Hercules (HWV 60)

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Menuetto

Recitativo Accompagnato: See, with what sad dejection in her looks

Aria: No longer, Fate, relentless frown

Recitativo Accompagnato: O Hercules! why art thou absent from me?

Aria: The world, when day's career is run

Recitativo: Princess! be comforted, and hope the best ... My son! Dear image of thy absent sire!

Aria: I feel, I feel the god, he swells my breast!

Recitativo: He said, the sacred fury left his breast

Aria: There in myrtle shades reclined

Recitativo: Despair not; but let rising hope suspend

Aria: Where congealed the northern streams

Chorus: O filial piety! O gen'rous love!

Recitativo: Banish your fears!

Aria: Begone, my fears, fly, hence, away

Recitativo: A train of captives, red with honest wounds

Aria: The smiling hours, a joyful train

Chorus: Let none despair, relief may come though late

March

Recitativo: Thanks to the pow'rs above, but chief to thee

Aria: My father! Ah! methinks I see

Recitativo: Now farewell, arms!

Aria: The god of battle quits the bloody field

Recitativo: Ah me! How soon the flatterer hope

Aria: Daughter of gods, bright liberty!

Chorus: Crow with festal pomp the day

Sinfonia

Recitativo: Why was I born a princess

Aria: How blest the maid, ordained to dwell

Recitativo: It must be so! fame speaks aloud my wrongs

Aria: When beauty sorrow's liv'ry wears

Recitativo: Whence this unjust suspicion?

Aria: Ah! Think what ills the jealous prove

Recitativo: It is too sure that Hercules is false ... my godlike master? - Is a traitor

Recitativo (cont.): In vain you strive his falsehood to disguise!

Chorus: Jealousy! Infernal pest

Recitativo: She knows my passion, and has heard me breathe

Aria: Banish love from thy breast

Recitativo: Forgive a passion, which resistless sways

Aria: From celestial seats descending

Chorus: Wanton god of amorous fires

Recitativo: Yes, I congratulate your titles

Aria: Alcides' name in latest story

Recitativo: O glorious pattern of heroic deeds!

Aria: Resign thy club and lion's spoils

Recitativo: You are deceived! Some villain has belied .. Dissembling, false, perfidious Hercules!

Aria: Cease, ruler of the day, to rise

Recitativo: Some kinder pow'r inspire me ... Lichas, thy hands shall to the temple bear

Aria: As stars, that rise and disappear

Recitativo: But see, the princess Iole. Retire! ... Forgive me, princess if my jealous frenzy

Duet: Joys of freedom, joys of pow'r

Recitativo: Father of Hercules, great Jove

Chorus: Love and Hymen, hand in hand

Sinfonia

Recitativo: Ye sons of Trachin, mourn your valiant chief

Aria: Oh scene of unexampled woe

Chorus: Tyrants now no more shall dread

Recitativo accompagnato: O Jove! What land is this

Recitativo: Great Jove! relieve his pains!

Aria: Let not fame the tidings spread

Recitativo accompagnato: Where shall I fly?

Recitativo: Lo! The fair, fatal cause of all this ruin!

Aria: My breast with tender pity swells

Recitativo: Princess, rejoice! Whose heav'n-directed hand

Aria: He, who for Atlas prop'd the sky

Recitativo: Words are too faint to speak the warring passions

Duet: O prince, whose virtues all admire

Recitativo: Ye sons of freedom, now, in ev'ry clime

Chorus: To him your grateful notes of praise belong