Alcides, forcefullest of all the brood
Of men enforc’d with need of earthy food,
My Muse shall memorise; the son of Jove,
Whom, in fair-seated Thebes (commix’d in love
With great heaven’s sable-cloud-assembling State)
Alcmena bore to him; and who, in date
Of days forepast, through all the sea was sent,
And Earth’s inenarrable continent,
To acts that king Eurystheus had decreed;
Did many a petulant and imperious deed
Himself, and therefore suffer’d many a toil;
Yet now inhabits the illustrious soil
Of white Olympus, and delights his life
With still-young Hebe, his well-ankled wife.
Hail, King, and Son of Jove! Vouchsafe me
Virtue, and, her effect, felicity!