196 EURIPIDES
And the ten thousand headed hound
Of many a murder, the Lernaian snake
He burned out, head by head, and cast around
His darts a poison thence,^ — darts soon to slake
Their rage in that three-bodied herdsman's gore 460
Of Erutheia.^ Many a running more
He made for triumph and felicity,
And, last of toils, to Haides, never dry
Of tears, he sailed : and there he, luckless, ends
His life completely, nor returns again. 463
The house and home are desolate of friends,
And where the children's life-path leads them, plain
I see, — no step retraceable, no god
Availing, and no law to help the lost !
The oar of Charon marks their period,^ 470
Waits to end all. Thy hands, these roofs accost ! —
To thee, though absent, look their uttermost !
But if in youth and strength I flourished still. Still shook the spear in fight, did power match will In these Kadmeian co-mates of my age, 479
They would, — and I, — when warfare was to wage, Stand by these children ; but I am bereft Of youth now, lone of that good genius left !
But hist, desist ! for here come these, —
Draped as the dead go, under and over, — 480
^ The Lemaean Hydra had nine heads, one of which was immortal. Whenever one was cut off two others appeared in its place. Heracles burned off the heads one by one, and buried the ninth, which was im- mortal, imder a rock. He dipped his arrow-points in the poisonous gore of the monster.
^ Geryon, a three-bodied monster, whose oxen Heracles captured for Eurystheus.
^ Charon was the ferryman of the souls of the dead over the river Styx in the lower world. See the Alcestits, page 211, line 375, anil page 219, line 637.
