But the beloved opened the door, and saw the dead man hanging there in the court, unmoved of heart, and tearless for the strange, woful death; but on the dead man were all the garments of youth defiled. Then forth went the beloved to the contests of the wrestlers, and there was heart-set on the delightful bathing-places, and even thereby encountered the very God dishonoured, for Love stood on a pedestal of stone above the waters. [124] And lo, the statue leaped, and slew that cruel one, and the water was red with blood, but the voice of the slain kept floating to the brim.
Rejoice, ye lovers, for he that hated is slain. Love, all ye beloved, for the God knoweth how to deal righteous judgment.
IDYL XXIV
THE INFANT HERACLES
This poem describes the earliest feat of Heracles, the slaying of the snakes sent against him by Hera, and gives an account of the hero’s training. The vivacity and tenderness of the pictures of domestic life, and the minute knowledge of expiatory ceremonies seem to stamp this idyl as the work of Theocritus. As the following poem also deals with an adventure of Heracles, it seems not impossible that Theocritus wrote, or contemplated writing, a Heraclean epic, in a series of idyls.
When Heracles was but ten months old, the lady of Midea, even Alcmena, took him, on a time, and Iphicles his brother, younger by one night, and gave them both their bath, and their fill of milk, then laid them down in the buckler of bronze, that goodly piece whereof Amphitryon had strippen the fallen Pterelaus. And then the lady stroked her children’s heads, and spoke, saying:—
‘Sleep, my little ones, a light delicious sleep; sleep, soul of mine, two brothers, babes unharmed; blessed be your sleep, and blessed may ye come to the dawn.’
So speaking she rocked the huge shield, and in a moment sleep laid hold on them.
But when the Bear at midnight wheels westward over against Orion that shows his mighty shoulder, even then did crafty Hera send forth two monstrous things, two snakes bristling up their coils of azure; against the broad threshold, where are the hollow pillars of the house-door she urged them; with intent that they should devour the young child Heracles. Then these twain crawled forth, writhing their ravenous bellies along the ground, and still from their eyes a baleful fire was shining as they came, and they spat out their deadly venom. But when with their flickering tongues they were drawing near the children, then Alcmena’s dear babes wakened, by the will of Zeus that knows all things, and there was a bright light in the chamber. Then truly one child, even Iphicles, screamed out straightway, when he beheld the hideous monsters above the hollow shield, and saw their pitiless fangs, and he kicked off the woollen coverlet with his feet, in his eagerness to flee. But Heracles set his force against them, and grasped them with his hands, binding them both in a grievous bond, having got them by the throat, wherein lies the evil venom of baleful snakes, the venom detested even by the gods. Then the serpents, in their turn, wound with their coils about the young child, the child unweaned, that wept never in his nursling days; but again they relaxed their spines in stress, of pain, and strove to find some issue from the grasp of iron.
Now Alcmena heard the cry, and wakened first,—
‘Arise, Amphitryon, for numbing fear lays hold of me: arise, nor stay to put shoon beneath thy feet! Hearest thou not how loud the younger child is wailing? Mark’st thou not that though it is the depth of the night, the walls are all plain to see as in the clear dawn? [127] There is some strange thing I trow within the house, there is, my dearest lord!’