In the "Alcestis" we have had an impersonation of Death; in the drama now before us there is one of Madness (Lyssa), a daughter of Night, who bears the goddess's instructions to render Hercules a maniac. For this errand Madness has no relish: she is more scrupulous than the Queen of Gods. "It is shameful," she says, "to persecute one who has served mankind so well—destroying beasts of prey, and executing justice on many notorious thieves and cut-throats." But Iris, one of the Olympian couriers, tells Lyssa, whom she accompanies, that "Juno is not a person to be trifled with; that unless mortals in future be permitted to beard divinities, Hercules must be made to feel the full weight of celestial wrath. If a god or a goddess be out of temper, even the best and most valiant of men must smart." Reluctantly Lyssa complies with the divine hest. Hercules, while engaged in the expiatory sacrifice, goes suddenly distraught: conceiving them to be foes, he murders his wife and their three sons, narrowly misses sending his earthly father, Amphitryon, to the Shades, and is exhibited, after an interval filled up with a Choric song, bound, as a dangerous lunatic, with cords to a pillar. The bleeding corpses of his household lie before him. Restored to his right mind, he is appalled by his own deed. Theseus, whom Hercules has just before released from durance in Pluto's realm, comes on and offers to his deliverer ghostly consolation. The pair of friends depart for Athens, where the maniac shall be purged of his offence to heaven. Only in the city of the Virgin-goddess can rest and absolution be accorded to him.
