Heroes

by Stephen Fry

  ‘You mean it?’

  ‘Yes, my darling,’ she said, calmly patting his hand.

  ‘You’re honestly happy to do this for me?’

  ‘Quite happy, if it makes you happy.’

  A fine marble tomb was constructed and Alcestis prepared herself for the allotted time of Admetus’s decease, which would now mark her own. But when the day came, Admetus had a radical change of heart. He realised how much he loved Alcestis and how much less of a life he would have without her. In fact, he now saw that a long and endless existence alone would be worse than death. He begged her not to go. But her declaration of intent to take his place had been heard and recorded by the Fates. Die she must – and die she did.

  It was at exactly this moment, with a devastated Admetus trying to come to terms with what he had done, that Heracles called in at the palace.

  So mindful of his obligations as a host was Admetus that he could not countenance turning a guest away. He did his best to hide his sorrow and entertain his guest with all the warmth and generosity for which he was famous. Nonetheless, Heracles couldn’t but notice that his old friend was dressed in black.

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact, we have had a death in the palace.’

  ‘I’ll leave you then. I can always come another time.’

  ‘No, no. Please, come in. I insist.’

  Heracles was still unsure. Hosts have obligations, but so do guests. ‘Who died? No one close to you?’

  Admetus had no wish to burden his friend with his woes. ‘No blood relation, I promise …’ which was technically true. ‘A woman of the household, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh well, in that case …’ Heracles came through into the great hall. His eyes fell greedily on the table where the funeral banquet had been laid out. ‘Always said you served the best wine and cakes,’ he said, helping himself to lavish quantities of both.

  ‘You are too kind,’ said Admetus. ‘I’ll leave you for a moment but please, make yourself entirely at home.’

  Heracles tucked cheerfully in. He finished all the wine on the table and yelled out for more. The chief steward of the household came, grim faced. He was a servant of the old school. Not even the risk of igniting the notorious temper of the strongest man in the world would make him swerve from his duty.

  ‘Have you no shame?’ he hissed. ‘How can you eat and drink like this with the house in such bitter mourning?’

  ‘Why the hell shouldn’t I? Who’s dead? Only some serving woman or other.’

  ‘Listen to him, gods! Our dear queen has been taken from us and you dare call her “some serving woman”?’

  ‘Alcestis? But Admetus told me …’

  ‘His majesty is even now in the garden sobbing his noble heart out.’

  ‘Oh, what a fool I am!’

  Heracles now succumbed to one of his periodic bouts of guilt and violent self-abasement. He beat his breast and called himself the most insensitive buffoon that ever lived, unworthy to be a guest in any man’s house, an arse, a clown an oaf and the lowest of the low. Then he came to his senses and realised what he had to do.

  ‘I shall go down to the underworld,’ he said to himself, ‘and I shall fight anyone who stops me from bringing Alcestis back up. I swear I shall.’

  As luck would have it, such a drastic course was not necessary. Before setting off, Heracles went to pay his respects at Alcestis’s brand-new tomb. There he found THANATOS, the god of death, just as he was taking her soul.

  ‘Let go!’ bellowed Heracles.

  ‘You have no business here,’ said Thanatos. ‘I command you to –’

  With a roar Heracles was on him, wrestling the helpless Thanatos to the ground and pounding him with his fists.

  Some time later Admetus left off his weeping in the garden and went back into the palace. ‘Where’s Heracles?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, him,’ sniffed the steward. ‘He left as soon as he found out that the queen was dead. Good riddance, I say.’

  Just then Heracles burst in. ‘I’m back,’ he said, slapping Admetus on the shoulder, ‘and I’ve brought a friend.’ He turned to the doorway and called. ‘You can come in now.’

  Alcestis entered the room and stood before her disbelieving husband, a shy smile on her lips.

  ‘I wrestled Death himself to the ground to bring her back to you,’ said Heracles, ‘so make sure you bloody well keep her this time.’

  Admetus did not seem to hear him. He had eyes only for his wife.

  ‘Yes. Well. I’ll leave you to it, then. Due in Thrace. Got to fetch some horses.’

  In sending Heracles for the four mares of Diomedes, Eurystheus had neglected to furnish him with any further details. However, the horses’ names are known to us. They were PODARGOS, the ‘flashing-footed’; XANTHIPPE, the ‘yellow horse’;fn18 LAMPON, the ‘shining one’; and DINOS, the ‘terrible’.fn19 More pertinently, Heracles was unaware that, due to the depraved king’s habit of feeding them human flesh, all four had turned quite untameably mad and were kept chained with iron shackles to bronze mangers, a danger to all who approached.fn20

  When Heracles arrived at Diomedes’ palace in Thrace, he was accompanied by his young friend and lover ABDERUS, a son of Hermes.fn21 Leaving Abderus to watch over the horses, Heracles set off to negotiate with the king.

  His curiosity getting the better of him, the boy drew too close to the mares. One of them caught his hand between her teeth dragged him into the stalls. He was torn apart and devoured in minutes.

  Heracles buried the mangled remains and founded a city around the tomb, which he called Abdera in honour of his lost beloved.fn22 The distraught and maddened hero now turned the full force of his wrath on Diomedes, slaughtering his palace guard, snatching up the king and throwing him to his own horses. The unpleasant taste of their one-time master caused the mares to lose their appetite for human flesh so that Heracles was able safely to harness them to a chariot and drive them all the way back to Mycenae. Eurystheus, who must surely have been getting used to the disappointment of seeing Heracles return unscathed by now, dedicated the mares to Hera and bred them for his own thoroughbreds. Later Greeks believed that it was from this line that Alexander the Great’s famous mount, Bucephalus, was descended.

  9. THE GIRDLE OF HIPPOLYTA

  ‘Far to the east, along the banks of the Thermodon, lives the race of Amazons!’ said ADMETE, breathless with excitement.

  Heracles bowed. Eurystheus’s daughter was being ‘given’ a Labour of Heracles as a coming of age present.

  ‘Set him to do anything you want, my darling,’ Eurystheus had told her. ‘The more difficult and dangerous, the better. Heracles has had it too easy.’

  Admete had known straight away what she would demand of the hero. Like many young Greek girls, she worshipped this band of strong, independent and fiercely unapologetic women and had long dreamed of being an Amazon.

  ‘The daughters of Ares and the nymph HARMONIA,’ she told Heracles, ‘the Amazons dedicate themselves to fighting and to each other.’

  ‘So I have heard,’ said Heracles.

  ‘Their queen …’ Admete was flushed with excitement now, ‘is HIPPOLYTA. Hippolyta the brave, Hippolyta, the beautiful, Hippolyta the entirely fierce. No man can conquer her.’

  ‘That too have I heard.’

  ‘She wears a belt, a most marvellous jewelled girdle, given her by her father Ares. I want it.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You are to bring me the girdle of Hippolyta.’

  ‘And if she would rather keep it?’

  ‘Don’t toy with my daughter, Heracles. Obey her.’

  So it was that Heracles found himself sailing east towards the land of the Amazons. The fame of these proud female warriors had spread throughout the ancient world.fn23 Riding on horseback – the first warriors in the world to do so – the Amazons had defeated all the tribes they had encountered in battle. When they conquered and subdued a people they took home the males that they judged would father the best
daughters and bred with them. When the men had done their duty by them they were killed, like the males of many species of spider, mantis and fish. They put to death any male babies they bore, raising only girls to join their band. If they were accused of cruelty, they pointed out how many girl-children around the ‘civilised’ world were left exposed on mountainsides to diefn24 and how many women were used as childbearing livestock and given no other purpose in life than to serve, please and obey.

  By no means did Heracles underestimate the magnitude of the task facing him. But when his ship reached Pontus, on the southern coast of the Black Sea, he was surprised to be met by a friendly welcoming party including Queen Hippolyta herself. The Amazons and their queen were not the only heroic fighters to have achieved a reputation across the ancient world. For more than eight years Heracles had uncomplainingly achieved the impossible, and the news of his strength, courage and fortitude against such stacked and unjust odds had travelled far and wide. He had rid the world of much menace and terror. He had met magic and monstrosity with valour and dignity. Only the churlish or envious could fail to admire him. The Amazons’ admiration for valour, dignity and strength had overcome their instinctive distrust and dislike of men enough for them to welcome him and his crew with warmth and respect.

  Heracles and his crew were garlanded with flowers and feasted on the banks of the Thermodon.fn25

  Heracles was deeply attracted by Hippolyta. She had poise, wit and a natural air of command that was rare in the world. She never raised her voice or seemed to expect attention or adoration, and yet Heracles found himself attending to no one else and felt closer to veneration for her than for any other woman, or indeed man, he had known.

  She seemed to like him equally. If there was a trace of a smile on her face when she saw that her hands together were nowhere near meeting around the muscles of his upper arm, it was a smile not so much of mockery as of amusement at the freakish wonder of such a specimen living in the world.

  ‘This will do it,’ she said, unbuckling her belt.

  She was right, her waist and Heracles’ biceps had the same dimensions. Fixing the clasp, she announced that it improved his appearance greatly.

  ‘That horrible lion’s head and pelt, the ugly club … no doubt they’re useful for frightening fools and cowards, but a man should be never be afraid to show a little colour and sparkle.’

  She smiled again as Heracles examined the jewelled belt around his arm. She noticed that his face was clouded with a frown.

  ‘Don’t tell me that you are afraid that such a bangle does not consort with your great masculinity? I thought better of you than that.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Heracles. ‘It isn’t that …’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘You say that you have heard of the tasks my cousin Eurystheus has set me?’

  ‘All the world knows of the Labours of Heracles.’

  ‘Is that what they call them?’

  ‘Even if we allow for some natural exaggeration of your feats as the tales are passed mouth to ear, it seems you have done miraculous things.’

  ‘I’m sure most of the stories are nonsense.’

  ‘Well, is it true that when you carried the Erymanthian Boar into Eurystheus’s throne room he was so frightened that he dived headfirst into a stone jar?’

  ‘That, yes, that is true,’ Heracles conceded.

  ‘And that you fed Diomedes to his own horses?’

  Again Heracles nodded.

  ‘So tell me, great hero, what it is that can trouble you now?’

  ‘Well, you see, I’m on the ninth of these tasks, these “Labours” as you call them. That is the reason I am here.’

  Hippolyta stiffened. ‘I hope it is not to drag Hippolyta in chains before that vile tyrant?’

  ‘No, no … not that. It’s this girdle …’ He looked down at the belt circling his arm. ‘His daughter, Admete, sent me to fetch it. But now that I have met you I cannot find it in my heart to …’

  ‘Is that all? It is yours, Heracles. Accept it gladly as my gift to you. One warrior to another.’

  ‘But it was a gift from your father, Ares the god.’

  ‘And now it is a gift from your lover Hippolyta the woman.’

  ‘They say that its wearer is invincible in battle. Can this be true?’

  ‘I have worn it since I was fourteen and I have never been defeated.’

  ‘Then I have no right …’

  ‘Please. I insist. Now, let me see if all your dimensions are in proportion …’

  We will leave Heracles and Hippolyta locked together in a fierce embrace in her royal tent on the banks of the Thermodon.

  You might be thinking that this Ninth Labour had come all too easily to Heracles. Certainly the goddess Hera believed just that. The hatred she bore him had not diminished over the years. If anything it grew more intense each time he triumphed over yet another adversity. His popularity enraged her. She had set out to humiliate and destroy him. Instead there were children and even towns being named after him and songs being composed about him praising his strength, courage and lack of self-pity. She would show the world they had chosen the wrong man to celebrate.

  In the form of an Amazon warrior Hera walked the riverbank sowing confusion, doubt and distrust.

  ‘Heracles cannot be trusted … he is here to kidnap our queen … I have heard that even now his men are preparing to take us prisoner, rape us and sell us as slaves in the markets of Argolis … We should kill him before he gets a chance to destroy us all …’

  In the tent Heracles sat up, suddenly alert.

  ‘What is that noise?’

  ‘Just my women celebrating with your crew, no doubt,’ said Hippolyta sleepily.

  ‘I can hear horses.’

  Heracles leaned across Hippolyta’s prone form and lifted a flap of canvas. Amazons on horseback were firing arrows at his men! A party of them was galloping towards the tent. At once the blood throbbed in his temples and a red mist closed all around him. The smiles and hospitality had been a trap. Hippolyta had tried to make a fool of him.

  ‘Traitor! he cried. ‘You … deceitful … witch!’

  He took her head in his hands and with the last raging word he twisted her neck round so that it snapped like the dry branch of a tree.

  He snatched up his club and ran out of the tent. He swung and dismounted three of the Amazons riding towards him with one sweeping blow. The others saw Hippolyta’s belt around his arm, the symbol of her authority and her invincibility. The fight went out of them. Heracles’ men, heartened by the sight of their leader with his blood up and roaring like a lion, rallied. In a short time the banks of the river were littered with the bodies of dead Amazons.

  Heracles and his men broke the long return journey back to Mycenae by putting in at Troy. It was ruled at this time by LAOMEDON, grandson of the king TROS who gave Troy and Trojans their names, and the son of King ILOS, who gave the city its other name, Ilium, as in Homer’s great epic, the Iliad.

  Troy was a fine city, the construction of its walls had recently been completed by the gods Apollo and Poseidon. But the greedy, duplicitous and foolish Laomedon refused to pay them for their work. In revenge Apollo fired plague arrows into the city, while Poseidon flooded the plain of Ilium and sent a sea monster there to harry and devour such Trojans as tried to escape their disease-ridden city.

  The priests and oracles of Troy told Laomedon that the only way to save Troy from disease, famine and disaster was to chain his daughter HESIONE naked to a rock in the floodplain, for the sea monster to feast uponfn26.

  This was the situation when Heracles arrived. He promised to free Hesione if he could have the horses that had been bred from Zeus’s gift to Tros.fn27 Laomedon agreed and Heracles promptly killed the monster and rescued Hesione. Once more Laomedon reneged on a deal. He refused to honour the agreement and give up his horses.

  There wasn’t time for Heracles to put this right. His year was nearly up and he needed to get to
Eurystheus and be sent on his Tenth Labour. Vowing to return and have his revenge on Laomedon, he made his way back to Mycenae.

  10. THE CATTLE OF GERYON

  ‘There!’ Heracles flung the belt at Admete’s feet. ‘I hope it brings you luck.fn28 Now, mighty king, my tenth and final quest, if you please.’

  Eurystheus shifted uncomfortably on his throne. He was sure a number of courtiers had tittered at the epithet ‘mighty king’.

  ‘Very well, Heracles,’ he said. ‘You will go to Erytheia and bring me back GERYON’s cattle. The entire herd.’fn29

  You will remember that, when Perseus sliced off the head of the Gorgon, Medusa, two unborn children from her liaison with Poseidon flew from the gaping wound. One was the flying horse PEGASUS, the other Chrysaor, the young man with the golden sword. Chrysaor (by his union with CALLIRRHOË, the ‘sweet-flowing’ daughter of the sea Titans Oceanus and Tethys) had fathered the three-headed Geryon, a most terrible monster who fiercely protected an enormous herd of red cattle in the western island of Erytheia.fn30 To help him guard this rare and valuable breed, he had the giant EURYTION, a son of Ares, and a ferocious two-headed dog, brother to CERBERUS, called ORTHRUS.

  Erytheia lay so deep into the unexplored western reaches of the world that to reach it Heracles had to go further than he had ever travelled before. He became so hot and bothered while toiling across the Libyan desert that he shouted up in rage at the glaring sun and threatened to shoot Helios down from his chariot with his arrows. Helios may have been of the immortal Titan race but he still feared the terrible damage Heracles’ arrows could do him.

  ‘Don’t shoot, Heracles, son of Zeus,’ he yelled, in some panic.

  ‘Then help me!’ Heracles shouted back.

  Helios agreed not to fly so close to the land if only the hero promised not to shoot. What’s more, to help make the journey westwards easier he offered to lend Heracles his great Cup. Each day Helios would ride his sun-chariot from the lands of the distant eastfn31 across the sky until he settled in the far kingdom of Oceanusfn32. There he would spend the night reposing in his western palace, before setting out eastwards again in an enormous cup or bowl borne along Oceanus’ fast flowing current. This ‘River of Ocean’ circling the earth returned Helios to his eastern palace where he could prepare his horses and set out for another day.