She gorged his liver: still beneath her beak
Immortal; for it sprang with life, and grew
In the night-season, and repair’d the waste
Of what the wide-wing’d bird devour’d by day.
But her the fair Alcmena’s hardy son
Slew; from Prometheus drove the cruel plague,
And freed him from his pangs. Olympian Jove,
Who reigns on high, consented to the deed;
That thence yet higher glory might arise,
O’er peopled earth, to Hercules of Thebes: