valor that need not be recounted here. But the hatred of Juno always
pursued him. At length, when he had been married several years, she
made him mad and impelled him in his madness to kill his own beloved
children!
When he came again to his sober senses, and learnt that he was the
murderer of his own offspring he was filled with horror, and betook
himself into exile so that he might hide his face from his fellow men.
After a time he went to the oracle at Delphi to ask what he should do
in atonement for his dreadful deed.
He was ordered to serve his brother Eurystheus--who, by the help of
Juno, had robbed him of his kingdom--for twelve years. After this he
was to become one of the Immortals. Eurystheus feared that Hercules
might use his great strength and courage against him, in punishment
for the evil that he had done. He therefore resolved to banish him
and to impose such tasks upon him as must certainly bring about his
destruction. Hence arose the famous twelve labors of Hercules.
Eurystheus first set Hercules to keep his sheep at Nemea and to
kill the lion that ofttimes carried off the sheep, and sometimes the
shepherd also.
The man-eater lurked in a wood that was hard by the sheep-run.
Hercules would not wait to be attacked by him. Arming himself with a
heavy club and with a bow and arrows, he went in search of the lion's
lair and soon found it.
Finding that arrows and club made no impression upon the thick skin of
the lion, the hero was constrained to trust entirely to his own thews
and sinews. Seizing the lion with both hands, he put forth all his
mighty strength and strangled the beast just as he had strangled the
serpents in his cradle. Then, having despoiled the dead man-eater of
his skin, Hercules henceforth wore this trophy as a garment, and as a
shield and buckler.
In those days, there was in Greece a monstrous serpent known as the
Hydra of Lerna, because it haunted a marsh of that name whence it
issued in search of prey. As his second labor, Hercules was sent to
slay this creature.
This reptile had nine heads of which the midmost was immortal. When
Hercules struck off one of these heads with his club, two others
at once appeared in its place. By the help of his servant, Hercules
burned off the nine heads, and buried the immortal one beneath a huge
rock.
The blood of the Hydra was a poison so subtle that Hercules, by
dipping the points of his arrows therein, made them so deadly that no
mortal could hope to recover from a wound inflicted by them. We shall
see later that Hercules himself died from the poison of one of these
self-same arrows.
The third labor imposed upon Hercules by Eurystheus was the capture of
the Arcadian Stag. This remarkable beast had brazen feet and antlers
of solid gold. Hercules was to carry the stag alive to Eurystheus.
It proved no easy task to do this. The stag was so fleet of foot that
no one had been able to approach it. For more than a year, over hill
and dale, Hercules pursued the beast without ever finding a chance of
capturing it without killing it.
At length he shot at it and wounded it with an arrow--not, you may
be sure, with one of the poisoned ones--and, having caught it thus
wounded, he carried it on his shoulder to his brother and thus
completed the third of his labors.
In the neighborhood of Mount Erymanthus, in Arcadia, there lived, in
those far-off days, a savage boar that was in the habit of sallying
forth from his lair and laying waste the country round about, nor had
any man been able to capture or restrain him. To free the country from
the ravages of this monster was the fourth labor of Hercules.
Having tracked the animal to his lurking place after chasing him
through the deep snow, Hercules caught him in a net and bore him away
in triumph on his shoulders to the feet of the amazed Eurystheus.
Augeas, King of Elis, in Greece, not far from Mount Olympus, owned a
herd of oxen 3,000 in number. They were stabled in stables that had
not been cleaned out for thirty years. The stench was terrible and
greatly troubled the health of the land. Eurystheus set Hercules the
task of cleaning out these Augean stables in a single day!
But the wit of the hero was equal to the occasion. With his great
strength he diverted the flow of two rivers that ran their courses
near the stables and made them flow right through the stables
themselves, and lo! the nuisance that had been growing for thirty
years was no more! Such was the fifth labor of Hercules.
On an island in a lake near Stymphalus, in Arcadia, there nested in
those days some remarkable and terrible birds--remarkable because
their claws, wings and beaks were brazen, and terrible because they
fed on human flesh and attacked with their terrible beaks and claws
all who came near the lake. To kill these dreadful birds was the sixth
labor.
Minerva supplied Hercules with a brazen rattle with which he roused
the birds from their nests, and then slew them with his poisoned
arrows while they were on the wing.
This victory made Hercules popular throughout the whole of Greece, and
Eurystheus saw that nothing he could devise was too hard for the hero
to accomplish.
The seventh labor was to capture a mad bull that the Sea-god Neptune
had let loose in the island of Crete, of which island Minos was at
that time King.
This ferocious creature breathed out from his nostrils a whirlwind of
flaming fire. But Hercules was, as you no doubt have guessed, too much
for the brazen bull.
He not only caught the monster, but tamed him, and bore him aloft on
his shoulders, into the presence of the affrighted Eurystheus, who was
at a loss to find a task impossible for Hercules to perform.
The taking of the mares of Diomedes was the eighth labor. These horses
were not ordinary horses, living on corn. They were flesh eaters, and
moreover, they devoured human beings, and so were hateful to mankind.
On this occasion Hercules was not alone. He organised a hunt and,
by the help of a few friends, caught the horses and led them to
Eurystheus. The scene of this labor was Thrace, an extensive region
lying between the Ægean Sea, the Euxine or Black Sea, and the Danube.
Seizing the girdle of Hippolyte was the next feat set for the hero.
This labor was due to the desire of the daughter of Eurystheus for the
girdle of Hippolyte, Queen of the Amazons--a tribe of female warriors.
It is said that the girls had their right breasts cut off in order
that they might use the bow with greater ease in battle! This, indeed,
is the meaning of the term Amazon, which signifies "breastless."
After a troublesome journey Hercules arrived safely at the Court of
Hippolyte, who received him kindly; and this labor might, perchance,
have been a bloodless one had not his old enemy Juno stirred up the
female warriors against him.
In the fight that followed, Hercules killed Hippolyte--a feat scarcely
to be proud of--and carried off her girdle, and thus the vanity of the
daughter of Eurystheus was gratified.
To capture the oxen of Geryon was the tenth labor of Hercules. In the
person of Geryon we meet another of those strange beings in which
the makers of myths and fairy tales seem to revel. Geryon was
a three-bodied monster whose cattle were kept by a giant and a
two-headed dog!
It is said that Hercules, on his way to the performance of this tenth
labor, formed the Pillars of Hercules--those two rocky steeps
that guard the entrance to the Straits of Gibraltar, i.e., Calpa
(Gibraltar) and Abyla (Ceuta)--by rending asunder the one mountain
these two rocks are said to have formed, although now they are
eighteen miles apart.
Hercules slew the giant, the two-headed dog and Geryon himself, and in
due course brought the oxen to Eurystheus.
Sometime afterwards, Eurystheus, having heard rumors of a wonderful
tree which, in some unknown land, yielded golden apples, was moved
with great greed to have some of this remarkable fruit. Hence he
commanded Hercules to make the quest of this tree his eleventh labor.
The hero had no notion where the tree grew, but he was bound by his
bond to obey the King, so he set out and after a time reached the
kingdom of Atlas, King of Africa. He had been told that Atlas could
give him news of the tree.
I must tell you that King Atlas, having in the olden time helped the
Titans in their wars against the gods, was undergoing punishment for
this offence, his penance being to hold up the starry vault of heaven
upon his shoulders. This means, perhaps, that in the kingdom of Atlas
there were some mountains so high that their summits seemed to touch
the sky.
Hercules offered to relieve Atlas of his load for a time, if he would
but tell him where the famous tree was, upon which grew the golden
fruit. Atlas consented, and for some days Hercules supported the earth
and the starry vault of heaven upon his shoulders.
Then Atlas opened the gate of the Garden of the Hesperides to
Hercules. These Hesperides were none other than the three daughters of
Atlas, and it was their duty, in which they were helped by a dragon,
to guard the golden apples.
Hercules killed the dragon and carried off the apples, but they were
afterwards restored to their place by Minerva.
Cerberus, as perhaps you know, was the triple-headed dog that guarded
the entrance to the nether world. To bring up this three-headed
monster from the land of the dead was the last of the twelve labors.
It was also the hardest.
Pluto, the god of the nether world, told Hercules he might carry
off the dog if he could take him without using club or spear--never
dreaming that the hero could perform such a difficult feat.
Hercules penetrated to the entrance of Pluto's gloomy regions, and,
putting forth his strength succeeded, not only in seizing Cerberus,
but also in carrying him to Eurystheus, and so brought the twelve
labors to an end, and was released from his servitude to his cruel
brother.
These exploits of strength and endurance do not by any means complete
the tale of the wonderful doings of the great Greek hero. He continued
his deeds of daring to the end of his life.
One of the last of his exploits was to kill the eagle that daily
devoured the liver of Prometheus, whose story is both curious and
interesting.
He is said to have been the great friend of mankind, and was chained
to a rock on Mount Caucasus because he stole fire from heaven and gave
it as a gift to the sons of man.
While in chains an eagle was sent by Jupiter daily to feed on
Prometheus's liver, which Jupiter made to grow again each night. From
this continuous torture he was released by Hercules, who slew the
eagle and burst asunder the bonds of this friend of man.
II
HERCULES IN THE NETHER WORLD
Theseus and Pirithous were two Athenians, who, after having been at
enmity for a long time at last became the very best of friends. They,
like Hercules, had passed their youth in doing doughty deeds for the
benefit of mankind, and their fame had spread abroad throughout the
land of Greece. This did not prevent them from forming a very foolish
project. They actually planned to go down to Hades and carry off
Pluto's wife, Proserpina, whom Pirithous himself wished to marry.
This rashness brought about their ruin, for they were seized by
Pluto and chained to a rock. All this Hercules, who was the friend
of Theseus, learnt while on one of his journeys, and he resolved to
rescue Theseus from his eternal punishment.
As for Pirithous, the prime mover in the attempted outrage, him
Hercules meant to leave to his fate.
Hercules had been warned to take a black dog to sacrifice to Hecate
and a cake to mollify Cerberus, as was usual; but he would not listen
to such tales and meant to force his way to Theseus. When he found
himself face to face with Cerberus he seized him, threw him down and
chained him with strong chains.
The next difficulty in the way was black and muddy Acheron, the first
of the seven rivers that ran round Hades, and formed a barrier between
the living and the departed.
This river had not always run under the vaults of Hades. Formerly its
course was upon the earth. But when the Titans attempted to scale
the heaven, this river had the ill luck to quench their thirst,
and Jupiter to punish even the waters of the river for abetting his
enemies, turned its course aside into the under world where its waves,
slow-moving and filthy, lost themselves in Styx, the largest of all
the rivers of Hades, which ran round Pluto's gloomy kingdom no less
than nine times.
On reaching the banks of Styx, Hercules was surprised to see flying
around him a crowd of disconsolate spirits, whom Charon the Ferryman
refused to row across Styx, because they could not pay him his fee of
an obol, a Greek coin worth about three cents of our money, which the
Greeks were accustomed to place in the mouths of their dead for the
purpose, as they thought, of paying Charon his ferry fee.
Fierce Charon frowned when he beheld Hercules for he feared his light
boat of bark would sink under his weight, it being only adapted for
the light and airy spirits of the dead; but when the son of Jupiter
told him his name he was mollified and allowed the hero to take his
place at his side.
As soon as the boat had touched the shore, Hercules went towards the
gloomy palace of Pluto where he with difficulty, on account of the
darkness, saw Pluto seated upon an ebony throne by the side of his
beloved Proserpina.
Pluto was not at all pleased to see the hero, as he hated the living
and had interest only in the shades of the dead. When Hercules
announced himself, however, he gave him a permit to go round his
kingdom and, in addition, acceded to his prayer for the release of
Theseus.
At the foot of Pluto's throne Hercules saw Death the Reaper. He was
clothed in a black robe spotted with stars and his fleshless hand
held the sharp sickle with which he is said to cut down mortals as the
reaper cuts down corn.
Our hero was glad to escape from this dismal palace and as he did not
know exactly where to find Theseus he began to make the circuit of
Hades. During his progress he saw the shades of many people of whom,
on earth, he had heard much talk.
He had been wandering about some time when, in a gloomy chamber, he
saw three old sisters, wan and worn, spinning by the feeble light of
a lamp. They were the Fates, deities whose duty it was to thread the
days of all mortals who appeared on earth, were it but for an instant.
Clotho, the spinner of the thread of life, was the eldest of the
three. She held in her hand a distaff, wound with black and white
woollen yarn, with which were sparingly intermixed strands of silk and
gold. The wool stood for the humdrum everyday life of man: the silk
and gold marked the days of mirth and gladness, always, alas! too few
in number.
Lachesis, the second of the Fates, was quickly turning with her left
hand a spindle, while her right hand was leading a fine thread which
the third sister, Atropos by name, used to cut with a pair of sharp
shears at the death of each mortal.
You may imagine how hard these three sisters worked when you remember
that the thread of life of every mortal had to pass through their
fateful fingers. Hercules would have liked them to tell him how long
they had yet to spin for him, but they had no time to answer questions
and so the hero passed on.
Some steps farther he stopped before three venerable looking old men,
seated upon a judgment seat, judging, as it seemed, a man newly come
to Pluto's kingdom.
They were Minos, Æacus and Rhadamanthus, the three judges of Hades,
whose duty it was to punish the guilty by casting them into a dismal
gulf, Tartarus, whence none might ever emerge, and to reward the
innocent by transporting them to the Elysian Fields where delight
followed delight in endless pleasure.
These judges could never be mistaken because Themis, the Goddess of
Justice, held in front of them a pair of scales in which she weighed
the actions of men. Their decrees were instantly carried out by a
pitiless goddess, Nemesis, or Vengeance by name, armed with a whip red
with the gore of her sinful victims.
III
BLACK TARTARUS AND THE ELYSIAN FIELDS
Immediately on quitting the presence of the three judges, Hercules saw
them open out before him an immense gulf whence arose thick clouds of
black smoke. This smoke hid from view a river of fire that rolled its
fiery waves onwards with a deafening din.
Not far remote from this rolled Cocytus, another endless stream, fed
by the tears of the wretches doomed to Black Tartarus, in which place
of eternal torment Hercules now found himself.
The rulers of these mournful regions were the Furies who, with unkempt
hair and armed with whips, tormented the condemned without mercy by
showing them continually in mirrors the images of their former crimes.
Into Tartarus were thrown, never to come out again, the shades or
manes of traitors, ingrates, perjurers, unnatural children, murderers
and hypocrites who had during their lives pretended to be upright and
honorable in order to deceive the just.
But these wretches were not the only denizens of Black Tartarus. There
were to be seen great scoundrels who had startled the world with their
frightful crimes. For these Pluto and the Furies had invented special
tortures.
Among the criminals so justly overtaken by the divine vengeance
Hercules noticed Salmoneus, whom he had formerly met upon earth. This
madman, whose pride had overturned his reason, thought himself to be a
god equal to the Thunderer himself.
In order to imitate remotely the rolling of thunder, he used to be
driven at night, over a brazen bridge, in a chariot, whence he hurled
lighted torches upon his unhappy slaves who were crowded on the bridge
and whom his guards knocked down in imitation of Jove's thunder-bolts.
Indignant at the pride and cruelty of the tyrant, Jupiter struck him
with lightning in deadly earnest and then cast him into the outer
darkness of Tartarus, where he was for ever burning without being
consumed.
Sisyphus, the brother of Salmoneus, was no better than he. When on
earth, he had been the terror of Attica, where, as a brigand, he had
robbed and murdered with relentless cruelty.
Theseus, whom Hercules was bent on freeing from his torment, had met
and killed this robber-assassin, and Jupiter, for his sins, decreed
that the malefactor should continually be rolling up a hill in
Tartarus a heavy stone which, when with incredible pains he had
brought nearly to the top, always rolled back again, and he had to
begin over and over again the heart-breaking ascent.
Some distance from Sisyphus Hercules came upon Tantalus, who, in the
flesh, had been King of Phrygia, but who now, weak from hunger and
parched with thirst, was made to stand to his chin in water with
branches of tempting luscious fruit hanging ripe over his head. When
he essayed to drink the water it always went from him, and when he
stretched out his hand to pluck the fruit, back the branches sprang
out of reach.
In addition an immense rock, hung over his head, threatened every
moment to crush him.
It is said that Tantalus, when in the flesh, had betrayed the secrets
of the gods and also committed other great crimes. For this he was
"tantalized" with food and drink, which, seeming always to be within
his reach, ever mocked his hopes by eluding his grasp.
The groans of a crowd of disheveled women next attracted the
affrighted attention of Hercules. They were forty-nine of the fifty
daughters of Danaus, King of Argos, who, at the instigation of their
father, had killed their husbands because Danaus thought they were
conspiring to depose him.
One only of the fifty, to wit Hypermnestra, had the courage to disobey
this unlawful command and so saved the life of Lynceus, her husband,
with whom she fled. Later on Lynceus returned and slew the cruel King
in battle.
To punish the forty-nine Danaides, Jupiter cast them into the outer
darkness of Black Tartarus, where they were ever engaged in the
hopeless task of pouring water into a sieve. Hypermnestra, on the
contrary, was honored while alive, and also after her death, for
loving goodness even more than she loved her father.
Glutted with horror Hercules at length quitted gloomy Tartarus and
beheld in front of him still another river. This was Lethe. Whoso
drank the waters of this river, which separated the place of torment
from the abode of the blest, lost memory of all that had been
aforetime in his mind, and so was no longer troubled by even the
remembrance of human misery.
Across Lethe stretched the Elysian Fields where the shades of the
blest dwelt in bliss without alloy. An enchanting greenness made the
sweet-smelling groves as pleasant to the eye as they were to the sense
of smell. Sunlit, yet never parched with torrid heat, everywhere their
verdure charmed the delighted eye, and all things conspired to make
the shades of the good and wise, who were privileged to dwell in these
Elysian Fields, delightfully happy.
Hercules saw, in these shady regions of the blest, a crowd of kings,
heroes and men and women of lower degree who, while on earth, had
loved and served their fellow men.
Having at length found and released Theseus, Hercules set out with him
for the upper world. The two left Hades by an ivory door, the key of
which Pluto had confided to their care.
What awesome tales they had to recount to their wondering friends of
the marvels of Black Tartarus and of Radiant Elysium!
IV
THE TUNIC OF NESSUS THE CENTAUR
There abode in Thessaly, in the days of Hercules, a strange race of
men who had the head and arms of a man together with the body of a
horse. They were called Centaurs, or Bull-Slayers.
One of them named Cheiron, famous for his knowledge of medicine,
music and botany, had been the teacher of Hercules. But many of them,
although learned, were not good. Hercules and Theseus had waged war on
them and had killed many, so that their numbers were greatly lessened.
Having married Deianira, the daughter of a powerful King of Calydon,
in Greece, Hercules was traveling home with her when he came to
the banks of a river and was at a loss how to cross it. Seeing his
perplexity, Nessus, one of the Centaurs, offered to take Deianira on
his back and carry her over the stream. This offer Hercules gladly
accepted.
No sooner, however, did the crafty Centaur obtain possession of
Deianira than he made off with her, intending to have her as his own
wife. You can easily imagine how angry this outrage made Hercules. He
shot one of his poisoned arrows with so much force that it went right
through the traitor Centaur, and wounded him even unto death.
But, before dying, Nessus had time to tell Deianira that if she wanted
to keep Hercules always true to her she had but to take his shirt,
and, when her husband's love was waning, prevail on him to wear it.
Deianira took the shirt, and shortly afterwards, being afraid that her
husband was ceasing to love her, she sent it to him as a present.
Now, you will remember that Hercules had shot through the shirt of
Nessus one of his poisoned arrows, and you will not be surprised
to hear that some of the poison had remained in the shirt. So when
Hercules put it on, which he did immediately upon receiving it, he was
seized with frenzy and, in his madness, he uttered terrible cries and
did dreadful deeds.
With his powerful hands he broke off huge pieces of rock, tore up
pine-trees by their roots and hurled them with resounding din into the
valley.
He could not take off the fatal shirt, and as he tore off portions of
it he tore, at the same time, his quivering flesh.
The servant of Deianira who had carried him the fatal shirt, and who
wished to solace him in his pain, he seized as she approached him and
flung headlong into the sea, where she was changed into a rock that
long, so runs the legend, kept its human form.
But at length the majesty and the courage of the hero asserted
themselves, and, although still in agony, his madness left him.
Calling to his side his friend Philoctetes, he wished to embrace
him once more before dying; but fearful lest he should, in so doing,
infect his friend with the deadly poison that was consuming him, he
cried in his agony: "Alas, I am not even permitted to embrace thee!"
Then he gathered together the trees he had uprooted and made a huge
funeral pyre, such as was used by the ancients in burning their dead.
Climbing to the top of the heap, he spread out the skin of the Nemean
lion, and, supporting himself upon his club, gave the signal for
Philoctetes to kindle the fire that was to reduce him to ashes.