Myths and Legends

Heracules...Part 2

Last we left are poor child of Zeus, Heracules was assigned a task by is asshole of a cousin, King Eurystheus, for twelve years. He had to perform whatever labors Eurystheus might set him; in return, he would be rewarded with immortality. But we the audience know the amount of bull that is. 
Task One: Kill the Nemean lion took women as hostages to its lair in a cave near Nemea, luring warriors from nearby towns to save the damsel in distress. After entering the cave, the warrior would see the woman (usually feigning injury) and rush to her side. Once he was close, the woman would turn into a lion and kill the warrior, devouring his remains and giving the bones to Hades. Seems a bit much but whatever. Something, something, bible steals the idea of sacrificing a child and then using a ram in his place. Heracules uses some arrows against the lion,not know that the beast had some tough as iron skin. So what does he do? Wrestle the thing and choke it to the point of death. He then skins the lion, using its claws as advised by Athena( she is such a good sister) and gets a neat cloak. Heracules then carries the corpse back to dear old cuz, and terrifies him in the process. 

Task Two:  Kill the Lernaean Hydra...which Hera had raised just to slay Hercules( that's cheating). Heracules brought along his nephew and sometimes lover,  Iolaus...I'll get to that in a moment, so we'll breeze on past that for a second. So anyway, Heracules was slicing the heads off the hydra only to find that with each head you cut off, two more pops up as well. So Athena inspired Iolaus to burn the stumps. They did, and Heracules dipped his arrows into the hydra blood, bonus, only to find out it didn't count because Heracules had help. 

Task 3: Capture the Ceryneian Hind, which was so fast that it could outrun an arrow. Heracules was like," You little shit," but did the task anyway. Now everyone knew the Ceryneian Hind was sacred to Artemis, so he went to her temple and explain the situation. Being an illegitimate child of Zeus, she understood and helped out by telling him how to trap it using a net. He brought it back to Eurystheus, only for it to run off again, but the task was complete. 

Task 4: Bring the fearsome Erymanthian Boar back to Eurystheus alive. Heracules had no idea how to get that done, so he went to Chiron to see if he knew what to do. But first he stopped and party it up a bit with some centaurs, only to get stupid drunk, and shot one in the face with one of his poisoned arrows.( Always dilute Greek wine kids.) Anyway, Heracules got some advice along the lines of "do you know how physics work?", chased the boar into some snow and carried the boar back to Eurystheus. This scares him and told Heracules to put it back before it destroyed everything. 

Task 5:Clean the stables of King Augeas. This assignment was intended to be both humiliating (rather than impressive, as the previous labors had been) and impossible, since the livestock were divinely healthy (and immortal) and therefore produced an enormous quantity of dung. Heracules was like, "gross" but diverts a river to clean the stables. He was also going to get paid for it, but Augeas didn't hold up his end of the bargain.He was killed and his son was put on the throne.The success of this labor was ultimately discounted because the rushing waters had done the work of cleaning the stables and because Hercules was paid for it. Eurystheus said that Hercules still had seven labors to perform. 

Task 6: Defeat the Stymphalian birds, man-eating birds with beaks of bronze and sharp metallic feathers they could launch at their victim. They were sacred to Ares, the god of war. Furthermore, their dung was highly toxic. Athena gave him a rattle she borrowed from Hephaestus to scare the birds into the sky, that way he could shoot them down. Some got away though. 

Task 7:Capture the Cretan Bull .Heracules scoots on over to Crete and have a talk with King Minos. He was like,"Sure" and Heracules declined any assistance to avoid having his task discounted again. Heracules stuffs it into a pithos and ships it back to Eurystheus, who was also hiding in a pithos. Eurystheus then sacrifices it to Hera. She hates it because it glorified Heracules. 

Task 8:Bring back the Mares of Diomedes, which had been trained to eat human flesh by their owner, King Diomedes of Thrace. Heracules digs a trench, which creates a new island in the process, and feed Diomedes to the horses to calm them down. Eurystheus ordered the horses taken to Olympus to be sacrificed to Zeus, but Zeus refused them, and sent wolves, lions, and bears to kill them.

Task 9: Get the belt of Hippolyta. Eurystheus' daughter Admete wanted the Belt of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, a gift from her father Ares. So Heracules humors him and travels to Themiscyra. Hippolyta heard of Heracules and his many adventures and they do the deed. Meanwhile, Hera is being a bitch and spread some rumors among the Amazons. This lead to a few shenanigans and Heracules dipped out with the belt.

Task 10:Obtain the Cattle of Geryon. Heracules had to travel through a desert. He was so overheated he shot at the sun titan, Helios. Helios then offered him a ride to his destination. When Hercules landed at Erytheia, he was confronted by the two-headed dog Orthrus. With one blow from his olive-wood club, Hercules killed Orthrus. Eurytion the herdsman came to assist Orthrus, but Hercules dealt with him the same way...points for efficiency. Geryon heard the commotion and sprung into action carrying three shields and three spears, and wearing three helmets. He attacked Hercules at the River Anthemus, but was slain by one of Hercules' poisoned arrows. On the way back, Hera sent  gadfly and it scattered the herd, but managed to get them back. 

Task 11:Steal the apples from the garden of the Hesperides. He finds the garden, but it was guarded. Plot happens and Atlas shows up and was like " Yeah, I can get the apples for you, but I have to hold up my dad...long story, so we'd have to trade places for a minute." So they did. Atlas returned and Heracules was like "Cool, thanks man." But Atlas was like "You know what, how about I deliver these for you?" Heracules, being sort of smart, caught on and responded with," Sure, but can you hold this really quick. If I'm going to be holding this for a while, I'll need some padding." And so they switch places again and Heracules dips out with the apples. 

Task 12: Bring Cerberus. Heracules was like," How the Hades..." To prepare for his descent into the underworld Hercules went to Eleusis (or Athens...this was before the contest) to be initiated in the Eleusinian Mysteries. He entered the underworld, and Hermes and Athena were his guides. Heracules came across Theseus and Pirithous, you know, the two idiots who had been imprisoned by Hades for attempting to kidnap Persephone. Heracules frees Theseus, but left Pirithous when the ground started to shake. Any who, Hades greeted his illegitimate nephew and told him he could take Cerberus, but couldn't us any weapons. So Heracules got his leash and wrestled him into his harness and delivered him to his asshole of a cousin only to scare him into a pithos...again. 

Now onto the Heracules male lover. The Greeks had this thing that is like "what's manlier than two men". That basically boils down to gayness being the epitome of masculinity and warrior-ness. Not to mention homosexuality was encouraged among soldiers to increase moral. 

On to his marriages. He gets married four times. The first one was Megera, who was killed. The second marriage was to Omphale, the Lydian queen to whom he was delivered as a slave....long story that boils down to a repeat incident. His third wife killed him by accident.  Deianira, for whom he had to fight the river god Achelous. Soon after they wed, Heracles and Deianira had to cross a river, and a centaur named Nessus offered to help Deianira across but then attempted to rape her. Enraged, Heracles shot the centaur from the opposite shore with a poisoned arrow and killed him. As he lay dying, Nessus plotted revenge, told Deianira to gather up his blood and spilled semen and, if she ever wanted to prevent Heracles from having affairs with other women, she should apply them to his vestments. Nessus knew that his blood had become tainted by the poisonous blood of the Hydra, and would burn through the skin of anyone it touched. Later, when Deianira suspected that Heracles was fond of Iole, she soaked a shirt of his in the mixture, creating the poisoned shirt of Nessus. Heracles' servant, Lichas, brought him the shirt and he put it on. Instantly he was in agony, the cloth burning into him. As he tried to remove it, the flesh ripped from his bones. Heracles chose a voluntary death, asking that a pyre be built for him to end his suffering. After death, he was either transformed  into an immortal by the gods, or  the fire burned away the mortal part of the demigod, so that only the god remained. After his mortal parts had been incinerated, he could become a full god and join his father and the other Olympians on Mount Olympus, where he married Hebe, goddess of youth.