![]() ![]() Stroking her soothingly, he picked her up and slung her across his shoulders. Slowly and quietly Hercules came up to her. And finally, a full year after the chase had begun, the hind fell exhausted on the bank of a river in the heart of Arcadia. And so they retraced their steps, the hind leading and Hercules following, ever southward: back through the grasslands and along the high cliffs of Illyria, past the shrine of Zeus in Epirus and the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, through Boeotia and back across the Isthmus. Now, anxious for the first time, the hind turned south again, thinking to find safety in the groves of Artemis. ![]() Then, doggedly, he would set off again on her track. Rising at dawn, he would climb to some high point and wait till he saw the sun gleaming on her golden antlers. But guided by Zeus, Hercules still followed the hind. ![]() ![]() Summer was over now the days were getting shorter and the weather colder. It was spring now, and, still fresh and unwearied, the hind continued on: through Illyria, which lies alongside the Adriatic Sea, then north through the vast grasslands where the nomads roamed in their carts that were covered with bullock hides, then turning west again into the land of the Hyperboreans, the men who live at the back of the North Wind. ![]()
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