LP0004 - The Nemean Lion - The Idylls of Theocritus -

Legendary Passages #0004 - The Nemean Lion - The Idylls of Theocritus -

Last time we heard of Heracles ancestry, how he slew two serpents in his crib, how he killed his tutor Linus, how he fought off the Minyans, freed his city, and married Creon's daughter. In the end he went mad and slew his own children, and the oracle at Delphi told him to perform ten Labors for King Eurystheus, so that he might become immortal. Now we shall hear how Heracles hunted and killed the fearsome Lion of Nemea, and came to wear its impenetrable skin.

Phyleus was the son of King Augeus of Elis, who owned the grandest cattle yard in all the world. Heracles and Phyleus were on their way to see Augeus, when the youth couldn't help noticing the fearsome lion skin that Heracles was wearing, and just had to know how the story of how the fearsome beast died from the hero's own lips.

Heracles had tracked the lion back to its den, still covered in gore from its latest kill. He shot it with arrows, which bounced off its hide, useless. The lion pounced, but before it landed on him he struck with his wooden staff. His weapon shattered but left the lion dazed. Seeing no other choice, Heracles lept up upon the lions back and strangled it from behind.

Afterwards, Heracles used the lion's claws to skin the beast, and from then on bore the pelt as armor from countless foes.

http://www.theoi.com/Text/TheocritusIdylls4.html#25

The Nemean Lion,
a Legendary Passage,
from The Idylls of Theocritus,
translated by J. M. Edmonds.

IDYLL XXV.

Then did Phyleus and Heracles the mighty leave the fat fields behind them and set out for the town. Their swift feet were gotten to the end of the little path which stretched from the farmsteads through the vineyard and ran not over-clearly in the midst of the fresh greenery, and they were just come to the people's highway, when the dear son of Augeas up and spake to the child of most high Zeus that was following behind him, and with a little turn of his head over his right shoulder, "Sir," says he, "there's somewhat I had heard of you, and O how late am I, if of you it were, to bethink me on't but now!

'Tis not long since there came hither from Argos an Achaean of Helice-by-the-sea, who told a tale, look you, unto more than one of us Epeians, how that he had seen an Argive slay a beast of the field, to wit a lion dire that was the dread of the countryside and had the den of his lying beside the grove of Zeus of Nemea - yet he knew not for sure, he said, whether the man was truly of sacred Argos itself or was a dweller in Tiryns town or in Mycenae. Howbeit, such was his tale, and he said also, if I remember true, that for his lineage the man was of Perseus.

Now methinks there is but one of those men-o'-the-shore could do a deed like that, and you are he; moreover the wild-beast-skin your frame is clad in signifieth clearly enough the prowess of your hands. Come on, my lord, have me well to wit, first whether my boding be true or no, whether you be he the Achaean of Helice told us of, and I know you for what you are; and then tell me, pray, how yourself destroyed that same pestilent beast and how he came to be dwelling in the well-watered vale of Nemea; for I ween you shall not find such a creature as that if you would, the Apian lands around, seeing they breed not anything so huge, but only the bear and the boar and the fell wolf. Therefore, also did they wonder that heard that tale; indeed they said the traveller lied with intent to pleasure the company with an idle tongue."

With these words Phyleus bent him sidelong from the midst of the road both to make room enough for them twain to go together, and that he might the easier hear what Heracles had to say. Who now came abreast of him, and "Son of Augeas" quoth he, "your former question you have answered yourself, readily and aright; but of this monster, being you so desire it, I will tell you how it all fell out every whit, save whence he came; for not one man in all Argos can speak certainly to that; only were we persuaded it was some god sent him to vex the children of Phoroneus because he was wroth concerning some sacrifices. For all the lowlanders were whelmed with him as he had been a river in flood; he plundered them all without cloy or surfeit, but most of all the people of Bembina, whose borders to their very great and intolerable misfortune marched with his.

Now this did Eurystheus make my very first task; he charged me to slay that direful beast. So I took with me my supple bow and a good quiverful of arrows, and in the other hand a stout cudgel, made, without peeling or pithing, of a shady wild-olive which myself had found under holy Helicon and torn up whole and complete with all her branching roots; and so forth and made for those parts where the lion was.

Whither when I was come, I took and tipped my string, and straightway notched a bearer of pain and grief, and fell a-looking this way and that way after the pestilent monster, if so be I might espy him ere he should espy me. 'Twas midday now, yet could I nowhere mark his track nor hear his roaring; neither was there any man set over a plough-team and the toil of the seed-furrow that I could see and ask of him, seeing pale wan fear kept every man at the farmstead. Howbeit, I never gave over to search the leafy uplands till I should behold him and put my strength speedily to the test.

Now towards evening he came his ways unto his den full fed both of flesh and gore, his tangled mane, his grim visage and all his chest spattered with blood, and his tongue licking his chaps. To waylay him I hid myself quickly in a brake beside the woody path, and when he came near let fly at his left flank. But it availed me not; the barb'd shaft could not pass the flesh, but glanced and fell on the fresh green sward.

Astonied, the beast lift suddenly up his gory head, and looked about him and about, opening his mouth and showing his gluttonous teeth; whereupon I sped another shaft from the string (for I took it ill that the fist had left my hand to no purpose), and smote him clean in the middle of the chest where the lungs do lie. But nay; not even so was the hide of him to be pierced by the sore grievous arrow; there it fell vain and frustrate at his feet.

At this I waxed exceedingly distempered and made to draw for the third time. But, ere that, the ravening beast rolled around his eyes and beheld me, and lashing all his tail about his hinder parts bethought him quickly of battle. Now was his neck brimming with ire, his tawny tresses an-end for wrath, his chine arched like a bow, as he gathered him up all together unto flank and loin. Then even as, when a wainwright, cunning man, takes the seasoned wild-fig boughs he hath warmed at the fire and bends them into wheels for an axled chariot, the thin-rinded figwood escapes at the bending from his grasp and leaps at one bound afar, even so did that direful lion from a great way off spring upon me, panting to be at my flesh.

Then it was that with the one hand I thrust before me the cloak from my shoulders folded about my bunched arrows, and with the other lift my good sound staff above my head and down with it on his crown, and lo! my hard wild-olive was broke clean in twain on the mere shaggy pate of that unvanquishable beast. Yes as for him, or ever he could reach me he was fallen from the midst of his spring, and so stood with trembling feet and wagging head, his two eyes being covered in darkness because the brains were all-to-shaken in the skull of him.

Perceiving now that he was all abroad with the pain and grief of it, ere he might recover his wits I cast my bow and my broidered quiver upon the ground and let drive at the nape of that massy neck. Then from the rear, lest he should tear me with his talons, I gat my arm about his throat, and treading his hind-paws hard into the ground for to keep the legs of them from my sides, held on with might and main till at length I could rear him backward by the foreleg, and vasty Hades received his spirit.

That done, I fell a-pondering how I might flay me off the dead beast's shag-neck'd skin. 'What a task!' thought I; for there was no cutting that, neither with wood nor with stone nor yet with iron. At that moment one of the Immortals did mind me I should cut up the lion's skin with the lion's talons. So I to it, and had him flayed in a trice, and cast the skin about me for a defence against the havoc of gashing war.

Such, good friend, was the slaying of the Lion of Nemea, that had brought so much and sore trouble both upon man and beast."

http://www.theoi.com/Text/TheocritusIdylls4.html#25