause for weeping.
cruel parents’ hands!
915
Messenger
No words can utter more than we have suffered.
Chorus
How came the ruin you reveal, the ruin that must be lamented, from a father to his children? Tell me how these heaven-sent woes
came rushing on the house; say how the children met their sad mischance.
920
Messenger
Victims to purify the house were stationed before the altar of Zeus, for Heracles had slain and cast from his halls the king of the land.
There stood his group of lovely children, with his father and Megara; and already the basket was being passed round the altar, and we were keeping holy silence. But just as Alcmena’s son was bringing the torch in his right hand to dip it in the holy water,
925
he stopped without a word. And as their father lingered, his children looked at him; he was no longer himself; his eyes were rolling; he was quite distraught; his eyeballs were bloodshot, and foam was oozing down his bearded cheek.
930
He spoke with a madman’s laugh: Father, why should I offer the purifying flame before I have slain Eurystheus, and have the toil twice over? It is the work of my unaided arm to settle these things well; as soon as I have brought the head of Eurystheus here,
935
I will cleanse my hands for those already slain. Spill the water, cast the baskets from your hands. Ho! give me now my bow and club! To Mycenae will I go; I must take crow-bars and pick-axes, for I will shatter again
940
with iron levers those city-walls which the Cyclopes squared with red plumb-line and mason’s tools.
945
Then he set out, and though he had no chariot there, he thought he had, and was for mounting to its seat, and using a goad as though his fingers really held one.
