LP0001a - The Little Heracles - An alternate translation from The Idylls of Theocritus

Legendary Passage #0001a - The Little Heracles - An alternate translation from The Idylls of Theocritus.     My thanks to my father who recorded our new intro music, his own take on the ancient Seikilos Epitaph.     For the next six episodes we shall be hearing alternate translations of our first six passages, after which we'll move on to new material once again.     This passage begins with Heracles and his twin brother Iphicles who are less than a year old. Their mother Alcmena rocks them to sleep in a bronze shield, won by their father Amphitryon.     After everyone goes to bed, the goddess Hera sends two venomous snakes to kill the bastard son of Zeus in his crib, but even as a babe he is too strong, and strangles the serpents with his bare hands.     His brother Iphicles cried out, and their mother Alcmena told her husband hurry and check on the babes, for there was a strange light in the house. Amphitryon grabs his sword and shouts his servants awake as he sprints towards his children. But all are astonished when they find dead snakes in little Heracles hands.     The next morning, Alcmena calls for the seer Tireseus to hear why the gods want her son dead, and what his fate is to be. Tireseus tells her that her son, after many labors and hardships, will become a god, and marry a goddess.     Lastly, he tells her how to dispose of the serpents and purify the house. The passage continues in episode 29 with the childhood of Heracles.     Next time, we shall hear of the origins and the birth of Heracles. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11533/11533-h/11533-h.htm#IDYLL_XXIV The Little Heracles, a Legendary Passage, from The Idylls of Theocritus, translated by C.S. Caverley. IDYLL XXIV. THE INFANT HERACLES         Alcmena once had washed and given the breast     To Heracles, a babe of ten months old,     And Iphicles his junior by a night;     And cradled both within a brazen shield,     A gorgeous trophy, which Amphitryon erst     Had stript from Ptereläus fall'n in fight.         She stroked their baby brows, and thus she said:     "Sleep, children mine, a light luxurious sleep,     Brother with brother: sleep, my boys, my life:     Blest in your slumber, in your waking blest!"     She spake and rocked the shield; and in his arms     Sleep took them. But at midnight, when the Bear     Wheels to his setting, in Orion's front     Whose shoulder then beams broadest; Hera sent,     Mistress of wiles, two huge and hideous things,     Snakes with their scales of azure all on end,     To the broad portal of the chamber-door,     All to devour the infant Heracles.     They, all their length uncoiled upon the floor,     Writhed on to their blood-feast; a baleful light     Gleamed in their eyes, rank venom they spat forth.     But when with lambent tongues they neared the cot,     Alcmena's babes (for Zeus was watching all)     Woke, and throughout the chamber there was light.     Then Iphicles--so soon as he descried     The fell brutes peering o'er the hollow shield,     And saw their merciless fangs--cried lustily,     And kicked away his coverlet of down,     Fain to escape. But Heracles, he clung     Round them with warlike hands, in iron grasp     Prisoning the two: his clutch upon their throat,     The deadly snake's laboratory, where     He brews such poisons as e'en heaven abhors.     They twined and twisted round the babe that, born     After long travail, ne'er had shed a tear     E'en in his nursery; soon to quit their hold,     For powerless seemed their spines.