But terrible also was the vengeance which by the devising of Zeus those sons[16] of Aphareus suffered:  for on the instant came Leto’s son[17] in chase of them:  and they stood up against him hard by the sepulchre of their father.  Thence wrenched they a carved headstone that was set to glorify the dead, and they hurled it at the breast of Polydeukes.  But they crushed him not, neither made him give back, but rushing onward with fierce spear he drave the bronze head into Lynkeus’ side.  And against Idas Zeus hurled a thunderbolt of consuming fire.

So were those brothers in one flame[18] burnt unbefriended:  for a strife with the stronger is grievous for men to mix in.

Then quickly came back the son of Tyndareus[19] to his great brother, and found him not quite dead, but the death-gasp rattled in his throat.  Then Polydeukes wept hot tears, and groaned, and lifted up his voice, and cried:  ’Father Kronion—­ah! what shall make an end of woes?  Bid me, me also, O king, to die with him.  The glory is departed from a man bereaved of friends.  Few are they who in a time of trouble are faithful in companionship of toil.’

Thus said he, and Zeus came, and stood before his face, and spake these words:  ’Thou art my son:  but thy brother afterward was by mortal seed begotten in thy mother of the hero that was her husband.  But nevertheless, behold I give thee choice of these two lots:  if, shunning death and hateful old age, thou desirest for thyself to dwell in Olympus with Athene and with Ares of the shadowing spear, this lot is thine to take:  but if in thy brother’s cause thou art so hot, and art resolved in all to have equal share with him, then half thy time thou shalt be alive beneath the earth, and half in the golden house of heaven.’

Thus spake his father, and Polydeukes doubted not which counsel he should choose.  So Zeus unsealed the eye, and presently the tongue also, of Kastor of the brazen mail.

[Footnote 1:  Son of the Argive Danae.]

[Footnote 2:  Son of the Argive Io.]

[Footnote 3:  Or perhaps:  ’Neither were Hypermnestra’s story misplaced here, how she, &c.’]

[Footnote 4:  Amphiaraos.]

[Footnote 5:  Disgust at hearing anything profusely praised.]

[Footnote 6:  At Corinth, in the Isthmian games.]

[Footnote 7:  Nemea.]

[Footnote 8:  The Olympic games.]

[Footnote 9:  The Argives.]

[Footnote 10:  The Athenian prize seems to have been an olive-bough in a vase of burnt clay.]

[Footnote 11:  Near Nemea.]

[Footnote 12:  I. e. with prizes of cloaks.]

[Footnote 13:  An ancestor of Theaios.  Probably he had given Theoxenia.  See Ol.  III.]

[Footnote 14:  Kastor and Polydeukes.]

[Footnote 15:  They slew Kastor.]

[Footnote 16:  Idas and Lynkeus.]

[Footnote 17:  Polydeukes.]

[Footnote 18:  Either of the thunderbolt, or of a funeral-pile.]