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HERAKLES
THE HERO OF THEBES
AND OTHER HEROES OF THE MYTH
Adapted from the Second Book of the
Primary Schools of Athens, Greece
BY
MARY E. BURT
_Author of "Literary Landmarks," "Stories
from Plato," "Story of the German Iliad,"
"The Child-Life Reading Study"; Editor of
"The Cable Story Book," "The Eugene Field
Book"; Teacher in the John A. Browning
School, New York City_
AND
ZENAÏDE A. RAGOZIN
_Author of "The Story of Chaldea," "The
Story of Assyria," Etc.; Member of the
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain
and Ireland, of the American Oriental
Society, of the Société Ethnologique of
Paris, etc._
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1900
Copyright, 1900, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
SCRIBNER'S SERIES OF SCHOOL READING.
In Uniform Binding; each 12mo, _net_, 60 Cents.
Lobo, Rag and Vixen. From "Wild Animals I Have Known." By Ernest
Seton-Thompson. Illustrated.
The Howells Story Book. Edited by Mary E. Burt and Mildred
Howells. Illustrated.
The Cable Story Book. Selections for School Reading, with the
Story of the Author's Life. Edited by Mary E. Burt and Lucy
Leffingwell Cable. Illustrated.
The Eugene Field Book. Verses, Stories, and Letters for School
Reading. Edited by Mary E. Burt and Mary B. Cable. Introduction
by George W. Cable. Illustrated.
Fanciful Tales. By Frank R. Stockton. Edited by Julia E.
Langworthy. Introduction by Mary E. Burt.
The Hoosier School-Boy. By Edward Eggleston. Illustrated.
Children's Stories in American Literature, 1660-1860. By
Henrietta C. Wright.
Children's Stories in American Literature, 1860-1896. By
Henrietta C. Wright.
Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca. By Mary E. Burt. A Translation of
the Story of Odysseus as used in the Schools of Athens and
Berlin. Fully Illustrated.
Poems of American Patriotism. Chosen by Brander Matthews. 285
pages.
Twelve Naval Captains. By Molly Elliot Seawell. 233 pages.
Illustrated.
Herakles, the Hero of Thebes. By Mary E. Burt. A Translation of
the Story of Herakles and other Greek Heroes, as used in the
Schools of Athens. Illustrated.
[Illustration: HERAKLES SLAYING A CENTAUR.
(Giovanni Bologna.)]
To
SEVEN
LITTLE GENTLEMEN
WILLIE MACY
REGGIE CHARLES
LOUIS OLIVER
GRISWOLD
PREFACE
The child's heart goes out to the man of action, the man who makes
short work of things and gets directly at a result. He responds to
life, to energy, quick wit, the blow that hits the nail on the head at
the first stroke.
The rapidity of action in the stories of Herakles, Jason, and other
Heroes of the Myth, the prowess and courage and untiring endurance of
the men, render the characters worthy subjects of thought to young
minds, and have secured the stories a permanent place in educational
literature. It is not elegant literature alone that boys need, but
inspiring ideals which will impel them to stand fearlessly to their
guns, to do the hard thing with untiring perseverance, to reach the
result with unerring insight.
It is exactly this unbending courage in Herakles and his comrade
heroes, that has made them the backbone of literature for ages,
holding their own in spite of the sapless literary fungus crowding our
book-shelves.
While travelling in Greece I found the children of the primary schools
reading these stories in the lower grades, the book being the one used
next above the primer. The interest was enthusiastic, and I brought
home a copy of the book, which, with Madame Ragozin's collaboration, I
have arranged as a first or second book of reading for our own
schools.
Mary E. Burt.
The John A. Browning School, New York, March 15, 1900.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction xi
CHAPTER
I. The Babe Herakles 1
II. Herakles is Doomed to Serve Eurystheus 4
III. The First Labor--The Nemean Lion 6
IV. The Second Labor--Herakles Kills the Water-Snake of
Lake Lerna 9
V. The Third Labor--The Golden-Horned Hind 12
VI. The Fourth Labor--The Erymanthian Boar 15
VII. The Fifth Labor--Herakles Cleans the Augeian Stables 19
VIII. The Sixth Labor--The Birds of Stymphalos 22
IX. The Seventh Labor--Herakles Catches the Mad Bull
of Crete 24
X. The Eighth Labor--The Horses of Diomedes 25
XI. The Ninth Labor--The Girdle of Hippolyte 27
XII. The Tenth Labor--The Cattle of Geryon 30
XIII. The Eleventh Labor--The Golden Apples of Hesperides 35
XIV. The Twelfth Labor--Herakles Fetches Cerberus Out
of Hades 40
XV. Theseus, the Hero of Athens 43
XVI. The First Exploits of Theseus. He Finds His Father 47
XVII. The Adventures of Theseus 51
XVIII. The Adventures of Theseus 56
XIX. Jason, the Hero of Thessaly 60
XX. Jason Claims His Throne 63
XXI. The Expedition 69
XXII. Jason Finds the Golden Fleece 74
XXIII. Orpheus, the Hero of the Lyre 78
XXIV. Pelops, the Hero of the Peloponnesos 83
XXV. Perseus, the Hero of Argos 87
XXVI. Perseus Finds the Gorgons 92
XXVII. Perseus Rescues Andromeda 95
XXVIII. Perseus Becomes King of Tiryns 100
XXIX. Triptolemos, the Hero of Eleusis, and Demeter,
the Earth-Mother 103
XXX. Demeter's Grief 106
XXXI. Demeter's Joy 111
XXXII. Triptolemos Becomes a Hero. Demeter's Gift 116
XXXIII. Prometheus, the Champion of Mankind 118
XXXIV. Prometheus Unbound 122
XXXV. Deukalion, the Champion of a New Race 126
XXXVI. Dædalos, a Hero of Invention 132
XXXVII. Phaethon, a Hero of Bad Fortune 136
XXXVIII. The Death of Phaethon 141
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Herakles Slaying a Centaur _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
The Priestess of Apollo at Delphi 6
The Temple to Theseus at the Foot of the Acropolis
in Athens 60
Orpheus Leading Eurydike Out of Hades 80
The Return of Persephone 114
Dædalos and Ikaros 134
INTRODUCTION
THE LAND OF THE HEROES
One look at the map of Greece will show us that it is the smallest of
European countries. For many hundreds of years it was inhabited by the
handsomest, bravest, and most intelligent people in the world. But
these people, the Greeks, or Hellenes, as they called themselves, had
not always lived in the country.
Thousands of years before the Hellenes came to Greece it was a perfect
wilderness of mountains, narrow valleys, torrents, and tangled
forests. It was a land of wild beasts, and they were so numerous and
fierce that there was almost no room for men.
Yet men did live there, but we know nothing about them or what they
were like, except that they hid in caves and had hardly got beyond the
art of making fire, trapping and killing the less dangerous animals
with sticks or little arrows pointed with stones, and using their meat
for food and hides for clothing.
Then the new people, the Greeks, began to come into the country. They
came in boats from across the sea and on foot from the north, through
numberless mountain-passes. They did not come all at once, but in
small detachments, in single tribes, so that it took them many years
to spread over the country.
The new race was nobler than the old, more advanced in knowledge and
in the arts of civilized life. It was not a race to be content with
caves and forest-dens, but each tribe, after it had chosen a district
and taken possession of it, selected some high hill, built rude
dwellings upon it and temples to its patron gods, a public
treasure-house also, and enclosed the hill with strong walls. It had
become a fortress, and was called Acropolis, in their language.
Each tribe, of course, had its leaders, usually belonging to some
family which had earned the gratitude and loyalty of the people by
brave and affectionate service, and the leadership descended from
father to son. These were the kings and they resided within the
Acropolis.
Around it and under the protection of its walls the people built their
own huts and began to clear the land. They sowed various crops,
planted the vine and the olive, and raised herds of sheep and goats.
There was room enough within the walls for all the families, with
their herds, to find shelter in the Acropolis in times of danger, from
the attacks of the wild natives or of the still wilder beasts of the
forests and fields.
Now these latter were by far the most dangerous enemies of the new
settlers, who soon found that they could venture but a few miles from
their small home-farms without encountering huge and ferocious animals
which the increased herds attracted and which their miserable weapons
were utterly insufficient to slay or even put to flight.
Each small district had its particular terror, just as many districts
of India now have a man-eating tiger, which makes miles and miles of
country around unsafe for man or beast.
It became a question which of the two, the men or the wild animals,
would remain in possession. Then young and courageous men, sons of the
ruling families, athletes in strength, practised in the arts of war,
commanding through their greater wealth the use of better weapons,
felt it their duty to their people to do for them what the poor
herdsmen and laborers had neither the strength nor the skill to do for
themselves.
From all the central royal cities they started singly or in small
troops, a bevy of young heroes, as eager for the delights of adventure
as for the public good. Year after year they wandered across country
seeking the most impassable wildernesses, directed by the stories they
heard on their way to the dens of the cruel monsters, which they
usually overcame by force or cunning.
Then they would return to their homes triumphant, bearing the proof of
their incredible prowess, the hides, or horns, or heads of the
monsters they had slain. Thus they put new heart into their people.
Their trophies seemed to say: "You see these creatures were not so
terrible as they might have been; what we have done others can do." So
they did a double good--one immediate by the destruction of the
dreaded foes and by the opening of the land to the planters and the
tillers; the other even more far-reaching and more beneficent in its
results by raising men's spirits, inspiring them with confidence and
with the ambition to show that they were not mere helpless boors,
cowed and dependent on their betters.
The Greek nation in years to come proved itself a nation of heroes and
was so called by fame. But who can tell how much these heroes were
indebted for this honorable distinction which has remained by them to
this day, to the early vigorous education which those doughty
champions of old imparted to them, not by preaching or advice, but by
their own dauntless example.
Can we wonder if their people's passionate gratitude and unselfish
admiration survived those glorious men through ages? Can we wonder if
after centuries had come and gone the memory of their deeds and
persons appeared to later generations through a halo of wonder and
awe?
Deeds of a remote past always assume gigantic proportions. "Surely,"
men would say, "surely, those heroes were more than ordinary mortals!
They had more than human strength, endurance, wisdom. Neither iron
fang nor claw of steel could harm them. They died, indeed, but of
their nature they must have been half divine; their mothers were
human, but surely the gods themselves were their fathers."
And thus it was settled, and for many, many hundreds of years the
Greeks continued to honor their ancient heroes as half-divine men, or
demi-gods, and to erect altars to them and come to them with prayers
and offerings. The Greek had to grow in mind and soul high enough to
grasp the truth that there can be only one God, and that no man, high
as he may tower above his kind, can be more than human.
But it was a beautiful and ennobling belief, and at first sight it
seems a pity that it was ever lost, yet in reality it was a great
gain, for men may think they have an excuse for not putting forth
their bravest efforts if they believe that the gods only can achieve
deeds of courage. There is no reason why men may not aspire to any
height of bravery which has been gained by other men.
The undying energy embodied in the characters of these old heroes is
the inheritance of every child. The children of America are not born
the sons of ruling houses. But they are destined to be the guardians
and rulers of their native land. And if the children take into their
future lives the heroism they first realize in ancient story, they
will find themselves, when the time comes, armed with the same
courage, endurance, and love of human beings which have made the
heroes of all lands and ages.
HERAKLES
AND OTHER HEROES OF THE MYTH
CHAPTER I
THE BABE HERAKLES
Far away in the land of Argos there once lived a beautiful maiden, the
daughter of a brave king. She was tall and fair and her name was
Alkmene. Her father was rich in the possession of many oxen.
Her husband also owned great herds of oxen. He had so many that he
could not tell them from those of the king. So he quarrelled with the
king and slew him. Then he took Alkmene and fled from his native land.
They came to Thebes and made it their home.
Here Herakles was born, the babe who was stronger than the strongest
of men. The goddess, Hera, hated Herakles. She was the wife of Zeus,
the Lord of Thunder and King of Heaven. Hera was angry because Zeus
loved him, and she was jealous because Zeus had foretold that
Herakles would become the greatest of men. More than that Zeus had
deceived Hera and sent the infant Herakles to her to be nursed that he
might be made strong and god-like by tasting divine milk.
So Hera sent two large snakes to devour the babe when she found out
what child it was that she had fed. Herakles lay asleep in the great
brazen shield which his father carried in battle, for he had no other
cradle. The fearful serpents crept up with open mouths into the shield
with the sleeping babe.
As soon as Alkmene saw them she was terribly frightened and called in
a loud voice for help. His father, hearing the outcry of Alkmene, ran
into the house with his sword drawn and a great many warriors came
with weapons in their hands.
Herakles was only eight months old, but before his father could reach
him he sat up in his bed and seized the serpents by their necks with
his little hands. He squeezed and choked them with such force that
they died.
When Alkmene saw that the two snakes were dead and that Herakles was
safe, she rejoiced greatly. But Hera's heart was filled with wrath and
she began to plan more mischief against the child.
Herakles had his free will as long as he was a boy. His teachers were
celebrated heroes who taught him boxing, wrestling, riding, and all
kinds of games. He learned to read and write and to hurl the spear and
shoot with bows and arrows. Linos taught him music.
Herakles had a violent temper, and one day as Linos was teaching him
to play the lute, the good teacher had reason to punish him. Herakles
flew into a rage at this and struck Linos and killed him. Then his
father sent him to the hills and left him to the care of herdsmen.
The boy grew to be very large and strong. While he was yet a youth he
slew a lion of great size that had killed many of his father's cattle.
He went home wearing the lion's skin as a sign of his victory.
Because he was so brave the King of Thebes gave his daughter to him in
marriage and he lived happily with her for many years. But a sudden
insanity came upon him during which he mistook his wife and children
for wild beasts and shot them down with his bow and arrows. When
Herakles recovered from his insanity and saw what he had done his
grief was boundless.