Idyll 25

25. Heracles the Lion-Slayer And the old man, the ploughman who guarded the plants, addressed him,

ceasing from the work that lay in his hands:

Gladly, stranger, will I tell you all you ask,

revering the dread regard of Hermes of the wayside;

for they say he is angered most of the gods of heaven,

if anyone refuses a traveler in sore need of the road.

The fleecy flocks of king Augeas

do not all graze on one pasture, nor in one place;

but some are on the banks of flowing Elisous,

some by the holy stream of divine Alpheus,

some at Buprasium rich in clusters, and some even here.

And separate folds are built for each of them.

But for the herds, numberless though they all are,

there are pastures here ever flourishing,

a great marsh of the Menius, since dewy meadows

and water-meadows bloom with grass of many kinds

in plenty, which fosters the strength of the horned cattle.

And here on your right hand their steading

shows clear, all of it, beyond the flowing river,

over there, where the spreading plane-trees grow

and the green wild olive, the holy and pure sanctuary

of Apollo the herdsman, stranger, the god most perfect in fulfillment.

And close by, ample quarters are built for the country folk,

who guard for the king his great and unspeakable wealth

with diligence, casting the seed sometimes on fallow ground

thrice-ploughed, and likewise on fourfold-ploughed.

The hard-working vine-diggers know the bounds,

and come to the wine-vats when the ripe summer comes.

For all this plain belongs to wise Augeas,

both the wheat-bearing fields and the tree-clad orchards,

up to the edges of the spring-fed ridge,

which we ply with our labors all day long,

as is right for laborers, whose life is upon the land.

But do you tell me, for it will be the more to your own profit,

in need of whom you have come here,

whether you are seeking Augeas himself or one of his

slaves who serve him. And I, who know well,

would tell you exactly, since I declare you are not sprung from base men,

nor born yourself resembling base men,

such a great form distinguishes you. Surely the children

of the immortals are such as this among mortals.

And the mighty son of Zeus answered him:

Yes, old man, I would gladly see Augeas, lord of the Epeians;

for it is need of him that has brought me here.

But if he stays in the city among his citizens,

caring for the people, while they judge the suits,

then point me out, old man, leading the way, some servant of his,

whoever is the elder overseer of these fields,

to whom I may say my errand and learn from his telling.

For god has made each man dependent on another.

And the noble ploughman answered him again:

By the counsel of some of the immortals, stranger, you come here,

so that at once all your need is fulfilled.

For thus Augeas, the dear son of Helios,

with his own son, the might of glorious Phyleus,

came yesterday from the city, after many days,

to look over his possessions, which are numberless in the fields;

for so it seems even to kings in their own minds

that the house is safer when they care for it themselves.

But let us go straight to him; and I will lead you

to our steading, where we may find the king.

So saying he led the way, and pondered much in his mind,

seeing the beast's hide and the hand-filling club,

whence the stranger was; and he kept longing to ask him;

but again in hesitation he checked the word as it came to his lip,

lest he should say something out of season

to the man in his haste; for it is hard to know another's mind.

And the dogs, as they drew near, soon perceived them from afar,

both by the scent of the body and the noise of their feet.

And barking wondrously they ran from this side and that

at Heracles, the son of Amphitryon; but about the old man

they fawned on the other side, with idle yelping.

He with stones lifted only just from the ground

scared them to flee back again, and harshly with his voice

he threatened them all, and stopped them from their barking,

glad in his heart that they guarded the steading

even when he was not there; and he spoke such a word:

Ah me, what a creature this is that the lord gods

have made to dwell among men, so thoughtful.

If only it had wits as understanding within,

and knew with whom it ought to be angry and with whom not,

then none of the beasts would dispute with it for honor;

but as it is, it is too quick to wrath and savage for nothing.

He spoke, and they came hastening on to the steading.

Then Helios turned his horses toward the west,

bringing the evening day; and the fat flocks came up

from the pasture, climbing to the steadings and the folds.

And after them the cattle, countless, rank on rank,

came in sight like watery clouds,

such as move across the sky, driven onward

by the force of the south wind or the Thracian north;

of them as they go there is no number in the air,

nor any end; so many does the strength of the wind

roll on after the first, and others crest in turn behind the rest;

so many ever, behind the cattle, herd after herd came on.

And all the plain was filled, and all the paths,

with the wealth as it came (and the rich fields were straitened),

with lowing; and the byres were easily filled with the shambling

cattle, and the sheep settled down in the folds.

There no man, countless though they were,

stood idle by the cattle, lacking work;

but one fitted hobbles about their feet with well-cut thongs,

to milk them standing close around;

another set the dear young beneath their dear mothers

to drink, longing eagerly for the warm milk;

another held the milk-pail, another curdled the rich cheese,

another drove the bulls inside, apart from the heifers.

And Augeas went among all the cattle-byres,

to see what care his herdsmen took of his possessions,

and with him his son and the might of deep-thinking Heracles

walked beside the king as he passed through his great wealth.

Then, though he had a heart unbreakable in his breast,

and ever firmly fixed, the son of Amphitryon

marveled exceedingly at this countless gift of the gods

as he looked on. For no one would have said, or even hoped,

that one man's, or even ten others', flock could be so great,

even of all the kings who were richest in sheep.

But Helios gave his son this surpassing gift,

to be the richest in flocks of all men,

and he himself made all his cattle thrive ceaselessly

to the end; for no disease ever came upon his

herds, such as ruin the herdsmen's labors,

but ever more horned cattle, ever better,

year by year there came to be; for indeed all of them

brought forth living young, and bore females above measure.

And with them went three hundred bulls,

white-shanked and crook-horned, and two hundred others,

red; all these were already sires.

And besides these twelve more were grazing,

sacred to Helios; and in color they were like swans,

gleaming white, and they were preeminent among all the shambling cattle.

These grazed apart from the herd on the flourishing grass

in the pasture; so exceedingly proud were they of themselves.

And whenever from the thicket the swift wild beasts came out

into the plain after the cattle of the field,

these were the first to go to battle at the scent on the air,

and they bellowed dreadfully, with slaughter in their faces.

Among them in might and strength and overweening pride

stood out great Phaethon, whom the herdsmen

all likened to a star, because as he went among the other

cattle he shone bright, and was conspicuous.

And he, seeing the dry hide of the bright-eyed lion,

then charged at the keen-sighted Heracles himself,

to thrust his head and sturdy forehead against his ribs.

But the lord, as he came on, seized with his strong hand

his left horn at once, and bent his neck down to the ground

heavy though he was, and pushed him back again,

bearing down on his shoulder; and the muscle of the upper arm,

strained over the sinews, stood up upright.

And the lord himself marveled, and his warlike son

Phyleus, and the herdsmen by the crook-horned cattle,

seeing the overweening might of the son of Amphitryon.

Then the two, leaving there the rich fields,

set out for the city, Phyleus and the might of Heracles.

And they came first to the highway,

when they had finished a narrow path with their swift feet,

which ran through the vineyard from the steadings,

not very plain, threading green through the woodland;

and there the dear son of Augeas addressed

the offspring of Zeus most high, who walked behind him,

turning his head a little over his right shoulder:

Stranger, long ago I heard a certain tale about you,

if it is you, and I am now casting it about in my mind.

For there came a man, traveling from Argos in the prime of life,

an Achaean man, here from Helice by the sea,

who told us, among many of the Epeians,

that he had seen one of the Argives slay a beast,

a dread lion, an evil terror to the country folk,

that had its hollow lair by the grove of Zeus of Nemea;

I do not know exactly whether he was from holy Argos itself,

or dwelt in the city of Tiryns or Mycenae.

So that man told it; and he said his lineage,

if I rightly remember, was from Perseus.

I think no other of the men of Aegialus could have endured this

but you; and the beast's hide clearly proclaims

the strong work of your hands, that covers your sides.

Come, tell me first, that I may know in my heart,

hero, whether I divine truly or not,

whether you are that man of whom the Achaean from Helice

told us as we listened; and judge whether I mark you rightly.

And tell me how you yourself slew this deadly beast,

and how it came into the well-watered region of Nemea;

for you would not find so great a monster in Apis,

though you longed to see one, since it does not breed such great things,

but bears and boars and the deadly brood of wolves.

So we marveled then, hearing the tale;

and some said the wayfaring man was lying

to please those present with an idle tongue.

So saying, Phyleus turned aside from the middle of the road,

that as they went he might walk abreast,

and might more easily hear Heracles speak;

and falling in beside him he addressed him with such words:

Son of Augeas, what you first asked me,

you yourself have rightly judged by the line.

And about all the particulars of this monster

I will tell you, how they came to pass, since you long to hear,

except whence it came; for of all the many

Argives no one could tell it clearly;

only we guess that some one of the immortals,

angered over the sacrifices, sent it as a plague upon the sons of Phoroneus.

For like a river overflowing, the lion

ravaged all the Pisans without ceasing, and most of all the Bembinaeans,

who lived close to it, suffering unbearable things.

This labor Eurystheus laid on me to fulfill first,

and bade me slay the dread beast.

And I, taking my supple bow and the hollow quiver

full of arrows, set out, and in my other hand a club

well-jointed, with its own bark, of a spreading wild olive,

sound at the heart, which I myself, beneath holy Helicon,

having found it, tore up whole with its close-set roots.

But when I came to the place where the lion was,

then taking my bow I bent the twisted

string about the tip, and at once set on it an arrow charged with groans.

Turning my eyes everywhere I scanned for the deadly monster,

if I might catch sight of it before it saw me.

It was the middle of the day, and nowhere could I

mark its tracks, nor hear its roaring.

Nor was there any man to be seen with the cattle and the work

along the furrow of the sown field, whom I might ask;

but pale fear held every man at the steadings.

Yet I did not stay my feet, searching the long-leaved mountain,

before I saw it and at once made trial of my strength.

Indeed, toward evening it went to its lair,

gorged with flesh and blood; and its squalid mane

was spattered with gore, and its bright face

and breast, and with its tongue it licked round its chin.

But I quickly hid myself in the shady thickets

on the wooded ridge, watching where it should come,

and as it drew near I shot it in the left flank,

in vain; for the jagged arrow did not slip through the flesh,

but fell back upon the green grass.

And it suddenly raised its blood-red head from the ground

in amazement, and glared all around with its eyes,

peering, and gaping showed its greedy teeth.

And at it I sent another arrow from the string

in vexation, that the first had flown idly from my hand;

and in the middle of the breast I struck it, where the lung sits.

But not even so did the much-paining shaft sink beneath the hide,

but fell before its feet, all in vain.

A third time I was about, sorely grieved in my heart,

to draw the bow; but the relentless beast, glaring

round with its eyes, saw me, and curled its long tail

about its haunches, and at once bethought it of battle;

and all its neck was filled with rage, and its tawny mane

bristled with fury, and its spine arched like a bow,

drawn in all over at the flanks and the loins.

And as when a chariot-maker, skilled in many works,

bends the shoots of an easily split wild fig-tree,

heating them first in the fire, into wheels for an axled car,

and the thin-barked fig escapes from his hands

as it bends, and leaps far off at one bound;

so against me the dread lion from afar sprang in one rush,

eager to glut itself on my flesh; and I in my other

hand held out before me my darts and the doubled cloak from my shoulders,

and with the other, lifting the dry club above my temple,

I drove it down on its head, and broke clean in two

upon its very shaggy head the hard wild olive

of the irresistible beast; and it fell before it reached me

from on high to the ground, and stood on its trembling feet,

nodding its head; for darkness came over both its eyes,

the brain being shaken with violence in the bone.

And marking it as it was distracted with heavy pain,

before it could come to itself and breathe again,

I struck it first by the nape of its unbreakable neck,

throwing my bow to the ground and the well-stitched quiver;

and I throttled it mightily, pressing my strong hands

from behind, lest it should tear my flesh with its claws;

and against the ground I pressed its hind feet hard with my heels,

standing on them, and guarded its sides with my thighs,

until I stretched out its forelegs, lifting it upright,

breathless, and monstrous Hades received its soul.

And then I took thought how to strip the shaggy-necked hide

of the dead beast from its limbs,

a most grievous toil, since it could not be cut by iron

when I tried, nor by stones, nor by anything else.

Then one of the immortals put it in my mind to think

of cutting the lion's skin with its own claws.

With these I quickly flayed it, and put about my limbs

a guard against the flesh-cutting tumult of war.

This, my friend, was the slaying of the beast of Nemea,

that before had brought much grief to flocks and to men.