WELCOME MYTHMANIACS
TO THE MYTH OF THE MONTH
The Forming of the Milky Way
Baby Heracles Suckling Hera
Heracles Strangling Serpents
MARCH MYTH OF THE MONTH
HERCULES -- PART ONE
THE GREATEST HERO THAT EVER LIVED
CHAPTER 3 - YOUNG HERCULES
CONTINUED FROM PAGES ONE & TWO
So Alcmene exposed her newborn child in a field outside the walls of Thebes. That's where my beloved Athena, acting on Zeus's request, took Hera for a seemingly casual stroll.
Discovering the baby, Athena feigned surprise and invited Hera over to "look at this beautiful and robust child!"
Appealing to her mothering instinct, Athena suggested that Hera give the baby some of her milk. Without thinking Hera took the baby boy and held him to her breast, whereupon Hercules drew with such force that she dropped him in pain.
A spurt of milk flew across the sky and became the Milky Way.
"What a little brat!" cried Hera, but too late: Having tasted the godly milk, Heracles was now truly immortal, and Athena happily returned him to Alcmene, telling her to raise him well for her son would be a very special child.
Other galactic versions of this say that Hermes brought baby Hercules to Olympus and that Zeus himself laid him at Hera's breast while she slept. The Milky Way was formed when startled she awoke and pushed him away, or when the strong little guy greedily sucked more milk than his mouth would hold, and coughed it up.
Regardless, Hera was Heracles' foster-mother for a little while and that's why the Thebans honored him as her son. They even changed his name from Alcaeus, which was his given name before she suckled him, to Heracles, the aforementioned Glory of Hera.
But what about Iphicles, his twin brother, you ask? Iffy, which is what we cruel boys called Herc's bro, was a little, well...iffy. You try living under the shadow of the greatest hero who ever lived! Talk about an inferiority complex!
Even when it came to Hercules' tormentor, the dastardly King Eurystheus, Iffy humbled himself, according to Hesiod, even though he offers few details. Next to his famous brother, Iphicles was ineffective and nearly forgotten.
It started when they were young, no more than eight or nine months. There were the adorable twins, freshly bathed and sleeping like babies on a lamb-fleece blanket, when spiteful Hera decided to act.
At midnight she dispatched two huge and horrific serpents to Alcmene's house, with strict orders to kill baby Heracles. The gates opened silently as the serpents approached the house, slithering over the marble floors to the nursery. Flames shot from their eyes and poison dripped from their fangs.
It wasn't a pretty sight, very reminiscent of a lawyers' convention.
The babies were doomed! Well, make that 'the baby', for the serpents had no evil intent towards Iphicles, it was his brother Hercules they were after.
But just as they were coiled to make lunch of Herc, the twins woke up and saw the serpents writhed above them, with darting, forked tongues, dripping venom.
Not realizing it wasn't him they were drooling over, poor Iffy absolutely freaked! He let out piercing, blood-letting screams, kicked off his coverlet and in terror fell to the floor, rolling about the room looking for a place to hide.
His shrieks roused Alcmene and Amphitryon, who grabbed his sword as the anxious parents raced to the nursery.
They rushed in to find Heracles, who had not uttered so much as a whimper, proudly showing off the serpents as he strangled them, one in each hand.
He giggled and laughed excitedly as they died, bouncing up and down as life left his would-be assassins. When finally they stopped moving, he tossed them with delight at Amphitryon's feet, barely missing the cowering Iphicles, who began to shriek anew.
"Don't be such a baby!" Herc's scornful look at his sissy brother seemed to say.
While Alcmene changed the terror-stricken Iffy's diaper, Amphitryon spread the coverlet over Heracles and returned to bed, all the wiser. You see, some wags say that it wasn't Hera, but Amphitryon himself, who had sent the serpents to the nursery.
He wanted to know which of the twins was his son, and now he knew well, no ands, iffys or buts about it!
March Myth of the Month concludes here: Hercules Chapter Four
KEEP READING - HERCULES CHAPTER FOUR