The Twelve Labors of Hercules Read online

  16

  THE SLAVERY OF HERCULES

  “Dead?” said Hercules, staring at Iphicles. “She cannot be dead.”

  “But she is, my unfortunate brother.”

  “How did she die?”

  “Of a fever just a few days ago. It took her suddenly at dusk and by morning she was dead.”

  What had happened was that Hera, more jealous of Hercules than ever now that he was about to complete his twelve labors, had struck at him in the only way that she could—by taking from him the woman he loved, the woman who should have been the reward for those labors.

  Suddenly Hercules remembered the shape he had seen descending to the Underworld as he was returning from it—the veiled woman at whom Hermes had told him not to look—and he realized that this must have been Megara. He also remembered what he had said to her before he left for Mycenae for the last time: that none of the gods could be so heartless as to keep them apart after they had waited so long for one another.

  With a roar like a wounded lion Hercules ran from the palace to the nearby temple of Zeus, and wild with rage, he tore the altar from its foundations, overturning it with a shattering crash. Then, putting his shoulder to one of the columns, he was about to bring it down—and with it the whole temple—when Zeus spoke to him in a voice of thunder.

  “Hold, Hercules,” he said. “Stay your hand!”

  “Why should I stay my hand when you have done this cruel thing to me?” demanded Hercules.

  “Because that is my commandment!”

  Then, as Hercules hesitated, Zeus cast down a thunderbolt that made the temple blaze with light and shake like dice in a dice box.

  “Does a son question his father?” said Zeus. “Does a man question a god? Does anyone question me? Man has his time on earth and his work. But what happens to him during his allotted days is not up to the gods, but up to the Fates, whom even the gods must obey.”

  “Even you?”

  “Even I. It was not I who sent the fever to your betrothed. It was another. But since she was destined to die, there was naught I could do to change her fate. Now take this blow—this reminder that no one can have his will in all things—like the man you are.”

  “I will try, great Zeus,” said Hercules, bowing his head. “Forgive me my rage.”

  “I will forgive you for it and for your impiety when you have made amends for it,” said Zeus severely. “Then you shall have my favor again.”

  “What must I do to make amends?” asked Hercules.

  “Go again to Delphi. The Oracle will tell you.”

  Slowly Hercules left the temple of Zeus. Iphicles was waiting for him and saw at once that his rage was over. Hercules did not tell him what had happened, but merely said he must go to Delphi, and Iphicles nodded.

  So Hercules went again to the temple of Apollo, fasted, and was led down to the cave under the temple. Again the Pythoness appeared out of the darkness, sat on the throne set over the cleft in the earth, and breathed in the fumes that rose from it. Then, when the god had possessed her, she said, “Hercules, you have grievously offended Father Zeus by desecrating his temple. To make amends, you must be sold into slavery for one year.”

  “Whose slave am I to be?” asked Hercules.

  “The slave of Queen Omphale of Lydia,” said the Pythoness.

  “I hear and obey,” said Hercules humbly.

  He left the temple and found Hermes, who was the god of financial transactions as well as the guide of the souls of the dead, waiting for him.

  “Now do you know why I told you not to look when we were returning from Tartarus?” said Hermes sympathetically.

  Hercules nodded mutely.

  “Look not so bleak,” said Hermes. “There are still years of life ahead of you, and much joy. And, in the end, such glory and such a reward as no man has ever had before. But first there is the penance for your impiety.”

  Taking Hercules by the hand, he transported him to Ephesus in Asia Minor and offered him for sale in the marketplace as a nameless slave. Queen Omphale of Lydia was in the marketplace at the time, and though she did not know he was Hercules, she could see that he was an extraordinary man. As the oracle had foretold, she bought him.

  Hercules served Queen Omphale faithfully for that year, ridding her kingdom—as he had so many parts of Greece—of bandits, evildoers, and dangerous beasts. For instance, a giant of a man named Lityerses owned much land on the banks of the Maeander River. He would stop any traveler who came that way and force him to compete with him in reaping his fields. When he won, as he always did, he would cut off the traveler’s head with his sickle and hide his body in the sheaves of grain. Hercules went to visit him and accepted his challenge. When he outreaped Lityerses, he served him as Lityerses had served others: he cut off his head and threw his body in the river.

  Later on, when one of the Lydian cities revolted against the queen and marched on her capital, Hercules led her army against these enemies and routed them.

  It was when he returned in triumph from this expedition that Omphale sent for him and said, “Who are you?”

  “Your slave, O queen,” said Hercules.

  “You have served as my slave for almost a year, but the deeds that you have performed are not the deeds of a slave. They are the deeds of a great hero. And since you are Greek, you must be Hercules.”

  “A slave must answer to any name his master or mistress may choose to give him,” said Hercules.

  “Do not play games with me,” said Omphale. “I know that you are Hercules. Soon your year will be up and I will no longer be your mistress. But my feelings for you are such that I cannot bear to let you go. If you will stay on here you shall be, not my slave, but my husband and King of Lydia.”

  “You are not only kind and generous, but very beautiful,” said Hercules, “and it is a hard thing for me to refuse you, but I am afraid I must. For I have a great longing to return to my native land.”

  Omphale sighed and said she had feared this would be his answer. But when his year of slavery was up she not only let him go but gave him many rich gifts as a token of her love and a reward for his great services to her.

  Hercules decided to return home not by ship but by land, and so went north along the coast. When he neared Troy he saw the city gates were open and that a great crowd of Trojans had gathered about a rock that faced the sea. Approaching, he saw that all in the throng were weeping and saying farewell to a beautiful maiden who was chained to the rock. He asked who she was and was told that she was Hesione, daughter of Laomedon, King of Troy.

  “But why are you chaining her to the rock?”

  “Because we were advised to do so by the Oracle of Zeus Ammon,” they told him. “Some months ago an enormous monster rose from the sea and came ashore, devouring men and cattle, laying the fields waste, and spreading a plague with his poisonous breath. Since then he has returned each day at noon. When we asked the oracle why this evil had been visited on us, we were told that King Laomedon had angered Poseidon and that the only way we could rid ourselves of it was if the king left his daughter here to be devoured by the monster.”

  “There is another and better way,” said Hercules.

  “What way is that?” they asked him.

  “Take the princess back to Troy and I will deal with the monster,” he said.

  Though King Laomedon was eager to do this, his people were not, for they feared that no one, not even Hercules, could slay the monster. But going to the rock, Hercules broke the chains that bound Hesione, gave her over into her father’s keeping, and told him to take her away. The Trojans still hesitated, but at that moment the monster appeared, and all those assembled there fled.

  Raising his bow, Hercules loosed an arrow at the monster, but its scales were so hard that the arrow shattered. He shot two more arrows, but they did no more harm than the first.

  Now the monster was almost ashore, and Hercules saw that the Trojans had spoken the truth when they said it was enormous. It was ev
en larger than the Hydra or the dragon that had guarded the apples of the Hesperides. He knew that his club would be useless against it, and if its scales had shattered his arrows, they would also turn his sword. There was only one way he could kill it, and hoping that his year of slavery had restored him to the favor of Zeus, he took that way.

  When the monster opened its great jaws, Hercules leaped over its teeth and, sword in hand, threw himself down its throat. He let himself be swallowed, then struck out savagely with his sharp sword. The monster turned and went back into the sea, writhing in agony as Hercules slashed at its entrails. A few moments later he had cut his way out through its unarmored belly and risen to the surface.

  He swam away from the dying monster, and when he reached the shore the Trojans greeted him as their savior. King Laomedon, in gratitude, offered him Hesione as his bride. Hercules refused his offer with gracious words but accepted as a gift two white horses that had been given to Laomedon by Zeus—horses so swift it was said they could run over water or over standing corn. With these horses drawing his chariot, Hercules left Troy and continued on his way home to Greece.

  17

  DEIANEIRA

  After he had left Troy, Hercules remembered the promise he had made in the Underworld to his old shipmate Meleager—a promise to take his greeting to Meleager’s sister, Deianeira. Because of this—and because he did not wish to return to the place that could not help but remind him of Megara—instead of going to Thebes he went west to Calydon, in Aetolia.

  Deianeira’s father, King Oeneus, welcomed Hercules warmly when he arrived, for there was no one in Greece who did not know of him and his exploits. When Hercules asked for Deianeira, Oeneus told him she was not there but up in the hills, for Deianeira was a great huntress.

  At sundown Deianeira returned to the palace, driving her own chariot. When Hercules saw her he caught his breath, for she was very beautiful—as beautiful as Megara if not more so. And as she threw the chariot reins to a stableboy, looking like the goddess Artemis coming home from the hunt, Hercules recalled something else: how Hermes had looked at him and smiled when Meleager had asked him to go see Deianeira—and he thought he knew why.

  Hercules went up to Deianeira and said, “I bring you greetings.”

  “From whom?” she asked.

  “From your brother, Meleager.”

  “But he is dead.”

  “Yes. It was his shade I saw in Tartarus. He asked me to bring you his greetings and tell you he is as happy as one can be who no longer walks the earth.”

  “I thank you for that message,” she said. Then, sighing: “I have often wished that he were still alive, but I have never wished it more than I do now.”

  “Why is that?” asked Hercules.

  Deianeira explained that during the past year many suitors had come to seek her hand, and the most pressing of them all had been the river-god Achelous. Deianeira had liked none of them, Achelous least of all. But since many of the suitors had been princes they had been so powerful and insistent that her father had not been able to hold out against them; he had finally agreed that they could compete among themselves in wrestling and that the winner should have Deianeira.

  “Since Achelous is an immortal, he has defeated them all,” she said. “And if, when he appears here tomorrow, no one challenges him, he will claim me. If Meleager were here, I think he might have been able to stand against him, but I do not know of anyone else who could.”

  “It might be that I could too,” said Hercules. “Would that please you?”

  “Nothing could please me more,” she said, looking at him levelly. From the time she had first seen him, she had felt about him as he had about her.

  “I am glad,” said Hercules. “And I suspect that this is what your brother had in mind when he asked me to come here.”

  The next morning Achelous—huge, shaggy-bearded, and wearing green garments that shimmered like water—appeared at the palace.

  “You know why I am here, O king,” he said to Oeneus. “I have come to claim your daughter.”

  “I am afraid you cannot have her yet,” said Oeneus. “There is one more suitor you must defeat before she can be yours.”

  “Who is that?” asked Achelous. And when Hercules stepped forward, he said, “You mean you are challenging me, Hercules?”

  “I am.”

  “I have heard it said that you are something of a wrestler,” said Achelous. “But I do not recall that you have ever matched your strength with an immortal.”

  “Antaeus may not have been a god,” said Hercules, “but he was more than mortal. Still, you may be right. It may be that I have finally met my match. Let us see.”

  They went forth to the wrestling ground and took their positions, and when the signal was given they came at one another. Achelous took Hercules in a wet grip and tried to break his spine by bending him backward, as he had done to the other suitors before him. Hercules not only withstood him, but taking a deep breath and swelling his great chest, he broke his hold. Then he in turn took a grip on Achelous, and using both strength and skill, he tripped and threw him so that he landed heavily on his back. And so the first fall went to Hercules.

  Achelous got to his feet scowling angrily, for he had never been thrown before. And when the signal was given for the second round of their match, he turned himself into a huge river serpent and wrapped himself around Hercules, thinking to crush him in his powerful coils.

  “You forget, Achelous, that I strangled serpents in my cradle,” said Hercules. Freeing one hand he took him by the throat and gripped him so tightly that Achelous’ senses left him and his coils loosened. Again Hercules threw him to the ground.

  When Achelous had regained his senses and the signal was given for the last fall, he turned himself into another of his many shapes—that of a huge bull—and lowering his head, he charged at Hercules. But Hercules had also dealt with bulls before, and stepping nimbly aside he caught him by the horns. Putting forth all his strength, he threw the bull to the ground with such force that one of his horns was broken off. Mortally ashamed, the river-god did not transform himself back into his original shape, but still in the form of a bull—and a bull with only one horn—he ran from the wrestling ground.

  Now Hercules approached the king and said, “Unless there are any others who would challenge me, it is now I who claim your daughter’s hand.”

  “There are no others,” said Oeneus. “And I cannot think of anyone to whom I would rather give her.” Taking Deianeira’s hand, he put it in that of Hercules.

  And so Deianeira and Hercules were wed, and there began the period of great happiness that Hermes had foretold. For Hercules loved her dearly, as she did him.

  Some months later Hercules heard that Amphitryon, whom he still thought of as his father, and his mother, Alcmene, were staying with kinsmen of theirs in Trachis, which is on the far eastern side of Aetolia. Since Hercules had not seen them in some time and they had never met Deianeira, he decided to take his new bride to visit them.

  About noon they came to the river Evenus, which was in full flood. As Hercules prepared to carry Deianeira over, the Centaur Nessus appeared and said, “I would consider it a great honor if you would permit me to carry your wife across, noble Hercules.” Hercules looked at him narrowly, for he did not like Centaurs, and said, “Do you not think I can carry her over myself?”

  “I do not think there is anything you cannot do,” said Nessus. “But I think you will find it difficult to carry her and at the same time keep your weapons dry.” Then, as Hercules still hesitated, he asked, “Do you not trust me? If you do not, then you cannot trust the gods, for it is they who appointed me to be the ferryman here.”

  “There is no one who has better reason to trust the gods than I,” said Hercules. “Very well, then.” And placing Deianeira on the Centaur’s back, he plunged into the river and began to swim across, holding his bow high.

  Nessus waited until he was halfway over. Then, pulling Deianeir
a from his back and holding her firmly in his arms, he galloped away with her. For, like all who had ever seen her, he had long loved her.

  Deianeira screamed, and seeing what was happening, Hercules swam quickly back to shore. Nessus was almost half a mile away by now, but raising his bow, Hercules shot so skillfully that the arrow pierced the Centaur’s chest without so much as grazing Deianeira.

  Nessus stumbled and fell, dropping Deianeira. From the way fire seemed to course through his every vein he knew he had been struck by one of the arrows that was poisoned by the Hydra’s venom. And in that moment he thought of a way in which he could be revenged on Hercules.

  “I am sped,” he said to Deianeira. “And I deserve to die for having tried to run off with you. But let me make amends. Keep some of the blood from my wound, and if you ever have cause to doubt Hercules’ love for you, mix the blood with oil and anoint his shirt with it. From the time he puts it on he will never love another.”

  Then he fell dead.

  Knowing how she herself felt about Hercules—and knowing how many other women had loved him—Deianeira hurriedly filled a jar with the Centaur’s blood, sealed it, and hid it in her bosom before Hercules came running up. She said nothing about it to him, and this was to lead to Hercules’ death.

  18

  THE DEATH OF HERCULES

  In the years that followed, Hercules and Deianeira had the children he had wanted for so long. There were five of them: four sons, who were as tall, strong, and brave as he was, and a daughter, who was as beautiful as Deianeira.

  They were good years, the best of Hercules’ life, but that life was now drawing to a close.

  One summer when Hercules and Deianeira were staying with his kinsmen in Trachis, the city of Oechalia revolted and Hercules led an army against it. His eldest son, Hyllus, was now old enough to accompany him and acquitted himself well in the siege of that city.

  When the city had fallen, Hercules made ready to celebrate the victory with a sacrifice of thanksgiving to Zeus. In preparation for this he sent his charioteer, Lichas, back to Trachis to ask Deianeira for his finest shirt and cloak, which he intended to wear while performing the ceremony. Now the King of Oechalia had a daughter named Iole who was very beautiful, and Deianeira became convinced that Hercules had fallen in love with her and intended to leave his wife for this much younger woman. Remembering what Nessus had said to her, she unsealed the jar that she had kept with her all this time, mixed the Centaur’s blood with olive oil, and soaked Hercules’ shirt in it. Then she put the shirt and cloak in a chest and told Lichas not to open it until Hercules was ready to wear the garments.