Hercules

Hercules is the son of Zeus and a mortal named Alcmena, but he is raised as the son of her husband,
Amphitryon. Zeus visits Alcmena disguised as her husband while Amphitryon is away at war, so Alcmena
bears Hercules, Zeus's son, and Iphicles, Amphitryon's son. Hercules's singular strength emerges almost
immediately. Two large snakes come into the crib he shares with Iphicles, who cries and tries to flee.
Hercules strangles one snake in each of his hands, presenting the limp creatures to his parents when
they come to the boys' rescue. His parents attempt to have him educated, but Hercules doesn't like
music and accidentally kills his teacher by hitting him with a lute. He excels at physical pursuits and kills a
great lion at age 18.

Hera knows who Hercules's father is, and she tortures Hercules for it throughout his life. As a young
man, Hercules conquers a tribe called the Minyans to stop them from exacting "a burdensome tribute
from the Thebans." Thebes gives him a bride, Princess Megara. They have three sons and are happy until
Hera strikes him with a madness that leads him to kill Megara and their children. When he regains his
senses, Hercules threatens to kill himself, but his friend Theseus stops him by taking his hands, thus
sharing Hercules's guilt. Although Theseus and Amphitryon try to convince Hercules he is not
responsible for his actions while insane, Hercules cannot forgive himself. He goes to Eurystheus, King of
Mycenae, who gives him a series of tasks for purification. These 12 tasks become known as the "the
Labors of Hercules."

First, Hercules kills the lion of Nemea with his hands because the lion is impervious to weapons. Second,
he kills the multiheaded Hydra, who grows two heads in the place of each one that is cut off; Hercules
burns the stumps before new heads can sprout. Third, Hercules brings Eurystheus a sacred stag with
golden horns; and fourth, he captures a wild boar in deep snow on Mount Erymanthus. The fifth labor
requires Hercules to clean the Augean stables, home to thousands of cattle; Hercules diverts two rivers
to accomplish the task. For his sixth labor, Athena helps Hercules shoot a flock of birds that plague the
people of Stymphalus. The seventh labor takes him to Crete to tame and capture a bull Poseidon gave
King Minos. For the eighth labor, he goes to Thrace and slays King Diomedes to take his man-eating
horses. While on his way to Thrace, Hercules visits his friend Admetus whose wife has just died, but
Admetus only tells Hercules a "woman of his household" is dead. Hercules gets roaring drunk at dinner.
He is embarrassed when a servant tells him the truth and convinces Death to give back Admetus's wife
to make amends.

Hercules goes to the Amazons to complete his ninth labor, which is to fetch the girdle of their queen
Hippolyta. She assents easily, but Hera inspires the other Amazons to attack Hercules. Without thinking,
he kills Hippolyta in the fray and fights the rest to return with the girdle. For his tenth labor, he takes the
oxen that belong to a three-bodied monster called Geryon.

The eleventh labor is tricky because Hercules has to ask Atlas to locate the Golden Apples of the
Hesperides. Atlas agrees to fetch the apples for Hercules if Hercules will take over holding up the sky
while he goes on the errand. Hercules agrees, and when Atlas returns, it becomes clear he has no
intention of taking the sky back. Hercules asks Atlas to just hold the sky for a minute while Hercules
places a pad on his shoulders to alleviate the pressure. Atlas agrees, and Hercules makes his escape with
the apples.
The twelfth labor is most difficult because Hercules must descend to the underworld and bring back the
three-headed guard dog, Cerberus. While Hercules is there, he frees his friend Theseus from the Chair of
Forgetfulness. Hercules carries Cerberus on his back to Eurystheus, but Eurystheus decides against
keeping Cerberus, so Hercules must return the dog to Hades.

Even after these labors, Hercules never feels at ease about Megara and his children and continues to
seek danger. He fights and defeats a Giant who wrestles and kills strangers, then uses the skulls to roof
his temple. Hercules fights the river-god Achelous to win the love of a woman named Deianira, who
becomes his second wife. He rescues a woman from a sea serpent in Troy and frees Prometheus from
the eagle that preys on him.

Later, Hercules accidentally kills the son of King Eurytus, and Zeus punishes Hercules by sending him to
serve Queen Omphale in Lydia. The queen often dresses Hercules as a woman and Hercules swears
revenge on Eurytus, which he takes by killing the king and taking his city. When Hercules sends a group
of captive women home, the man who brings them tells Deianira that Hercules is in love with one of
them. Deianira uses a blood charm she developed for such an occasion and puts it on a robe she sends
Hercules. The charm does not weaken or kill him but inflicts great pain. When he comes home and finds
Deianira has killed herself in guilt, he orders a pyre built so he can die, too. When he dies, he goes to
Olympus where he makes amends with Hera and marries her daughter Hebe.

Analysis

Edith Hamilton draws a distinction between Hercules and his friend and contemporary Theseus. Theseus,
as mentioned in Part 3, Chapter 1, is the great hero of Athens because he combines a strong devotion to
reason and justice with his strength and daring sense of adventure. As the quintessential Greek hero,
Hercules shows how the values of the rest of Greece differ from Athenian values. Hercules is better
known for his brawn than his brains. He is also known for supreme courage and self-confidence,
regarding himself as an equal to the gods who "needed his help to conquer the Giants." He is often ruled
by his emotions as well and shows the gods little respect, such as the occasion when he picks a fight with
Apollo when the oracle at Delphi will not answer his questions. It is reasonable to conclude the Greeks
wanted a hero not inhibited by too much thought, whose strength and courage were so great he could
hold his own against the gods. Hercules indicates a desire among mortals to be able to shrug off the will
of the gods and follow their own path as Hercules does. Hercules isn't just the most revered hero to the
Greeks, he is possibly the most revered hero in all of Western culture; his name is actually synonymous
with heroism, giving rise to the English word herculean, which describes any task requiring superhuman
strength and commitment.

Because of the circumstances of his birth, Hercules might as well defy the gods because at least one of
them is going to punish him no matter what he does. Hercules is another of Zeus's sons with a mortal
woman, and Part 3, Chapter 1 points out that his great-grandfather is Perseus, another son of Zeus. Hera
is not kind to the women her husband seduces, nor to their children. Throughout Hercules's life, she
torments him. Hamilton introduces Hercules's encounter with the snakes in his crib with the line, "Hera,
as always, was furiously jealous and she determined to kill Hercules." So, Hera sends the snakes for the
infant hero, and things only go downhill from there. She drives Hercules to the madness that causes him
to kill his family, an incident from which he never truly recovers despite his many acts of penance. The
two are only reconciled after Hercules is dead. His death probably means Hera has finally gotten what
she wanted all along.

Hercules's story does not follow the strict linear trajectory characteristic of Joseph Campbell's hero's
journey outlined in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. His parentage sets up his destiny as a hero, but he
engages in a few minor adventures and feats of strength before the death of his family draws him into
his primary adventure, the 12 labors. The 12 labors conform to the series of obstacles characteristic of a
hero's journey. The journey into the underworld and the return becomes a standard feature of other
heroic journeys after Hercules's story, as it represents an apex of strength and bravery, the act of literally
overcoming death. Technically, Theseus is the first of the great heroes to visit the underworld, but he is
unable to return under his own power. Hercules is the one who returns Theseus to the surface world,
which establishes his superiority over Theseus in an important respect.

Unlike the other heroes who follow Campbell's cycle, Hercules does not reap a true reward for his efforts,
at least not in life, as even after he has completed his labors he finds no peace or consolation. He
remains haunted by the loss of Megara and his family, and ends up in a marriage with Deianira, a
woman who trusts him so little that she devises a spell to punish his future faithlessness on the same day
they are married. She uses this spell not to bring Hercules back to her, as might be expected, but to kill
him.

Hercules's labors represent acts of service to King Eurystheus of Mycenae, but Hercules does these to
atone for killing his family. In fact, Hercules departs from the heroic model set by Perseus and Theseus,
because few of his acts are driven by altruism toward individuals or society. However, Hercules isn't self-
serving in a conventional sense, either. His actions are driven by impulse and emotion, and these traits,
combined with his massive strength, lead him to accidentally kill people with some frequency. Many of
Hercules's acts, even beyond the 12 labors, are acts of penance. Even when he goes to Death to win back
the wife of his friend Admetus—his kindest and most selfless act—he does so to make amends for his
thoughtless drunkenness. In Hercules, the Greeks have created a hero uniquely human in his flaws. He
constantly makes mistakes; he is often clumsy and thoughtless in his use of force. Yet, Hercules is also
constantly engaged in the process of atoning for his flaws and mistakes, and in this sense, he represents
the most important of ideals: all humans are deeply flawed, but it is truly heroic to attempt to overcome
those flaws.