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.
