Stasimon 2
[Episode]
Come here, my children, cling to your father’s robe, hurry, never loose your hold, for here is one to help you, not at all behind our savior Zeus.
520
Heracles
All hail! my house and gates of my home, how glad I am to emerge to the light and see you.
Ah! what is this? I see my children before the house in the robes of death, with chaplets on their heads and my wife amid a throng of men, and my father weeping—what misfortune? Let me draw near to them and inquire;
525
lady, what strange stroke of fate has fallen on the house?
530
Megara
Dearest of all mankind to me!
Amphitryon
O ray of light appearing to your father!
Megara
Are you safe and is your coming just in time to help your dear ones?
Heracles
What do you mean? What is this confusion I find on my arrival, father?
Megara
We are being ruined; forgive me, old friend,
if I have anticipated that to which you had a right to tell him; for women’s nature is perhaps more prone to grief than men’s and they are my children that were being led to death, which was my own lot too.
535
Heracles
Apollo! what a prelude to your story!
Megara
My brothers are dead, and my old father.
Heracles
How so? what did he do? whose spear did he meet?
540
Megara
Lycus, our new monarch, slew him.
Heracles
Did he meet him in fair fight, or was the land sick and weak?
Megara
Yes, from faction; now he is master of the city of Cadmus with its seven gates.
Heracles
Why has panic fallen on you and my aged father?
Megara
He meant to kill your father, me, and my children.
545
Heracles
What are you saying? What did he have to fear from my orphan babes?
Megara
He was afraid they might some day avenge Creon’s death.
