Book of illustrations : Ancient Tragedy

from the starting place!
Not a word, as he rolls his frightful orbs,
from their sockets wrenched in the ghastly race!
And the breathings of him he tempers and times no more
than a bull in act to toss,
And hideously he bellows invoking the Keres, daughters of Tartaros.
Ay and I soon will dance thee madder, and pipe thee
quite out of thy mind with fear!
So, up with the famous foot, thou Iris,
march to Olu[y?]mpus, leave me here!
Me and mine, who now combine, in the dreadful shape no mortal sees,
And now are about to pass, from without,
inside of the home of Herakles!

CHORAL ODE

Otototoi, – groan: Away is mown
Thy flower, Zeus' offspring, City!
Unhappy Hellas, who dost cast (the pity!)
Who worked thee all the good,
Away from thee, – destroyest in a mood
Of Madness him, to death whom pipings dance!
There goes she, in her chariot, – groans, her brood
And gives her team the goad, as though adrift
For doom, Night's Gorgon, Madness, she whose glance
Turns man to marble! with what hissings lift
Their hundred heads the snakes, her head's inheritance!
Quick has the God changed fortune: through their sire
Quick will the children, that he saved, expire!
O miserable me! O Zeus! thy child —
Childless himself – soon vengeance, hunger-wild,
Craving for punishment, will lay how low —
Loaded with many a woe!
O palace-roofs! your courts about,
A measure begins all unrejoiced
By the tympanies and the thyrsos hoist
Of the Bromian revel-rout,
O ye domes! and the measure proceeds
For blood, not such as the cluster bleeds
Of the Dionusian pouring-out!
Break forth! fly, children! fatal this —
Fatal the lay that is piped, I wis!
Ay, for he hunts a children-chase —
Never shall madness lead her revel
And leave no trace in the dwelling-place!
Ai, ai, because of the evil!
Ai, ai, the old man – how I groan
For the father, and not the father alone!
She who was nurse of his children small, – small
Her gain that they never were born at all!
See! see!
A whirlwind shakes hither and thither
The house – the roof falls in together!
Ha, ha, what dost thou, son of Zeus?
A trouble of Tartaros broke loose,
Such as once Pallas on the Titan thundered,
Thou sendest on thy domes, roof-shattered and wall-sundered.
Ideas of Deity

5

None of mortal men
Escape unhurt by fortune, nor the gods,
Unless the stories of the bards be false.
Have they not formed connubial ties to which
No law assents? Have they not gall'd with chains
Their fathers through ambition? Yet they hold
Their mansions on Olympus, and their wrongs
With patience bear.
Euripides: Hercules 1414.

6

These are your works, ye gods! these changes fraught
With horrible confusion, mingled thus
That we through ignorance might worship you.
Euripides: Hecuba 943.

7

O supreme of heav'n,
What shall we say? that thy firm providence
Regards mankind? or vain the thoughts, which deem
That the just gods are rulers in the sky,
Since tyrant fortune lords it o'er the world?
Do. 470.

8

Mortal as I am
In virtue I exceed thee, though a god
Of mighty pow'r; for I have not betray'd
The sons of Hercules: well did'st thou know
To come by stealth unto my couch, t' invade
A bed not thine, nor leave obtain'd; to save
Thy friends thou dost not know; thou art a god
In wisdom or in justice little vers'd.
Euripides: Hercules 385.

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