H E R C U L E S.
This celebrated hero was, after his death, as a reward for the many courageous deeds he had performed, placed among the gods, and rewarded with divine honours. It has been asserted that there were many of the same name, some writers extending the number to forty-three; though of these the son of Jupiter and Alcmena is the most celebrated, and as such, doubtless, many of their actions have been attributed to him. In order to gain the affections of Alcmena, Jupiter took the form of her husband, and from this union was born Hercules, who was brought up at Tirynthus; Juno, however, could not look upon him with pleasure, and before he was nine months old, sent two snakes intending them to devour him. Far from fearing these terrible enemies, the child grasped them boldly in both his hands, and strangled them, while his brother Iphielus shrieked aloud in terror.
He was early instructed in those arts in which he afterwards became so famous, for Castor taught him to fight, Eurytus to shoot with the bow and arrows, and Autolycus to drive a chariot; after this, he perfected himself under the tuition of the Centaur, Chiron. When in the eighteenth year of his age, a huge lion devastated the people, and preyed on the flocks of Amphitryon, laying waste also the adjacent country. From this monster Hercules relieved them, and when Erginus, King of Orchomedas, sent for his yearly tribute of one hundred crowns, Hercules mutilated the servants who came to raise it, and on Erginus coming to avenge their death, he slew him, and delivered his country from the inglorious tribute.
These heroic deeds soon became bruited abroad, and Creon, who reigned in Thebes, rewarded his courage by giving him his daughter in marriage, and entrusting him with the government of his people.
As Hercules was by the will of Jupiter, subjected to the power of Eurystheus, the latter, jealous of the fame he was achieving, ordered him to appear before him.
Proud of his strength and of his successes, the hero refused, and Juno to punish him, struck him with a sudden madness, in which he killed his own offspring, imagining them to be those of Eurystheus.
Hercules. "Hast thou beheld the carnage of my sons?
Theseus. I heard, I saw the ills thou showest me.
Hercules. Why hast thou then unveiled me to the Sun?
Theseus. Why not? Can mortal man pollute the Gods?
Hercules. Fly, thou unhappy, my polluting guilt!
Theseus. Friends, from their friends, no stain of guilt contract.
Hercules. This hath my thanks, indeed, I thought thee good.
Theseus. And for that good deed, now I pity thee!
Hercules. I want thy pity, I have slain my sons.
Theseus. Thee, for thy grace, in other ills I mourn!
Hercules. Whom hast thou known involved in ills like these?
Theseus. Thy vast misfortunes reach from earth to heaven.
Hercules. I therefore am prepared, and fixed to die.
Theseus. And deemest thou the gods regard thy threats?
Hercules. The gods regard not me, nor I the gods!
Theseus. Forbear: lest thy proud words provoke worse ill.
Hercules. I now am full, and can contain no more.
Theseus. What dost thou? Whither doth thy rage transport thee?
Hercules. From whence I came, to death's dark realms I go.
Theseus. This is the language of a vulgar spirit.
Hercules. Thou from misfortune free, canst counsel me;
Theseus. Doth the much suffering Hercules say this?
Hercules. He had not suffered this, had ills a mean.
Theseus. The brave protector, the kind friend of men.
Hercules. They nought avail me.
Theseus. Greece will not suffer thee to die thus rashly.
Hercules. Now hear me whilst my arguments refute
All thy monitions. Whilst I yet
Hung on the breast, two hideous serpents came,
Sent by Juno to destroy me, rolled their spires
Within my cradle. When my age advanced
To youth's fresh bloom, why should I say what toils
I then sustained? What lions—what dire forms
Of Triple Typhons, or what giants, what
Of monsters banded in the Centaur war,
Did I not quell? The Hydra, raged around,
With heads still spouting from the sword I slew.
These and a thousand other toils endured,
To the dark regions of the dead I went,
To drag the triple headed dog to light,
That guards the gate of Pluto;—the command
Of stern Eurystheus. This last bloody deed,
(Wretch that I am!) the murder of my sons
Have I achieved, to crown my house with ills.
I am reduced to this unhappiness,
At my loved Thebes I cannot dwell, for here
What temple, what assembly of my friends
Can I approach? Pollutions rank as mine,
Allow no converse. Should I go to Argos?
How, since I fly my country, should I seek
Refuge in other states, malignant eyes
Would scowl on me when known, and bitter tongues
Goad me with these reproaches:—Is not this
The son of Jove, who slew his sons and wife?
Then bid me thence with curses on my head.
And to the man, whose former days were passed
In happier fortune, mournful is the change;
But him, that in distresses hath been trained,
Naught grieves, as though lie were allied to ills.
And to this misery shall I come, I ween.
The earth will cry aloud, forbidding me
To touch her soil, to pass its waves, the sea,
And every fountain whence the rivers flow.
Thus like Ixions, on the whirling wheel
In chains, will be my stake: and this were best,
That never Grecian might behold me more,
With whom in better days I have been happy.
Why therefore should I live? What blessing were it
To gain a useless and unhallowed life?"
After his recovery he consulted the oracle of Apollo, and was told that he must act in compliance with the will of Jupiter, and be subservient to the commands of Eurystheus for twelve years, and that after he had been successful in the labours to be imposed upon him, he would be admitted amongst the gods. This answer determined him to bear with fortitude whatever gods or men might command, and Eurystheus, seeing so perfect a hero subjected to him, ordered him to perform the most terrible and dangerous deeds he could imagine, which are now generally known as the twelve labours of Hercules.
The favors of the gods had completely armed him when he undertook his labours. He had received a coat of arms and helmet from Minerva, a sword from Mercury, a horse from Apollo, and from Vulcan a golden cuirass and brazen buskin, with a celebrated club of brass, according to the opinion of some writers, but more generally supposed to be of wood, and cut by the hero himself in the forest of Nemæa. The first labour imposed upon Hercules by Eurystheus, was to kill the lion of Nemæa, which ravaged the country near Mycenæ. The hero, unable to destroy him with his arrow, boldly attacked him with his club, pursued him to his den, and after a close and sharp engagement, he choked him to death. He carried the dead beast on his shoulders to Mycenæ, and ever after clothed himself with the skin. Eurystheus was so astonished at the sight of the beast, and at the courage of Hercules, that he ordered him never to enter the gates of the city when he returned from his expeditions, but to wait for his orders without the walls. He even made himself a hiding place into which he retired whenever Hercules returned. The second labour of Hercules was to destroy the Lernæan hydra, which had seven heads. This celebrated
monster he attacked with his arrows, and soon after he came to a close engagement, and by means of his heavy club, destroyed the heads of his enemy. But this was productive of no advantage, for as soon as one head was beaten to pieces by the club, immediately two sprang up, and the labour of Hercules would have remained unfinished, had he not commanded his friend Iolas, who accompanied him, to burn, with a hot iron, the root of the head which he had crushed to pieces. This succeeded, and Hercules became victorious, opened the belly of the monster, and dipped his arrow in the gall, to render the wounds which he gave, fatal and incurable. He was ordered in his third labour to bring alive and unhurt, into the presence of Eurystheus, a stag, famous for its incredible swiftness, its golden horns, and brazen feet. This celebrated animal frequented the neighbourhood of Œnoe, and Hercules was employed for a whole year in continually pursuing it; at last, he caught it in a trap, or when tired, or according to others by slightly wounding it, and lessening its swiftness. As he returned victorious, Diana snatched the stag from him, and severely reprimanded him for molesting an animal which was sacred to her. Hercules pleaded necessity, and by representing the commands of Eurystheus, he appeased the goddess and obtained the beast. The
Ignorant of the precise situation of the beautiful garden containing them, Hercules applied to the nymphs in the neighbourhood of the Po for information, and was told that Nereus, if properly managed, would direct him in his pursuits. The hero seized Nereus while he slept, and the sea god, unable to escape from his grasp, answered all the questions he proposed, which led him to Atlas, in Africa, and of him, he demanded three of the golden apples. Atlas placed the burden of the heavens on the shoulders of Hercules, and went in quest of the apples. At his return, Hercules expressed a wish to ease his load by putting something on his head, and when Atlas assisted him to remove the inconvenience, he artfully left the burden, and seized the apples which Atlas had thrown on the ground. According to other accounts, Hercules gathered them without the assistance of Atlas, after killing a dragon which guarded the tree.
The twelfth and last, and most dangerous of his labours, was to bring upon earth the three-headed dog Cerberus. This was cheerfully undertaken by Hercules, and he descended into hell by a cave on Mount Tænarus. He was permitted by Pluto to carry away his friends Theseus and Pirithous, who were condemned to punishment in hell; and Cerberus also was granted to his prayers, provided he made use of no arms, but only force to drag him away. Hercules, as some report, carried him back to hell, after he had brought him before Eurystheus. Besides these arduous labours, which the jealousy of Eurystheus imposed upon him, he also achieved others of his own accord, equally great and celebrated.
He delivered Hesione, a daughter of Laomedon, King of Troy, from a sea monster, to whom the Trojans yearly presented a marriageable maiden; and when the hero had fulfilled his task, Laomedon refused to give him the tribute of six beautiful horses, which he had promised to him. Hercules, incensed at his treachery, besieged Troy, and put the king and his family to the sword.
"First, two dread snakes, at Juno's vengeful nod,
Climbed round the cradle of the sleeping God;
Waked by the shrilling hiss, and rustling sound,
And shrieks of fair attendants trembling round,
Their gasping throats with clenching hands he holds;
Till death entwists their convoluted folds.
And in red torrents from her seven gold heads
Fell Hydra's blood in Lerna's lake he sheds;
Grasps Achelous with resistless force,
And drags the roaring river to his course:
Binds with loud bellowing and with hideous yell
The monster bull, and three-fold dog of hell."
"Then, where Nemea's howling forests wave,
He drives the Lion to his dusky cave;
Seized by the throat the howling fiend disarms,
And tears his gaping jaws with sinewy arms;
Lifts proud Anteus from his mother-plains,
And with strong grasp, the struggling giant strains;
Back falls his fainting head, and clammy hair,
Writhe his weak limbs, and flits his life in air;—
By steps reverted o'er the blood-dropped fen
He tracks huge Ceacus to his forest den!
Where breathing flames through brazen lips, he fled,
And shakes the rock-roofed cavern o'er his head!
Last, with wide arms the solid earth he tears,
Piles rock on rock, on mountain, mountain rears;
Heaves up huge Abyla in Afric's sand,
Crowns with huge Calpe Europe's salient strand,
Crests with opposing towers the splendid scene,
And pours from urns immense, the sea between.
Loud o'er her whirling flood Charybdis roars
Affrighted Scylla bellows round her shores,
Vesuvius groans through all his echoing caves,
And Etna thunders o'er the insurgent waves."
When these were performed, he became deeply enamoured of Iole, daughter of Eurystheus, but she, being refused to his entreaties, he became insane a second time, and murdered Iphitus, the only one of the sisters of Iole who was willing to assist him in obtaining her.
After some time had passed, he was purified from this murder, and his insanity was at an end. However, the gods were not satisfied, but persecuted him still further, for he was smitten with an indisposition which compelled him once more to consult the oracle of Delphi.
Not being pleased with the manner in which his application was received, he resolved, in the heat of passion, to desecrate the sacred temple by plundering it, and carrying away the holy tripod. Apollo opposed him, and a fierce conflict ensued, to put an end to which, however, Jupiter interfered with his Thunderbolts.
Indignant at the insult offered to the sacred edifice, the oracle declared that it could only be wiped away by the hero becoming a slave, and remaining in the most abject servitude for three years.
In compliance with the decree, Mercury, by the order of Jupiter, sold him to Omphale, Queen of Lydia, as a slave. But his services to this queen so astonished her, that she freed him from his servitude and married him. When the term for which he had been sold expired, Hercules left her, and returned to Peloponnessus, where he re-established Tyndaris on the throne of Sparta.
After this, he became one of the numerous suitors of Dejanira, who had been promised by her father in marriage to that one who should prove the strongest of all his competitors. The most dangerous foe to Hercules was Achelous, a river god, who, finding himself inferior in strength, changed himself into a serpent, and afterwards into an ox. Serpent strangling was, however, nothing new to Hercules, and he had but little trouble with his enemy as an ox, until at last Achelous retired in disgrace to his bed of waters.
After his marriage with Dejanira, he was compelled to leave his father-in-law's kingdom, from having accidentally slain one of the citizens.
On his way to Ceyx, accompanied by Dejanira, he was stopped by a swollen stream, and Nessus, the Centaur, offered to convey her safely on his back to the opposite side of the river. As the hero's only anxiety was for her, he accepted the offer with thanks, and when he saw them through the worst part of the water in safety, prepared to follow, but no sooner had the Centaur landed with Dejanira, than he attempted to offer violence to his beautiful burthen, and to carry her away in the very sight of her husband.
The extraordinary efforts of the enraged Hercules, brought him up in time to let fly a poisoned arrow at the ravisher, which mortally wounded him. In his anguish, and burning for vengeance on his slayer, he gave Dejanira his tunic, which was covered with his blood.
"Take this," he said, feigning a repentance, "if ever your husband prove unfaithful, it will recall him to your arms;" and with this he expired.
"For now his bridal charge employed his cares.
The strong limbed Nessus thus officious cried,
For he the shallows of the stream had tried,
'Swim thou, Alcides, all thy strength prepare,
On yonder bank I'll lodge thy nuptial care.'
Th' Aonian chief to Nessus trusts his wife.
All pale, and trembling for her hero's life:
Clothed as he stood in the fierce lion's hide,
The laden quiver o'er his shoulder tied.
Far cross the stream his bow and club were cast,
Swift he plunged in, 'these billows shall be past,'
He said, nor sought where smoother waters glide
But stemmed the rapid dangers of the tide.
The bank he reached, again the bow he bears,
When, hark! his bride's known voice alarms his ears,
'Nessus, to thee I call,' aloud he cries,—
'Vain is thy trust in flight, be timely wise;
Thou monster double shaped, my right set free,
If thou no reverence owe my fame and me,
Yet kindred should thy lawless lust deny,
Think not perfidious wretch, from me to fly;
Tho' winged with horse's speed, wounds shall pursue,'
Swift as his words the fatal arrow flew,
The Centaur's back admits the feathered wood,
And thro' his breast the barbed arrow stood,
Which when in anguish, thro' the flesh he tore
From both the wounds gushed forth the spumy gore,
Mixed with the Lernæan venom, this he took,
Nor dire revenge his dying breast forsook,
His garment, in the reeking purple dyed
To rouse love's passion, he presents the bride."
Ovid.
Ceyx received them both with great favour, but Hercules could not forget that he had been refused the hand of Iole, although in possession of the heart of Dejanira, and therefore made war against her father, killing him, with three of his sons, while his former lover, Iole, fell into his hands, and found that she still held no slight possession of his affections.
She accompanied him to Œta, where he was going to raise an altar, and offer a sacrifice to Jupiter. Dejanira, aware of his purpose, and of the affection he had manifested for her rival, sent to him the tunic given her by the Centaur, Nessus, but no sooner had he put it on, than the poison with which it was saturated, penetrated through his bones, and attaching itself to the flesh, eat into it like fire.
"She now resolves to send the fatal vest,
Dyed with Lernæan gore, whose power might move
His soul anew, and rouse declining love,
Nor knew she what her sudden rage bestows,
When she to Lychas trusts her future woes;
With soft endearment she the boy commands,
To bear the garment to her husband's hands.
Th' unwilling hero takes the gift in haste,
And o'er his shoulders Lerna's poison cast,
At first the fire with frankincense he strews,
And utters to the gods his holy vows;
And on the marble altar's polished frame
Pours forth the grapy stream; the rising flame
Sudden dissolves the subtle poisoning juice
Which taints his blood, and all his nerves bedews.
With wonted fortitude he bore the smart,
And not a groan confessed his burning heart,
At length his patience was subdued by pain
Œtes wide forests echo with his cries;
Now to rip off the deathful robe he tries.
Where'er he plucks the vest, the skin he tears
The mangled muscles and huge bones he bares.
(A ghastly sight!) or raging with his pain,
To rend the sick'ning plague, he tugs in vain.
As the red iron hisses in the flood,
So boils the venom in his curdling blood.
Now with the greedy flame his entrails glow,
And livid sweats down all his body flow.
The cracking nerves, burnt up, are burst in twain,
The lurking venom melts his swimming brain."
Ovid.
When Lychas, by the command of Dejanira, had brought the fatal scarf, and Hercules became aware of its dreadful power, he seized the messenger, and hurled him into the sea with fearful violence.
In vain did he attempt to pull it off, he only tore with it masses of flesh. In the midst of his miserable tortures, his groans of anguish were mixed with imprecations on the credulity of Dejanira, and the jealousy and hatred of Juno, to whom he attributed all his pains.
"Then lifting both his hands aloft, he cries,
'Glut thy revenge, dread empress of the skies;
Sate with my death the rancour of thy heart,
Look down with pleasure and enjoy my smart;
Or, if e'er pity moved a hostile breast
For here I stand thy enemy profest;'
Meanwhile, whate'er was in the power of flame,
Was all consumed; his body's nervous frame
No more was known; of human form bereft—
The eternal part of Jove alone was left.
As an old serpent casts his scaly vest,
Wreathes in the Sun, in youthful glory drest;
So, when Alcides' mortal mould resigned,
His better part enlarged, and grew refined:
August his visage shone; almighty Jove,
In his swift car his honoured offspring drove:
High o'er the hollow clouds the coursers fly,
And lodge the hero in the starry sky."
Ovid.
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."
Thurlow.
He has received many surnames and epithets, either from the place where his worship was established, or from the labours which he had achieved; his temples were numerous and magnificent. The Phœnicians offered Quails on his altars, and as it was supposed that he presided over dreams, the sick and infirm were sent to sleep in his temples, that they might receive in their visions the agreeable presages of their approaching recovery.
The children of Hercules are as numerous as the labours and difficulties which he underwent, and became so powerful after his death, that they alone had the bravery to invade the Peloponnessus.
"'Take hence this hateful life, with tortures torn,
Inured to trouble, and to labours born.
Death is the gift most welcome to my woe,
And such a gift a stepdame may bestow.
Was it for this Busiris was subdued,
Whose barbarous temples reeked with stranger's blood?
Pressed in these arms his fate Antæus found,
Nor gained recruited vigour from the ground.
Did I not triple-formed Geryon fell?
Or, did I fear the triple dog of hell?
Did not these hands the bull's armed forehead hold?
Are not our mighty toils in Elis told?
Did not Stymphalian lakes proclaim my fame?
And fair Parthenian woods resound my name?
Who seized the golden belt of Thermodon?
And who the dragon-guarded apples won?
Could the fair Centaur's strength my force withstand?
Or the fell boar that spoiled the Arcadian land?
Did not these arms the Hydra's rage subdue,
Who from his wounds to double fury grew.
What if the Thracian horses, fat with gore,
Who human bodies in their manger tore,
I saw, and with their barbarous lord, o'erthrew?
What if these hands Nemæa's lion slew?
Did not this neck the heavenly globe sustain?
The female partner of the Thunderer's reign,
Fatigued at length, suspends her harsh commands,
Yet no fatigue has slacked these valiant hands;
But now, new plagues consume me; neither force,
Nor arms, nor darts can stop their raging course,
Devouring flame through my racked entrails strays,
And on my lungs and shrivelled muscles preys.'"
Ovid.
As, however, the distemper was incurable, and death inevitable, he determined to die the hero he had lived, and giving his bow and arrow to Philoctetes, he erected a funeral pile on Mount Œta, and spreading upon it his lion's skin, lay down with dignity and composure, his head placed upon his club, to await his death. The pile was lighted, and the flames arose in volumes, but the hero gazed calmly upon them, unalarmed at his impending doom. His mind was resolved to meet his fate, when, suddenly, the burning pile was surrounded with dark smoke, the fire burned like a furnace, and when it had consumed the mortal portion of Hercules, a chariot and horses was seen awaiting, which carried his immortal part to heaven, there to be seated amongst the gods. Loud claps of thunder accompanied his exaltation, and when his friends sought his ashes to grant them burial, unable to find them, they erected an altar to his memory, upon the spot where the burning pile had been.