“Perhaps you’ve heard of Dejanira’s name, For all the country spoke her beauty’s fame. Long was the nymph by numerous suitors woo’d, Each with address his envied hopes pursued: I join’d the loving band to gain the fair, Reveal’d my passion to her father’s ear: Their vain pretensions all the rest resign, Alcides only strove to equal mine; He boasts his birth from Jove, recounts his spoils, His stepdame’s hate subdued, and finish’d toils.

“ ‘Can mortals then,’ said I, ‘with gods compare? Behold a god! mine is the watery care: Through your wide realms I take my mazy way, Branch into streams, and o’er the region stray: No foreign guest your daughter’s charms adores, But one who rises in your native shores. Let not his punishment your pity move: Is Juno’s hate an argument for love? Though you your life from fair Alcmena drew, Jove’s a feign’d father, or by fraud a true. Choose then, confess thy mother’s honour lost, Or thy descent from Jove no longer boast.’