Epeisodion 3
Heracles
Mine hosts, dwellers on this Phersean soil! say, shall I find Admetus in the house?
Chorus
The son of Pheres is within, Heracles. Tell me what need is bringing thee to the Thessalian land,
to visit this city of the Pheraeans?
480
Heracles
I am performing a labour for Tirynthian Eurystheus.
Chorus
And whither art thou journeying? on what wandering art thou forced to go?
Heracles
To fetch the chariot-steeds of Thracian Diomedes.
Chorus
How canst thou? art a stranger to the ways of thy host?
Heracles
I am; for never yet have I gone to the land of the Bistones.
485
Chorus
Thou canst not master his horses without fighting.
Heracles
Still I cannot refuse these labours.
Chorus
Then shalt thou slay them and return, or thyself be slain and stay there.
Heracles
It will not be the first hard course that I have run.
Chorus
And what will be thy gain, suppose thou master their lord?
490
Heracles
The steeds will I drive away to the Tirynthian king.
Chorus
No easy task to bit their jaws.
Heracles
Easy enough, unless their nostrils vomit fire.
Chorus
With ravening jaws they rend the limbs of men.
Heracles
Thou speakest of the food of mountain beasts, not of horses.
495
Chorus
Their mangers blood-bedabbled thou shalt see.
Heracles
Whose son doth he who feeds them boast to be?
Chorus
Ares’ son, king of the golden targe of Thrace.
Heracles
This toil again is but a piece of my ill-luck;
hard it ever is and still is growing steeper, if I with Ares’ own-begotten sons must fight, first with Lycaon, next with Cycnus, while now I am bound on this third contest to engage the horses and their master.
500
Yet shall no man ever see Alcmena’s son trembling at his foemen’s prowess.
505
Chorus
See where Admetus, lord of this land, comes in person from the palace forth.
Admetus
Hail! son of Zeus, from Perseus sprung.
Heracles
Joy to thee also, Admetus, king of Thessaly.
510
Admetus
Would there were! yet thy kindly heart I know full well.
Heracles
Why dost thou appear with head shorn thus in mourning?
Admetus
To-day I am to bury one who is dead.
