GREEK MYTHS : THE FIRST LABOUR by LILIAN STOUGHTON HYDE

GREEK  MYTHS : 
THE FIRST LABOUR 
by LILIAN STOUGHTON HYDE

THE STRANGLING OF THE NEMEAN LION

NEAR the sacred grove which surrounded the temple of Jupiter in Nemea, a fierce lion, called the Nemean lion, had its den. This lion was laying waste the country all about the valley of Nemea, and the people of that country lived in constant terror of its ravages. It went out every night, and sometimes by day, and killed hundreds of cattle or sheep, and occasionally took a man or a child, if any were foolhardy enough to come within its reach.

Eurystheus thought it would be an excellent plan to send Hercules to kill the Nemean lion. So he assigned this for his cousin’s first task.

Without having any very definite idea of how he was to accomplish the task, the young hero took his bow and arrows, and started out. At the foot of Mount Helicon he found a wild olive tree, one that had grown slowly in stony soil, and was tough of fibre and full of knots. Instead of lopping off a branch for his purpose, as a weaker man might have done, Hercules pulled up this whole tree by the roots, and made a stout club of it. Then he went to the Nemean valley.

Not a herdsman nor a shepherd was in sight of whom he could inquire about the beast; for they were all afraid of it, and kept within doors, leaving their flocks to its mercy.

Hercules watched, near the temple, all day long. Toward night the lion came home to its lair. It looked very fierce and terrible. Its mane was all dashed with blood, and it was licking fresh blood from its chin. Hiding himself among some bushes, Hercules fixed an arrow into his bow. When the lion came near enough, he sent the arrow, singing, straight to its flank, but it glanced away, and fell on the grass. The lion paused in its slow walk, looked to the right and the left, and showed its teeth. Then Hercules shot another arrow, but this one glanced away like the first ; for this was no common lion, and its skin was very tough. Hercules was making ready to shoot a third time, when the lion saw him. It lashed its tail, then crouched and sprang. Hercules met it with his club, and broke the club on its head, but stunned it in doing so. Then he seized its neck with both hands, and succeeded in strangling it, as he had strangled the snakes, when he was only a baby, in his shield-cradle. So ended the first of the twelve labours of Hercules.

When Hercules went back to King Eurystheus, he wore the skin of the Nemean lion over his shoulders, with the head of the beast resting on his own head like a kind of helmet. Eurystheus would hardly have been more frightened if he had suddenly seen the Nemean lion itself walking into his palace.

Hercules soon made himself another club, and after this he was seldom seen without both his club and his lion’s skin.