[Exeunt.
X
[A dell below the house, with a white poplar-tree growing alone. Under it Heracles sits, in an attitude of deep dejection, his club fallen at his feet, a horn empty at his side. To him enters Eros.]
Eros.
I have been congratulating our friends on their surpassing cheerfulness. Even Zeus is displaying a marvellous longanimity in his adverse state, and Pallas is positively frivolous. We must have disembarked, however, upon the island of Paradox, for everything goes by contraries; here I find you, Heracles, commonly so serene and uplifted, sunken in the pit of depression. You should squeeze
the breath out of your melancholy, as you did out of Hera's snakes so long ago.