The Trachiniae quotes

There is an old-world saying current still, “Of no man canst thou judge the destiny To call it good or evil, till he die.”

But I, before I pass into the world Of shadows, know my lot is hard and sad. E’en in my childhood’s home, while yet I dwelt At Pleuron with my father, I had dread Of marriage more than any Aetolian maid;

But Zeus who holds the arbitrament of war Ordered it well, if well indeed it be. For since, his chosen bride, I shared the home Of Heracles, my cares have never ceased;

Terror on terror follows, dread on dread, And one night’s trouble drives the last night’s out.

Children were born to us, but them he sees Fen as the tiller of a distant field Sees it at seedtime, sees it once again At harvest, and no more.

Antistrophe 2 Bear with me, lady, if I seem to chide thee. Why by despondency is fair hope slain? Think that high Zeus, if evil now betide thee, No human lot ordaineth free from pain; But as the Bear revolves in heaven all night,

So mortals move ’twixt sorrow and delight.

The sheen of night with daybreak wanes; Pleasure follows after pains. If perchance to-day thou art sad, Then another man is glad. Gains with losses alternate; Naught is constant in one state: Ponder this, my Queen, nor let Carking care thy spirit fret.

Why by despondency is fair hope slain? Think that high Zeus, if evil now betide thee, No human lot ordaineth free from pain; But as the Bear revolves in heaven all night, So mortals move ’twixt sorrow and delight.

The sheen of night with daybreak wanes; Pleasure follows after pains.

If perchance to-day thou art sad, Then another man is glad. Gains with losses alternate; Naught is constant in one state: Ponder this, my Queen, nor let Carking care thy spirit fret. Tell me hast thou ever known Zeus unmindful of his own?

Nay, by the god, I pray, who hurls his bolts On Oeta’s wooded heights, hold nothing back; To no ungenerous woman wilt thou speak, But one that knows the inconstancy of men, Who e’en in joys delight not in one kind.

The gamester who would pit himself ’gainst Love Is ill advised. Love rules at will the gods, And me⁠—why not then others weak as I?

So were I mad indeed either to blame My husband stricken with love’s malady, Or her the partner of his dalliance: That brings to them no shame or wrong to me. I have more sense.

I have more sense. But if he taught thee thus To lie, the lesson thou hast learnt is base; Or if thy fraud is self-taught, thou art like To prove most cruel, meaning to be kind.

Nay, tell me the whole truth. The name of liar Is to the free-born man a deadly brand.

And think not that thy lying will not out, For many heard thy tale and will inform me. Art thou afraid of me? Thy fears are vain. ’Twould vex me much not to be told the truth; To know it hurts not.

Now, lady, that thou know’st the tale in full, For both your sakes—thine own no less than his— Suffer this maiden gladly, and abide By the kind words thou spak’st concerning her.

For he who never yielded to a foe, By her was vanquished and by love laid low.

This way my thoughts too, as thou bidst, inclined, Nor will I fondly aggravate my trouble By warring against Heaven. Let us indoors, That thou may’st bear a message to my lord, And, as a fit return for gifts received, My gift withal.

Yet to be wroth with one like him, infect With this love-plague, I cannot bring myself; But then to share his bed and board with her— What wife could bear it?

She’s the budding rose, And I o’erblown and withering on the thorn.

Men cull the flower and when the bloom has fled Fling it far from them. This then is my fear, That Heracles will leave me the bare name Of consort, while the younger is his wife. But, as I said, ’tis folly to be wroth.

Why should the dying Centaur then have shown Regard for me, the author of his death? Impossible! no, he was cozening me, And sought, through me, his slayer to undo.

Too late, too late, when knowledge naught avails, My eyes are opened.

I alone am doomed, (Unless my fears prove false) to slay my lord. I know the shaft that slew the Centaur scathed E’en Cheiron, though a god, and any beast It touches dies.

“By my foul slander have I stricken her,” He cried, “and now am I bereaved of both, Of father and of mother, in one day.” So fares it with us. And if any man Counts on the morrow, or on morrows more, He reckons rashly.

Morrow is there none, Until to-day its course has safely run.

Strophe 1 Which first of woes, which next, Wherewith my soul is vext, To wail, I am perplext, Antistrophe 1 One here accomplishèd, One hanging o’er my head, One as the other dread.

For pity’s sake shrink not; to see me thus (’Twould move to pity e’en a heart of stone) Puling and weeping like a girl, unmanned. So none can boast to have seen me, for till now I took whate’er befell me with a smile.

And now⁠—’tis I who play the woman now.

Come closer, stand beside me; see, my son, To what a pass ill fate hath brought thy sire. Lo, I will lift the veil; look all of you On this poor maimèd body, and declare Was ever wretch so piteous as I. Ah me!

Lift him, men, nor take amiss That I bear a part in this. We are blameless, but confess That the gods are pitiless.

Children they beget, and claim Worship in a father’s name, Yet with apathetic eye Look upon such agony.

What is yet to be none knows, But the present’s fraught with woes, Woes for us, for them deep shame; And of all beneath the sun Worse than he hath suffered none. Come, maidens, come away!