Heracles and the Twelve Labors
Heracles was the son of Zeus, but much to the disgust of Zeus's wife, Hera, his mother was a human woman called Alcmene.
Heracles was so strong at ten months old, that, with his own hands, he strangled two serpents whom the jealous Hera sent to eat him while he was still in his cradle. As a young man he was taught by Chiron, the chief of the centaurs - a wondrous race of beings that had the body of a horse but the head, shoulders and arms of a human. Most centaurs were savage warriors, but Chiron was wise and good, and, as Zeus made him immortal, he was the teacher of many of the great Greek heroes.
When Heracles was about eighteen, Hera set out to destroy Heracles once and for all. She used her powers as a goddess to make him lose his mind temporarily, and in a crazy fit he accidentally killed his wife and children. When he returned to his senses, Heracles wept bitterly in horror at what he had done, and begged Zeus to tell him what he must do to remove the crime's stain from his soul.
Zeus commanded him to go to a king called Eurystheus, and carry out the ten labors he would be given. Heracles knew these would be hard, because his crime was so great, but he wanted to atone for his sin and so went to Eurystheus.
The first labor Eurystheus gave to Heracles was to kill a giant lion that had a skin that could not be pierced, which dwelt in the valley of Nemea. The fight was a terrible one; the lion could not be wounded, and Heracles was forced to grapple with it, and strangle it in his arms.
It took all his strength, but at last the beast died in his grasp, and he carried it on his back to Argos. When he arrived, Eurystheus was so frightened at the grim sight that he fled away to hide himself, and commanded Heracles not to bring his monsters within the gates of the city.
There was a second labor ready for Heracles: to destroy a serpent with nine heads, called Hydra, whose lair was the marsh of Lerna. Heracles went to the battle, and managed to cut off one head with his sword, but at that moment two sprang up in its place. Worse, a huge crab came out of the swamp and began to pinch his heels.
Still he did not lose heart, but, calling his friend Iolaus, he told him to take a firebrand and burn the necks as fast as he cut off the heads. So at last they killed the creature together, and Heracles dipped his arrows in its poisonous blood so that a wound from them was fatal.
Eurystheus said that it had not been a fair victory, since Heracles had been helped. So, much to Heracles's disgust, he decided that labor didn't count, and gave him a different labor instead. This time his job was chasing the Arcadian stag, which was sacred to Artemis. Heracles hunted it all over the countryside for a whole year, and when at last he caught it, he got into trouble with Apollo and Artemis because the stag was sacred.
Fortunately, Heracles's fourth labor was much easier than the third: he was sent to catch alive a horrid wild boar on Mount Erymanthus. He followed the beast through a deep swamp, caught it in a net, and brought it to Mycenae.
The fifth task was a curious one. Augeas, king of Elis, had immense herds, but he never bothered himself to clean his stables. Eurystheus, hoping either to disgust Heracles or kill him with the smell, sent him to clean the stables.
Heracles, without telling Augeas it was his appointed task, offered to clean the stables if he were repaid a tenth of the herd, and the king agreed. Then Heracles dug a canal, and turned the water of two rivers into the stables, thus overrunning them with water and cleaning them as good as new.
But when Augeas heard the job was done so easily, he refused payment. Worse, when Eurystheus heard that Heracles had demanded payment for the work, he said it too could not count as one of his labors! So he was given another new labor: he was ordered to clear the woods near Lake Stymphalis of some horrible flesh-eating birds that had nasty beaks and claws.
To get them to rise out of the forest was hard, but Athena gave him to him a loud clapper, which made them fly in surprise; he then shot them with the arrows he had dipped in the Hydra's blood, killing many of them, and driving the rest away.
King Minos of Crete had once vowed to sacrifice to the gods whatever should appear from the sea. A beautiful white bull came, so fine that it tempted the king not to keep his promise, and he was punished by the gods who made the bull go mad and do terrible damage across the island. Because of this, Eurystheus thought it would serve as a good labor for Heracles to bring the animal to Mycenae. In due course back came the hero, with the bull surprisingly subdued on his shoulders; and, having shown it to the king, he let it loose again to run about Greece.
He had a harder task with his next labor: he was to get the mares of the Thracian king, Diomedes, which the king fed on the flesh of strangers who had lost their way in his kingdom. Heracles fought his way past their grooms, then found Diomedes and threw him to the horses, who happily ate their owner. However, when he had fed them on the dead body of Diomedes, they grew mild and manageable, and Heracles brought them home.
His next labor was against the Amazons, a nation of women warriors, who lived somewhere on the banks of the Black Sea, kept their husbands in subjection, and seldom brought up a son. The bravest of all the Amazons was their queen, Hippolyta, to whom Ares had given a belt as a reward for her valor. Eurystheus' daughter wanted this belt, and Heracles was sent to fetch it.
Heracles approached Hippolyta and asked her honestly to hand over the belt. His simple charm convinced Hippolyta, and she promised him the belt. But Hera, unwilling to let Heracles win so easily, took the form of an Amazon and persuaded the women that their queen was being deluded by a strange man, so they mounted their horses and came to rescue her. He thought she had been treacherous, and there was a great fight in which he was forced to kill her, and he carried off her belt anyway.
For his tenth labor, Eurystheus sent Heracles far out in the west, near the ocean flowing round the world, where herds of red cattle were guarded by a two-headed dog. They belonged to a giant with three bodies called Geryon, who lived in the isle of Erythria. Heracles fought past the guard dog, killed the guard of the cattle, and fought against the mighty Geryon. Eventually he was able to guide the cattle back to Eurystheus, where he sacrificed them to Hera, much to her annoyance.
For the eleventh labor, Eurystheus again sent Heracles to the farthest parts of the earth. This time it was to bring home the golden apples that grew in the gardens of the Hesperides, the daughters of Atlas, the titan who held the skies on his shoulders. Heracles decided to asked Atlas to help him in this labor, and on the way to see him he came across Prometheus chained to a great rock. Aiming one of his poisoned arrows at the eagle who was trying to peck out Prometheus's liver, Heracles killed the tormentor, and set the Titan free. In return, Prometheus went with him to see Atlas.
The two heroes managed to convince Atlas to go to visit his daughters and get the apples, but they had to agree to Atlas's one condition: that Heracles would hold up the skies for him in the meantime. Heracles agreed, and Atlas shifted the heavens to his shoulders, went, and presently returned with three apples of gold. Heracles thanked Atlas and Prometheus for their help, and returned the apples to Eurystheus.
One more labor remained: to bring the three-headed dog, Cerberus, from the doors of Tartarus. The brave hero marched straight to the underworld and asked Hades directly if he could take the dog. Pluto said he could, but only if he was able to overcome Cerberus without weapons. This he did, struggling with the dog wearing no protection but the Nemean lion's skin, and dragging him up to the light. After showing the beast to Eurystheus, Heracles safely returned him to the underworld, and thus completed his twelve great labors.
