_Alas_, _my true friend is dead_!
‘And this legend do thou write, that I will scratch on thy walls,—
_This man Love slew_! _Wayfarer_, _pass not heedless by_,
_But stand_, _and say_, “_he had a cruel darling_.”’
Therewith he seized a stone, and laid it against the wall, as high as the
middle of the doorposts, a dreadful stone, and from the lintel he
fastened the slender halter, and cast the noose about his neck, and
kicked away the support from under his foot, and there was he hanged
dead.
But the beloved opened the door, and saw the dead man hanging there in
the court, unmoved of heart, and tearless for the strange, woful death;
but on the dead man were all the garments of youth defiled. Then forth
went the beloved to the contests of the wrestlers, and there was
heart-set on the delightful bathing-places, and even thereby encountered
the very God dishonoured, for Love stood on a pedestal of stone above the
waters. {124} And lo, the statue leaped, and slew that cruel one, and
the water was red with blood, but the voice of the slain kept floating to
the brim.
_Rejoice_, _ye lovers_, _for he that hated is slain_. _Love_, _all ye
beloved_, _for the God knoweth how to deal righteous judgment_.
IDYL XXIV
THE INFANT HERACLES
_This poem describes the earliest feat of Heracles_, _the slaying of the
snakes sent against him by Hera_, _and gives an account of the hero’s
training_. _The vivacity and tenderness of the pictures of domestic
life_, _and the minute knowledge of expiatory ceremonies seem to stamp
this idyl as the work of Theocritus_. _As the following poem also deals
with an adventure of Heracles_, _it seems not impossible that Theocritus
wrote_, _or contemplated writing_, _a Heraclean epic_, _in a series of
idyls_.
* * * * *
WHEN Heracles was but ten months old, the lady of Midea, even Alcmena,
took him, on a time, and Iphicles his brother, younger by one night, and
gave them both their bath, and their fill of milk, then laid them down in
the buckler of bronze, that goodly piece whereof Amphitryon had strippen
the fallen Pterelaus. And then the lady stroked her children’s heads,
and spoke, saying:—
‘Sleep, my little ones, a light delicious sleep; sleep, soul of mine, two
brothers, babes unharmed; blessed be your sleep, and blessed may ye come
to the dawn.’
So speaking she rocked the huge shield, and in a moment sleep laid hold
on them.
But when the _Bear_ at midnight wheels westward over against _Orion_ that
shows his mighty shoulder, even then did crafty Hera send forth two
monstrous things, two snakes bristling up their coils of azure; against
the broad threshold, where are the hollow pillars of the house-door she
urged them; with intent that they should devour the young child Heracles.
Then these twain crawled forth, writhing their ravenous bellies along the
ground, and still from their eyes a baleful fire was shining as they
came, and they spat out their deadly venom. But when with their
flickering tongues they were drawing near the children, then Alcmena’s
dear babes wakened, by the will of Zeus that knows all things, and there
was a bright light in the chamber. Then truly one child, even Iphicles,
screamed out straightway, when he beheld the hideous monsters above the
hollow shield, and saw their pitiless fangs, and he kicked off the
woollen coverlet with his feet, in his eagerness to flee. But Heracles
set his force against them, and grasped them with his hands, binding them
both in a grievous bond, having got them by the throat, wherein lies the
evil venom of baleful snakes, the venom detested even by the gods. Then
the serpents, in their turn, wound with their coils about the young
child, the child unweaned, that wept never in his nursling days; but
again they relaxed their spines in stress, of pain, and strove to find
some issue from the grasp of iron.