Now a long interval of time succeeds,
When the great son of Jove’s immortal deeds,
And stepdame’s hate, had fill’d earth’s utmost round,
He from Oechalia, with new laurels crown’d,
In triumph was return’d: he rites prepares,
And to the king of gods directs his prayers:
“When Fame (whom Falsehood clothes in Truth’s disguise,
And swells her little bulk with growing lies)
Thy tender ear, O Dejanira, moved,
That Hercules the fair Iole loved.”
Her love believes the tale; the truth she fears
Of his new passion, and gives way to tears.
The flowing tears diffused her wretched grief,
“Why seek I thus, from streaming eyes, relief?”
She cries; “indulge not thus these fruitless cares,
The harlot will but triumph in thy tears:
Let something be resolved, while yet there’s time,
My bed not conscious of a rival’s crime.
In silence shall I mourn, or loud complain?
Shall I seek Calydon, or here remain?
What though allied to Meleager’s fame,
I boast the honours of a sister’s name?
My wrongs, perhaps, now urge me to pursue
Some desp’rate deed, by which the world shall view
How far revenge and woman’s rage can rise,
When welt’ring in her blood the harlot dies.”
Thus various passions ruled by turns her breast,
She now resolves to send the fatal vest,
Died with Lernaean gore, whose power might move
His soul anew, and rouse declining love.
Nor knew she what her sudden rage bestows,
When she to Lychas trusts her future woes;
With soft endearments she the boy commands
To bear the garment to her husband’s hands.
The unwitting hero takes the gift in haste,
And o’er his shoulders Lerna’s poison cast:
At first the fire with frankincense he strows,
And utters to the gods his holy vows,
And on the marble altar’s polish’d frame
Pours forth the grapy stream; the rising flame
Sudden dissolves the subtle pois’nous juice,
Which taints his blood, and all his nerves bedews.
With wonted fortitude he bore the smart,
And not a groan confess’d his burning heart.
At length his patience was subdued by pain;
He rends the sacred altar from the plain;
Oete’s wide forests echo with his cries:
Now to rip off the deathful robe he tries.
Where’er he plucks the vest, the skin he tears,
The mangled muscles and huge bones he bares,
(A ghastful sight!) or raging with his pain,
To rend the sticking plague he tugs in vain.
As the red iron hisses in the flood,
So boils the venom in his curdling blood.
Now with the greedy flame his entrails glow,
And livid sweats down all his body flow;
The cracking nerves burnt up are burst in twain,
The lurking venom melts his swimming brain.
Then, lifting both his hands aloft, he cries,
“Glut thy revenge, dread emp’ress of the skies;
Sate with my death the rancour of thy heart,
Look down with pleasure, and enjoy my smart.
Or, if e’er pity moved a hostile breast
(For here I stand thy enemy profess’d),
Take hence this hateful life, with tortures torn,
Inured to trouble, and to labours born.
Death is the gift most welcome to my wo,
And such a gift a stepdame may bestow.
Was it for this Busiris was subdued,
Whose barbarous temples reek’d with strangers’ blood?
Press’d in these arms his fate Antaeus found,
Nor gain’d recruited vigour from the ground.
Did I not triple-form’d Geryon fell?
Or did I fear the triple dog of hell?
Did not these hands the bull’s arm’d forehead hold?
Are not our mighty toils in Elis told?
Do not Stymphalian lakes proclaim thy fame?
And fair Parthenian woods resound thy name?
Who seized the golden belt of Thermodon?
And who the dragon-guarded apples won?
Could the fierce centaur’s strength my force with stand,
Or the fell boar that spoil’d the Arcadian land?
Did not these arms the hydra’s rage subdue,
Who from his wounds to double fury grew?
What if the Thracian horses, fat with gore,
Who human bodies in their mangers tore,
I saw, and with their barb’rous lord o’erthrew?
What if these hands Nemaea’s lion slew?
Did not this neck the heavenly globe sustain?
The female partner of the Thunderer’s reign
Fatigued at length suspends her harsh commands,
Yet no fatigue hath slack’d these valiant hands.
But now new plagues pursue me, neither force,
Nor arms, nor darts, can stop their raging course.
Devouring flame through my rack’d entrails strays,
And on my lungs and shrivell’d muscles preys.
Yet still Eurystheus breathes the vital air.
What mortal now shall seek the gods with prayer?”