Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/426

408 Thou hast added a god to the ranks of immortals; For Alcides has won by his labors heroic The right to be named with the lords of the sky. Alcides the great! at his birth were the laws Of the universe broken; for Jove bade the night To double the dew-laden hours of the darkness. At his command did the god of the sun To a sluggish pace restrain his car; And slow of foot around their course, O pale, white moon, thy horses paced. He also checked his feet, the star, Which hails the dawn, but glows as oft In the evening sky; and he marveled that he Should be called Hesperus. 'Tis said that Aurora Roused to her wonted task, but again Sank back to her sleep on the breast of Tithonus: For long must the night be, and tardy the morning, That waits for the birth of a hero divine. The swift-whirling vault of the sky stood still To greet thee, O youth to the heavens appointed. Thy labors how many and mighty! Thy hand Has the terrible lion of Nemea felt, The fleet-footed hind, and the ravaging boar That Arcadia feared. Loud bellowed the bull When torn from the fields of Crete; Thou didst conquer the Hydra, which fed on destruction, And severed the last of its multiplied heads. The dread giant, Geryon, three monsters in one, Fell slain with one blow of thy crashing club; But his oxen, the famous Hesperian herds, Were driven away as the spoils of the east. The terrible steeds of the Thracian king, Which their master fed not on the grass of the Strymon, Or the green banks of Hebrus (but, cruel and bloody, With flesh of the hapless wayfarer he fed them), These steeds did our Hercules take, and in vengeance, As their last gory feast gave the flesh of their master. The spoil of her girdle Hippolyte saw