He
approached
Lerna in a chariot, the driver of which was
Iolaiis.
Iolaiis.
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
were independent of the labors, were distinguished as deeds (Praxeis).
Among them was the hero's part in the voyage of the Argo (cf. Bk. 7).
By giving priority of birth to Eurystheus, Juno prepared the way
for the servitude of Hercules. But the Greeks usually imagined-that his
enforced labor did not begin until many years afterwards, and they re-
lated it to a number of intervening circumstances. Hercules, they said,
grew up at Thebes, married the Theban Princess Megara, and became
the father of several children. Juno then caused him to go temporarily
mad and to kill his children. According to Euripides in the Hercules
Furens, he killed Megara also, but the Manual noted that he spared her
and afterwards gave her to his nephew Iolaiis. * In order to atone for
the murder of his children, Hercules consulted the oracle at Delphi and
learned that he must serve Eurystheus. This tradition may have been
associated with Hercules even before the time of the Iliad. It was re-
corded in the Manual. Ovid probably assumed that his readers would
think of it as providing some of the events that led up to his tale of
Acheloiis and Hercules.
Ovid was concerned with the circumstances under which the hero
courted Deianira, a daughter of King Oeneus of Aetolia and a sister of
the unfortunate Meleager. The Catalogues had spoken of Hercules as
marrying her. Bacchylides recorded a number of details. While in quest
of Cerberus, Hercules met the shade of Meleager and was impressed so
favorably by his tragic story that he inquired whether Meleager had
left any sister eligible for marriage. Meleager then suggested Deianira.
Bacchylides implied that Hercules married her at some time later
than the Calydonian Boar Hunt. Pindar may have followed the same
tradition, for in a poem that now is lost he, too, observed that Meleager
encouraged Hercules to marry his sister. But most accounts did not
associate the marriage with Meleager and were indefinite about its rela-
tion to the hunt. Ovid assumed that the marriage occurred not only be-
fore the time of the Calydonian Boar Hunt but so many years before
that Acheloiis was in doubt whether Theseus had heard of Deianira.
Acheloiis told the events as a story of the remote past and implied that,
when Theseus visited him, Hercules already had finished his career on
earth and had become a god.
Bacchylides had implied that, before Hercules courted Deianira, he
performed all his labors. The Manual stated this idea clearly, and Ovid
*The idea that a primitive warrior might give away wives whom he did not wish
to keep longer, appeared in a recent photodrama treating the life of Mala, the
Eskimo.
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
in his tale of Achelous and Hercules did the same. But Sophocles in the
Trachmian Women had declared that Hercules first married Deianira
and then performed the labors. And in the subsequent tale Ovid incon-
sistently followed his example.
From early times the Greeks had imagined that Achelous was a
suitor of Deianira and that Hercules vanquished him. The idea seems
to have originated in a widespread tradition that a virgin princess must
be offered to the neighboring water spirit, but might be saved by a
valiant hero (cf. Perseus and Andromeda, Bk. 4). More than one Greek
author indicated that the courtship of Achelous inspired fear and abhor-
rence. According to Pindar, Meleager had urged Hercules to protect
his sister from the god. According to Sophocles, Deianira herself would
have preferred death to such a marriage. It was supposed that Hercules
vanquished his opponent in physical combat. Archilochus, recording the
event, declared that Achelous fought in the shape of a bull.
Sophocles gave a number of details. King Oeneus and his family
were living in the village of Pleuron. Achelous courted the princess, ap-
pearing successively in the three shapes of a snake with glittering coils,
of a bull, and of a man with a bull's head and with water pouring from
his shaggy beard. He asked the king to give him his daughter in mar-
riage. Sharing the reluctance of Deianira, Oeneus contrived to delay
the answer and looked for means to escape from his embarrassing posi-
tion. At last Hercules appeared and fought with the monster. Sophocles
did not attempt to give a clear description of the battle. He indicated
that Hercules sometimes shot arrows and at other times used his fists or
grappled at close quarters and that Achelous butted savagely with his
horns. Deianira sat at a distance, weeping and afraid even to look in the
direction of the furious melee.
Greek painters often represented the combat. They showed Ache-
lous with a horned human head. Usually they pictured him as having two
horns, but sometimes as having only a single horn in the middle of his
forehead. Almost always they showed his body as that of a bull, but at
least one painter gave it the shape of a long, slender fish. Greek sculp-
tors of the fifth century treated the combat in relief, first on the throne
of Apollo's temple at Amyclae and then in a group which formed part of
the Megarian treasury at Delphi.
Alexandrian authors added new circumstances. Callimachus in his
Origins declared that Hercules broke off the two horns of Achelous. This
idea Ovid repeated in his Amores and his Epistle of Paris. In his Epistle
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
of Deianira he stated also that Achelous, weeping, gathered up his horns
and concealed his mutilated brow in the yellow waters of the river.
The Manual recorded a different version of the story. It declared
that Hercules broke off only one horn, and it added a very different
sequel. Apparently Hercules kept the horn for some time. But Achelous
found means to recover it. When Jupiter was an infant, the nymph
Amalthea had fed him milk from a certain goat. One of the animal's
horns broke off, and Jupiter gave this horn the magic power of supply-
ing Amalthea abundantly with food and drink of any kind that she de-
sired. It became the Cornucopia or Horn of Plenty. This horn Amalthea
gave to Achelous. He in turn gave it to Hercules in exchange for his
own. Diodorus, trying to rationalize the story, suggested that Hercules
conquered the river Achelous by digging a canal, which diverted the
water and made the neighboring country fertile.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid told the story of Achelous and Her-
cules at considerable length. He took suggestions from Sophocles and
the Manual but introduced much new material. He showed Achelous
observing at the outset that bitterness of defeat was compensated in
large measure by the greatness of the victor. A similar idea Ovid after-
wards used in his account of Ajax and Ulysses (Bk. 13). After men-
tioning the beauty of Deianira, he introduced the new circumstance that
she had many suitors. All of them assembled at one time in the palace of
Oeneus, he continued, with the purpose of asking the king for his daugh-
ter. But, when Achelous and Hercules made their request, the others
withdrew. Ovid said nothing about the reluctance of Deianira -- he did
not say even that she was present. But he seems to have remembered that
King Oeneus was averse to Achelous yet afraid to refuse him. He implied
that Oeneus paused, uncertain how to answer the request. The two rivals
then began to present their claims.
Hercules, speaking first, mentioned his divine parentage, his labors,
and his other achievements performed at the command of Juno. Ovid
merely summarized the claim, because he intended later to give these
events a more lengthy treatment. Ovid implied that it was a dignified,
powerful plea. Achelous felt that he must not only present his own claim
but must endeavor to discredit that of his rival. He replied that he him-
self had the advantages of being a god, a native of Aetolia, and one who
was on good terms with Juno. Then, addressing Hercules, he insisted on
the idea that a claim of divine parentage was either false or discreditable
to all concerned. Oeneus failed to reprove this breach of decorum and
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
apparently lost all control of the affair. Hercules answered that he
would waive further argument and decide the matter by combat. He was
better, he said, in deeds than in words, an idea which Ovid afterwards
repeated under very different circumstances in his tale of Ajax and
Ulysses. Hercules then moved fiercely towards his rival. Acheloiis,
ashamed to yield, stood his ground, and the fight began. Ovid forgot
that he had introduced the idea of an audience in the palace. Recalling
the familiar tradition, he suddenly described the combattants as stand-
ing on open ground near the river.
Ovid gave a clear account of the struggle, and he differed in many
particulars from Sophocles. He rejected the idea that Hercules used
arrows. He imagined that Acheloiis tried successively each of the three
forms that Sophocles had mentioned in the story of the courtship. Ache-
loiis began in his usual shape of a man with two bull horns.
The battle commenced as a match in wrestling. Even in prehistoric
times the Greeks had cultivated this form of athletics. The Iliad re-
corded in some detail a wrestling match between Ajax and Ulysses, which
occurred during the funeral games for Patroclus. In prehistoric times
there seem to have been no rules governing the costume and preparation
of the contestants. But with the Olympian Games of the year 704 B. C. ,
it became the regular practice for contestants to enter naked, or nearly
so, and then to be anointed with oil and sprinkled with fine sand. Ovid
imagined this to have been the procedure of Acheloiis and Hercules,
although he did not indicate how they could have been anointed with oil.
Acheloiis removed his green robe and took the accepted position for com-
bat. Hercules sprinkled both Acheloiis and himself with yellow sand. The
Iliad had pictured a contest in upright wrestling, where the winner
needed only to throw his opponent to the ground three times out of five.
But the Greeks cultivated also ground wrestling, where the winner must
continue the struggle until his fallen opponent admitted defeat. This
kind of wrestling Ovid imagined for his battle of Acheloiis and Hercules.
Assuming the aggressive, Hercules repeatedly tried to throw his
rival. The latter, taking advantage of his weight, continually withstood
him. While picturing the struggle, Ovid remembered other accounts of
conflict. Vergil, describing how Latinus resisted the clamor for war
and how Mezentius held his ground against the attack of enemies, likened
each of them to a cliff unmoved by the fierce onslaughts of wind and
sea. Ovid repeated the comparison, but in tamer phrasing. The rivals
separated a moment, then grappled at close quarters. Again Ovid re-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
membered the account of earlier poets. Vergil, echoing a phrase of Euri-
pides and Ennius, had spoken of the clashing ranks of Troy and Latium
as contending foot against foot, man pressed against man. Ovid carried
the idea further. Acheloiis grappled foot against foot, finger with finger,
brow against brow.
Sophocles had noted that after the combat Deianira was torn from
her home, like a newly weaned heifer from its mother. To Ovid the idea
suggested a further comparison, and while making it he recalled two
striking passages of Vergil. In the Georgics, Vergil spoke of bulls con-
tending for a beautiful heifer; in the Aeneid he compared Aeneas and
Turnus to bulls rushing at each other, while the herd and herdsmen look
on wondering which is to have dominion. Ovid likened Acheloiis and Her-
cules to bulls rushing together, when they contend for the sleekest heifer
of the pasture and the herd stands wondering which will obtain so great
a dominion. For the ancients, epic custom, beginning with the Iliad, had
sanctified comparison of human beings to animals and had prepared
Ovid's readers to think chiefly of the resemblances which were favorable
to Deianira and her contending lovers -- of the beauty, power, and im-
portance of the cattle. For a modern reader the comparison might seem
far from complimentary, suggesting rather their likeness to stupid, sen-
sual, and furious beasts.
At last, Ovid continued, Hercules broke loose, turned Acheloiis
round, and seized him from behind. Ovid pictured graphically the
changes of the brief struggle and the manner in which Hercules forced
Acheloiis down to his knees, with his face against the ground. Convinced
that Hercules was the stronger, Acheloiis resorted to cunning and glided
away as a snake. Then he coiled and hissed, showing his forked tongue.
Hercules laughed at the device, observing that snakes had no terror for
him.
Here Ovid saw an occasion for mentioning other famous adventures
of Hercules. The first was the victory over a pair of huge snakes that
attacked Hercules during his infancy. Pindar had declared that in the
first night after the hero's birth Juno sent these creatures to destroy ,
both Hercules and his half brother Iphicles but that Hercules grasped
their necks -- one in either hand -- and strangled them. Euripides
alluded to this adventure in his Hercules Furens. Theocritus gave a more
detailed account. Jupiter aided his son by illuminating the palace as the
creatures drew near. Iphicles was panic stricken. Hercules boldly grap-
pled with the snakes and held on, undaunted, while they struggled and
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
coiled round his body. Both the Manual and Plautus repeated the story
briefly, with variations of detail, and Vergil alluded to it in his Aeneid.
Some authors were inclined to increase the age of Hercules. Theo-
critus made it ten months, the Manual eight. Pherecydes gave a different
cause for the adventure. Amphitryon brought the snakes into the palace,
he declared, in order to learn which infant was the child of Jove. Begin-
ning with the fifth century B. C, Greek artists often treated the victory
over the serpents. During the same period the event was represented
also on Theban coins. It appeared later in a Pompeiian fresco and a
bronze statue at Herculaneum. Ovid showed Hercules warning Acheloiis
that he had conquered snakes while still in his cradle.
Another adventure that Ovid mentioned was the destruction of the
hydra. Even if Acheloiis were to become the biggest snake in the world,
Hercules continued, he would not compare with that notorious monster.
The Theogony had referred to the hydra as a daughter of Typhoeus
and Echidna and had observed that Hercules, accompanied by his
nephew Iolaiis and aided by the counsel of Athena, put the creature to
death with the sword. Alluding probably to the first part of this ac-
count, Ovid spoke of the hydra as itself an echidna.
Pisander had told the story, to the following effect. The hydra was
a monster having many serpent heads, which took its name from the fact
that it lived ordinarily in water. It inhabited the swamp of Lerna, not
far from Argos, and used to prey on cattle pastured in the neighboring
fields. At the command of Eurystheus, Hercules went in search of the
monster.
He approached Lerna in a chariot, the driver of which was
Iolaiis. Finding the hydra in a cave, he drove it with flaming arrows out
into the shallow water and then attacked it on foot. Armed with a
scimitar, he caught hold of the monster and began to cut off the serpent
heads. For every one that fell, two more sprouted on the same neck.
Meanwhile an enormous crab, gliding in from the Argolic Gulf, bit Her-
cules in the leg. The hero killed this enemy and resumed his unavailing
battle with the hydra. Then Athena, coming to his aid, burned each sev-
ered neck with a torch, so the heads could not sprout again and the hydra
perished. Hercules dipped his arrows in the hydra's gall, making them
poisonous. Panyasis, after repeating the story, added that Juno recom-
pensed the crab by giving it a place in the skies, as the constellation
Cancer.
Greek painters and sculptors often treated the conflict with the
hydra. Some of them followed the account given by Pisander. But
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
others gave a different version. They indicated that Athena had no part
in the adventure, and they gave more prominence to Iolaiis. It was he
who brought the torch and seared the sprouting necks. This idea in-
spired a metope of the Theseum at Athens. Euripides in his Ion de-
scribed the incident as carved on the temple at Delphi. After the fifth
century B. C. , it became the accepted version. The Manual, repeating
the story in this form, altered some details. Hercules, it said, attacked
the hydra with a club, smashing the heads; and Iolaiis burned a neigh-
boring grove of trees, in order to obtain hot brands. Several Alexan-
drian and Roman authors alluded to incidents of the famous adventure.
Regarding the form of the hydra, there was much difference of
opinion. Euripides in the Hercules Furens described the monster as a
myriad headed hound. Diodorus mentioned a hundred heads. Vergil in
one passage of the Aeneid spoke of a hundred and in another passage
spoke of fifty. The Manual stated that the hydra had nine heads, one
of which was immortal. After Hercules had destroyed the other eight,
he cut off the immortal head and buried it under a rock. With the ex-
ception of Euripides, all authors seem to have agreed in regarding the
hydra as a many headed snake. Greek artists of earlier times appear
to have been of the same opinion. They pictured a number of serpent
heads and necks darting from the upper edge of a flat, triangular body,
presumably the modified form of a snake. But Alexandrian and Roman
artists preferred to represent the hydra as partly human -- with ser-
pent heads and the body of a woman, or vice versa. Following the liter-
ary and the older artistic conception, Ovid spoke of the hydra as a
supernatural snake; following Vergil, he mentioned a hundred heads;
and, following the Manual, he referred to the monster's being overcome
and shut in a safe place.
After recalling to Achelous the chief circumstances of the tale,
Ovid continued, Hercules asked him what use it would be to counterfeit
the form of a snake. Then remembering the hero's early victory over
serpents, Ovid noted that Hercules caught Achelous by the throat and
began to strangle him. Defeated as a serpent, Achelous resorted to his
third shape.
He became a fierce bull. The change brought him only temporary
release. Hercules wrapped his arms round the neck of the bull, clung to
him as he ran, and threw him flat on the ground. Following the Manual,
Ovid spoke of Hercules as breaking off one of the bull's horns, and he
associated the incident with the Horn of Plenty. But he altered the
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
story. It was the horn of Achelous, he said, which acquired the magic
property. Nymphs inhabiting the river bank obtained the broken horn,
apparently as a gift from Hercules. They filled it with fruit and flowers
and by their own supernatural power transformed it into the Horn of
Plenty. Assuming that his readers would recall the marriage of Hercules
and Deianira, Ovid left the event unmentioned.
He proceeded immediately to the closing incidents of the entertain-
ment given by Achelous to Theseus. While describing the earlier part of
this entertainment (Bk. 8), Ovid had followed Vergil's account of Cyrene
and Aristaeus. Like Vergil, he spoke of a meal which included a main
course and then some wine, and he indicated after that a long period of
conversation. Probably he thought of the meal as finished. The reader
would get this impression, even if he did not remember the example of
Vergil. For, if there were going to be a second course, it would follow
the wine either immediately or after only a brief interval. But, as Ovid
told about the Horn of Plenty, he decided to bring the magic instrument
before Theseus and his friends. He remembered that in the tale of
Philemon and Baucis there had been a second course, which included bas-
kets of fragrant apples, and he seized on the idea as a reason for intro-
ducing the horn. A nymph, he said, who was girt like those attending
Diana, brought all autumn in the bounteous horn and offered wholesome
apples as a second course.
So far, there appeared to be merely an improbable delay. Ovid pro-
ceeded to make it incredible. The entertainment had been chiefly an occa-
sion for introducing otherwise unrelated stories. Ovid now was anxious
to dismiss the subject of Theseus, and he did this with reckless haste.
The meal had begun towards mid-afternoon; and, when the wine was fin-
ished, there still was enough daylight for Theseus to observe the distant
Echinades Isles. There followed a period of conversation, which the
reader would suppose to be of considerable length. But he was not pre-
pared to have Ovid announce, after the second course, that already it
was dawn. The second course had been delayed the entire night. The-
seus had been waiting for a flood to subside and had been spending the
time very pleasantly. Without obvious cause he suddenly became impa-
tient. He decided not to wait longer, Ovid continued, but to depart at
once. And repeating a beautiful phrase from the story of Cephalus
(Bk. 7), Ovid noted that it was as soon as the first rays touched the
mountains.
Despite obvious inconsistency of detail, Ovid brought out well what-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
ever was picturesque in the myth of Acheloiis and Hercules, and he left
the only full account which survived ancient times. Many later authors
showed interest in the story.
Seneca in his Hercules on Mt. Oeta, alluded to it at some length.
Statius, telling in his Thebaid of the wrestling match between Tydeus
and Agylleus, imitated Ovid's account of the preparations, and his simile
of bulls contending for a white heifer, although for the purpose of Sta-
tius, a comparison of this kind was inappropriate. Hawthorne remem-
bered in his tale, The Three Golden Apples, that Hercules conquered
snakes while still in his cradle. Hyginus repeated Ovid's story about the
origin of the Horn of Plenty. Chaucer, including a narrative of Her-
cules in the Monk's tale, referred to the earlier incidents of it, noting
that,
Of Acheloiis two homes, he brak oon.
Shakespeare in the Second Part of Henry Fourth showed Falstaff
alluding vaguely to the conclusion. The tailor, he said, may sleep in
security, for he hath the horn of abundance. Shakespeare was inter-
ested also in Ovid's references to earlier adventures of Hercules. In
Love's Labour's Lost he made a long jesting allusion to the victory over
the snakes. And Ovid's account of the hydra encouraged his frequent
allusions to the monster, especially a remark of Douglas in the Second
Part of Henry Fourth that new kings grew like hydra's heads.
Milton several times recalled Ovid because of his turns of phrase.
Remembering that Acheloiis bound up his unadorned locks, he noted in
Paradise Lost that, Eve
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dishevelled. *
And later in the same poem he observed that Adam offered Raphael a
banquet at which there was all autumn piled. In Paradise Regained
Milton observed that, attending the banquet offered by Satan, there were
Nymphs of Diana's train and Naiades
With fruits and flowers of Amalthea's horn.
Modern artists often turned to Ovid's narrative. Fontana painted
the combat of Acheloiis and Hercules. Reynolds pictured the infant Her-
cules and the snakes. The painter Pollaiuollo and the sculptor Puget
treated the battle with the hydra. And Jordaens showed the transforma-
tion of the river god's broken horn.
*The same unusual phrase appears to have been echoed in a line of Comus. Milton
pointed out that certain isles inlay
The unadorned bosom of the deep.
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? NESSUS AND THE DEATH OF HERCULES
Nessus and the Death of Hercules
Although love for Deianira was costly to Acheloiis, Ovid continued,
it was even more costly to Nessus, for it occasioned his death. The
Manual had recorded this event as occurring when Deianira had been
married three years and had become the mother of a son named Hyllus.
But Ovid stated that it happened only a short time after the wedding.
He referred to Deianira as virgin, in the sense that she had not yet born
a child, an unusual expression which afterwards was employed by Seneca
to describe Iole and by Milton to describe Ceres. Ovid then told the story
of Hercules and Nessus.
The subject had interested many Greek authors and artists. Archi-
lochus treated it in a work which now is lost. Hellanicus gave the pre-
liminary circumstances. For some time, he said, Hercules and Deianira
lived happily at the court of the bride's father, King Oeneus of Aetolia.
Then Hercules unintentionally killed a young relative of Oeneus and
went into voluntary exile. While departing from Aetolia, he encountered
Nessus. Bacchylides gave a few details. The event occurred on the
banks of a river called Lycormas. This river flows from Mt. Oeta
southwards to the Corinthian Gulf, and forms the boundary of Aetolia
on the east. By later authors it usually was called Evenus. Bacchylides
added that Nessus offered Deianira a gift, the nature of which she little
suspected.
Sophocles told the story briefly in his Trachinian Women. Nessus,
he observed, was a centaur, and, like many of his kind, was black haired.
He used to carry travelers across the river Evenus, bearing them on his
human shoulders well above the water. Hercules arranged to have Nessus
transport his wife. Then he himself crossed the river unaided. The cen-
taur, following with Deianira, began to handle her wantonly, but her
loud screams caused him to desist and then continue to the other side.
There Hercules shot him through the lung with an arrow dipped in poison
of the hydra. Realizing the fatal nature of the wound, Nessus craftily
told Deianira that he wanted to do her a service. He bade her gather in
her hands the mingled blood and venom which was clotting round the
wound; preserve it in a cool, dark place; and, if at any time she needed
to revive her husband's love, smear it on some robe which he intended
to wear. Deianira, believing that Nessus offered her a potent love charm,
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
followed his instructions. The Manual repeating the story, added that
Nessus had been one of the centaurs whom Hercules vanquished in Thes-
saly and that he had fled southwards to the Evenus. It spoke of Hercules
and Deianira as on their way to a new home in Trachin. Among other
improbable circumstances, the story as told by Sophocles and the Manual
indicated that Nessus ventured to meet the offended Hercules and that
Deianira was able to collect the blood unnoticed by her husband. To this
account of the centaur's death Ovid alluded in his Epistle of Deianira,
and in his Ibis.
Nicander avoided some difficulties of the older version. Instead of
entering the water, he said, Nessus waited until Hercules had crossed,
then seized Deianira and tried to abduct her. While he ran, Hercules
shot him through the back. This idea afterwards was repeated by
Quintus Smyrnaeus. There still remained the improbable circumstances
that Deianira collected the blood and venom without injury to herself
and that she was able to preserve it in a form capable of being smeared
on a robe.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid gave a still different version, which
avoided these difficulties also. In the earlier incidents of the tale he
elaborated the account of Nicander. Noting that Hercules and Deianira
were on their way to the hero's native city, he mentioned their coming to
the river. That day the Evenus had been swollen by rains and no longer
was fordable. Nessus offered to carry Deianira, leaving Hercules free
to cross by swimming. Greek authors appear to have imagined the
stream as broad, and Seneca afterwards declared that it was. Ovid
thought of it as narrow and deep, like many rivers of France. Hercules
was able to toss his club and his bow over to the other side. Then, wear-
ing his traditional equipment of a lion skin and a quiver of poison
arrows, he easily swam across. It is surprising that he would risk in-
juring his arrows in the water. As he picked up the bow, he was startled
by the screams of his bride and discovered that Nessus was making off
with her.
Ovid showed Hercules at first warning the centaur to stop. He cau-
tioned him that he could not hope to escape with impunity, reminding
him of the punishment of Ixion. Here Ovid alluded to the familiar tradi-
tion that Ixion had attempted to ravish Juno and had been punished in
Tartarus by fastening on a whirling wheel (cf. Athamas, Bk. 4). Pindar
had spoken of Ixion as grandfather of many of the centaurs. Later
authors usually spoke of him as their father, and Ovid showed Hercules
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? NESSUS AND THE DEATH OF HERCULES
alluding to this idea. Since the warning was addressed over a torrential
river to a centaur in rapid flight, Ovid made it improbably long and
rhetorical. Finding that words had no effect, Hercules shot an arrow.
It pierced Nessus between his equine shoulders and protruded from his
chest on the other side. As Nessus pulled it out, blood spurted both in
front and behind.
Ovid then departed radically from Nicander. He imagined that
Nessus wore a tunic over the human part of his body. Muttering, "I
shall not die unavenged," the centaur caught enough warm blood in his
hands to soak the tunic and then offered this garment as a love charm.
? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
were independent of the labors, were distinguished as deeds (Praxeis).
Among them was the hero's part in the voyage of the Argo (cf. Bk. 7).
By giving priority of birth to Eurystheus, Juno prepared the way
for the servitude of Hercules. But the Greeks usually imagined-that his
enforced labor did not begin until many years afterwards, and they re-
lated it to a number of intervening circumstances. Hercules, they said,
grew up at Thebes, married the Theban Princess Megara, and became
the father of several children. Juno then caused him to go temporarily
mad and to kill his children. According to Euripides in the Hercules
Furens, he killed Megara also, but the Manual noted that he spared her
and afterwards gave her to his nephew Iolaiis. * In order to atone for
the murder of his children, Hercules consulted the oracle at Delphi and
learned that he must serve Eurystheus. This tradition may have been
associated with Hercules even before the time of the Iliad. It was re-
corded in the Manual. Ovid probably assumed that his readers would
think of it as providing some of the events that led up to his tale of
Acheloiis and Hercules.
Ovid was concerned with the circumstances under which the hero
courted Deianira, a daughter of King Oeneus of Aetolia and a sister of
the unfortunate Meleager. The Catalogues had spoken of Hercules as
marrying her. Bacchylides recorded a number of details. While in quest
of Cerberus, Hercules met the shade of Meleager and was impressed so
favorably by his tragic story that he inquired whether Meleager had
left any sister eligible for marriage. Meleager then suggested Deianira.
Bacchylides implied that Hercules married her at some time later
than the Calydonian Boar Hunt. Pindar may have followed the same
tradition, for in a poem that now is lost he, too, observed that Meleager
encouraged Hercules to marry his sister. But most accounts did not
associate the marriage with Meleager and were indefinite about its rela-
tion to the hunt. Ovid assumed that the marriage occurred not only be-
fore the time of the Calydonian Boar Hunt but so many years before
that Acheloiis was in doubt whether Theseus had heard of Deianira.
Acheloiis told the events as a story of the remote past and implied that,
when Theseus visited him, Hercules already had finished his career on
earth and had become a god.
Bacchylides had implied that, before Hercules courted Deianira, he
performed all his labors. The Manual stated this idea clearly, and Ovid
*The idea that a primitive warrior might give away wives whom he did not wish
to keep longer, appeared in a recent photodrama treating the life of Mala, the
Eskimo.
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
in his tale of Achelous and Hercules did the same. But Sophocles in the
Trachmian Women had declared that Hercules first married Deianira
and then performed the labors. And in the subsequent tale Ovid incon-
sistently followed his example.
From early times the Greeks had imagined that Achelous was a
suitor of Deianira and that Hercules vanquished him. The idea seems
to have originated in a widespread tradition that a virgin princess must
be offered to the neighboring water spirit, but might be saved by a
valiant hero (cf. Perseus and Andromeda, Bk. 4). More than one Greek
author indicated that the courtship of Achelous inspired fear and abhor-
rence. According to Pindar, Meleager had urged Hercules to protect
his sister from the god. According to Sophocles, Deianira herself would
have preferred death to such a marriage. It was supposed that Hercules
vanquished his opponent in physical combat. Archilochus, recording the
event, declared that Achelous fought in the shape of a bull.
Sophocles gave a number of details. King Oeneus and his family
were living in the village of Pleuron. Achelous courted the princess, ap-
pearing successively in the three shapes of a snake with glittering coils,
of a bull, and of a man with a bull's head and with water pouring from
his shaggy beard. He asked the king to give him his daughter in mar-
riage. Sharing the reluctance of Deianira, Oeneus contrived to delay
the answer and looked for means to escape from his embarrassing posi-
tion. At last Hercules appeared and fought with the monster. Sophocles
did not attempt to give a clear description of the battle. He indicated
that Hercules sometimes shot arrows and at other times used his fists or
grappled at close quarters and that Achelous butted savagely with his
horns. Deianira sat at a distance, weeping and afraid even to look in the
direction of the furious melee.
Greek painters often represented the combat. They showed Ache-
lous with a horned human head. Usually they pictured him as having two
horns, but sometimes as having only a single horn in the middle of his
forehead. Almost always they showed his body as that of a bull, but at
least one painter gave it the shape of a long, slender fish. Greek sculp-
tors of the fifth century treated the combat in relief, first on the throne
of Apollo's temple at Amyclae and then in a group which formed part of
the Megarian treasury at Delphi.
Alexandrian authors added new circumstances. Callimachus in his
Origins declared that Hercules broke off the two horns of Achelous. This
idea Ovid repeated in his Amores and his Epistle of Paris. In his Epistle
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
of Deianira he stated also that Achelous, weeping, gathered up his horns
and concealed his mutilated brow in the yellow waters of the river.
The Manual recorded a different version of the story. It declared
that Hercules broke off only one horn, and it added a very different
sequel. Apparently Hercules kept the horn for some time. But Achelous
found means to recover it. When Jupiter was an infant, the nymph
Amalthea had fed him milk from a certain goat. One of the animal's
horns broke off, and Jupiter gave this horn the magic power of supply-
ing Amalthea abundantly with food and drink of any kind that she de-
sired. It became the Cornucopia or Horn of Plenty. This horn Amalthea
gave to Achelous. He in turn gave it to Hercules in exchange for his
own. Diodorus, trying to rationalize the story, suggested that Hercules
conquered the river Achelous by digging a canal, which diverted the
water and made the neighboring country fertile.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid told the story of Achelous and Her-
cules at considerable length. He took suggestions from Sophocles and
the Manual but introduced much new material. He showed Achelous
observing at the outset that bitterness of defeat was compensated in
large measure by the greatness of the victor. A similar idea Ovid after-
wards used in his account of Ajax and Ulysses (Bk. 13). After men-
tioning the beauty of Deianira, he introduced the new circumstance that
she had many suitors. All of them assembled at one time in the palace of
Oeneus, he continued, with the purpose of asking the king for his daugh-
ter. But, when Achelous and Hercules made their request, the others
withdrew. Ovid said nothing about the reluctance of Deianira -- he did
not say even that she was present. But he seems to have remembered that
King Oeneus was averse to Achelous yet afraid to refuse him. He implied
that Oeneus paused, uncertain how to answer the request. The two rivals
then began to present their claims.
Hercules, speaking first, mentioned his divine parentage, his labors,
and his other achievements performed at the command of Juno. Ovid
merely summarized the claim, because he intended later to give these
events a more lengthy treatment. Ovid implied that it was a dignified,
powerful plea. Achelous felt that he must not only present his own claim
but must endeavor to discredit that of his rival. He replied that he him-
self had the advantages of being a god, a native of Aetolia, and one who
was on good terms with Juno. Then, addressing Hercules, he insisted on
the idea that a claim of divine parentage was either false or discreditable
to all concerned. Oeneus failed to reprove this breach of decorum and
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
apparently lost all control of the affair. Hercules answered that he
would waive further argument and decide the matter by combat. He was
better, he said, in deeds than in words, an idea which Ovid afterwards
repeated under very different circumstances in his tale of Ajax and
Ulysses. Hercules then moved fiercely towards his rival. Acheloiis,
ashamed to yield, stood his ground, and the fight began. Ovid forgot
that he had introduced the idea of an audience in the palace. Recalling
the familiar tradition, he suddenly described the combattants as stand-
ing on open ground near the river.
Ovid gave a clear account of the struggle, and he differed in many
particulars from Sophocles. He rejected the idea that Hercules used
arrows. He imagined that Acheloiis tried successively each of the three
forms that Sophocles had mentioned in the story of the courtship. Ache-
loiis began in his usual shape of a man with two bull horns.
The battle commenced as a match in wrestling. Even in prehistoric
times the Greeks had cultivated this form of athletics. The Iliad re-
corded in some detail a wrestling match between Ajax and Ulysses, which
occurred during the funeral games for Patroclus. In prehistoric times
there seem to have been no rules governing the costume and preparation
of the contestants. But with the Olympian Games of the year 704 B. C. ,
it became the regular practice for contestants to enter naked, or nearly
so, and then to be anointed with oil and sprinkled with fine sand. Ovid
imagined this to have been the procedure of Acheloiis and Hercules,
although he did not indicate how they could have been anointed with oil.
Acheloiis removed his green robe and took the accepted position for com-
bat. Hercules sprinkled both Acheloiis and himself with yellow sand. The
Iliad had pictured a contest in upright wrestling, where the winner
needed only to throw his opponent to the ground three times out of five.
But the Greeks cultivated also ground wrestling, where the winner must
continue the struggle until his fallen opponent admitted defeat. This
kind of wrestling Ovid imagined for his battle of Acheloiis and Hercules.
Assuming the aggressive, Hercules repeatedly tried to throw his
rival. The latter, taking advantage of his weight, continually withstood
him. While picturing the struggle, Ovid remembered other accounts of
conflict. Vergil, describing how Latinus resisted the clamor for war
and how Mezentius held his ground against the attack of enemies, likened
each of them to a cliff unmoved by the fierce onslaughts of wind and
sea. Ovid repeated the comparison, but in tamer phrasing. The rivals
separated a moment, then grappled at close quarters. Again Ovid re-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
membered the account of earlier poets. Vergil, echoing a phrase of Euri-
pides and Ennius, had spoken of the clashing ranks of Troy and Latium
as contending foot against foot, man pressed against man. Ovid carried
the idea further. Acheloiis grappled foot against foot, finger with finger,
brow against brow.
Sophocles had noted that after the combat Deianira was torn from
her home, like a newly weaned heifer from its mother. To Ovid the idea
suggested a further comparison, and while making it he recalled two
striking passages of Vergil. In the Georgics, Vergil spoke of bulls con-
tending for a beautiful heifer; in the Aeneid he compared Aeneas and
Turnus to bulls rushing at each other, while the herd and herdsmen look
on wondering which is to have dominion. Ovid likened Acheloiis and Her-
cules to bulls rushing together, when they contend for the sleekest heifer
of the pasture and the herd stands wondering which will obtain so great
a dominion. For the ancients, epic custom, beginning with the Iliad, had
sanctified comparison of human beings to animals and had prepared
Ovid's readers to think chiefly of the resemblances which were favorable
to Deianira and her contending lovers -- of the beauty, power, and im-
portance of the cattle. For a modern reader the comparison might seem
far from complimentary, suggesting rather their likeness to stupid, sen-
sual, and furious beasts.
At last, Ovid continued, Hercules broke loose, turned Acheloiis
round, and seized him from behind. Ovid pictured graphically the
changes of the brief struggle and the manner in which Hercules forced
Acheloiis down to his knees, with his face against the ground. Convinced
that Hercules was the stronger, Acheloiis resorted to cunning and glided
away as a snake. Then he coiled and hissed, showing his forked tongue.
Hercules laughed at the device, observing that snakes had no terror for
him.
Here Ovid saw an occasion for mentioning other famous adventures
of Hercules. The first was the victory over a pair of huge snakes that
attacked Hercules during his infancy. Pindar had declared that in the
first night after the hero's birth Juno sent these creatures to destroy ,
both Hercules and his half brother Iphicles but that Hercules grasped
their necks -- one in either hand -- and strangled them. Euripides
alluded to this adventure in his Hercules Furens. Theocritus gave a more
detailed account. Jupiter aided his son by illuminating the palace as the
creatures drew near. Iphicles was panic stricken. Hercules boldly grap-
pled with the snakes and held on, undaunted, while they struggled and
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
coiled round his body. Both the Manual and Plautus repeated the story
briefly, with variations of detail, and Vergil alluded to it in his Aeneid.
Some authors were inclined to increase the age of Hercules. Theo-
critus made it ten months, the Manual eight. Pherecydes gave a different
cause for the adventure. Amphitryon brought the snakes into the palace,
he declared, in order to learn which infant was the child of Jove. Begin-
ning with the fifth century B. C, Greek artists often treated the victory
over the serpents. During the same period the event was represented
also on Theban coins. It appeared later in a Pompeiian fresco and a
bronze statue at Herculaneum. Ovid showed Hercules warning Acheloiis
that he had conquered snakes while still in his cradle.
Another adventure that Ovid mentioned was the destruction of the
hydra. Even if Acheloiis were to become the biggest snake in the world,
Hercules continued, he would not compare with that notorious monster.
The Theogony had referred to the hydra as a daughter of Typhoeus
and Echidna and had observed that Hercules, accompanied by his
nephew Iolaiis and aided by the counsel of Athena, put the creature to
death with the sword. Alluding probably to the first part of this ac-
count, Ovid spoke of the hydra as itself an echidna.
Pisander had told the story, to the following effect. The hydra was
a monster having many serpent heads, which took its name from the fact
that it lived ordinarily in water. It inhabited the swamp of Lerna, not
far from Argos, and used to prey on cattle pastured in the neighboring
fields. At the command of Eurystheus, Hercules went in search of the
monster.
He approached Lerna in a chariot, the driver of which was
Iolaiis. Finding the hydra in a cave, he drove it with flaming arrows out
into the shallow water and then attacked it on foot. Armed with a
scimitar, he caught hold of the monster and began to cut off the serpent
heads. For every one that fell, two more sprouted on the same neck.
Meanwhile an enormous crab, gliding in from the Argolic Gulf, bit Her-
cules in the leg. The hero killed this enemy and resumed his unavailing
battle with the hydra. Then Athena, coming to his aid, burned each sev-
ered neck with a torch, so the heads could not sprout again and the hydra
perished. Hercules dipped his arrows in the hydra's gall, making them
poisonous. Panyasis, after repeating the story, added that Juno recom-
pensed the crab by giving it a place in the skies, as the constellation
Cancer.
Greek painters and sculptors often treated the conflict with the
hydra. Some of them followed the account given by Pisander. But
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
others gave a different version. They indicated that Athena had no part
in the adventure, and they gave more prominence to Iolaiis. It was he
who brought the torch and seared the sprouting necks. This idea in-
spired a metope of the Theseum at Athens. Euripides in his Ion de-
scribed the incident as carved on the temple at Delphi. After the fifth
century B. C. , it became the accepted version. The Manual, repeating
the story in this form, altered some details. Hercules, it said, attacked
the hydra with a club, smashing the heads; and Iolaiis burned a neigh-
boring grove of trees, in order to obtain hot brands. Several Alexan-
drian and Roman authors alluded to incidents of the famous adventure.
Regarding the form of the hydra, there was much difference of
opinion. Euripides in the Hercules Furens described the monster as a
myriad headed hound. Diodorus mentioned a hundred heads. Vergil in
one passage of the Aeneid spoke of a hundred and in another passage
spoke of fifty. The Manual stated that the hydra had nine heads, one
of which was immortal. After Hercules had destroyed the other eight,
he cut off the immortal head and buried it under a rock. With the ex-
ception of Euripides, all authors seem to have agreed in regarding the
hydra as a many headed snake. Greek artists of earlier times appear
to have been of the same opinion. They pictured a number of serpent
heads and necks darting from the upper edge of a flat, triangular body,
presumably the modified form of a snake. But Alexandrian and Roman
artists preferred to represent the hydra as partly human -- with ser-
pent heads and the body of a woman, or vice versa. Following the liter-
ary and the older artistic conception, Ovid spoke of the hydra as a
supernatural snake; following Vergil, he mentioned a hundred heads;
and, following the Manual, he referred to the monster's being overcome
and shut in a safe place.
After recalling to Achelous the chief circumstances of the tale,
Ovid continued, Hercules asked him what use it would be to counterfeit
the form of a snake. Then remembering the hero's early victory over
serpents, Ovid noted that Hercules caught Achelous by the throat and
began to strangle him. Defeated as a serpent, Achelous resorted to his
third shape.
He became a fierce bull. The change brought him only temporary
release. Hercules wrapped his arms round the neck of the bull, clung to
him as he ran, and threw him flat on the ground. Following the Manual,
Ovid spoke of Hercules as breaking off one of the bull's horns, and he
associated the incident with the Horn of Plenty. But he altered the
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? ACHELOUS AND HERCULES
story. It was the horn of Achelous, he said, which acquired the magic
property. Nymphs inhabiting the river bank obtained the broken horn,
apparently as a gift from Hercules. They filled it with fruit and flowers
and by their own supernatural power transformed it into the Horn of
Plenty. Assuming that his readers would recall the marriage of Hercules
and Deianira, Ovid left the event unmentioned.
He proceeded immediately to the closing incidents of the entertain-
ment given by Achelous to Theseus. While describing the earlier part of
this entertainment (Bk. 8), Ovid had followed Vergil's account of Cyrene
and Aristaeus. Like Vergil, he spoke of a meal which included a main
course and then some wine, and he indicated after that a long period of
conversation. Probably he thought of the meal as finished. The reader
would get this impression, even if he did not remember the example of
Vergil. For, if there were going to be a second course, it would follow
the wine either immediately or after only a brief interval. But, as Ovid
told about the Horn of Plenty, he decided to bring the magic instrument
before Theseus and his friends. He remembered that in the tale of
Philemon and Baucis there had been a second course, which included bas-
kets of fragrant apples, and he seized on the idea as a reason for intro-
ducing the horn. A nymph, he said, who was girt like those attending
Diana, brought all autumn in the bounteous horn and offered wholesome
apples as a second course.
So far, there appeared to be merely an improbable delay. Ovid pro-
ceeded to make it incredible. The entertainment had been chiefly an occa-
sion for introducing otherwise unrelated stories. Ovid now was anxious
to dismiss the subject of Theseus, and he did this with reckless haste.
The meal had begun towards mid-afternoon; and, when the wine was fin-
ished, there still was enough daylight for Theseus to observe the distant
Echinades Isles. There followed a period of conversation, which the
reader would suppose to be of considerable length. But he was not pre-
pared to have Ovid announce, after the second course, that already it
was dawn. The second course had been delayed the entire night. The-
seus had been waiting for a flood to subside and had been spending the
time very pleasantly. Without obvious cause he suddenly became impa-
tient. He decided not to wait longer, Ovid continued, but to depart at
once. And repeating a beautiful phrase from the story of Cephalus
(Bk. 7), Ovid noted that it was as soon as the first rays touched the
mountains.
Despite obvious inconsistency of detail, Ovid brought out well what-
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
ever was picturesque in the myth of Acheloiis and Hercules, and he left
the only full account which survived ancient times. Many later authors
showed interest in the story.
Seneca in his Hercules on Mt. Oeta, alluded to it at some length.
Statius, telling in his Thebaid of the wrestling match between Tydeus
and Agylleus, imitated Ovid's account of the preparations, and his simile
of bulls contending for a white heifer, although for the purpose of Sta-
tius, a comparison of this kind was inappropriate. Hawthorne remem-
bered in his tale, The Three Golden Apples, that Hercules conquered
snakes while still in his cradle. Hyginus repeated Ovid's story about the
origin of the Horn of Plenty. Chaucer, including a narrative of Her-
cules in the Monk's tale, referred to the earlier incidents of it, noting
that,
Of Acheloiis two homes, he brak oon.
Shakespeare in the Second Part of Henry Fourth showed Falstaff
alluding vaguely to the conclusion. The tailor, he said, may sleep in
security, for he hath the horn of abundance. Shakespeare was inter-
ested also in Ovid's references to earlier adventures of Hercules. In
Love's Labour's Lost he made a long jesting allusion to the victory over
the snakes. And Ovid's account of the hydra encouraged his frequent
allusions to the monster, especially a remark of Douglas in the Second
Part of Henry Fourth that new kings grew like hydra's heads.
Milton several times recalled Ovid because of his turns of phrase.
Remembering that Acheloiis bound up his unadorned locks, he noted in
Paradise Lost that, Eve
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dishevelled. *
And later in the same poem he observed that Adam offered Raphael a
banquet at which there was all autumn piled. In Paradise Regained
Milton observed that, attending the banquet offered by Satan, there were
Nymphs of Diana's train and Naiades
With fruits and flowers of Amalthea's horn.
Modern artists often turned to Ovid's narrative. Fontana painted
the combat of Acheloiis and Hercules. Reynolds pictured the infant Her-
cules and the snakes. The painter Pollaiuollo and the sculptor Puget
treated the battle with the hydra. And Jordaens showed the transforma-
tion of the river god's broken horn.
*The same unusual phrase appears to have been echoed in a line of Comus. Milton
pointed out that certain isles inlay
The unadorned bosom of the deep.
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? NESSUS AND THE DEATH OF HERCULES
Nessus and the Death of Hercules
Although love for Deianira was costly to Acheloiis, Ovid continued,
it was even more costly to Nessus, for it occasioned his death. The
Manual had recorded this event as occurring when Deianira had been
married three years and had become the mother of a son named Hyllus.
But Ovid stated that it happened only a short time after the wedding.
He referred to Deianira as virgin, in the sense that she had not yet born
a child, an unusual expression which afterwards was employed by Seneca
to describe Iole and by Milton to describe Ceres. Ovid then told the story
of Hercules and Nessus.
The subject had interested many Greek authors and artists. Archi-
lochus treated it in a work which now is lost. Hellanicus gave the pre-
liminary circumstances. For some time, he said, Hercules and Deianira
lived happily at the court of the bride's father, King Oeneus of Aetolia.
Then Hercules unintentionally killed a young relative of Oeneus and
went into voluntary exile. While departing from Aetolia, he encountered
Nessus. Bacchylides gave a few details. The event occurred on the
banks of a river called Lycormas. This river flows from Mt. Oeta
southwards to the Corinthian Gulf, and forms the boundary of Aetolia
on the east. By later authors it usually was called Evenus. Bacchylides
added that Nessus offered Deianira a gift, the nature of which she little
suspected.
Sophocles told the story briefly in his Trachinian Women. Nessus,
he observed, was a centaur, and, like many of his kind, was black haired.
He used to carry travelers across the river Evenus, bearing them on his
human shoulders well above the water. Hercules arranged to have Nessus
transport his wife. Then he himself crossed the river unaided. The cen-
taur, following with Deianira, began to handle her wantonly, but her
loud screams caused him to desist and then continue to the other side.
There Hercules shot him through the lung with an arrow dipped in poison
of the hydra. Realizing the fatal nature of the wound, Nessus craftily
told Deianira that he wanted to do her a service. He bade her gather in
her hands the mingled blood and venom which was clotting round the
wound; preserve it in a cool, dark place; and, if at any time she needed
to revive her husband's love, smear it on some robe which he intended
to wear. Deianira, believing that Nessus offered her a potent love charm,
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? METAMORPHOSES -- BOOK NINE
followed his instructions. The Manual repeating the story, added that
Nessus had been one of the centaurs whom Hercules vanquished in Thes-
saly and that he had fled southwards to the Evenus. It spoke of Hercules
and Deianira as on their way to a new home in Trachin. Among other
improbable circumstances, the story as told by Sophocles and the Manual
indicated that Nessus ventured to meet the offended Hercules and that
Deianira was able to collect the blood unnoticed by her husband. To this
account of the centaur's death Ovid alluded in his Epistle of Deianira,
and in his Ibis.
Nicander avoided some difficulties of the older version. Instead of
entering the water, he said, Nessus waited until Hercules had crossed,
then seized Deianira and tried to abduct her. While he ran, Hercules
shot him through the back. This idea afterwards was repeated by
Quintus Smyrnaeus. There still remained the improbable circumstances
that Deianira collected the blood and venom without injury to herself
and that she was able to preserve it in a form capable of being smeared
on a robe.
In the Metamorphoses, Ovid gave a still different version, which
avoided these difficulties also. In the earlier incidents of the tale he
elaborated the account of Nicander. Noting that Hercules and Deianira
were on their way to the hero's native city, he mentioned their coming to
the river. That day the Evenus had been swollen by rains and no longer
was fordable. Nessus offered to carry Deianira, leaving Hercules free
to cross by swimming. Greek authors appear to have imagined the
stream as broad, and Seneca afterwards declared that it was. Ovid
thought of it as narrow and deep, like many rivers of France. Hercules
was able to toss his club and his bow over to the other side. Then, wear-
ing his traditional equipment of a lion skin and a quiver of poison
arrows, he easily swam across. It is surprising that he would risk in-
juring his arrows in the water. As he picked up the bow, he was startled
by the screams of his bride and discovered that Nessus was making off
with her.
Ovid showed Hercules at first warning the centaur to stop. He cau-
tioned him that he could not hope to escape with impunity, reminding
him of the punishment of Ixion. Here Ovid alluded to the familiar tradi-
tion that Ixion had attempted to ravish Juno and had been punished in
Tartarus by fastening on a whirling wheel (cf. Athamas, Bk. 4). Pindar
had spoken of Ixion as grandfather of many of the centaurs. Later
authors usually spoke of him as their father, and Ovid showed Hercules
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? NESSUS AND THE DEATH OF HERCULES
alluding to this idea. Since the warning was addressed over a torrential
river to a centaur in rapid flight, Ovid made it improbably long and
rhetorical. Finding that words had no effect, Hercules shot an arrow.
It pierced Nessus between his equine shoulders and protruded from his
chest on the other side. As Nessus pulled it out, blood spurted both in
front and behind.
Ovid then departed radically from Nicander. He imagined that
Nessus wore a tunic over the human part of his body. Muttering, "I
shall not die unavenged," the centaur caught enough warm blood in his
hands to soak the tunic and then offered this garment as a love charm.
