Amphitryon

What mortal has not heard of the one who shared a wife with Zeus, Amphitryon of Argos, whom once Alcaeus, son of Perseus, begot, Amphitryon the father of Heracles?

and Creon became the father of this lady Megara, whom once all Cadmus’ race escorted with the glad music of lutes at her wedding, when the famous Heracles led her to my halls.

Come here, my children, cling to your father’s robe, hurry, never loose your hold, for here is one to help you, not at all behind our savior Zeus.

And swiftly the chiefs of the Cadmeans rushed in together in their bronze armor, and Amphitryon came brandishing a sword bared from its scabbard, stricken with sharp distress.

and because in seven-gated Thebes, beside Amphitryon’s splendid tomb, the Cadmeans gladly crowned him with flowers, for the sake of Aegina.

He stood, possessed by overwhelming astonishment and delight.

This would date from about the time of Laius the son of Labdacus, grandson of Polydorus and great-grandson of Cadmus.

Amphitryon dedicated me from the spoils of Teleboae.

Or like her who left home and country and came to Thebes, following warlike Amphitryon,—even Alcmena, the daughter of Electryon, gatherer of the people.

With him went the horse-driving Boeotians, breathing above their shields, and the Locrians who fight hand to hand, and the gallant Phocians eager for war and battle.

And as a man who has escaped joyfully from misery, whether of sore disease or cruel bondage, so then did Amphitryon, when he had wound up all his heavy task, come glad and welcome to his home.

"Then I saw Alkmene, the wife of Amphitryon, who also bore to Zeus indomitable Herakles;

For in the likeness of Amphitryon he came to Alcmena, and as a shower of gold he united with Danae, and in the guise of a swan he took refuge in the bosom of Nemesis, and again in this form he espoused Leda;

And Heracles stretched his invincible hands up to heaven and said, “Father Zeus, if you have ever heard my prayers with a willing heart, now, now with divine prayers

Or when you received, as a snow-shower of gold in the middle of the night, the greatest of the gods, when he stood in the doorway of Amphitryon, and then went in to the wife to beget Heracles?

and to invoke your sons, Amphitryon, and the secluded valley of Minyas, and Eleusis, the famous precinct of Demeter, and Euboea, when we speak of curving race-courses.

when he had cut off the head of Eurystheus with the edge of his sword, he was buried below the earth by the tomb of the charioteer Amphitryon, his father’s father, where he lay as the guest of the Sown Men, having come to dwell in the streets of the Cadmeans, who ride on white horses.

Wise Alcmena lay with Amphitryon and with Zeus, and bore in a single birth twin sons, strong and victorious in battle.

Amphitryon’s twenty-fifth ancestor was such as fortune happened to make him, and the fiftieth for that matter.

And when people pride themselves on a list of twenty-five ancestors and trace their pedigree back to Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, the pettiness of their ideas seems absurd to him;

in that house there (pointing), Amphitryon dwells, born at Argos, of an Argive sire;

Now will Amphitryon come hither this day from the army, his servant too, whose form I am bearing.

He, before he departed hence for the expedition, left his wife Alcmena pregnant.

for she was buried there, as they say, having lived with Rhadamanthus after the death of Amphitryon.