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38

Ho there!

[The door opens and a Porter appears, whose dress shows him to be, the Judge of the Dead.}}

Who summons?

Heracles the Brave.

Thou rash, impure, and most abandoned man,

Foul, inly foul, yea foulest upon earth,

Who harried our dog, Kerberus, choked him dumb,

Fled, vanished, and left me to bear the blame,

Who kept him!—Now I have thee on the hip!

So close the black encaverned rocks of Styx

And Acheronian crags a-drip with blood

Surround thee, and Cocytus' circling hounds,

And the hundred-headed serpent, that shall rend

Thy bowels asunder; to thy lungs shall cleave

The lamprey of Tartessus, and thy reins

And inmost entrails in one paste of gore

Teithrasian Gorgons gorge for evermore!

—To whom, even now, I speed my indignant course!

[The Porter retires.

Please!

What's the matter? Quick, get up again

Before they come and see you.