Alcmene
Perseus had three sons. One became the king, the second sired a boy called Amphitryon while the third fathered a girl called Alcmene.
Amphitryon and Alcmene fell in love but, following a disagreement, Amphitryon fought and accidentally killed Alcmene’s father, as a result of which he had to leave Mycenae and take refuge in the city of Thebes. Alcmene followed her beloved and married him as soon as Creon, the king of Thebes, ritually cleansed Amphitryon of the crime of killing his own uncle.
On the couple’s wedding night, Zeus took the form of Amphitryon and made love to the bride first and then the real Amphitryon made love to her. As a result of this, Alcmene bore two children, one divine and one mortal: Heracles, the son of Zeus, and Iphicles, the son of Amphitryon.
Heracles was named on Athena’s advice in the hope that Hera would not hate a child named after her. Athena then took the infant Heracles and, without revealing his identity, asked Hera to nurse him. As goddess of the household, Hera loved doing this, but to her irritation the child suckled so hard that the pain was unbearable.
She yanked him away from her breast, but by then he had consumed enough of Hera’s milk to become very strong.
Hera was extremely upset at how she had been tricked by Zeus and Athena and swore to make Heracles’ life miserable, even though he was named after her and she had nursed him. She sent serpents to kill the infant Heracles in his cradle. But the child simply caught hold of the snakes, squeezed the life out of them and shook them around like a rattle.
Heracles grew up to be a great warrior, skilled in the art of fighting with a sword, a lance, a club, a bow, on the ground and on a horse-drawn chariot. He was even taught music but he hated it so much that he accidentally killed his teacher with a musical instrument.
In his youth, Heracles went hunting and killed a lion. The beast had been ravaging the kingdom of King Thespius and had proved notoriously difficult to catch. A very pleased Thespius sent all fifty of his daughters to make the young man happy. Instead of choosing one, Heracles made love to all of them, for he was as virile as he was strong.
The Greek Heracles is the same as the Roman Hercules.
The story of Heracles suckling Hera’s milk forcefully echoes the story of Krishna sucking milk and eventually the life out of the demon Putana’s breasts. Like Heracles, Krishna faces many threats to his life when he is a child and he grows up to be strong and virile, loved by many women, leading many scholars to suggest that the Krishna lore was inspired by the story of Heracles.
The drops of milk that spurted as Hera pulled Heracles away from her breasts turned into the Milky Way.
Megara
King Creon was happy with Heracles whose heroic deeds had brought great fame to the city. He was even happier when Heracles got rid of the Misyans, who were forcing the Thebans to pay them annual tribute. And so he let Heracles marry his daughter, Megara. Heracles and Megara had many children, and lived happily.
However, Hera could not bear to see Heracles happy. Every night she whispered in his ears that he was an ordinary human, not a hero, not worthy of being called a son of Zeus. She told him how his father Amphitryon had been thrown out of Mycenae for killing his uncle, and how Amphitryon’s cousin, the mediocre Eurystheus, was the ruler of his ancestral kingdom, wielding more power than Heracles ever would. Slowly, she made Heracles feel insecure and invalid, and drove him mad. And in his madness, Heracles picked up his club and smashed the heads of his own children. A horrified Megara, unable to understand what was happening, picked up her youngest child and tried to run away. But Heracles picked up his bow and shot her and his youngest son dead.
When the madness waned and sanity returned, Heracles realized what he had done. Inconsolable in his grief, he went to the oracle at Delphi for advice, where he was told that the only way to be cleansed of his terrible crime was to fulfil ten tasks assigned to him by his uncle, Eurystheus, ruler of Mycenae.
The madness of Heracles mirrors the madness of Nala and Yudhishtira, described in the Mahabharata, who cannot control themselves while gambling and end up losing their entire fortune. The Greeks blamed this on the Olympians, while the Mahabharata blames karma (the outcome of past deeds) and kala (the whimsical nature of time).
In some stories, Megara is not killed and she marries Heracles’s nephew, Iolaus, son of Iphicles.
Iolaus served as charioteer, companion and lover of Heracles. This was part of a socially acknowledged erotic relationship between an adult male (the erastes) and a younger male (the eromenos) usually in his teens.
In Euripides’ play Heracles, dated 400 BCE, Heracles returns from Hades and finds Lycus trying to kill his father, wife and children. He slays Lycus and rescues his family, but then Hera drives him mad. He thinks he is killing Eurystheus and his soldiers, when he is in fact murdering his own family members. In the play, Theseus tries to argue that even gods do unspeakable things, but Heracles remains inconsolable.
A hero was needed to destroy the old remnants of chaos and establish Olympian order. Hera chose Eurystheus while Zeus chose Heracles. Hera therefore hated Heracles.
The tension between Heracles and Hera is perhaps a reflection of the rise of the patriarchal male gods of Olympus who overshadow old goddesses like Gaia, Rhea and Hecate. Hera tries to delay Heracles’ birth, makes his birth difficult, sends snakes to kill him and eventually drives him so mad that he kills his wife and children. He fights back with the help of Zeus and Athena, drinks her milk and acquires superhuman powers, and ultimately ends up winning her admiration through his courage, resilience and persistence.
Any task requiring great effort is called a ‘Herculean’ feat.
Creon, king of Thebes, is brother-in-law (and uncle) of Oedipus, and father-in-law of Heracles. He must not be confused with Creon, king of Corinth, who wishes to be Jason’s father-in-law.
Eurystheus
Where Heracles was strong and smart, Eurystheus was weak and dull, but as fate decreed, the extraordinary Heracles was powerless before the ordinary Eurystheus. In fact, Eurystheus was so insecure before Heracles that he first hid in a great bronze jar. And later, he refused to see Heracles, choosing instead to send him the list of tasks through a messenger, Copreus.
The first task was to kill the Nemean lion. This was no ordinary lion, as Heracles discovered when his arrows did not even scratch the lion. So Heracles had to wrestle the mighty beast with his bare hands; he used the creature’s own claws to rip out its entrails. Heracles then used the lion’s impenetrable skin as his cloak and its scalp as headgear.
His second task was to kill the Hydra, a monster that lived in a swamp and had multiple heads. Each time a head was cut off, two more appeared. Finally Heracles came up with a solution. After he chopped off a head, his nephew Iolaus would use a torch to burn the severed neck thus cauterizing the wound, not letting it sprout new heads. Thus he was able to cut off all the heads of the monster, without letting new ones appear.
For his third task he had to capture the golden-horned Ceryneian hind or deer that was sacred to Artemis, alive. So he chased the deer until it was too exhausted to run, then picked it up, threw it over his shoulders and brought it before Eurystheus.
Heracles’ fourth task was to trap the wild boar of Arcadia, also known as the Erymanthian boar. Heracles succeeded in his task by driving the beast into snow.
For his next task, he was told to clean the Augean stables, which were the dirtiest stables in the world, full of dung and rotting hay. Heracles cleaned them in a day by simply diverting two rivers through them.
The sixth task was to rid a lake of the bronze-beaked Stymphalian birds which had made the lake so filthy that no one could drink its water. Heracles used bronze kettledrums given to him by Athena to create a loud noise for such a long time that the birds could not even hear their own mating calls. They were so frightened that they took flight and refused to return.
His seventh task was to capture the Cretan bull. Heracles easily subdued i
t, but the real challenge was to bring it from Crete to Mycenae across the sea. Heracles made the bull swim and like Europa, long ago, sat on the animal’s back and travelled back home.
The eighth task was to steal the wild man-eating mares of Diomedes, king of Thrace. Heracles seized them by making them eat their own master, Diomedes, after which they became calmer.
The ninth task required Heracles to travel to the land of the Amazons and acquire the girdle of Queen Hippolyta for the pleasure of Eurystheus’s daughter. The Amazons feared that Heracles, like Theseus, would take away their queen and so attacked him. In the fight, Hippolyta was accidentally killed while Heracles escaped with the girdle.
Heracles’s tenth and final task was to fetch Geryon’s cattle for which he had to travel west towards the Atlantic. As he crossed the Libyan desert the heat became so unbearable that he shot an arrow at the sun. The sun god, Helios, feeling sorry for him, gave him a chariot that enabled him to travel west more easily. Heracles placed rocks, known as the Pillars of Heracles, on the European and African sides of the channel that connected the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. To capture the cattle, Heracles had to first defeat Orthus, Geryon’s two-headed dog, and then Geryon himself, who had three heads, three chests, three pair of arms, and so wore three helmets, carried three shields and three spears. Heracles then herded the cattle back to Eurystheus’s court, taking the long overland route from Spain through France, Germany and Italy to Greece. Often Hera would send gadflies to scatter the cattle away but Heracles would always find them, though it took him over a year to return home.
Many Greek travellers such as Megasthenes, Greek historians such as Diodorus, and Roman philosophers such as Cicero were convinced that Pataliputra was built by Heracles during his journey East, as part of his many labours. Some equated Krishna’s feat of killing the multi-hooded snake Kaliya with Heracles’s feat of killing the multi-headed Hydra. Others saw Balarama as Heracles, for he was renowned for his strength as well as his temper. Also, like Heracles, Balarama is associated with a club (musala, in Sanskrit). Many have traced the name Heracles (or Herakles) to Hari-kula-esha, or ‘lord of the Hari clan’, and it probably refers to Balarama who was fair, not to Krishna, who was dark.
As the great-grandson of Perseus, Heracles could have been king of Mycenae, but Hera delayed his birth until his uncle Eurystheus, a mediocre man, was born. Hindu mythology also has a story where a delay in birth results in loss of kingship. In the Mahabharata, Gandhari conceives a child first, but by the grace of the gods, Kunti delivers her child first, and so it is Kunti’s son Yudhishtira who has a greater claim on the throne than Gandhari’s son Duryodhana.
The final fixed list of the labours of Heracles comes from an epic poem, now lost, written by Peisander in 600 BCE.
A crab tried to stop Heracles from killing the Hydra, and was rewarded by Hera, who placed the crab in the stars as the constellation Cancer.
Bucephalus, Alexander the Great’s horse, was said to have descended from the man-eating mares of Diomedes.
During his adventures, Heracles visited many lands. In Egypt, the king captured him and tried to sacrifice him to the gods. Heracles broke his chain and killed the king instead.
The labours as they progress become increasingly tougher and later, demand that Heracles travel further and further away from Greece, for Eurystheus was convinced that Heracles, who like him was a descendant of Perseus, was a more worthy contender for the throne of Mycenae.
Heracles is identified in art by his lion-skin cloak and his olive-tree club. The lion killed by Heracles becomes the zodiac sign Leo.
Hesperides
When Heracles had performed all the tasks set for him, Eurystheus argued that he had completed only eight labours, not ten. Had he not taken the help of his nephew, Iolaus, to cauterize the necks of the Hydra? Had he not got two rivers to wash the Augean stables, which meant he had not done the job himself? Thus two more tasks were given to Heracles: fetching the apples from the Garden of the Hesperides, also known as the Apples of Joy, and then capturing Cerberus, the three-headed dog of Hades, ruler of the land of the dead.
Heracles did not know where the Garden of the Hesperides was and had to wrestle Proteus, the shape-shifting old man of the sea, to learn the location. Proteus told Heracles that only Atlas, the Titan who held up the sky, knew where this garden was located, for the Hesperides were his daughters.
When he found Atlas, Heracles offered to relieve the Titan of his burden for a short while. In exchange, he asked that Atlas bring him the apples from the Garden of the Hesperides. Atlas agreed. Mighty Heracles held up the sky while Atlas went to fetch the apples. But on his return, the Titan changed his mind. ‘You keep holding the sky. I will deliver the apples wherever you tell me,’ he said.
Heracles realized that unless he came up with a clever idea, he was trapped. So he told Atlas that he did not mind holding up the sky forever, and then requested Atlas to hold the sky for just a moment while he placed a pillow on his shoulders as padding. Though strong, the Titan was not very smart, and so he agreed. As soon as Atlas was holding up the sky again, Heracles picked up the apples, thanked him and made his way back to Greece.
Trickery is an important part of a hero’s kit in Greek as well as Hindu mythology. Hanuman, the monkey-god, who plays a key role in the Ramayana, is both strong and smart, often using trickery to solve problems. Once, while travelling across the sea, a demon called Surasa insisted he enter her mouth before proceeding further. Knowing this to be a trick, Hanuman reduced himself to the size of a fly and zipped in and out of the demon’s mouth before Surasa could snap it shut. Thus, having satisfied her condition, Hanuman moved on.
Hesperides is derived from Hesperus, or the evening star Venus. It is associated with the nymphs of the sunset who tend to the apple tree of happiness that grew from the gift of a branch given by Gaia to Hera on her wedding day.
The nymphs who tend to the apple tree at Hesperides are the daughters of Atlas.
The Apples of Joy associated with Hesperides is the very opposite of the Apple of Discord that Eris uses to cause the Trojan War.
‘Golden apples’ perhaps refer to oranges that were unknown in Europe and the Mediterranean until the Middle Ages. They were first cultivated in China.
Cerberus
Heracles’ final task was to capture and bring back Cerberus, the hound of Hades. This meant crossing the River Styx and entering the land of the dead. Undaunted by the prospect, Heracles made his way there. Hades, who had been impressed by the many tales of Heracles’ valour, was pleased to meet him and allowed him to take the hound to the land of the living. But he had one condition: Heracles would have to use his bare hands and no weapons.
Heracles approached the hound with trepidation but soon realized that even Cerberus’s fangs and claws could not tear the thick and strong cloak made from the hide of the Nemean lion. Using the lion-skin, he bundled up Cerberus, put him in a bronze jar and took him to Eurystheus.
Eurystheus removed the lid of the bronze jar, saw the terrible Cerberus and realized Heracles had finished the last, and toughest, task assigned to him. And so he declared that Heracles had been cleansed of the crime of killing his wife and children.
After killing Kansa, upon Devaki’s request, Krishna travels to Yama-loka, the land of the dead, and brings back his long-dead brothers to the land of the living so that Devaki, their mother, can see all her eight sons together. Thus Hindu gods also travel to the land of the dead fearlessly.
During his trip to Hades, Heracles liberates Theseus who was trapped there along with his friend Pirithous who had planned to abduct Persephone and was punished for his audacity.
Just like the Hydra, the Chimera and Orthus, the two-headed dog who guarded the cattle of Geryon, Cerberus was the offspring of Typhon. Thus, in Greek mythology, monsters are born of primal beings who embody chaos.
The twelve labours of Heracles are sometimes identified with the twelve constellations that make up
the zodiac. The crab, the bull and the lion he kills are clearly three of them: Cancer, Leo and Taurus. Sagittarius is his teacher, Chiron, whose death he causes accidentally.
Chiron
During his journey to the land of the dead Heracles met the Titan Prometheus, trapped in Tartarus, suffering unending misery, his liver being eaten all day by an eagle only to regenerate itself at night.
Heracles killed the eagle and broke Prometheus’s chains, but when he tried to take him out of Tartarus, he was stopped by Hades. ‘A life for a life,’ Hades said. ‘You must give me an immortal who is willing to take this Titan’s place.’
Heracles remembered his teacher Chiron, a centaur, blessed with immortality. Long ago, he had injured his teacher, shooting him accidentally with an arrow dipped in the venomous blood of the Hydra. The wound had not healed and Chiron was doomed to suffer this injury for all eternity. If he took Prometheus’s place, he would no longer suffer bodily pain, for those who lived in Tartarus had no bodies. They were shades, shadows of the living.
The centaur readily agreed and so Hades let Prometheus return to the land of the living and Chiron walked in Tartarus forever, suffering no bodily pain.
The Olympians were impressed with Heracles’ smart thinking. They cast Chiron in the stars as the constellation Sagittarius, the wounded teacher.
Zeus, though, was not very happy about Prometheus’s release until the Titan told him a secret, ‘You desire the sea nymph Thetis. Beware, for a child born of her will be greater than the father.’ An insecure Zeus was grateful for this foresight and so forgave Prometheus finally.
There is only one Hindu tale which mirrors the Greek idea of eternal suffering: that of Ashwatthama, son of Drona, who is cursed by Krishna to live forever with a body covered in sores, never experiencing the peace of death, because he tried to kill an unborn child, the only surviving descendant of the Pandavas. He still lives, they say, suffering his unending punishment.