The Little Heracles
Once upon a time when the little Heracles was ten months old, Alcmena of Midea took him and Iphicles that was his younger by a night, and laid them, washed both and suckled full, in the fine brazen buckler Amphitryon had gotten in spoil of Pterelaüs, and setting her hand upon their heads said " Sleep my babes, sleep sweetly and light; sleep, sweethearts, brothers twain, goodly children. Heaven prosper your slumbering now and your awakening to-morrow. " And as she spake, she rocked the great targe till they fell asleep.
But what time the Bear swings low towards her midnight place over against the uplifted shoulder of mighty Orion, then sent the wily Hera two dire monsters of serpents, bridling and bristling and with azure coils, to go upon the broad threshold of the hollow doorway of the house, with intent they should devour the child Heracles. And there on the ground they both untwined their ravening bellies and went writhing forward, while an evil fire shined forth of their eyes and a grievous venom was spued out of their mouth. But when with tongues flickering they were come where the children lay, on a sudden Alcmena's little ones (for Zeus knew all) awoke, and there was made a light in the house. Iphicles, he straightway cried out when he espied the evil beasts and their pitiless fangs above the target's rim, and kicked away the woollen coverlet in an agony to flee; but Heracles made against them with his hands, and griping them where lies a baneful snake's fell poison hated even of the Gods, held them both fast bound in a sure bondage by the throat. For a while thereat they two wound their coils about that young child, that suckling babe at nurse which never knew tears; but soon they relaxed their knots and loosed their weary spines and only strove to find enlargement from out those irresistible bonds.
Alcmena was the first to hear the cry and awake. " Arise, Amphitryon, " quoth she; " for as for me I cannot arise for fear. Up then you, and tarry not even till you be shod. Hear you not how the little one cries? and mark you not that all the chamber walls are bright as at the pure day-spring hour, though sure 'tis the dead of night? Troth, something, dear lord, is amiss with us. " At these her words he up and got him down from the bed, and leapt for the damasked brand which ever hung to a peg above his cedarn couch, and so reached out after his new-spun baldric even as with the other hand he took up his great scabbard of lotus-wood. Now was the ample bower filled full again of darkness, and the master cried upon his bond-servants that lay breathing slumber so deep and loud, saying " Quick, my bondservants! bring lights, bring lights from the brazier, " and so thrust his stout door-pins back. Then " Rouse ye, " quoth the Phoenician woman that had her sleeping over the mill, " rouse ye, strong-heart bondservants; the master cries: " and quickly forth came those bond-servants with lamps burning every one, and lo! all the house was filled full of their bustling. And when they espied the suckling Heracles with the two beasts in the clutch of his soft little fingers, they clapped their hands and shouted aloud. There he was, showing the creeping things to his father. Amphitryon and capering in his pretty childish glee; then laughing laid the dire monsters before his father's feet all sunken in the slumber of death. Then was Iphicles clipped aghast and palsied with fright to Alcmena's bosom, and the other child did Amphitryon lay again beneath the lamb's-wool coverlet, and so gat him back to bed and took up his rest.
The cocks at third crow were carolling the break of day, when he that never lied, the seer Teiresias, was called of Alcmena and all the strange thing told him. And she bade him give answer how it should turn out, and said " Even though the Gods devise us ill, I pray you hide it not from me in pity; for not even thus may man escape what the spindle of Fate drives upon him. But enough, son of Eueres; verily I teach the wise. " At that he made the queen this answer: " Be of good cheer, O seed of Perseus, thou mother of noblest offspring; be of good cheer and lay up in thy heart the best hope of that which is to come. For I swear to you by the dear sweet light that is so long gone from my eyes, many the Achaean women that as they card the soft wool about their knees at even, shall sing hereafter of the name of Alcmena, and the dames of Argos shall do her honour of worship. So mighty a man shall in this your son rise to the star-laden heavens, to wit a Hero broad of breast, that shall surpass all flesh, be they man or be they beast. And 'tis decreed that having accomplished labours twelve, albeit all his mortal part shall fall to a pyre of Trachis, he shall go to dwell with Zeus, and shall be called in his marriage a son of the Immortals, even of them who despatched these venomous beasts of the earth to make an end of him in his cradle. But now, my lady, let there be fire ready for thee beneath the embers, and prepare ye dry sticks of bramble, brier, or thorn, or else of the wind-fallen twigs of the wild pear-tree; and with that fuel of wild wood consume thou this pair of serpents at midnight, even at the hour they chose themselves for to slay thy son. And betimes in the morning let one of thy hand-maids gather up the dust of the fire and take it to the river-cliff, and cast it, every whit and very carefully, out upon the river to be beyond your borders; and on her homeward way look she never behind her: next, for the cleansing of your house, first burn ye therein sulphur pure, and then sprinkle about it with a wool-wound branch innocent water mingled, as the custom is, with salt: and for an end offer ye a boar pig to Zeus pre-eminent, that so ye may ever remain pre-eminent above your enemies. " So spake Teiresias, and despite the weight of his many years, pushed back the ivory chair and was gone.
And Heracles, called now the son of Amphitryon of Argos, waxed under his mother's eye like a sapling set in a vineyard. Letters learned he of a sleepless guardian, a Hero, son of Apollo, aged Linus; and to bend a bow and shoot arrows at the mark, of one that was born to wealth of great domains, Eurytus; and he that made of him a singer and shaped his hand to the box-wood lyre, was Eumolpus, the son of Philammon. Aye, and all the tricks and falls both of the cross-buttockers of Argos, and of boxers skilly with the hand-strap, and eke all the cunning inventions of the catch-as-catch-can men that roll upon the ground, all these things learnt he at the feet of a son of Hermes, Harpalycus of Phanote, whom no man could abide confidently in the ring even so much as to look upon him from aloof, so dread and horrible was the frown that sat on his grim visage.
But to drive horses in a chariot and guide the nave of his wheel safely about the turnpost, that did Amphitryon in all kindness teach his son himself; for he had carried off a multitude of precious things from swift races in the Argive grazing-land of steeds, and Time alone had loosed the harness from his chariots, seeing he kept them ever unbroken. And how to abide the cut and thrust of the sword or to lunge lance in rest and shield swung over back, how to marshal a company, measure an advancing squadron of the foe, or give the word to a troop of horse — all such lore had he of horseman Castor, when he came an outlaw from Argos because Tydeus had received that land of horsemen from Adrastus and held all Castor's estate and his great vineyard. And till such time as age had worn away his youth, Castor had no equal in war among all the demigods.
While Heracles' dear mother thus ordered his upbringing, the lad's bed was made him hard by his father's, and a lion-skin it was and gave him great delight; for meals, his breakfast was roast flesh, and in his basket he carried a great Dorian loaf such as might surely satisfy a delving man, but after the day's work he would make his supper sparely and without fire; and for his clothing he wore plain and simple attire that fell but a little below the knee.
But what time the Bear swings low towards her midnight place over against the uplifted shoulder of mighty Orion, then sent the wily Hera two dire monsters of serpents, bridling and bristling and with azure coils, to go upon the broad threshold of the hollow doorway of the house, with intent they should devour the child Heracles. And there on the ground they both untwined their ravening bellies and went writhing forward, while an evil fire shined forth of their eyes and a grievous venom was spued out of their mouth. But when with tongues flickering they were come where the children lay, on a sudden Alcmena's little ones (for Zeus knew all) awoke, and there was made a light in the house. Iphicles, he straightway cried out when he espied the evil beasts and their pitiless fangs above the target's rim, and kicked away the woollen coverlet in an agony to flee; but Heracles made against them with his hands, and griping them where lies a baneful snake's fell poison hated even of the Gods, held them both fast bound in a sure bondage by the throat. For a while thereat they two wound their coils about that young child, that suckling babe at nurse which never knew tears; but soon they relaxed their knots and loosed their weary spines and only strove to find enlargement from out those irresistible bonds.
Alcmena was the first to hear the cry and awake. " Arise, Amphitryon, " quoth she; " for as for me I cannot arise for fear. Up then you, and tarry not even till you be shod. Hear you not how the little one cries? and mark you not that all the chamber walls are bright as at the pure day-spring hour, though sure 'tis the dead of night? Troth, something, dear lord, is amiss with us. " At these her words he up and got him down from the bed, and leapt for the damasked brand which ever hung to a peg above his cedarn couch, and so reached out after his new-spun baldric even as with the other hand he took up his great scabbard of lotus-wood. Now was the ample bower filled full again of darkness, and the master cried upon his bond-servants that lay breathing slumber so deep and loud, saying " Quick, my bondservants! bring lights, bring lights from the brazier, " and so thrust his stout door-pins back. Then " Rouse ye, " quoth the Phoenician woman that had her sleeping over the mill, " rouse ye, strong-heart bondservants; the master cries: " and quickly forth came those bond-servants with lamps burning every one, and lo! all the house was filled full of their bustling. And when they espied the suckling Heracles with the two beasts in the clutch of his soft little fingers, they clapped their hands and shouted aloud. There he was, showing the creeping things to his father. Amphitryon and capering in his pretty childish glee; then laughing laid the dire monsters before his father's feet all sunken in the slumber of death. Then was Iphicles clipped aghast and palsied with fright to Alcmena's bosom, and the other child did Amphitryon lay again beneath the lamb's-wool coverlet, and so gat him back to bed and took up his rest.
The cocks at third crow were carolling the break of day, when he that never lied, the seer Teiresias, was called of Alcmena and all the strange thing told him. And she bade him give answer how it should turn out, and said " Even though the Gods devise us ill, I pray you hide it not from me in pity; for not even thus may man escape what the spindle of Fate drives upon him. But enough, son of Eueres; verily I teach the wise. " At that he made the queen this answer: " Be of good cheer, O seed of Perseus, thou mother of noblest offspring; be of good cheer and lay up in thy heart the best hope of that which is to come. For I swear to you by the dear sweet light that is so long gone from my eyes, many the Achaean women that as they card the soft wool about their knees at even, shall sing hereafter of the name of Alcmena, and the dames of Argos shall do her honour of worship. So mighty a man shall in this your son rise to the star-laden heavens, to wit a Hero broad of breast, that shall surpass all flesh, be they man or be they beast. And 'tis decreed that having accomplished labours twelve, albeit all his mortal part shall fall to a pyre of Trachis, he shall go to dwell with Zeus, and shall be called in his marriage a son of the Immortals, even of them who despatched these venomous beasts of the earth to make an end of him in his cradle. But now, my lady, let there be fire ready for thee beneath the embers, and prepare ye dry sticks of bramble, brier, or thorn, or else of the wind-fallen twigs of the wild pear-tree; and with that fuel of wild wood consume thou this pair of serpents at midnight, even at the hour they chose themselves for to slay thy son. And betimes in the morning let one of thy hand-maids gather up the dust of the fire and take it to the river-cliff, and cast it, every whit and very carefully, out upon the river to be beyond your borders; and on her homeward way look she never behind her: next, for the cleansing of your house, first burn ye therein sulphur pure, and then sprinkle about it with a wool-wound branch innocent water mingled, as the custom is, with salt: and for an end offer ye a boar pig to Zeus pre-eminent, that so ye may ever remain pre-eminent above your enemies. " So spake Teiresias, and despite the weight of his many years, pushed back the ivory chair and was gone.
And Heracles, called now the son of Amphitryon of Argos, waxed under his mother's eye like a sapling set in a vineyard. Letters learned he of a sleepless guardian, a Hero, son of Apollo, aged Linus; and to bend a bow and shoot arrows at the mark, of one that was born to wealth of great domains, Eurytus; and he that made of him a singer and shaped his hand to the box-wood lyre, was Eumolpus, the son of Philammon. Aye, and all the tricks and falls both of the cross-buttockers of Argos, and of boxers skilly with the hand-strap, and eke all the cunning inventions of the catch-as-catch-can men that roll upon the ground, all these things learnt he at the feet of a son of Hermes, Harpalycus of Phanote, whom no man could abide confidently in the ring even so much as to look upon him from aloof, so dread and horrible was the frown that sat on his grim visage.
But to drive horses in a chariot and guide the nave of his wheel safely about the turnpost, that did Amphitryon in all kindness teach his son himself; for he had carried off a multitude of precious things from swift races in the Argive grazing-land of steeds, and Time alone had loosed the harness from his chariots, seeing he kept them ever unbroken. And how to abide the cut and thrust of the sword or to lunge lance in rest and shield swung over back, how to marshal a company, measure an advancing squadron of the foe, or give the word to a troop of horse — all such lore had he of horseman Castor, when he came an outlaw from Argos because Tydeus had received that land of horsemen from Adrastus and held all Castor's estate and his great vineyard. And till such time as age had worn away his youth, Castor had no equal in war among all the demigods.
While Heracles' dear mother thus ordered his upbringing, the lad's bed was made him hard by his father's, and a lion-skin it was and gave him great delight; for meals, his breakfast was roast flesh, and in his basket he carried a great Dorian loaf such as might surely satisfy a delving man, but after the day's work he would make his supper sparely and without fire; and for his clothing he wore plain and simple attire that fell but a little below the knee.
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