The first task Eurystheus demanded was to kill a savage lion, a child of Typhoeus that was ravaging the country around Nemea, northwest of Mycenae. In early versions of the story, Heracles simply cut himself a club at Nemea and killed the lion. Later versions tell how he fired at it with bow and arrows, then realized, when his arrows bounced off, that the beast had an impenetrable skin. Heracles therefore chased the lion into its lair, a tunnel through a mound with an opening at either end. He blocked up one end and crawled into the other. Since his weapons were useless, he seized the beast in wrestler's grip, threw it to the ground, and through brute strength snapped his neck. When he tried to skin the lion, Heracles discovered that his wepons could not break his skin. He took one of the lion's own claws and with this unbreakable tool cut the uncuttable pelt. Ever after he wore the skin around his shoulders, its gaping jaws embracing his head like a helmet, and he always toted teh club he had cut at Nemea.
Heracles brought the dead lion back to Eurystheus, but the king skulked in a corner of the palace, bellowing out orders that Heracles never again be allowed into the city with his booty. Henceforth he would have to announce his results his results to the herald (Copreus), "dungman." To be on the safe side, Eurysthueus also had an enormous bronze jar set into the ground in which he could take refuge when Heracles was anywhere near.
Heracles' second labor was to destroy an enormous serpent, the Hydra("water serpent") with many heads that lived near the swamps of Lerna southeast of Mycenae, where it ravaged the fields and livestock. Even its breath was death. Iolaüs, Heracles' nephew(not just companion), accompanied him to the springs. Heracles soon drove the monster from its lair by shooting burning arrows, then moved in close, brandishing a short curved sword. But the Hydra wrapped its coils around one of his feet, while a giant crap crept from the swamp and attacked the other. Everytime Heracles succeeded in cutting one head, two others grew in its place. The central head, furthermore, was immortal.
Though he managed to smash the crab, the outcome was still uncertain. Heracles cried out for help. Iolaüs set fire to a nearby forest and brought Heracles firebrands to burn off each new head as it sprouted and to cauterize the stump. At last the mortal heads were destroyed. He cut off the immortal one and buried it beneath a massive rock, then ripped open the fiend's body, spilling on the ground a filth of deadly bile. He dipped his arrows into the black liquor, so poisonous that even a trace would kill a man. The crab became the constellation Cancer("crab").
His next task was to bring in a deer living in Ceryneia, a remote mountain in the northern Peloponnesus. This magical animal, though female, had golden antlers and brazen hoofs and belonged to Artemis. Heracles spotted her near Argos. Wishing neither to kill nor harm the animal, he tracked it for a full year until he overtook it in Arcadia, where he wounded it with an arrow as it crossed the river, Ladon. He seized it by the antlers, threw it over his shoulder, and headed for Mycenae. On the way he met Artemis and Apollo, walking together: Apollo tried to take the deer away and reproached Heracles for wounding and capturing his sister's sacred animal. The hero apologized, saying that he was under orders from Eurystheus. Artemis allowed him to show the deer to Copreus, after which Heracles let it go.
The fourth labor was to capture alive the Erymanthian boar, which lived on Mt. Erymanthius in Arcadia.
Parergon: Pholus. While trying to pick up its trail, Heracles stopped to visit a Centaur named Pholus, who lived in a remote cave. Pholus wished to be hospitable and offered Heracles cooked meat(he himself only ate raw).) When Heracles asked for some wine, pointing to a large cask at the back of the cave, Pholus explained that the wine belonged to all the Centaurs and that he ought not to open it. Heracles assured Pholus that there would be no problem, but when he opened the cast the strong scent from the aged liquor wafted across the mountains tops, and soon the neighboring Centaurs gathered, carrying stones and ash trees as weapons.
Alarmed at their aggressive manner, Heracles threw torches at them and fired arrows at others. They fled and took refuge with the one wise Centaur, Chiron, who migrated down from Mt. Pelion in northern Grece near Iolcus. Unlike the other Centaurs, Chiron was immortal. In the melee he was wounded by one of Heracles' poisoned arrows so that the venom that always killed coursed through the veins of a being that could not die. Prometheus, chained on the Caucacus, eventually traded his mortality for Chiron's agonizing immortality, allowing Chiron to die(though he is somehow still alive a generation later to serve as tutor to Achilles). The other Centaurs, including Nessus, later instrumental in the death of Heracles, scattered to the four winds.
After the battle the friendly Pholus picked up a stray arrow, astonished a puny thing could bring down a large, powerful Centaur. He let the arrow slip, it struck his hoof, and Pholus, too, fell dead from Hydra's poison.
Heracles at last drove the boar from the thick bush with his magnificent voice, ran it down in a snow bank, threw it across his back, and carried the boar to Eurystheus, who beheld it in terror from the bottom of his bronze jar.
Augeas, so of Helios, was king of the district of Elis in the northwestern Peloponnesus. His father had given him many herds, but Augeas never cleaned his stables. After years of neglect, they were deeply packed with an enormous quantity of dung. Eurystheus, wishing, wishing to humiliate Heracles by making him shovel excrement, ordered him to go to clean the stables. Without revealing that he was under orders from an overlord, Heracles bargained with Augeas, who agreed that if he cleaned all the stables in a single day-an obvious impossibility-he would receive one-tenth of Augeas' cattle.
Heracles easily accomplished the task by diverting the nearby Alpheus and Peneus rivers through the stables. But when Augeas learned of Heracles' obligation to Eurystheus, he refused to pay. Later, as one of the praxeis (military exploits, accomplished at the head of an army.).
In Arcadia around a lake called Stymphalis swarmed mighty flocks of death-dealing birds, with arrow-firing wings and armor-piercing beaks. Heracles drove them from their cover in the thick forest around the lake by clanging together bronze castanets. As they flew into the sky, he shot them down with his arrows.
Now Heracles was ordered to capture the bull summoned from the sea by Minos, the one that impregnated Pasiphae as the she hunched in the wooden cow. Heracles sailed to Crete and asked for Minos' help, since the animal was untamable. Minos politely refused, but gave Heracles permission to take the bull away if he could capture it unaided.
Heracles charged at the bull, seized it by the horns, tossed it in the sea, then jumped on its back and so rode back to the Peloponnesus (even as Europa had ridden another ull from Phoenicia to Crete). Heracles showed it to Copreus, but the bull got away and wandered north across the Isthmus. It ended up on the plain of Marathon, where Theseus caught it.
The next task was to capture the horses of Diomedes, a son of Ares and king of the Bistones, a savage tribe in Thrace. These horses were no ordinary animals, but dined on human flesh. When Heracles reached Thrace, he promptly captured the horses. Since they enjoyed human flesh, he fed them their master Diomedes, thus arousing the wrath of the Bistones, who rose up and besieged him and his young lover, Abderus. Heracles turned the horses over to Abderus while he drove back the attack, but by the time he returned, the horses had eaten Abderus. Sadly, Heracles buried what bits remained and near the tomb founded the important classical city of Abdera.
Heracles herded the horses back to Mycenae and showed them to Copreus. Afterward, they escaped and made their way back north, to Mt. Olympus, where they were eaten by wolves-though their descendants were said to be alive in the time of Alexander the Great.
Eurystheus ordered Heracles to get the girdle from the Amazon queen (Hippolyta)(or Antiopë) for his daughter. The girdle was a sort of belt that women wore just above their hips: to loosen it was to offer oneself sexually, to take it forcibly was rape. This labor was a sexual one directed against the queen of the man-hating Amazons.
Heracles gathered some companions and set out on the long journey to the river Thermodon on the southern shore of the Black Sea. After various adventures, he pulled into the harbor of Themiscyra in the land of the Amazons. Surprisingly, Hippolyta greeted him in a friendly way and offered him the belt-Heracles' charms were so great that, though an Amazon, the queen surrendered to him immediately.
Hera, being sadistic toward Heracles, did not like this turn of events. Disguised as an Amazon she ran through the city proclaiming that Heracles, the brute male foreigner, had abducted their queen. The Amazons donned their armor, mounted their steeds and attacked the ship. Heracles, fearing treachery, reached across the table, strangled Hippolyta, and sailed away. He went to Troy for a praregon or side adventure and returned to Mycenae, where he gave the girdle to Eurystheus.
Heracles was sent on his tenth labor to capture the cattle of Geryon, who had three bodies joined at the waist and lived on the island of Eythia(meaning "red land," perhaps named after the colors of the sunset) in the far west near the river Ocean by the Pillars of Heracles(Straits of Gibraltar). Geryon was the son of Pegasus Chrysaör and an Oceanid, Callirhoë, and he possessed a herd of red cattle watched over by Eurytion and his two headed dog, Orthus, which was a child of Echidna and Typhoeus.
Heracles trudge through the sands of northern Africa, finally reaching the narrows separating the Mediterrenean and Atlantic. Here he set up pillars on both sides of the straits(Today these are known as the Rock of Gibraltar and the Rock of Ceuta in Tangiers.). Heracles traveled into North African desert sands, and became tired from the intense heat. He shot a bow at the sun, and Helios admired his boldness. Helios lent Heracles a cup, which he used to travel east at night.
Heracles landed in Erythia and Orthus smelled him and attacked. Heracles bashed Orthus' brains and then killed Eurytion, who came to assist Orthus. He then moved the cattle past a river, before Geryon attacked. Heracles shot him with an arrow, put the cattle into the cup and went to Tartessus, at the edge of the world, where he returned the cup to Helios.
Heracles went to the land of the Ligurians(in S. France), where they attacked him. Heracles pleaded for help from his father, Zeus, who sent stones at them(still to be seen today). Heracles went through a series of adventures in Italy and Sicily before returning back to Mycenae, where Eurystheus sacrificed the cattle to Hera.
XI. The Apples of the Hesperides
Heracles was then assigned to acquire the apples of the Hesperides, "the nymphs of the West." These apples grew on a magical tree with golden bark and golden leaves, which Zeus had given to Hera as a wedding present and Hera planted in a garden at the foot of Mount Atlas, called the Garden of the Hesperides. Hera sent a 100-headed serpent called Ladon to guard it particularly against the Hesperides, who tried to pilfer from it.
Heracles didn't know where to find these apples, so he sought Nereus, the sea-god, who knew everything, but was very elusive. Some nymphs knew where Nereus slep and Heracles went there and tied him down. He didn't release him, although Nereus changed shape to try to escape. Nereus provided directions.
Heracles went to North Africa and was attacked by Antaeus, who wrestled passers-by to the death. Heracles threw him to the ground, but Antaeus got stronger every time he hit the ground. Heracles knew this, because Antaeus was a child of Gaia, so he held him above his head and strangled him.
Heracles confused, went to Egypt, where he killed Bsiris and his son, who killed all foriegners in an attempt to restore prosperity to Egypt, as their seer thought it would. Heracles also freed Prometheus from his chains.
Heracles finally arrived at to meet Atlas, who held the sky up. Heracles persuaded Atlas to fetch the apples, and Atlas came back declaring that Heracles would now have to hold up the sky. Heracles told Atlas, that he would, but he would have to get a cushion for his head. Atlas let him go and held up the sky, for he thought Heracles meant he would return immediately. Heracles instead left Atlas and returned to Mycenae with the apples to Eurystheus. Eurystheus gave them back the Heracles, who returned them to Athena, who gave them back to the Hesperides.
At the twelfth labor of Heracles he was ordered to descend into the underworld and bring back its many-headed guard dog, Cerberus. Like any good Greek preparing to face death, he first went to Athens, was purified of pollution for having killed the Centaurs, and was initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. He traveled to the entrace to Hades at Taenaron, a system of caves near Sparta.(During the Pelopponesean War, he was the patron hero the Spartans.
As he came down from the upper world, all the ghosts fled before him. The Gorgon's head rose up, and he drew his sword against it. He seized one of Hades' own cows(Hades, like Geryon, is a cattleman) and sacrificed it to Lord Lead. A herdsman tried to stop him, but Heracles wrestled him down and broke his ribs.
He appeared before the king and the queen of the dead and requested permission to take Cerberus. Hades agreed, as long as Heracles did not use any weapons. Protected by his lion's skin and breastplate, he seized the hound by its through and held it, though Cerberus' snake-tail lashed around and savagely bit him. Heracles passed a chain around the beast and dragged it, foaming and snarling, out of the darkness and into the light. Wherever a piece of foam from Cerberus' mouth struck the ground, up sprang the deadly wolfsbane or aconite. Heracles reached Mycenae, displayed the monster to Eurystheus and then released it bounding back to the world below.