Page:The Greek bucolic poets (1912).djvu/327

Rh Achaean women that as they card the soft wool about their knees at even, shall sing hereafter of the name of Alcmena, and the dames of Argos shall do her honour of worship. So mighty a man shall in this your son rise to the star-laden heavens, to wit a Hero broad of breast, that shall surpass all flesh, be they man or be they beast. And ’tis decreed that having accomplished labours twelve, albeit all his mortal part shall fall to a pyre of Trachis, he shall go to dwell with Zeus, and shall be called in his marriage a son of the Immortals, even of them who despatched those venomous beasts of the earth to make an end of him in his cradle. But now, my lady, let there be ﬁre ready for thee beneath the embers, and prepare ye dry sticks of bramble, brier, or thorn, or else of the wind-fallen twigs of the wild pear-tree; and with that fuel of wild wood consume thou this pair of serpents at midnight, even at the hour they chose themselves for to slay thy son. And betimes in the morning let one of thy handmaids gather up the dust of the ﬁre and take it to the river-cliff, and cast it, every whit and very carefully, out upon the river to be beyond your borders; and on her homeward way look she never behind her: next, for the cleansing of your house, first burn ye therein sulphur pure, and then sprinkle about it with a wool-wound branch innocent water mingled, as the custom is, with salt: and for an end offer ye a boar pig to Zeus preeminent, that so ye may ever remain pre-eminent above your enemies.” These lines were rightly omitted by Briggs as due to a Christian interpolator. Rh