The second point arises from the conversation between Theseus and his friend when clearly sane. Does he confirm the story of the visit to Hades? Now, Heracles and he several times refer to his rescue “from below,” but never do they use language which necessarily refers to Hades. “Thou didst bring me back safe to the light from the dead (or corpses)”[566]—such is the style of allusion. Undoubtedly the language can be applied to Hades; undoubtedly also it could fit some natural event like a disaster in a cave or mine which may actually have been suggested[567] by rationalists of the day as an explanation of the myth—a suggestion which the poet is inclined to adopt and for which therefore he leaves room in his phraseology. Theseus, amiable as he is, yet presents little of interest; it is his function to voice the opinions of the normal unimaginative man. Megara, however, of whom little has been said, deserves sympathetic study. She does not share Amphitryon’s extraordinary beliefs about his son,[568] but loves and admires him with an affection beautifully expressed throughout the too brief portion of the drama in which she appears; it is she who long before the other realizes his mental state.[569] In her, too, poetical imagination shines forth with a radiance which surpasses the charm of the lyrics and Heracles’ impetuous eloquence. It is she who utters the Sophoclean description[570] of sovereignty:— ἔχων τυραννίδ’, ἧς μακραὶ λόγχαι πέρι πηδώσ’ ἔρωτι σώματ’ εἰς εὐδαίμονα, and that expression[571] of her yearning grief which in its strange felicity of pathos suggests Shakespeare’s Constance:— πῶς ἂν ὡς ξουθόπτερος μέλισσα συνενέγκαιμ’ ἂν ἐκ πάντων γόους, εἰς ἓν δ’ ἐνεγκοῦσ’ ἀθρόον ἀποδοίην δάκρυ; The SUPPLICES[572] (Ἱκετίδες), or _Suppliant Women_, is generally supposed on internal evidence[573] to have been produced about 420 B.C.