Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/444

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388
EURIPIDES.

I will slay; nor shall the murderer know he slakes his murder-thirst 865
On the children of his body, till my madness' course is run.
See him—lo, his head he tosses in the fearful race begun!
See his gorgon-glaring eyeballs all in silence wildly rolled!
Like a bull in act to charge, with fiery pantings uncontrolled
Awfully he bellows, howling to the fateful fiends of hell! 870
Wilder yet shall be thy dance, as peals my pipe's appalling knell!
—Ay, unto Olympus soaring, Iris, tread thy path serene!
Mine the task into the halls of Herakles to plunge unseen.

[Iris ascends, and Madness enters the palace.

Chorus.

Alas and alas! cry out, O town,
For thy goodliest flower, Zeus' son, mown down!
Thy champion shall slip from thine hands, to thy bitter cost,
Hellas; in frenzied dances of madness tossed
Where the flute sounds not,[1] he is lost to thee, lost!
She hath mounted her car, groans throng in her train;
She is goading her horses on mission of bane, 880

  1. ↑ The phenomena of Herakles' possession are spoken of as a ghastly caricature of the merry dances in which the revellers move to the sound of the flute, which is absent here.
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