Resounded through that silent land. Eurydice the Thracian dames Bewailed; Eurydice, the gods, Who ne'er had wept before; and they Who with forbidding, awful brows, In judgment sit and hear the crimes 580 Long since committed, unconfessed, They sat and wept Eurydice, Until the lord of death exclaimed: "We grant thy prayer. Away to earth; But on this sole condition go: Do thou behind thy husband fare; And look thou not upon thy wife, 585 Until the light of day thou see, And Spartan Taenarus appear." Love hates delay, nor suffers it: He hasted to behold his wife-- And she again was lost to him. So, then, the fortress that could yield to song, 590 Be sure that fortress shall to strength belong. ACT III [_Enter_ Hercules, _just returned from the lower world, accompanied by_ Theseus.] _Hercules:_ O kindly lord of light, heaven's ornament, Who circlest all the spaces of the sky With thy flame-bearing car, and thy bright head Dost lift to glad a new-awakened earth: Thy pardon, O Apollo, do I crave, 595 If aught unlawful thou dost see in me; For by another's will have I revealed The hidden things of earth. Thou lord of heaven, And sire, behind thy flaming thunderbolt Conceal thy face; and thou who rul'st the seas By second lot, seek thou their lowest depths. 600 Whoever from on high beholds the earth, And would not by strange sights be vision-stained, To heaven look and so these portents shun. Two only may behold this horrid sight: The one who brought and she who ordered it. To work my punishment and fated toils 605 The earth was not enough. Through Juno's hate Have I seen regions unapproachable, Unknown to Phoebus' rays; yea, I have seen Those gloomy spaces which the nether pole Has yielded to the dusky Jove's domain. And had the regions of the final lot Been pleasing, there could I myself have reigned. 610 That seething chaos of eternal night, And, what is worse than night, the gloomy gods, And fates I conquered; and in scorn of death I have come back again. What else remains? I've seen and shown the lower world to men. If aught beyond is left to do, command. Why dost thou for so long allow these hands, O Juno, to remain in idleness? 615 What conquest still dost thou command? But why Do soldiers hold the temple walls in siege, And fear of arms beset their sacred doors? [_Enter_ Amphitryon.]