Stasimon 4
[Choral]
Alas alas! lament; the son of Zeus, flower of your city, is being cut down. Woe to you, Hellas! that will cast from you your benefactor, and destroy him as he dances in the shrill frenzy of Madness.
875
Chorus
She is mounted on her chariot, the queen of sorrow and sighing, and is goading on her steeds, as if for outrage, the Gorgon child of Night, with a hundred hissing serpent-heads, Madness of the flashing eyes.
880
Soon has the god changed his good fortune; soon will his children breathe their last, slain by a father’s hand.
885
Chorus
O Zeus, unjust Vengeance, mad, relentless, will soon give your childless son
Amphitryon
Alas, O house!
890
Chorus
The dance begins without the cymbals’ crash, with no glad waving of the wine-god’s staff—
Amphitryon
Woe to these halls!
and not to pour libations of Dionysus’ grape.
895
Amphitryon
O children, make haste to fly!
Chorus
That is the chant of death, of death, to the music of pipes.
Ah, yes! he is hunting the children down. Never will Madness lead her revel rout in vain.
Amphitryon
Ah misery!
900
Chorus
Ah me! how I lament that aged father, that mother too that bore his children in vain.
A tempest rocks the house; the roof is falling with it.
905
Heracles
Oh, oh! what are you doing, Pallas, child of Zeus, to the house? You are sending hell’s confusion against the halls, as once you did on Enceladus.