THE THIRD LABOR--THE GOLDEN-HORNED HIND
The lower part of Greece is a most peculiar-looking bit of country.
You would think it had been torn off from the bulk of the land but
kept hanging on to it by a small narrow strip. Then, too, its shape is
so queer that it has been compared to all sorts of things; sometimes
to a mulberry leaf, sometimes to an open hand.
If we keep to the latter comparison, we will find that the part which
answers to the palm of the hand is a large and intricate knot of high
wooded mountains which shoot out spurs in all directions. These spurs
with the land attached to them stretch out into the sea as so many
small peninsulas and not badly represent the fingers of the hand. The
central knot of mountains is even now different from the country all
around.
The people there are wilder, very much given to robbery and violence
and very slow to accept new ways of life or improvements of any kind.
In the old heroic times of several thousand years ago that country was
simply an impassable wilderness.
It was overcrowded with wild beasts, among which the bear must have
been the most plentiful since the land was named after him,
Arcadia--the land of Bears. Wolves were known also to abound.
The men who had their villages in the narrow valleys by the
mountain-streams were fierce and lawless. There was nothing for them
to do but to keep goats and hunt all day long. Arcadia was truly the
paradise of hunters and therefore held as specially sacred to the
beautiful huntress, the goddess, Artemis--the Lady of the Chase. She
roamed over hills and valleys and through woods and groves by
moonlight to protect the herds and flocks, this beautiful daughter of
Zeus.
In these same mountains of Arcadia there roamed a lovely Hind sacred
to Queen Artemis, who gave her golden horns so that she might be known
from other deer by the huntsmen. Thus they might be saved from the
crime of slaying what was sacred to the gods. Eurystheus ordered
Herakles to bring him the Hind alive, for he did not dare to have her
killed.
Herakles spent a whole year seeking her from the mountain-tops down
to the valleys, through tangles of brush, over streams and in forests,
but he was not able to catch her. After a long chase he forced her at
last to take refuge on the side of a mountain and from that place to
go down to a river to drink.
In order that he might prevent the deer from crossing the water,
Herakles was obliged slightly to wound one of her legs. Not till then
was he able to secure his game and carry it to Eurystheus.
On his way to Mykenæ Herakles was met by Artemis, who upbraided him
for having captured the Hind belonging to her. Herakles made answer:
"Great Goddess, if I have chased and caught thy deer, I did it out of
necessity, not impiety; for thou well knowest that the gods ordered me
to be a servant to Eurystheus and he commanded me to catch the Hind."
With these words he soothed the anger of the goddess and brought the
golden-horned Hind to Mykenæ.