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prime, yet was Tydeus in strength and spirit no whit the less, and though his frame was smaller greater valour in every part held sway.^[1] Then closing fiercely they deal many a blow on face and temple, like showers of darts or Rhipaean hail, and with bent knee belabour hollow loins. Even as when the fifth year brings back his festival to the Pisaean Thunderer,^[2] and all is dust and heat and the crude sweat of men, while yonder the rival favours of the crowd urge on the youthful striplings, and the mothers, excluded from the scene, await the prizes of their sons: so these with but hate to spur them, and inflamed by no lust of praise, fall on, and the sharp nails probe far into their faces and force their way into the yielding eyes. Perchance—so hot their anger—they had bared the swords girt to their sides, and thou hadst lain, O Theban youth, the victim of a foeman’s arms—far better so—and earned a brother’s meed of tears, had not the king, marvelling at the night’s unwonted clamour and the fierce panting groans deep-heaved, bent his steps thither: age and the burden of grave cares held him now in broken fitful slumber. And when proceeding through the high halls with attendant train of torches he beheld, the bars undone, upon the fronting threshold a sight terrible to tell, faces torn and cheeks disfigured with streaming blood: “Whence this fury, stranger youths?” he cried, “for no citizen of mine would dare such violence as this; whence this implacable desire to let your hate disturb the tranquil silence of the night? Has then day so little room, or is it grievous to suffer, even for a while, sleep and peace of mind? But now come tell me, whence are ye sprung, whither do ye fare, and what may be