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Lichas
Lichas
No. The greater part of the time he was detained in Lydia, no free man, as he declares, [250] but sold into servitude. No offense should be taken at my tale, lady, when the deed is found to be Zeus' work. He passed a whole year, as he himself says, a bought slave to the barbarian Omphale. And so stung was he by the shame of it, [255] that he bound himself by a solemn oath, swearing one day to enslave with wife and child the man who had brought that suffering upon him. And not in vain did he speak the oath; but, when he had been purified, he gathered a mercenary army and went against the city [260] of Eurytus. For, Heracles asserted, that man alone of mortals had a share in causing his suffering. For when Heracles, a guest-friend of long standing, came to his house and hearth, Eurytus roared against him with insults of ruinous intent, [265] saying that, although Heracles had inevitable shafts in his hands, he fell short of his own sons in the contest of the bow. Next he shouted that Heracles was a freeman's slave, a broken hulk, and then at a banquet, when his guest was full of wine, he tossed him from his home.
Sophocles. The Trachiniae of Sophocles. Edited with introduction and notes by Sir Richard Jebb. Sir Richard Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1892.
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