Epic Hero Hercules - Research Paper Example

In his mind, Zeus wanted to have a son with skills and strength to become a hero among men and the gods’ agent. When Hercules grew up performing odd tasks, King Thespius of Thespia recognized him and offered him his 50 daughters to have children with Hercules. Hercules was able to impregnate 49 of the 50 daughters who gave birth to 51 sons, with the eldest and the youngest giving birth to twins (Burges, 2004: 14). Hercules grew up as a hero performing extraordinary tasks. In his lifetime, he performed twelve different labors.

As an order from King Eurystheus, Hercules was supposed to perform only ten labors, but since the King nullified two of them, he performed twelve. Hercules was able to murder a Nemean lion and brought back its skin. The Nemean lion had a very thick skin which could not be penetrated through. He murdered the lion by strangling it and with the help of the claws of the lion he penetrated through its thick skin and removed it. From then on, Hercules wore the skin as his armor (Stewart, 2004: 36).

Another labor performed by Hercules was when he killed the Lernaean Hydra. The Lernaean Hydra was a monster serpent which had many heads and lived in the Lerna Lake. The Hydra was guarding the way to the underworld. It was so strange that for every head Hercules cut off, two more heads grew back in the cut place. Iolaus, Hercules nephew, had the idea of burning the stumps after cutting the heads so that they could not grow back, and it worked. He then buried the dead body of the Hydra beneath a boulder.

He took all his arrows and immersed in the poisonous blood of the Hydra which made them poisonous. However, Eurystheus disqualified this labor of Hercules as he received help from his nephew (Loewen, 1999: 324). Hercules also managed to capture the Ceryneian Hind which was a huge deer sacred to the goddess Artemis. The deer did have hooves made of bronze and antlers of gold. The hind was known to be very fast that it could even outrun an arrow but Hercules followed it for a whole year on foot and managed to shoot it on the leg with a non-poisoned arrow.

Since the hind was sacred to goddess Artemis, Hercules asked for forgiveness and the goddess forgave him on condition that he would bring back the hind safely (Weisbort, 2005: 26). Hercules captured a great beast that lived on Erymanthos Mountain where goddess Artemis used to visit. The beast was known as the Erymanthian Boar. Hercules was able to force the boar into thick snow with the help of centaur Chiron who advised him to do so. After the boar was in form of thick snow, Hercules captured it and took it to King Eurystheus.

Hercules cleaned the Augean stables. King Augeas had the greatest number of cattle in the nation which were his divine gift and were immune to diseases. This meant that it was not necessary for anyone to clean the stables. The king challenged Hercules to perform the task in just one day and he could give him an eighth of his cattle. Being a hero, Hercules redirected rivers Peneus and Alpheus through the stables and the task was done. However, the king did not fulfill his promise to Hercules, which made Hercules angry, and he murdered the king (Weisbort, 2005: 34).

Hercules killed man-eating birds known as the Stymphalian birds. The birds had metallic and poisonous feathers that could fire as weapons. The birds lived in the woody area that surrounded Lake Stymphalia and this made it hard for the birds to be