For what we gain in act. It needs must be230
That one who prospers should receive good words.
Deian. Ah! dearest friend, first tell me what I first
Desire to know. Comes Heracles alive?
Lichas. I, for my part, left him in strength of health,
Living and well, unsmitten of disease.
Deian. And where? At home, or on a foreign soil?
Lichas. There is a high Eubœan promontory
Where he now marks his altars' limits out,
His first-fruits offering to Kenæan Zeus.[1]
Deian. Fulfilling vows, or led by oracles?
Lichas. The vows he made when with his spear he sacked240
The city of these women whom thou see'st.
Deian. And these, in Heaven's name, who and whence are they?
Full sad, unless they cheat me with their grief.
Lichas. These, when he sacked the town of Eurytos,
He chose his own possession and the Gods'.
Deian. And was it against that city that he went,
That endless time of days innumerable?
Lichas. Not so. By far the longest time he spent
In Lydia; not, so says he, of free choice,
But sold as slave. Let not my tale, dear lady,250
Move thee to wrath, when Zeus himself appears
The doer of the deed. And he, being sold[2]
To Omphale, the alien, so he said,
Served one whole year. And thus, his soul being vexed
At this reproach, he vowed a bitter vow
- ↑ The promontory itself was named Kenæon, and there men pointed to the temple of Zeus at the summit, and the tomb of Lichas. What is described is not merely the act of sacrifice, but the consecration of the ground for ever, as the fruits of his conquest of the lands.
- ↑ The mythos ran that Zeus, wroth at the murder of Iphitos, sent Hermes to sell Heracles to Omphale.
