sent, and had dashed his brains out against the rocks; then he had burst away from his attendants, and—Ovid gives even a more vivid picture of the giant's sufferings than Sophocles—
"And filled all leafy Œta with his groans,
Striving to rend away the deadly robe
That with it rent the skin, and horribly
Or to his limbs inseparably glued
Refused to part, or, as it parted, bare
From the big bones the quivering muscle tore!
And in that poisonous heat his very blood,
Like white-hot steel in cooling water plunged,
Seethed hissing in his veins;—the greedy fire
Devoured his inmost vitals;—audible snapped
The crackling sinews; and from every limb
The lurking venom broke in livid sweat,
And sucked the melting marrow from his bones."[1]
Then Hyllus, in compliance with his prayer, had placed him in a ship, and he was even now on his way to Trachis. But may all the curses of the gods fall on his mother's head, he concludes, for
"Murdering the noblest man of all the earth,
Of whom thou ne'er shalt see the like again."
Dejanira had listened in silence, both to the tale of her husband's agony, and to the cruel reproaches of her son. All her happiness had been bound up with the wellbeing of Hercules. She had loved him with devoted affection, in spite of his long absences and his countless amours; and now by her own thoughtless act she has destroyed this idol of her heart, and
