Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/430

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Fling from your hair these cerements of the grave:

Look up to the light, beholding with your eyes

Exchange right welcome from the nether-gloom.

And I—for now work lieth to mine hand—

Will first go, and will raze to earth the house

Of this new king, his impious head smite off

And cast to dogs to rend. Of Thebans, all

Found traitors after my good deeds to them,

Some will I slay with this victorious mace,

And the rest scatter with my feathered shafts,

With slaughter of corpses all Ismenus fill,

And Dirkê's pure stream red with blood shall run.

For whom should I defend above my wife

And sons and aged sire? Great toils, farewell!

Vainly I wrought them, leaving these unhelped!

I ought defending these to die, if these

Die for their father:—else, what honour comes

Of hydra and of lion faced in fight

At king Eurystheus' hests, and from my sons

Death not averted? How shall I be called

Herakles the Victorious, as of old?

'Tis just the father should defend the sons,

The grey sire, and the yokemate of his life.

Son, worthy of thee it is to love thy friends,

To hate thy foes: yet be not over rash.

Herein what showeth, father, haste unmeet?