you see blazing on Mount Oeta. Only his mother's share in him can perish; what he derived from me is immortal. I shall take him, dead to earth, to the heavenly shores, and I require of you all to receive him kindly. If any of you feel grieved at his attaining this honor, yet no

one can deny that he has deserved it." The gods all gave their assent; Juno only heard the closing words with some displeasure that she should be so particularly pointed at, yet not enough to make her regret the determination of her husband. So when the flames had consumed the mother's share of Hercules, the diviner part instead of being injured thereby seemed to start forth with new vigor, to assume a more lofty port and a more awful dignity. Jupiter enveloped him in a cloud, and took him up in a four-horse chariot to dwell among the stars. As he took his place in heaven, Atlas felt the added weight.

Juno, now reconciled to him, gave him her daughter Hebe in marriage.

The story of Hercules is evidently very ancient, preceding Homer. There is every reason to think that such a personage really ex

isted, for the imaginative

Ganymedes.

myth is of great beauty and gives the ideal of human perfection, devoting itself to the good of the human race, and, Prometheus like, sacrificing self continually for others. In the age and place in which he lived this ideal consisted in physical strength united

Hebe.

with perfect self-sacrifice, the first representing the natural man, the second qualities of such a high degree of morality that they were thought divine, and so he is made the son of Zeus by a mortal mother. The myth is probably Dorian in it origin. The labors may be chiefly allegorical, though some doubtless had fact as a basis. The final consummation of his

labors seems to justify the above view-the triumph over death, in dragging the dog Cerbérus to the light of day. On the other hand, his virtue is so human, that it has its temptations and falls, as, for instance, when he is enslaved by Omphale, like Samson by Delilah;

and at his death the mortal part is consumed by fire in a sublime manner, while his heavenly spirit ascends to the gods; when once the mortal part of him has perished, Juno lays aside her enmity and marries him to Hebe, her own daughter and the embodiment of youth.

There is another of the myths, which was probably first adopted by the Alexandrian school, namely, that Hercules represented the god of the sun, and that his twelve labors are the twelve signs of the Zodiac; in the first month the sun passes into the sign of Leo, and Hercules kills the Nemean lion, etc., etc.

But there is one paramount objection to our adopting this theory, namely, that the myth was established in Greece before there was any connection with Phoenicia or Egypt, which the astronomical theory demands. For a beautiful exposition of this

theory, however, see Grecian and Roman Mythology, by M. A. Dwight.

HEBE AND GANYMEDES.

Hebe, the daughter of Juno, and goddess of youth, was cupbearer to the gods. The usual story is, that she resigned her office on becoming the wife of

Hercules. But there is another statement which our countryman Crawford, the sculptor, has adopted in his group of Hebe and Ganymedes, now in the Athenaeum gallery. According to this, Hebe was dismissed from her office in consequence of a fall which she met with one day when in attendance on the gods. Her successor was Ganymedes, a Trojan boy whom Jupiter, in the disguise of an eagle, seized and carried off from the midst of his play fellows on Mount Ida, bore up to heaven, and installed in the vacant place.

This story typifies in a very beautiful manner the death of a lovely youth, and a melancholy charm surrounds it, which is relieved by the joy of the idea that

Ganymedes.

he has not died, but has been carried up to heaven to share the immortality of the gods.

Tennyson, in his Palace of Art, describes among the decorations on the walls a picture representing this legend:

"There, too, flushed Ganymedes, his rosy thigh

Half buried in the eagle's down,

Sole as a flying star shot through the sky
Above the pillared town."

And in Shelley's Prometheus, Jupiter calls to his cup-bearer thus.

Bulfinch-15

"Pour forth heaven's wine, Idaean Ganymedes,

And let it fill the Daedal cups like fire."

CHAPTER XX.

THESEUS-DAEDALUS-CASTOR AND POLLUX.

THESEUS.

THESEUS was the son of Aegeus, king of Athens, and of Aethra, daughter of the king of Troezen. He was brought up at Troezen, and when arrived at manhood was to proceed to Athens and present himself to his father. Aegeus, on parting from Aethra, before the birth of his son, placed his sword and shoes under a large stone, and directed her to send his son to him when he became strong enough to roll away the stone and take them from under it. When she thought the time had come, his mother led Theseus to the stone, and he removed it with ease, and took the sword and shoes. As the roads were infested with robbers, his grandfather pressed him earnestly to take the shorter and safer way to his father's country, by sea; but the youth, feeling in himself the spirit and soul of a hero, and eager to signalize himself like Hercules, with whose fame all Greece then rang, by destroying the evil-doers and monsters that oppressed the country, determined on the more perilous and adventurous journey by land.

His first day's journey brought him to Epidaurus, where dwelt a man named Periphetes, a son of Vulcan. This ferocious savage always went armed with a club of iron, and all travellers stood in terror of his violence. When he saw Theseus approach he assailed him, but speedily fell beneath the blows of the young hero, who took possession of his club, and bore it ever afterward as a memorial of his first victory.

Several similar contests with the petty tyrants and marauders of the country followed, in all of which Theseus was victorious. One of these evil-doers was called Procrustes, or the Stretcher. He had an iron bedstead, on which he used to tie all travellers who fell into his hands. If they were shorter than the bed, he