Twelve Labours of Heracles
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Twelve Labours of Heracles’
Our hero is sent to deal with some man-eating birds, but cannot reach their lakeside refuge.
Still working off his debt to the gods after killing his children in a blind rage, Heracles is now despatched by his envious cousin King Eurystheus to rid a village of some man-eating birds. However, not everyone is against him.
Heracles shows his capacity for thinking outside the box, but spoils it by trying to be just a little bit too clever.
Heracles has murdered his children in a fit of anger, and is performing a series of ‘Labours’ for his cousin King Eurystheus, to work off his guilt. Eurystheus would be just as happy if Heracles perished in his Labours, and in sending him now to clean out the stables of Augeas, King of Elis, appears to hope he can disgust him to death.
Snaring a wild boar turns out to be much less dangerous than keeping centaurs away from their wine.
Heracles is performing a series of ‘Labours’ for King Eurystheus, who regards his cousin as a rival and would not be sorry to see him dead. But ever since Heracles came back wearing the pelt of the Nemean Lion, Eurystheus’s nerves have been jangling and he now keeps a capacious wine-jar, half buried in the ground, as a place of refuge.
Eurystheus sends his cousin on another labour, this time hoping the task is too delicate for the big man.
Heracles has now performed two labours for his cousin and rival Eurystheus, slaying the fearsome Lion of Nemea and the many-headed, venomous Hydra of Lerna. From the safety of his palace, however, Eurystheus is disputing the validity of the second.
The Greek hero thinks he has paid off more of his debt to the gods, but an unpleasant surprise awaits him.
In a moment of madness induced by Hera, Heracles has killed his own children. Now he is working off his debt by serving his cousin and rival Eurystheus, and has already returned alive from one ‘hopeless errand’...
Sending a hero off to ‘certain death’ never seems to work out...
The goddess Hera hated Heracles, so the ancient Greek myths tell, because he was one of the many love-children fathered by her consort Zeus, king of the gods of Olympus. But time after times, her efforts to destroy him were frustrated.