When hearing the name, Heracles, many people think of Disney’s Hercules. That was my first experience with the mythological hero, however the children’s film leaves out many not-so-pleasant details. Heracles lived a life filled with not only physical challenges, but challenges and decisions that would alter every path of his life. In Greek myth, Zeus is married to Hera, but he is not faithful to her. One of his affairs was with the mortal Aclmene
<<PLEASE CORRECT
, who gave birth to Heracles, thus making him a Demi-God. When he was born, Aclmene named him Heracles, meaning Glory of Hera, so that she may not make Hera so angry, but she did the opposite.
PLEASE BE MORE CLEAR: “she did not achieve her goal”
Hera was angry and jealous, so she sent two serpents to kill baby Heracles, but he strangled them to death. This, unfortunately, was not the end of Hera’s wrath.
When Heracles approached adulthood, he wondered if his life would be filled with ease or hardship, thus bringing about Heracles’s Choice,where he was faced with the decision of Virtue or Vice. After leaning towards Vice, Heracles made the choice of Virtue, which meant that his life would be filled with hardship and battle that would make him a better man. However, this life of hardship the he chose was nothing that Heracles could have ever imagined. After Heracles married a mortal, by the name of Magdala, and had children, Hera sent a curse upon him, called the Madness of Heracles.
PLEASE DO NOT CONFUSE THE DEFINITION OF THE CURSE SENT BY HERA WITH THE TITLE OF THE PLAY BY EURIPIDES
In a state of rage and confusion, he murdered his wife and children, and when he came out of his madness, he was heartbroken and distraught. He then went to the Oracle of Delphi and prayed to Apollo to redeem him. The Oracle told him that he must serve King Eurystheus for twelve years as a punishment for his murders.
As part of Heracles’s punishment, Eurystheus ordered him to complete ten labors, however it ended up becoming twelve labors after two did not count. Many of the labors consisted of Heracles capturing or slaying beasts that were wreaking havoc upon cities and civilians, while others were much more difficult. Eurystheus even expected many of the labors to be impossible for Heracles, but he was proven wrong. Some of the seemingly impossible labors were the ones in which Hera came down and intervened, hoping to cause Heracles to fail. The original ten labors were to slay the Nemean Lion and bring back it’s skin, slay the Lernaean Hydra, capture the Ceryneian Hind, capture the Erymanthian Boar, clean the Augean stables in one day, slay the Stymphalian Birds, capture the Cretan Bull, steal the Mares of Diomedes, obtain the Belt of Hippolyte, and to obtain the Cows of Geryon. The two labors that were later added were to steal the Apples of the Hesperides and to capture Cerberus.
The second labor, which was to slay the Lernaean Hydra, was the first labor that Eurystheus did not count. The labor seemed impossible, because whenever Heracles would smash one head of the hydra, two more heads would grow in its place, so Heracles decided to call on his nephew, Iolaus, for help. Each time Heracles smashed one of the hydra’s head, Iolaus would hold a torch to the neck, which kept more heads from growing back. Eurystheus did not count this labor as one of the ten, because Iolaus helped Heracles defeat the beast and he was supposed to do it on his own.
The fifth labor was to clean the Augean stables in one day, which was the other labor that Eurystheus did not count. The stables belonged to King Augeas, who owned more cattle than anyone in Greece, and so Heracles said that he would clean his stables in one day if he was payed a tenth of his cattle. Augeas agreed, and Heracles completed the task, however, when Augeas learned about the labors, he denied his promise and refused to pay Heracles. Heracles called on Augeas’s son to testify before a judge, who then decided that Heracles must be paid. Eurystheus did not count this labor either, because Heracles was paid for the work.
The ninth labor was to obtain the belt of Hippolyte. Hippolyta promised the belt to Heracles, but Hera intervened. She disguised herself as an Amazonian warrior and told all of the Amazons that Heracles was to take away their queen, and so they put on their armor and prepared to fight. Realizing that he was under attack, Heracles drew his sword, killed Hippolyta, and took her belt. He then engaged in a great war between the Greeks and the Amazons.
The tenth original labor was to obtain the Cows of Geryon. Geryon was a terrible monster who kept a herd of red cattle guarded by Orthus and Eurytion. Heracles smashed the guards with his club and began to escape with the cows. Geryon was alerted and attacked Heracles, but Heracles triumphed. While trying to bring the herd back to Eurystheus, Heracles came across many obstacles, including one from Hera. She sent an attack on the cattle, which caused them to scatter far and wide, and so Heracles had to retrieve all of them, making his task even longer and more difficult. After gathering the herd and bringing them to Eurystheus, the king ironically sacrificed them to Hera.
After eight years and one month, Heracles had completed his ten labors. However, because the slaying of the hydra and cleaning of the stables were not completed properly, Eurystheus demanded two more labors. I think that the reason that Eurystheus did not count these two labors was because if Heracles received help from someone else or was paid for his labor punishments, it could not be considered a truly virtuous labor
I WOULD SAY: “a virtuous labour of atonement”
therefore it would not be true to the virtuous path that he had chosen to go down. And so, Heracles was given two more labors, which were considerably the most difficult of all the twelve labors he was given, in order to make up for the ones that could not count.
I think that Heracles’s never-ending feud with Hera, which led to his madness and then resulted in his twelve labors, were influenced by his choice of Virtue.
THIS A GOOD IDEA, THAT MIGHT BE DEVELOPED, AS THE IDEA OF HERACLES AS “CHOOSER OF VIRTUE” COMES AGAIN AND AGAIN IN GREEK MYTH (THE THE MITH OF HERACLES AT THE CROSS ROAD, FOR INSTANCE
The difficult labors were meant to redeem Heracles from the terrible thing that he had done, which would, in a way, make him a better man. His hardships and battles made him the perfect embodiment of the Greek idea of “pathos”, which is the experience of virtuous struggle and suffering which would lead to fame and, in Hercules’ case, immortality on Mount Olympus. Hera tried time and time again to kill Heracles, cause him to fail, and to keep him from reaching Mount Olympus, but Heracles was too strong and too virtuous to let her get to him.
YOU SEEM TO PROPOSE THE INTERPRETATION OF HERACLES AS A PURSUER OF VIRTUE AS YOUR OWN ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION. BUT IT IS A WIDESPREAD INTERPRETATION ALREADY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD, WHERE HERACLES HAS BEEN OFTEN INTERPRETED IN ALLEGORICAL TERMS AS THE HERO OF VIRTUES.
Works Cited
- The Life and Times of Hercules. (n.d.). Retrieved June 26, 2018, from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/bio.html
- Atsma, A. J. (2000). HERACLES. Retrieved June 26, 2018, from http://theoi.com/greek-mythology/heracles.html
- Labours of Heracles. (2018, June 22). Retrieved June 26, 2018, from https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/The_Myths/Labours_of_Heracles/labours_of_heracles.html
- The Twelve Labors of Hercules. (n.d.). Retrieved June 26, 2018, from http://www.crystalinks.com/12laborshercules.html
- Clements, R., & Musker, J. (Directors). (1998). Hercules[Video file]. USA: Disney.
- Leonard, A. (2013, February 26). The Tumultuous Tale of Heracles and Hera. Retrieved June 26, 2018, from https://classicalwisdom.com/heracles-and-hera/