Nemean lion

for the divinely inspired prophet of the violet-eyed Muses is ready to sing the praises of Phlius and the flourishing plain of Nemean Zeus, where white-armed Hera reared the sheep-slaughtering, deep-voiced lion, the first of Heracles' far-famed labors.

look how the descendant of Perseus brings his hand down heavily on the neck of the bloodthirsty lion with every type of skill!

For the gleaming, man-subduing bronze refuses to pierce the lion's fearsome body;

First he cleared the grove of Zeus of a lion, and put its skin upon his back, hiding his yellow auburn hair in its fearful gaping jaws.

After all, what was the fine exploit your husband achieved, if he did kill a water-snake in a marsh or that monster of Nemea?

but Echidna was subject in love to Orthus and brought forth the deadly Sphinx which destroyed the Cadmeans, and the Nemean lion, which Hera, the good wife of Zeus, brought up and made to haunt the hills of Nemea, a plague to men.

There he preyed upon the tribes of her own people and had power over Tretus of Nemea and Apesas:

Of Nemeaean Lion, or what the Boar

For what could hurt us now that mighty maw

And the herb of the Nemean lion once crowned him when he was victorious beneath the shady primeval mountains of Phlius.

O shoulders and chest and trusty arms, you are indeed those noted arms which once subdued with your might the dweller in Nemea, the scourge of herdsmen, the lion, a creature that no man might approach or confront;

for then it looked about itself and saw that it had lost its lion.