172There is no limit: greedy flames suck at his vitals, dark sweat flows from his whole body, the scorched sinews crackle; and, his marrow melted by the hidden corruption, raising his palms to the stars he cries, 'Feed, Saturn's daughter, on my disasters, feed, and look on this plague from on high, cruel one, and glut your savage heart. 178Or, if I am pitiable even to an enemy — that is, to you — take away this life, sick with dire tortures, hateful, and born for labours: this will be a gift to me; 181such gifts befit a stepmother. 182Was it for this that I subdued Busiris, who defiled temples with strangers' blood, and snatched from savage Antaeus his mother's nourishment?
184Did the triple form of the Iberian herdsman not move me, nor your triple form, Cerberus? 186Was it you, my hands, that pressed down the horns of the mighty bull? 187Is it your work that Elis holds, yours the Stymphalian waters and the Parthenian grove? 188Was it by your prowess that the belt chased with Thermodontian gold was brought back, and the apples guarded by the sleepless dragon? 191Could the Centaurs not resist me, nor the boar that ravaged Arcadia? 192Did it not avail the hydra to grow by loss and regain double strength? 194What then? 194I saw the Thracian's horses fat with human blood and their mangers full of torn bodies, and having seen them I overthrew them and killed both their master and the horses themselves.
197By these arms the Nemean mass lies crushed; on this neck I bore the sky. 198Jove's cruel wife is wearied of commanding: I am unwearied in doing. 200But a new plague is here, which cannot be resisted by valour, nor by weapons and arms. 201A devouring fire wanders deep in my lungs and feeds through all my limbs. 203But Eurystheus is well! — and there are those who can believe that there are gods!' 204He spoke, and, wounded, he strides over high Oeta just as a bull would if it carried hunting spears fixed in its body and the one who did the deed had fled. 207Often you would have seen him uttering groans, often roaring, often trying again to tear off all the clothing, felling trees and raging at the mountains, or stretching out his arms to his father's sky.
211Look — he catches sight of Lichas cowering in fear in a hollowed rock, and, as pain had gathered all its madness, he said, 'Was it you, Lichas, who gave me the deadly gift? 214Will you be the author of my death?' 214He trembles and quakes, pale, and timidly speaks words of excuse. 216As he speaks and prepares to clasp his knees, Alcides seizes him, whirls him round three and four times, and hurls him, more forcefully than a catapult, into the Euboean waves. 219He, hanging in the airy breezes, hardened, and just as they say that rain congeals in icy winds and from that becomes snow, and the soft whirling snow is bound tight and gathers into a mass of thick hail: so, an earlier age declared, he, hurled through the void by mighty arms, bloodless with fear and having no moisture left, was turned into hard rock.
226Even now a low crag rises from the deep Euboean gulf and keeps the traces of a human form; 228sailors fear to tread on it, as though it would feel, and they call it Lichas. — But you, glorious offspring of Jove, having cut down the trees that steep Oeta had borne and built them into a pyre, bid the son of Poeas take your bow and capacious quiver, and the arrows destined to see the kingdom of Troy again. 233By his service the flame was set beneath; 234and while the pile is seized by greedy fires, you spread the Nemean fleece on top of the heaped wood, and lie down with your neck resting on your club, with no other look than if you were reclining as a guest among cups full of wine, wreathed with garlands.
239And now, strong and spreading on every side, the flame was roaring and seeking the limbs that cared nothing for it, and the man who scorned it; 241the gods feared for the earth's champion. 242Saturnian Jupiter (for he sensed it) addresses them thus with a happy face: 'This fear of yours is my pleasure, gods above, and gladly with all my heart I congratulate myself that I am called ruler and father of a mindful people, and that my offspring too is safe in your favour. 247For although you grant this to his own mighty deeds, yet I myself am obliged. 248But come, let not your faithful hearts tremble with vain fear: scorn the flames of Oeta!
250He who has conquered all will conquer the fires you see, and will feel Vulcan's power only in his mother's part: what he drew from me is eternal, free and immune from death, and to be tamed by no flame. 254That part, when it is done with earth, I shall receive into the heavenly regions, and I trust that my deed will be welcome to all the gods. 256Yet if anyone, if anyone perhaps will be grieved at Hercules being a god, he will begrudge the reward given, but he will know it was deserved and will approve it unwillingly.' 259The gods assented: his queenly wife too seemed to have borne the rest of Jove's words with no hard face, but the last with a hard one, and to have resented being singled out.
262Meanwhile Mulciber had carried off whatever could be ravaged by flame, and no shape of Hercules remained to be recognised; 264nor has he anything drawn from his mother's likeness, and he keeps only the traces of Jove. 266And as a snake, new after shedding its old skin, likes to revel and shine with fresh scales, so, when the Tirynthian put off his mortal limbs, he thrives in the better part of himself, and began to seem greater and to become awesome in his august majesty. 271Him the almighty father caught up amid the hollow clouds and carried in a four-horse chariot to the shining stars.