Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/17

 WORKMEN AND HEROES The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night. LONGFELLOW. HERCULES BY CHARLOTTE M. YONGE ONE morning Jupiter boasted among the gods in Olympus that a son would that day be born, in the line of Perseus, who would rule over all the Argives. Juno was angry and jealous at this, and, as she was the goddess who presided over the births of children, she con- trived to hinder the birth of the child he in- tended till that day was over, and to hasten that of another grandson of the great Perseus. This child was named Eurystheus, and, as he had been born on the right day, Jupiter was forced to let him be King of Argos, Sparta, and Mycenae, and all the Dorian race ; while the boy whom he had meant to be the chief was kept in subjection, in spite of having wonder- ful gifts of courage and strength, and a kind, generous nature, that always was ready to help the weak and sorrowful. His name was Alcides, or Hercules, and he was so strong at ten months old that, with his own hands, he strangled two serpents whom Juno sent to devour him in his cradle. He was bred up by Chiron, the chief of the Centaurs, a wondrous race of beings, who had horses' bodies as far as the forelegs, but where the neck of the horse would begin had human breasts and shoulders, with arms and heads. Most of them were fierce and savage ; but Chiron was very wise and good, and, as Jupiter made him immortal, he was the teacher of many of the great Greek heroes. When Hercules was about eighteen, two maidens appeared to him one in a simple white dress, grave, modest, and seemly ; the other scarcely clothed