Again he came to Eurystheus’s palace, and Eurystheus, seeing him, ran
again and hid himself in the jar. Heracles ordered the servants to tell
the king that he had returned and that the second labor was accomplished.
Eurystheus, hearing from the servants that Heracles was mild in his
ways, came out of the jar. Insolently he spoke. “Twelve labors you have to
accomplish for me,” said he to Heracles, “and eleven yet remain to be
accomplished.”
“How?” said Heracles. “Have I not performed two of the labors? Have I
not slain the lion of Nemea and the great water snake of Lerna?”
“In the killing of the water snake you were helped by Iolaus,” said the
king, snapping out his words and looking at Heracles with shifting eyes.
“That labor cannot be allowed you.”
Heracles would have struck him to the ground. But then he remembered
that the crime that he had committed in his madness would have to be
expiated by labors performed at the order of this man. He looked full upon
Eurystheus and he said, “Tell me of the other labors, and I will go forth
from Mycenæ and accomplish them.”
Then Eurystheus bade him go and make clean the stables of King Augeias.
Heracles came into that king’s country. The smell from the stables was
felt for miles around. Countless herds of cattle and goats had been in the
stables for years, and because of the uncleanness and the smell that came
from it the crops were withered all around. Heracles told the king that he
would clean the stables if he were given one tenth of the cattle and the
goats for a reward.
The king agreed to this reward. Then Heracles drove the cattle and the
goats out of the stables; he broke through the foundations and he made
channels for the two rivers Alpheus and Peneius. The waters flowed through
the stables, and in a day all the uncleanness was washed away. Then
Heracles turned the rivers back into their own courses.
He was not given the reward he had bargained for, however.
He went back to Mycenæ with the tale of how he had cleaned the stables.
“Ten labors remain for me to do now,” he said.
“Eleven,” said Eurystheus. “How can I allow the cleaning of King
Augeias’s stables to you when you bargained for a reward for doing it?”
Then while Heracles stood still, holding himself back from striking him,
Eurystheus ran away and hid himself in the jar. Through his heralds he
sent word to Heracles, telling him what the other labors would be.
He was to clear the marshes of Stymphalus of the man-eating birds that
gathered there; he was to capture and bring to the king the golden-horned
deer of Coryneia; he was also to capture and bring alive to Mycenæ the
boar of Erymanthus.
Heracles came to the marshes of Stymphalus. The growth of jungle was so
dense that he could not cut his way through to where the man-eating birds
were; they sat upon low bushes within the jungle, gorging themselves upon
the flesh they had carried there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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