希腊神话：HERCULES-赫拉克勒斯

When Hercules was a baby he lived in the palace of Amphitryon， King of Thebes. Although Amphitryon loved the baby dearlyand provided many women to wait on him and care for him，Hercules was not his own child. He was the son of the great god Jupiter，king of the heavens，and of Alcmene，granddaughterof Perseus.
King Amphitryon was proud of him because he was much larger and stronger than other babies. But Juno，who was the queen of all the goddesses，hated this little son of Jupiter.
One day the goddess sent two great serpents to destroy Hercules as he lay in his cradle，but Hercules wakened as the serpents rustledover his linencoverlet，and，reaching out his strong little hands，he grasped them around the neck and held them tight until they were strangled. His nurses，hearing him chuckle，knew his nap was over， so they came in to take him up. There lay the two serpents dead in his cradle!
This was such a wonderful thing for a baby to do，that King Amphitryon boasted of it all over his kingdom. As Hercules grew older， the king found the wisest teachers to train him in all the ways in which a prince should be trained. He learned quickly，and soon his skill was talked of up and downthe land.
Before Hercules's birth，Juno had made Jupiter promise that the first male descendantof Perseus should be High King，and any other descendants of Perseus would be his subjects. It so happened that Eurystheus was born just an hour before Hercules. So Eurystheus was made King of Mycenae and Hercules was one of his subjects.
Eurystheus was jealousof Hercules because Hercules was much stronger and much more famous than the king. So the king decided that he would force some strenuous tasks on Hercules，feeling sure that one of them，at least，would prove so dangerous that Hercules would lose his life.
These tasks came to be known as"the twelve labors of Hercules". Hercules had no choice，of course. He had to follow his king's orders.
The first of these adventures was a fight with a terrible lion that lived in the valley of Nemea. When he failed to kill it with his club， Hercules strangled it with his hands，and returned carrying the body of the great beast across his shoulders.
Next he killed a nine-headed water serpent called the Hydra， which lived in the country of Argos，and then he captured a boar that had long over run the mountains of Arcadia，frightening and killing the people.
From one of his adventures he returned bringing a wonderful stag， with antlers of gold and feet of brass，which lived in the hills about Arcadia.
Then he was sent to clean the stables of King Augeas who had a herd of three thousand oxen，whose stalls had not been cleaned in thirty years.
Hercules cleverly thought of a way to clean the filthy stables without even entering them. He dug a wide ditch from a river to the stables，and let the waters rush through the stalls into a ditch on the other side and down the hill into another river.
In a few hours the stables were clean. Then Hercules walled up the opening between the first river and the ditch so that no more water could flow through. When King Augeas came to look at his stables， much to his astonishment he found them clean and dry.
After Hercules had performed ten of these labors，Eurystheus began to lose hope. So he tried to think of something more dangerous than all of the other adventures combined.
Hercules was sent to the western edge of the world，to the Garden of the Hesperides，to find the golden apples that were guarded by several nymphsand by a great，never-sleeping dragon that coiled itself among the trees of the garden.
Hercules did not know where this sacred garden was. But he set out toward the west，and in his wanderings came to a mountain. On one of its highest peaks， Hercules saw Prometheus bound to a rock. Prometheus had stolen fire from Mount Olympus. This had made Jupiter angry，and he had ordered his punishment.
Hercules urged his father to give him permission to break the chains that held Prometheus，and set him free. Jupiter agreed，and Prometheus，after his long punishment，was unbound.
Out of gratitude ，Prometheus told Hercules how to find the garden of the golden apples.
"""You will find it，""Prometheus said，""at the place where my brother Atlas stands， holding the weight of the heavens on his shoulders."""
Hercules started out once more and，at last，he found Atlas.
Atlas was so eager to be released from the burden of the sky and the stars，that he promised to do anything Hercules wished if only he might once more be free.
So Hercules agreed to take the weight of the heavens on his own shoulders，if Atlas would get him some of the golden apples. This Atlas could do， because the nymphs who guarded the apples were his daughters，and with their help，Atlas could put the dragon to sleep.
Atlas stepped out，shaking his head wildly，shouting and leaping with gladness at being free once more. He went joyously across the land，splashingthrough cool streams and stridingthrough the green grass.
Hercules held the heavens until Atlas finally returned with his big hands and deep pocketsfilled with golden apples. Atlas begged that he might carry them to Hercules's land and deliver them. But Hercules was afraid that if Atlas went he might never come back，so he asked Atlas to hold the earth until he rested his shoulders. He then set the sky again on the giant's shoulders and went back to Thebes with the golden apples.
When Hercules arrived with the apples， Eurystheus began to realize that there was nothing he could think of that would be too much for the hero. But he decided to try just once more.
This time the king sent him to the gates of Hell to bring back Cerberus，the three-headed dog that guarded the gates. When Hercules was able to do even this，Eurystheus gave up.
At last，after many glorious labors，Hercules was carried to Mount Olympus in Jupiter's own chariot，and became one of the Immortals.