Centaurs. They were a savage, unfriendly race, who had no regard for
the duties of hospitality; but one of them, named Pholus, was better
than the others, and he gave Heracles shelter in his cave. He made a
fire and roasted a calf for his guest, but he himself ate raw meat as
he was accustomed to do. Heracles enjoyed his meal very much for the
long journey had made him hungry, and as he was also thirsty, he
asked the Centaur for a draught of wine. Pholus said, 'It is true
that I have a great cask of wine in my cave, but it belongs to all
the Centaurs in common, and if they knew that you had drunk any of
it, they {118} might kill you.' But Heracles said he was not afraid,
so Pholus rolled out the cask and drew some wine from it. But the
wine had such a strong odour that the Centaurs smelt it, and they all
came to the cavern with clubs and spears to kill Heracles. At first
he defended himself with firebrands only, as he did not wish to do
more than drive them away, but finding that they would not leave him
alone, he seized his bow and shot at them with the poisoned arrows,
and everyone who was hit fell down dead. When the others saw that,
they took to flight, but Heracles had by this time grown furious, and
vowing that he would not leave one of them alive, he pursued them,
and they could not escape from his arrows. In their distress they
ran to the wise Centaur Chiron who had been the teacher of Heracles,
and embraced his knees, entreating him to ask Heracles to have mercy
on them. But Heracles would not stop shooting, and only took care
not to hit Chiron, and his eye was so true that he could be sure of
hitting nothing that he did not aim at. But an arrow went right
through the arm of one of the Centaurs who had embraced Chiron's
knees, and its point grazed his skin. Heracles was very much
distressed, he threw his bow down on the ground, and ran to get herbs
that heal poisonous wounds. But no herb had any power to heal the
Hydra's poison, and Chiron suffered horrible torture, so that his
immortality was a burden to him. Then he prayed to Zeus to take away
his immortality, and Zeus heard him and allowed him to die. But
Heracles did not stay with him till his death, for he was now more
angry with the Centaurs than ever, and he ran after them and overtook
them. They would all {119} have perished if Poseidon had not had
pity on them and caused a wall of granite to spring up suddenly out
of the earth round the Centaurs to protect them from him. Then
Heracles was obliged to leave them, and he turned back and went on
his way with a heavy heart, full of sad thoughts about Chiron. As
soon as he was out of sight, the wall sank back into the earth, and
the Centaurs were able to go home in peace.
When Heracles reached the foot of Mount Erymanthus he prepared a
noose in which to catch the wild boar, and soon afterwards he saw him
sharpening his tusks against an oak tree. Heracles raised a cry
which made the whole forest echo, and the strong boar took to flight.
It was winter, and the upper part of the mountain was covered with
deep snow. Heracles chased the boar up the mountain till he had
driven him into a snow-field, through which the wild beast plodded
panting, till he was quite tired out and could go no further, and
then Heracles slipped the noose over his neck and secured him. Then
he tied his feet together and threw him, feet uppermost, over his
left shoulder, putting his arm round his neck to prevent him from
using his tusks, and in this manner he journeyed back to Mycenae.
Most men would not have thought it very cheerful work to travel with
such a companion, but Heracles was not at all concerned; on the
contrary, it was the boar who was trembling. Heracles showed the
boar to Eurystheus through the grating, and then killed him.
Heracles now set out to perform his fifth Labour, and this time his
task was to cleanse the stables of Augeas in a single day. Augeas
was a rich king of {120} Elis, who had three thousand cattle. At
night the cattle always stood in a great court surrounded with walls,
close to the king's palace, and as it was quite ten years since the
servants had cleaned it out, there was enough refuse in the court to
build up a high mountain. Heracles went to Augeas and asked if he
would give him the tenth part of his flocks if he thoroughly cleansed
his stables in a single day. The king looked upon this as such an
absolutely impossible feat that he would not have minded promising
his kingdom as a reward for it, so he laughed and said, 'Set to work,
we shall not quarrel about the wages,' and he further promised
distinctly to give Heracles what he asked, and this he did in the
presence of Phyleus, his eldest son, who happened to be there. The
next morning Heracles set to work, but even his strong arms would
have failed to accomplish the task if they had not been aided by his
mother-wit. He compelled a mighty torrent to work for him, but you
would hardly guess how he did it. First he opened great gates on two
opposite sides of the court, and then he went to the stream, and when
he had blocked up its regular course with great stones, he conducted
it to the court that required to be cleansed, so that the water
streamed in at one end and streamed out at the other, carrying away
all the dirt with it. Before evening the stream had done its work
and was restored to its usual course.
But when Heracles demanded his reward, Augeas denied that he had
promised it. However he said that he would summon a court of justice
and would abide by its decision, for he thought to himself, 'The only
one who heard me make the promise is my son, and he {121} will not
witness against me.' A number of wise old men were accordingly
summoned to the palace to be judges, and Phyleus was called upon to
witness. But Phyleus cared more for justice than for his father's
advantage, and he said that Augeas had promised the tenth part of his
flocks to Heracles as a reward for cleansing the stables. Then
Augeas grew furious, and would not allow the judges to pronounce the
sentence, but banished both Heracles and Phyleus from the country,
threatening that if ever they were caught in his kingdom they would
forfeit their lives. Heracles went away without his reward, but he
promised himself that when the twelve Labours were accomplished, he
would come back and punish the king for his faithlessness.
Again Heracles set out at the command of Eurystheus, and this time he
had to drive away the Stymphalian birds,--this was his sixth Labour.
Near the city of Stymphalus, in the land of Arcadia, there was a
great lake, whose shores were covered with very dense forests where
countless birds had built their nests. These birds were as large as
cranes, and very thievish, and there was such a number of them that
if they had all flown out at once and assembled above the water, it
would have been pitch-dark all over the great lake. Heracles went to
the edge of the lake and listened to the noise that the birds made,
but he could not get at them, for they kept themselves hidden among
the thick boughs where no arrow could reach them. Heracles could not
think of any means of chasing them from among the trees, and was
almost in despair, when the goddess Athene, who loved all good and
brave men, {122} came to his assistance. She gave him a great iron
rattle that Hephaestus had made, and when Heracles shook it, it made
such a fearful noise that all the birds flew out screaming. Then
Heracles shot arrow after arrow among them; a great many of them fell
dead into the lake, and the rest were so much frightened that they
flew far away and never came back again.
4. _The Last Six Labours._
The seventh Labour that Eurystheus imposed upon Heracles was to bring
the Cretan bull to Mycenae. In the island of Crete lived King Minos,
who was very wise, and who was allowed to hold intercourse with the
gods. One day, when the Cretans were on the seashore offering
sacrifices to Poseidon, the king prayed that Poseidon would send him
a bull out of the sea for sacrifice, for he wanted to show the
Cretans what great regard the gods had for him. Immediately there
came, borne to the shore upon the swelling waves, a most beautiful
bull, and Minos was so fascinated by its beauty that he did not keep
his word, but sacrificed another bull and put the one that came out
of the sea among his flocks. Poseidon punished him by making the
bull mad; he killed the herdsmen and escaped into the forest, and did
so much damage that the king repented of having broken his word.
When Heracles came to him and said that he wanted to catch the bull,
Minos gladly supplied him with ropes and spears, for he would not
have minded paying a heavy price in order to get the plague removed
from the country. Heracles went into the forest and soon found his
way to the bull, {123} for he was guided to him by the bellowing he
made. When he came near, he threw a spear at him in order to
irritate him. The bull ran at him furiously, lowering his horns to
toss him into the air, but Heracles waited quietly till he came up,
and then he seized his horns and held them fast, so that the bull
could not raise his head again. They went on for some time pulling
at each other, and the bull dragged Heracles about from place to
place, bellowing horribly all the time. He was a huge powerful
animal, but he could not get his horns free, and only tired himself
to no purpose. At last he was quite exhausted, and Heracles made a
halter out of the rope he had brought with him and wound it round his
neck, and the bull followed him quite quietly. The Cretans ran
together to look at the strong man leading the fierce bull, and were
astonished to see the bull walking so quietly by his side. Heracles
got into his ship and sailed back to Mycenae with the bull, and when
he had led him through the city, he let him go free. You will hear
more of him again by-and-by.[1]
The eighth Labour of Heracles was that of procuring the horses of
Diomedes. Diomedes was a king of Thrace, a savage and cruel man, who
cared for nothing in the world but his fierce horses which he fed
upon human flesh; and every stranger that came into his country was
thrown to the horses. Heracles knew that he would not be able to
obtain the horses unless he first conquered the king and his people,
and he therefore took with him a number of brave heroes who were glad
to accompany him on this expedition. As soon as the ship landed in
Thrace, the heroes went to the stables, killed {124} the keeper, and
brought away the horses; one of them was going to bite, but Heracles
gave him such a sound blow that he had something else to think of.
They had almost reached the shore, when they looked back and saw King
Diomedes coming after them followed by a number of soldiers, so they
tied up the horses and turned round again. Then a fierce battle took
place, for the Thracians were a warlike people, but at last they were
all killed, and their king made prisoner. Heracles said that he
should die by the same death that he had inflicted on others, and he
loosed the horses of Diomedes and gave him to them to devour. The
king cried out in an agony to his horses, 'Have I not been kind to
you and taken care of you?' But they had become so fierce through
eating human flesh that they did not spare even their own master.
One tore off his arm, another bit him in the chest, and a third in
the thigh, and they soon tore him to pieces, so that he perished
miserably. Heracles then caught the horses again and took them home,
and when he had shown them to Eurystheus, he drove them to the foot
of Mount Olympus where they were devoured by wild beasts.
King Eurystheus had a daughter, who was continually begging him to
procure for her the girdle of the Queen of the Amazons. This
beautiful girdle was world-famed; it had been given to the queen by
Ares, the god of war, and she wore it as a mark of royalty.
Eurystheus knew that to secure the queen's girdle would be a task of
great danger and difficulty, and therefore he told Heracles that this
was to be his ninth Labour. So Heracles again set sail with his
companions, and they journeyed for many days till they came to the
{125} country of the Amazons, who lived in Asia, near the river
Thermodon. There were no men amongst them, but they were all women,
and very remarkable women, too. They liked war better than anything
else, and were so well skilled in riding and in shooting with the bow
that no army was feared so much as the army of the Amazons. When
Heracles reached their country, they happened to be in a meadow near
the sea practising with their weapons of war,--all but the queen, who
was sitting on the shore looking out over the sea, with her girdle
glittering in the sunshine. When she saw the ship coming, she
wondered who could be the strangers that ventured into her country,
and most of all she marvelled at the sight of Heracles who was
standing in the fore-part of the ship, dressed in his lion's skin and
grasping his club. She asked him who he was and what he wanted, and
he answered, 'I am Heracles, the son of Zeus, and I am performing
hard labours in the service of Eurystheus; he has sent me here to
fetch your girdle and take it back to Mycenae.' When the queen heard
that it was Heracles, whose deeds were spoken of all over the world,
she said that she would make him a present of the girdle, and came
towards the ship to greet him, holding out her hand. But Hera would
not allow Heracles to carry off the girdle without a struggle, and
taking the form of an Amazon, she went to the meadow where the others
were, and called out to them, 'A stranger is going to rob our queen.'
They all rushed down to the shore and began to shoot at the
strangers, killing many a brave man; but when Heracles saw that they
treated him and his followers as enemies, he thought that the queen
had meant to act treacherously, {126} and he slew her, and shot at
the Amazons with his arrows, and killed so many of them that they
were soon obliged to fly. He took the girdle from off the dead queen
and laid her corpse on the shore, and after the ship had sailed away,
the Amazons came and buried her.
Some days after this, the heroes landed at the city of Troy, where
they found all the people very sorrowful because an innocent maiden
was to suffer death on account of the crime of her father Laomedon,
the king of Troy. The gods Poseidon and Apollo, in order to try
Laomedon, had entered into an engagement with him, by which they
undertook to build a wall round the city that could never be
destroyed. The wall was soon finished, but Laomedon, who was very
miserly and who did not know that he had to deal with gods instead of
men, refused to give the reward that had been agreed upon. Both the
gods punished him for this. Apollo sent a pestilence into the land
which destroyed both men and cattle, and Poseidon created a monster
who came up every day out of the sea, and laid waste the fields
devouring every living thing that he met with. Even after the
pestilence had ceased, the monster still came every day, and took his
fill of blood. The Trojans asked the Oracle how they could get rid
of him, and the Oracle answered that the king's young daughter
Hesione must be given him to eat. The Trojans were very fond of the
beautiful maiden, but as they were all in danger of perishing, they
demanded of Laomedon that he should give up his daughter as a victim.
The king shed many tears, but at last he consented, and when the
heroes landed, Hesione had just been brought to the {127} shore, and
chained to a rock at the spot where the monster was accustomed to
leave the sea. Heracles heard from the Trojans how it had all
happened, and he went to the king and said that if he would give him
the two horses he had received from Zeus, he would slay the monster.
These horses had been given to Laomedon by Zeus to make up for the
loss of his son Ganymede, a most beautiful boy, whom Zeus had caused
his sacred eagle to steal away and carry off to Mount Olympus, where
Ganymede lived from that time with the gods, gifted with immortality
and eternal youth. When Heracles demanded these horses as his reward
for rescuing Hesione, Laomedon did not hesitate to promise them,
though they were the most beautiful horses in all the world, for he
felt willing to part with anything he possessed in order to save his
daughter. Then Heracles placed himself by the side of Hesione with a
naked sword in his hand, and when the horrible monster came out of
the sea, opening his huge jaws to devour the maiden, Heracles jumped
down his throat and wriggled himself down into his body, and then he
cut away all his entrails, so that the monster rolled about on the
ground in pain, howling horribly. When Heracles thought he was dead,
he crept up again out of the body and washed himself clean in the
sea. The king was very glad that his daughter was saved, but avarice
again took possession of him and prevented him from keeping his
promise to Heracles. He tried to deceive him with fair speeches, but
Heracles understood perfectly well that he was a faithless man, and
he told him that he would return and punish him.
Heracles sailed back to Mycenae, and gave the girdle {128} of the
Queen of the Amazons to Eurystheus. The king gave it to his daughter
who was very much pleased with it, and at the same time he told
Heracles that for his tenth Labour he was to fetch the cattle of
Geryon. Wonderful stories had been brought by sailors of an island
in the stream Oceanus, near the setting sun, where there lived a king
named Geryon who possessed the strength of three men, for he had
three bodies, six arms, and six legs. The sailors also told of the
king's wonderful reddish-brown cattle which formed the chief part of
his riches, and how no one dared to rob his flocks, because they were
guarded day and night by a dog with two heads, who barked until he
had roused a strong herdsman by whom the robber was killed without
much loss of time.
Heracles set out to look for the island, and went on and on towards
the West till he came to countries where the people were quite savage
and barbarous. By-and-by he reached the extreme end of Europe where
Africa is only separated from it by a narrow channel, and as he
wished to leave some token to show how far he had journeyed, he broke
off two huge rocks and set them up in the sea, and ever since that
time, the sailors who pass through these two mountains of rock look
up at them and say, 'Those are the Pillars of Heracles.' At last he
came to the end of the land, and as he stood on the shore wondering
how he should manage to reach the island of Geryon, the sun, which is
much hotter in those parts than it is here, smote upon his head.
This annoyed him very much, and as he was in the habit of paying back
anyone who did him an injury, he now took his bow and arrows and shot
at the sun-god. But {129} instead of being angry with him, Helios
the sun-god admired him for his boldness in being so ready to fight
even with gods, and he came down and gave him the golden shell in
which he travels from West to East in the evening after sunset. It
was an exceedingly large shell, and Heracles sailed over the sea in
it till he came to the island of Geryon. The beautiful herd was in a
meadow where the grass stood so high that it reached far above their
knees. When Heracles came to the herd, the great dog started up,
barking out of his two heads, but Heracles quickly put an end to
that, for he gave him such a blow with his club that his backbone was
broken through. The herdsman had however already awoke, and he came
running down, intending to kill the robber as he had killed many a
one before, but this time he himself met with his death by a blow
from the fist of Heracles, who then drove off the cattle towards the
sea. But someone told King Geryon that his cattle were being stolen,
and he ran after the robber in a great rage, throwing big stones at
him and screaming with all his might. Heracles waited till he came
up, and then they wrestled together. Geryon wound his six arms round
him hoping to throw him, but they both fell at the same time, and
Geryon was the undermost. Heracles set one knee on his body, but as
he leaned over to reach a stone to kill him with, Geryon managed to
spring up and tried to run away. Heracles, however, shot three
arrows through his three hearts, and he fell down dead.
Then Heracles went off with the herd, and when he had brought them
safely to the mainland he returned the shell to the sun-god, thanking
him heartily for his {130} help. He had to take the cattle through
many lands before they finally arrived in Greece, and on his way he
came to the part of Italy where Rome was afterwards built. It
happened to be the hot noontide, and Heracles lay down under the
shade of a tree and let the herd graze. Now it chanced that in a
cave under the Mount Aventinus there lived the giant Cacus, who was
very hideous to look at, and who could cook his food in his own
mouth, for fire and flames spouted out of it whenever he liked.
Cacus was a great robber, and when he saw the beautiful cattle he set
his mind on having some of them, but Heracles looked so strong that
he did not dare to take them by force, so he waited till he was
asleep, and then he came out of his cave and pulled several of the
cows backwards into it by their tails, so that the footprints in the
sand looked like those of cows that had been driven out of the cave
to pasture. When it became cooler, Heracles awoke and counted his
cattle; there were too few of them, but he could not find any traces
of the direction in which they had gone, and was obliged to pass on
without them. But just as they were going over Mount Aventinus one
of the bulls chanced to bellow, and those in the cave of Cacus
answered, because they wanted to go on with the others. Heracles
immediately knew what had become of his cattle, and hastened down to
the cave. The giant had shoved a huge fragment of rock in front of
the entrance, but Heracles in his anger was even stronger than usual,
and he threw down the rock with a noise that made the whole mountain
tremble. Cacus was afraid of him, and sat cowering in a corner of
the cave, spouting out smoke and {131} flames to prevent him from
coming near. But Heracles did not mind the flames, and he seized
Cacus by the neck and strangled him; then he dragged him out to the
light, and wondered to see how ugly he was. The stolen cattle came
out of the cave of their own accord and joined the others, and
Heracles drove them on further.
Some time after this, when he had nearly reached Mycenae and was
travelling along the sea-shore, Hera sent a great gnat that flew
about among the cattle humming and buzzing and stinging first one and
then another, till they became quite unmanageable and ran away in
different directions. Several jumped into the sea, and Heracles
jumped in after them and brought back all that he could reach,
pulling in some by their horns and driving others in front of him,
but the greater number of them swam out into the open sea and
perished. Then he set to work to collect those that had escaped into
the forest, and tired himself till nightfall with running after them,
which gave Hera great pleasure. All that he could recover he brought
to Mycenae, and Eurystheus sacrificed them to Hera.
Heracles had now only two more Labours to accomplish, and Eurystheus
pondered night and day as to what would be the most difficult and
dangerous task he could set him. At last he told him that for his
eleventh Labour he was to fetch three apples from the Garden of the
Hesperides, although no mortal knew where the Garden was. When Zeus
and Hera were married, the Earth had caused an apple tree to spring
up, which she gave them as her present, and which was covered with
apples of pure gold. Hera planted the tree {132} on an island in
Oceanus which had never been trodden by the foot of any mortal, and
in course of time a whole garden grew from it, in which all the trees
bore golden apples. The garden was tended by three nymphs called the
Singing Hesperides, and it was guarded by a dragon. Heracles never
allowed himself to be discouraged, however hard his task might be,
but always set about it in good spirits, confident of success, and he
now went about asking everyone where the Hesperides lived. One day
he came to a river, and some nymphs who were sitting on the bank
asked him where he was going. He said, 'King Eurystheus has sent me
to fetch him three apples from the Garden of the Hesperides, but I do
not know where the Garden is.' One of the nymphs said, 'We do not
know either, but Nereus, the old sea-god, can tell you, for he knows
everything, both in earth and heaven.' Then they told Heracles where
to find Nereus, and what to do in order to oblige him to answer his
questions. Nereus lived in the sea, but about mid-day he came up on
to the land and lay down in a grotto to sleep. When he was asleep,
Heracles came and seized him by the arms, and Nereus, waking up,
found himself a prisoner. He changed himself first into a wolf, and
then into a lion, and lastly into a dragon, hoping that Heracles
would be frightened and let go, but the nymphs had prepared him for
these tricks, and instead of loosening his hold on the sea-god, he on
the contrary held him tighter and tighter, till at last Nereus had to
give in, and ask him what he wanted. When he heard what it was, he
gave Heracles an exact description of where the Hesperides lived, and
how to get there; it was a very long {133} way off, even further than
to the island of King Geryon, but Heracles would not be disheartened,
and at once began his journey.