Isn’t that Heracles? No one else, by Heracles! Bow, club, lionskin, bulk—Heracles from head to toe. Is he dead, then, though a son of Zeus? Tell me, conquering hero, are you a shade? I used to sacrifice to you on earth above, thinking you a god.

And quite right too. The real Heracles is in heaven with the gods, and “hath beauteous-ankled Hebe for his wife”; Cf. Homer, Od. XI, 603. I am his wraith.

What do you mean? The god’s wraith? Is it possible for anyone to be half god, and half dead?

I understand. He has given you to Pluto in his own place as a substitute, and you are now dead instead of him.

Something like that.

But Aeacus is very exact. How did he fail to spot that you were a fraud? How did he accept a changeling Heracles whom he saw face to face?

Because I was exactly like him.

Very true; an exact likeness indeed; you might be the fellow himself. But perhaps it’s the other way round, and you are Heracles, and the wraith has married Hebe in heaven.

What impudence! You talk too much. If you don’t stop these gibes at me, I’ll soon show you what sort of god has me for a wraith.

The bow is out and ready. But why should I fear you now? I’ve died once and for all. But please tell me, in the name of your Heracles; when he was alive, were you with him then too, as his wraith? Or were you both one during his lifetime, but split up when you died, Heracles flying off to heaven, while you, his wraith, came here to Hades, as was only right?

One who makes it his business to poke fun doesn’t so much as deserve a reply. However, I’ll let you have one more answer. All of Amphitryon that was in Heracles is dead, and I am all that part; but the part that came from Zeus is in heaven living with the gods.

Now I understand perfectly. Alcmena, you mean, bore two Heracleses at the same time, one by Amphitryon, the other from Zeus, and so you were twin sons of the same mother—though nobody knew about it?

No, you fool. We were both the same person.

That’s difficult to understand, two Heracleses in a compound, unless you were man and god fused together, like horse and man in a Centaur.

Well, don’t you think everyone is compounded of two parts, soul and body? What then prevents the soul, the part which came from Zeus, from being in heaven, and me, the mortal part, from being with the dead?