Enter by Eisodos A Heracles with his characteristic lion-skin and club. A servant goes in to tell Admetus of the arrival.
Heracles
Strangers, citizens of this land of Pherae, do I find Admetus at home?
Chorus-Leader
Yes, Pheres' son is at home, Heracles. But tell us what need brings you to Thessaly
[480]
and to this city of Pherae.
Heracles
I am performing a certain labor for Eurystheus, king of Tiryns.
Chorus-Leader
Where are you bound? What is the wandering you are constrained to make?
Heracles
I go in quest of the four-horse chariot of Thracian Diomedes.
Chorus-Leader
How can you do that? Do you not know what kind of host he is?
Heracles
[485]
I do not. I have never yet been to Bistonia.
Chorus-Leader
You cannot possess those horses without a fight.
Heracles
But all the same, I cannot decline these labors.
Chorus-Leader
Then you will either kill him and return or end your days there.
Heracles
This is not the first such race I shall have run.
Chorus-Leader
[490]
If you defeat their master, what will it profit you?
Heracles
I will bring the horses back to the lord of Tiryns.
Chorus-Leader
You will not find it easy to put a bit in their mouths.
Heracles
Surely so, unless they breathe fire from their nostrils.
Chorus-Leader
No, but they tear men apart with their nimble jaws.
Heracles
[495]
This is fodder for mountain beasts, not horses.
Chorus-Leader
You will see their feeding-troughs drenched with blood.
Heracles
Whose son does their master claim to be?
Chorus-Leader
Ares' son, and shield-bearing lord of Thrace rich in gold.
Heracles
Like the others this labor you name befits my destiny
[500]
（which is always hard and steep） since I am fated to do battle with all the sons of Ares: first Lycaon, then Cycnus, and now this is the third contest I enter, going off to fight horses and master alike.
[505]
But no one shall ever see Alcmene's son quake at the hand of an enemy.