'Why dost thou vex thy spirit, mother mine?
Why fades thy cheek? At what dost thou repine?
Because thy son must serve a popinjay,
As though a lion did a fawn obey?
Why have the gods so much dishonoured me?
Why was I born to such a destiny?
Spouse of a man I cherished as mine eyes,
For whom heart-deep my vowed affection lies,
Yet must I see him crossed by adverse fate,
Of mortal men the most misfortunate!
Who with the arrows, which Apollo- no!
Some Fate or Fury did on him bestow,
In his own house his own sons raging slew-
Where in the house was not the purple dew?
I saw them slain by him; I- I, their mother,
Did see their father slaughter them; none other
Had e'er a dream like this; to me they cried,
'Mother! Save us!' What could I do? They died.
As when a bird bewails her callow young,
O'er whom, unfeathered yet, she fondly hung,
Which now a fierce snake in the bush devours-
Flies round and round- shrieks- cannot help them- cowers,
Nor nearer dares approach her cruel foe;
Thus I, most wretched mother! to and fro
Rushed madly through the house, my children dear,
My dead, dead children wailing everywhere.
Would that I too had with my children died,
The poisoned arrow sticking in my side?
Then with fast tears my mother and my sire
Had laid me with them on the funeral pyre;
And to my birth-land given, on their return,
Our mingled ashes in one golden urn.
But they in Thebes, renowned for steeds, remain,
And still they farm their own Aonian plain;
But in steep Tiryns I must dwell apart,
With many sorrows gnawing at my heart.
Mine eyes are fountains, which I cannot close;
I seldom see him, and but brief repose
My hapless husband is allowed at home;
By sea or land he must for ever roam;
None but a heart of iron, or of stone,
Could bear the labours he has undergone.
Thou, too, like water, meltest still away,
For ever weeping every night and day.
None of my kin is here to comfort me,
For they beyond the piny isthmus be;
There's none, to whom I may pour out my woes,
And like a woman all my heart disclose,
But sister Pyrrha;- but she too forlorn
For her Iphicles, thine and her's doth mourn.
Unhappiest mother thou! In either son-
Twin stamps of Zeus, and of Amphitryon.'

And while she spoke, from either tearful well
The large drops faster on her bosom fell,
While she her slaughtered children called to mind,
And parents in her country left behind.
With tear-stained cheek, and many a groan and sigh,
Alcmena to her son's wife made reply-

'Why, hapless mother! with this train of thought
Dost thou provoke the grief that comes unsought?
Why dost thou talk these dreadful sorrows o'er?
Now wept by us- as we have wept before?
Are not the new griefs that we look to see
From day to day, enough for you and me?
Lover of dole were he, who would recount
Our tale of woes, and find their whole amount!
Take heart, and bear those ills we cannot cure.
But by the will of heaven we must endure.
And yet I cannot bid thee cease to grieve,
For even joy to spend itself has leave.
For thee I wail, why wert thou doomed, oh why,
To be a partner in our misery?
I mourn that fate with ours thy fortune blends
Under the woe that over us impends.
Ye!- by whose names unpunished none forswear,-
Persephona and dread Demeter, hear!
Not less on thee has my true love reposed,
Than if my womb thy body had enclosed;
I love thee, sweetest, as an old-age child,
That has, beyond hope, on its mother smiled;
Thou knowest this; then say not, I implore,
I love thee not, or foster sorrow more,
Or in my grief I careless am of thee,
Though I weep more than e'er wept Niobe.
No blame is due to her with anguish wild,
Who hapless weeps for her unhappy child.
Ten weary months within my womb he lay-
What pains I suffered ere he came to day-
What pangs! I all but said farewell to earth,
While yet my unborn lingered in the birth.
New toils now task him in a foreign plain-
Oh shall I ever see my son again?
Besides an awful vision of the night,
Scaring my sleep, hath filled me with affright,
And much I fear, when I my dream recall,
Lest some untoward thing my sons befall.
Methought, aside his cloak and tunic laid
My Hercules with both hands grasped a spade,
And round a cultured field a mighty dyke
He delved, as one that toils for hire belike.
But when the dyke around the vineyard run,
And he was just about (his task now done,
The shovel thrown on the projecting rim,)
With his attire again to cover him;
Sudden above the bank a fire burst out,
Whose greedy flames enclosed him round about.
He to the flames with rapid flight did yield,
Holding the spade before him as a shield,
And here and there he turned his anxious eye,
If he might shun his scorching enemy.
High-souled Iphicles, I remember well
As it me-seemed, rushing to help him, fell;
Nor could he raise himself from where he rolled,
But helpless lay there like some weak man old,
Tripped up by joyless age against his will;
Stretched on the ground he was, and seeming still
Hopeless of rising, till a passer-by
In pity raised the hoar infirmity.
Thus helpless lay the warrior brave in fight;
And I did weep to see that sorry sight-
This son stretched feeble, that engirt with flame,
Till sleep forsook me and the day-dawn came.
Such frightful visions on my sleep did fall;
Ye gods! On cursed Eurystheus turn them all!
Oh be this presage true my wish supplies,
And may no god ordain it otherwise!'

translated by M. J. Chapman