Epistulae

I GIVE you joy that the conquest of Œchalia is now added to your other trophies; but I am sorry that the conqueror is forced to submit to the conquered. For a report that tends greatly to your dishonor, and which by your actions you must study to discredit, has been suddenly propagated through all the cities

of Greece, that he whom neither the malice of Juno, nor an endless series of toils, could subdue, is now a captive to the charms of Iole. Eurystheus has much longed for this, as has the sister of the Thunderer; and your step-mother triumphs in this stain of your character: but it is far from pleasing him, to whom (if fame can be believed) one night was not sufficient to beget you, great as you are. Venus has injured you more than Juno. The wife of Jove raised, by endeavouring to depress you: the other goddess keeps your neck beneath her footstool. Think how the world lies hushed in peace by your avenging arm, where-ever the blue ocean circles this vast tract of earth. To thee the earth is indebted for peace, and the sea for a safe navigation: thy glory hath filled both houses of the sun. You previously bore up the heavens, that must at length bear you; Atlas, by your aid, supported the stars. Yet all this tends

only to spread abroad your shame, if your former brave deeds are stained by an infamous miscarriage. Are you not said to have wrung to death two horrid snakes, when, young and in your cradle, you shewed yourself worthy of your father Jupiter? You began with more honor than you are like to end: the last parts of your life fall short of the first. How preposterous to shew yourself a man in this, in that a child! He whom not a thousand monsters, not the son of Sthenelus, his obstinate enemy, not implacable Juno could vanquish, is yet vanquished by love. But I am thouht honorably wedded, because I am called the wife of Hercules, and boast of him for my father-in-law, who, riding on his fiery steeds, rends the poles with his thunder. As when unequal steers are yoked in the same plough, so does the wife of inferior degree suffer from her mighty husband. A rank that oppresses, is no honor, but a burthen. She who desires to wed well, will do wisely to wed with her equal. My lord is ever absent; and a stranger is better known to him than his wife: he is always in pursuit of monsters and ferocious beasts. Oft I ad-

dress Heaven with chaste vows, and tremble in my solitary home, lest my husband should fall by some savage enemy. My imagination hurries me amidst serpents, boars, furious lions, and three-headed devouring dogs. The entrails of the sacrifices, the vain phantoms of sleep, and secret omens of night, alarm me. I am terrified with every surmise of doubtful fame, and feel the full misery of a breast racked by alternate hope and fear. Your mother is absent, and complains that ever her charms engaged the notice of a powerful God. I have neither the society of your father Amphitryon, nor that of your son Hyllus. I feel only Eurystheus, the minister of Juno's unjust rage, and the unrelenting wrath of that goddess. But it is not difficult to bear this. You add also foreign loves; and any one may be a mother by you. I shall not speak either of

Auge deflowered in the vales of Arcadia, or of your offspring by Astydamia, the daughter of Ormenus. You shall not be reproached with the fifty sisters of the house of Theutrantes, all of whom you debauched in one night. Your late crime I resent, in preferring an adulteress to me; by whom I am made stepmother to Lydian Lamus.

Mæander, which wanders so much in the same plains, whose winding streams flow back by frequent channels, has seen the neck of Hercules adorned with a string of pearls; that neck to which the heavens were an easy load. You have not been ashamed to bind your arms with chains of gold, and deck your solid joints with shining gems. And yet under these arms did the Nemean lion expire, whose skin new forms a covering for

your left shoulder. You had the weakness to bind your rude locks with a mitre; a garland of poplar would have better adorned the temples of Hercules. Nor did you think it a dishonor to confine your waist with the girdle of Omphale, after the manner of a wanton maid. The image of barbarous Diomedes, who savagely fed his mares with human flesh, was not then, surely, in your mind. Had Busiris beheld you in that unmanly attire, the conquered would have been ashamed of his conqueror. Antæus would have torn the pearls from your nervous neck, ashamed to submit to so effeminate a victor. You are said to hold the basket amidst the other attendants of Omphale, and tremble at the threats of a mistress. Degenerate Alcides, are you not ashamed to employ in