Till the god, the earthly part forsaken, From the man in flames asunder taken, Drank the heavenly ether's purer breath. Joyous in the new unwonted lightness, Soared he upwards to celestial brightness, Earth's dark heavy burden lost in death. High Olympus gives harmonious greeting To the hall where reigns his sire adored; Youth's bright goddess, with a blush at meeting, Gives the nectar to her lord.[231] In the tragedy called The Maidens of Trachis, Sophocles describes this hero as "The noblest man of all the earth, of whom thou ne'er shalt see the like again." To some of us the manner of his earthly end may seem unworthy; but the Greek poets teach that, in the unabated vigor of one's powers, serenely to meet and accept one's doom is the happiest death. This view is well expressed by Matthew Arnold in the following fragment of a Greek chorus sung with reference to the death of Hercules: O frivolous mind of man, Light ignorance, and hurrying, unsure thoughts! Though man bewails you not, How _I_ bewail you!... For you will not put on New hearts with the inquirer's holy robe, And purged, considerate minds. And him on whom, at the end Of toil and dolor untold, The Gods have said that repose At last shall descend undisturb'd-- Him you expect to behold In an easy old age, in a happy home; No end but this you praise. But him, on whom, in the prime Of life, with vigor undimm'd, With unspent mind, and a soul Unworn, undebased, undecay'd, Mournfully grating, the gates Of the city of death have forever closed-- _Him_, I count _him_, well-starr'd.[232] Here we take leave for a time of the descendants of Inachus. We shall revert to them in the stories of Minos of Crete and of the house of Labdacus. FOOTNOTES: [199] § 21, and Commentary, § 57. [200] For references to genealogical tables, see Commentary, § 148. [201] Apollodorus, 2, 1, § 5, etc.; Pausanias; Ovid, Heroides, 14; Horace, Odes, 3; 11; 23. [202] Simonides of Ceos, also Apollodorus, Pausanias, and Hyginus (Fables). [203] Ovid, Metam. 4, 608-739; 5, 1-249. [204] For Gorgons and Grææ, see § 52. [205] William Morris, The Doom of King Acrisius, in The Earthly Paradise. [206] William Morris, The Doom of King Acrisius, in The Earthly Paradise. [207] From Shelley's lines On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery. [208] Milton, Il Penseroso, l. 19. [209] From Charles Kingsley's Andromeda. [210] Milman, Samor. [211] Milton, Comus. [212] Iliad, 6, 155-202; Apollodorus, 1, 9, § 3; Horace, Odes, 4; 11; 26. [213] See Commentary, §§ 103, 155. [214] Authorities are Homer,--Iliad and Odyssey; Theocritus 24; 25, etc.; Apollodorus, 2, 4, § 7, etc.; Sophocles, Women of Trachis; Euripides, Hercules Furens; Ovid, Metam. 9, 102-272; Seneca,--Hercules Furens and [OE]tæus; Hyginus, etc. [215] § 172. [216] Atlas and the heavens, § 153. [217] § 180.