If his fame had been universal, his worship soon became equally so, and
Juno, once so inveterate, consented to his receiving her daughter Hebe in
marriage.
Hercules is generally represented as gigantically proportioned, sometimes
naked, sometimes covered with the skin of the Nemean lion; a thick and
knotted club in his hands, on which he is often seen leaning.
Such are the most important parts of the life of Hercules, who is held out
by the ancients as a complete pattern of virtue and piety, and is asserted
by them to have been employed for the benefit of mankind, and for this was
deservedly rewarded with immortality.
"O worthy end of his laborious life,
The nectared cup, and Hebe for a wife!
Her golden youth did with new transports play,
And crowned his toils in empyrean day.
Yet did he oft, though in her arms he lay,
And tasted to the height immortal youth,
Sigh for young Iole, who, soft as May,
And rich as Summer, yielded up her truth;
There by Euripus, ever fickle stream,
He won a world in her immortal arms,
And found his prized honour but a dream
Lost in the Ocean of her gentle charms."