He had ordered her
head to be chopped off. For all the notice the others took of him, they
might have been his own freedmen.
Then Hercules said, "You just listen to me, and 7
stop playing the fool. You have come to the place where the mice nibble
iron. [Footnote: A proverb, found also in Herondas iii, 76: apparently
fairy-land, the land of Nowhere.] Out with the truth, and look sharp, or
I'll knock your quips and quiddities out of you." Then to make himself all
the more awful, he strikes an attitude and proceeds in his most tragic
vein:
"Declare with speed what spot you claim by birth.
Or with this club fall stricken to the earth!
This club hath ofttimes slaughtered haughty kings!
Why mumble unintelligible things?
What land, what tribe produced that shaking head?
Declare it! On my journey when I sped
Far to the Kingdom of the triple King,
And from the Main Hesperian did bring
The goodly cattle to the Argive town,
There I beheld a mountain looking down
Upon two rivers: this the Sun espies
Right opposite each day he doth arise.
Hence, mighty Rhone, thy rapid torrents flow,
And Arar, much in doubt which way to go,
Ripples along the banks with shallow roll.
Say, is this land the nurse that bred thy soul?"
These lines he delivered with much spirit and a bold front.
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