The Greek Myths

by Robin Waterfield

  Wise Athena and the Trojans built for Heracles a sturdy barrier close to the shoreline. Heracles hid behind it and waited for the monster to emerge from the depths of the sea. When it came, it opened wide its stinking jaws to swallow Hesione, and the fair maiden swooned from the stench. But Heracles leapt out of his hiding-place and dived into the monster’s gaping mouth. The surest way to kill it was from the inside, disgusting though the prospect was. Once he had stabbed the monster to death and hacked his way out of the horrid pile of flesh and intestines, the waters receded from the Trojan plain. Heracles freed Hesione and restored her to the arms of her parents, and sailed back home with the horses. But Laomedon cheated and gave him not the immortal mares of Tros, but ordinary horses. He would pay for it.

  For the tenth labor, Heracles had to drive back to Tiryns the red cattle of Geryon. There were many obstacles. For a start, Geryon lived on the island of Erytheia, which was situated as far west as it is possible to go, where the sun sets and the entrance to Hades is located, on the far side of the river Ocean, that none dare even think of crossing. Then Geryon himself—the offspring of Chrysaor and Callirhoe, the daughter of Ocean—was a terrible creature: three huge human bodies tapered down to a single waist, from which three pairs of legs sprouted, and the whole was topped with heads of such hideous ugliness that he resembled his grandmother, the Gorgon Medusa, thrice multiplied. Finally, his cattle were tended by a gigantic cowherd and a savage two-headed dog, Orthus, another of the dread children of Typhoeus.

  There was no way that Heracles could get to Erytheia without help. The island is so mysterious that many people deny its existence altogether, or consign it to the realm of myth. Helios the all-seeing sun would know of its whereabouts, so first Heracles had to travel to the far east, to catch the sun just as he rose. But when Heracles consulted him, Helios refused to help—until Heracles notched an arrow to his bow and threatened him. Then the bright shiner gave Heracles a fabulous golden cup, which would convey him to the western edge of the world.

  No sooner had Heracles embarked in the cup on Ocean than the river threw up choppy waves with which to swamp the hero. This time it was Ocean’s turn to feel the force of Heracles’ dark-browed anger and the power of his threats. He promptly subsided, and conveyed Heracles in his cup from the far east to the far west. The voyage took months, or it might have been instantaneous, but once Heracles reached Erytheia, he was on familiar ground: there was only a trio of horrible monsters to deal with.

  “Then the bright-shiner gave Heracles a fabulous golden cup, which would convey him to the western edge of the world.”[56]

  He made short work of killing all three. He shot down the gigantic cowherd from afar with his arrows, and did the same for Orthus when it charged at him, both jaws slavering in anticipation of meat. Then he advanced on heavily armored Geryon with his sword. The first stage was the hardest: killing one of the bodies while parrying the thrusts of the other two; but once the first torso lolled back dead, like a drooping poppy, Heracles made short work of dispatching the other two.

  Then he re-embarked on the Cup of Helios, taking the cattle with him, as red as the setting sun. He made land at Spain and set out for Greece, driving the cattle before him. But first, to commemorate his remarkable voyage, he set up two pillars, one on either side of the strait between the Mediterranean and the Outer Seas. What was beyond was beyond; out there, on the perimeter, there are no stars.

  It was a long drive back to Greece, and Heracles had several adventures on the way. In the land of the Celts he was attacked by the local tribesmen, who came at him in such numbers that he soon ran out of ammunition. In desperation, he prayed to his father Zeus, who sent a rain of slingshot-sized stones, which Heracles used to repel his attackers. The plain near Massilia is still littered with the stones. A little further on, two lawless sons of Poseidon, Ialebion and Dercymus, tried to steal the amazing red cattle from Heracles, but succeeded only in encompassing their own deaths. Their only claim to fame is to have fallen before the might of Heracles.

  Continuing south, Heracles passed with the cattle into Italy. On the future site of Rome, the fire-breathing brigand Cacus, a son of Hephaestus, stole some of the cattle while Heracles was asleep, and dragged them backward into his cave, so that their hoof prints seemed to lead in the opposite direction. Heracles was baffled, and reluctantly set out with the remaining cattle, even though returning without the full complement might not count as a completed labor. But just as he was setting off, the lowing of his cattle was answered from the depths of the cave by a bellow from one of the stolen calves. Heracles assaulted the rustler’s stronghold, throttled him, and recovered his stolen livestock.

  From Italy Heracles crossed over to Sicily, where Eryx, king of the western half of the island, challenged him to a wrestling match, with the cattle as the prize. Foolish Eryx, to listen to Hera’s whispering and think he could win! Heracles threw him to the ground three times for the match, before killing him. And then at last Heracles returned to Greece. When his epic drive was over and he reached Tiryns with the cattle, Eurystheus was fully satisfied, and sacrificed them to Hera.

  The eleventh labor was just as challenging. Far in the west lived the three Hesperides, the daughters of Night. Their life’s work was gardening, and they lived in bliss, singing and dancing and tending, above all, to one particular tree in their grove. This tree, the wedding gift of Earth herself to Zeus and Hera, produced golden apples whose sweet flesh gave eternal youth. But the tree was guarded by the dragon Ladon, which was coiled, ever sleepless, around its roots; and Ladon was sibling to the dreadful Gorgons.

  Again, as with the island of Erytheia, Heracles’ first problem was finding the way there, since the garden of the Hesperides was situated beyond the knowledge of men. He first visited the nymphs of the river Eridanus in the far north, where the river’s waters mingle with Ocean. They didn’t know the way, but they sent him to find the sea-god Nereus, who like all his kind was both wise and a shape-shifter. He would impart the information, however, only if Heracles managed to maintain a grip on him, whatever form or forms he changed into.

  Heracles tracked Nereus down to a deserted shore. The hoary old deity was easy to recognize, because he was impossible to recognize. His features and form shimmered and dissolved even as Heracles looked at him; he was never quite what he was, always in the process of becoming something else. But Heracles knew what he had to do, and grabbed hold of him. Without a moment’s hesitation, Nereus changed into a lion—but Heracles’ grip remained firm. Then in the blink of an eye he became a writhing serpent, then fire, then water—but still Heracles kept hold of him, and at last Nereus had to concede defeat, and he told Heracles where he could find the garden of the Hesperides.

  It was clear from what Nereus said, however, that the task was quite beyond even Heracles’ abilities. It wasn’t just that the apples were guarded by Ladon, but that the garden itself was unreachable, hidden behind veils that were not of this world. So Heracles wandered in dejection, and his aimless feet brought him to Egypt and Libya. In both places, he continued his work of pacifying and civilizing the earth. Busiris, the king of Egypt, had the unpleasant habit of slaughtering all visitors to his land at the altar of Zeus. Heracles let himself be bound and taken, a meek prisoner, to the altar—and then exploded into action, bursting his bonds and killing Busiris and all his attendants, freeing the land from foul tyranny.

  Antaeus, the king of Libya, was a giant, the son of Earth and Poseidon, and he wrestled to death any and every visitor to his realm. His mother’s merest touch made him invincible. If any opponent did manage to throw him, that only brought him into contact with the earth and renewed his energy. So many men had failed to defeat him that he had used their skulls to construct a temple to his father. Heracles began by wrestling Antaeus in the normal way, attempting to throw him to the ground, but he soon understood what was going on. It reminded him of a dream he had once had, in which he was battling the Giants on the side of the god
s … He held Antaeus above his head, off the ground, and as the giant weakened, Heracles slowly crushed him to death with his bare hands.

  But these adventures were mere distractions. On and on Heracles roamed, seeking advice, and at last he ended up in the Caucasus mountains, where Prometheus lay chained to the solid rock, waiting by night for the eagle to return every day to eat his liver. Heracles shot the eagle with his bow, and in gratitude Prometheus advised him to seek out his brother Atlas, whom Zeus had punished by having him support the sky on his back forever, to keep earth and sky apart. Atlas knew where the garden of the Hesperides was, and it would be easy for a Titan like him to go and get the apples.

  Heracles journeyed west again until he found Atlas standing firm, with the sky resting on his head and clouds veiling his shoulders. He explained the situation to the Titan, and asked for his help in gaining the golden apples. “I can help, certainly,” said Atlas. “But what will you do for me in return?” Heracles made various offers, none of which were acceptable. But the Titan had his own suggestion. “I’ll get the apples for you,” he said, “if you shoulder my burden while I’m away.” Heracles agreed, and with a grunt took the sky on his shoulders and head, while Atlas disappeared over the horizon.

  Time passed, but Heracles’ task required all his attention and he didn’t notice its passage. Eventually Atlas returned, and indeed he had the apples with him. But the liberated Titan was reluctant to take on his great burden once more. “I’ll take the apples to Eurystheus myself,” he offered enthusiastically.

  “Fair enough,” said Heracles. “You’ve well and truly outsmarted me, and now I’ll have to carry the sky forever. But, first, let me get a cushion for my aching head. Just take the sky for a moment, and then I’ll take it back.” Of course, no sooner had Atlas shouldered the sky again than Heracles picked up the apples and left. Atlas fumed with helpless rage, but soon Heracles was beyond the range of his complaints. And so Eurystheus gained the far-famed apples—but they were not his for long. Athena declared that they were too sacred to be part of the dismal world of mortals, and she took them back to the faery land of the Hesperides.

  The twelfth and final labor was the hardest, as Heracles’ shade admitted to Odysseus, when the much-traveled man summoned him up from Hades. He had to fetch up from the underworld three-headed, snake-tailed Cerberus, offspring of Typhoeus. Cerberus was a kind of valve for the entrance to Hades’ realm: he would greet new arrivals with canine obsequiousness, fawning on them and wagging his tail; but should any of the dead try to depart, the hell-hound turned savage and devoured the wretched ghost. But Heracles pinioned the creature and dragged him away on a triple-tied leash, though Cerberus snarled his reluctance every inch of the way. The dark lord Hades and his lady Persephone protested at the removal of their watchdog, but Hermes explained the situation and promised that Cerberus would soon resume his post. In the palace of Tiryns, Eurystheus once again took cover in his big jar, and only peeked out to confirm that Heracles had succeeded in this, his final task. And then the hero, true to his word, returned the hound to Hades.

  Heracles, a living man, had entered the underworld and come back again, against all the odds. Only Orpheus and Theseus would ever match such an extraordinary feat. Before entering the underworld, Heracles had taken one of the cattle from Hades’ own herd, and sacrificed it as a blood offering to propitiate the underworld deities. Hades’ cowherd Menoetes tried to stop Heracles stealing the cow and Heracles would have killed him, had Persephone not ordered the two apart. But the vapors of the blood of the sacrifice summoned up shades with information for Heracles, and so he met the ghost of Meleager, the son of Ares and Althaea. And though it was scarcely usual for a living person to enter into a contract with one of the dead, Meleager gave Heracles his sister Deianeira, daughter of Dionysus, as a wife, to replace Megara, for whose death Heracles had now at last atoned.

  Heracles the King-Maker

  Heracles’ trials had by no means finished with the end of the twelve labors and betrothal to Deianeira, his destined bride. No hero ever suffered as Heracles suffered. No body bore the scars that Heracles bore, or endured so much mental pain. For as he surpassed all others in excellence, so his life-path surpassed all others in difficulty.

  One piece of unfinished business lay with Augeas. Heracles’ fifth labor had been to clean the stables of the Elean king, and Augeas had promised him, as a reward if he succeeded, a tenth of his cattle. He didn’t expect the hero to succeed, and when it came to it he refused to pay up. So when Heracles was free of his labors, and living in Argos, he returned to Elis to seek his revenge, and to install Augeas’s son, honest Phyleus, on the throne in his place.

  Heracles arrived in Elis at the head of a considerable army. The battle was short but fierce. Heracles’ brother Iphicles died in the fighting, cut down by the Moliones, armored twins joined at the hip; but Heracles was close at hand and they did not long outlive their victim. The mission was a complete success: the city was taken and Augeas killed, and Phyleus assumed the throne instead. Iphicles’ funeral was suitably lavish.

  This was not the only major military expedition Heracles organized in those days in the Peloponnese. He also launched an all-out attack on Sparta for the sake of a murdered kinsman. Once Oeonus, one of Heracles’ nephews, was passing the mansion of the king of Sparta, a man called Hippocoön. One of the king’s mastiffs set upon the traveler, who naturally picked up a stone and threw it at the dog to keep it at bay. But Hippocoön’s sons took this amiss. Angry words turned to fisticuffs, and then daggers were drawn. Before long Oeonus lay dead in the dust, and the mountains looked on impassively.

  Once again Heracles summoned his friends and allies. At first Cepheus of Tegea was unwilling to leave his city undefended, but Heracles needed him and his twenty sons as allies. The son of Zeus called upon Athena for help and the great goddess gave him a lock of the hair of the Gorgon Medusa. One of the daughters of Cepheus was to raise this serpent lock high from the city walls three times in her hand, and this would serve as a sure shield for the city and protect it from all harm.

  Then Cepheus agreed to join Heracles’ expedition, but so valiantly did his sons fight that almost all of them were killed, along with their father. Even Heracles was wounded in the hand, the sign of a rare lapse of self-confidence. But Sparta fell. Heracles killed the king and all twelve of his sons, and installed Tyndareos (descended from the Titan Atlas) on the throne in place of Hippocoön.

  Heracles Becomes a God

  Meleager’s ghost had promised Heracles the hand of his sister Deianeira, but first Heracles had to win her. She had a rival suitor, no less than Achelous, the river-god, whose courtship of the girl had been persistent: he had appeared to her as a bull, a snake, and a composite creature, half bull, half man. In fact, fair-girdled Deianeira was about to give in when Heracles arrived.

  For the wrestling match that would decide her future husband, Achelous chose the form of a bull. He pawed the ground and charged at Heracles, but the mighty hero stood his ground and took the force of the bull’s charge. He seized the bull’s horns and twisted with all his might to force the creature to its knees. So strong was Heracles, and so fierce the resistance of Achelous, that with a sickening crack one of the horns snapped off in Heracles’ hands. At last the scales of the fight tipped in Heracles’ favor as the bull’s strength slackened, and then it was only a matter of time.

  Once Achelous had admitted defeat, he and Heracles exchanged horns. Achelous wanted his broken horn back, and in return gave Heracles the Horn of Amalthea—the very horn of plenty with which Zeus had been fed in infancy in the Cretan cave. This magical horn had the property that it never ran out of food or drink; every time it was emptied, it filled right up again with all the good things of the earth. Heracles’ household would indeed prosper.

  So Heracles took his prize, his new wife, back to Argos. Along the way they were joined by the Centaur Nessus, one of the last of his kind—and, as it turned out, true to his
nature. At one point, the trio had to cross a raging river. Nessus invited Deianeira to ride across on his back, and Heracles accepted the kind-seeming gesture. But as soon as they reached the far bank, while Heracles was still on the other side, the Centaur attempted to rape Deianeira.

  Nessus tried to rape Deianeira, but Heracles’ sure aim brought the Centaur down.[57]

  Alerted by her screams, Heracles looked up. The width of a river was nothing to such an expert marksman, and Heracles’ poison-tipped shaft took deadly effect. Nessus’s blood poured from the wound and mingled with his seed, which had spilled on the ground during the bungled rape. Before Heracles had time to wade across the river and rejoin Deianeira, the Centaur advised the naive young woman to gather some of this potent mixture. “It’s a love potion,” he gasped, as his life ebbed away. “We Centaurs know about such things. It will stop Heracles loving any other woman.” A wonder it seemed, and she collected a phial of the fatal drug, but told Heracles nothing about it. Heracles and Deianeira lived long and happily in Argos, and Deianeira bore two fine children, Hyllus and Macaria. But Heracles’ amorous nature got the better of him, and he fell in love with Iole, princess of Oechalia, daughter of King Eurytus. For it was fated that she should be the instrument of Heracles’ death and deification.