DE.  And who, by Heaven, are they?  Who was their sire? 
Their case is piteous, or eludes my thought.

LICH.  He took them for the service of the Gods
And his own house, when high Oechalia fell.

DE.  Was’t then before that city he was kept
Those endless ages of uncounted time?

LICH.  Not so.  The greater while he was detained
Among the Lydians, sold, as he declares,
To bondage.  Nor be jealous of the word,
Since Heaven, my Queen, was author of the deed. 
Enthralled so to Asian Omphale,
He, as himself avers, fulfilled his year. 
The felt reproach whereof so chafed his soul,
He bound fierce curses on himself and sware
That,—­children, wife and all,—­he yet would bring
In captive chains the mover of this harm. 
Nor did this perish like an idle word,
But, when the stain was off him, straight he drew
Allied battalions to assault the town
Of Eurytus, whom, sole of earthly powers,
He had noted as the source of his annoy,
Because, having received him in his hall
A guest of ancient days, he burst on him
With outrage of loud voice and villanous mind,
Saying, ’with his hand upon the unerring bow,
Oechalia’s princes could o’ershoot his skill;
And born to bondage, he must quail beneath
His overlord’; lastly, to crown this cry,
When at a banquet he was filled with wine,
He flung him out of door.  Whereat being wroth,
When Iphitus to the Tirynthian height
Followed the track where his brood-mares had strayed,
He, while the thought and eye of the man by chance
Were sundered, threw him from the tower-crowned cliff. 
In anger for which deed the Olympian King,
Father of Gods and men, delivered him
To be a bond-slave, nor could brook the offence,
That of all lives he vanquished, this alone
Should have been ta’en by guile.  For had he wrought
In open quittance of outrageous wrong,
Even Zeus had granted that his cause was just. 
The braggart hath no favour even in Heaven. 
Whence they, o’erweening with their evil tongue,
Are now all dwellers in the house of death,
Their ancient city a captive;—­but these women
Whom thou beholdest, from their blest estate
Brought suddenly to taste of piteous woe,
Come to thy care.  This task thy wedded lord
Ordained, and I, his faithful minister,
Seek to perform.  But, for his noble self,
When with pure hands he hath done sacrifice
To his Great Father for the victory given,
Look for his coming, lady.  This last word
Of all my happy speech is far most sweet.

CH.  Now surety of delight is thine, my Queen,
Part by report and part before thine eye.