The Labors of Hercules

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The Labors of Hercules
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An Introdution

• Hercules, the Latin equivalent of Heracles, was
  the son of Zeus and Alcmene.
• Hera tried to murder the infant Hercules by
  putting serpents in his cradle. Luckily for
  Hercules, he was born with great strength and
  killed the serpents.

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An Introdution

• The education of Heracles
• Heracles was taught
• to drive the chariot by Amphitryon
• to wrestle by Autolycus
• to the art of archery by Eurytus
• to fence by Castor
• to play the lyre by Linus

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An Introdution

• The goddess Hera, determined to make trouble for
  Hercules, made him lose his mind. In a confused
  and angry state, he killed his own wife and
  children.
• When he awakened from his "temporary insanity,"
  Hercules was shocked and upset by what he'd done.
  He prayed to the god Apollo for guidance, and the
  god's oracle told him he would have to serve
  Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns and Mycenae, for
  twelve years, in punishment for the murders.

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The Nemean Lion

• Arrows are useless against the lion.
• Grasping the lion in his mighty arms, and
  ignoring its powerful claws, he held it tightly
  until he'd choked it to death.

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The Lernean Hydra

• A monstrous serpent with nine heads, the hydra
  attacked with poisonous venom.
• Each time Hercules bashed one of the hydra's
  heads, Iolaus held a torch to the headless
  tendons of the neck. The flames prevented the
  growth of replacement heads .

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The Hind of CeryneiaDiana's Pet Deer

• This was a special deer, because it had golden
  horns and hoofs of bronze.
• she was Diana's special pet.
• That meant that Hercules could neither kill the
  deer nor hurt her .

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The Erymanthian Boar

• Every day the boar would come crashing down from
  his lair on the mountain, attacking men and
  animals all over the countryside.
• On his way to hunt the boar, Hercules stopped to
  visit his friend Pholus, who was a centaur and
  lived in a cave near Mount Erymanthus.

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The Augean StablesHercules Cleans Up

• Hercules went to King Augeas, and without telling
  anything about Eurystheus, said that he would
  clean out the stables in one day, if Augeas would
  give him a tenth of his fine cattle.
• When Augeas learned that Eurystheus was behind
  all this, he would not pay Hercules his reward.
  Not only that, he denied that he had even
  promised to pay a reward.

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The Stymphalian Birds

• The goddess Athena came to his aid, providing a
  big shield.
• Hercules clashed the shield loudly, scaring the
  birds out of the trees, then shot them with bow
  and arrow, as they took flight .

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The Cretan Bull

• Minos himself, in order to prove his claim to the
  throne, had promised the sea-god Poseidon that he
  would sacrifice whatever the god sent him from
  the sea. Poseidon sent a bull, but Minos thought
  it was too beautiful to kill, and so he
  sacrificed another bull.
• When Hercules got to Crete, he easily wrestled
  the bull to the ground and drove it back to King
  Eurystheus.

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The Man-Eating Horses of Diomedes

• Bistones sent a band of soldiers to Recapture the
  animals.
• To free himself to fight, Hercules entrusted the
  mares to a youth named Abderos.
• Unfortunately, the mares got the better of young
  Abderos and dragged him around until he was
  killed.

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Hippolyte's BeltHercules Fights the Amazons

• Queen Hippolyte had a special piece of armor. It
  was a leather belt that had been given to her by
  Ares
• She asked Hercules why he had come, and when he
  told her, she promised to give him the belt.
• But the goddess Hera went up and down the army
  saying to each woman that the strangers who had
  arrived were going to carry off the queen.

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The Cattle of Geryon

• Geryon lived on an island called Erythia, which
  was near the boundary of Europe and Libya. On
  this island, Geryon kept a herd of red cattle
  guarded by Cerberus's brother, Orthus, a
  two-headed hound, and the herdsman Eurytion.
• Sailing in a goblet which the Sun gave him in
  admiration, Hercules reached the island of
  Erythia.

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The Apples of the Hesperides I

• These apples were kept in a garden at the
  northern edge of the world, and they were guarded
  not only by a hundred-headed dragon, named Ladon,
  but also by the Hesperides, nymphs who were
  daughters of Atlas, the titan who held the sky
  and the earth upon his shoulders.

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The Apples of the Hesperides II

• Hercules' first problem was that he didn't know
  where the garden was.
• Hercules came to the rock on Mount Caucasus
  where Prometheus was chained,and killed the
  eagle.
• Atlas hated holding up the sky and the earth so
  much that he would agree to the task of fetching
  the apples, in order to pass his burden over to
  Hercules.

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Cerberus

• Cerberus was a vicious beast that guarded the
  entrance to Hades and kept the living from
  entering the world of the dead.
• Hercules threw his strong arms around the beast,
  perhaps grasping all three heads at once, and
  wrestled Cerberus into submission. The dragon in
  the tail of the fierce flesh-eating guard dog bit
  Hercules, but that did not stop him. Cerberus had
  to submit to the force of the hero,

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After the Labors
Further Adventures of Hercules

• One was to rescue the princess of Troy from a
  hungry sea-monster.
• Another was to help Zeus defeat the Giants in a
  great battle for the control of Olympus.

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After the Labors

• Hercules went to the town of Thebes and married
  Deianira. She bore him many children. Later on in
  their life, the male centaur, Nessus, abducted
  Deianira, but Hercules came to her rescue by
  shooting Nessus with a poison tipped arrow. The
  dying Nessus told Deianira to keep a portion of
  his blood to use as a love potion on Hercules if
  she felt that she was losing him to another
  woman.

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Hercules End

• A couple of a months later, Deianira thought that
  another woman was coming between her and her
  husband, so Deianira washed one of Hercules'
  shirts in Nessus' blood and gave it to him to
  wear. Nessus had lied to her, for the blood
  really acted as a poison and almost killed
  Hercules. On his funeral pyre, the dying Hercules
  ascended to Olympus, where he was granted
  immortality and lived among the gods.

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• http//www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/labors.html
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• http//www.pantheon.org/articles/h/hercules.html
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules/
• http//www.mythweb.com/hercules/