Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/229

199 HERACLES 199

— No one ! and is proclaimed the conqueror — He by himself — liaAUng called out to hear

— Nobody ! Then, rf you will take his word, Blaring against Eurustheus horribly,

He 's at Mukenai. But his father laid loso

Hold of the strong hand and addressed him thus : " Ο son, what ails thee ? Of what sort is this Extravagance ? Has not some murder-craze, Bred of those corpses thou didst just despatch, Danced thee drunk?" But he, — taking him to

crouch, 1035

Eurustheus' sire, that apprehensive touched

His hand, a suppliant, — pushes him aside,

Gets ready quiver, and bends bow against

His children — thinking them Eurustheus' boys

He means to slay. They, horrified with fear, iwo

Rushed here and there, — this child, into the robes

O' the wretched mother, — this, beneath the shade

O' the column, — and this other, like a bird,

Cowered at the altar-foot. The mother shrieks

" Parent — what dost thou ? — kill thy children ? " So

Shriek the old sire and crowd of servitors. loie

But he, outwinding him, as round about

The column ran the boy, — a horrid whirl

O' the lathe his foot described ! — stands opposite,

Strikes through the liver ! ^ and supine the boy 1000

Bedews the stone shafts, breathing out his life.

But " Victory I " he shouted, boasted thus :

" Well, this one nestling of Eurustheus — dead —

Falls by me, pays back the paternal hate I "

Then bends bow on another who was crouched 1055

At base of altar — overlooked, he thought —

^ For the liver, used much like the English heart, see Prometheus, page 132, line 1215.