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498 Sophocles [1219-1245]
HERACLES
Knowest thou, then, the girl whose sire was Eurytus?
HYLLUS
It is of Iole that thou speakest, if I mistake not.
HERACLES
Even so. This, in brief, is the charge that I give thee, my son. When I
am dead, if thou wouldest show a pious remembrance of thine oath unto
thy father, disobey me not, but take this woman to be thy wife. Let no
other espouse her who hath lain at my side, but do thou, O my son, make
that marriage-bond thine own. Consent: after loyalty in great matters, to
rebel in less is to cancel the grace that had been won.
HYLLUS
Ah me, it is not well to be angry with a sick man: but who could bear
to see him in such a mind?
HERACLES
Thy words show no desire to do my bidding.
HYLLUS
What! When she alone is to blame for my mother's death, and for thy
present plight besides? Lives there the man who would make such a
choice, unless he were maddened by avenging fiends?
Better were it, father, that I too should die, rather than live united to
the worst of our foes!
HERACLES
He will render no reverence, it seems, to my dying prayer.—Nay, be
sure that the curse of the gods will attend thee for disobedience to my
voice.
HYLLUS
Ah, thou wilt soon show, methinks, how distempered thou art!
HERACLES
Yea, for thou art breaking the slumber of my plague.
HYLLUS
Hapless that I am! What perplexities surround me!
HERACLES
Yea, since thou deignest not to hear thy sire.
HYLLUS
But must I learn, then, to be impious, my father?