HERCULES [60]
After the loss of his numerous sons, Elektryon betroths his daughter, Alkmene, to Amphitryon, the son of his brother, Alkäos. However, Amphitryon, through an unfortunate accident, causes the death of Elektryon, and escapes to Thebes with his affianced bride. He has not enjoyed her love, for she has solemnly pledged him not to touch her until he has avenged her brothers on the Thebans. An expedition is therefore started by him, from Thebes, and he conquers the king of the hostile people, Pterelaos, with all the islands. As he is returning to Thebes, Zeus in the form of Amphitryon [61] betakes himself to Alkmene, to whom he presents a golden goblet as evidence of victory. He rests with the beauteous maiden during three nights, according to the later poets, holding back the sun one day. In the same night, Amphitryon arrives, exultant in his victory and aflame with love. In the fulness of time, the fruit of the divine and the human embrace [62] is brought forth and Zeus announces to the gods his son, as the most powerful ruler of the future. But his jealous spouse, Hera, knows how to obtain from him the pernicious oath, that the first-born grandson of Perseus is to be the ruler of all the other descendants of Perseus. Hera hurries to Mykene, to deliver the wife of the third Perside, Sthenelos, of the seven months child, Eurystheus. At the same time she hinders and endangers the confinement of Alkmene, through all sorts of wicked sorcery, precisely as at the birth of the god of light, Apollo. Alkmene finally gives birth to Herakles and Iphikles, the latter in no way the former’s equal in courage or in strength, but destined to become the father of his faithful friend, Iolaos. [63] In this way Eurystheus became the king in Mykene, in the land of the Argivians, in conformity with the oath of Zeus, and the after born Herakles was his subject.
The old legend related the raising of Herakles on the strength giving waters of the Dirke, the nourishment of all Theban children. Later on, however, another version arose. Fearing the jealousy of Hera, Alkmene exposed the child which she had borne in a place which for a long time after was known as the field of Herakles. About this time, Athene arrived, in company with Hera. She marvelled at the beautiful form of the child, and persuaded Hera to put him to her breast. But the boy took the breast with far greater strength than his age seemed to warrant; Hera felt pains and angrily flung the child to the ground. Athene, however, carried him to the neighboring city and took him to Queen Alkmene, whose maternity was unknown to her, as a poor foundling, whom she begged her to raise for the sake of charity. This peculiar accident is truly remarkable! The child’s own mother allows him to perish, disregarding the duty of maternal love, and the stepmother who is filled with natural hatred against the child, saves her enemy without knowing it (after Diodor, IV, 9; German translation by Wurm, Stuttgart, 1831). Herakles had drawn only a few drops from Hera’s breast, but the divine milk was sufficient to endow him with immortality. An attempt on Hera’s part to kill the boy, asleep in his cradle, by means of two serpents, proved a failure, for the child awakened and crushed the beasts with a single pressure of his hands. As a boy, Herakles one day killed his tutor, Linos, being incensed about an unjust chastisement. Amphitryon, fearing the wildness of the youth, sends him to tend his ox-herds in the mountains, with the herders, among whom he is said by some to have been raised entirely, like Amphion and Zethos, Kyros and Romulus. Here he lives from the hunt, in the freedom of nature (Preller, II, 123).
The myth of Herakles suggests in certain features the Indian saga of the hero Krishna, who like many heroes escapes a general infanticide, and is then brought up by a herder’s wife, Iasodha. A wicked she-demon appears, who has been sent by King Kansa to kill the boy. She takes the post of wet nurse in the home, but is recognized by Krishna, who bites her so severely in suckling (like Hera, when nursing Herakles, whom she also means to destroy), that she dies. (The early history of the pastoral god Krishna is related in the so-called Kariwamsa.)