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His twelfth exploit was to fetch Cerberus from the lower world. To this end, he descended into Hades, accompanied by

Mercury and Minerva.
There he obtained per-

mission from Pluto to

carry Cerberus to the upper air, provided he could do it without the use of weapons. In spite of the monster's struggling, he seized. him, held him fast, carried him to Eurystheus, and afterward restored him to the lower regions. While in Hades,

Hercules, also, obtained the liberty of Theseus, his admirer and imitator, who had been detained there for an attempt at abducting Proserpine.1

Two other exploits not recorded among the twelve labors are the victories over Antæus and Cacus. Antæus, the son of Posidon and Gæa, was a giant and wrestler, whose strength was invincible so long as he remained in contact with his mother Earth. He

compelled all strangers who came to his country to wrestle with him, on condition that if conquered, they should suffer death. Hercules encountered him, and finding that it was of no avail to throw him,- for he always rose with renewed strength from every fall,-lifted him up from the earth, and strangled him in the air. Later writers teli of an army of Pygmies which, finding Hercules asleep after his defeat of Antæus, made preparations to

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1 § 156.

attack him, as if they were about to attack a city. But the hero, awakening, laughed at the little warriors, wrapped some of them up in his lion's skin, and carried them to Eurystheus.

Cacus was a giant who inhabited a cave on Mount Aventine, and plundered the surrounding country. When Hercules was driving home the oxen of Geryon, Cacus stole part of the cattle, while the hero slept. That their footprints might not indicate where they had been driven, he dragged them backward by their tails to his cave. Hercules was deceived by the stratagem, and would have failed to find his oxen, had it not happened that while he was driving the remainder of the herd past the cave where the stolen ones were concealed, those within beginning to low, discovered themselves to him. Hercules promptly despatched the thief. Through most of these expeditions Hercules was attended by Iolaus, his devoted friend, the son of his half-brother Iphicles.

§ 140. On the later exploits of the hero, we can dwell but briefly. Having, in a fit of madness, killed his friend Iphitus, he was condemned for the offence to spend three years as the slave of Queen Omphale. He lived effeminately, wearing at times the dress of a woman, and spinning wool with the handmaidens of Omphale, while the queen wore his lion's skin. But during this period he contrived to engage in about as many adventures as would fill the life of an ordinary hero. He threw the bloodthirsty Lityerses' into the river Mæander; he discovered the body of Icarus and buried it; he joined the company of Argonauts, who were on their way to Colchis to secure the golden fleece, and he captured the thievish gnomes, called Cercopes.* In the Argonautic adventure he was attended by a lad, Hylas, whom he tenderly loved, and on whose account he deserted the expedition in Mysia.

2

§ 141. The Loss of Hylas."

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Never was Heracles apart from Hylas, not when midnoon was high in heaven, not when Dawn with her white horses speeds upwards to the dwell.

1 Theocritus, Idyl X. Lang's translation.

8 § 145.

4 See Commentary.

2 § 150.
Theocritus, Idyl XIII. Lang's translation.

ing of Zeus, not when the twittering nestlings look towards the perch, while their mother flaps her wings above the smoke-browned beam; and all this that the lad might be fashioned to his mind, and might drive a straight furrow, and come to the true measure of man. . . .

"And Hylas of the yellow hair, with a vessel of bronze in his hand, went to draw water against supper-time, for Heracles himself and the steadfast Telamon, for these comrades twain supped ever at one table. Soon was he ware of a spring, in a hollow land, and the rushes grew thickly round it, and dark swallow-wort, and green maiden-hair, and blooming parsley, and deergrass spreading through the marshy land. In the midst of the water the nymphs were arranging their dances, the sleepless nymphs, dread goddesses of the country people, Eunice, and Malis, and Nycheia, with her April eyes. And now the boy was holding out the wide-mouthed pitcher to the water, intent on dipping it; but the nymphs all clung to his hand, for love of the Argive lad had fluttered the soft hearts of all of them. Then down he sank into the black water, headlong all, as when a star shoots flaming from the sky, plumb in the deep it falls; and a mate shouts out to the seamen, ‘Up with the gear, my lads, the wind is fair for sailing.'

"Then the nymphs held the weeping boy on their laps, and with gentle words were striving to comfort him. But the son of Amphitryon was troubled about the lad, and went forth, carrying his bended bow in Scythian fashion, and the club that is ever grasped in his right hand. Thrice he shouted 'Hylas!' as loud as his deep throat could call, and thrice again the boy heard him, and thrice came his voice from the water, and, hard by though he was, he seemed very far away. And as when a bearded lion, a ravening lion on the hills, hears the bleating of a fawn afar off, and rushes forth from his lair to seize it, his readiest meal, even so the mighty Heracles, in longing for the lad, sped through the trackless briars, and ranged over much country.

"Reckless are lovers: great toils did Heracles bear, in hills and thickets wandering; and Jason's quest was all postponed to this. . .

"Thus loveliest Hylas is numbered with the Blessed; but for a runaway they girded at Heracles-the heroes - because he roamed from Argo of the sixty oarsmen. But on foot he came to Colchis and inhospitable Phasis."

§ 142. The Expedition against Laomedon. After his servitude under Omphale was ended, Hercules sailed with eighteen ships against Troy. For Laomedon, king of that realm, had refused to give Hercules the horses of Neptune, which he had promised in gratitude for the rescue of his daughter Hesione from the seamonster. The hero, overcoming Troy, placed a son of Laomedon, 1 § 108.

Priam, upon the throne, and gave Hesione to Telamon, who, with Peleus, Oïcles, and other Greek heroes, had accompanied him. Also worthy of mention among the exploits of Hercules were his successful expeditions against Pylos and Sparta, his victory over the giants, his struggle with Death for the body and life of Alcestis,1 and his delivery, according to prophecy, of Prometheus, who, until that time, had remained in chains upon the Caucasian Mountains.2 $143. The Death of Hercules. Finally the hero married Dejanira, daughter of Eneus of Calydon, and sister of Meleager of the Calydonian hunt. With her he lived happily three years. But on one occasion, as they journeyed together, they came to a river, across which the centaur Nessus carried travellers for a stated fee. Hercules proceeded to ford the river, and gave Dejanira to Nessus to be carried across. Nessus, however, attempted to make off with her; whereupon Hercules, hearing her cries, shot an arrow into his heart. The centaur as he died, bade Dejanira take a portion of his blood and keep it, saying that it might be used as a charm to preserve the love of her husband. Dejanira did so. Before long, jealous of Hercules' fondness for Iole of Echalia, a captive maiden, she steeped a sacrificial robe of her husband's in the blood of Nessus. As soon as the garment became warm on the body of Hercules, the poison penetrated his limbs. In his frenzy he seized Lichas, who had brought him the fatal robe, and hurled him into the sea; then tried to wrench off the garment, but it stuck to his flesh, and tore away whole pieces of his body.

"Alcides, from Echalia crowned

With conquest, felt the envenomed robe, and tore,
Through pain, up by the roots Thessalian pines,

And Lichas from the top of Eta threw

Into the Euboic Sea." 3

In this state he embarked on board a ship, and was conveyed home. Dejanira, on seeing what she had unwittingly done, hanged herself. Hercules, prepared to die, ascended Mount Eta, where

1 § 81.

2 §§ 22-25.

3 Milton.

he built a funeral pile of trees, gave his bow and arrows to Philoctetes, and laid himself upon the pile, his head resting on his club, and his lion's skin spread over him. With a countenance as serene as if he were taking his place at a festal board, he commanded Philoctetes to apply the torch. The flames spread apace, and soon invested the whole mass."

The gods themselves grieved to see the champion of the earth so brought to his end. But Jupiter took care that only his mother's part in him should perish by the flames. The immortal element, derived from Jupiter himself, was translated to heaven; and by the consent of the gods even of reluctant Juno - Hercules was admitted as a deity to the ranks of the immortals. The whitearmed queen of heaven was finally reconciled to the offspring of Alcmena. She adopted him for her son, and gave him in marriage her daughter Hebe.

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"Deep degraded to a coward's slave,

Endless contests bore Alcides brave,
Through the thorny path of suffering led;
Slew the Hydra, crushed the lion's might,
Threw himself, to bring his friend to light,
Living, in the skiff that bears the dead.
All the torments, every toil of earth,
Juno's hatred on him could impose,
Well he bore them, from his fated birth
To life's grandly mournful close.

"Till the god, the earthly part forsaken,
From the man in flames asunder taken,
Drank the heavenly ether's purer breath.
Joyous in the new unwonted lightness,
Soared he upwards to celestial brightness,
Earth's dark heavy burden lost in death.
High Olympus gives harmonious greeting

To the hall where reigns his sire adored;

1 See § 169. According to Sophocles, Philoctetes' father Poas applied the torch 2 See the spirited poems, Deianeira and Herakles, in the classical, but too little read, Epic of Hades, by Lewis Morris.

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