Page:The Greek bucolic poets (1912).djvu/325

Rh Phoenician woman that had her sleeping over the mill, “rouse ye, strong—heart bondservants; the master cries:” and quickly forth came those bond-servants with lamps burning every one, and lo! all the house was filled full of their bustling. And when they espied the suckling Heracles with the two beasts in the clutch of his soft little fingers, they clapped their hands and shouted aloud. There he was, showing the creeping things to his father Amphitryon and capering in his pretty childish glee; then laughing laid the dire monsters before his father’s feet all sunken in the slumber of death. Then was Iphicles clipped aghast and palsied with fright to Alcmena’s bosom, and the other child did Amphitryon lay again beneath the lamb’s-wool coverlet, and so gat him back to bed and took up his rest.

The cocks at third crow were carolling the break of day, when he that never lied, the seer Teiresias, was called of Alcmena and all the strange thing told him. And she bade him give answer how it should turn out, and said “Even though the Gods devise us ill, I pray you hide it not from me in pity; for not even thus may man escape what the spindle of Fate drives upon him. But enough, son of Eueres; verily I teach the wise.” At that he made the queen this answer: “Be of good cheer, O seed of Perseus, thou mother of noblest offspring; be of good cheer and lay up in thy heart the best hope of that which is to come. For I swear to you by the dear sweet light that is so long gone from my eyes, many the Rh