3/28 The Labors of Herakles

What were the first two labors?

Local labors

• One

  • he had to kill a lion in Nemea and bring back his skin

• Two:

  • there was a hydra, a water snake, at Lerna that has many heads

  • one head is immortal and can never die

  • if you cut the other heads, they instantly grow back

  • its blood is poisonous

  • Herakles fights the Hydra with his nephew

  • Hera sends a crab that tries to bite Herakles’ ankles as he is trying to free Lerna of the Hydra

  • he crushes the crab and it becomes a constellation called cancer

  • Herakles cuts off the heads one by one and the nephew burns them

  • the one head in the middle that cannot be killed is buried

What were labors 3-6?

• Arcadian labors

  • Three

    • bring back the ‘hind’ of a female red deer of Keryneia

    • hunting myth but cannot shoot/kill the deer because it is sacred to Artemis and Arcadia

    • must restrain violence and have to use your brain and strategy

    • after chasing the hind around for a year, Artemis relents and gives Herakles the deer

  • Four

    • the boar of Mount Erymanthus

    • there is a giant boar that is terrorizing a small town on the mountain of Arcadia

    • he chases the boar further and further off the mountain until it was running through the snow

    • once it was tired running through the snow, he captured it with a net and brought it back to Eurytheus

  • Five

    • another king in a nearby town named King Augeas has a thousand cattle in his stables that is full of shit because he never cleaned the stables

    • the labor is to clean the stables out in one day

    • Herakles dug a canal that redirects the river to the stable to clear it all in one go

    • skill over nature

      • Herakles tamed nature and is now associated with culture

    • mythic variant

      • Herakles charges King Augeas money for his services

  • Six

    • there were a lot of birds at the Stymphalian lake because they were trying to escape the wolves

    • they had to use strategy and not violence so he cannot shoot the birds

    • told that if he made a loud noise, the birds would be frightened and would fly away

    • he claps the bronze castanets to make loud noises and they fly away

      • mythic variant: Athena gave him the bronze castanets made from Hephaestus

What were the labors 7-10?

Labors beyond Greece

• Panhellenic hero

• these future labors are not associated with Greek culture, but Herakles is going to impose Greek ways on others with violence (colonialism)

• Seven

  • he had to capture the Cretan bull, but there were so many bulls that it was confusing which one he had to capture

  • the bull is roaming around Crete, terrorizing people, and Herakles has to capture it

  • Crete is a place of strange customs (remember the queen that fell in love with the bull)

  • Herakles captures the bull, not mythic variant of “not without Theseus”

    • the bull got loose again and Theseus had to go get it back

• Eight

  • in Thrace (a place of savagery in the Greek mind)

  • xenia (host-guest relationship)

  • Diomedes, the king of Thrace, feeds anyone who visirs Thrace to the human-eating horses

  • Herakles uses violence to feed Diomedes to the horse and then captures the horse

• Nine

  • at first, Herakles and Hippolyte was peaceful and she was going to give him her belt

  • but then, Hera intervenes because this seemed too easy for her

    • in disguise as an Amazon woman, she sparks disagreement among the Amazons about this stranger

  • battle breaks out between Herakles and the Amazon

  • Herakles kills Hippolyte by accident and takes her belt

• Ten

  • Geryon lives on an obsure and maybe imaginary island far from greece

  • he is a monster with three bodies joined at the waist

    • his pet dog was made of two bodies with each one looking left or right

  • Herakles kills him and steals his cattle

What were labors 11-12?

cosmic labors because they are off the maps entirely

they were quests (not a singular task, but a longer series of events)

• Eleven:

  • very complicated and winding but convenient for mythographers because this made room for mythic variants for his accomplishmenrs

  • labor is to bring back the golden apples of the Hesperides

  • place is off the map so he does not know how to get there

  • along the way:

    • Nereus, the old man of the sea

      • he asks Nereus how he can get to the island of Hesperides

      • Nereus gives him a crazy route

    • Antaeus, the son of Gaia and Poseidon, is a powerful giant that Gaia kept and didn’t use in the gigantomachy

      • Herakles had to wrestle Antaeus, and he wins by lifting him above the ground so that he cannot regenerate by touching Gaia (the ground)

    • Prometheus

      • he is strapped to the rock and Herakles if able to shoot the eagle that is pecking Prometheus’ chest

      • Prometheus had to continue to wear an iron ring to remind him of his punishment

      • he told Herakles that there is a giant snake guarding the island of Hesperides, and tells Herakles he needs to distract Atlas

    • Atlas

      • he is holding up the globe

      • Herakles talks with Atlas, and Atlas said he is very tired

      • Herakles offered to take his place if Atlas gets the apples for him

      • as soon as Atlas comes back, Herakles tells Atlas to hold the globe briefly as he gets the apples

        • as soon as Herakles gets the apples, the runs away from Atlast (tricked)

• Twelve

  • labor is to steal Kerberos to bring it back alive to Eurystheus

  • he rescues Theseus

    • Theseus had the idea to kidnap Persephone because he wanted to marry her

    • Hades knew he was going to kidnap her so he made him sit on chairs that trapped him during a feast

    • Herakles ripped Theseus off of the stone chair

  • trick of the meat → smear raw meat blood on the arm and when the dog sniffs his arm curiously, Herakles grabbed the dog

What was the ending?

after 12 years, he was purified of his guilt