Kitabı oku: «Gods and Heroes», sayfa 12

PART VI. – HIS FIFTH LABOR: THE AUGEAN STABLE

THE next labor which Eurystheus laid upon Hercules was to clean out a stable.

That does not sound very much after the others. But then the stable was that of Augeas, King of Elis, which was at once the largest and the dirtiest in the whole world.

Augeas had a prodigious number of oxen and goats, and the stable in which they were all kept had never been cleaned. The result was a mountain of filth and litter, which not even Hercules could clear away in a lifetime – not, of course, from want of strength, but from want of time. Hercules beheld with disgust and dismay the loathsome and degrading toil in which he was to spend the rest of his days. The other labors had at least been honorable, and befitting a prince: this would have appalled a scavenger.

“It is very good of such a hero as you,” said Augeas, “to undertake to clean my stable. It really does want cleaning, as you see: and it was very kind of Eurystheus to think of it. You shall not find me ungrateful. I will give you one ox and one goat in every ten – when the job is done.”

He could very safely promise this, because he knew that the job could never be done.

“I am not serving for hire,” said Hercules. “Nevertheless it is only right that you should not let your stable get into such a state as this, and then get it put right for nothing. You want a lesson: and you shall have it, too.”

Seeing that mere strength would be wasted in such toil, Hercules went to work with his brain as well. Through the land of Elis ran the river Alpheus, that same Alpheus which had told Ceres what had become of Proserpine. Hercules carefully studied the country; and having laid his plans, dug a channel from near the source of the river to one of the entrances of the stable. Then, damming up the old channel, he let the stream run into the new. The new course was purposely made narrow, so that the current might be exceedingly strong. When all was ready, he opened the sluice at one entrance of the stable, so that the water poured in a flood through the whole building, and out at a gate on the other side. And it had all been so managed that when the river had poured through, and was shut off again, all the filth and litter had been carried away by the Alpheus underground, and the stable had been washed clean, without a scrap of refuse to be found anywhere. For the Alpheus, you must know, did not run into the sea, like other rivers. It disappeared down a deep chasm, then ran through a natural tunnel under the sea, and rose again, far away, in the island of Sicily, where it had brought to Ceres the news from underground. Thus everything thrown into it in Elis came up again in Sicily – and the Sicilians must have been considerably astonished at that extraordinary eruption of stable litter. Perhaps it is that which, acting as manure, has helped to make Sicily so fertile.

Hercules made a point of claiming his price. But Augeas said: —

“Nonsense! A bargain is a bargain. You undertook to clean my stable: and you have done nothing of the kind. No work, no pay.”

“What can you mean?” asked Hercules. “Surely I have cleaned your stable – you will not find in it a broken straw.”

“No,” said Augeas. “It was the Alpheus did that: not you.”

“But it was I who used the Alpheus – ”

“Yes; no doubt. But the impudence of expecting me to pay a tenth of all my flocks and herds for an idea so simple that I should have thought of it myself, if you hadn’t, just by chance, happened to think of it before me! You have not earned your wages. You cleaned the stable by an unfair trick: and it was the river cleaned it – not you.”

“Very well,” said Hercules, grimly. “If you had paid me honestly, I would have given you your goats and your oxen back again; for, as I told you, I do not serve for reward. But now I perceive that I have not quite cleaned your stable. There is still one piece of dirt left in it – and that is a cheating knave, Augeas by name. So, as I cannot go back to Mycenæ till my work is done – ”

He was about to throw Augeas into the river, to follow the rest of the litter: and about what afterwards happened, different people tell different things. I very strongly agree, however, with those who tell that Hercules spared the life of Augeas after having given him a lesson: for certainly he was not worth the killing. And I am the more sure of this because, after his death, Augeas was honored as hero – which surely would not have happened if he had not learned to keep both his stables and his promises clean before he died.

PART VII. – MORE LABORS: AND THE CATTLE OF GERYON

EURYSTHEUS was getting to his wits’ end for work which should keep his cousin employed. He sent him to kill the man-eating birds of Lake Stymphalus; to catch, and bring to Mycenæ alive, a wild bull which was devastating Crete; to obtain for Eurystheus the famous mares which fed on human flesh, and belonged to the Thracian King Diomedes, who used to throw men and women alive into their manger. In three years’ time Hercules destroyed all the birds, and brought to Mycenæ both the bull and the mares, to whom he had given the body of their master.

These were the sixth, seventh, and eighth labors, which had taken eight years. The ninth was of a different kind. There lived in the country of Cappadocia, which is in Asia, a nation of women, without any men among them. They were called the Amazons, and were famous for their skill in hunting, and for their fierceness and courage in war, conquering the neighboring nations far and wide. Their queen at this time was Hippolyta; and Eurystheus bade Hercules bring him Queen Hippolyta’s girdle. Perhaps he thought that a strong man would be ashamed to put out his strength against a woman. If so, however, he reckoned wrongly. Hercules had to do his work, whether man or woman stood in the way; and he won the queen’s girdle in fair fight, without harming the queen.

“I must send Hercules to the very end of the earth,” thought poor Eurystheus, who grew more and more frightened by every new success of his cousin. So he inquired diligently of every traveler who came to Mycenæ, and in time had the good luck to hear of a suitable monster named Geryon, who lived in a cave at Gades, now called Cadiz, on the coast of Spain, very near indeed to what the Greeks then thought to be the end of the world. Geryon, so the travelers reported, had three bodies and three heads, and kept large and valuable flocks and herds. “That will be just the thing for Hercules!” thought Eurystheus. So he called from his brazen pot —

“Go to Gades, and get me the cattle and the sheep of Geryon.”

So Hercules set off for Spain by way of Egypt and that great Libyan desert through which Perseus had passed on his adventure against the Gorgons. It was an unfortunate way to take, for there reigned over Egypt at that time King Busiris, who had made a law that every foreigner entering the country should be sacrificed to Jupiter. Hercules, knowing nothing of this law, was taken by surprise as soon as he landed, overpowered by numbers, bound in iron chains, and laid upon the altar to be slain. But scarcely had the sacrificing priest raised his knife when Hercules burst the chains, and, being no longer taken at disadvantage, made a sacrifice of Busiris and his ministers, thus freeing the land of Egypt from a foolish and cruel law.

Thence he passed into the great desert, and traveled on until one day he reached a pile of human skulls, nearly as big as a mountain. While wondering at the sight, a shadow fell over him, and a big voice said —

“Yes, you may well look at that! I have nearly enough now.”

It was a giant, nearly as high as the heap of skulls. “And who are you?” asked Hercules; “and what are these?”

“I am Antæus,” answered the giant; “and the Sea is my father and the Earth is my mother. I am collecting skulls in order to build a temple with them upon my mother the Earth to my father the Sea.”

“And how,” asked Hercules, “have you managed to get so many?”

“By killing everybody I see, and adding his skull to the heap – as I am going to add yours.”

So saying, he seized Hercules to make an end of him. And amazed enough the giant was when he himself was dashed to the ground with force enough to break any ordinary bones.

Antæus, however, though astonished, was not in the least hurt; so that it was the turn of Hercules to be surprised. Again they closed, and again Hercules threw him, with still greater strength; and they closed again.

And again and again Hercules threw him, but every time with greater difficulty. The more he was thrown, the stronger the giant became; he rose from every fall fresher than before. Plainly, if this went on, Antæus would be beaten until he became stronger than Hercules, and would end by winning.

It seemed very strange that the more a man was dashed to the ground the fresher and stronger he should grow. But —

“I see!” thought Hercules to himself. “This giant is the son of the Earth; so whenever he falls, it is upon the bosom of his own mother, who strengthens and refreshes her son. So I must take another way.”

So thinking, he put out all his strength, and again lifted Antæus in his arms. But this time he did not dash him to the Earth; he held him in the air, and crushed him to death between his hands.

After this he traveled on, without further adventure, until he reached the far western end of the Mediterranean Sea, which was thought to be the end of the world. If you happen to look at a map you will easily find the exact place – it is where the south of Spain very nearly touches Africa. When Hercules arrived there, Spain quite touched Africa, so that one might walk from one into the other. It is said that Hercules himself opened out the narrow passage which lets the Mediterranean Sea out into the great ocean, so that ships could afterwards sail to Britain and all over the world. That passage is now called the Strait of Gibraltar. But the rock of Gibraltar in Spain, and the opposite rock in Africa, between which the Strait flows, are still often called the “Pillars of Hercules.”

To get from there to Gades was no great distance; and to kill the monstrous ogre Geryon and to seize his flocks and herds for Eurystheus was no great feat after what he had already done. But to drive such a number of sheep and cattle all the way from Gades in Spain to Mycenæ in Greece was not an easy matter. There was only one way of doing so without being stopped somewhere by the sea, and this, as a map will show at once, is by crossing those two great mountain-ranges, the Pyrenees and the Alps – and for one man to drive thousands of sheep and thousands of horned cattle over such mountains as those was the most tiresome and troublesome labor that Hercules had ever undergone.

He got as far as Italy without the loss of a single sheep or cow, and was thinking that he saw the end of his trouble. One morning, however, having counted the cattle as usual, and having gone some miles upon his day’s journey, he became aware that there was something wrong. The sheep began to bleat and the cattle to bellow in an odd and excited way. And frequently, from behind him, he heard an answering sound which at first he took for an echo. But no, it could not be that, for an echo would have repeated the bleating as well as the bellowing, and what he heard behind him was the sound of bellowing only – precisely like that of Geryon’s cows. He counted the herd over again, and, though he was convinced that it was all right at starting, he found a full dozen missing.

Now a dozen was not much to lose out of thousands. But he had been ordered to bring back the whole herd, and he would have felt that he would not have done his duty if he, by any neglect or laziness of his own, lost even one lamb by the way. So, following the distant sound, he, with infinite labor, drove his cattle back across the hills, league after league, till he reached a huge black cavern, the mouth of which was strewn and heaped with human bones. His cattle became more excited and more restive, for the sound he was following evidently came from within the cave.

He was about to enter and search when a three-headed ogre issued, whose three mouths, when he opened them to speak, breathed smoke and flames.

“This is my cave,” said he, with all three mouths at once; “and no man shall enter it but I.”

“I only want my cattle,” said Hercules. “Bring them out to me.”

“Cattle?” asked the ogre. “There are no cattle here. I swear it by the head of my mother.”

“And who was she,” asked Hercules, “that her head is an oath to swear by?”

“I am Cacus, the son of the Gorgon Medusa,” answered the ogre, “and I swear – ”

But before he could finish his oath, there came such a bellowing from within the cave that the very cattle seemed as if they could not endure such falsehood, and were proclaiming that Cacus lied.

“I am sorry,” said Hercules. “I am weary of traveling, and of monsters, and of giants, and of ogres, and of liars, and of thieves. I really do not want to kill any more. You are not one of my labors, and I have had enough trouble. Still, if you had as many heads as the Hydra and as many arms as Briareus, I should have to fight you rather than lose one of the cattle I was bidden to bring.”

Cacus laughed. “Do you see those bones?” he asked. “They are all that is left of people who have looked for what they have lost in my cave.”

“Then,” said Hercules, “either you shall add mine to the heap, or I will add yours.”

And presently the bones of Cacus the Robber were added to the heap, and Hercules, having got his cattle back, at last reached Mycenæ.

Eurystheus almost forgot to be frightened in his joy at becoming the owner of such flocks and herds. He listened with interest to the story of his cousin’s travels, and, having heard it to an end, said —

“So you crossed the great Libyan desert until you reached the ocean which surrounds the world? Why, then, you must have found the way to the gardens of the Hesperides – the gardens of golden fruit which the great sleepless dragon guards, and which our forefather Perseus saw when he turned Atlas into stone. Did you also see those gardens?”

“No,” said Hercules.

“Then,” said Eurystheus, “go and see them at once. Go and bring me some of the Golden Apples – as many as you can.”

PART VIII. – HIS ELEVENTH LABOR: THE GARDEN OF THE HESPERIDES

SO Hercules, without being allowed any time for rest, had to go back the whole way he had come, without any certain knowledge of where the golden-fruited gardens of the Hesperides were to be found, except that it was somewhere in Africa. Somebody must know, however, or else the gardens would never have been heard of, for travelers never told anything but the truth in those days. He therefore diligently asked everybody he met where the gardens were to be found, and, among others, some nymphs whom he met on the banks of the river Po, while he was passing through Italy.

“We cannot tell you,” said they; “but we know who can – old Nereus, the sea-god, if you can only get him to tell.”

“And why should he not tell?” asked Hercules.

“Because he never will tell anybody anything, unless he is obliged.”

“And how is he to be obliged?” asked Hercules again.

“He is bound to answer anybody who is stronger than he.”

“Well, I am pretty strong,” said Hercules, modestly. “Anyhow, I can but try.”

“Yes, you do look strong,” said the nymphs; “but – ” Here they broke into a laugh, as if some sort of a joke were in their minds. “Well, if you go to the Ægean Sea, where King Ægeus was drowned, you’ll be sure to find Nereus sleeping in the sun somewhere along the shore.”

“And how shall I know him when I see him?” asked Hercules.

“You will see a very, very old man, older than anybody you ever saw, with bright blue hair, and a very long white beard. He has fifty daughters, so he often gets tired, and likes to sleep as much as he can.”

Hercules thanked the nymphs, whom he still heard laughing after he left them, and thought to himself that it would not be much trouble to prove himself stronger than a very old man who was always tired. So, having journeyed back again to the Ægean Sea, he walked along the shore till, sure enough, he saw, sound asleep in a sunny cove, a man who looked a thousand years old, with a white beard reaching below his waist, and with hair as blue as the sea.

“Will you kindly tell me the way to the gardens of the Hesperides?” asked Hercules, waking Nereus by a gentle shake – though I suspect one of Hercules’ shakes was not what most people would consider gentle.

Instead of answering, Nereus tried to roll himself into the sea, at the bottom of which was his home. Hercules caught him by the leg and arm: when, to his amazement, Nereus suddenly turned into a vigorous young man, who wrestled with him stoutly to get away.

Hercules got him down at last. “Now tell me the way to the gardens of the Hesperides!” he panted – for he was out of breath with the struggle. But he found himself holding down, no longer a man, but a huge and slippery seal, which all but succeeded in plunging into the sea.

But he held on until the seal also was exhausted. And then Hercules found out what had made the nymphs laugh so. For when the seal was wearied out it changed into a gigantic crab, the crab into a crocodile, the crocodile into a mermaid, the mermaid into a sea-serpent, the sea-serpent into an albatross, the albatross into an octopus, the octopus into a mass of sea-weed, which was the hardest to hold of all. But the sea-weed turned back into the old man again, who said: —

“There – you have conquered me in all my shapes; I haven’t got any more. You may let me go now, and I will answer you. You must go on through Italy and Spain, and thence across into Africa. You will then be in the land of Mauritania. You must still go south, following the sea-shore, till you come to the giant Atlas, who supports the sky upon his head, and so keeps it from falling. He” – the old sea-god’s voice was growing fainter and fainter – “he will tell you all about the gardens of the Hesperides. They’re close by – the gardens of the Hesp – ”

And so, having finished his answer, Nereus turned over and went comfortably to sleep again.

Once more Hercules set out upon the journey which had seemed as if it would never even begin. Once more he traveled through Italy and Spain, and crossed into Africa over the strait which he himself had made. And on and on he went, always southward by the sea, till, full six hundred miles from the Pillars of Hercules, he saw what he knew must be the giant Atlas on whose head rested the sky. There Atlas, King of Mauritania, had stood ever since he had looked upon the head of Medusa. And if you wonder how the sky was held up before that time, you must ask Nereus, if you can catch him – not me.

As you may suppose, the poor giant was terribly weary of having to hold up, night and day, year after year, the whole weight of the sun, moon, and stars. Even his strength is not able to keep stars from falling now and then – sometimes on a clear night you may see them tumbling down by scores, so it is terrible to think of what would happen if he took even a moment’s rest. The whole sky would come crashing down, and the universe would be in ruins. He was longing for the rest he dared not take, and so, when Hercules, said to him, “I am seeking fruit from the gardens of the Hesperides,” a crafty idea came into the giant’s mind.

“Ah!” said he, with a nod which shook down a whole shower of stars. “There is no difficulty. All you have to do is walk through the sea towards the setting sun, till you get there. And there’s nothing to prevent you from getting the golden fruit but the dragon who guards the tree on which it grows. The sea doesn’t come up higher than my waist, even in the deepest part; and, if you can get past the dragon, my three daughters, the Hesperides, will no doubt receive you with the greatest surprise.”

For the first time, Hercules felt dismayed. He had no boat, nor the means of building one; he could not swim further than his eyes could see. As for wading through an ocean that would come up to the waist of a giant as high as the skies, that was absurd. And as to the dragon, he remembered that Perseus had only passed it by means of a helmet which made its wearer invisible.

Atlas saw his perplexity.

“Ah, I forgot you were such a little fellow,” said the giant. “I’ll go and get you some of the fruit myself. It isn’t many of my steps from here to the garden, and the dragon knows me – and if he didn’t, I could step over him. And he couldn’t hurt me, seeing that I’ve been turned to stone. But wait, though – what on earth’s to become of the sky while I’m gone?”

“I’m pretty strong,” said Hercules. “If I climb up to the peak of the next mountain to you, I daresay I could hold the sky up while you’re away.”

Atlas smiled to himself, for this was just what he had intended.

“Come up, then,” said he. So Hercules clambered to the highest peak he could find, and Atlas, slowly bending, gradually and carefully let down the sky upon the head and shoulders of the hero. Then, heaving a deep roar of relief, he strode into the sea.

It was surely the strangest plight in which a mortal ever found himself – standing on a mountain-peak, and, by the strength of his own shoulders, keeping the skies from falling. He was answerable for the safety of the whole world: the burden of the entire universe was laid upon the shoulders of one man. They were strong enough to bear it; but it seemed like an eternity before Atlas returned. A hundred times a minute Hercules felt as if he must let all go, whatever happened; indeed he was actually tempted to yield, for he was weary of these endless labors; and it was only for mankind’s sake, and not for his own, that he held on through the agony of the crushing weight of the whole universe.

But Atlas came at last, with three golden apples in his hand.

“Here they are!” he roared. “And now, good-bye!”

“What!” exclaimed Hercules. “Are you not coming back to your duty?”

“Am I a fool?” asked the giant. “Not I. Keep the honor of holding up the skies yourself, since you are so strong and willing. Never again for me!”

“At least, then,” said Hercules, “let me place my lion’s skin between my shoulders and the sky, so that the weight may be less painful to bear.”

Atlas could take no objection to that, so he put his own shoulders under the dome of heaven to let Hercules make himself as comfortable as the situation allowed. Hercules seized the chance, and let the whole weight of the sky fall upon the shoulders of Atlas once more. And there it still rests; and thus Atlas failed in trying to shift his own proper burden to another’s shoulders.

“Only three apples!” exclaimed Eurystheus, when Hercules returned. “You can’t have taken much trouble, to get so little. Go to Hades, and bring me Cerberus, the three-headed dog of Pluto!.. He will never do that?” he thought to himself. “To reach Hades, one must die!”