What more thou art in act to say withhold, Unless thou wouldst unbosom to thy son. He went to seek his sire and now is here. (_Enter_ HYLLUS.) HYLLUS. Mother! I would that of three wishes one Could be fulfilled: I would that thou wert not, Or that another were thy son than I, Or that my mother had a better mind. DEIANIRA. What in thy mother thus thy horror moves? HYLLUS. Know that thy husband, rather should I say My father, dies this day murdered by thee. DEIANIRA. Alas! my son, what word has passed thy lips? HYLLUS. A word too sure of its accomplishment. The event once born can never be annulled. DEIANIRA. What dost thou say, my son? whence didst thou learn That I had done a deed so horrible? HYLLUS. Learn it I did not from another's lips: These eyes beheld my father's piteous fate. DEIANIRA. Where didst thou into his loved presence come? HYLLUS. Hear and I'll tell thee all. As having stormed The famous town of Eurytus, he marched, With spoils and trophies of his victory. At the Cenaean headland he arrived, Euboea's point, and there set out for Zeus Altars ancestral and a precinct green. Here met I him whom I had longed to see. As he stood ready for the sacrifice Comes his own herald Lichas from his home, And brings thy gift, that robe imbrued with death, Which he, fulfilling thy behest, put on, And therein clad, was offering sacrifice, Twelve steers unblemished, while of beasts in all He to the altars led a hecatomb. At first, unhappy one, with jocund heart He prayed, rejoicing in his brave attire; But when from the good oak logs and the flesh Of victims slain, the bloody flame leaped forth. A sweat broke out on him, and to his sides The garment clave, enfolding every joint As by a workman fitted, while his bones Were racked with shooting pains, and as it seemed A deadly serpent's venom fed on him. Then did he loud on hapless Lichas call, Him who was nowise party to thy crime, And bade him say what wretch had set him on To bring the robe. The herald knowing naught, Said as thou badst him, that it was thy gift. Whereupon Heracles, his heartstrings grasped By agonising pains that pierced him through, Seized Lichas by the ankle, hurled him down From the cliff's edge upon a wave-washed rock That jutted from the sea, shattered his skull, So that his brains streamed mingled with his blood. At the two sights, of frenzy and of death, A universal cry of horror rose, Nor was there one who dared approach my sire; He in convulsions now sprang up, now fell With yells which made the neighbouring cliffs, the crags Of Locris and Euboea's headland ring. Oft did he cast himself upon the ground, Long did he utter lamentations loud, Cursing his marriage, swearing that his tie To Oeneus had brought ruin on his life. When he gave o'er, with eye upturned with pain, Glancing from out the smoke, me, in the crowd, Weeping he saw, and called me to his side. "My son," he murmured, "shrink not from thy sire, Not though it be thy doom to die with him.