“Here they are!” he roared. “And now, good-bye!”
“What!” exclaimed Hercules. “Are you not coming back to your duty?”
“Am I a fool?” asked the giant. “Not I. Keep the honor of holding up the skies yourself, since you are so strong and willing. Never again for me!”
“At least, then,” said Hercules, “let me place my lion’s skin between my shoulders and the sky, so that the weight may be less painful to bear.”
Atlas could take no objection to that, so he put his own shoulders under the dome of heaven to let Hercules make himself as comfortable as the situation allowed. Hercules seized the chance, and let the whole weight of the sky fall upon the shoulders of Atlas once more. And there it still rests; and thus Atlas failed in trying to shift his own proper burden to another’s shoulders.
“Only three apples!” exclaimed Eurystheus, when Hercules returned. “You can’t have taken much trouble, to get so little. Go to Hades, and bring me Cerberus, the three-headed dog of Pluto!... He will never do that?” he thought to himself. “To reach Hades, one must die!”
PART IX.—HIS TWELFTH LABOR: THE DESCENT INTO HADES.
I DARESAY you have forgotten—for it is a long way back—the name of Admetus, that King of Pheræ in Thessaly, whom Apollo, when banished from heaven, served as a shepherd for nine years. Admetus did not know that it was a god whom he had to keep his sheep; but he was so good and kind a master that Apollo, revealing himself at the end of his exile, bade him name any boon he desired, and it should be granted.
There is no such difficult question in the world to answer as that. Admetus answered, “Grant that I may never die.”
But that is the one thing which not even the gods can grant to mortal men. The very cause of Apollo’s having been banished to earth was his killing the Cyclops for forging the thunderbolt with which Jupiter had killed Æsculapius for making dead men live again. Not even the Fates could change that law even for the sake of Apollo. But they said, “Admetus shall live so long as he can find somebody else to die instead of him whenever his death-time comes,” which was all they could allow.