Meanwhile, Zeus, taking advantage of Amphitryon’s absence, impersonated him and, assuring Alcmene that her brothers were now avenged—since Amphitryon had indeed gained the required victory that very morning—lay with her all one night, to which he gave the length of three. For Hermes, at Zeus’s command, had ordered Helius to quench the solar fires, have the Hours unyoke his team, and spend the following day at home; because the procreation of so great a champion as Zeus had in mind could not be accomplished in haste. Helius obeyed, grumbling about the good old times, when day was day, and night was night; and when Cronus, the then Almighty God, did not leave his lawful wife and go off to Thebes on love adventures. Hermes next ordered the Moon to go slowly, and Sleep to make mankind so drowsy that no one would notice what was happening. Alcmene, wholly deceived, listened delightedly to Zeus’s account of the crushing defeat inflicted on Pterelaus at Oechalia, and sported innocently with her supposed husband for the whole thirty-six hours. On the next day, when Amphitryon returned, eloquent of victory and of his passion for her, Alcmcne did not welcome him to the marriage couch so rapturously as he had hoped. ‘We never slept a wink last night,’ she complained. ‘And surely you do not expect me to listen twice to the story of your exploits?’ Amphitryon, unable to understand these remarks, consulted the seer Teiresias, who told him that he had been cuckolded by Zeus; and thereafter he never dared sleep with Alcmene again, for fear of incurring divine jealousy