Yet, seeing her again, all thought of Deianira passed away from him, and his love for Iole was stronger even than at first; while he found that her love had remained true to him and unchanged. He could not part from her, and so he took her with him to Mount Œta, where he was about to sacrifice to Jupiter in honor of his victory. The altar was prepared, and the sacrifice was ready, when there arrived from Trachinia, the city of King Ceyx, his servant Lichas, who knelt before him, and said-- "The Princess Deianira, your loving wife, has heard of this great sacrifice, and sends you by me this tunic, which she prays you to wear for her sake, that she may have some part in your thanksgiving." But in truth it was of her husband's love for Iole that Deianira had heard; and therefore she had sent him the tunic of Nessus, which was to bring his heart back to her again. Little she guessed the cunning revenge of the Centaur, who knew that the arrow of Hercules, in piercing the tunic, had left upon it a drop of the poison of the Hydra. Hercules put on the gift of Deianira, and, accompanied only by Prince Philoctetes of Melibœa, ascended Mount Œta to celebrate the sacrifice. But no sooner had he reached the altar than the poison began to work, eating through his skin into his flesh, even to his bones, so that his agony was too great to bear. He tried to tear off the fatal tunic; but the more he tore at it the more it clung. At last the agony began to gnaw his heart, and he despaired. "Would," he cried, "that I had never been born! My strength has been my curse. I have labored to clear the world of evil; and pain and sin are still as strong as if the serpents had strangled me in my cradle. The Hydra is dead, but its poison goes on working; and open savage force is only changed into fraud and guile. Happier is Eurystheus, whom weakness and cowardice have kept from doing harm; wiser are they who choose peace and pleasure; who sit with folded hands, and let monsters and ogres devour whomsoever else they will. As for me, I have been a curse to those whom I have loved the best, and leave more evil in the world than I found. There is no use in strength, since it can be conquered by pain; nor in subduing others, when one cannot master one's own self; nor in duty without knowledge; nor in life, which is only blunder and misery and toil and sin. The best thing is never to have been born; and the next best thing is to die." So he gave his bow and arrows to Philoctetes, whom he swore to bury his ashes in the earth, and never to reveal where they were laid. "For," said he, "I wish to sleep and forget and be forgotten. I will not that men shall pay me even so much honor as a tomb." Then he spread his lion skin over the altar, and laid himself upon it with his club for a pillow, and bade Philoctetes set fire to it, so that he might die, not of poison and treachery, but like a man, and of his own free will, making himself the sacrifice he had vowed.