Megara

MEGARA

"My mother, why do you so wound your dear heart, grieving beyond measure, and the bloom that once was yours no longer keeps its place upon your cheeks? Why are you so distressed for me? Is it because your glorious son suffers boundless pains beneath a worthless man, as a lion beneath a fawn? Alas for me, why then have the immortal gods so dishonored me? Why did my parents bear me to so evil a lot? Ill-fated, who, when I came to the bed of a blameless man— him I honored equal to my own eyes, and even now I revere and stand in awe of him at heart; but no other of the living was born more luckless than he, nor tasted in his own thoughts so many griefs. Wretched man, who with the bow that Apollo himself gave him, or with the dread shafts of some Death-spirit or Fury, slew his own children and took their dear life away, raging through the house, which was filled with slaughter. Them, wretched woman, I saw with my own eyes struck down by their father, a thing that came not even in a dream to another. Nor could I help them as they cried out unceasingly to their own mother, for the unconquerable evil was close at hand. As a bird laments over her own nestlings perishing, whom a dread serpent, while they are still callow, devours in the thick bushes; and over them flits their lady mother, crying very shrilly, nor can she help her children, for to her too to come near is great terror of the pitiless monster: so I, mother of grim children, wailing for my dear offspring, ranged with frenzied feet long through the house. Would that I too, dying together with my children, might lie, a poisoned arrow through my liver, Artemis, you who rule mightily over women. Then our parents, weeping for us in their dear hands, with many funeral gifts would have set us on one and the same pyre, and, gathering the bones of all into one golden urn, would have buried us where first we were born. But now they dwell in horse-rearing Thebes, plowing the deep soil of the Aonian plain; while I in rugged Tiryns, the city of Hera, luckless, am stricken in my heart with many griefs ever alike; and there is for me no respite from tears. But my husband I see only a short time with my eyes in our home; for there is much work ready for him, toils which, wandering over land and sea, he labors through, having in his breast a mind of rock or of iron, strong; and you, like water, melt away, weeping through the nights and through as many days as Zeus sends. No other of my kinsmen would stand beside me and cheer me; for it is not a wall of the house that keeps them away: all of them, indeed, dwell far beyond the pine-clad Isthmus, nor is there anyone toward whom I might look, like an utterly wretched woman, and revive my dear heart, except Pyrrha my own sister; and she herself too grieves the more about her husband, your son Iphicles; for of all mothers I think you have borne the most miserable children to a god and to a mortal man."

So she spoke; and tears more swelling than apples poured down from her eyelids into her lovely bosom, as she remembered her children and her parents afterward. And likewise with tears Alcmene wet her white cheeks; and heavily, groaning from her heart, with dense-set words she addressed her dear daughter-in-law thus: "Dear child, why now has this fallen into your prudent mind? How do you wish to stir us both by telling of unforgettable griefs? Not now for the first time are they wept. Is it not enough, the troubles by which we are held ever as each day comes? Truly very fond of mourning would he be, whoever should count up our sorrows. Take heart; not such a lot did we obtain from the god. And I see you yourself too, dear child, laboring with unwearying pains. I am understanding of you in your distress, when even of joy there is satiety; and I lament you exceedingly and pity you, because you have shared in our bitter destiny, which hangs heavy over our heads above. For let the Maiden and fair-robed Demeter be witness— by whom one greatly wronged would willingly swear a false oath of one's foes—that not at all do I love you less in my heart than if you had come from my own womb and had been in my house my darling maiden daughter. Nor do I think this at all escapes you yourself. Therefore never say, my flower, that I neglect you, not even if I weep more thickly than fair-haired Niobe. For not even so is it blameworthy for a mother to mourn over a child in distress; since for ten months I labored even before I saw him, carrying him beneath my liver, and he brought me near to Aïdoneus, the gate-fastener; so in hard birth I endured grievous pangs for him. And now he has gone from me, alone, upon a foreign land to fulfill a new labor; nor do I know, ill-fated, whether again I shall welcome him returning here, or not. And besides, a dread dream has startled me through my sweet sleep; and I fear, having seen a malignant vision, exceedingly, lest he do something hateful to my children. For there seemed to me, holding a well-wrought mattock in his hands, my son, the mighty Heracles, with both of them, with which he was digging a great trench, as if for hire, at the edge of some flourishing field, naked, without cloak and well-girt tunic. But when he came to the end of all the work, laboring at the strong fence of the wine-bearing vineyard, he was about to lean his shovel upon the projecting bank and climb out, and put on the clothes he had worn before; when suddenly there blazed up above the deep trench a relentless fire, and round about him rolled an unspeakable flame. But he kept retreating backward on swift feet, striving to escape the deadly force of Hephaestus; and ever before his body, like a shield, he wielded the mattock; and round about with his eyes here and there he peered, lest the hostile fire should burn him. And eager to help him, as it seemed to me, great-hearted Iphicles fell to the ground, slipping, before he could come, nor could he rise upright again, but lay immovable, like a feeble old man, whom unwelcome age, even against his will, has forced to fall; and he lies there on the earth fixed just so, until someone of those passing by draws him up by the hand, out of reverence for the respect once due to a grey beard. So upon the ground lay shield-bearing Iphicles; and I kept weeping, seeing my children helpless, until sweet sleep rushed away from my eyes, and at once shining dawn came. Such dreams, dear one, startled me through my mind all night long; but may they all be turned against Eurystheus, away from our house, and may my heart prove a prophet for him, and may the god accomplish nothing else beyond that.