sword, and give him the death he longs for? Then his thoughts turn to her who has wrought these sufferings, and it angers him to think that the gigantic strength, which, Samson-like, had overcome all forms of death, and had tamed even the lion in his wrath, should have fallen victim to the snares of a Delilah—
"For she a woman, woman-like in mind,
Not of man's strength, alone, without a sword,
She hath destroyed me.....
.....Come, my son, be bold,
And pity me, in all ways pitiable,
Who like a girl must weep and shriek in pain;
And yet lives there not one, who, ere it came,
Could say that he had seen this man thus act,
But ever I bore pain without a groan."—(P.)
Let Hyllus, therefore, if he loves him, bring this false woman near him, that he may slay her before he dies himself.
Then Hyllus tells him of the fatal mistake of Dejanira, and how fatally the mistake had been atoned. When Hercules hears that the robe had been dipped in the Centaur's blood, he recognises the will of the gods, and bows to his fate. It had been foretold to him long before, that, like Macbeth, he should die by the hand of "none of woman born"—
"And thus the centaur monster, as was shown,
Though dead did slay me, who till now did live."
This knowledge seems to teach him resignation. He utters no more groans or cries of anguish, but conjures Hyllus to bear his body to the top of Œta, and there
