LINES 531-632.
DEIANIRA.
Good friends, while yonder stranger, ere he part,
Is talking to the captive maids within,
I come forth secretly to speak to you.
What I devise I would to you confide,
And for my trouble I crave your sympathy.
That maid, a maid no more I guess, but wed,
I have received on board my barque, a bale
Of mockery and of outrage for my heart;
And now we twain beneath one quilt must lie,
And share the same embrace. Thus Heracles,
That excellent and faithful spouse of mine,
Repays the long-tried guardian of his home.
To play the angry wife I know not how,
So oft has he been sick of this disease.
But with this wench to dwell in partnership
As second wife, what woman could endure?
My youthful beauty now is on the wane,
While hers is growing, and the lover's eye
Turns from the withering to the blooming flower.
Heracles will, I fear, be mine in name,
In deed, the husband of a younger wife.
But, as I said, no wife not void of sense
Will show her wrath. The talisman, my friends,
That is to work the cure ye now shall hear.
I hold safe treasured in a brazen urn
The keepsake which a Centaur gave of old.
From shaggy Nessus when I was a maid
I had it, 'twas his dying legacy.
He over deep Evenus stream was wont
In his own arms to carry passengers,
Not using oars nor sails to ferry them.
And when, from my paternal home sent forth,
A bride I journeyed with my Heracles,
Bearing me on his back, in the midstream
He laid rash hands on me. I shrieked aloud.
The son of Zeus turned him and quick let fly
A shaft that, hurtling through the Centaur's chest,
Transfixed him. Feeling that his end was come,
The monster said to me, "Old Oeneus' child,
As thou art my last fare, hearken to me:
Thou shall have cause to thank thy ferryman.
If thou wilt bear away this clotted blood
That marks the spot whereon the arrow steeped
In the Lernaean Hydra's venom fell;
In it thou'lt ever find a spell to bind
The heart of Heracles, and to prevent
His loving any woman in thy stead."
Of this love-charm, my friends, bethinking me,
As, kept with care, it in my closet lay,
I steeped a robe in it, adding whate'er
The Centaur bade, and now my work is done.
Black arts I know not nor desire to know,
And all who practise such abominate;
But if so be, we can with this love-charm
Win from yon maid the heart of Heracles,
The means are found, unless my plan to thee
Seems ill-advised; if so, I give it o'er.
CHORUS.
Nay, if in any plan we could confide,
Thine, in our judgment, is not ill-advised.
DEIANIRA.
So far I can confide as judgment serves,
For no trial of the charm has yet been made.
CHORUS.
Then make one; knowledge that thou seemst to have
Thou hast not, till experience set its seal.