My wife is slain. What Lycus rules the land?
Who could have dared to do such things in Thebes,
And Hercules returned?
He notices that Theseus and Amphitryon turn away and will not meet his gaze. He asks them who has slain his family. At last, partly through their half-admissions, and partly through his own surmise, it comes to him that this dreadful deed is his own. His soul reels with the shock, and he prays wildly for death. No attempts of his two friends to palliate his deed can soothe his grief and shame. At last the threat of old Amphitryon instantly to anticipate the death of Hercules by his own leads the hero to give over his deadly purpose.
He consents to live—but where? What land will receive a polluted wretch like him? He appeals to Theseus:
O Theseus, faithful friend, seek out a place,
Far off from here where I may hide myself.
Theseus offers his own Athens as a place of refuge, where his friend may find at once asylum and cleansing from his sin:
My land awaits thy coming; there will Mars
Wash clean thy hands and give thee back thy arms.