EURIPIDES
ANTISTROPHE 2
Thence among the singing maidens,
western halls' Hesperides. 395
Plucked among the metal leaves
the golden fruit, and slew
the orchard's dragon-guard
whose tail of amber coiled the trunk
untouchably. He passed below the sea 400
and set a calmness in the lives of men
whose living is the oar.
Under bellied heaven next,
he put his hand as prop:
there in the halls of Atlas, 405
his manliness held up
heaven's starry halls.
STROPHE 3
He passed the swelling sea of black,
and fought the Amazonian force
foregathered at Maeotis 410
where the many rivers meet.
What town of Hellas missed him
as he mustered friends to fight,
to win the warrior women's
gold-encrusted robes, in quest
for a girdle's deadly quarry? 415
And Hellas won the prize, spoils
of a famous foreign queen,
which now Mycenae keeps.
He seared each deadly hydra-head 420
of Lerna's thousand-headed hound;
in her venom dipped the shaft
that brought three-bodied Geryon down,
herdsman of Erytheia.
ANTISTROPHE 3
And many races more he ran,
and won in all the victor's crown, 425
322