Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

THE BIRTH OF HERAKLES. 43
long as we remember that such systematic arrangements are CHAP.
results of recent ages, we may adopt any such plan as the
most convenient way of dealing with the endless series of
legends, all of them more or less transparent, and all pointing
out with unmistakeable clearness the character of the hero
who is the greatest representation of Indra on Hellenic
soil. From first to last, his action is as beneficent to the
children of men as it is fatal to the enemies of light, and the
child who strangles in his cradle the deadly snakes of dark-
ness grows up into the irresistible hero whom no danger can
daunt and no difficulties can baffle.
The immense number of exploits attributed to him, the Herakles
arrangement of which seems to have afforded a special 'J^ the^.
delight to more recent my thographers, would lead us to expect
a large variety of traditions modified by local associations.
To go through them all would be an endless and an unpro-
fitable task ; and we may safely accept the notices of the
Homeric and lyric poets as the more genuine forms of the
myth. Like Phoibos, Hermes, Dionysos, and others, he is
a son of Zeus, born, as some said, in brilliant Argos, or as
others related, in the Boiotian Thebes. With him is born
his twin brother Iphikles, the son— so the tale went—of
Amphitryon ; and thus the child of the mortal father stands
to the son of the undying king of Olympos in the relation
of Phaethon to Helios, of Patroklos to Achilleus, or of Telemachos
to the chieftain of Ithaka. The subjection of the
hero to his kinsman was brought about by the folly of Zeus,
who, on the day of his birth, boasted himself as the father of
one who was to rule over all the house of Perseus. Here
thereupon, urged on by Ate, the spirit of mischief, made him
swear that the child that day to be bom of his lineage should
be this ruler, and summoning the Eileithyiai bade them see
that Eurystheus came into the world before Herakles. So
wroth was Zeus when Here told him that the good man Eury-
stheus must, according to his oath, be king of Argos, that he
seized Ate by the hair of her head, and swearing that she
should never again darken the courts of heaven, hurled her
from Olympos. Thus the weaker came to be tyrant over the
stronger ;
but when the mythographers had systematized his
II.