Evening star., 1915-03-21

IL II references which men make
ls to the labors of Hercules,
said Washington man. who reads a
great deal about the things which
occurred many thousand years ago. Il
have always felt" he continued. that
Hercules has had an unfair measure of
notoriety and publicity. His press
agent. and the ancient heroes seem to
have had such things. even though they
called them by other names in the
long, long ago. was probably a very
active fellow. The point | want to
in coming to. is that Hercules was not
in it with q person called Theseus.
Il will grant you that Hercules per
formed some unusual jobs which call
for the exercise of strength, patience
and nerve, and am perfectly willing
to admit that Hercules was no weak
ling and that nobody really and truly
believing in fair play could justly APP
ply to Hercules the epithet of molly
coddle. He not that But Theseus
did some jobs of a cleanup, knock down
him to consideration even in this age
when nearly everybody is trying 10
reform everybody else. I want to be
absolutely fair and say that in my
opinion there is nothing that Theseus
did which Hercules might not have
done If the gods had commanded him
to do il and then insisted il being
done.
But Theseus performed more public
services. especially in the line of kill
ing monsters. than Hercules did And
if you will critically and fairly ex-
anime the record of the two men, Her
cules and Theseus. l am sure that you
will hand the palm, the laurel and the
l.a fn
Hercules. alias Heracles. or Heracles
alias Hercules, had various advantages
over the ordinary athletes of the pres
ent. He was the son of Zeus or Jup-
ter, and in those days being the son of
Jupiter was no little help to young
man. OF course, the matter of birth
and inherited riches helps d young
man nowadays, as YOU have proba b1 y
found out in your long contact with
the world. Another advantage of Her
culeS was that he had several of the
most distinguished instructors. one of
them being the centaur Cheron, who
was also the physical instructor of
some of the best athletes ever de-
scended from the gods
If you will look at the la bors of Her
cules which after he journeyed to My
cenae he performed at the bidding of
were the killing Of lion which raw
aged the country near Mycenae. the de-
struction of Lernaean hydra, with
which everybody in Washington is per-
fectly acquainted: capturing alive and
unhurt the stag which was famous for
it's incredible sWiftness, its golden
horns and it's braZen feet: capturing
alive a wild boar which ravaged the
neighborhood of Erymanthus: cleaning
the stables of Augeas. where three
thousand oxen had been confined for a
great many years; killing the birds
which ravaged the country near the
lake StymphaIus in Arcadia and ate
human flesh; bringing alive into Pelo-
ponnesus a prodigious wild bull which
laid waste the Island of Crete: obtain
ing the mares of Diomedes which fed
on human flesh; obtaining from the
Queen of the Amazons a girdle which
she had received from Ares or Mars
Gades, and bringing to Argos his nu-
merous focks which fed on human
flesh obtaining apples from the gar
den of the Hesperides: and bringing
up from the Internal regions the three
headed dog Cerberus
ANY man will admit that this was a
pretty clever athletic record, but Her.
cules' labors mostly had to do with
the lower animals that ate human
flesh There were the lion, the hydra,
the stag, the wild boar. the stable of
the oxen. the birds, the wild bull. the
man-eating mares of Diomedes and the
Watchdog of IIades. Hercules in his In
fancy showed IA predilection to Staying
creatures of the lower orders by
straaxlMS> the TWO snakes which Hsga