Chapter 7 The Story of Hercules-7

The first task the king gave Hercules was: Heracles had to skin the Nemean lion for him.This giant beast lived in the Peloponnese, in the region of Argolis, in the great forest between Nemea and Crevonne.The lion is so ferocious that human weapons cannot harm it at all.Some say that the lion was originally the son of the giant Typhon and the half-human, half-snake female monster Echidna; others say that it fell from the moon to the earth.Hercules set out to hunt lions.He traveled all the way until he came to Crevona, where he met a poor day laborer named Moloercus, who was received warmly.Moloercus was about to sacrifice an animal to Zeus. "Good man," said Hercules, "let your animals live another thirty days! If I come back from the hunt then you can sacrifice to Zeus the savior. If I die, You should sacrifice to me and regard me as a hero who has ascended to the gods."

With that said, Hercules went on again.He carried a quiver and held a bow in one hand and a club made from an olive tree uprooted from Mount Helicon in the other.After walking for a few days, he came to the great forest of Nemea.He looked about in the woods, trying to spot the Lion before he saw him.But there were no lion tracks around, and he didn't meet a single person.All the people hid in their homes and closed the doors out of fear.In the evening, the lion walked slowly along a path in the forest.It has just returned from predation and is ready to return to the nest to rest.It was already full of food, and blood was still dripping from its head, mane, and breast, and its tongue licked the blood from its lips.Seeing it approaching step by step, Hercules hurriedly hid in the dense bushes, waited quietly for it approaching, and aimed an arrow at its waist. Heracles drew his bow and shot an arrow.But his arrow missed it, but bounced off it like a stone, and landed on the mossy ground.The lion raised its bloody head, rolled its eyes and looked around, showing its terrible huge teeth.Now, it turned its chest exactly to Hercules.The half-god hero seized the moment and shot a second arrow at its heart.But this time it was the same, the arrow couldn't hurt it.When Hercules was about to shoot the third arrow, the lion had seen him.It clamped its long tail furiously, its neck swelled with rage, its mane stood up, its back arched, its big blood-red eyes stared, and it let out a dull roar, rushing towards its enemy.

Hercules threw down the arrow in his hand, threw away the lion's skin covering his body, swung the wooden stick with his right hand, and hit the lion's head hard, hitting its neck, and the lion fell to the ground.Then it jumped up, but missed.Then it stood up trembling on all fours, and Hercules rushed up before it could recover.He simply threw all the bows and arrows on his back on the ground, freed his hands, hugged the lion's neck, and grabbed the lion's throat fiercely. The lion struggled for a while, and finally died.Hercules couldn't take off the lion's skin after all the hard work, because no iron tool could cut a hole in it.Finally, he figured out a way to cut the skin with its sharp claws, and finally peeled off the lion's skin.Afterwards he sewed an armor of this strange lion's skin, and made a new helmet as well.Now he packed up the lion skins and weapons he had brought, put the skin of the Nemean lion on his shoulders, and set out for Tyryns.

Exactly 30 days had passed when Hercules came to Moloercus as agreed.Moloercus was busy sacrificing the dead soul of Hercules, but when the hero suddenly appeared in front of him, he couldn't help being pleasantly surprised.So the two made sacrifices to the savior Zeus together, and then Hercules bid farewell to him cordially and walked to his hometown. When King Eurystheus saw Hercules coming back in a terrible lion skin, his legs trembled with fright. He was afraid of the hero's supernatural power. From then on, he never let Hercules approach him again. The orders were conveyed for him by Cyploius, son of Pelops.