to place it on a pile of wood, and kindle the flames himself:—
"Let no tear
Of wailing enter in, but do thy deed,
If thou art mine, without a tear or groan;
Or else, though I be in the grave, my curse
Shall rest upon thee grievous evermore."—(P.)
One more demand he makes (according to our ideas, a revolting request)—Hyllus must take Iole to wife. The son, after much reluctance, promises obedience; and so the drama ends. Ovid tells us how one of these commands was obeyed—how the pile was reared; how calm, "as though at a banquet," the hero spread his lion's skin over it and reclined thereon; how the roaring flames rose upwards and around him—
"And as some serpent casts his wrinkled skin
Rejuvenate, and with new burnished scales
Delighted basks, so, of these mortal limbs
Untrammelled, all the Hero's nobler part
In nobler shape and loftier stature rose
Renewed, august, majestic, like a God!
Whom with those four immortal steeds that whirl
His chariot-wheels, the Sire omnipotent
Upbore sublime above the hollow clouds,
And set amid the radiant stars of Heaven."[1]
