And fain would Zeus have saved his tired son,
Beholding him where the Two Pillars stand
O’er the sun-reddened western straits,[14]
Or at his work in that dim lower world.
Fain would he have recalled
The fraudulent oath which bound
To a much feebler wight the heroic man.
But he preferred fate to his strong desire.
Nor did there need less than the burning pile
Under the towering Trachis crags,
And the Spercheios vale, shaken with groans,
And the roused Maliac gulf,
And scared Œtæan snows,
To achieve his son’s deliverance, O my child!
FRAGMENT OF CHORUS OF A “DEJANEIRA.”
O frivolous mind of man,
Light ignorance, and hurrying, unsure thoughts!
Though man bewails you not,
How I bewail you!
Little in your prosperity
Do you seek counsel of the gods.
Proud, ignorant, self-adored, you live alone.
In profound silence stern,
Among their savage gorges and cold springs,
Unvisited remain
The great oracular shrines.
Thither in your adversity
Do you betake yourselves for light,
But strangely misinterpret all you hear.
For you will not put on
New hearts with the inquirer’s holy robe,
And purged, considerate minds.
And him on whom, at the end
Of toil and dolour untold,
The gods have said that repose
At last shall descend undisturbed,—
Him you expect to behold
In an easy old age, in a happy home:
No end but this you praise.
But him on whom, in the prime
Of life, with vigor undimmed,
With unspent mind, and a soul
Unworn, undebased, undecayed,
Mournfully grating, the gates
Of the city of death have forever closed,—
Him, I count him, well-starred.