The well-known quiver and the shafts 1605 Of Hercules. FOOTNOTES: [38] Reading, _auctor_. [39] Reading, _fremens_. [40] Reading, _remeabit_. [41] Reading, _Aeacon_. [42] Reading, _minimum cruentis_. ACT V [_Enter_ Philoctetes.] _Nurse:_ Speak out, good youth, and tell the end, I pray, Of Hercules. How did he meet his death? _Philoctetes:_ More gladly than another meets his life. _Nurse:_ What? Did he then rejoice him in the fire? _Philoctetes:_ He showed that burning flames were naught to him. 1610 What is there in the world which Hercules Has left unconquered? He has vanquished all. _Nurse:_ What chance for glory on the funeral pyre? _Philoctetes:_ One evil thing remained upon the earth Which he had not o'ercome--the power of fire. 1615 But this has now been added to the beasts, And fire is one of great Alcides' toils. _Nurse:_ But tell us in what way he conquered fire. _Philoctetes:_ When all his sorrowing friends began to fell The trees on Oeta's slopes, beneath one hand The beech-tree lost its foliage and lay, Its mighty trunk prone on the ground. One hand With deadly stroke attacked the towering pine, 1620 Which lifted to the stars its threatening top, And called it from the clouds. In act to fall, It shook its rocky crag, and with a crash Whelmed all the lesser forest in its fall. Within the forest was a certain oak, Wide-spreading, vast, like that Chaonian tree Of prophecy, whose shade shuts out the sun, Embracing all the grove[43] within its arms. 1625 By many a blow beset, it groans at first In threatening wise, and all the wedges breaks; The smiting axe bounds back, its edges dulled, Too soft for such a task. At length the tree, Long wavering, falls with widespread ruin down. Straightway the place admits the sun's bright rays; 1630 The birds, their tree o'erthrown, fly twittering round, And seek their vanished homes on wearied wing. Now every tree resounds; even the oaks Feel in their sacred sides the piercing steel, Nor does its ancient sanctity protect 1635 The grove. The wood into a pile is heaped; Its logs alternate rising high aloft, Make all too small a pyre for Hercules: The pine inflammable, tough-fibered oak, The ilex' shorter trunks. But poplar trees, 1640 Whose foliage adorned Alcides' brow, Fill up the space and make the pyre complete. But he, like some great lion in the woods Of Libya lying, roaring out his pain, Is borne along--but who would e'er believe That he was hurrying to his funeral pyre? His gaze was fixed upon the stars of heaven, 1645 Not fires of earth, when to the mount he came And with his eyes surveyed the mighty pyre. The great beams groaned and broke beneath his weight. Now he demands his bow.