Beautiful Iole had many suitors, and Eurytus arranged an archery competition, with his daughter as the prize. The final round pitted Heracles against his old teacher, for Eurytus had taught him archery in his youth. Two stout bows were drawn back; two swift arrows were notched; and they let fly, master and pupil. Iole herself went to fetch the target and carry it back to the contestants: by a hair’s breadth, Heracles was the winner. But in a shameless display of unsportsmanlike conduct, Eurytus refused Heracles his prize, and the lionskin-clad hero returned trophy-less to Tiryns, nursing black vengeance in his heart. It was not Heracles, however, who was destined to take the life of the Oechalian king. Eurytus went on to challenge Apollo himself to a test of bowmanship, and lost both the contest and his life.
Now, after a while one of Iole’s brothers, Iphitus, came to Tiryns in pursuit of some horses, thinking that Heracles might have stolen them (as in fact he had). He had been searching all over the Peloponnese. In Messenia he had met Odysseus and had given him Eurytus’ far-famed bow as a gift, knowing that his father’s treasure was in good hands. When Iphitus came to Argos, Heracles feigned innocence. He treated the young man well and lodged him. But in the course of a drunken dinner, when Iphitus accused him of rustling the horses, Heracles picked him up and hurled him to his death from the high point of the city. Iphitus’ dying screams brought Heracles to his senses, and he realized what he had done—killed a guest, one who had done no more than speak the truth—and all guests were under the protection of Zeus. Another fit of madness had caused another change in the life of Heracles and his family.
The murder ran the risk of polluting the city, and who knew what plague or pest the gods would send in retaliation? Once again Heracles became an exile. This time he chose to take his family to Trachis, a town in central Greece, north of Delphi. On the way, the refugees were set upon by Cycnus, a son of Ares, who made his headquarters a cave near the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, and was living by stealing the sacrificial victims worshippers brought there as the price for consulting the oracle.
Heracles and Iolaus did battle with Cycnus, but Ares himself came down from Olympus to support his son, and the heroes were driven off. Before long, however, with Athena’s encouragement, they rallied and returned to the fray. Cycnus soon lay dead on the ground, while over his body Heracles and Ares fought, and the heavy silence was broken only by their grunts. They were so evenly matched that they might be fighting still, if father Zeus had not broken the contest up by hurling a thunderbolt between the two contestants. Ares limped back to Olympus; never before had a mortal held his own against the god of war. But then Heracles was on the way to becoming a god.
After leaving his family at Trachis, Heracles went to Pylos, intending to receive purification from the king, Neleus, and to stay there for the prescribed period of time, until there was no further risk of pollution from Iphitus’ death. But Neleus refused to purify him from his sin, and Heracles, brow darkened with anger, swore vengeance. The spirit of a true warrior is never broken by a mere setback. Heracles left, but only to gather an army and return.
Now, Neleus had twelve sons by Chloris, the only surviving child of Niobe, and one of these sons was Periclymenus, the shape-shifter. It had been foretold that Pylos would never fall as long as Periclymenus was alive. One by one Neleus’ sons were cut down in the battle, but Periclymenus’ constant changes kept him alive, and he wreaked terrible slaughter among Heracles’ allies. Finally, he changed himself into the form of a bee, and rested on the yoke of Heracles’ chariot; but even from afar Heracles recognized the bee as Periclymenus, and shot it—a superhuman feat of bowmanship.
A full-scale battle developed, with some of the gods involved as well: Athena and Zeus fought alongside Heracles, while Hera, Hades, and Poseidon supported the other side. And Heracles, whose achievements were rapidly becoming more and more remarkable, more and more godlike, succeeded in the course of the fight in wounding Hera in the right breast and Hades in the shoulder. The poison from his arrows caused them great pain, but of course they could not be killed. They made their way back to Olympus, where they were tended by Apollo.
And in the end Neleus was defeated and killed, and the only surviving son, Nestor, inherited the throne of sandy Pylos and his father’s hatred of Heracles. It is said that Nestor lived to such a great age because Apollo gave him the years that had been allotted to his brothers, before Heracles cut them down.
But still Heracles had not found the release of purification from the sin of killing Iphitus, and now his body was ravaged by foul boils and abscesses. He went to Delphi to find out what to do, but the Sibyl there was appalled at the state of the man, who bore the marks of a murderer and a brigand all over his body, and refused to reply. In anger and disgust, Heracles ran amok and attempted to plunder the sanctuary of its treasures, including the sacred tripod on which the Sibyl sat to utter her dark words of prophecy. If she would not look into the future for him, he would use her tripod to establish his own oracle elsewhere. But Apollo could not allow this, and he came down in person from high Olympus, and wrestled Heracles for the tripod. Once again, however, Heracles held his own against one of the great gods, and once again Zeus had to break the contest up.
At the command of Zeus, Heracles was sold to Omphale, queen of the Lydians, to serve as her slave for three years, as the period of purification. Hermes himself, the god of commerce, negotiated the sale. For all this period of time, Omphale kept his lionskin and weapons for herself, while he was forced to dress as a woman, and do woman’s work such as weaving inside the palace. Nevertheless, she had a child by him—a son called Lamus.
Just like Iobates with Bellerophon, she set him to clear the land of pests. First, he expelled the Itoni, the first inhabitants of Lydia, who were resisting the rule of Omphale’s house. Then he dealt with Syleus, a foul-mouthed landowner who compelled passersby to work in his vineyard. Heracles pretended to go along with the game, but instead of harvesting the swollen grapes, he swiftly drank up the wine store and started destroying the vineyard with his mattock. When Syleus and his daughter came up to protest, Heracles killed them and burned the vineyard.
Finally, he had to get rid of the Cercopes, two mean little dwarfs who played spiteful tricks on people. Heracles traveled to Ephesus, where the Cercopes had their lair, and began to search for them. Although he often got close, they always evaded him, and all Heracles heard were irritating giggles receding in the distance. But malice and wisdom tend not to coincide in the same mind. At last, exhausted, Heracles lay down to rest—and the mischievous Cercopes crept over to where he lay under a tree and began to steal his weapons. But men like Heracles sleep with one eye open, and he grabbed them before they could race away.
Heracles found a stout pole and tied the dwarfs to either end of it, as a way of carrying them off to permanent confinement. Now, the Cercopes had known for a long time—their mother had drummed it into their youthful ears—that they should beware of a black-bottomed man. And when Heracles began to carry the imps away, they at last understood the bizarre prophecy. Suspended as they were by their heels upside down from the pole, they got a good look at Heracles’ bottom—and, indeed, it was black—black with wiry hair! This caused the Cercopes no end of amusement, and they began to make crude jokes about Heracles and his black bottom. “Which wooded hills are cleft by a valley you’d never want to walk in?” “What’s black, hairy, and gases strangers?” “I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘b.’” That kind of thing. But good men laugh well, and Heracles enjoyed the jokes so much that he let them go. They have never been seen since, and the rumor is that they tried to play a practical joke on Zeus and were turned into monkeys.
After he had completed his three years of penance in Lydia, Heracles made his way back to Greece up the western coast of Asia Minor. He had a bone to pick with Laomedon, king of Troy. He had rescued Laomedon’s daughter Hesione from certain death at the jaws of a sea monster, but Laomedon had cheated. Instead of giving
Heracles the promised reward, the immortal horses of Tros, he had given him ordinary horses.
Now, this was not the kind of deception that could last: as soon as the horses began dying, Heracles knew he had been cheated. So he returned to Troy with eighteen ships to claim his proper prize by force. While Heracles marched with his men toward the city, Laomedon made a sortie and attacked the ships, beached and vulnerable on the shore. On his way back to Troy, however, he fell into an ambush set by Heracles and his allies. Laomedon was killed, and then the heroes assaulted the city. Telamon was the first to force his way inside, and received Hesione as the prize for his valor. All of Laomedon’s sons were killed, save only Priam, whom Heracles, in a final act of king-making, set on the throne of Troy.
So Heracles set sail from Troy, flushed with victory, and in possession of the immortal horses. But now it was the time of Hera’s greatest folly—her final attempt to ruin the life of her husband’s beloved son. She called on Sleep, and he wove his magic on Zeus, and the father of gods and men fell into a deep slumber.
While he was asleep, Hera summoned up a savage storm, which separated Heracles from his companions and drove him south to the island of Cos.
At first, he was made welcome there by King Eurypylus, who persuaded him to stay by offering him his daughter Chalciope. As others had before him, he wanted the blood of the hero to flow in his grandson’s veins. And indeed Heracles did sire a fine son on Chalciope—Thessalus, the future king of the island—but not before he and Eurypylus had fallen out. The king drove Heracles from his palace, and the battle was so hard fought that Zeus had to rescue his son to protect him from an untimely death. He transported Heracles to a peasant woman’s hut, where the hero found refuge and escaped in humiliating disguise, wearing her clothes. But later he returned in force, killed or expelled all the members of Eurypylus’ family, and established his own dynasty instead.
Finally, after a prolonged absence, the gods allowed Heracles to resume his life in Trachis. But Zeus punished Hera for her presumption by suspending her from heaven by golden chains, with anvils on her feet. He had to convince her that her long hostility to his son was futile, for he was destined to become a god.
“The mortal part of Heracles burned away and descended into Hades, but his spirit was taken up to Olympus.”[58]
After all this time, Heracles’ passion for Iole had not diminished, and he returned to Greece still determined to win her, and to complete the unfinished business at Oechalia. Eurytus was dead, but his surviving sons would pay for their father’s treachery. Heracles returned at the head of an army and sacked the city of Oechalia—destroyed it so thoroughly, in fact, that today no one is sure where it lay. Eurytus’ sons all died in the massacre, and Heracles brought Iole into his home as his beloved concubine.
Heracles organized a splendid sacrifice, a thanksgiving offering to the gods for his victory at Oechalia. In a display of solidarity, Deianeira wove a gorgeous robe for him to wear at the ceremony. Thinking to rid her husband of his foolish infatuation with Iole, and ensure that his love for her remained lifelong, she poured the potion of Nessus over the robe, and it soaked into every fiber of the cloth.
Heracles wore his splendid new robe with pride as he approached the sacrificial fire. But before he had even begun the holy rite, the robe began to cling to his body in an uncomfortable fashion, warmed by the flames of the fire. And then it began to ravage his flesh with its acid. The more he tried to rip the garment off, the more closely it molded itself to his limbs, like a murderous second skin.
Desperate for the release of death, Heracles had himself carried in agony to Mount Oeta. While his men were busy building a huge funeral pyre, the inconsolable Deianeira seized a sword from one of her attendants and fell on it. Grimacing through his pain and grief, Heracles told Hyllus, his son by Deianeira, to marry Iole in his place.
Then the great hero lay back on his pyre, his head pillowed by his club, and commanded his men to light the fire. But none would obey—none wanted the responsibility of sending a son of Zeus to his death—save only loyal Poeas, a shepherd. As his reward Heracles gave him his mighty bow; and so his bow and arrows would come a second time to Troy, for it was fated that a vital contribution to the sack of Troy would be made by the bow of Heracles.
As the sun rose, the mortal part of Heracles burned away and descended into Hades, but his spirit was taken up to Olympus by Athena, where Zeus gladly accepted him among the company of the gods, and blessed him with eternal life and youth. He ordered Hera to lay aside her grudge and Heracles married her daughter by Zeus, trim-ankled Hebe. They live forever in bliss as gods among gods.
Chapter Nine
THE TROJAN WAR
The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis
The course of Peleus’ life was as troubled and tortured as that of many a hero. Perhaps one of the gods or goddesses bore a grudge against him, or wanted to test him. His birth, on the island of Aegina, was propitious. His father was the king, Aeacus, a son of Zeus whose insight and advice were so sound that he came to be a judge of the dead in Hades. The family seemed to be blessed with all the good things of life.
Now, Aeacus was married to Endeis, the daughter of the wise Centaur Cheiron, and Endeis was the mother of Peleus. But Aeacus lusted after Psamathe, the daughter of Nereus, and though at first she resisted his advances by turning herself into a seal, his persistence wore her down, and she became his concubine. She bore him a fine son, called Phocus, who grew up alongside Peleus, but the house was sorely divided, for Endeis loathed this bastard offspring of her husband, and was forever plotting ways to do him harm.
In time Endeis’ bitterness seeped into her son’s brain and curdled it, and for the sake of his mother Peleus resolved to do away with his half-brother. Peleus’ best friend was Telamon, prince of the neighboring island of Salamis, and they planned and executed the deed themselves. Phocus was a keen and outstanding athlete, always practicing for some competition or other. They joined him out in the fields for one of his training sessions, and while Telamon struck Phocus on the head with a discus, Peleus swung a double-headed ax into his spine.
As soon as the deed was done, the mist cleared from Peleus’ mind, and he came to his senses; regret overwhelmed him like a storm wave, and remorse gnawed at his wits. He took himself away from his native island, and traveled the length and breadth of the land, searching for someone who would take him in and offer him purification. But only when he came to Phthia did the king there, kind Eurytion, extend a hand of welcome. And when the period of purification was over, Eurytion gave Peleus his daughter Antigone and a share of his kingdom.
But Peleus was fated not yet to find peace. When he and Eurytion joined the other heroes for the Calydonian boar hunt, he accidentally killed his new friend. The boar had taken refuge in a dark thicket, and no one knew exactly where it was. Peleus heard a noise in the underbrush; the boar was so enormous, and so fierce, that a second’s delay could make the difference between life and an appalling death from the creature’s tusks. Already several good men had fallen, gored in the groin or the stomach, watching their innards steam on the ground before the blessed release of death closed their eyes. Peleus hurled his trusty javelin without further pause, but it was Eurytion’s blood that stained the earth.
Once more, then, Peleus had to leave the place he had made his home and take to the road as an unclean murderer, searching for surcease. This time he ended up in Iolcus, where Acastus, the son of Pelias, was king, and offered him lodging for the period of his purification. While Peleus was there, he competed in the funeral games for Pelias, where his only rival for victory in the wrestling was, to his masculine shame, Atalanta.
But Astydamia, the wife of Acastus, fell in love with the handsome visitor and tried to seduce him. When he spurned her advances, a hellish fury overtook her. First she told Antigone that Peleus was thinking of abandoning her in favor of a more promising marriage with the daughter of Acastus. Even Antigone’s suicide did not sate Astyd
amia’s desire for evil. Next she destroyed Peleus’ livelihood by sending a ravening wolf against his flocks. Finally, she told her husband that Peleus had tried to rape her, and Acastus believed her.
Now, Acastus could not simply kill the man he had just purified, so he took his erstwhile friend out into the wilderness of Mount Pelion. They hunted all morning, and when they lay down in the shade to rest, Acastus hid Peleus’ sword—a unique weapon, crafted by Hephaestus himself—in a shrub, and left him there defenseless against the creatures of the wild. All he could do was clamber into the branches of a tree while a band of savage Centaurs prowled below. But the wise Centaur Cheiron took pity on him, returned his sword to him, and kept him safe from his less civilized fellows.
Now, it so happened that at this time Zeus conceived a longing to sleep with the beautiful sea-nymph Thetis, daughter of Nereus. But she was fated to bear a child who would outstrip his father, however great he was, and when, as we have already told, Prometheus bargained this piece of information for his release from eternal torment, Zeus and all the gods were anxious to see Thetis married off to a mortal. None of them wanted to run the risk of being overthrown! Peleus was available, and the gods thought it would be amusing to see what happened—what son Thetis would bear for this troubled mortal.
Thetis was a goddess, and she was not best pleased by the idea of being joined in wedlock to a human being, but Zeus made it a direct order and left her no choice. For none dare gainsay the will of Zeus—or not for long. Even so, she didn’t make it easy for Peleus: he had to wrestle her, to tame her, and like her father she was a shape-shifter. As fast as thought, she became a bird, a snake, a lion, a panther, and other unnamed and unnameable monsters. But throughout her transformations Peleus held fast to her, until at last she surrendered to him. He had proved himself a worthy suitor.
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