Greek tradition noted also that fire
separated
the mortal
part of Hercules from the immortal, an idea repeated afterwards by
Lucian.
part of Hercules from the immortal, an idea repeated afterwards by
Lucian.
Ovid - 1934 - Metamorphoses in European Culture - v2
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? NESSUS AND THE DEATH OF HERCULES
Apparently the early Greeks had received some account of rein-
deer, the only species in which antlers are grown by the hind, for antlers
were attributed regularly to the hind of Cerynitia. * Pindar observed
that the quest took Hercules far north, beyond the cold blasts of Boreas.
Other authors agreed that the quest was long, for it occupied more than
a year, but they thought of it as confined to southern Greece. They
added further details to the description of the animal. Euripides re-
ferred to the antlers as made of gold, Vergil spoke of brazen hoofs,
Quintus Smyrnaeus noted the hind's breathing out fire. Euripides ob-
served also that it ravaged the crops. He remarked that Hercules killed
it, and the Manual added that he shot it near Oenoe in Argolis. The
Manual stated further that Apollo and Diana at first reproved Her-
cules for injuring the sacred animal and opposed his return but finally
were mollified.
Ovid spoke next of the gold wrought belt secured from Thermodon,
alluding to the time when Hercules obtained a girdle of the Amazon
Queen Hippolyta. This tradition grew out of the historical fact that
occasionally in times of danger women have taken part in warfare.
Sometimes they merely put to death an enemy who temporarily was dis-
armed and incapable of resistance, as Judith is said to have killed Holo-
fernes, or Jael is reported to have killed Sisera. But at other times
they appear to have faced the perils and hardships of war. This was
true of Augustina, Maid of Saragoza, who was commemorated by
Southey and Byron, and of several women who fought more recently in
the armies of Dahomey.
During historical times women such as Boadicaea and Joan of Arc
occasionally have commanded armies. Their adventures interested not
only historians but also poets and novelists, and it was natural for
authors such as Fletcher, Schiller, and Mark Twain to present them in
a manner that was partly fictitious. But many authors introduced in
their stories warlike women who were entirely imaginary. The Iliad
told of several goddesses, one of them Venus, who took part in battles
near Troy and elsewhere. Vergil introduced into the war between
Aeneas and Turnus his famous warrior heroine Camilla. Leading poets
of the Renaissance gladly followed his example: Ariosto with his Brada-
mante and Marfisa, Tasso with Clorinda, and Spenser with Brito-
mart. And in the nineteenth century Scott revived the fashion, first in
*Some authors, apparently troubled by the fact, referred to the animal as a stag.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
his poem Harold the Dauntless and then in his novel Count Robert of
Paris.
All these were examples of individual women who took part in wars.
There also have been historical instances where a company of women
organized themselves to participate in warfare. During the eighth cen-
tury A. D. , a certain Ylasta led an army of warrior women in Bohemia,
and during the Great War there appeared the Russian Battalion of
Death. Prehistoric companies of warrior women probably suggested
the famous traditions of the Valkyries in northern Europe and the Ama-
zons in Greece.
The Amazons were described as a whole nation of women who lived
in Asia Minor, somewhere near the eastern end of the Black Sea. The
Iliad spoke of them as warring first against Troy and later against
Bellerophon. Aeschylus in his Prometheus Bound declared that the
Amazons originated somewhere in the north and migrated southwards to
the valley of the river Thermodon, near the modern city of Trebizond.
Herodotus and others spoke of this country as their home and told of
their inhabiting a town called Themiscyra. Many authors and artists
treated the theme of the Amazons, associating them especially with
adventures of Theseus and Hercules. Plutarch and others even gave
them a part in the Asiatic conquests of Alexander and Pompey.
The quest for Hippolyta's girdle appeared in sculpture of the
Athenian treasury at Delphi. Not long afterwards it was mentioned by
Euripides. In the HercuJss Furens he noted that Hercules attacked and
defeated an army of mounted Amazons near Lake Maeotis (the Sea of
Azov). Quintus Smyrnaeus added that Hercules pulled Queen Hippo-
lyta out of her saddle. Other Greek authors imagined a less violent pro-
cedure. According to Apollonius, Hercules captured Melanippe, a sister
of the queen, and obtained the girdle as her ransom. According to the
Manual, Hippolyta came voluntarily to Hercules and would have yielded
the girdle peaceably, if Juno had not caused the other Amazons to
attack him. Hercules, believing their demonstration had been planned
in advance, killed the queen.
Ovid's next allusion mentioned winning apples guarded by an un-
sleeping dragon. They usually were called the golden fruit of the
Hesperides. According to the Theogony, the Hesperides were nymphs
living far west, beyond the ocean, and guarding trees which bore golden
apples. Beginning with the fifth century B. C, Greek authors gave a
different account of them. They localized the Hesperides in northern
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? NESSUS AND THE DEATH OF HERCULES
Africa, at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, and spoke of one tree,
round which there coiled an unsleeping dragon. According to Sophocles,
Euripides, and Apollonius, Hercules killed the dragon and gathered the
fruit. And this idea was repeated by most ancient authors who wrote
after Alexandrian times. But Pherecydes and the Manual thought of
the dragon as immortal. They declared that Hercules persuaded Atlas
to obtain the apples for him and meanwhile he himself assumed the duty
of holding up the sky. This idea appeared often in Greek art. Ovid in
his account of Perseus and Atlas (Bk. 4) had followed the poets, for he
noted a prediction that Hercules was to plunder the golden fruit. The
tree had also golden leaves, he added, and Atlas tried to protect it with
a high wall round the garden where it grew. In the complaint of Her-
cules, Ovid alluded to the same version of the tale. His reference to
winning apples from an unsleeping dragon implied that Hercules killed
the monster. But a few lines afterwards Ovid recalled the account in
the Manual and spoke of him as holding up the sky. This idea was in-
consistent not only with Ovid's previous allusion but also with his story
of Perseus transforming Atlas into a mountain. By the time of Her-
cules, Atlas would have been unable to go in quest of the fruit. It is an
odd circumstance that, although Ovid treated the theme of the golden
apples both in his account of Perseus and in his complaint of Hercules,
he never even alluded to the Hesperides.
Still another exploit was a victory over the centaurs. Sophocles
had referred to the adventure, and Euripides had spoken of it as occur-
ring in Thessaly. The Manual told the story. While Hercules was visit-
ing a centaur named Pholus, he persuaded him to include in the enter-
tainment part of the wine which the centaurs held in common. The other
centaurs, objecting to this appropriation of their property, made an
attack but were routed with arrows. During the combat both Pholus
and Ghiron suffered wounds which resulted in their death (cf. Ocyrhoe,
Bk. 2). Ovid had mentioned this victory in his Epistle of Deianira.
Ovid referred also to a boar that ravaged Arcadia. Sophocles had
mentioned the destruction of the beast. The Manual recorded the story.
The boar inhabited Mt. Erymanthus in Arcadia. Hercules pursued him
up the mountain beyond the treeline until the animal foundered in deep
snow, then threw a net over him and brought him back alive. Presumably
he afterwards killed the boar. Pausanias observed that in his time the
tusks were shown in Apollo's temple at Cumae. Ovid already had men-
tioned the quest of the Erymanthian boar in his Epistle of Deianira.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
He spoke again of the battle with the hydra, which he had consid-
ered at greater length in the previous tale.
Ovid alluded also to King Diomed of Thrace. This king was no-
torious for his team of bloodthirsty horses. Euripides had given two
different accounts of them. In the Alcestis he described them as mares,
an idea repeated by the Manual and by Ovid in the Epistle of Deianira.
In the Hercules Furens he described them as stallions, an idea repeated
by Lucretius and by Ovid in the complaint of Hercules. According to
Euripides, the king fed his team with human flesh, probably the bodies
of those whom he put to death. Hercules overcame and captured the
formidable animals. The Manual added that he brought them to Greece
but that meanwhile Diomed tried to recover them and perished. Dio-
dorus declared that Hercules allowed the horses to kill and devour their
former master. But, according to another Greek tradition, Hercules
killed both Diomed and the horses in the stable. This idea was repeated
afterwards by Quintus Smyrnaeus. Ovid, alluding to the same version,
added that Diomed's mangers were full of human corpses.
Ovid made his last allusion to the adventure with the Nemean lion.
During prehistoric times, wild lions probably existed in all parts of
Greece (cf. Medea's Flight to Athens, Bk. 7). Tradition gave Hercules
two adventures with them, the first with a lion of Mt. Cithaeron near
Thebes, the second with the more famous Nemean lion of southern
Greece. But the Nemean lion usually was described as a more or less
supernatural animal. According to the Theogony, it frequented the
region of Nemea in Argolis and destroyed many human lives but suc-
cumbed at last to Hercules. Pindar noted that after the victory Her-
cules made it his custom to wear the head and skin of this lion, an idea
often repeated both in literature and in art.
Bacchylides recorded a few details of the conflict. Hercules first
attacked the lion with a sword but found the beast invulnerable. The
sword encountered bronze instead of flesh and bent back. He was obliged
to grapple with his enemy. Here Bacchylides accepted an idea common
in Greek lore, that, if an animal or a human being was invulnerable by
weapons, he still might perish by strangling or smothering. Another
instance Ovid recorded in his tale of Cycnus (Bk. 12). Euripides noted
that Hercules overcame the lion in his den.
The Manual added several particulars. Hercules encountered the
animal first in the open. He shot an arrow, which bounded off the lion's
skin, then attacked the beast with his club and drove it into the den.
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? NESSUS AND THE DEATH OF HERCULES
Since there were two entrances, he built up one of them and afterwards
went in by the other and strangled the lion. Theocritus gave a pictur-
esque account of the adventure, in some details of which he appears to
have differed from all others. The lion, he said, was laying waste a
region near Pisa in Elis. After a long search, Hercules observed it
approaching the place where he waited in ambush. When two arrows
failed to stop the lion, he realized that it was invulnerable. As the lion
sprang at him, he struck it so hard with his club that the animal was
dazed. Then, attacking from behind, he trod on the lion's hind paws and
threw his arms round its neck. After strangling the lion, he endeavored
to remove the hide but could make no impression on it until at last he
tried the lion's own claws. Ovid, probably recalling the Manual, spoke
of Hercules as crushing the Nemean monster with his arms.
After recording the complaint of Hercules, Ovid proceeded to
describe his wild behavior. When Apollonius had recounted the fate of
Hylas, he spoke of Hercules as rushing hither and thither, like a bull
maddened with the stings of a gadfly. Vergil had compared Dido in love
with Aeneas to a hind which a shepherd has wounded, not aware that he
has done so, and which flees through woods and glades still carrying the
deadly shaft. Combining these ideas, Ovid likened Hercules to a bull,
when a hunter has wounded him and he has fled. He rushed wildly up
the side of Mt. Oeta, after roaring in agony, often endeavoring to tear
off the fateful garment, often uprooting great trees with his hands.
At this point Ovid introduced the encounter with Lichas. Evidently
the herald had fled a long way up the mountain and taken refuge under
a hollow rock. Hercules, proceeding in the same direction, observed him
and called him to account. Following Sophocles in the earlier part of
the affair, Ovid stressed the idea that Lichas tried to excuse himself.
Following Nicander in the latter part, he declared that the herald's
body was transformed into an island. With the Manual he noted that
it lay in the Euboic Sea. But he gave the tale particular interest for
his contemporaries by alluding to a recent scientific theory, taken prob-
ably from Varro. According to this idea, water, when lifted high in
air, dries and hardens, first into snow and then into hail. In a similar
manner, said Ovid, the body of Lichas, rising high in air, dried and
hardened into a piece of flint.
Sophocles and the Manual, recording the events at Trachin, had
included a strange incident. With a number of African tribes it is
customary for the son and heir to inherit his father's wives and concu-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
bines, with the exception of his own mother. The custom appears to have
been known among the prehistoric Greeks. Tradition recorded an ex-
ample in the family of Ulysses. After the death of that hero, Tela-
machus, his son by Penelope, espoused his former mistress Circe; and
Telegonus, his son by Circe, married his former wife Penelope. In
harmony with this idea Sophocles and the Manual declared that Her-
cules ordered Hyllus to marry Iole, and the Manual noted that Hyllus
did so. Since Ovid had avoided any mention of Hyllus and had omitted
the visit to Trachin, he said nothing at this point about a marriage of
Hyllus and Iole. But in the tale which followed he observerd, incon-
sistently, that by order of Hercules it had taken place.
Following the Manual, Ovid noted that Hercules built his own
funeral pyre; and, following Sophocles, he added that he persuaded
Philoctetes to light it and gave him in return his bow, which twice vis-
ited Troy. Ovid referred to the conquest of the city by Hercules, which
he intended to record in the tale of Hesione (Bk. 11), and to the arrival
of Philoctetes in the Troad, which he afterwards mentioned in the tale
of Ajax and Ulysses (Bk. 13).
According to the Odyssey, Hercules was transformed into an
Olympian god and married Hebe, the personification of eternal youth.
This idea became one of the most popular elements in the whole tradition
of that famous hero. In the drama called Children of Hercules, Euripides
related it to the story of the funeral pyre on Mt. Oeta. Hercules, he
observed, raising his soul from the dread flame, entered the charming
couch of Hebe.
Greek tradition noted also that fire separated the mortal
part of Hercules from the immortal, an idea repeated afterwards by
Lucian. Propertius observed in harmony with this that on the heights
of Mt. Oeta, Hercules first knew the joys of godhead. And Ovid, re-
calling the same tradition, had remarked that Neptune took from Ino
and Melicerta whatever was mortal before transforming them into sea
deities (Bk. 4).
The Theogony had spoken of Hebe as daughter of Jupiter and
Juno. Since the time of the Iliad, Hercules had been regarded as the
son of Jupiter and Alcmena. In espousing Hebe, he took a wife whose
father was the same as his but whose mother was different. Marriage
of this kind often was permitted by the ancient Greeks (cf. Io, Bk. 1).
Euripides, calling attention to the idea, declared that Hymenaeus
thought two children of Jupiter worthy of each other. But this was
not the only version of the story, for Ovid observed in a subsequent tale
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? NESSUS AND THE DEATH OF HERCULES
of Iolaiis that Hebe was only a stepdaughter of Jupiter, meaning prob-
ably a child of Juno without a father (cf. Semele and Jupiter, Bk. 3).
The idea that Hercules married Hebe would suggest that her
mother had become reconciled to him. This was implied often by the
older Greek poets, especially by Pindar. The Manual stated that a
reconciliation with Juno occurred immediately after Hercules arrived
on Mt. Olympus. Greek artists indicated that Juno even adopted him
as her son and that she symbolized the adoption by having him drink
milk from her breast.
In the tradition of several ancient peoples great men have been
transported supernaturally to heaven. The events indicated have been
as follows. The hero at first was in some open place and in broad day-
light, plainly observed by several witnesses. Then clouds enveloped him,
sometimes without concealing him from view; a chariot descended
through the clouds; and he was transported to his new home with the
immortals. So, according to the Old Testament, Elijah was conveyed
by a chariot and horses of fire and a whirlwind to heaven.
Usually the hero was transported from high ground. According to
Roman tradition, Romulus was on the Palatine Hill, when clouds sur-
rounded him and a celestial chariot carried him away to become the
god Quirinus. This tale Ovid treated both in his Metamorphoses
(Bk. 14) and in his Fasti. Apparently following Varro, he noted that
the hero's father, Mars, descended in a chariot and that Juno welcomed
the new deity in a council of the gods. A similar event was associated
with Hercules. The Manual stated that a cloud took the hero up from
Mt. Oeta and carried him away with peals of thunder to become a
heavenly god. Greek artists pictured him ascending in a four-horse
chariot. Already the tradition of Hercules was parallel in some respects
to that of Romulus. Ovid decided to make the parallel closer.
While developing many traditional ideas of supernatural ascent
and immortality, Ovid improved his account with congenial details sug-
gested by earlier Roman poets. Spreading the lion skin on the pyre, he
said, and setting the club across it for a pillow, Hercules lay down.
Horace, when he told of Regulus departing to a death by torture, ob-
served that he acted as unconcerned as if he were leaving for a vacation
in the country. Ovid noted that Hercules lay down on the pyre as
calmly as if he were commencing a banquet. Ovid then invented an inci-
dent in the heavens. The gods, who were assembled in council, mani-
fested alarm at the fate of earth's defender. Jupiter expressed his glad-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
ness at their feeling solicitude for his son and proceeded to reassure
them. The flame should devour only the mortal portion of Hercules,
which he received from his mother. The portion that came from his
father was to be immortal, and soon he was to be received on the
heavenly shores. Jupiter expressed the hope that all would rejoice in
his rewarding Hercules with divinity and added that, even if anyone
present were to grudge the bestowal of this reward, he must admit at
least that it was deserved. Juno seemed displeased at the allusion to
her former hostility -- presumably because she now was reconciled and
shared the good will of the rest.
The flames of the pyre, Ovid continued, had now taken away the
former appearance of Hercules and given him one which was new and
better. Both Tibullus and Vergil had spoken of the snake as putting off
his old state and being new. Vergil had noted in his Georgics how the
Calabrian viper, putting off his skin, glides away new and shining with
youth. In the Aeneid he repeated the passage almost verbatim to de-
scribe Pyrrhus in his fresh armor. Ovid, recalling both Tibullus and
Vergil, used the idea more aptly to describe the transformation of Her-
cules. The hero took on new brilliance, as the snake, when it has put off
old age with its skin, becomes new, rejoices, and shines in gleaming scales.
Horace, predicting his own immortal fame, had made the following
boast. Not all of me shall die. A mighty part of me shall escape the
goddess of death, and I shall keep growing in the praise of later times.
Ovid, recalling Horace, observed that the better part of Hercules es-
caped death and grew to even more heroic size.
The hero's father, Jupiter, descended in a chariot with four horses
and conveyed him up through clouds to find a place among the stars. Al-
though this last phrase may have been merely figurative, Ovid seems to
have remembered the idea that Hercules became a constellation of that
name. He noted that Atlas felt the added weight, again forgetting that
Atlas had become a mountain. After this impressive event, it might have
been inconsistent to add the traditional marriage with Hebe. It certainly
would have been an anticlimax. Ovid ended the story with the deification
of Hercules, but afterwards in the tale of Iolaiis he spoke of Hebe as
yielding to her husband's request.
After Ovid's time the subject of Hercules continued to interest
many authors and artists. Although numerous other treatments of the
subject were available and some of them were clearer, especially in their
account of the exploits, Ovid's narrative became and remained the most
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? NESSUS AND THE DEATH OF HERCULES
accessible and the best known. We always may assume that it was
familiar to men of later times and that it encouraged them when they
sought elsewhere for further details. This observation would be true
notably of Lucan in his famous account of Hercules and Antaeus, of
Boccacio in his De Natura Deorum, and of several authors who intro-
duced Hercules into medieval romances. The French poetical romance
of Alexander described Alexander's tent as adorned with designs repre-
senting exploits of Hercules. A French prose romance treated the ex-
ploits at some length*. It spoke of Hercules as acting in the service of
a Boeotian princess, and it gave many of his labors a medieval form. For
example, it presented Pluto as king of a dismal castle, which was
guarded by a giant named Cerberus. Late in the fifteenth century, Pietro
Bassi wrote an Italian prose romance called The Toils of Hercules,
which Villana translated into Spanish, and Perillos wrote an Italian
poetical romance called Twelve Labors of Hercules. Recollection of
Ovid encouraged Shakespeare's frequent allusions to Hercules as typical
of strength and valor.
Ovid's effect in these examples appears to have been merely remote
and general. But on many authors it was also direct and particular.
However much they may have taken from others, they took at least a
few details from him. This was true of Seneca in his tragedies called
Hercules Furens and Hercules on Mt. Oeta'f, of Hyginus, of Claudian
in his Abduction of Proserpina, and of Boethius in his Consolation of
Philosophy. It was true also of the famous medieval poets Jean de
Meun, Dante, and Chaucer. Direct influence undoubtedly occurred
again in the work of authors and artists of the Renaissance and of later
times but is difficult to establish because of the increasing possibility
that details were taken at second hand from some modern predecessor.
The encounter of Hercules and Nessus attracted several authors.
Seneca in his Hercules on Mt. Oeta followed Ovid's idea that it occurred
almost immediately after the victory over Acheloiis. He agreed with
Ovid that Hercules was journeying towards his native city, which he
mistakenly called Argos, and that, before shooting, Hercules warned
Nessus to stop. Dante spoke of himself as conveyed on the back of
Nessus over an infernal river. He showed his guide, Virgil, dt'Tibing
the centaur as rash and alluding to his death and subsequent revtage.
Hyginus mentioned the centaur's giving Deianira the tunic and re-
*The title was Les Prowesses et les Vaillances du Preux Hercule.
tThis play served as a model for the French dramatist Rotrou in his Hercule*
Dying.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
peated Ovid's word (vestem). Chaucer declared that Nessus wove the
garment himself. Shakespeare alluded to Ovid more vaguely. In All's
Well That Ends Well, Parolles remarked of a certain Captain Dumain,
that for rapes and ravishments, he paralleled Nessus.
The passion of Hercules for Iole interested many great poets of
later times. In Dante's Paradiso the troubadour Foulquet likened him-
self to Alcides, when Iole was shut in his heart. Chaucer in the Knight's
Tale and Shakespeare in Love's Labour's Lost, mentioned Hercules as
a notable example of the great man yielding to love. Boccaccio, confus-
ing Ovid's account of Iole in the Metamorphoses with his account of
Omphale in the Epistle of Deianira, spoke of Hercules as taking the
distaff for the sake of Iole, and he was followed by Tasso and by Spen-
ser. Ovid's incident of Rumor bearing the news to Deianira and his
emphasis on Rumor as mendacious provided the material for Shakes-
peare's prologue to the Second Part of Henry Fourth. And the idea
that Deianira expressed jealous resentment appeared in the work of
Seneca.
The disastrous effect of the poisoned robe was the most famous
part of the whole story. Chaucer observed of Deianira,
She hath him sent a sherte fresh and gay.
Alias! this sherte, alias and weylaway!
Envenimed was so subtilly with-alle,
That, or that he had wered it half a day,
It made his flesh al from his bones falle.
But on his bak this sherte he wered al naked,
Til that his flesh was for the venim blaked.
Shakespeare's Antony, thinking himself betrayed by Cleopatra, ex-
claimed
The shirt of Nessus is upon me: teach me,
Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage;
Let me lodge Lichas on the horns of the moon;
And with these hands that grasped the heaviest club
Subdue my worthiest self.
Milton, lamenting the death of the Procancellar, remarked that, if a
right hand had availed against death, fierce Hercules would not have
lain on Mt. Oeta poisoned by the robe of Nessus. And in Paradise Lost
he declared the sports of the demons as violent,
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? NESSUS AND THE DEATH OF HERCULES
As when Alcides, from Oechalia crowned
With conquest, felt the envenomed robe,
And tore up by the roots Thessalian pines,
And Lichas from the top of Oeta threw
Into the Euboic sea.
Particularly interesting to later authors was the idea of a garment
which at first appeared beautiful but afterwards stuck fast and burned
continually. Hyginus noted that, when Hercules tried to remove the
tunic, his viscera followed the cloth. Spenser described as follows the
result of the dragon's fiery attack on St. George.
Not that great champion of the antique world,
Whom famous poets' verse so much doth vaunt,
And hath for twelve huge labors high extold,
So many furies and sharp fits did haunt,
When him the poisoned garment did enchaunt,
With centaur's blood and bloody verses charmed;
As did this Knight twelve thousand dolors daunt,
Whom fiery steel now brent that erst him armed,
That erst him goodly armed now most of all him harmed.
In Shakespeare's As You Like It, Old Adam spoke of Orlando as in-
jured even by his merit, and he added,
0 what a world is this, when what is comely
Envenoms him that wears it.
Cowper noted in his Progress of Error that
Habits are soon assumed; but, when we strive
To strip them off, 'tis being flayed alive.
Other authors were concerned chiefly with the idea of disastrous
results. The chorus of Milton's Samson Agonistes referred to a bad
wife or mistress as a cleaving mischief. Walpole in The Mysterious
Mother, observed that marriage was to wrap Edmund and Adelizia
fatally, like an envenomed robe. And Shelley in Prometheus Unbound,
spoke of his hero as declaring that Jupiter's Infinity was to become a
robe of envenomed agony.
Still other writers recalled the poisoned robe merely as an instance
of acute and inescapable suffering. Sienkiewicz used the idea in a literal
sense. In Quo Vadis, he declared that, when the tunic of Vinicius caught
fire, it burned like a shirt of Nessus. Carlyle in his Heroes and Hero
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
Worship used the idea in a figurative sense to describe the chronic ill-
ness and hypochondria of Dr. Johnson.
The fate of Lichas attracted separate attention more than once.
Hyginus noted that Lichas became a rock. Petrarch declared that he
himself became marble, like him that caused Hercules to put on his
shoulders the grievious burden. Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice
showed Morocco complaining that the test of the caskets was as unjust
as having Hercules and Lichas play at dice and having Alcides beaten
by his page.
Seneca followed Ovid's idea that Hercules made a long complaint,
asking Juno for death.
Many authors recalled Ovid's exploits of Hercules. Seneca in both
of his plays gave similar prominence to Busiris and Antaeus and in his
Hercules on Mt. Oeta, repeated the inconsistent ideas that Hercules
killed the Hesperian dragon and upheld the sky. Claudian also gave
prominence to Busiris and Antaeus, and both Claudian and Boethius
gave their emphatic final place to the exploit of holding up the sky. Ari-
osto noted that stepmother Juno and Eurystheus had imposed the
famous labors on Hercules with the hope that he would perish and de-
clared that Lydia imposed on Alceste equally formidable tasks with the
same intent. Shakespeare recalled the twelve labors both in The Taming
of the Shrew and in Coriolanus*. Hawthorne recalled eleven exploits in
his tale, The Three Golden Apples.
Several of the exploits attracted attention individually. Shakes-
peare alluded to the Nemean lion, first in Love's Labour's Lost and then
in Hamlet; and in King John he recalled the traditional association of
Hercules with the lion skin. Dante in the Convivio and in the treatise
called Monarchy used Antaeus for illustrating a number of ideas in his
discussion and cited as authority Ovid and Lucan. Spenser alluded to
Hercules and the Hesperian fruit both in his Amoretti and in his descrip-
tion of Proserpina's garden. Shakespeare recalled the fruit in Love's
Labour's Lost, in Pericles, and in Coriolanus, adding that Hercules
climbed up among the boughs and shook down the mellow fruit. Dante
introduced Geryon as an aerial monster who enabled him to descend
from the cliff into the circle of Fraud. And in Heroes and Hero Wor-
ship, Carlyle spoke of the Protestant Reformation as a cleansing of
Augean Stables.
Ovid's comparison of the manner in which Hercules ascended Mt.
*A remote effect of Ovid's passage about the labors may appear in the remarkable
sonnets of Hereclia.
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? NESSUS AND THE DEATH OF HERCULES
Apparently the early Greeks had received some account of rein-
deer, the only species in which antlers are grown by the hind, for antlers
were attributed regularly to the hind of Cerynitia. * Pindar observed
that the quest took Hercules far north, beyond the cold blasts of Boreas.
Other authors agreed that the quest was long, for it occupied more than
a year, but they thought of it as confined to southern Greece. They
added further details to the description of the animal. Euripides re-
ferred to the antlers as made of gold, Vergil spoke of brazen hoofs,
Quintus Smyrnaeus noted the hind's breathing out fire. Euripides ob-
served also that it ravaged the crops. He remarked that Hercules killed
it, and the Manual added that he shot it near Oenoe in Argolis. The
Manual stated further that Apollo and Diana at first reproved Her-
cules for injuring the sacred animal and opposed his return but finally
were mollified.
Ovid spoke next of the gold wrought belt secured from Thermodon,
alluding to the time when Hercules obtained a girdle of the Amazon
Queen Hippolyta. This tradition grew out of the historical fact that
occasionally in times of danger women have taken part in warfare.
Sometimes they merely put to death an enemy who temporarily was dis-
armed and incapable of resistance, as Judith is said to have killed Holo-
fernes, or Jael is reported to have killed Sisera. But at other times
they appear to have faced the perils and hardships of war. This was
true of Augustina, Maid of Saragoza, who was commemorated by
Southey and Byron, and of several women who fought more recently in
the armies of Dahomey.
During historical times women such as Boadicaea and Joan of Arc
occasionally have commanded armies. Their adventures interested not
only historians but also poets and novelists, and it was natural for
authors such as Fletcher, Schiller, and Mark Twain to present them in
a manner that was partly fictitious. But many authors introduced in
their stories warlike women who were entirely imaginary. The Iliad
told of several goddesses, one of them Venus, who took part in battles
near Troy and elsewhere. Vergil introduced into the war between
Aeneas and Turnus his famous warrior heroine Camilla. Leading poets
of the Renaissance gladly followed his example: Ariosto with his Brada-
mante and Marfisa, Tasso with Clorinda, and Spenser with Brito-
mart. And in the nineteenth century Scott revived the fashion, first in
*Some authors, apparently troubled by the fact, referred to the animal as a stag.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
his poem Harold the Dauntless and then in his novel Count Robert of
Paris.
All these were examples of individual women who took part in wars.
There also have been historical instances where a company of women
organized themselves to participate in warfare. During the eighth cen-
tury A. D. , a certain Ylasta led an army of warrior women in Bohemia,
and during the Great War there appeared the Russian Battalion of
Death. Prehistoric companies of warrior women probably suggested
the famous traditions of the Valkyries in northern Europe and the Ama-
zons in Greece.
The Amazons were described as a whole nation of women who lived
in Asia Minor, somewhere near the eastern end of the Black Sea. The
Iliad spoke of them as warring first against Troy and later against
Bellerophon. Aeschylus in his Prometheus Bound declared that the
Amazons originated somewhere in the north and migrated southwards to
the valley of the river Thermodon, near the modern city of Trebizond.
Herodotus and others spoke of this country as their home and told of
their inhabiting a town called Themiscyra. Many authors and artists
treated the theme of the Amazons, associating them especially with
adventures of Theseus and Hercules. Plutarch and others even gave
them a part in the Asiatic conquests of Alexander and Pompey.
The quest for Hippolyta's girdle appeared in sculpture of the
Athenian treasury at Delphi. Not long afterwards it was mentioned by
Euripides. In the HercuJss Furens he noted that Hercules attacked and
defeated an army of mounted Amazons near Lake Maeotis (the Sea of
Azov). Quintus Smyrnaeus added that Hercules pulled Queen Hippo-
lyta out of her saddle. Other Greek authors imagined a less violent pro-
cedure. According to Apollonius, Hercules captured Melanippe, a sister
of the queen, and obtained the girdle as her ransom. According to the
Manual, Hippolyta came voluntarily to Hercules and would have yielded
the girdle peaceably, if Juno had not caused the other Amazons to
attack him. Hercules, believing their demonstration had been planned
in advance, killed the queen.
Ovid's next allusion mentioned winning apples guarded by an un-
sleeping dragon. They usually were called the golden fruit of the
Hesperides. According to the Theogony, the Hesperides were nymphs
living far west, beyond the ocean, and guarding trees which bore golden
apples. Beginning with the fifth century B. C, Greek authors gave a
different account of them. They localized the Hesperides in northern
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? NESSUS AND THE DEATH OF HERCULES
Africa, at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, and spoke of one tree,
round which there coiled an unsleeping dragon. According to Sophocles,
Euripides, and Apollonius, Hercules killed the dragon and gathered the
fruit. And this idea was repeated by most ancient authors who wrote
after Alexandrian times. But Pherecydes and the Manual thought of
the dragon as immortal. They declared that Hercules persuaded Atlas
to obtain the apples for him and meanwhile he himself assumed the duty
of holding up the sky. This idea appeared often in Greek art. Ovid in
his account of Perseus and Atlas (Bk. 4) had followed the poets, for he
noted a prediction that Hercules was to plunder the golden fruit. The
tree had also golden leaves, he added, and Atlas tried to protect it with
a high wall round the garden where it grew. In the complaint of Her-
cules, Ovid alluded to the same version of the tale. His reference to
winning apples from an unsleeping dragon implied that Hercules killed
the monster. But a few lines afterwards Ovid recalled the account in
the Manual and spoke of him as holding up the sky. This idea was in-
consistent not only with Ovid's previous allusion but also with his story
of Perseus transforming Atlas into a mountain. By the time of Her-
cules, Atlas would have been unable to go in quest of the fruit. It is an
odd circumstance that, although Ovid treated the theme of the golden
apples both in his account of Perseus and in his complaint of Hercules,
he never even alluded to the Hesperides.
Still another exploit was a victory over the centaurs. Sophocles
had referred to the adventure, and Euripides had spoken of it as occur-
ring in Thessaly. The Manual told the story. While Hercules was visit-
ing a centaur named Pholus, he persuaded him to include in the enter-
tainment part of the wine which the centaurs held in common. The other
centaurs, objecting to this appropriation of their property, made an
attack but were routed with arrows. During the combat both Pholus
and Ghiron suffered wounds which resulted in their death (cf. Ocyrhoe,
Bk. 2). Ovid had mentioned this victory in his Epistle of Deianira.
Ovid referred also to a boar that ravaged Arcadia. Sophocles had
mentioned the destruction of the beast. The Manual recorded the story.
The boar inhabited Mt. Erymanthus in Arcadia. Hercules pursued him
up the mountain beyond the treeline until the animal foundered in deep
snow, then threw a net over him and brought him back alive. Presumably
he afterwards killed the boar. Pausanias observed that in his time the
tusks were shown in Apollo's temple at Cumae. Ovid already had men-
tioned the quest of the Erymanthian boar in his Epistle of Deianira.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
He spoke again of the battle with the hydra, which he had consid-
ered at greater length in the previous tale.
Ovid alluded also to King Diomed of Thrace. This king was no-
torious for his team of bloodthirsty horses. Euripides had given two
different accounts of them. In the Alcestis he described them as mares,
an idea repeated by the Manual and by Ovid in the Epistle of Deianira.
In the Hercules Furens he described them as stallions, an idea repeated
by Lucretius and by Ovid in the complaint of Hercules. According to
Euripides, the king fed his team with human flesh, probably the bodies
of those whom he put to death. Hercules overcame and captured the
formidable animals. The Manual added that he brought them to Greece
but that meanwhile Diomed tried to recover them and perished. Dio-
dorus declared that Hercules allowed the horses to kill and devour their
former master. But, according to another Greek tradition, Hercules
killed both Diomed and the horses in the stable. This idea was repeated
afterwards by Quintus Smyrnaeus. Ovid, alluding to the same version,
added that Diomed's mangers were full of human corpses.
Ovid made his last allusion to the adventure with the Nemean lion.
During prehistoric times, wild lions probably existed in all parts of
Greece (cf. Medea's Flight to Athens, Bk. 7). Tradition gave Hercules
two adventures with them, the first with a lion of Mt. Cithaeron near
Thebes, the second with the more famous Nemean lion of southern
Greece. But the Nemean lion usually was described as a more or less
supernatural animal. According to the Theogony, it frequented the
region of Nemea in Argolis and destroyed many human lives but suc-
cumbed at last to Hercules. Pindar noted that after the victory Her-
cules made it his custom to wear the head and skin of this lion, an idea
often repeated both in literature and in art.
Bacchylides recorded a few details of the conflict. Hercules first
attacked the lion with a sword but found the beast invulnerable. The
sword encountered bronze instead of flesh and bent back. He was obliged
to grapple with his enemy. Here Bacchylides accepted an idea common
in Greek lore, that, if an animal or a human being was invulnerable by
weapons, he still might perish by strangling or smothering. Another
instance Ovid recorded in his tale of Cycnus (Bk. 12). Euripides noted
that Hercules overcame the lion in his den.
The Manual added several particulars. Hercules encountered the
animal first in the open. He shot an arrow, which bounded off the lion's
skin, then attacked the beast with his club and drove it into the den.
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? NESSUS AND THE DEATH OF HERCULES
Since there were two entrances, he built up one of them and afterwards
went in by the other and strangled the lion. Theocritus gave a pictur-
esque account of the adventure, in some details of which he appears to
have differed from all others. The lion, he said, was laying waste a
region near Pisa in Elis. After a long search, Hercules observed it
approaching the place where he waited in ambush. When two arrows
failed to stop the lion, he realized that it was invulnerable. As the lion
sprang at him, he struck it so hard with his club that the animal was
dazed. Then, attacking from behind, he trod on the lion's hind paws and
threw his arms round its neck. After strangling the lion, he endeavored
to remove the hide but could make no impression on it until at last he
tried the lion's own claws. Ovid, probably recalling the Manual, spoke
of Hercules as crushing the Nemean monster with his arms.
After recording the complaint of Hercules, Ovid proceeded to
describe his wild behavior. When Apollonius had recounted the fate of
Hylas, he spoke of Hercules as rushing hither and thither, like a bull
maddened with the stings of a gadfly. Vergil had compared Dido in love
with Aeneas to a hind which a shepherd has wounded, not aware that he
has done so, and which flees through woods and glades still carrying the
deadly shaft. Combining these ideas, Ovid likened Hercules to a bull,
when a hunter has wounded him and he has fled. He rushed wildly up
the side of Mt. Oeta, after roaring in agony, often endeavoring to tear
off the fateful garment, often uprooting great trees with his hands.
At this point Ovid introduced the encounter with Lichas. Evidently
the herald had fled a long way up the mountain and taken refuge under
a hollow rock. Hercules, proceeding in the same direction, observed him
and called him to account. Following Sophocles in the earlier part of
the affair, Ovid stressed the idea that Lichas tried to excuse himself.
Following Nicander in the latter part, he declared that the herald's
body was transformed into an island. With the Manual he noted that
it lay in the Euboic Sea. But he gave the tale particular interest for
his contemporaries by alluding to a recent scientific theory, taken prob-
ably from Varro. According to this idea, water, when lifted high in
air, dries and hardens, first into snow and then into hail. In a similar
manner, said Ovid, the body of Lichas, rising high in air, dried and
hardened into a piece of flint.
Sophocles and the Manual, recording the events at Trachin, had
included a strange incident. With a number of African tribes it is
customary for the son and heir to inherit his father's wives and concu-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
bines, with the exception of his own mother. The custom appears to have
been known among the prehistoric Greeks. Tradition recorded an ex-
ample in the family of Ulysses. After the death of that hero, Tela-
machus, his son by Penelope, espoused his former mistress Circe; and
Telegonus, his son by Circe, married his former wife Penelope. In
harmony with this idea Sophocles and the Manual declared that Her-
cules ordered Hyllus to marry Iole, and the Manual noted that Hyllus
did so. Since Ovid had avoided any mention of Hyllus and had omitted
the visit to Trachin, he said nothing at this point about a marriage of
Hyllus and Iole. But in the tale which followed he observerd, incon-
sistently, that by order of Hercules it had taken place.
Following the Manual, Ovid noted that Hercules built his own
funeral pyre; and, following Sophocles, he added that he persuaded
Philoctetes to light it and gave him in return his bow, which twice vis-
ited Troy. Ovid referred to the conquest of the city by Hercules, which
he intended to record in the tale of Hesione (Bk. 11), and to the arrival
of Philoctetes in the Troad, which he afterwards mentioned in the tale
of Ajax and Ulysses (Bk. 13).
According to the Odyssey, Hercules was transformed into an
Olympian god and married Hebe, the personification of eternal youth.
This idea became one of the most popular elements in the whole tradition
of that famous hero. In the drama called Children of Hercules, Euripides
related it to the story of the funeral pyre on Mt. Oeta. Hercules, he
observed, raising his soul from the dread flame, entered the charming
couch of Hebe.
Greek tradition noted also that fire separated the mortal
part of Hercules from the immortal, an idea repeated afterwards by
Lucian. Propertius observed in harmony with this that on the heights
of Mt. Oeta, Hercules first knew the joys of godhead. And Ovid, re-
calling the same tradition, had remarked that Neptune took from Ino
and Melicerta whatever was mortal before transforming them into sea
deities (Bk. 4).
The Theogony had spoken of Hebe as daughter of Jupiter and
Juno. Since the time of the Iliad, Hercules had been regarded as the
son of Jupiter and Alcmena. In espousing Hebe, he took a wife whose
father was the same as his but whose mother was different. Marriage
of this kind often was permitted by the ancient Greeks (cf. Io, Bk. 1).
Euripides, calling attention to the idea, declared that Hymenaeus
thought two children of Jupiter worthy of each other. But this was
not the only version of the story, for Ovid observed in a subsequent tale
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? NESSUS AND THE DEATH OF HERCULES
of Iolaiis that Hebe was only a stepdaughter of Jupiter, meaning prob-
ably a child of Juno without a father (cf. Semele and Jupiter, Bk. 3).
The idea that Hercules married Hebe would suggest that her
mother had become reconciled to him. This was implied often by the
older Greek poets, especially by Pindar. The Manual stated that a
reconciliation with Juno occurred immediately after Hercules arrived
on Mt. Olympus. Greek artists indicated that Juno even adopted him
as her son and that she symbolized the adoption by having him drink
milk from her breast.
In the tradition of several ancient peoples great men have been
transported supernaturally to heaven. The events indicated have been
as follows. The hero at first was in some open place and in broad day-
light, plainly observed by several witnesses. Then clouds enveloped him,
sometimes without concealing him from view; a chariot descended
through the clouds; and he was transported to his new home with the
immortals. So, according to the Old Testament, Elijah was conveyed
by a chariot and horses of fire and a whirlwind to heaven.
Usually the hero was transported from high ground. According to
Roman tradition, Romulus was on the Palatine Hill, when clouds sur-
rounded him and a celestial chariot carried him away to become the
god Quirinus. This tale Ovid treated both in his Metamorphoses
(Bk. 14) and in his Fasti. Apparently following Varro, he noted that
the hero's father, Mars, descended in a chariot and that Juno welcomed
the new deity in a council of the gods. A similar event was associated
with Hercules. The Manual stated that a cloud took the hero up from
Mt. Oeta and carried him away with peals of thunder to become a
heavenly god. Greek artists pictured him ascending in a four-horse
chariot. Already the tradition of Hercules was parallel in some respects
to that of Romulus. Ovid decided to make the parallel closer.
While developing many traditional ideas of supernatural ascent
and immortality, Ovid improved his account with congenial details sug-
gested by earlier Roman poets. Spreading the lion skin on the pyre, he
said, and setting the club across it for a pillow, Hercules lay down.
Horace, when he told of Regulus departing to a death by torture, ob-
served that he acted as unconcerned as if he were leaving for a vacation
in the country. Ovid noted that Hercules lay down on the pyre as
calmly as if he were commencing a banquet. Ovid then invented an inci-
dent in the heavens. The gods, who were assembled in council, mani-
fested alarm at the fate of earth's defender. Jupiter expressed his glad-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
ness at their feeling solicitude for his son and proceeded to reassure
them. The flame should devour only the mortal portion of Hercules,
which he received from his mother. The portion that came from his
father was to be immortal, and soon he was to be received on the
heavenly shores. Jupiter expressed the hope that all would rejoice in
his rewarding Hercules with divinity and added that, even if anyone
present were to grudge the bestowal of this reward, he must admit at
least that it was deserved. Juno seemed displeased at the allusion to
her former hostility -- presumably because she now was reconciled and
shared the good will of the rest.
The flames of the pyre, Ovid continued, had now taken away the
former appearance of Hercules and given him one which was new and
better. Both Tibullus and Vergil had spoken of the snake as putting off
his old state and being new. Vergil had noted in his Georgics how the
Calabrian viper, putting off his skin, glides away new and shining with
youth. In the Aeneid he repeated the passage almost verbatim to de-
scribe Pyrrhus in his fresh armor. Ovid, recalling both Tibullus and
Vergil, used the idea more aptly to describe the transformation of Her-
cules. The hero took on new brilliance, as the snake, when it has put off
old age with its skin, becomes new, rejoices, and shines in gleaming scales.
Horace, predicting his own immortal fame, had made the following
boast. Not all of me shall die. A mighty part of me shall escape the
goddess of death, and I shall keep growing in the praise of later times.
Ovid, recalling Horace, observed that the better part of Hercules es-
caped death and grew to even more heroic size.
The hero's father, Jupiter, descended in a chariot with four horses
and conveyed him up through clouds to find a place among the stars. Al-
though this last phrase may have been merely figurative, Ovid seems to
have remembered the idea that Hercules became a constellation of that
name. He noted that Atlas felt the added weight, again forgetting that
Atlas had become a mountain. After this impressive event, it might have
been inconsistent to add the traditional marriage with Hebe. It certainly
would have been an anticlimax. Ovid ended the story with the deification
of Hercules, but afterwards in the tale of Iolaiis he spoke of Hebe as
yielding to her husband's request.
After Ovid's time the subject of Hercules continued to interest
many authors and artists. Although numerous other treatments of the
subject were available and some of them were clearer, especially in their
account of the exploits, Ovid's narrative became and remained the most
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? NESSUS AND THE DEATH OF HERCULES
accessible and the best known. We always may assume that it was
familiar to men of later times and that it encouraged them when they
sought elsewhere for further details. This observation would be true
notably of Lucan in his famous account of Hercules and Antaeus, of
Boccacio in his De Natura Deorum, and of several authors who intro-
duced Hercules into medieval romances. The French poetical romance
of Alexander described Alexander's tent as adorned with designs repre-
senting exploits of Hercules. A French prose romance treated the ex-
ploits at some length*. It spoke of Hercules as acting in the service of
a Boeotian princess, and it gave many of his labors a medieval form. For
example, it presented Pluto as king of a dismal castle, which was
guarded by a giant named Cerberus. Late in the fifteenth century, Pietro
Bassi wrote an Italian prose romance called The Toils of Hercules,
which Villana translated into Spanish, and Perillos wrote an Italian
poetical romance called Twelve Labors of Hercules. Recollection of
Ovid encouraged Shakespeare's frequent allusions to Hercules as typical
of strength and valor.
Ovid's effect in these examples appears to have been merely remote
and general. But on many authors it was also direct and particular.
However much they may have taken from others, they took at least a
few details from him. This was true of Seneca in his tragedies called
Hercules Furens and Hercules on Mt. Oeta'f, of Hyginus, of Claudian
in his Abduction of Proserpina, and of Boethius in his Consolation of
Philosophy. It was true also of the famous medieval poets Jean de
Meun, Dante, and Chaucer. Direct influence undoubtedly occurred
again in the work of authors and artists of the Renaissance and of later
times but is difficult to establish because of the increasing possibility
that details were taken at second hand from some modern predecessor.
The encounter of Hercules and Nessus attracted several authors.
Seneca in his Hercules on Mt. Oeta followed Ovid's idea that it occurred
almost immediately after the victory over Acheloiis. He agreed with
Ovid that Hercules was journeying towards his native city, which he
mistakenly called Argos, and that, before shooting, Hercules warned
Nessus to stop. Dante spoke of himself as conveyed on the back of
Nessus over an infernal river. He showed his guide, Virgil, dt'Tibing
the centaur as rash and alluding to his death and subsequent revtage.
Hyginus mentioned the centaur's giving Deianira the tunic and re-
*The title was Les Prowesses et les Vaillances du Preux Hercule.
tThis play served as a model for the French dramatist Rotrou in his Hercule*
Dying.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
peated Ovid's word (vestem). Chaucer declared that Nessus wove the
garment himself. Shakespeare alluded to Ovid more vaguely. In All's
Well That Ends Well, Parolles remarked of a certain Captain Dumain,
that for rapes and ravishments, he paralleled Nessus.
The passion of Hercules for Iole interested many great poets of
later times. In Dante's Paradiso the troubadour Foulquet likened him-
self to Alcides, when Iole was shut in his heart. Chaucer in the Knight's
Tale and Shakespeare in Love's Labour's Lost, mentioned Hercules as
a notable example of the great man yielding to love. Boccaccio, confus-
ing Ovid's account of Iole in the Metamorphoses with his account of
Omphale in the Epistle of Deianira, spoke of Hercules as taking the
distaff for the sake of Iole, and he was followed by Tasso and by Spen-
ser. Ovid's incident of Rumor bearing the news to Deianira and his
emphasis on Rumor as mendacious provided the material for Shakes-
peare's prologue to the Second Part of Henry Fourth. And the idea
that Deianira expressed jealous resentment appeared in the work of
Seneca.
The disastrous effect of the poisoned robe was the most famous
part of the whole story. Chaucer observed of Deianira,
She hath him sent a sherte fresh and gay.
Alias! this sherte, alias and weylaway!
Envenimed was so subtilly with-alle,
That, or that he had wered it half a day,
It made his flesh al from his bones falle.
But on his bak this sherte he wered al naked,
Til that his flesh was for the venim blaked.
Shakespeare's Antony, thinking himself betrayed by Cleopatra, ex-
claimed
The shirt of Nessus is upon me: teach me,
Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage;
Let me lodge Lichas on the horns of the moon;
And with these hands that grasped the heaviest club
Subdue my worthiest self.
Milton, lamenting the death of the Procancellar, remarked that, if a
right hand had availed against death, fierce Hercules would not have
lain on Mt. Oeta poisoned by the robe of Nessus. And in Paradise Lost
he declared the sports of the demons as violent,
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? NESSUS AND THE DEATH OF HERCULES
As when Alcides, from Oechalia crowned
With conquest, felt the envenomed robe,
And tore up by the roots Thessalian pines,
And Lichas from the top of Oeta threw
Into the Euboic sea.
Particularly interesting to later authors was the idea of a garment
which at first appeared beautiful but afterwards stuck fast and burned
continually. Hyginus noted that, when Hercules tried to remove the
tunic, his viscera followed the cloth. Spenser described as follows the
result of the dragon's fiery attack on St. George.
Not that great champion of the antique world,
Whom famous poets' verse so much doth vaunt,
And hath for twelve huge labors high extold,
So many furies and sharp fits did haunt,
When him the poisoned garment did enchaunt,
With centaur's blood and bloody verses charmed;
As did this Knight twelve thousand dolors daunt,
Whom fiery steel now brent that erst him armed,
That erst him goodly armed now most of all him harmed.
In Shakespeare's As You Like It, Old Adam spoke of Orlando as in-
jured even by his merit, and he added,
0 what a world is this, when what is comely
Envenoms him that wears it.
Cowper noted in his Progress of Error that
Habits are soon assumed; but, when we strive
To strip them off, 'tis being flayed alive.
Other authors were concerned chiefly with the idea of disastrous
results. The chorus of Milton's Samson Agonistes referred to a bad
wife or mistress as a cleaving mischief. Walpole in The Mysterious
Mother, observed that marriage was to wrap Edmund and Adelizia
fatally, like an envenomed robe. And Shelley in Prometheus Unbound,
spoke of his hero as declaring that Jupiter's Infinity was to become a
robe of envenomed agony.
Still other writers recalled the poisoned robe merely as an instance
of acute and inescapable suffering. Sienkiewicz used the idea in a literal
sense. In Quo Vadis, he declared that, when the tunic of Vinicius caught
fire, it burned like a shirt of Nessus. Carlyle in his Heroes and Hero
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
Worship used the idea in a figurative sense to describe the chronic ill-
ness and hypochondria of Dr. Johnson.
The fate of Lichas attracted separate attention more than once.
Hyginus noted that Lichas became a rock. Petrarch declared that he
himself became marble, like him that caused Hercules to put on his
shoulders the grievious burden. Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice
showed Morocco complaining that the test of the caskets was as unjust
as having Hercules and Lichas play at dice and having Alcides beaten
by his page.
Seneca followed Ovid's idea that Hercules made a long complaint,
asking Juno for death.
Many authors recalled Ovid's exploits of Hercules. Seneca in both
of his plays gave similar prominence to Busiris and Antaeus and in his
Hercules on Mt. Oeta, repeated the inconsistent ideas that Hercules
killed the Hesperian dragon and upheld the sky. Claudian also gave
prominence to Busiris and Antaeus, and both Claudian and Boethius
gave their emphatic final place to the exploit of holding up the sky. Ari-
osto noted that stepmother Juno and Eurystheus had imposed the
famous labors on Hercules with the hope that he would perish and de-
clared that Lydia imposed on Alceste equally formidable tasks with the
same intent. Shakespeare recalled the twelve labors both in The Taming
of the Shrew and in Coriolanus*. Hawthorne recalled eleven exploits in
his tale, The Three Golden Apples.
Several of the exploits attracted attention individually. Shakes-
peare alluded to the Nemean lion, first in Love's Labour's Lost and then
in Hamlet; and in King John he recalled the traditional association of
Hercules with the lion skin. Dante in the Convivio and in the treatise
called Monarchy used Antaeus for illustrating a number of ideas in his
discussion and cited as authority Ovid and Lucan. Spenser alluded to
Hercules and the Hesperian fruit both in his Amoretti and in his descrip-
tion of Proserpina's garden. Shakespeare recalled the fruit in Love's
Labour's Lost, in Pericles, and in Coriolanus, adding that Hercules
climbed up among the boughs and shook down the mellow fruit. Dante
introduced Geryon as an aerial monster who enabled him to descend
from the cliff into the circle of Fraud. And in Heroes and Hero Wor-
ship, Carlyle spoke of the Protestant Reformation as a cleansing of
Augean Stables.
Ovid's comparison of the manner in which Hercules ascended Mt.
*A remote effect of Ovid's passage about the labors may appear in the remarkable
sonnets of Hereclia.
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