Nay, that hand which aforetime had wielded the terrific club, and slain therewith Antæus, and dragged the hound of hell from the lower world, was now content to draw the woolen threads spun from Omphale's distaff; and the shoulders whereon had rested the pillars of the heavens, from which he had for a time freed Atlas, were now clasped in Omphale's arms, and afterward, to do her pleasure, covered with a diaphanous raiment of purple.

Nay, that hand which aforetime had wielded the terrific club, and slain therewith Antæus, and dragged the hound of hell from the lower world, was now content to draw the woolen threads spun from Omphale's distaff; and the shoulders whereon had rested the pillars of the heavens, from which he had for a time freed Atlas, were now clasped in Omphale's arms, and afterward, to do her pleasure, covered with a diaphanous raiment of purple.

If you stuff history with fulsome encomiums and idle tales, you will make her like Hercules in Lydia, as you may have seen him painted, waiting upon Omphale, who is dressed in the lion's skin, with his club in her hand; whilst he is represented clothed in yellow and purple, and spinning, and Omphale beating him with her slipper; a ridiculous spectacle, wherein everything manly and godlike is sunk and degraded to effeminacy.

If you stuff history with fulsome encomiums and idle tales, you will make her like Hercules in Lydia, as you may have seen him painted, waiting upon Omphale, who is dressed in the lion's skin, with his club in her hand; whilst he is represented clothed in yellow and purple, and spinning, and Omphale beating him with her slipper; a ridiculous spectacle, wherein everything manly and godlike is sunk and degraded to effeminacy.

"He consumed his time in writing verses to the canon's niece; and even as Hercules in the gay court of Omphale threw down his club in order to hold the distaff, so Abélard laid aside his sceptre as a monarch of the schools to sing sonnets at the feet of Héloïse."

do not you hear Omphale?

'Tis she indeed, I know her sugar'd voice: Omphale, dear commandress of my life, My thoughts' repose, sweet centre of my cares, Where all my hopes and best desires take rest.

Omphale, dear commandress of my life.

Where is she gone, that I may follow her? Omphale, stay, stay, take thy Hercules! APP.

Hercules served Omphale, put on an apron, took a distaff and spun; Thraso the soldier was so submissive to Thais, that he was resolved to do whatever she enjoined.

Here are some gaudy copies of the old masters, with some originals, which adorn the centre and side compartments of the ceilingGuido's Aurora, (copy); Hero and Leander; Diana and Endymion; Hercules and Omphale, &c,the whole by the pencil of Bernini, an Italian artist.

The ease with which he had flung off the larger and heavier man aroused her wonder as well as her admiration, for she never imagined Calvert's slender, boyish figure to be possessed of so much brute strength, and, since the days of Hercules and Omphale, brute strength in man has ever appealed to woman.

The better-read at Mezelais began to liken this so candidly enamored monarch and his Princess to Sieur Hercules at the feet of Queen Omphale.

Here's the powder of the Moon, With which she caught Endymion; The powerful tears that Venus cryed, When the Boy Adonis dyed, Here's Medea's Charm, with which Jasons heart she did bewitch, Omphale this Spell put in, When she made the Libyan spin.

The same year saw the publication of the not very successful expansion of one of these eclogues into the pastoral narrative in verse, entitled 'Omphale or the Inconstant Shepherdesse.'