“With my assistance, Hercules, your bride
will be set down on the opposing bank,”
he said, “and you can swim across yourself.”
Although she was as frightened by the centaur
as by the raging river, Hercules
entrusted her to Nessus, and at once,
still weighed down with his lion skin and quiver
(for he had thrown his club and curving bow
across to the far bank), the hero said,
“One river I’ve already overcome;
I’ll conquer this one just as handily.”
And without hesitating, or attempting
to find a calmer place to cross it at,
he spurned the help of more compliant waters;
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and after he had reached the other bank,
as he was picking up the articles
sent over in advance, he recognized
his wife’s voice, and he shouted to the centaur,
who was preparing to violate his trust:
“To what unhappy end will that misplaced
self-confidence of yours betray you, rapist?
—Yes, I mean you, double-dealing Nessus!
Listen, don’t interfere with what is mine—
if not for the respect you ought to show me,
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then for the memory of Ixion,
your father, who lies bound upon a wheel
for all eternity—the price he paid
for his attempting a forbidden rape.
It won’t be possible for you to flee,
however much you count on equine speed:
my weapon, not my feet, will run you down!”
It happened as he said: with those last words,
he drilled an arrow through the centaur’s back,
whose barbed tip exited beneath his breast.
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When he removed it, blood that had been mixed
with the Hydra’s poison spurted from those wounds.
The centaur let it soak into his tunic,
“Lest I should die,” he said, “without revenge,”
and gave the garment steeped in his warm blood
to Deianira as a magic charm
that would induce a lost love to return.
Many years passed, and the heroic deeds
of Hercules endeared him to the world
and made his father’s wife despise him less.
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After one famous foreign victory
over Eurytus, king of Oechalia,
he was preparing to give thanks to Jove
by sacrificing to him at Cenaeum,
when Rumor, madly chattering, appears
and whispers, Deianira, in your ears;
Rumor, whose wide range and jurisdiction,
increasing with each mix of fact and fiction,
announces that your mate has got a thing
for Iole, the daughter of the king!
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The story of this new love was widespread,
and loving him, his wife of course believed it;
surrendering to tears at first, she grieved
and poured her heart out.
But soon enough she asked,
“What am I weeping for? These tears of mine
can only be a comfort to my rival!
Since she approaches, I should use the time
to plan some unexpected stratagem,
before this woman takes my place in bed.
Loudly complain—or suffer it in silence?
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Decamp to Calydon—or linger here?
Yield her the house—or stay and be obstructive,
if I can do no more? But what if I—
recall that I’m your sister, Meleager—
if I should happen to devise a crime,
and by destruction of my rival, show
how great a deed the grief and injury
of a woman scorned is capable of causing!”
And after mulling over all these options,
Deianira finally decided
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to send him the garment soaked in Nessus’ gore,
which had the power to restore lost love.
With honeyed words the wretched woman bids
her husband’s servant, Lichas (unaware
of what it is that he is carrying),
to bring this gift to mighty Hercules—
and all unwittingly, seals her own doom.
The passion of Hercules
Suspecting nothing, he receives her gift,
and drapes the poisoned tunic on his shoulders.
He prayed and offered incense to the fire,
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and poured out wine upon the altar stone;
freed by the flames, the pestilential venom
warmed to its task and spread throughout his body.
While he was able to, he suppressed his groans
with manly strength; when his impassivity
at last was overcome by violence,
he overturned the altar, and his screams
reverberated through the woods of Oeta.
He first tried to remove the fatal tunic,
but when he tore it off, his skin came too,
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for (sickening to speak of) it would cling
fiercely to his limbs; removed by force,
it bared his muscles and enormous bones.
His blood (as when a heated iron bar
is plunged into the blacksmith’s icy trough)
boiled up and hissed with fiery hot venom;
with nothing to restrain them, the greedy flames
fed upon his heart; dark sweat drenched his body,
and his scorched nerves unnervingly sang out,
while deep within his bones the marrow melted;
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he raised both hands to heaven and cried out,
“Look down from your high seat upon this plague,
O cruel Juno—feast your bestial heart
on my destruction till your greed is sated!
Or if I may be pitied even by
an enemy, that is to say, by you—
then take from me my much-despised existence,
my life of labor, sickened by these torments.
My death would be a gift! And what gift more
appropriate from my stepmother’s hands?
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“Did I subdue Busiris, who defiled
Egyptian temples with the blood of pilgrims,
to come to this? Was it for this that I tore
Antaeus from his mother’s nourishment?
—That I withstood three-headed Geryon
the Spanish shepherd, and that dog from hell,
fierce Cerberus, who had three heads as well?
“And you, my hands—was this the reason why
you wrenched the horns off Neptune’s mighty bull?
—Was this the reason why you toiled at Elis?
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At Stymphalus? In the Parthenian groves?
—Was this the reason why you carried off
Hippolyte’s gold belt from Thermidon
and the apples guarded by the sleepless dragon?
—Was it for this that the centaurs fell before me,
and the boar that devastated Arcadia?
—That the Hydra who grew stronger from his losses
regenerated heads to no avail?
—That when I saw those horses fat with blood,
and saw their mangers full of chopped-up men,
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I slew the Thracian king and his steeds too?
“These biceps flattened the Nemean lion,
this neck upheld the world! Jove’s cruel mate
is worn out now with issuing commands;
I have outlasted Juno’s savage hate;
unwearied still of doing are my hands.
“But now my strength canno
t resist this plague,
nor force of arms. This all-consuming fire
has penetrated deep into my lungs
and feeds itself on each and every limb.
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But is Eurysthaeus still vigorous?
And are there those who still believe in gods?”
The gravely wounded hero finished speaking
and then climbed Oeta to its highest range,
and nothing more resembled than a bull
still carrying the hunting spear’s barbed tip,
long after his assassin has escaped.
You would have seen him there upon the mountain,
and heard his groaning and his roars of pain
as once again he struggled to tear off
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the poisoned tunic, and in agony
plucked trees up by the roots and scattered them,
and raised his arms to heaven in despair.
Lichas
He catches sight of Lichas cowering
in fear, attempting to conceal himself
within a hollow rock, and all his rage
is gathered up and focused on one man:
“Are you the giver of the fatal gift,
Lichas? Would you achieve undying fame
by causing my demise?”
Lichas trembled
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in terror, trying to excuse himself,
but even as he spoke, while he attempted
to clasp the hero’s knees in supplication,
Hercules seized him, spun him round and round,
then catapulted him into the sea.
He hardened as he hung there in midair,
as rain (they say) congeals in a frigid wind,
until it changes into snow, whose flakes
turn first to slush and then to frozen hail;
so he, hurled through the void by Hercules,
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bloodless with fear, all humors vaporized,
turned into rigid flint, tradition says.
And even now, in the Euboean Sea,
a small rock rises just above the waves,
maintaining still its former, human shape;
sailors believe that it is sentient,
and will not walk upon it in their shoes.
They call it Lichas.
The death of Hercules
But you, famed son of Jove,
having denuded Mount Oeta of its trees,
constructed your enormous funeral pyre
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and ordered Philoctetes, son of Poeas
(who torched it from the base), to take your bow
and arrows and your quiver in exchange,
armaments destined to return to Troy.
And as the eager flames began to spread,
you draped the pelt of the Nemean lion
over the top, and pillowing your head
upon your club, you lay there at your ease,
not otherwise than as you would have been
reclining at a banquet, flower-wreathed,
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with wine to drink from cups always refilled.
Now spreading out in every direction,
the crackling flames came after Hercules,
whose carefree limbs received them with contempt.
Jove and the apotheosis of Hercules
The gods were frightened for the earth’s protector,
and when he realized this, Jove was pleased
by their concern and happily addressed them:
“It gives me pleasure to observe your fear,
O deities; I congratulate myself
quite unreservedly, that I am called
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the father and the rector of such a race
of mindful subjects—and that my progeny
is given the protection of your favor,
for even though you organize this tribute
to honor him for his impressive deeds,
I nonetheless am much obliged to you.
“But let your hearts not quake with empty fear;
ignore those flames rising from Mount Oeta—
he who has vanquished all will vanquish them!
Only his mother’s part will feel the fires:
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immortal is the part he has from me;
it cannot die or be subdued by flames.
“And when he has been discharged from the earth,
I will receive him on the shores of heaven;
and I am utterly convinced that all of you
will find my action a great source of joy.
“But if there should be anyone among you,
anyone at all, I say, who might be pained
by Hercules’ becoming an immortal,
that one may wish him not to have this gift,
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but will acknowledge that it is deserved,
and—even though unwillingly—approve it.”
The gods assented—and even Juno seemed
to find his speech not difficult to bear,
until its ending, when she lost composure,
embarrassed to be singled out in public.
Meanwhile, whatever parts of Hercules
were flammable, the fire burned away,
till naught that could be recognized remained,
and none of what his mother’s gifts had been;
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now all that he retained derived from Jove.
And as a serpent who has shed his skin
sheds old age too, rejoicing in new life,
and glitters with new scales; so Hercules,
when he had cast off his mortality,
became more vigorous in his better part,
and he began to seem much more impressive,
more worshipful in his augmented size.
Almighty Jupiter bore him aloft
and (in his chariot) through hollow clouds
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up to his place among the radiant stars.
Atlas could feel an increase in the weight
upon his shoulders; yet not even now
did Erystheus let go of his anger:
the hatred that he had for Hercules
was redirected against his descendents.
Alcmena’s tale
But the hero’s mother, Alcmena, consumed
someone to whom she could relate the tales
of the legendary labors of her son
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and of her own labors and misfortunes.
For Hyllus, as commanded by his father,
had taken Iole to heart and bed
and magnanimously filled her womb with seed.
Alcmena began telling her this story:
“I pray the gods will favor you at least
by shortening your time of delivery
when you are due, and call on Ilithyia,
the patron-goddess of all frightened mothers,
whom Juno’s anger influenced against me.
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“For when the time came for me to deliver
the child who took on labors of his own,
and the Sun’s weight pressed upon the tenth house,
the burden of my womb was so enormous,
my size so great, that you could tell the cause
could be no other than almighty Jove.
I could not bear the pains a moment longer!
“Grief seizes me as I recall it now,
and horror grips me even as I speak
and a cold shiver runs throughout my limbs.
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For seven nights and days, I was in torment;
wrung out by suffering, I called upon
Lucina and the Nixi, goddesses
who offer aid to women in their pangs.
“Lucina came—but having taken bribes
from cruel Juno, who desired my death,
she sat outside the house upon an altar,
with her right knee pressed tightly on her left,
and fingers interlaced across them both;
and as she listened to my screams, the goddess
440
recited spells and charms in a low voice
that kept delivery from taking place.
“I strain, and mad with agony, reproach
ungrateful Jove; I want to die, my words
would stir unfeeling stones! The women of Thebes
offer up prayers and try to comfort me.
“Galanthis, a plebeian servant girl
with bright red hair, appears, quick to take orders,
and pleasing to me for her diligence.
She realizes Juno is against me
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and up to mischief. As she comes and goes,
she sees the goddess sitting on the altar,
her knees pressed close, her fingers laced around them:
‘Whoever you are,’ she said, ‘congratulate
our mistress, for Alcmena is delivered
of a boychild, and our prayers are answered!’
“That influential goddess of the womb
leaps up, unclenching both her hands and knees,
and I give birth as soon as the chains drop!
“They say Galanthis mocked the cheated goddess,
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who seized the girl, still laughing, by her hair,
and wiped the ground with her; and as she struggled,
the goddess changed her arms into forelegs;
she kept her former quickness, and her body
now has the color that her hair once had,
although her form is rather different.
“Because of the deception of her lips,
she must now bear her offspring through her mouth;
she dwells (as formerly) within our homes.”
[Galanthis has been turned into a weasel.]
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Iole’s tale of Dryope
Alcmena finished speaking, and she groaned,
upset to think of what had happened to
her former servant.
While she grieved, Iole
addressed her in these words: “Nevertheless,
dear mother, it’s the transformation of
a stranger that you find upsetting—what
if I should tell you the astounding tale
of my own sister’s fate? And yet my tears
impede me and prohibit me from speaking!
“Dryope was her mother’s only daughter
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(for I was born to my father’s second wife),
by far the fairest in Oechalia.
The god who rules at Delphos and Delos
desired her virginity and forced her,
and then she was accepted by Andraemon,
who was considered lucky in his marriage.
“There is a lake whose banks are crowned with myrtle,
whose shores slope gently down to meet the water;
here Dryope came, ignorant of fate,
and—so your indignation may be greater—