so stern a face. 
    To launch, and steer in safety round the goal,
    Chariot and steed, and damage ne’er a wheel,
    This the lad learned of fond Amphitryon’s self. 
    Many a fair prize from listed warriors he
    Had won on Argive racegrounds; yet the car
    Whereon he sat came still unshattered home,
    What gaps were in his harness time had made. 
    Then with couched lance to reach the foe, his targe
    Covering his rear, and bide the biting sword;
    Or, on the warpath, place his ambuscade,
    Marshal his lines and rally his cavaliers;
    This knightly Castor learned him, erst exiled
    From Argos, when her realms with all their wealth
    Of vineyards fell to Tydeus, who received
    Her and her chariots at Adrastus’ hand. 
    Amongst the Heroes none was Castor’s match
    Till age had dimmed the glory of his youth.

    Such tutors this fond mother gave her son. 
    The stripling’s bed was at his father’s side,
    One after his own heart, a lion’s skin. 
    His dinner, roast meat, with a loaf that filled
    A Dorian basket, you might soothly say
    Had satisfied a delver; and to close
    The day he took, sans fire, a scanty meal. 
    A simple frock went halfway down his leg: 

* * * * *

IDYLL XXV.

Heracles the Lion Slayer.

* * * * *

      To whom thus spake the herdsman of the herd,
    Pausing a moment from his handiwork: 
    “Friend, I will solve thy questions, for I fear
    The angry looks of Hermes of the roads. 
    No dweller in the skies is wroth as he,
    With him who saith the asking traveller nay.

      “The flocks Augeas owns, our gracious lord,
    One pasture pastures not, nor one fence bounds. 
    They wander, look you, some by Elissus’ banks
    Or god-beloved Alpheus’ sacred stream,
    Some by Buprasion, where the grape abounds,
    Some here:  their folds stand separate.  But before
    His herds, though they be myriad, yonder glades
    That belt the broad lake round lie fresh and fair
    For ever:  for the low-lying meadows take
    The dew, and teem with herbage honeysweet,
    To lend new vigour to the horned kine. 
    Here on thy right their stalls thou canst descry
    By the flowing river, for all eyes to see: 
    Here, where the platans blossom all the year,
    And glimmers green the olive that enshrines
    Rural Apollo, most august of gods. 
    Hard by, fair mansions have been reared for us
    His herdsmen; us who guard with might and main
    His riches that are more than tongue may tell: 
    Casting our seed o’er fallows thrice upturn’d
    Or four times by the share; the bounds whereof
    Well do the delvers know,