The twelve labors of Hercules
To tell the story of the twelve labors of Hercules, we must go back in time, when the God Zeus in Greek mythology was the father of gods and men, the mortal Alcmene, the beautiful wife of Amphitryon, is presented to him. daughter of King Electryon of Mycenae.
Since, according to what is said, the God Zeus appeared to her transformed into her husband Host, when he was fighting a battle. And Alcmene thought it was her husband and had intercourse and became pregnant with the God Zeus, Alcmene would become the mother of Hercules, when this news was known to Hera, the true wife of the God Zeus was very angry that she exploded with anger at the situation that occurred .
Although Hera, driven by her anger, tried to prevent Hercules from being born, she performed several very evil actions but all were unsuccessful. Then Hera the wife of Zeus executed the idea that Eurystheus was born first, two months before Hercules with that he won that this child was proclaimed King, and Hercules could not be crowned king.
The god Zeus, upon learning what his wife Hera had plotted, became very upset, but he could do nothing and continue with the rules that he himself had imposed. When Hercules was older, he had married and had children with his wife, but Hera, being angry and envious of Hercules, caused a spell on him that caused him to have a fit of madness.
Having the attack of madness Hercules murdered his wife and two children, also killed two nephews with his own hands. Shortly after realizing what he did, he had regained his sanity. Hercules decides to isolate himself from the world since he feels guilty for what he has done.
Hercules being living alone in the wild lands, his brother named Iphicles convinces him to pay a visit to the Oracle of Delphi, which is located in the sacred precinct of the God Apollo, for having performed such a horrible deed the Delphic Sibyl a priestess, makes Hercules perform the twelve labors, but ordered by King Eurystheus of the city of Mycenae. Who was the one who usurped the position of the crown that belonged to Hercules because they made him born two months before Hercules thanks to the collaboration of Hera.
When Hercules decides to go to the kingdom of Eurystheus, so that Eurystheus sends him to carry out the twelve labors of Hercules, with the mission that they be so difficult and dangerous, that Hercules cannot fulfill them and also dies performing one of the twelve labors with the goal that he can never claim the throne. In this article we will detail the twelve labors of Hercules.
Strangling the Nemean Lion
The first job entrusted to him by King Eurystheus, of the twelve jobs of Hercules, was to kill the Nemean lion, which according to Greek mythology, this animal was a very ruthless and murderous monster, because the murderous beast terrorized the city of Nemea, and many hunters wanted to kill him.
But the skin of the Nemean lion was so thick and resistant, that the weapons did not go through it and therefore did not hurt it, when Hercules decides to carry out the first job of the twelve proposed, he leaves for the city staying in the house of Molorco and then go to where the beast is in its cave.
When Hercules arrives at the cave of the Nemean lion, he finds that it is full of bodies and skeletons of people that the monster has killed and eaten, the first action of Hercules is to attack the beast with his weapons, which resorts to the bow and arrow. , because Hercules is very accurate when shooting but the arrows do not harm the beast, its skin is too thick and the arrows do not have their devastating effect.
The Lion of Nemea attacks Hercules with great force, who hits him, for which he decides to use his great mallet and hit him, between the hard fight between the two, the Lion of Nemea with his huge nails breaks Hercules' skin causing great wounds .
As the fight took place in the cave of the lion of Nemea, which had two entrances, Hercules decided to close one of the two entrances, Hercules decides to use his cunning to defeat the great beast and mounts on the animal's back, to then pass his powerful arms around the neck of the Nemean lion and being able to strangle it with his great strength and power until he leaves the animal lifeless.
After the first objective of the twelve labors of Hercules has been completed, with the same nails of the Lion of Nemea, he decides to remove the skin since they are very sharp, and the skin of the animal is put on as a kind of clothing, to take it to the city. of Mycenae and show it to King Eurystheus.
But the king was very scared when he saw that Hercules was coming with the animal's skin on, which prohibited Hercules from entering the city, in addition to that he ordered his blacksmiths to build him a very large copper jar so that he could hide from it. when Hercules appeared.
Kill the Hydra of Lerna
In the twelve labors of Hercules, the second labor to a more dangerous one, since it consisted of killing the Hydra of Lerna, a very dangerous monster, which is also said that the beast was the sister of the Lion of Nemea and was seeking revenge against of Hercules for having murdered his brother the Lion of Nemea.
Hercules had to go to the swamp of Lake Lerna to look for the dangerous beast, but Hercules was accompanied by his nephew, when they finally found the cave where the Hydra of Lerna took refuge, Hercules began to shoot burning arrows towards the cave to get the big animal out of there and start the fight.
When the great beast manages to get out of the cave, Hercules and his nephew covered their mouths and noses to protect themselves from the breath that emanated from the animal because it was very dangerous, when the Hydra of Lerna reaches our Hero, the battle begins, Hercules He defends with his sword cutting off the heads of the Hydra, but at the same time that he cuts them, two new heads appear.
For this reason, Hercules' nephew gives him an idea, which is to cauterize each head he cuts to prevent another two from being born again. By doing this, Hercules is managing to defeat the Hydra of Lerna, since while he cuts off their heads, his nephew with a lit torch does the job of cauterizing his wounds.
With the last head of the Hydra of Lerna, Hercules had to bury it under the great rock of the sacred road between Lerna and the city of Eulate. After that Hercules dipped his arrows in the blood of the poisonous Hydra to have more dangerous arrows.
After finishing this work, he went to King Eurystheus to notify him, but there was a difference between the two since all the work had to be done alone and Enes was helped by his nephew. For this reason they had been given ten and they increased it to twelve.
Capture the Cerinea doe
The third commitment of the twelve labors of Hercules consisted of capturing the hind of Cerinea, a very fast animal that could not be caught, according to the description of the animal it had bronze hooves and golden antlers.
Although Hercules tried to capture her, he could not, moreover, he cannot hurt her because he would be punished, for this reason he had to devise a way to capture her, as it is said that Hercules lasted more than a year to hunt the animal and chased it to the country of the Hyperboreans.
What he did was pierce both legs with an arrow between the skin and its tendon and thus immobilized while Cerinea's hind drank water, although he pierced her with the arrow, he did not shed a single drop of the animal's blood. After immobilizing the animal, it was taken to the kingdom of Eurystheus.
Capture the Erymanthian Boar alive
The fourth objective of the twelve labors of Hercules was to capture the Erymanthian Boar alive, or an animal of great size and strength that was wreaking serious havoc in the vicinity of the fields of Arcadi. The boar ate everything, even the very people who tried to catch it, and it had the strength to uproot trees from the very root of the ground.
When Hercules was able to find the great animal, it attacked him and hit him hard and escaped, Hercules had to chase him for several hours, until he finally found the animal and with strong blows he managed to subdue it, then tied it with heavy chains and loaded it on his back to carry it loaded to the city of Maecenas alive, there he left it to King Eurystheus.
Kill Stymphalian Birds with arrows
After delivering the Boar, King Eurystheus hid in the bronze jar for fear of Hercules, from there he sends him to carry out his fifth job which had to eliminate the birds of Stymphalus, since with their poisoned excrement they damaged the crops In addition, they had a beak, wings and bronze claws with which they killed humans to eat them.
The objective that Hercules had to fulfill was to kill all those birds, for which he set out to look for them, although the mission was difficult since there were many and the force was not useful for this work, for which he set out to drive them away to to fly out of their hiding place and kill them with arrows. It took a long time since there were many birds, but finally he succeeded.
Clean Augean stables in just one day
In this sixth work that Hercules had to do, it was a bit peculiar, since King Eurystheus sent him to clean the largest herd of cattle that Augias owned, who, thanks to the gods, that cattle was very healthy and strong, that is why it had never been cleaned.
Until Hercules was sent to perform such a job, but the job had the mission of humiliating him and making him lose, since there was a lot of excrement and doing it in a single day was impossible, so Hercules devised a plan by opening a channel in the middle from the stable.
In such a way that the course of the rivers Alfeo and Peneo would take all the dirt, completely cleaning the stables, Augeas was very upset thinking that Hercules was cheating. Although Augeas and King Eurystheus argued that the work was worthless since Hercules did not clean it but the river did, this caused great controversy, but Phileo's testimony granted that Hercules' work was validated.
Taming the Cretan bull
The seventh commandment commanded by King Eurystheus of the twelve labors of Hercules was to tame the Cretan Bull that was destroying the city of Crete. That bull belonged to Poseidon who made it come out of the sea when King Minos offered to make a sacrifice.
But King Mino considered the animal so beautiful that he did not sacrifice it but left it as a stallion, and since he did not make the sacrifice the God became very upset so he made the queen fall in love with the animal and bear him a son, from which the minotaurs were born.
In this way King Minos was very enraged by such action that he did not know what to do with the Cretan bull, Hercules appears before King Minos to tell him about the job and the king accepted. Hercules decided to mount the animal to tame it and led it through the Aegean Sea until it reached the city of Mycenae. Seeing such a beautiful and majestic animal, the king offered it to Hera as a sacrifice, but Hera did not like it because the animal was very ferocious, so King Eurystheus made the decision to set it free.
Steal the mares of Diomedes
The eighth of the twelve labors of Hercules, aimed to capture and steal four mares that belonged to Diomedes, these mares fed on human flesh and their owner had them tied with chains and fed them with guests.
Hercules left with several volunteers to carry out the eighth work, when he reached the place where the mares were, he was able to take them away, but then Diomedes went with a large army to recover the mares between the battle, Hercules took Diomedes and hit him and then throw him away to the mares still alive, these animals ate him alive.
The mares after eating Diomedes were so tame that Hercules was able to tie them to the cart and take them to Mycenae and give them to King Eurystheus, the King decided to give them to Hera, which she received, who was in charge of caring for these animals was the friend of Hercules named Abdero, but the mares at the time ate him, it is said that these mares died on Mount Olympus devoured by other animals.
Steal Hippolyta's Belt
The ninth job consisted of stealing the magic belt from the Amazon queen, this was a job entrusted by King Eurystheus at the request of his daughter, there are several versions of this job but the most told is that when Hercules arrived by boat to the community of the Amazons, this was well received by Queen Hippolyta.
When Hercules proposed his work to him, he agreed, but as Hera was very angry and envious of Hercules, he spread news that he had kidnapped Queen Hippolyta, the Amazons attacked Hercules with all their might, who had to defend himself by killing several of them. After killing several Amazons, the hero took the magic belt from Queen Hippolyta, and takes it to King Eurystheus who gave it to him by his daughter.
Steal Geryon's cattle
The tenth labor is quite dangerous, as he must steal the cattle of a giant monster, son of Chrysaor and Callirrhoe. Although stories don't usually describe it precisely, it is a formless, three-headed creature, whose livestock, consisting of red cows and oxen, was stolen by Hercules.
But the great monster noticed and began a hard fight against Hercules who defended himself until he managed to draw his bow and shoot several arrows at him that hit the formless body of the monster Geryon, passing through the three bodies that the monster had. with arrows poisoned with the blood of the Hydra of Lerna the monster died.
Steal the golden apples from the garden of the hesperides
After the hero completed the first ten tasks entrusted to him, the king of Eurystheus assigned him two more tasks since the one with the Hydra of Lerna was not worth it because his nephew Yolao helped him, and that of cleaning the stables since Augeas had paid something to do it.
In this work it was difficult since he did not know where said garden was, that is why he decides to walk and finds himself on the way to Macedonia, there he finds a son of Are who is a thief whom Hercules kills to free the travelers. Among the travelers was an old man. When he finally manages to find the garden of the Hesperides, Hercules decides to trick Atlas into taking the apples and leaves, then kills a snake, with the apples in his hands he took it to King Eurystheus.
Kidnap the dog of the underworld, Cerberus, and show it to his brother king
After having completed most of the twelve labors of Hercules, it would be necessary to complete the last one which had to face death itself and take the three-headed dog that belongs to the God Hade to King Eurystheus, first he had to go to Eleusis and be initiated in the mysteries to have the knowledge of how to enter and leave alive the territory dominated by Hades.
After having learned the technique and having killed the centaurs Hercules was able to find the entrance to the underworld in the city of Tenarus, the hero was accompanied by Athena and Hermes, he was transferred by Charon in his boat through the Acheron. Being down there in the underworld Hercules freed King Theseus.
In the story that they have so that Hercules can take the three-headed dog to the king, there are many theories, but the most few are that Hercules goes to where the God Hade is and asks permission to take the three-headed dog, Hades agrees but on the condition that he does not harm the animal. The second story is that Hercules fights fiercely against the God Hade and manages to bend him until he can take the three-headed dog.
Although the truth is that after taking the three-headed dog named Cerberus and showing it to the brother of King Eurystheus, the king realizes that Hercules is capable of performing all the tasks that he imposes on him, for which he decides to give him freedom. .
If you have found this article about the twelve labors of Hercules important, I invite you to visit the following links:
