LP0001a - The Little Heracles - An alternate translation from The Idylls of Theocritus

Legendary Passage #0001a - The Little Heracles -
An alternate translation from The Idylls of Theocritus.

    My thanks to my father who recorded our new intro music, his own take on the ancient Seikilos Epitaph.

    For the next six episodes we shall be hearing alternate translations of our first six passages, after which we'll move on to new material once again.

    This passage begins with Heracles and his twin brother Iphicles who are less than a year old. Their mother Alcmena rocks them to sleep in a bronze shield, won by their father Amphitryon.

    After everyone goes to bed, the goddess Hera sends two venomous snakes to kill the bastard son of Zeus in his crib, but even as a babe he is too strong, and strangles the serpents with his bare hands.

    His brother Iphicles cried out, and their mother Alcmena told her husband hurry and check on the babes, for there was a strange light in the house. Amphitryon grabs his sword and shouts his servants awake as he sprints towards his children. But all are astonished when they find dead snakes in little Heracles hands.

    The next morning, Alcmena calls for the seer Tireseus to hear why the gods want her son dead, and what his fate is to be. Tireseus tells her that her son, after many labors and hardships, will become a god, and marry a goddess.

    Lastly, he tells her how to dispose of the serpents and purify the house. The passage continues in episode 29 with the childhood of Heracles.

    Next time, we shall hear of the origins and the birth of Heracles.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11533/11533-h/11533-h.htm#IDYLL_XXIV

The Little Heracles,
a Legendary Passage,
from The Idylls of Theocritus,
translated by C.S. Caverley.

IDYLL XXIV. THE INFANT HERACLES

        Alcmena once had washed and given the breast
    To Heracles, a babe of ten months old,
    And Iphicles his junior by a night;
    And cradled both within a brazen shield,
    A gorgeous trophy, which Amphitryon erst
    Had stript from Ptereläus fall'n in fight.

        She stroked their baby brows, and thus she said:
    "Sleep, children mine, a light luxurious sleep,
    Brother with brother: sleep, my boys, my life:
    Blest in your slumber, in your waking blest!"

    She spake and rocked the shield; and in his arms
    Sleep took them. But at midnight, when the Bear
    Wheels to his setting, in Orion's front
    Whose shoulder then beams broadest; Hera sent,
    Mistress of wiles, two huge and hideous things,
    Snakes with their scales of azure all on end,
    To the broad portal of the chamber-door,
    All to devour the infant Heracles.
    They, all their length uncoiled upon the floor,
    Writhed on to their blood-feast; a baleful light
    Gleamed in their eyes, rank venom they spat forth.

    But when with lambent tongues they neared the cot,
    Alcmena's babes (for Zeus was watching all)
    Woke, and throughout the chamber there was light.
    Then Iphicles--so soon as he descried
    The fell brutes peering o'er the hollow shield,
    And saw their merciless fangs--cried lustily,
    And kicked away his coverlet of down,
    Fain to escape. But Heracles, he clung
    Round them with warlike hands, in iron grasp
    Prisoning the two: his clutch upon their throat,
    The deadly snake's laboratory, where
    He brews such poisons as e'en heaven abhors.
    They twined and twisted round the babe that, born
    After long travail, ne'er had shed a tear
    E'en in his nursery; soon to quit their hold,
    For powerless seemed their spines. Alcmena heard,
    While her lord slept, the crying, and awoke.

    "Amphitryon, up: chill fears take hold on me.
    Up: stay not to put sandals on thy feet.
    Hear'st thou our child, our younger, how he cries?
    Seest thou yon walls illumed at dead of night,
    But not by morn's pure beam? I know, I know,
    Sweet lord, that some strange thing is happening here."

    She spake; and he, upleaping at her call,
    Made swiftly for the sword of quaint device
    That aye hung dangling o'er his cedarn couch:
    And he was reaching at his span-new belt,
    The scabbard (one huge piece of lotus-wood)
    Poised on his arm; when suddenly the night
    Spread out her hands, and all was dark again.

    Then cried he to his slaves, whose sleep was deep:
    "Quick, slaves of mine; fetch fire from yonder hearth:
    And force with all your strength the doorbolts back!
    Up, loyal-hearted slaves: the master calls."

    Forth came at once the slaves with lighted lamps.
    The house was all astir with hurrying feet.
    But when they saw the suckling Heracles
    With the two brutes grasped firm in his soft hands,
    They shouted with one voice. But he must show
    The reptiles to Amphitryon; held aloft
    His hands in childish glee, and laughed and laid
    At his sire's feet the monsters still in death.

    Then did Alcmena to her bosom take
    The terror-blanched and passionate Iphicles:
    Cradling the other in a lambswool quilt,
    Her lord once more bethought him of his rest.

    Now cocks had thrice sung out that night was e'er.
    Then went Alcmena forth and told the thing
    To Teiresias the seer, whose words were truth,
    And bade him rede her what the end should be:--

    'And if the gods bode mischief, hide it not,
    Pitying, from me: man shall not thus avoid
    The doom that Fate upon her distaff spins.
    Son of Eueres, thou hast ears to hear.'

    Thus spake the queen, and thus he made reply:
    "Mother of monarchs, Perseus' child, take heart;
    And look but on the fairer side of things.
    For by the precious light that long ago
    Left tenantless these eyes, I swear that oft
    Achaia's maidens, as when eve is high
    They mould the silken yarn upon their lap,
    Shall tell Alcmena's story: blest art thou
    Of women. Such a man in this thy son
    Shall one day scale the star-encumbered heaven:
    His amplitude of chest bespeaks him lord
    Of all the forest beasts and all mankind.

    Twelve tasks accomplished he must dwell with Zeus;
    His flesh given over to Trachinian fires;
    And son-in-law be hailed of those same gods
    Who sent yon skulking brutes to slay thy babe.
    Lo! the day cometh when the fawn shall couch
    In the wolfs lair, nor fear the spiky teeth
    That would not harm him. But, O lady, keep
    Yon smouldering fire alive; prepare you piles
    Of fuel, bramble-sprays or fern or furze
    Or pear-boughs dried with swinging in the wind:
    And let the kindled wild-wood burn those snakes
    At midnight, when they looked to slay thy babe.
    And let at dawn some handmaid gather up
    The ashes of the fire, and diligently
    Convey and cast each remnant o'er the stream
    Faced by clov'n rocks, our boundary: then return
    Nor look behind. And purify your home
    First with sheer sulphur, rain upon it then,
    (Chaplets of olive wound about your heads,)
    Innocuous water, and the customed salt.
    Lastly, to Zeus almighty slay a boar:
    So shall ye vanquish all your enemies."
   
    Spake Teiresias, and wheeling (though his years
    Weighed on him sorely) gained his ivory car.
    And Heracles as some young orchard-tree
    Grew up, Amphitryon his reputed sire.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11533/11533-h/11533-h.htm#IDYLL_XXIV

http://legendarypassages.blogspot.com/2015/01/lp0001littleheracles.html