Dionysus (knocking).
Ho there!
[The door opens and a Porter appears, whose dress shows him to be Aeacus, the Judge of the Dead.}}
Aeacus.
Who summons?
Dionysus.
Heracles the Brave.
Aeacus.
Thou rash, impure, and most abandoned man,
Foul, inly foul, yea foulest upon earth,
Who harried our dog, Kerberus, choked him dumb,
Fled, vanished, and left me to bear the blame,
Who kept him!—Now I have thee on the hip!
So close the black encaverned rocks of Styx
And Acheronian crags a-drip with blood
Surround thee, and Cocytus' circling hounds,
And the hundred-headed serpent, that shall rend
Thy bowels asunder; to thy lungs shall cleave
The lamprey of Tartessus, and thy reins
And inmost entrails in one paste of gore
Teithrasian Gorgons gorge for evermore!
—To whom, even now, I speed my indignant course!
[The Porter retires.
Dionysus (who has fallen prostrate).
Please!
Xanthias.
What's the matter? Quick, get up again
Before they come and see you.
