For crime so great? O sire of Hercules,

Destroy me with thy hurtling thunderbolt,

Thy guilty daughter. With no common dart

Arm thine avenging hand; but use that shaft

With which, had Hercules ne'er sprung from thee,850

Thou wouldst have scorched the hydra. As a pest

Unprecedented smite me, as a scourge

Far worse to bear than any stepdame's wrath.

Such bolt as once at wandering Phaëthon

Thou hurledst, aim at me. For I myself