Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/125

 ZEUS.-ALKMENE.-HERAKLES. 93 io be born on earth, from his breed, a son who should rule over all his neighbors. Here treated this as an empty boast, calling upon him to bind himself by an irremissible oath that the pre- diction should be realized. Zeus incautiously pledged his sol- emn word ; upon which Here darted swiftly down from Olympus to the Achaic Argos, where the wife of Sthenelos (son of Per- seus, and therefore grandson of Zeus) was already seven months gone with child. By the aid of the Eileithyioc, the special god- desses of parturition, she caused Eurystheus, the son of Sthene- los, to be born before his time on that very day, while she retarded the delivery of Alkmene. Then returning to Olympus, she announced the fact to Zeus : " The good man Eurystheus, son of the Perseid Sthenelos, is this day born of thy loins : the sceptre of the Argeians worthily belongs to him." Zeus was thunderstruck at the consummation which he had improvidently bound himself to accomplish. He seized Ate his evil counsellor by the hair, and hurled her forever away from Olympus : but he had no power to avert the ascendency of Eurystheus and the servitude of Herakles. " Many a pang did he suffer, when he saw his favorite son going through his degrading toil in the tasks imposed upon him by Eurystheus." 1 The legend, of unquestionable antiquity, here transcribed from the Iliad, is one of the most pregnant and characteristic in the Grecian mythology. It explains, according to the religious ideas familiar to the old epic poets, both the distinguishing attributes and the endless toil and endurances of Herakles, the most renowned and most ubiquitous of all the semi-divine personages worshipped by the Hellenes, a being of irresistible force, and especially beloved by Zeus, yet condemned constantly to labor for others and to obey the commands of a worthless and cowardly persecutor. His recompense is reserved to the close of his career, when his afflicting trials are brought to a close: he is then admitted to the godhead and receives in marriage Hebe. 2 The Homer, Iliad, xix. 90-133 ; also viii. 361. T?;v alel oreva^eo^'. W ibv 'ikov vlbv bpfjro "Epyov uet/cef e^ovra, VTT' 'Evpva^f/os dr$Awv. 2 Hcsiod, Theogon. 951, re^.eaaf cfrovocvraf ae$/loi'f. Horn. Odyss. xi. 620; Hesiod, Eoeae, Fragm. 24, Diintzer, p. 36, novnoo-arov KOI upiatcv