O light,—no light to me,—mine once thou wast, I ween,—but1550 now my body feels thee for the last time! For now go I to hide the close of my life with Hades.—Truest of friends! blessed be thou, and this land, and thy lieges; and, when your days are blest, think on me the dead, for your welfare evermore.
followed by his daughters, Theseus, and attendants.
str. Ch. If with prayer I may adore the Unseen Goddess, and thee, lord of the children of night, O hear me, Aïdoneus, Aïdoneus!1560 Not in pain, not by a doom that wakes sore lament, may the stranger pass to the fields of the dead below, the all-enshrouding, and to the Stygian house. Many were the sorrows that came to him without cause; but in requital a just god will lift him up.
ant. Goddesses Infernal! And thou, dread form of the unconquered hound,1570 thou who hast thy lair in those gates of many guests, thou untameable Watcher of Hell, gnarling from the cavern's jaws, as rumour from the beginning tells of thee!
Hear me, O Death, son of Earth and Tartarus! May that Watcher leave a clear path for the stranger on his way to the nether fields of the dead! To thee I call, giver of the eternal sleep.
Messenger.
