HER.  Son! 
  Where art thou to lift me and hold me aright? 
  It tears me, it kills me, it rushes in might,
  This cruel, devouring, unconquered pain
  Shoots forth to consume me.  Again! again! 
  O Fate!  O Athena!—­O son, at my word
  Have pity and slay me with merciful sword!

  Pity thy father, boy; with sharp relief
  Smite on my breast, and heal the wrathful grief
  Wherewith thy mother, God-abandoned wife,
  Hath wrought this ruin on her husband’s life. 
  O may I see her falling, even so
  As she hath thrown me, to like depth of woe! 
  Sweet Hades, with swift death,
  Brother of Zeus, release my suffering breath!

CH.  Horror hath caught me as I hear this, woe,
Racking our mighty one with mightier pain.

HER.  Many hot toils and hard beyond report,
With sturdy thews and sinews I have borne,
But no such labour hath the Thunderer’s wife
Or sour Eurystheus ever given, as this,
Which Oeneus’ daughter of the treacherous eye
Hath fastened on my back, this amply-woven
Net of the Furies, that is breaking me. 
For, glued unto my side, it hath devoured
My flesh to the bone, and lodging in the lungs
It drains the vital channels, and hath drunk
The fresh life-blood, and ruins all my frame,
Foiled in the tangle of a viewless bond. 
Yet me nor War-host, nor Earth’s giant brood,
Nor Centaur’s monstrous violence could subdue,
Nor Hellas, nor the Stranger, nor all lands
Where I have gone, cleansing the world from harms. 
But a soft woman without manhood’s strain
Alone and weaponless hath conquered me. 
Son, let me know thee mine true-born, nor rate
Thy mother’s claim beyond thy sire’s, but bring
Thyself from out the chambers to my hand
Her body that hath borne thee, that my heart
May be assured, if lesser than my pain
It will distress thee to behold her limbs
With righteous torment agonized and torn. 
Nay, shrink not, son, but pity me, whom all
May pity—­me, who, like a tender girl,
Am heard to weep aloud!  This none could say
He knew in me of old; for, murmuring not,
I went with evil fortune, silent still. 
Now, such a foe hath found the woman in me! 
  Ay, but come near; stand by me, and behold
What cause I have for crying.  Look but here! 
Here is the mystery unveiled.  O see! 
Ye people, gaze on this poor quivering flesh,
Look with compassion on my misery! 
Ah me! 
Ah! ah!  Again! 
Even now the hot convulsion of disease
Shoots through my side, and will not let me rest
From this fierce exercise of wearing woe. 
Take me, O King of Night! 
O sudden thunderstroke. 
Smite me!  O sire, transfix me with the dart
Of thy swift lightning!  Yet again that fang
Is tearing; it hath blossomed forth anew,
It soars up to the height!