Hercules
Andre Chenier
Oeta, by flames at midnight glorified,
When feckless husband from unwitting bride
Received love's jealous gift: his doom, to slay
The Centaur, yet at last to fall its prey:
He breaks your forests; and your dense dark crest
Heaps up the countless pines his arm depressed
Into a resinous gigantic pyre.
He kindles it. Beneath him, climbing higher,
His hero’s pelt, old lion-skin, he lays;
Grasps his rough club, awaits with upturned gaze
His imminent reward of deity.
The stormwind roars; the blaze more torridly
Shines round the hero, and the fiery breeze
Bears heavenward the soul of Hercules!
translated by © Timothy Adès
