Thus Phyleus spake, and stepped out of the middle of the road, that there might be space for both to walk abreast, and that so he might hear the more easily the words of Heracles who now came abreast with him, and spake thus, ‘O son of Augeas, concerning that whereof thou first didst ask me, thyself most easily hast discerned it aright. Nay then, about this monster I will tell thee all, even how all was done,—since thou art eager to hear,—save, indeed, as to whence he came, for, many as the Argives be, not one can tell that clearly. Only we guess that some one of the Immortals, in wrath for sacrifice unoffered, sent this bane against the children of Phoroneus. For over all the men of Pisa the lion swept, like a flood, and still ravaged insatiate, and chiefly spoiled the Bembinaeans, that were his neighbours, and endured things intolerable. ‘Now this labour did Eurystheus enjoin on me to fulfil the first of all, and bade me slay the dreadful monster. So I took my supple bow, and hollow quiver full of arrows, and set forth; and in my other hand I held my stout club, well balanced, and wrought, with unstripped bark, from a shady wild olive-tree, that I myself had found, under sacred Helicon, and dragged up the whole tree, with the bushy roots. But when I came to the place whereby the lion abode, even then I grasped my bow and slipped the string up to the curved tip, and straightway laid thereon the bitter arrow. Then I cast my eyes on every side, spying for the baneful monster, if perchance I might see him, or ever he saw me. It was now midday, and nowhere might I discern the tracks of the monster, nor hear his roaring. Nay, nor was there one man to be seen with the cattle, and the tillage through all the furrowed lea, of whom I might inquire, but wan fear still held them all within the homesteads. Yet I stayed not in my going, as I quested through the deep-wooded hill, till I beheld him, and instantly essayed my prowess. Now early in the evening he was making for his lair, full fed with blood and flesh, and all his bristling mane was dashed with carnage, and his fierce face, and his breast, and still with his tongue he kept licking his bearded chin. Then instantly I hid me in the dark undergrowth, on the wooded hill, awaiting his approach, and as he came nearer I smote him on the left flank, but all in vain, for naught did the sharp arrow pierce through his flesh, but leaped back, and fell on the green grass. Then quickly he raised his tawny head from the ground, in amaze, glancing all around with his eyes, and with jaws distent he showed his ravenous teeth. Then I launched against him another shaft from the string, in wrath that the former flew vainly from my hand, and I smote him right in the middle of the breast, where the lung is seated, yet not even so did the cruel arrow sink into his hide, but fell before his feet, in vain, to no avail. Then for the third time