HYL.  Oh, woe is me! 
  My father, piteous woe for thee! 
  Oh, whither shall I turn my thought!  Ah me!

OLD M. Hush! speak not, O my child,
  Lest torment fierce and wild
  Rekindle in thy father’s rugged breast,
  And break this rest
  Where now his life is held at point to fall. 
  With firm lips clenched refrain thy voice through all.

HYL.  Yet tell me, doth he live,
  Old sir?

OLD M. Wake not the slumberer,
  Nor kindle and revive
  The terrible recurrent power of pain,
  My son!

HYL.  My foolish words are done,
  But my full heart sinks ’neath the heavy strain.

HERACLES.  O Father, who are these? 
  What countrymen?  Where am I?  What far land
  Holds me in pain that ceaseth not?  Ah me! 
  Again that pest is rending me.  Pain, pain!

OLD M. Now thou may’st know
  ’Twas better to have lurked in silent shade
  And not thus widely throw
  The slumber from his eyelids and his head.

HYL.  I could not brook
  All speechless on his misery to look.

MONODY.

HER.  O altar on the Euboean strand,
  High-heaped with offerings from my hand,
  What meed for lavish gifts bestowed
  From thy new sanctuary hath flowed! 
  Father of Gods! thy cruel power
  Hath foiled me with an evil blight. 
  Ah! would mine eyes had closed in night
  Ere madness in a fatal hour
  Had burst upon them with a blaze,
  No help or soothing once allays!

  What hand to heal, what voice to charm,
  Can e’er dispel this hideous harm? 
  Whose skill save thine,
  Monarch Divine? 
  Mine eyes, if such I saw,
  Would hail him from afar with trembling awe. 
  Ah! ah! 
  O vex me not, touch me not, leave me to rest,
  To sleep my last sleep on Earth’s gentle breast. 
  You touch me, you press me, you turn me again,
  You break me, you kill me!  O pain!  O pain! 
  You have kindled the pang that had slumbered still. 
  It comes, it hath seized me with tyrannous will!

  Where are ye, men, whom over Hellas wide
  This arm hath freed, and o’er the ocean-tide,
  And through rough brakes, from every monstrous thing? 
  Yet now in mine affliction none will bring
  A sword to aid, a fire to quell this fire,
  O most unrighteous! nor to my desire
  Will come and quench the hateful life I hold
  With mortal stroke!  Ah! is there none so bold?

OLD M. Son of our hero, this hath mounted past
  My feeble force to cope with.  Take him thou! 
  Fresher thine eye and more the hope thou hast
  Than mine to save him.

HYL.  I support him now
  Thus with mine arm:  but neither fleshly vest
  Nor inmost spirit can I lull to rest
  From torture.  None may dream
  To wield this power, save he, the King supreme.