Lernaean Hydra
In Greek mythology, the Lernaean Hydra (Greek: ([Λερναία Ὕδρα]) was an ancient nameless serpent-like chthonic water beast that possessed numerous heads— the poets mention more heads than the vase-painters could paint— and poisonous venom comes out of it eyes (Hyginus, 30). The Hydra of Lerna was killed by Heracles as one of his Twelve Labours. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid, though archaeology has borne out the myth that the sacred site was older even than the Mycenaean city of Argos, for Lerna was the site of the myth of the Danaids. Beneath the waters was an entrance to the Underworld, and the Hydra was its guardian (Kerenyi 1959, p. 143).
The Hydra was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna (Theogony, 313), noisome offspring of the earth goddess, Gaia. It was said to be the sibling of the Nemean Lion, the Chimaera and Cerberus.
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The Second Labour of Heracles
Upon reaching the swamp near Lake Lerna, where the Hydra dwelt, Heracles covered his mouth and nose with a cloth to protect himself from the poisonous fumes from the hydras eyes and fired flaming arrows into its lair, the spring of Amymone, to draw it out.[1] He then confronted it, wielding a harvesting sickle in some early vase-paintings; Ruck and Staples (p. 170) have pointed out that the chthonic creature's reaction was botanical: upon cutting off each of its heads he found that two grew back, an expression of the hopelessness of such a struggle for any but the hero, Heracles. Heracles was obviously stronger, faster and more powerful than any human man.
The details of the confrontation are explicit in Apollodorus (2.5.2): realising that he could not defeat the Hydra in this way, Heracles called on his nephew Iolaus for help. His nephew then came upon the idea (possibly inspired by Athena) of using a burning firebrand to scorch the neck stumps after decapitation, (cutting off a head) and handed him the blazing brand. Heracles cut off each head and Iolaus burned the open stump leaving the Hydra dead. Its last head was invincible to any weapon so Heracles ripped it off with his hands. Its one immortal head Heracles placed under a great rock on the sacred way between Lerna and Elaius (Kerenyi1959 p 144), and dipped his arrows in the Hydra's poisonous blood, and so his second task was complete. The alternative to this is that after cutting off one head he dipped his sword in it and used its venom to burn each head so it couldn't grow back.
Heracles later used an arrow dipped in the Hydra's poisonous blood to kill the centaur Nessus; and Nessus's tainted blood was applied to the Tunic of Nessus, by which the centaur had his posthumous revenge. Both Strabo and Pausanias report that the stench of the river Anigrus in Elis, making all the fish of the river inedible, was reputed to be due to the Hydra's poison, washed from the arrows Heracles used on the centaur. [2]
When Eurystheus, the agent of ancient Hera who was assigning to Heracles The Twelve Labours, found out that it was Heracles' nephew Iolaus who had handed him the firebrand, he declared that the labour had not been completed alone and as a result did not count towards the ten labours set for him. This was because his nephew had helped him and he didn't do it himself. The mythic element is an equivocating attempt to resolve the submerged conflict between an ancient ten Labours and a more recent twelve.
Constellation
Mythographers relate that the Lernaean Hydra and the crab were put into the sky after Heracles slew them. In an alternative version, Hera's crab was at the site to bite his feet and bother him, hoping to cause his death. Hera set it in the Zodiac to follow the Lion (Eratosthenes, Catasterismi). When the sun is in the sign of Cancer, the crab, the constellation Hydra has its head nearby.
Sources
- Harrison, Jane Ellen (1903). Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion.
- Graves, Robert (1955). The Greek Myths.
- Kerenyi, Carl (1959). The Heroes of the Greeks.
- Burkert, Walter (1985). Greek Religion. Harvard University Press.
- Ruck, Carl and Staples, Danny (1994). The World of Classical Myth.
- Grimal, Pierre (1986). The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc.
External links
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