Punch: Punch (96.1889)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[February 16, 1889.

HERCULES FURENS.

(.Modern Teutonic Version.)


“ Eros, ho !

The shirt of Nessus is upon me: teach me,

Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage :

Let me lodge Lichas on the horns o’ the moon ;
And with these hands, that grasp’d the heaviest
club,

Subdue my worthiest self.”

Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV., Scene 10.

The shirt of Hessus ! Teuton Hercules,

Art on thine AEta ? Hot and ill at ease
At least thou seem’st. As when Alcides tore
Hooted Thessalian pines, and raised a roar

That sounded far o’er the Euhoic wave; [rave.
So crossed or thwarted dost thou ramp and
And every luckless soul who dares to stand
Erect within the reach of thy strong hand,
Wouldst treat like Lichas, hurling him afar
To plunge, like Yulcan or a falling star,
Headlong through air to ocean.

So the gods

Set heroes’ muscles with their wits at odds,

In the old Titan times. Achilles raged,

And Ajax, foiled by sage Ulysses, waged
A foolish war with flocks, making mad way

Amidst “the mingled multitude of prey
The herdsman’s yet unparted care.”* So, too,
Alcides, whose god-given strength could hew
The hydra down, its poison felt at last;

And luckless Lichas from the hill-top cast,
Because a woman’s jealousy had foiled
His eager passion and his purpose spoiled.
Thrice the great Hera-hated hero lost
His reason’s balance, proud and passion-tost.
Is it that brawn and brain close-wedded work
Wild mischief; that the seeds of madness lurk
* Sophocles’ Ajax.