LP0004a - The Nemean Lion - Heracles' 1st Labor, from The Idylls of Theocritus

Legendary Passages #0004a - The Nemean Lion -
Heracles' 1st Labor, from The Idylls of Theocritus.

    Last time we reviewed the early adventures of Heracles. This time Heracles himself reveals how he accomplished his first labor: slaying the Nemean Lion.

    This passage is a continuation of episode 29, where Heracles went to the Augean Stables. Anyway, Augeas' son Phyleus pesters the hero with rumors about him, and how he won his lion-skin.

    The Lion had been ravaging the countryside, killing flocks and citizens alike. Heracles set out after it, armed with bow and arrows, and a massive club. Soon he finds the beast, still bloody from its latest kill.

    Heracles shoots an arrow, and it bounces off the lion's invincible hide. It roars and pounces upon him, and Heracles shoves his quiver in its face and smashes with his club, which snaps in two.

    The lion is merely dazed so, weapons useless, Heracles climbs upon the lion's back and strangles its neck, just like when he crushed the snakes in his crib. He skinned it with its own claws, and wore that impervious pelt ever after.

    Next time we shall hear even more Labors of Heracles.

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

The Nemean Lion,
a Legendary Passage,
from The Idylls of Theocritus,
translated by C. S. Calverley.

IDYLL XXV.

    Then townwards, leaving straight that rich champaign,
    Stout Heracles his comrade, Phyleus fared;
    And soon as they had gained the paven road,
    Making their way hotfooted o'er a path
    (Not o'er-conspicuous in the dim green wood)
    That left the farm and threaded through the vines,
    Out-spake unto the child of Zeus most high,
    Who followed in his steps, Augéas' son,
    O'er his right shoulder glancing pleasantly.

    "O stranger, as some old familiar tale
    I seem to cast thy history in my mind.

        For there came one to Argos, young and tall,
    By birth a Greek from Helicè-on-seas,
    Who told this tale before a multitude:
    How that an Argive in his presence slew
    A fearful lion-beast, the dread and death
    Of herdsmen; which inhabited a den
    Or cavern by the grove of Nemean Zeus.

        He may have come from sacred Argos' self,
    Or Tiryns, or Mycenæ: what know I?
    But thus he told his tale, and said the slayer
    Was (if my memory serves me) Perseus' son.

        Methinks no islander had dared that deed
    Save thee: the lion's skin that wraps thy ribs
    Argues full well some gallant feat of arms.

        But tell me, warrior, first--that I may know
    If my prophetic soul speak truth or not--
    Art thou the man of whom that stranger Greek
    Spoke in my hearing? Have I guessed aright?

        How slew you single-handed that fell beast?
    How came it among rivered Nemea's glens?
    For none such monster could the eagerest eye
    Find in all Greece: Greece harbours bear and boar,
    And deadly wolf: but not this larger game.

        'Twas this that made his listeners marvel then:
    They deemed he told them travellers' tales, to win
    By random words applause from standers-by."

-

        Then Phyleus from the mid-road edged away,
    That both might walk abreast, and he might catch
    More at his ease what fell from Heracles:
    Who journeying now alongside thus began:--

    "On the prior matter, O Augéas' child,
    Thine own unaided wit hath ruled aright.

        But all that monster's history, how it fell,
    Fain would I tell thee who hast ears to hear,
    Save only whence it came: for none of all
    The Argive host could read that riddle right.
    Some god, we dimly guessed, our niggard vows
    Resenting, had upon Phoroneus' realm
    Let loose this very scourge of humankind.

        On peopled Pisa plunging like a flood
    The brute ran riot: notably it cost
    Its neighbours of Bembina woes untold.

        And here Eurystheus bade me try my first
    Passage of arms, and slay that fearsome thing.
    So with my buxom bow and quiver lined
    With arrows I set forth: my left hand held
    My club, a beetling olive's stalwart trunk
    And shapely, still environed in its bark:
    This hand had torn from holiest Helicon
    The tree entire, with all its fibrous roots.

        And finding soon the lion's whereabouts,
    I grasped my bow, and on the bent horn slipped
    The string, and laid thereon the shaft of death.
    And, now all eyes, I watched for that fell thing,
    In hopes to view him ere he spied out me.

        But midday came, and nowhere could I see
    One footprint of the beast or hear his roar:
    And, trust me, none appeared of whom to ask,
    Herdsman or labourer, in the furrowed lea;
    For wan dismay kept each man in his hut.

        Still on I footed, searching through and through
    The leafy mountain-passes, till I saw
    The creature, and forthwith essayed my strength.

        Gorged from some gory carcass, on he stalked
    At eve towards his lair; his grizzled mane,
    Shoulders, and grim glad visage, all adrip
    With carnage; and he licked his bearded lips.

        I, crouched among the shadows of the trees
    On the green hill-top, waited his approach,
    And as he came I aimed at his left flank.
    The barbèd shaft sped idly, nor could pierce
    The flesh, but glancing dropped on the green grass.

        He, wondering, raised forthwith his tawny head,
    And ran his eyes o'er all the vicinage,
    And snarled and gave to view his cavernous throat.
    Meanwhile I levelled yet another shaft,
    Ill pleased to think my first had fled in vain.

        In the mid-chest I smote him, where the lungs
    Are seated: still the arrow sank not in,
    But fell, its errand frustrate, at his feet.

        Once more was I preparing, sore chagrined,
    To draw the bowstring, when the ravenous beast
    Glaring around espied me, lashed his sides
    With his huge tail, and opened war at once.
    Swelled his vast neck, his dun locks stood on end
    With rage: his spine moved sinuous as a bow,
    Till all his weight hung poised on flank and loin.

        And e'en as, when a chariot-builder bends
    With practised skill his shafts of splintered fig,
    Hot from the fire, to be his axle-wheels;
    Flies the tough-rinded sapling from the hands
    That shape it, at a bound recoiling far:
    So from far-off the dread beast, all of a heap,
    Sprang on me, hungering for my life-blood. I
    Thrust with one hand my arrows in his face
    And my doffed doublet, while the other raised
    My seasoned cudgel o'er his crest, and drave
    Full at his temples, breaking clean in twain
    On the fourfooted warrior's airy scalp
    My club; and ere he reached me, down he fell.

        Headlong he fell, and poised on tremulous feet
    Stood, his head wagging, and his eyes grown dim;
    For the shrewd stroke had shattered brain and bone.

        I, marking him beside himself with pain.
    Fell, ere recovering he should breathe again,
    At vantage on his solid sinewy neck,
    My bow and woven quiver thrown aside.

        With iron clasp I gripped him from the rear
    (His talons else had torn me) and, my foot
    Set on him, forced to earth by dint of heel
    His hinder parts, my flanks entrenched the while
    Behind his fore-arm; till his thews were stretched
    And strained, and on his haunches stark he stood
    And lifeless; hell received his monstrous ghost.

        Then with myself I counselled how to strip
    From off the dead beast's limbs his shaggy hide,
    A task full onerous, since I found it proof
    Against all blows of steel or stone or wood.

        Some god at last inspired me with the thought,
    With his own claws to rend the lion's skin.
    With these I flayed him soon, and sheathed and armed
    My limbs against the shocks of murderous war.

    Thus, sir, the Nemean lion met his end,
    Erewhile the constant curse of beast and man."

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

http://www.blackcatpoems.com/t/heracles_the_lion_slayer.html

http://legendarypassages.blogspot.com/2015/01/lp0004-nemean-lion.html