Divine Child: Hercules aka "Heracles"

[♀♥Lady Urania♥♀]

http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/hercules/a/Hercules.htm

A Possible Biography of the Mythological Hero Hercules
There were many heroes who could claim Zeus, the king of the gods, as their father, but few were immortal. Hercules and his half-brother Dionysus (Bacchus) claimed immortality as an accident at birth. Dionysus was immortal because, although conceived by the mortal Semele, he was actually born from the thigh of Zeus. Dionysus is therefore referred to as twice-born. Hercules was born in a more normal manner, from a human woman. His final dose of immortality sprang from the Queen of the gods, Hera, whose milk he drank at birth.

Hercules and the Milky Way

Hera didn't know whose child she suckled -- just that its mother had abandoned her baby, but when the newborn sucked too hard, Hera threw him from her breast with a cosmic spurt of milk that created the Milky Way. From nurturer she became enemy. When she learned his identity, she sent snakes to strangle the infant Hercules and his hapless brother, Iphicles. But Hercules only chortled as he strangled the snakes in his chubby baby fists.

Enemies of Hercules

Hera drove Hercules mad  In penance for the unforgivable acts he committed while out of his mind, he performed the 12 labors, which Hera, again, instigated. But Hera wasn't his only or deadliest enemy. Hercules killed Nessus, a centaur -- that mythological half-human half-horse breed -- but very different from the kindly centaur, Chiron, who trained most of the heroes in Greek mythology. With his dying blood, Nessus produced the weapon of Hercules' destruction. Immortals don't usually die. Burning alive from Nessus' posioned blood, Hercules begged his father to let him die and so end the pain.
Mercifully, Zeus intervened.


At least that's one version of Hercules' life and death.

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[♀♥Lady Urania♥♀]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Labours

The 12 labours of Heracles

In his labors, Hercules was often accompanied by a male companion (an eromenos), according to Licymnius and others, such as Iolaus, his nephew. Although he was only supposed to perform ten labors, this assistance led to him suffering two more. Eurystheus didn't count the Hydra, because Iolaus helped him, or the Augean stables, as he received payment for his work, or because the rivers did the work.

A traditional order of the labors found in Apollodorus is:

Slay the Nemean Lion and bring back its hide.
Slay the 9-headed Lernaean Hydra.
Capture the Golden Stag of Artemis.
Capture the Erymanthian Boar.
Clean the Augean stables in a single day.
Slay the Stymphalian Birds.
Capture the Cretan Bull.
Steal the Mares of Diomedes.
Obtain the Girdle of the Amazon warrior queen Hippolyte.
Obtain the Cattle of the Monster Geryon.
Steal the Apples of the Hesperides, which were strictly guarded by a 100-headed dragon called Ladon.
Capture Cerberus, the guardian dog of Hades, using no weapons and bring him back.

[edit] Inner meaning
German scholar Walter Burkert has called the labors and other myths of Hercules "a conglomerate of popular tales which was exploited only secondarily by the high art of poetry", and it was not until the fifth century that poets of the Classic age could draw the myth into "a tragic, heroic, and human atmosphere and away from its natural thrust outwards to a carefree realm beyond the human".[3] As philosophical, moral, and eventually allegorical overlays came to be applied to his death-cheating superhuman exploits, behind their outer, literal meaning, the Hercules figure came to represent an inner mystical tradition, and thus the labors could be interpreted in terms of the spiritual path. The last three labors (10-12) of Heracles are generally considered metaphors about death. Hercules was unique among Greek heroes in that no tomb of Hercules was ever localized, and the Olympian sacrifices and chthonic libations were offered simultaneously to him everywhere.

[♀♥Lady Urania♥♀]

http://people.uncw.edu/deagona/herakles/hera.htm

Heracles and Hera

Why does Hera Dislike Herakles?

There is animosity between Hera and Herakles throughout his entire life.  Hera's enmity is actually seen even before he is born.  Her anger is supposed to be aroused by Zeus' affair with Alcmene.  Zeus has fathered numerous children and engaged in adultery often.  For some reason, Hera decided to focus all of her anger on Herakles alone.

Hera attacks Herakles while he is still inside Alcmene's womb.  Zeus had stated that the next child born "this day shall Eileiuthuia . . . bring a man child in to the world who shall be lord over all that dwell about him who are of my blood and lineage."
 

Hera ensures that Herakles will not be that child by delaying his birth.  She then goes to the wife of Sthenelos son of Perseus.  Hera brought the child to birth a month early. She then went to Zeus and told him that Eurystheus was born and will reign over the Argives. Herakles was forced to serve a weak and cowardly prince because of Hera's trickery  (Iliad  XIX 95).     

Hera's Malevolence

When Herakles is still a baby, Hera sends two serpents to destroy him.  Herakles, with strength obviously unusual for a baby, strangles the snakes  (Pindar: Nemean Odes. I.38.ff; Diodorus Siculus: iv.10; Apollodorus: ii. 4.. 

Hera drives Herakles mad and he consequently kills his family.  Some show that he kills Megara too, and that he even kills 2 sons of Iphicles  (Apollodorus: 2.4.12; Euripides : Heracles 922 ff.).

Hera is also said to have sent a gadfly to break up the herd of Geryon's cattle.  Another instance of her interference is when she sent a violent storm towards Herakles when he was sailing from Troy.  Zeus gets mad at Hera for doing this and punishes her by hanging her off of the edge of Mount Olympus. 

Heracles getting along with Hera

Herakles and Hera did not always work against one another.  There are several instances of them actually helping each other and also of Herakles praising her.  Some believe that positive stories such as these can exist because they eventually become reconciled on Olympus after the hero's apotheosis.  He even marries her daughter Hebe (Apollodorus: 2. 7.7).

Heracles even built a shrine to Hera at Sparta and sacrificed to her.  He did this because he was grateful that she had not thwarted him in his campaign against the sons of Hippocoon (Pausanias: iii.19.9).

Apollodorus describes a battle between Porphyrion and Heracles and Hera.  When Porphyrion attacks Hera and attempts to rape her,  Zeus smote him with a thunderbolt and Herakles "shot him dead with an arrow"  (Apollodorus: 1.6.1-2).

There are numerous sources that show him marrying Hera's daughter, Hebe, after he ascends to Mount Olympus. (Homer: Odyssey xi. 602ff; Hesiod: Theogeny 950ff; Pindar: Isthmian Odes iv. 59 and Nemean Odes i. 69 and x. 17; Euripides: Heracleidae 915 ff.)

Some scholars believe that Hebe is just an extension of Hera.  This would mean that Herakles is actually marrying Hera.  Some extend this even further by saying that since Hera is a maternal figure to him at points in his life, he is symbolically marrying his mother.

After Herakles and Hebe are married, Hera is said to have performed adoption ceremonies (Diodorus Siculus: iv. 39).

The Maternal Threat

Philip Slater feels that Heracles “exemplifies every mode of response to maternal threat (1968: 338).”  He displays through his actions that he is scared of his mother. Heracles attacks his mother directly “the very breast that suckled him (339).”  Even the twelve labors are an expression of maternal malevolence against him.  Hera is the one that is responsible for these twelve labors to be placed upon him.

There are several versions of a myth that show Heracles suckling Hera’s milk when he was a baby, which consequently makes him immortal (Diodourus Siculus: iv.9; Pausanias: ix.25.2). 
   

Even though she ultimately plays a part in his death, she has also saved his life.  This is an interesting contradiction.  Slater believes that this indicates a “depriving mother and a deprived, devouring child”.  Hera appears to be malevolent and persecuting.