Prayer to Apollo

Hercules, returned from the underworld and having dragged Cerberus into the daylight, addresses the Sun.

The apology here is offered for the god's eyes, not for the speaker's own act: "grant pardon, Phoebus, if your gaze has seen anything unlawful". The fault lies not in the hero's descent to Hades but in the Sun's having had to look at it.

Behind this stands a quite definite conception of pollution. For the Romans it is spatial and visual: everything has its own sphere, and to bring what is below up into the open is an offence against the light itself. Hercules asks pardon not as a criminal but as a man who has disturbed another's sight.

The card's English adds a clause about hidden things revealed at another's command; it is not in the lines quoted here.