“Far off to barbarous men, A grey-haired wanderer, I must take my road. And then the oracle, the doom of God, That I must lead a raging horde far-flown To prey on Hellas; lead my spouse, mine own Harmonia, Ares’ child, discorporate And haunting forms, dragon and dragon mate, Against the tomb and altar stones of Greece, Lance upon lance behind us; and not cease From toils like other men—nor dream, nor past The foam of Acheron find my peace at last.”[31] Pindar in his radiant vision of the future life beyond the foam of Acheron places Cadmus with Peleus in the company of the mighty dead who dwell at peace forever within the islands of the Blest. The earthly life of both heroes he uses to illustrate to Hieron, lord of Syracuse and Fortune’s favourite, the adage inherited from the men of old: “For every boon to men the gods deal double bane.” Footnote 31: _Bacchæ_, 1354. This and the following quotations from this play are taken from the translation by Gilbert Murray. “Blest with life secure was neither Peleus, son of Æacus, nor Cadmus, match of gods. And yet, ’tis said, of mortals all ’t was they who gained the highest bliss. For they could hear the golden-snooded Muses’ song, or on the mountain-side, or midst the seven gates of Thebes, when Cadmus took to wife large-eyed Harmonia and when the other wed the glorious Thetis, maiden child of Nereus. Gods shared with both their banquet, and they both beheld the sons of Cronos seated, kings on thrones of gold, and from them wedding gifts received, and Zeus’s grace requited them for former toil, uplifting high their hearts. Yet in the after-time sharp anguish of his daughters three robbed Cadmus of his share of joy. So too from him, whom as her only son immortal Thetis bare in Phthia unto Peleus, fled his life, by arrow sped in war.”