_Chorus:_ O Fortune, envious of the brave, Unjustly are thy prizes given! 525 Behold Eurystheus reigns at ease, While our Alcmena's noble son, With hands which could the heavens uplift, Must endless wars with monsters wage; Must sever the hydra's teeming necks, And from the cheated sisters bear 530 The apples, when the dragon huge, The guardian of the golden fruit, Had given to sleep his watchful eyes. To the wandering homes of Scythia, Where tribes in their ancestral seats As strangers dwell, he made his way. He trod the frozen ocean's crust, 535 A still sea hemmed by silent shores; There no waves beat on the rigid plains, And where but now full swelling sails Had sped their barks, a path is worn By the long-haired Sarmatae. There the waters change with the changing year, 540 Now ships, now horses bearing up. From the queen who rules o'er virgin tribes, With golden girdles on their loins, He took her body's noble spoil, Her shield and her snowy bosom's guard. 545 On bended knee she acknowledged him victor. With what hope, driven to the depths of hell, Bold to tread irretraceable ways, Didst thou behold the dusky realms Of Proserpine of Sicily? There Notus and Favonius lash 550 No seas to rage with swelling floods; There do no frightened vessels find Help from the twin Tyndaridae. Those waters lie in stagnant pools And black; and when, with greedy teeth, 555 Pale Death bears off uncounted tribes Unto the shades, one oarsman grim Bears all across their gloomy depths. Oh, that the laws of cruel Styx Thou mightst annul, and the distaff break, Relentless, of the fates. And lo, 560 Thou canst avail, for he who rules O'er many nations once with thee His deadly hands in battle joined, When thou didst wage 'gainst Nestor's land A mighty war. A three-pronged spear He bore; but soon, by but a wound O'ercome, he fled. He feared to die, 565 Though lord of death. Burst with thy hands The bonds of fate. To those sad souls In hell let in the light of day, And to the upper world reveal An easy path. Once, by his songs And suppliant prayers, did Orpheus bend The stubborn lords of hell, when he 570 His lost Eurydice would seek. That art which drew the forest trees, Which held the birds and rocks enthralled, Which stopped the river's headlong race, And tamed the hearts of savage beasts, Soothed with its strains ne'er heard before 575 Those darksome realms, and clear and fine