Stasimon 5
Heracles
Leave me! Leave me in my misfortune! Leave me to sleep my last. Where, where do you touch me? Where do you lay me? You will kill me, you will kill me! If there was any pain that slumbered, you have aroused it!
1005
It has seized me,—oh, the pest comes again!—What is your homeland, you men most ungrateful of all the Greeks? I wore out my wretched days in ridding the Greeks of pests both on the deep and throughout every forest. And now, when I am afflicted, will no man turn merciful fire or sword on me?
1010
Oh! Oh! Will no one come and strike the head from this accursed body with one fierce stroke? Ah, me!
1015
[Choral]
You are the man’s son, and this task exceeds my strength. Help him, for the strength to save him is at your command,
Old Man
more than mine.
1020
Hyllus
My hands reach out to him, but no resource in myself or from another can help me make his life forget its agonies. So strong is the destiny appointed by Zeus!
1020
[Choral 1]
O my son, where are you?
Heracles
Raise me, take hold of me here, here! Oh, oh, my god! Again, again the cruel pest leaps, leaps up to rend me, the
1025
wild, uncombatable plague! O Pallas, Pallas, it tortures me again! oh, please, my son, pity your sire! Draw a sword—you will not be blamed for it—strike me beneath my collarbone.
1030
Heal this pain with which your godless mother has enraged me! So may I see her fall to ruin, exactly, just exactly, as she has destroyed me!
1035
Sweet Hades, brother of Zeus, give me sleep, give me sleep. Kill me in my misery by a swift-flying doom!
1040