BOOK Orthros and Hydra. The result is the first Trojan war mentioned in the Iliad, which relates how Herakles, coming with six ships and few men, shattered its towers and left its streets desolate. In other words, Herakles is mightier than Agamemnon; he is the sun-god demanding his own recompense: the Achaians among whom Achilleus fights are the sun-children seeking to recover the beautiful light of evening and the treasures which have been stolen with her from the west. Of the other exploits of Herakles, the greater number explain themselves. The Nemean lion is the offspring of Typhon, Orthros, or Echidna; in other words, it is sprung from Vritra, the dark thief, and Ahi, the throttling snake of darkness, and it is as surely slain by Herakles as the snakes which had assaulted him in the cradle. Another child of the same horrid parents is the Lernaian Hydra, its very name denoting a monster who, like the Sphinx or the Panis, shuts up the waters and causes drought. It has many heads, one being immortal, as the storm must constantly supply new clouds while the vapours are driven off by the sun into space. Hence the story went that although Herakles could burn away its mortal heads, as the sun burns up the clouds, still he can but hide away the mist or vapour itself, which at its appointed time must again darken the sky. In this fight he is aided by Iolaos, the son of Iphikles, a name recalling, like that of Iolê, the violet-tinted clouds which can be seen only when the face of the heaven is clear of the murky vapours. Hence it is that Eurystheus is slain when Iolaos rises from the under world to punish him for demanding from the children of the dawn-goddess Athênê the surrender of the Herakleids, who had found among them a congenial home. The stag of Keryneia is, according to some versions, slain, in others only seized by Herakles, who bears it with its golden antlers and brazen feet to Artemis and Phoibos. 1 Il. v. 640. This story is put into the mouth of the Herakleid Tlêpolemos when he is about to slay Sarpêdôn. Grote, Hist. Gr. i. 388. The other incidents simply repeat the story of Kepheus. The oracle says that a maiden must be given up to the seamonster, and the lot falls on Hesionê, the daughter of Laomedon, as in the Libyan tale it falls on Andromeda, the daughter of Kepheus. Herakles, of course, plays the part of Perseus, and is aided by Athênê and the Trojans, who build him a tower to help him in the fight. THE MARATHONIAN AND CRETAN BULLS. The light god is angry because he had thus laid hands on an animal sacred to his sister, and thus the stag becomes a cloud crowned with golden tints, and dispersed as the sun pursues it. The story of the Erymanthian boar is in some accounts transferred from Argos to Thessaly or Phrygia, the monster itself, which Herakles chases through deep snow, being closely akin to the Chimaira slain by Bellerophôn. In the myth of the Augeian stables Herakles plays the part of Indra, when he lets loose the waters imprisoned by the Pani.' In this case the plague of drought is regarded not so much in its effects on the health of man as in its influence on nature generally, in the disorder, decay, unseemliness, and filth which must follow from it. The clouds, here the cattle of Augeias, may move across the sky, but they drop down no water on the earth, and do nothing towards lessening the evil. Of these clouds Augeias promises that Herakles shall become in part the lord, if he can but cleanse their stables. The task is done, but Augeias, like Laomedôn, refuses to abide by his bargain, and even defeats Herakles and his companions in a narrow Eleian gorge. But the victory of Augeias is fatal to himself, and with Kteatos and Eurytos he is slain by Herakles. 49 CHAP. II. thonian The myth of the Cretan bull seems to involve a confusion The Marasimilar to that which has led some to identify the serpent b who is regarded as an object of love and affection in the Phallic worship, with the serpent who is always an object of mere aversion and disgust.2 The bull which bears Eurôpê from the Phoinikian land is obviously the bull Indra, which, like the sun, traverses the heaven, bearing the dawn from the east to the west. But the Cretan bull, like his fellow in the Gnossian labyrinth, who devours the tribute children from the city of the dawn-goddess, is a dark and malignant monster This exploit, in the Norse story of the Mastermaid, is performed by the prince, who finds that, unless he guides the pitchfork aright, ten pitchforks full of filth come in for every one that he tosses out, an incident which recalls the growth of the heads of the Lernaian Hydra. This myth is repeated in the tale of the Two Stepsisters, and in the VOL. II. E Gaelic story of the Battle of the Birds, * See section xii. of this chapter. BOOK II. The girdle of Hippolytê. akin to the throttling snake, who represents the powers of night and darkness. This bull Poseidôn, it is said, makes mad; but although Herakles carries it home on his back, he is compelled to let it go again, and it reappears as the bull who ravages the fields of Marathon, till it is slain by the hands of Theseus, who is the slayer also of the Minotauros. The clouds and vapours pursued and conquered by the hero are seen again in the mares of Diomêdês, which consume their master and are thus rendered tame, perhaps as the isolated clouds are unable to resist the sun when the moisture which has produced them has been subdued. They appear also as the Stymphalian birds, with claws, wings, and beaks resembling those of the Sphinx, and like her being eaters of human flesh or destroyers of men and beasts. These birds, it is said, had taken refuge in the Stymphalian lake, because they were afraid of the wolves-a phrase which exhibits the dark storm-clouds as dreading the rays (Lykoi) of the sun, which can only appear when themselves have been defeated. These clouds reappear yet again as the cattle stolen by Geryon, and recovered by Herakles-a myth of which the legend of Cacus exhibits the most striking and probably the most genuine form. Nor is the legend of the golden apples guarded by the Hesperides anything more than a repetition of the same idea, being itself, as we have seen, a result of the same kind of equivocation which produced the myths of Lykâon, Arktouros, and Kallisto. In the girdle of Hippolytê we have one of those mysterious emblems which are associated with the Linga in the worship of Vishnu. It is the magic kestos of Aphroditê and the wreath of the Kadmeian Harmonia. Into the myth which related how Herakles became its possessor, the mythographers have introduced a series of incidents, some of which do not belong to it, while others merely repeat each other. Thus, before he reaches the land of the Amazons, Herakles aids Lykos against the Bebrykes, in other words, fights the battle of the bright being against the roaring monsters who are his enemies; and thus, after he has slain Hippolytê and seized the girdle, he visits Echidna, a being akin to the beautiful but mysterious Melusina, who throws her spell over Ray ARÊS AND KYKNOS. II. 51 mond of Toulouse, and then takes vengeance on the Trojan CHAP. Laomedôn, slaying the bright Sarpêdôn, who in the Iliad falls by the spear of his descendant Tlepolemos. significance, among the legends of labours of the twelve Herakles. The narratives of these great exploits, which are commonly Myths inknown as the twelve labours of Herakles, are interspersed terspersed with numberless incidents of greater or less some of them plainly interpreting themselves. journey to the land of the Hesperides he is tormented by the heat of the sun, and shoots his arrows at Helios, who, admiring his bravery, gives him his golden cup in which to cross the sea. In Kyknos, the son of Arês the grinder or crusher, he encounters an antagonist akin to Cacus, or even more formidable. With his father Kyknos invades the sacred precincts of Apollôn, where he sits on his fiery chariot while the earth trembles beneath the hoofs of his horses, and the altar and grove of Phoibos are filled with the horrid glare. It is the thunderstorm which blackens the heavens at midday, usurping the place of the lord of light, and lighting up his sanctuary, the blue heaven, with streams of deadly fire. Well may the poet say that against such a foe none but Herakles and his faithful Iolaos would dare to make a stand. But the son of Alkmênê is journeying to Trachis, and Kyknos, whose chariot blocks up the road, must yield up the path or die. On the challenge of Herakles a furious conflict ensues, in which we see the spears of Indra hurled against his hateful enemy. The crash of the thunder rolls through the heaven, and the big thunderdrops fall from the sky. At last Kyknos is slain, but Herakles is now confronted by Arês himself, whom he conquers although he cannot slay him. Arês is indeed not the passing storm, but the power from whom these storms come: he is that head of the Lernaian hydra which cannot die, and thus he escapes with a thigh wound, while the body of Kyknos, stripped of its glittering armour, is buried by Keyx. In Antaios' Hera 1 Asp. Herakl. 384. * Antaios, the uncouth awkward giant, may be fairly taken as a type of the Teutonic Troll, in whom is combined the unsightliness of Polyphêmos with the stupidity which, tolerably characteristic of the Kyklôps, is brought out still more clearly in the Teutonic devil. BOOK Herakles tcs. kles encounters the giant who, under the name of Polyphêmos, seeks to crush Odysseus. Like the latter, the Libyan monster is a son of the sea-god-the black storm-vapour which draws to itself new strength from the earth on which it reposes. Hence Herakles cannot overcome him until he lifts him off the earth and strangles him in the expanse of heaven, as the sun cannot burn up and disperse the vapours until his heat has lifted them up above the surface of the land. The fiercer heats of summer may, as we have seen, suggest and Eury- the idea not only that another hand less firm than that of Helios is suffering his fiery horses to draw too near the earth, but that Helios himself has been smitten with madness, and cares not whether in his fury he slays those whom he has most loved and cherished. The latter idea runs through the myths of the raging Herakles, and thus, when he has won Iolê the daughter of Eurytos as the prize for success in archery, her father refuses to fulfil the compact because a being who has killed one bride and her offspring may repeat the crime and thus he is parted from Iolê at the very moment of winning her. It is the old story of Daphnê, Prokris, or Arethousa, with this difference only that the legend of Iolê belongs to the middle heats of summer. Herakles may not be injured with impunity. The beautiful cattle of Eurytos are feeding like those of Helios in the pastures where the children of Neaira tend them, and Herakles is suspected of driving them away, as the tinted clouds of His friend Iphitos morning tide vanish before the sun. pleads his cause, but when he asks the aid of Herakles in recovering the lost cattle, the angry hero turns on his friend and slays him. The friendship of Herakles is as fatal to : the new invaders of the land, and who But we need say is that they become more stupid as we go further north. The Kyklôps of the Odyssey is not quite such a fool as the Troll who slits his stomach that he may eat the more, because Boots who ate a match with the Troll' and has made a slit in the scrip which he carries under his chin, assures him that the pain is nothing to speak of. The giant in the story of the Valiant Tailor (Grimm) is cheated much in the same fashion. |