With pulsing veins. As when the storm-tossed sea 710
Still heaves and swells, although the skies are clear
And winds have died away; so is my mind
Still tossed and restless, though my fear is stayed.
When once the fortunate begin to feel
The wrath of god, their sorrows never cease.
For so does fortune ever end in woe.
Nurse: What new distress, poor soul, has come to thee? 715
Deianira: But now, when I had sent away the robe
With Nessus' poisoned blood besmeared, and I,
With sad forebodings, to my chamber went,
Some nameless fear oppressed my anxious heart,
A fear of treachery. I thought to prove
The charm. Fierce Nessus, I bethought me then,
Had bidden me to keep the blood from flame; 720
And this advice itself foreboded fraud.
It chanced the sun was shining, bright and warm,
Undimmed by clouds. As I recall it now,
My fear scarce suffers me to tell the tale.
[1]Into the blazing radiance of the sun 725
I cast the blood-stained remnant of the cloth
With which the fatal garment had been smeared.
The thing writhed horribly, and burst aflame
As soon as Phoebus warmed it with his rays.
Oh, 'tis a dreadful portent that I tell!
As when the snows on Mimas' sparkling sides
Are melted by the genial breath of spring; 730
As on Leucadia's crags the heaving waves
Are dashed and break in foam upon the beach;
Or as the incense on the holy shrines
Is melted by the warming altar fires:
So did the woolen fragment melt away. 735
And while in wonder and amaze I looked,
The object of my wonder disappeared.
Nay, e'en the ground itself began to foam,
And what the poison touched to shrink away.
[Hyllus is seen approaching.]
But hither comes my son with face of fear,740
- ↑ Lines 725-28 follow the text of Schroeder.
