Labours of Hercules

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This article is about the Greek myth. For the short chips collection by Agatha Christie, see The Labours of Hercules.
"Hercules and the hydra" by Antonio Pollaiuolo


As they survive, the Labours of Hercules are not told in any single place, but must be reassembled from many sources. Ruck and Staples[1] assert that there is no one way to interpret the labours, but that six were located in the Peloponnese, culminating with the rededication of Olympia. Six others took the hero farther afield. In each case, the pattern was the same: Hercules was sent to kill or subdue, or to fetch back for Hera's representative Eurystheus a magical animal or plant. "The sites selected were all previously strongholds of Hera or the 'Goddess' and were Entrances to the Netherworld".[1]

A famous depiction of the labours in Greek sculpture is found on the metopes of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, which date to the 450s BC.

Contents

[edit] The labours

In his labours, Hercules was often accompanied by a male companion (an eromenos), according to Licymnius and others, such as Iolaus, his nephew. Although he was only supposed to perform ten labours, this assistance led to him suffering two more. Eurystheus didn't count the Hydra, because Iolaus helped him, or the Augean stables, as he received payment for his work, or because the rivers did the work.

A traditional order of the labours found in Apollodorus[2] is:

  1. Slay the Nemean Lion.
  2. Slay the 9-headed Lernaean Hydra.
  3. Capture the Golden Hind of Artemis.
  4. Capture the Erymanthian Boar.
  5. Clean the Augean stables in a single day.
  6. Slay the Stymphalian Birds.
  7. Capture the Cretan Bull.
  8. Steal the Mares of Diomedes.
  9. Obtain the Girdle of the Amazon Queen.
  10. Obtain the Cattle of the Monster Geryon.
  11. Steal the Apples of the Hesperides.
  12. Capture Cerberus.

[edit] Inner meaning

Walter Burkert has called the labours and other myths of Hercules "a conglomerate of popular tales which was exploited only secondarily by the high art of poetry", and it was not until the fifth century that poets of the Classic age could draw the myth into "a tragic, heroic, and human atmosphere and away from its natural thrust outwards to a carefree realm beyond the human" (Burkert 1985:208). As philosophical, moral, and eventually allegorical overlays came to be applied to his death-cheating superhuman exploits, behind their outer, literal meaning, the Hercules figure came to represent an inner mystical tradition, and thus the labours could be interpreted in terms of the spiritual path. The last three labours (10-12) of Heracles are generally considered metaphors about death. Hercules was unique among Greek heroes in that no tomb of Hercules was ever localized, and the Olympian sacrifices and chthonic libations were offered simultaneously to him everywhere.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Ruck, Carl (1994). The World of Classical Myth. Durham, NC, USA: Carolina Academic Press. pp. 169. 
  2. ^ Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheke 2.5.1-2.5.12.

[edit] References

  • Burkert, Walter (1985). Greek Religion. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press. 

[edit] External links

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