Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/121

 watersnake was particularly difficult to kill for it possessed the distressing faculty of being able to immediately grow two living heads in the place of each one destroyed, thus increasing not only the snake but the number of poisonous fangs. This seemingly insurmountable difficulty was finally overcome when Hercules thought of searing each stump with a hot iron as soon as it was severed, thus killing the root from which the head was born. As seen on his constellation in the sky, this watersnake is more conspicuous for length than for his number of heads, for his faint starry outline covers one-fourth of the southern heavens and takes four months in passing any one place. It was during the struggle with this creature that Juno induced the crab to crawl out of the swamp and seize the mighty giant's toes, afterward placing the crab on the Dark Sign, Cancer, which lies just west of Leo.

The eleventh Labor of Hercules was the obtaining of the three golden apples from the Garden of the Hesperides. The location of these gardens, according to most versions of the story, was to the west of Mount Atlas where this most rare and delightful tree was guarded by a dragon and the four nieces of Atlas. Atlas, who knew best where to find the apples, offered to obtain them for Hercules if he would hold up the heavens while he was gone. Nothing daunted Hercules, so,

In the meantime Atlas went to the garden and got the apples from his nieces. But according to another myth, Hercules went himself and stole the apples, after slaying the dragon that guarded them. It is to be noted that in the constellations Hercules has been placed in a decidedly uncomfortable position so that he might rest his foot upon the Sky Dragon, Draco—so perhaps Draco,