Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece

by Gustav Schwab

  When devout Alcestis felt that her time was come, she purified herself in flowing water, as befitted an offering to Death, took festive raiment and strings of jewels out of a chest carved of cedar, and went thus adorned to the household shrine to pray to the goddess of the underworld. Then she clasped her husband and her children in her arms. Day by day she wasted more and more, until at last, at the appointed hour, she entered the chamber where she was to receive the messenger from the lower world. Her family and servingwomen accompanied her. She bade them a solemn farewell. “Let me tell you what is in my heart,” she said to her husband. “Because your life is dearer to me than my own, I am about to die for you before death was decreed for me, even though I could have taken a second husband, a noble from Thessaly, and had a long and perhaps even happy life. But I did not want to live without you and look upon my orphaned children. Your father and mother have failed you, though it would have been better for them to die, for then you would not have to be lonely and bring up children without their mother. But since the gods have willed it so, I only beg you to remember what I have done, and not to give these little ones, whom you love as I, another mother who out of envy might be cruel to them.” With many tears her husband swore that just as she had been his in life, so in death too only she and none other should be his wife. Then Alcestis led the crying little ones toward him and fell fainting to the ground.

  It chanced that while they were preparing for the burial, Heracles in his wanderings reached Pherae and came to the palace gates. The servants admitted him, and while he was talking to them Admetus himself appeared. Hiding his sorrow he extended a warm welcome to him. And when Heracles, struck by his robe of mourning, questioned him, he did not want to sadden or perhaps even drive him away, and answered so vaguely that his guest was given the impression that a distant relative had died in the course of a visit to the palace. So Heracles’ merry mood was unmarred, and he had one of the slaves conduct him to the guestchamber and serve him with wine. When he noticed the man’s downcast air, he reproached him with it. “Why do you look so serious and solemn?” he asked. “It is a servant’s duty to be obliging to strangers. And if some alien woman died in this house—what of it? Dying is, after all, the common lot of mortals. The gloomy-hearted have a sad time of life. Go, set a wreath on your brows, as I have done, and drink with me. I know very well that a brimming cup will soon smooth the lines from your forehead.”

  But the slave turned away in distress. “We have suffered a blow,” he replied, “which drives away all thought of laughter and feasting. The son of Pheres is, indeed, most hospitable, perhaps too hospitable, to admit a lighthearted stranger to his house of mourning.”

  “Why should I not be light of heart?” asked Heracles. “Because an unknown woman has died?”

  “Unknown woman!” cried the servant in amazement. “She may have been unknown to you, but not to us!”

  “Then Admetus did not tell me the whole truth about this matter,” Heracles observed thoughtfully.

  And the servant said: “Be as merry as your soul desires. The ruler’s bereavement concerns only his friends and those who serve him.”

  But now Heracles gave him no peace until he had found out what had happened. “Is it possible!” he cried. “Admetus lost his fair and noble wife and yet received a stranger with such perfect hospitality! I felt some secret reluctance about entering these gates, and now I have wreathed my head in a house of mourning and drunk and made merry! Tell me, where is Alcestis buried?”

  “If you take the road that leads to Larissa,” answered the slave, “you will see a splendid monument which has already been put up on her grave.” And as he uttered these words he began to weep and left the room.

  When Heracles found himself alone, he did not break into lamentation but made a quick resolve. “I must save this woman who has died,” he said to himself. “I must bring her back to her husband. In no other way can I repay his courtesy. I shall go to her grave and wait for Thanatos, the ruler of the dead. I shall see him coming to drink the sacrificial blood, poured for him over the monument. Then I shall leap out of hiding and catch hold of him. No power on earth shall wrest him from me until he agrees to give up his prey.” And having made his decision, he left the palace secretly and silently.

  Admetus had returned to his solitary house and lonely children. He mourned his wife deeply, and no faithful servant could comfort him in his despair. But suddenly Heracles crossed his threshold, holding a veiled woman by the hand. “It was not well done, O king, to conceal from me the death of your wife,” he said. “You received me as though you were mourning a mere stranger. And so, unknowingly, I did great wrong, and made libations in a house bereaved of its mistress. But I shall not disturb you any longer in your sorrow. I only returned for one thing: this girl I have here is mine, a reward I received for victory in a contest. Now I am going to win fresh combats, and while I am away, you shall have her for your handmaid. Guard her as the possession of a friend.”

  Admetus was appalled at Heracles’ words. “I did not conceal my wife’s death from you because I scorned or underestimated a friend,” he said, “but only because I did not wish to add to my sorrow by having you leave and go to another’s house. As for this woman, I beg you to give her to some other man in Pherae, not to me, who have borne so much. You must have many friends in the city! How could I look upon this girl in my house without weeping? Besides, she cannot live in the men’s quarters, and neither can I install her in the rooms of my dead wife! Far be it from me! I should fear the gossip of the people of Pherae and the reproaches of her who is gone.”

  But although the king had rejected her, a curious longing drew his eyes to the veiled shape before him. “Whoever you may be,” he said to her, “you strangely resemble my Alcestis in stature. By the gods, Heracles, I implore you to take this woman away, and not add to the torment of one who is already suffering too greatly. Whenever I saw her, I should feel as though I were seeing my wife. I should burst into tears, and my sorrow would be renewed again and again.”

  Heracles hid his true thoughts and answered sadly: “O that Zeus had given me the strength to rescue your noble wife from the realm of shades, to lead her back to the light, and so repay you for your great kindness!”

  “I know you would do it if you could,” replied Admetus. “But when has one dead ever returned from the underworld?”

  “Well,” Heracles continued in a livelier manner, “since this, indeed, cannot be, let time ease your sorrow. For the dead take no pleasure in the grief of the living. Do not entirely close your mind to the hope that a second wife may some day bring cheer into your life. And finally, for my sake, receive this girl I have brought you into your house. At least try it! The moment you find that she annoys you, she shall leave again.”

  So Heracles pressed Admetus, who did not wish to offend his guest. Reluctantly he commanded a servant to conduct her to the inner apartments, but Heracles would not hear of this. “Do not entrust this priceless gem of mine to the hands of slaves,” he said. “You yourself, if it so pleases you, my friend, shall lead her in.”

  “No,” said Admetus. “I shall not lay a finger on her. Even the lightest touch would seem to me a violation of the pledge I gave her who is dead.”

  But Heracles gave him no peace until he took the veiled woman by the hand. “And now cherish her,” he said. “And look at her closely to make sure that she really resembles your wife, and end your grieving.” With this he parted her veils, and the king, incredulous and amazed, beheld his own wife! Almost fainting with emotion, he held her, who had returned to life, and feasted his eyes on her in gladness and fear, while the demigod described his encounter with Thanatos: how he had seized him at the burial mound and wrestled with him for his prize. When the king knew, at last, that it was really Alcestis, he clasped her in his arms, but she remained silent and could not reply to his loving words. “You will not hear her voice,” explained Heracles, “until the dawn of the third day, when the bonds o
f death will be severed. But do not hesitate to take her into your chamber and rejoice in her possession. She is yours in return for your noble hospitality to strangers. And now you must let me go where Fate calls me.”

  “Go in peace, then, Heracles!” Admetus called after him. “You have guided me back to a better life, for now I am not only happy, but thankfully aware of my bliss. All my people shall celebrate with choruses and dances. The fragrant smoke of sacrifice will rise from the altars. And in all this, we shall think of you, O mighty son of Zeus, with gratitude and love.”

  HERACLES IN THE SERVICE OF OMPHALE

  Although Heracles had been mad when he killed Iphitus, the murder weighed upon his spirit. He wandered from one priestking to another in search of purification; first to Neleus of Pylos, then to Hippocoon, king of Sparta, both of whom refused to do him the service he asked. But the third, Deiphobus, king of Amyclae, consented to purify him of his crime. Nonetheless the gods punished him by afflicting him with a grave illness. The hero, used to lusty health and splendid strength, could not endure the wasting disease they sent upon him. He went to Delphi in the hope that the Pythian oracle might heal him. But the priestess withheld her utterance from the murderer; this angered him so that he stole her tripod, carried it out into the field, and set up his own oracle. Infuriated by this bold infringement of his rights, Apollo appeared and challenged the hero to single combat. But this time, too, Zeus did not want brother to shed brother’s blood, and he put an end to the bout by flinging a bolt of thunder between them. And now, at last, Heracles was told that he would be freed from affliction if he were sold into slavery for a period of three years, and, in atonement for his crime, gave the price he brought to the father whose son he had slain. Heracles was so weak from his illness that he had to submit to this harsh decree. With a number of his friends he sailed to Asia, and there one of them, with his consent, sold him to Omphale, daughter of Iardanus, the queen of a country which at that time was known as Maeonia, and later as Lydia. In obedience to the oracle, the seller sent the price he had received for Heracles to Eurytus, and when he refused it, gave it to the children of slain Iphitus. Immediately Heracles was healed.

  In the first flush of recovered strength, he began to act the hero, even though he was Omphale’s slave, and resumed his role of benefactor of mankind. He punished all the robbers who were troubling the domains of his mistress and her neighbors. He slew part of the Cercopes, who lived in the region around Ephesus and did great damage by plundering the countryside, and some he brought to Omphale in chains. King Syleus in Aulis, a son of Poseidon, who captured travellers and forced them to work in his vineyards, he struck down with a spade and dug out his vines by the roots. He razed to the ground the city of the Itones, who time after time had invaded Omphale’s territories, and enslaved all the inhabitants. In Phrygia, Lityerses, a natural son of Midas, was playing malicious pranks. He was a man of great possessions and courteously invited all strangers who passed through his estates to be his guests. After the evening meal, he compelled them to work at his harvest and, if they failed to surpass him, cut off their heads. Heracles killed this evildoer and flung him into the river Maeander.

  On one of his expeditions, he came to the island Doliche and saw a lifeless form that had been washed ashore by the waves. It was the body of Icarus who, on his flight from the labyrinth of Crete, had come too close to the sun with the wings his father had made for him and had fallen into the sea. Filled with compassion, Heracles buried the boy and, in his honor, named the island Icaria. In return for this, the artist Daedalus, father of Icarus, erected a statue of Heracles, a marvellous likeness, in Pisa. Once, when the hero arrived there at nightfall, the statue seemed alive to him in the dim light. His own heroic pose looked to him like the threatening gesture of a foe. He picked up a stone and shattered the beautiful monument which his friend had reared to commemorate his kindness. The chase of the Calydonian Boar also took place during the time Heracles was Omphale’s slave.

  The queen admired the valor of her servant and divined that she had in her household a hero of world-wide fame. After she had learned that he was Heracles, the son of Zeus, she not only restored his liberty, in recognition of his merit, but made him her husband. In the sumptuous life of the Orient, Heracles forgot the teachings Virtue had once given him at the crossroads. He became voluptuous and effeminate, and Omphale took delight in humiliating him. She draped herself in his lion’s skin, but had him robed in the soft garments the women of Lydia wear, and so great was his blind passion for her that he obeyed when she bade him sit at her feet and spin wool. The neck which had once supported the burden of Atlas and found it light, now bore a woman’s necklace of gold; bracelets set with jewels clasped his sinewy arms. His uncut locks flowed over his shoulders from under a Lydian headdress, and long and dainty folds veiled his splendid limbs. He sat among the Ionian maids with the distaff before him, spinning the frail thread with his lean and muscular fingers, and feared the reproof of his mistress when he failed to finish the work set for the day. But when she was in good humor, this man in woman’s attire had to tell her and her handmaids the exploits of his glorious youth: how he had strangled serpents with his childish hands; how, as a stripling, he had slain the giant Geryon and struck off the deathless head of the Hydra, and how he had wrested the hound of hell from the very depths of the underworld. The women delighted in the tale of his deeds, as children take pleasure in the stories their nurses tell them.

  When his years of service to Omphale were over at last, Heracles awoke from his infatuation. Full of disgust, he stripped himself of women’s gear, and it cost him only a brief effort to be himself again, the strong son of Zeus, filled with heroic resolves. In his new freedom he decided to take revenge on his enemies.

  SUBSEQUENT EXPLOITS OF HERACLES

  Before all else, he set out to punish King Laomedon, the insolent and willful ruler who had built the walls of Troy. For when on his way back from battling with the Amazons Heracles had freed Hesione, Laomedon’s daughter, from the dragon which was threatening her, the king had not only broken his word and withheld the swift horses of Zeus he had promised the hero in reward, but dismissed him with scornful words. Now Heracles took with him six ships and only a small number of warriors, but among them the foremost heroes of Greece: Peleus, Oileus, and Telamon. Heracles, clad in his lion’s skin, had come to Telamon while he was seated at his board. Telamon had risen, made welcome his guest, and offered him wine in a golden cup. Heracles, joyfully moved by this warm hospitality, had lifted his hands to heaven and prayed: “Father Zeus, if ever you have listened graciously to my pleas, hear me now: I implore you to give childless Telamon a bold son, an heir, who shall be as invulnerable as I in this lion’s skin of mine. Let him always be quickened with noble courage!”

  Hardly had Heracles ceased speaking, when the god caused an eagle, the king of birds, to fly over his head. At this the hero exulted in his heart, and he began to speak like a soothsayer, in a voice resonant with power and ecstasy. “Yes, Telamon, you shall have the son you desire, and he will be as majestic as this imperial bird. Ajax shall be his name, and he will be great in the service of the god of war.”

  When he had said this, he seated himself at the board. A short time after, he and Telamon, together with the other heroes, set out for the war against Troy.

  When they had landed, Heracles made Oileus watchman over their ships, while he with the others advanced toward the city. Laomedon hastily marshalled his forces, fell upon the ships, and slew Oileus in combat. But when he went to return, he found himself encircled by Heracles’ companions. In the meantime the heroes besieged Troy. Telamon broke through the wall and was the first to invade the city. Heracles came after him. It was the first time in his life that the demigod had been second to anyone. Black envy clouded his soul, and an evil design swelled in his heart. He raised his sword and was about to strike down his friend, who strode on before, when Telamon looked back and guessed his intention by his gesture.
With great presence of mind he began to collect the stones lying nearest him, and when his rival asked what he was doing, replied: “I am building an altar to Heracles, the victor!” At these words envy and anger melted away. Again the two fought side by side, and Heracles killed Laomedon and all his sons but one with his arrows. When the city was conquered, he gave Hesione, King Laomedon’s daughter, to his friend Telamon, as the prize of victory. But he permitted her to select one captive whom she wished liberated. She chose Podarces, her brother. “It is well,” said Heracles. “He shall be yours, but first he must suffer disgrace and be another’s servant. Then you may have him for the price you offer.” When the boy was sold as a slave, Hesione snatched the diadem from her head and gave it to ransom her brother, who ever after was called Priam: he who was sold.

  Hera begrudged the demigod his triumph. On his homeward journey she beset him with savage winds, but Zeus was angered and soon put an end to her plotting. After various adventures, Heracles decided that the second victim of his revenge should be King Augeas, who had also failed to give him a promised reward. He invaded his country and slew him and his sons. The kingdom of Elis he gave to Phyleus, who had been driven into exile for the friendship he bore Heracles.

  After this victory, Heracles restored the Olympic games and dedicated an altar to Pelops, who had initiated them, and six altars to the twelve gods, one for every two. It is said that at that time Zeus assumed the guise of a mortal, wrestled with Heracles, suffered defeat, and wished his son happiness in his divine strength. Then Heracles set out against Pylos and King Neleus, who had once refused to purify him of his crime. He fell on his city and slew him and ten of his sons. Only young Nestor was spared, since he was far away in the land of the Gerenians, where he was being educated. In this battle, Heracles wounded even Hades, the god of the underworld, who had come to the aid of the Pylians.