HYL.  A word that must be verified.  For who
Can make the accomplished fact as things undone?

DE.  Alas, my son! what saidst thou?  Who hath told
That I have wrought a deed so full of woe?

HYL.  ’Twas I myself that saw with these mine eyes
My father’s heavy state:—­no hearsay word.

DE.  And where didst thou come near him and stand by?

HYL.  Art thou to hear it?  On, then, with my tale! 
When after sacking Eurytus’ great city
He marched in triumph with first-fruits of war,—­
There is a headland, last of long Euboea,
Surf-beat Cenaeum,—­where to his father Zeus
He dedicates high altars and a grove. 
There first I saw him, gladdened from desire. 
And when he now addressed him to the work
Of various sacrifice, the herald Lichas
Arrived from home, bearing thy fatal gift,
The deadly robe:  wherewith invested straight,
As thou hadst given charge, he sacrificed
The firstlings of the spoil, twelve bulls entire,
Each after each.  But the full count he brought
Was a clear hundred of all kinds of head. 
  Then the all-hapless one commenced his prayer
In solemn gladness for the bright array. 
But presently, when from the holy things,
And from the richness of the oak-tree core,
There issued flame mingled with blood, a sweat
Rose on his flesh, and close to every limb
Clung, like stone-drapery from the craftsman’s hand,
The garment, glued unto his side.  Then came
The tearing pangs within his bones, and then
The poison feasted like the venomed tooth
Of murderous basilisk.—­When this began,
He shouted on poor Lichas, none to blame
For thy sole crime, ’What guile is here, thou knave? 
What was thy fraud in fetching me this robe?’
He, all-unknowing, in an evil hour
Declared his message, that the gift was thine. 
Whereat the hero, while the shooting spasm
Had fastened on the lungs, seized him by the foot
Where the ankle turns i’ the socket, and, with a thought,
Hurl’d on a surf-vex’d reef that showed i’ the sea: 
And rained the grey pulp from the hair, the brain
Being scattered with the blood.  Then the great throng
Saddened their festival with piteous wail
For one in death and one in agony. 
And none had courage to approach my sire,—­
Convulsed upon the ground, then tossed i’ the air
With horrid yells and crying, till the cliffs
Echoed round, the mountain-promontories
Of Locris, and Euboea’s rugged shore. 
Wearied at length with flinging on the earth,
And shrieking oft with lamentable cry,
Cursing the fatal marriage with thyself
The all-wretched, and the bond to Oeneus’ house,
That prize that was the poisoner of his peace,
He lifted a wild glance above the smoke
That hung around, and ’midst the crowd of men
Saw me in tears, and looked on me and said,
’O son, come near; fly not from my distress,