Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/130

 116 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY models, in imitation of Melkart, the sun god and king of Tyre, with whom Hercules was later identified in many respects. His hair and beard are usually closely cut; it is very rare that he appears without a beard in works of the older period. After the beginning of the fourth cen- tury B.C. he is again regularly represented entirely nude ; he carries the lion's skin on his left arm, his club in his right hand. Praxiteles gives him a deeply sorrowful ex- pression ; Lysippus, the attitude of motion, especially at the hips. To the latter sculptor is doubtless to be traced the general type of the weary Hercules resting ; the special form of this, however, preserved in the so-called Tarnese Hercules' in Naples, was of later origin. In the representations of his deeds, Hercules usually in earlier works, as in the story of the Iliad, carries a bow as his weapon; more rarely, and indeed principally in works of Ionian origin, the club ; in those originating in the Peloponnesus, the sword, which, according to the Odyssey, he carried in addition to his bow. Hercules : Homer, Od. xi. 601 sq. ; Sophocles, Trachiniae , Euripides, Herakles ; Ovid, Met. ix. 256 sq., Her. ix. ; Vergil, Aen. vi. 801 sq. ; Horace, Ep. xvii. 31; Hygimis, Fab. xxx., xxxvi., clxii.; Shak., Midsummer Night's Dream iv. 1, 117, Love's Labour's Lost i. 2, 69, v. 2, 592 ; Pope, The Temple of Fame 81 : - There great Alcides, stooping with his toil, Rests on his club and holds th' Hesperian spoil. Milton, Par. L. ii. 542. Amphitryon : Ovid, Her. ix. 44 ; Hyginus, Fab. xxix. Creon : Homer, Od. xi. 269 ; Sophocles, Antigone ; Chaucer, Knight's Tale 80 sq. Hydra: Ovid, Met. ix. 69 sq. ; Vergil, Aen. vi. 287; Horace, Od. iv. 4, 61 ; Hyginus, Fab. xxx. ; Pope, Thebais i. 502 : The foaming Lerna swells above its bounds, And spreads its ancient poisons o'er the grounds.