MELIA:
Quocumque me converto, crudelis Dei,
Monumenta detestanda conspicio. Prius
Perire Zephyrum videram, et Fratrem modo
Video natare sanguine insontem suo.
OEBALUS:
Quid comite nullo Filia huc infers pedem?
An latro iamiam fugit?
MELIA:
Hunc iussi illico
Vitare nostra regna, nam caedem improbus
Nova gravare caede non timuit Deus.
OEBALUS:
Quid loquere? caedem Nata! quam narras novam?
MELIA:
O Rex! amicum rapuit, et Zephyrum quidem,
Ventisque me vidente lacerandum dedit.
OEBALUS:
O iustus est Apollo, dum plectit scelus,
Quod imputavit perfidus et atrox Deo
Zephyrus! hic auctor, Filia! est factae necis.
Non est Apollo.
Zephyrus in Fratrem tuum
Discum agere non dubitavit.
MELIA:
Unde autem Pater!
Haec nosse poteras?
OEBALUS:
Natus haec retulit mihi,
Nam vivus est inventus a nobis. Meis
Extinctus est in manibus.
MELIA:
Heu me! quid? Pater!
Quid ergo regno exisse iussisti Deum?
OEBALUS:
Filia! dolore motus, et Zephyri dolis
Delusus, id iussisse me memini. Impium
Quis tale sibi timuisset a Zephyro scelus?
MELIA:
O Genitor! omnes perditi iamiam sumus!
Discessit, heu! discessit a nobis Deus!
O crede, non inultus id probrum feret.
OEBALUS:
Quid? Nata! discessisse iam Numen putas?
MELIA:
Nil dubito namque exire de regno tuo
Apollinem ipsa, linquere et nostros lares
Iussi. O ut hunc revocare nunc possem
Deum!
OEBALUS:
Heu! fata quam sinistra nos hodie obruunt!

MELIA:
Wherever I turn, I see hateful reminders of the
cruel god. Earlier I saw Zephyrus perish,
and now I see my innocent brother
swimming in his own blood.
OEBALUS:
Why are you coming here unattended, my daughter?
Has the scoundrel already fled?
MELIA:
I ordered him at once to leave our kingdom,
for the treacherous god has dared
to exacerbate his earlier killing with fresh slaughter.
OEBALUS:
What are you saying? What fresh slaughter do you mean?
MELIA:
O King! He seized our friend Zephyrus, and before my
very eyes caused him to be torn to pieces by the winds.
OEBALUS:
Oh, Apollo is just, for he has punished the crime which
The treacherous and monstrous Zephyrus imputed to
the god! He was the author, my daughter, of the murder
that was committed. It was not Apollo.
Zephyrus did not hesitate to launch
the discus at your brother.
MELIA:
But father! How
could you know these things?
OEBALUS:
Your brother told me,
for he was alive when I found him.
He died in my arms.
MELIA:
What? Oh father, alas! Why then did you
order the god to be banished from our kingdom?
OEBALUS:
O daughter! Moved by grief and deluded by the
trickery of Zephyrus, I remember ordering that. Who
would have suspected Zephyrus of so heinous a crime?
MELIA:
O father! Now we are all lost! Alas, he's gone,
the god has left us! Believe me, he will not
bear such an insult unavenged.
OEBALUS:
What, daughter? You think the god has gone already?
MELIA:
I have no doubt, for I myself commanded Apollo
to leave our home and depart your kingdom.
Would that I could now recall
the god!
OEBALUS:
Alas! How hostile are the fates which today undo us!