This arm no savage people could withstand,
Whose realms I traversed to reform the land.
Thus, though I ever bore a manly heart,
I fall a victim to a woman's art.
IX. Assist, my son, if thou that name dost hear,
My groans preferring to thy mother's tear:
Convey her here, if, in thy pious heart,
Thy mother shares not an unequal part:
Proceed, be bold, thy father's fate bemoan,
Nations will join, you will not weep alone.
Oh, what a sight is this same briny source,
Unknown before, through all my labors' course!
That virtue, which could brave each toil but late,
With woman's weakness now bewails its fate.
Approach, my son; behold thy father laid,
A wither'd carcass that implores thy aid;
Let all behold: and thou, imperious Jove,
On me direct thy lightning from above:
Now all its force the poison doth assume,
And my burnt entrails with its flame consume.
Crestfallen, unembraced, I now let fall
Listless, those hands that lately conquer'd all;
When the Nemæan lion own'd their force,
And he indignant fell a breathless corse;
The serpent slew, of the Lernean lake,
As did the Hydra of its force partake:
By this, too, fell the Erymanthian boar:
E'en Cerberus did his weak strength deplore.
This sinewy arm did overcome with ease
That dragon, guardian of the Golden Fleece.