Euripides' HERACLES Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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63 pages - You are on Page 10

Megara: Old sirs, I thank you; 'tis right that friends should feel
virtuous indignation on behalf of those they love; but do not on our
account vent your anger on the tyrant to your own undoing. Hear my
advice, Amphitryon, if haply there appear to thee to be aught in what
I say. I love my children; strange if I did not love those whom I
laboured to bring forth! Death I count a dreadful fate; but the man
who wrestles with necessity I esteem a fool. Since we must die, let
us do so without being burnt alive, to furnish our foes with food
for merriment, which to my mind is an evil worse than death; for many
a fair guerdon do we owe our family. Thine has ever been a warrior's
fair fame, so 'tis not to be endured that thou shouldst die a coward's
death; and my husband's reputation needs no one to witness that he
would ne'er consent to save these children's lives by letting them
incur the stain of cowardice; for the noble are afflicted by disgrace
on account of their children, nor must I shrink from following my
lord's example. As to thy hopes consider how I weigh them. Thou thinkest
thy son will return from beneath the earth: who ever has come back
from the dead out of the halls of Hades? Thou hast a hope perhaps
of softening this man by entreaty: no, no! better to fly from one's
enemy when he is so brutish, but yield to men of breeding and wisdom;
for thou wilt more easily obtain mercy there by friendly overtures.
True, a thought has already occurred to me that we might by entreaty
obtain a sentence of exile for the children; yet this too is misery,
to compass their deliverance with dire penury as the result; for 'tis
a saying that hosts look sweetly on banished friends for a day and
no more. Steel thy heart to die with us, for that awaits thee after
all. By thy brave soul I challenge thee, old friend; for whoso struggles
hard to escape destiny shows zeal no doubt, but 'tis zeal with a taint
of folly; for what must be, no one will ever avail to alter.

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