3291. The eleventh labour was the fetching of the golden apples, guarded by the dragon Ladon, from the garden of the Hesperides. 3292. The twelfth labour was the bringing of Cerberus from the lower world. 3293. _Busirus._ Here Chaucer has confused two stories. One is, that Busiris, a king of Egypt, used to sacrifice all foreigners who came to Egypt, till the arrival of Hercules, who slew him. The other is 'the eighth labour,' when Hercules killed Diomedes, a king in Thrace, who fed his mares with human flesh, till Hercules slew him and gave his body to be eaten by the mares, as Chaucer _himself_ says in his translation. The confusion was easy, because the story of Busiris is mentioned elsewhere by Boethius, bk. ii. pr. 6, in a passage which Chaucer thus translates (see vol. ii. p. 43):--'I have herd told of Busirides, þat was wont to sleen his gestes [_guests_] þat herberweden [_lodged_] in his hous; and he was sleyn him-self of Ercules þat was his gest.' Lydgate tells the story of Busiris correctly. 3295. _serpent_, i. e. the Lernean hydra, whom Chaucer, in the passage from Boethius, calls 'Idra [_or_ Ydra] the serpent.' 3296. _Achelois_, seems to be used here as a genitive form from [233] a nominative _Achelo_; in his translation of Boethius we find _Achelous_ and _Achelaus_. The spelling of names by old authors is often vague. The line means--he broke one of the two horns of Achelous. The river-god Achelous, in his fight with Hercules, took the form of a bull, whereupon the hero broke off one of his horns. 3297. The adventures with Cacus and Antaeus are well known. 3299. The fourth labour was the destruction of the Erymanthian boar. 3300. _longe_, for a long time; in the margin of MS. Camb. Univ. Lib. Dd. 4. 24, is written the gloss _diu_. 3307. The allusion is to the 'pillars' of Hercules. The expression 'both ends of the world' refers to the extreme points of the continents of Europe and Africa, _world_ standing here for _continent_. The story is that Hercules erected two pillars, Calpe and Abyla, on the two sides of the Strait of Gibraltar. The words 'seith Trophee' seem to refer to an author named Trophaeus. In Lydgate's prologue to his Fall of Princes, st. 41, he says of Chaucer that-- 'In youth he made a translacion Of a boke whiche called is _Trophe_ In Lumbarde tonge, as men may rede and se; And in our vulgar, long er that he deyde, Gave it the name of Troylus and Creseyde.'