Chapter XXVI: Heracles (1)

1. _The War with the Teleboae._

Perseus had been dead a long time, and his son Electryon who succeeded him as king was already an old man, when a dispute arose between him and a nephew of his named Pterelaus. Pterelaus was king of the Teleboae, who lived on several islands, and he maintained that he had a better right to the cities of Mycenae and Tiryns than Electryon, because he was descended from the eldest son of Perseus; and one day he sent his sons, and many of the Teleboae with them, in ships to Mycenae, and told them to say to Electryon that he must be prepared to give up the kingdom to him. Electryon was very angry, and sent the Teleboae away without paying any attention to their message. They left the city, but on their way back to their ships they came upon the king's droves of cattle which were tended by his sons and servants, and they began to fight with them, and the fight did not stop till all the sons of Electryon were killed but one, and also all the sons of Pterelaus except one, who had remained behind with the ships and had taken no part in the fight. The Teleboae had however got rather the best {105} of it, and those of them who were left drove the cattle to their ships and sailed away. Some time afterwards it happened that Electryon got back his cattle, for the Teleboae had given them as a present to a king who paid them to him for ransom; but the cattle could not make up for the loss of his sons for whom he grieved bitterly, and he determined to be revenged on Pterelaus and told his servants to prepare to start with him for the islands of the Teleboae.

There was at that time at Mycenae a young hero named Amphitryon, who had come to ask for the hand of Electryon's daughter Alcmene in marriage, and it was arranged that he should have charge of the kingdom during the absence of Electryon. But one day, just before the king was to start on his expedition, it happened that he was overlooking his flocks with Amphitryon, when the young hero threw his stick at a cow that was leaving the herd, and the stick bounded back by accident from the cow's horns and hit the aged Electryon on the head, so that he was killed instantly. Amphitryon was obliged to leave the kingdom on account of this unintentional murder, and he went to Thebes, where King Creon purged him from the stain of blood by means of numerous sacrifices. During his absence, however, a brother of Electryon, named Sthenelus, contrived to gain possession of the kingdom for himself, and to banish the two children of Electryon,--his daughter Alcmene, and the one son who had not been killed by the Teleboae. They were obliged to give way to Sthenelus, who was stronger than they, and came to live in Thebes where Amphitryon was, but Alcmene said that though she loved him she would never marry {106} him till he had avenged the murder of her brothers. Amphitryon accordingly prepared to march against the Teleboae, and sought to find brave heroes who would consent to go with him.

He first of all asked King Creon for his help, but Creon was just then in great trouble at home, for a fox had for some time taken up his abode in the fortress Cadmea, and had devoured numbers of people; he was under the protection of the gods, and it had been decreed by the Fates that he should never be caught. So the Thebans, finding that they could not get rid of him, had made a truce with him by which they agreed to give him a boy every month to devour, and on this condition he spared the rest of the people. Creon therefore promised to go with Amphitryon if he would first help him to deliver the country from the terrible fox. Now Amphitryon had heard that there was a wonderful dog in Athens which was also under the protection of the gods, and that it had been decreed that nothing that he pursued would ever escape him; so he went to the hero who owned the dog, and promised him a share of the spoil which he hoped to bring back from the islands of the Teleboae if he would lend him the dog for a time, and the hero agreed to do so. Amphitryon took the dog back to Thebes and set out with him in pursuit of the fox, and the dog ran after him as fast as lightning. The Thebans thought that now one or other of the prophecies must prove false; either the fox who was never to be caught would be overtaken, or the dog who was never to pursue in vain would be battled. But when the dog had got so close to the fox that he was on the point of snapping at him, they both {107} remained motionless, and the Thebans saw that they had been turned to stone.

Then Creon said that he was quite willing to accompany Amphitryon, and the hero of Athens agreed to go also, and many other heroes, and they all embarked for the islands of the Teleboae, but they could not conquer King Pterelaus, for he had many soldiers and knew well the art of war. The daughter of Pterelaus, however, had seen Amphitryon from the city walls and had conceived a great love for him which made her secretly sorry when the Teleboae conquered, and glad when one day they were the losers; and she resolved to betray her father and her fellow-citizens into the hands of Amphitryon, because she thought that if she helped him to gain the victory, he would feel grateful to her and would make her his wife. Now Pterelaus was immortal through the good-will of Poseidon, who had given him a golden hair which he kept carefully hidden away under his grey locks, for it had the power of keeping him alive. But one day while he was asleep, his daughter came in on tiptoe, sought for the golden hair and pulled it out,--and immediately his breath stopped short, and Pterelaus was dead.

The Teleboae could no longer resist their enemies now that they were deprived of the advice of their wise king, and in a short time Amphitryon had gained possession of the chief town and of all the islands, and had avenged upon the Teleboae the slaughter of the sons of Electryon. The daughter of Pterelaus thought that she would now be the wife of Amphitryon, but things turned out very differently from her expectations, for as soon as Amphitryon saw her, he drew his sword and {108} stabbed her; he knew that she had killed her father, but he did not know why she had done so. Then the heroes carried the booty to their ships and sailed away home.

2. _The Birth and Youth of Heracles._

Alcmene was so very beautiful that Zeus, the king of the gods, loved her, and when Amphitryon was far away with the other heroes, Zeus took his form and went to Alcmene. He acted and spoke just like Amphitryon, and told her all about the battles and how they had won the victory, and he even showed her the helmets and shields of the Teleboae, for he had made Hermes, the messenger of the gods, steal them from the booty of Amphitryon. Alcmene had no suspicion that it was any other than her lover who had come back after fulfilling her wishes with regard to the Teleboae, and she promised to marry him that very day; and Zeus kissed her and became her husband. Some time after this, Amphitryon returned to Thebes and was very much astonished when Alcmene told him that she had already been married to him. They could not understand it, and asked the seer Tiresias what it meant. He told them that it was Zeus in the form of Amphitryon who had been with Alcmene, and the Theban women thought it was a great honour for her to have been married for a time to the king of the gods. The wedding was now celebrated over again, and all the heroes who had been to the war with the Teleboae feasted with Amphitryon and Alcmene till far into the night. Some time afterwards, Alcmene had two children whom she named Heracles and Iphicles; {109} one was the son of Zeus, and the other the son of Amphitryon. There was no difficulty in knowing which was the child of the god, for Heracles was far bigger than such young children usually are. Gods and men took pleasure in the fine strong child, all but the goddess Hera, who hated him, and even before his birth began to do all she could to injure him. Zeus had decreed that the next child born of the race of Perseus should rule over the cities of Mycenae and Tiryns, thinking that this would be Heracles, for Alcmene was the granddaughter of Perseus; but Hera persuaded the goddesses who arranged about the birth of children to let a son of Sthenelus, Alcmene's uncle, be born first. His father named him Eurystheus, and as he had been born before Heracles, he became king of the two cities of Mycenae and Tiryns after the death of Sthenelus.

Heracles was about eight months old, when one morning, just as it was beginning to grow light, Hera sent two great snakes into the room where he was sleeping, near the bed of Alcmene, in one of the shields which Amphitryon had brought back from the country of the Teleboae as part of the spoil. The snakes crept into the shield and began to twine themselves round the child. Just then Alcmene woke, and she jumped up and ran to call the people of the house to kill the snakes, though she was afraid it was even then too late, and that the child must have already been crushed to death by them. But when she came back with the others, she saw Heracles sitting up in the shield and holding one of the snakes in each hand; he had seized them each by the neck, and was squeezing them so tight that their tongues were hanging out, and very {110} soon they were dead. Then he threw them away and went to sleep again; and the Thebans knew that a mighty hero had been born in their city.

When Heracles grew older, he learned all the things that heroes need to know,--how to guide the war-chariot, how to use the spear and bow, and how to fight with the fist and the sword. He was taught all this by the noblest heroes, and also by a Centaur named Chiron, who, like all the Centaurs, had a curious form--half of their body was that of a man, and the other half that of a horse. Chiron had been specially gifted with immortality, and he was very wise, and taught Heracles many things, especially how to know the stars, and how to heal wounds, and he told him stories of the gods and of the old heroes.

Heracles could easily be distinguished from all other men, for when he was eighteen years old he measured eight feet in height, and he had marvellous strength, and his eyes glittered like coals of fire. He had moreover a generous nature, and was always ready to help all true and good men. Amphitryon made him keeper of his flocks which pastured on Mount Cithaeron, and never before had such a lordly herdsman been seen. It happened once that a lion took up his abode on the mountain, and broke in among the flocks, and Heracles thought to himself, 'If I were to kill the lion, my flocks would not only be able to feed in safety, but I should also get a handsome skin to dress myself in.' So he set out for the mountain-passes where the lion had his lair, armed with nothing but a strong stick and a knife. When he came to the lion's cave, the huge beast sprang out upon him, but Heracles gave him a {111} good blow on the nose which made him stagger back, and when he had nearly beaten him to death with his stick, he finally gave him a mortal blow with the knife. Then he sat down quietly, and cut open the body of the lion and took off the skin, which he put on as a cloak as soon as it was dry. The jaws covered his head like a helmet, while the rest of the skin fell from his shoulders to his knees, and he twisted the fore-feet into a knot over his chest in order to prevent the wind from blowing it off. In this fashion he came down from the mountain, and anyone who had seen him from behind would have thought that a lion had grown out of his shoulders. It never occurred to him, however, that he had done anything out of the way in killing the lion.

Some time afterwards, there came along the road some men who had been sent by Erginus, the king of the powerful Minyae, to demand tribute from the Thebans. Ten years before this a Theban had thrown a stone at the father of Erginus and hit him on the head, so that he was carried home dying. Before he expired he charged his son to avenge his blood, and Erginus made war upon the Thebans and killed a number of them. He had also made them give him a hundred cows every year for the last nine years, and the messengers were now on their way to fetch the tribute for the tenth time. Heracles asked them who they were and where they were going, and when he heard that they were the messengers of the Minyae, his blood boiled so that he grew quite red in the face, for it angered him to think that the city of Thebes, to which he himself belonged, should pay tribute to a foreign {112} king. He told the messengers to return and never come again, and when they refused to obey, he threw them on the ground, notwithstanding their numbers, and tied their hands behind their backs; then he cut off their ears and noses, and told them to take these to the king for tribute. Thus outraged, the messengers returned and entreated the king to avenge them, and Erginus swore that he would not leave a man alive in Thebes, nor one stone upon another. But Heracles went to Thebes and called the citizens to arms, saying that he would be their leader. The gods equipped him right gloriously for the fight: Hermes gave him a sword, Apollo a bow and arrows, Hephaestus trappings of pure gold, and Athene a coat of mail. But a sword was too light and delicate a weapon for the powerful hand of Heracles, so he went out into the forest and tore up a stout young oaktree, which he trimmed and used as a club. When the battle began, Heracles looked, in comparison with the Minyae, like a lion among a flock of sheep. He killed King Erginus and put his army to flight, and obliged the Minyae to give the Thebans two hundred cows every year tor the future. King Creon had a beautiful daughter named Megara, and he gave her to Heracles for a wife out of gratitude to him for having conquered the Minyae.

3. _The Madness of Heracles, and his First Six Labours._

Heracles loved his wife very dearly, and the gods sent them three beautiful children, all of whom were sons. They lived a peaceful and happy life together, Heracles went out hunting and killed wild beasts, and when he {113} came home he played with his children. But Hera still hated him, and she one day afflicted him with such terrible madness that in his delusion he seized his children and threw them into the fire, so that they perished miserably. When the madness left him he could hardly endure life, so distressed was he at what he had done, and he could not bear to remain in the place where such a misfortune had happened to him. He left Thebes and went, first of all, to a man who knew how to purge him from the stain of blood; then he betook himself to Delphi and asked the Pythia where he must live in the future. The Pythia answered, 'Go to Mycenae and serve King Eurystheus for twelve years; allow him to impose upon you twelve hard Labours, and accomplish these to the best of your power.' Heracles was well pleased with this sentence, and was quite willing to perform the most difficult tasks, even such as would be set him by a deadly enemy like Eurystheus who hated and feared Heracles, thinking that he would some day take away the kingdom from him because it had belonged to his own grandfather Electryon. Heracles went to Mycenae and said to Eurystheus that he would serve him for the space of twelve years, and that during that time he would accomplish any twelve tasks that Eurystheus might choose to set him. The king was very glad to hear this, and he at once commanded Heracles to bring him the skin of the Nemean lion, hoping that he would perish in trying to secure it.

The Nemean lion had his lair near the town of Nemea, and his fame had spread far and wide. He had never bled from a wound, for his skin was so thick that no steel could pierce it. Heracles set out in pursuit of {114} the lion, and when he had found him, he shot at him with his bow and arrows, but they bounded off as if from the hardest stone. Finding that the arrows were of no use, Heracles then attacked him with his club, but the lion did not care to fight with him and ran away into the thickest part of the forest. Heracles ran after him, and chased him from morning till night. At last he came to a great cave and ran in there. Heracles noticed that the cave had another mouth, and he thought to himself, 'If I were to go in after him, he would still be able to escape.' So he first of all brought stones and blocked up one of the entrances, while the lion, who had never run so far before in one day, lay quietly in the dark inside, tired and frightened, and then he went into the cave and wrestled with him. The roaring of the lion echoed horribly from the walls of the cave, but Heracles was not frightened, and he wound his arm round the neck of the beast and pressed him with all his might against his own body until he died. Heracles could not take off his skin for he had brought no knife with him, so he hoisted the whole lion on to his shoulders, and went back to Mycenae. When he threw the huge beast on to the ground before Eurystheus, the king turned pale for his bad conscience made him afraid, and he thought, 'If he can strangle a lion like this, he would certainly not find it difficult to make an end of me.' So he at once sent him off to perform his second Labour, which was to destroy the Lernean Hydra, and during his absence he had an iron room built under the earth that looked like a cage for wild beasts, for it had a grating of iron bars. This was for {115} Eurystheus to get into when Heracles came back, in order that he might speak to him through the grating, so terribly afraid was he of the strong man.

Heracles set out in a war chariot, taking with him his young cousin Iolaus as his charioteer, and they soon came to the marshy district near the town of Lerne, where the Hydra lived. The Hydra was a huge snake with one body and nine heads, the centre one of which was immortal. She devoured any men or beasts that came near her, and destroyed the fields of corn. She had her den in a cavern close by a clear running stream, and when Heracles and Iolaus arrived at the place, she was lying stretched out on the ground, for she had just swallowed a few cows. She looked at the heroes with all her staring eyes, but did not move, because she was not hungry. However Heracles did not care to wait, so he threw burning javelins at her, which scorched her skin and made her furious with pain. She crept out of the cavern and glided up a tall oak tree, and all her nine heads shot down venom at Heracles from above him. But Heracles was on the alert; he held his club in his right hand, and twined his left arm round the Hydra just at the place where the ninefold neck grew out of her body, and when she lashed her tail about, he pressed her still more tightly against himself, so that she would have been only too glad to run away if she could. Now the Hydra had formed a friendship with a great lobster, and he, seeing that his friend was in danger, crept up to Heracles and scratched his foot with his claws. But he got decidedly the worst of it, for Heracles smote his shell with his club and broke it into a thousand pieces, so that the {116} poor lobster died. Then Heracles heaved a mighty blow on one of the Hydra's nine heads and struck it off, but two new heads immediately sprang from the bleeding neck, and every time he smote off a head, two more sprang up to replace it. Heracles now saw that he must set to work in a different manner, so he told Iolaus to set the forest on fire, and to pass a piece of burning wood over each neck as soon as he had cut off the head. In this way all the roots from which the heads grew were burnt away, and Heracles was thus able to kill all the heads that were mortal. The last was immortal, but he hewed it off also, and buried it, and rolled a huge stone on to the top of it. After this, there came a rain which extinguished the burning forest. The gall of the Hydra was the worst poison in the world, so Heracles cut open the Hydra's body and dipped his arrows into the gall, which made them absolutely deadly: if a man were only scratched even, by an arrow poisoned in this way, he must die.

Eurystheus was in his cage when Heracles came back from his conflict with the Hydra, and he commanded him to catch the Ceryneian hind, and bring her alive to Mycenae. This hind was under the protection of Artemis the goddess of the chase, and was very beautiful: her coat was milk-white, and her horns were of the purest gold. She could run so fast that the wind was quite out of breath when he tried to race with her, and, after having run the whole day long, she would skip about quite merrily without being in the least tired. At the command of Eurystheus, Heracles gave chase to her, and they took neither rest nor food, nor did they need rain or sunshine, but ran on day and {117} night without stopping for a whole year. At last they came to a river, and while the hind was hesitating whether she should jump into it, Heracles quickly took an unpoisoned arrow and shot at her. The purple-red blood flowed out over her little white coat, and she groaned with pain. She forgot to run away, and Heracles was able to seize her. He had only wounded her slightly with the arrow because he did not want to do her any harm, and now he laid cooling herbs upon the wound, and placing the hind on his shoulder, he carried her to Mycenae, and as soon as Eurystheus had seen her, he set her free again and let her run back into the forest.

That was the third Labour of Heracles. For the fourth, Eurystheus commanded him to catch the Erymanthian boar alive. This boar lived on Mount Erymanthus, and no huntsman who had tried to kill him had ever come back alive, for the boar had always ripped open his body with his tusks.

On his way to Mount Erymanthus, Heracles came to the country of the 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.