The Twelve Labors of Hercules Read online

  Now shortly before this, Hercules’ kinsman, Eurystheus, had become High King of Mycenae. And even though Hercules did not know that he himself would have been king had it not been for the trickery of Hera, he bitterly resented the fact that Eurystheus, who had been born on the same day he was, should rule the House of Perseus and the most powerful kingdom in Greece.

  “I know of whom you speak,” he growled. “And I shall never do it.”

  “What is your will against that of the gods?” asked the Pythoness. “When the burden of your guilt becomes heavy enough you will do it.”

  “Never!” said Hercules. And climbing up out of the cave he left Delphi. However, knowing that he was still defiled, he did not return to Thebes but again wandered the woods and wild places as he had before Iphicles found him.

  For several weeks he lived thus, completely alone. Finally, realizing that as long as he refused to bow to the will of the gods he would not be able to marry Megara, he put aside his pride and set out for Mycenae.

  4

  THE FIRST LABOR: THE NEMEAN LION

  Copreus, herald of King Eurystheus, hurried into the great hall of the palace at Mycenae and nodded to the king.

  “He is coming,” he said.

  Eurystheus sat up straighter on his throne, pulling his cloak around him. Hard on the herald’s heels Hercules strode into the hall, and the two men looked at one another: Hercules, taller by a head than any other in the hall, his hair a reddish gold, with mighty muscles rippling under the sunburned skin of his powerful arms and an olivewood club over his shoulder; and Eurystheus, pale, with a short black beard and dark eyes, and little that was royal about him except his rich dress.

  Though they had never met before, each had strong feelings about the other. Hercules disliked Eurystheus, but Eurystheus hated Hercules with a deep and abiding hatred—hated him because he knew that it was merely through an accident of birth that he was king, while Hercules had become a hero through his own strength and courage. And now, seeing Hercules for the first time, Eurystheus also feared him, and his fear increased his hatred. But he was wily, whereas Hercules was open and direct, and so he hid his feelings behind a smile, saying, “Greetings, Hercules. I have been expecting you.”

  “Why?” asked Hercules.

  “There have been rumors for some time that you would be coming to see me.”

  “Bad news travels fast,” said Hercules.

  “I did not consider it bad news that I would soon be meeting one of my kinsmen, especially one who is so great a hero.”

  “It may not have been bad news for you, but it was for me,” said Hercules bluntly. “I have been told that there were a few small things you might want me to do for you.”

  “Very small,” said Eurystheus. “So small, in fact, that I am embarrassed even to mention them.”

  “Well, the sooner I begin, the sooner I will be finished. What’s the first?”

  “I thought we might begin with something truly simple,” said Eurystheus. “Your first task will be to kill and flay the Nemean lion.”

  “It appears I have misjudged you,” said Hercules. “I feared you might be making game of me and would ask me to do something really difficult.” And raising his club in a salute, he left the great hall.

  Though Hercules spoke lightly, he knew that this first labor of his would not be as easy as he pretended. For the Nemean lion was not only an enormous beast, far larger and even more savage and destructive than the lion he had killed near Thebes, but its skin was said to be proof against all weapons.

  Arming himself, Hercules set off for Nemea, which lay north and west of Mycenae. He arrived at dusk and found the whole countryside deserted, for the lion had either killed or driven off most of those who lived there. Finally he came upon a shepherd with a tear-stained face who was about to sacrifice a ram. When Hercules asked him why he had been weeping, the shepherd said that his son had been killed by the lion the day before. He was about to sacrifice the ram to Hera in the hope that she would keep the beast away from him and what remained of his flock.

  “It may be that I shall be able to do that,” said Hercules, “and also to avenge your son’s death. For I am here to find and kill the lion. Give me a week’s time. If I return safely, you and I will sacrifice the ram together—not to Hera, but to Zeus—for he will have aided me in this task. If I do not return, sacrifice the ram to my memory.”

  The shepherd agreed, and Hercules spent the night with him, in the morning setting off into the hills. For five days he searched for the lion. On the morning of the sixth day he came upon a bloody trail. He followed it to a cave high upon a lonely mountain. As he approached, the lion came out of the cave, yawned, and stretched himself. Raising his bow, Hercules sent an arrow whistling straight toward the lion’s heart. The arrow shattered on its impenetrable hide.

  Advancing on the beast, Hercules slashed at it with his sword. The blade broke. Dropping the useless hilt, he dealt the lion a great blow with his club. The tough olivewood splintered as if it had struck the hardest of rock. With a roar, the lion sprang at him, its jaws wide. Hercules dodged its sharp claws and closed with the lion, taking it by the throat. He now knew that what had been said about the beast was true. Its hide was indeed proof against all weapons, and his only defense lay in his own strength. Though the beast snarled savagely, trying to reach him with tooth and claw, he held it in an iron grip and his fingers tightened until he had strangled it even as he had strangled the serpents Hera had sent to destroy him when he was an infant.

  Shouldering the huge carcass, Hercules started down the mountain. He reached the shepherd’s hut the next evening. The shepherd was again preparing to sacrifice the ram, this time to Hercules’ memory. He was overjoyed to see Hercules, and they performed the sacrifice together in thanks to Zeus.

  The next day, with the lion on his shoulders, Hercules set off for Mycenae. Word of his coming had preceded him, and when he arrived, Eurystheus, surrounded by an armed guard, was waiting for him outside the city gates.

  “Here is your lion,” said Hercules, dropping it at Eurystheus’ feet. “What next?”

  Eurystheus shrank back from the monstrous beast, which, even dead, was terrifying.

  “I am afraid you are not quite finished with this labor,” the king told Hercules. “I said kill and flay it.”

  Hercules looked long and hard at the king. Then, reaching for the nearest guard, Hercules took the man’s sword, and turning the huge carcass on its back, he tried to skin it. But the sword’s keen edge glanced off the beast’s hide, and when he bore down harder on it, the blade bent as if it were made of lead. Throwing it away, Hercules growled deep in his throat like the lion itself.

  Eurystheus drew back even farther.

  “I will leave you to your task,” he said. “When you have completed it, I will have another one for you.” And hurrying into the city, he ordered the gates to be closed.

  Hercules continued to stand there, looking down at the beast he had slain that still defied him. Zeus, seeing his difficulty, sent the goddess Athene to him in the shape of an old crone. Approaching him and laughing derisively, she said, “Twelve labors, Hercules, and you cannot accomplish the first?”

  “Mock me not, old woman,” said Hercules, “for I am not a patient man.”

  “And clearly stronger than you are wise.” Then, “The claws, Hercules,” she whispered. “The beast’s own claws!”

  For a moment Hercules stared at her. Then, taking hold of one of the lion’s paws, he used its own razor-sharp claws to cut through the impenetrable hide.

  When he had finished flaying it, he hurled the bloody carcass at the closed gates, shouting to Eurystheus, who was now watching from the top of the wall, “This is for you, Eurystheus! The skin I shall keep.”

  And from that day forward he dressed himself in the lion’s pelt, wearing it with the gaping jaws on his head like a helmet. And with it around him he had no need for shield or breastplate, for, as he had proved himself, t
he dead beast’s skin turned weapons more easily than the hardest bronze or iron.

  5

  THE SECOND LABOR: THE LERNEAN HYDRA

  Though it would be a long while before he was completely purged of his guilt, now that he had bowed to the will of the gods and begun his labors Hercules felt he could go back to Thebes to visit his parents and see Megara.

  From the way Megara’s eyes shone when he appeared in the great hall it was clear that she had missed him as much as he had missed her.

  “No, I missed you far more than you could possibly have missed me,” she told him when they sat together in one of the walled gardens. “For while you have your labors to perform, there is little I can do to make the time pass except to think of you. And when I do, I find myself not happy, but afraid. For Eurystheus is an ingenious and a malicious man, and he has already shown that the tasks he will set for you will be not merely difficult, but dangerous.”

  “Still I will complete them,” said Hercules. “For there is nothing I cannot accomplish for your sake. So do not think of my labors but think instead of the time when they will be finished and we can be together for good.”

  He spent several days in Thebes, and when he returned to Mycenae his brother, Iphicles, went with him, driving him in a chariot.

  The palace watch had announced their coming to Eurystheus, and when they reached Mycenae they found the city gates closed and the king waiting for them on top of the wall. He was surrounded by guards, and his herald, Copreus, was at his side. Such was Eurystheus’ fear of Hercules that from then on he was not permitted within the city or near the king. He received his instructions in this way, at a distance, and usually through Copreus.

  “Well, Eurystheus,” called Hercules, “what’s my next task?”

  Copreus conferred with Eurystheus, then said, “Who is that in the chariot with you?”

  “My brother, Iphicles.”

  “You understand,” said Copreus, “that he is not to help you. You must perform your labors all by yourself.”

  “Of course I understand that,” said Hercules testily. “But since I am anxious to get them over with as quickly as possible, he will drive me to wherever I must go.”

  “Very well,” said Copreus, speaking for the High King. “Then let him drive you to Lerna. When you get there, you are to kill the Hydra.”

  Whistling softly under his breath, Iphicles turned the chariot and started south. He had reason to look grave, for the Hydra was the most fearsome monster not only of Greece, but of anywhere in the known world. It had a huge, scaly body and nine snakelike heads, one of which was immortal. It was so venomous that its very breath could kill. Many said that it had been created especially by Hera to destroy Hercules. Whether this was true or not, the monster had appeared some years before in the Lernean swamp near the sea almost due south of Mycenae. Like the Nemean lion, it had terrorized and laid waste the entire district for miles around.

  Again Zeus had told Athene, the goddess of wisdom, to help Hercules. As the hero and his brother drove south, she thought about how he might deal with the Hydra.

  Iphicles reined in the horses at the edge of the swamp, which stretched as far as the eye could see, covered with reeds and dotted with pools of green, evil-smelling water.

  “Eurystheus has done well this time,” said Hercules wryly. “He has set me a task that might give pause even to a god. To begin with, how shall I find the Hydra?”

  “I think,” said Iphicles, prompted by Athene, “that your best friend here could well be fire.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Hercules.

  “There has been a long drought in these parts,” said Iphicles. “The reeds are dry and the wind is blowing this way.”

  “I take your meaning,” said Hercules. “Your counsel has helped me before. I shall follow it.”

  There was a dead tree nearby. Cutting it down, Hercules built a fire. Then he soaked some strips of cloth in oil, wrapped the cloths around the tips of several arrows, lit them, and shot the flaming arrows to the far side of the marsh. The reeds took fire and the wind blew the blaze toward the brothers. Aroused by the roaring and crackling of the burning reeds, the Hydra rose from its lair in the center of the swamp and came writhing toward them, all nine heads hissing.

  “Remember that its breath is poisonous,” said Iphicles as Hercules drew his sword. “Hold your own breath when you close with it.”

  Taking a deep breath, Hercules nodded. Then the monster was upon him. One of the snakelike heads darted out at him; swinging his sword, Hercules cut it off. But immediately two new heads grew from the bloody neck. Hercules cut them off also—but again new heads grew in their place, and instead of two there were four.

  “Many have argued,” said Hercules, falling back for a moment, “whether the Hydra had nine heads or more. I fear that before I am finished it will have nine hundred.”

  As he prepared to attack the hissing, many-headed monster again, Iphicles plucked a burning brand from the fire and handed it to him.

  “Here,” he said. “You must sear the stump each time you cut off a head as a surgeon sears a wound.”

  Again the Hydra writhed toward Hercules, and again Hercules cut off a head. But this time, as Iphicles had suggested, he seared the bloody stump with the blazing brand and no new heads grew in its place. In this way he cut off all its heads until only one, its immortal head, remained. With a final blow he cut that off also. But—even without a body—the head continued to hiss and blow its baleful breath toward him until he dropped a huge rock upon it, sinking it into the soft mud of the marsh.

  “Again your counsel has helped me greatly,” said Hercules, “even more than weapons could have. How is it that you have suddenly become as wise as you are steadfast?”

  “I never counted myself wise,” said Iphicles, “and I had no knowledge of what I was going to say before I said it. It may be that one of the gods spoke with my tongue.”

  “That could well be,” said Hercules. “And if that is so, then the greatest of them all has again proved himself my friend.”

  Cutting open the body of the Hydra, Hercules dipped his arrows in its gall. And this was so poisonous, that from then on the least scratch from one of them was fatal.

  Eurystheus had been summoned again by the watch when Hercules and Iphicles returned to Mycenae. He was waiting on the wall above the city gate when they arrived.

  “Well, Hercules,” he said, “since you are still alive, I take it that you dared not attempt this labor.”

  “Not so, Eurystheus,” said Hercules. “The Hydra is dead—except for one head, which hisses under a rock near the edge of the swamp. If you doubt me, send someone to dig it up and bring it to you.”

  “And you accomplished this alone, without any help from your brother?”

  “He helped me this much,” said Hercules. “He told me how to fight the monster and handed me burning brands to sear the wounds I made.”

  “Then I cannot count this as one of your labors,” said Eurystheus.

  Hercules looked at Eurystheus, and it was so fierce a look that even though he was high above Hercules on the city wall, the king shrank back.

  “Listen to me, Eurystheus,” said Hercules. “And listen well. Though it is you who sets my labors for me, I perform them not for you, but for the gods. And so I care not whether you count them, but only whether they do.”

  Hearing the anger in Hercules’ voice, Iphicles cracked his whip and sent the horses galloping away from Mycenae and back toward Thebes. There Hercules remained until his rage had cooled sufficiently for him to perform his next task.

  6

  THE THIRD LABOR: THE CERYNEIAN HIND

  “The High King is interested to see,” said Copreus when Hercules next appeared at Mycenae, “that this time you have come without your brother.”

  “Since the High King seemed to object to his coming with me even as a companion, I came alone,” said Hercules. Then, making little effort to hide his dislike: “And
what is the High King’s pleasure now?”

  Eurystheus, standing high above Hercules on the city walls, whispered in Copreus’ ear.

  “This labor,” said Copreus, “will be different from the others in that there will be no killing in it. You are to capture the Ceryneian hind and bring her alive here to Mycenae.”

  Hercules frowned. Everyone in Greece had heard of the Ceryneian hind that lived in the wilds of Achaia, near the Gulf of Corinth. She had brass hoofs and, though a hind, had golden antlers like a stag. She was said to be the swiftest creature in the world, able to outrun even an arrow in its flight. More important, she was sacred to Artemis, the virgin goddess who was the Mistress of Wild Things.

  “I do not think Artemis will like that,” said Hercules.

  “Nevertheless, that is your task,” said Copreus.

  “Very well,” said Hercules with a shrug. He put down his club, bow, and sword in front of the gate. “I will not need these. Guard them for me until I return.”

  Tightening the thongs of his sandals, for he had a feeling that he would be traveling far, he went north and west toward Ceryneia.

  It took him several days to reach it and several more to find the track of the hind. But one morning he came upon her, grazing in a forest glade. She stood at gaze for a moment, large-eyed and dappled, her golden horns gleaming in the sun. Then, wary but unafraid—for who could match her fleetness?—she bounded off through the woods, going north toward the Gulf of Corinth with Hercules running after her.

  She paused again at the blue waters of the gulf. When Hercules appeared in the distance, she turned and—still unafraid—ran east toward the Isthmus.

  Now began a long chase, so long and arduous that only one of more than human strength and endurance could have accomplished it. Crossing the Isthmus, the hind went north again, passing near Thespiae, where Hercules had slain his first lion, then on through Aetolia and Epirus, where, in the grove at Dodona, Zeus had one of his oldest shrines. And always Hercules came behind, never able to match the creature’s speed, yet following her doggedly.