Long was the space of intervening time, and the feats of the mighty Hercules and the hatred of his step-mother had filled the earth. Returning victorious from Œchalia, he is preparing a sacrifice which he had vowed to Cenæan Jupiter,[16] when tattling Rumour (who takes pleasure in adding false things to the truth, and from a very little beginning, swells to a great bulk by her lies) runs before to thy ears, Deïanira, to the effect that the son of Amphitryon is seized with a passion for Iole. As she loves him, she believes it; and being alarmed with the report of this new amour, at first she indulges in ix. 142-175. tears and in her misery gives vent to her grief in weeping. Soon, however, she says, “But why do I weep? My rival will be delighted with these tears; and since she is coming I must make haste, and some contrivance must be resolved on while it is still possible, and while, as yet, another has not taken possession of my bed. Shall I complain, or shall I be silent? Shall I return to Calydon, or shall I stay here? Shall I depart from this abode? or, if nothing more, shall I oppose their entrance? What if, O Meleager, remembering that I am thy sister, I resolve on a desperate deed, and testify, by murdering my rival, how much, injury and a woman’s grief can effect?”
Her mind wavers, amid various resolves. Before them all, she prefers to send the garment dyed in the blood of Nessus, to restore strength to his declining love. Not knowing herself what she is giving, she delivers the cause of her own sorrows to the unsuspecting Lichas,[17] and bids him, in gentle words, to deliver this most fatal gift to her husband. In his ignorance, the hero receives it, and places upon his shoulders the venom of the Lernæan Echidna. He is placing frankincense on the rising flames, and is offering the words of prayer, and pouring wine from the bowl upon the marble altars. The virulence of the bane waxes warm, and, melted by the flames, it runs, widely diffused over the limbs of Hercules. So long as he is able, he suppresses his groans with his wonted fortitude. After his endurance is overcome by his anguish, he pushes down the altars, and fills the woody Œta with his cries. There is no further delay; he attempts to tear off the deadly garment; but where it is torn off, it tears away the skin, and, shocking to relate, it either sticks to his limbs, being tried in vain to be pulled off, or it lays bare his mangled limbs, and his huge bones. The blood itself hisses, just as when a red hot plate of metal is dipped in cold water; and it boils with the burning poison. There is no limit to his misery; the devouring flames prey upon his entrails, and a livid perspiration flows from his whole body; his half-burnt sinews also crack; and his marrow being now dissolved by the subtle poison, lifting his hands towards the stars of heaven, ix. 176-198. he exclaims, “Daughter of Saturn, satiate thyself with my anguish; satiate thyself, and look down from on high, O cruel Goddess, at this my destruction, and glut thy relentless heart. Or, if I am to be pitied even by an enemy (for an enemy I am to thee), take away a life insupportable through these dreadful agonies, hateful, too, to myself, and only destined to trouble. Death will be a gain to me. It becomes a stepmother to grant such a favour.
“And was it for this that I subdued Busiris, who polluted the temples of the Gods with the blood of strangers? And did I for this, withdraw from the savage Antæus[18] the support given him by his mother? Did neither the triple shape of the Iberian shepherd[19], nor thy triple form, O Cerberus, alarm me? And did you, my hands, seize the horns of the mighty bull? Does Elis, too, possess the result of your labours, and the Stymphalian waters, and the Parthenian[20] grove as well? By your valour was it that the belt, inlaid with the gold of Thermodon[21], was gained, the apples too, guarded in vain by the wakeful dragon? And could neither the Centaurs resist me, nor yet the boar, the ravager of Arcadia? And was it not of no avail to the Hydra to grow through its own loss, and to recover double strength? And what besides? When I beheld the Thracian steeds fattened with human blood, and the mangers filled with mangled bodies, did I throw them down when thus beheld, and slay both the master and the horses themselves? And does the carcass of the Nemean lion lie crushed by these arms? With this neck did I support the heavens?[22] ix. 198-227. The unrelenting wife of Jupiter[23] was weary of commanding, but I was still unwearied with doing. But now a new calamity is come upon me, to which resistance can be made neither by valour, nor by weapons, nor by arms. A consuming flame is pervading the inmost recesses of my lungs, and is preying on all my limbs. But Eurystheus still survives. And are there,” says he, “any who can believe that the Deities exist?”
And then, racked with pain, he ranges along the lofty Œta, no otherwise than if a tiger should chance to carry the hunting spears fixed in his body, and the perpetrator of the deed should be taking to flight. Often might you have beheld him uttering groans, often shrieking aloud, often striving to tear away the whole of his garments, and levelling trees, and venting his fury against mountains, or stretching out his arms towards the heaven of his father. Lo! he espies Lichas, trembling and lying concealed in a hollow rock, and, as his pain has summoned together all his fury, he says, “Didst thou, Lichas, bring this fatal present; and shalt thou be the cause of my death?” He trembles, and turning pale, is alarmed, and timorously utters some words of excuse. As he is speaking, and endeavouring to clasp his knees with his hands, Alcides seizes hold of him, and whirling him round three or four times, he hurls him into the Eubœan waves, with greater force than if sent from an engine of war. As he soars aloft in the aerial breeze he grows hard; and as they say that showers freeze with the cold winds, and that thence snow is formed, and that from the snow, revolving in its descent, the soft body is compressed, and is then made round in many a hailstone,[24] so have former ages declared, that, hurled through the air by the strong arms of Hercules, and bereft of blood through fear, and having no moisture left in him, he was transformed into hard stone. Even to this day, in the Eubœan sea, a small rock projects to a height, and ix. 227-257. retains the traces of the human form. This, the sailors are afraid to tread upon, as though it could feel it; and they call it Lichas.
But thou, the famous offspring of Jupiter, having cut down, trees which lofty Œta bore, and having raised them for a pile, dost order the son of Pœas[25] to take the bow and the capacious quiver, and the arrows which are again to visit[26] the Trojan realms; by whose assistance flames are put beneath the pile; and while the structure is being seized by the devouring fires, thou dost cover the summit of the heap of wood with the skin of the Nemean lion, and dost lie down with thy neck resting on thy club, with no other countenance than if thou art lying as a guest crowned with garlands, amid the full cups of wine.
And now, the flames, prevailing and spreading on every side, roared,[27] and reached the limbs thus undismayed, and him who despised them. The Gods were alarmed for this protector of the earth;[28] Saturnian Jupiter (for he perceived it) thus addressed them with joyful voice: “This fear of yours is my own delight, O ye Gods of heaven, and, with all my heart, I gladly congratulate myself that I am called the governor and the father of a grateful people, and that my progeny, too, is secure in your esteem. For, although this concern is given in return for his mighty exploits, still I myself am obliged by it. But, however, that your affectionate breasts may not be alarmed with vain fears, despise these flames of Œta. He who has conquered all things, shall conquer the fires which you behold; nor shall he be sensible of the potency of the flame, but in the part of him which he derived from his mother. That part of him, which he derived from me, is immortal, and exempt and secure from death, and to be subdued by no flames. This, too, when disengaged from earth, I will receive into the celestial regions, and I trust that this act of mine will be agreeable to all the Deities. Yet if any one, if any one, I say, perchance should ix. 257-272. grieve at Hercules being a Divinity, and should be unwilling that this honour should be conferred on him; still he shall know that he deserves it to be bestowed on him, and even against his will, shall approve of it.”
To this the Gods assented; his royal spouse, too, seemed to bear the rest of his remarks with no discontented air, but only the last words with a countenance of discontent, and to take it amiss that she was so plainly pointed at. In the mean time, whatever was liable to be destroyed by flame, Mulciber consumed; and the figure of Hercules remained, not to be recognized; nor did he have anything derived from the form of his mother, and he only retained the traces of immortal Jupiter. And as when a serpent revived, by throwing off old age with his slough, is wont to be instinct with fresh life, and to glisten in his new-made scales; so, when the Tirynthian hero has put off his mortal limbs, he flourishes in his more æthereal part, and begins to appear more majestic, and to become venerable in his august dignity. Him the omnipotent Father, taking up among encircling clouds, bears aloft amid the glittering stars, in his chariot drawn by its four steeds.
[ EXPLANATION.]
Hercules, leaving the court of Calydon with his wife, proceeded on the road to the city of Trachyn, in Thessaly, to atone for the accidental death of Eunomus, and to be absolved from it by Ceyx, who was the king of that territory. Being obliged to cross the river Evenus, which had overflowed its banks, the adventure happened with the Centaur Nessus, which the Poet has here related. We learn from other writers, that after Nessus had expired, he was buried on Mount Taphiusa; and Strabo informs us, that his tomb (in which, probably, the ashes of other Centaurs were deposited) sent forth so offensive a smell, that the Locrians, who were the inhabitants of the adjacent country, were surnamed the ‘Ozolæ,’ that is, the ‘ill-smelling,’ or ‘stinking,’ Locrians. Although the river Evenus lay in the road between Calydon and Trachyn, still it did not run through the middle of the latter city, as some authors have supposed; for in such case Hercules would have been more likely to have passed it by the aid of a bridge or of a boat, than to have recourse to the assistance of the Centaur Nessus, and to have availed himself of his acquaintance with the fords of the stream.
Hercules, in lapse of time, becoming tired of Deïanira, by whom he had one son, named Hyllus, fell in love with Iole, the daughter of Eurytus; and that prince, refusing to give her to him, he made war upon Œchalia, and, having slain Eurytus, he bore off his daughter. Upon his return from that expedition, he sent Lychas for the vestments which he had occasion to use in a sacrifice which it was his intention to offer. Deïanira, jealous on account ix. 273-274. of his passion for Iole, sent him either a philtre or love potion, which unintentionally caused his death, or else a tunic smeared on the inside with a certain kind of pitch, found near Babylon, which, when thoroughly warmed, stuck fast to his skin; and this it is, most probably, which has been termed by poets and historians, the tunic of Nessus. It seems, however, pretty clear that Hercules fell into a languishing distemper, without any hopes of recovery, and, probably, in a fit of madness, he threw Lychas into the sea, which circumstance was made by the poets to account for the existence there of a rock known by that name.