This ticks Hercules off, so when he meets some Minyans on the road he cuts off their ears, noses, and hands.
As you might guess, this makes King Erginus pretty darned mad, and he charges toward Thebes with his whole army behind him.
Hercules isn't scared at all and raises an army of his own.
Our hero leads the charge, obliterating the Minyans and killing the King Erginus himself.
King Creon of Thebes is more than a little grateful to Hercules, so he gives Hercules his daughter, Megara, as a bride.
Ever thing is happy for a while, and Hercules and Megara have a bunch of kids.
Eventually though, Hercules' archenemy Hera, Queen of the Gods, steps in to ruin his life. (Hera hates Hercules because he's the illegitimate son of her husband, Zeus.)
The Queen of the Gods gets seriously nasty and causes Hercules to go crazy and kill all of his children (Whoa.)
Needless to say, Hercules feels more than a little guilty about killing his kids and all.
Our hero goes to the Oracle of Delphi to figure out how to atone for the damage he's done.
The Oracle tells him that he has to submit himself to be the servant of King Eurystheus of Argos.
Eurystheus tells Hercules that he has to perform ten labours for him.
"Okey doke," says Hercules, "What do you want me to do?"
The First Labour: The Nemean Lion
So, there was this place called Nemea, which was being troubled by a giant lion that couldn't be pierced by sword or spear.
Eurystheus orders Hercules to go and kill this monster.
Hercules goes to Nemea, finds the lion, who lives in a cave with 2 entrances. He blocks one entrance and goes in through the other, and tries his sword – boing! Tries his club – boing! Bullet-proof hide. Tries his arrows – yup, boing again…
Hercules wrestles with it – lion bites off his little finger – strangles it to death.
After he kills the lion, Hercules skins it with its own claw and wears its hide as a cloak. (This turns out to be Hercules' signature look; he wears his lion skin cloak for the rest of his life.)
Qualities – brave; strong; clever to work out how to kill it; persistent – doesn’t give up
The Second Labour: The Lernean Hydra
Eurystheus orders Hercules to go kill the Hydra.
This monster was a huge venomous snake with a hundred heads (some say less, some say more). It lived in a cave in the middle of marshland.
The Hydra was particularly hard to kill because when you cut off one head, two more sprouted in its place. It also had venomous breath.
Hercules defeats this nasty creature with the help of his nephew Iolaus. He tried the basic method of thump! with his club, smashing the head, and slice! with his sword, cutting off the head, but both times pop! pop! two heads sprouted back. Uh oh.
When Hercules slices off one of the Hydra's heads, Iolaus – sizzle - cauterizes [burns] the stub with a flaming torch, which keeps the head from growing back.
Hera sends a giant crab to attack him too but Hercules crushes this with his club.
The last head is immortal and has to be buried under a big rock.
Did he cheat? Yes – help from friend No – couldn’t have done it without help, and did king ever say ‘no help’? Qualities – clever to come up with fire plan; wise to bring friend; brave to face Hydra
Next, Eurystheus orders Hercules to capture a giant boar and bring it back alive.
This is actually a lot harder than killing it, because after Hercules captures the vicious thing he's got to carry it all the way back to Argos. In the main version, he manages to chase it off a cliff and it falls into a big snowdrift. No escape from that.
Of course, Hercules totally pulls it off and shows up carrying the boar over his shoulders.
It's said that Eurystheus was so scared when he saw the boar that he ran and hid in a big jar.
The Fourth Labour: Ceryneian Hind
Now the wimpy king orders Hercules to capture an incredibly fast deer with golden horns.
Some say that Hercules snared the deer with nets, others say he pounced on it while it was asleep, and still others say that he just ran behind it until it got too tired to run anymore. The best version has Hercules being so skilful with bow and arrow that he fires an arrow between the deer’s legs that trips the deer up, allowing him to catch it up.
No matter who you talk to, though, everybody agrees that Hercules caught the hind and brought it back to Eurystheus.
The Fifth Labour: Augean Stables
Okay, so this Labour is totally disgusting.
Hercules has to go to the stables of a King named Augeas, who apparently had more oxen than anybody else in the world [3,000], but had also never bothered to clean up after them.
Yep, that's right. The Augean stables are filled with massive amounts of dung, and guess who has to clean it up? The poo is so caked and so disgustingly smelly that the herdsmen would barely go near the stables. He is only given a day in which to do it… MISSION IMPOSSIBLE.
Hercules strikes I deal – I clear the poo, you give me a tenth of your cattle.
Hercules manages to pull this off by diverting the course of the Alpheus River. He does this by digging a trench from the river through the stables [he knocks holes in the front and back of the stables] and back to the river.
The diverted river washes through the stables and takes away all the poo.
He then fills in the trenches, mends the stables and puts the river back to its natural course.
Cheat? Yes, he asked for payment; yes, he used a river rather than his own muscle power; No – king refused to pay him; what’s wrong with river use? Qualities – clever with river idea; strength + speed
