Hesiod, The Shield of Heracles: That's one ornate shield

It is so hot today, its midsummer here in New Zealand. But, it is uncommon to have air conditioning at home, so I'm sitting, typing, with a fan beside me on full. My husband and I also bought a paddling pool to cool off in, even though we don't have kids.
The Shield of Heracles was a nice, short work, maybe 10 or so pages long. In some ways, that meant it was no trouble at all. There is still so much in it, even though it is so short, and even though the description of the shield goes for a couple of pages. I enjoyed seeing a bit of the Heracles myth that doesn't directly include his labors. Heracles, of course, also know as Hercules.


Edition
As I said for Works and Days, I purchased a combined edition that also included Works and Days, Theogony and the Shield of Heracles. This was not a penguin classics edition as that only had Works and Days, and Theogony; I also wanted to look at The Shield of Heracles and I didn’t want to buy two editions.


The Story
The predominance of this text is a description of the shield of Heracles, hence the name. Around that description, though, there is a short story.
In the area of Thessaly, there is a tyrant named Cycnus, who is known for killing his dinner guests as well as pilgrims on their way to sacrifice to Apollo. Heracles is traveling with his nephew Iolaus, the son of his mortal brother Iphicles, when he comes across Cycnus and Ares in a chariot going the other way. Cycnus challenges Heracles to single combat. Heracles, as expected, accepts. At this point in the text. we get a huge and glorious description of the shield of Heracles, a gift from and masterwork of Hephaestus. The shield is made of shining gold and ivory and is uncrushable and unbreakable.
Athena warns Heracles that Ares will attack after the single combat. Heracles fights Cycnus and kills him with a shot to the throat. Ares, as predicted, springs on Heracles but his blow is deflected by the shield and Heracles wounds him in the thigh. Heracles and Iolaus strip Cycnus’ armor and take it as spoils. Cycnus is buried, but the monument is washed away by a storm brought on by Apollo.

Reflections
Heracles seems to be a braggart in this story. He is so sure of his victory, even before the fight has begun. The fact that he was fighting a son of Ares didn’t seem to phase him - but then he is the son of Zeus. At first glance, he seems to get into the fight rather rashly, only needing a challenge to get his fighting blood up. We do not know if he is aware of the misdeeds of Cycnus. If he is, he has good reason to agree to single combat; if he is not, it is a rash act, but as always it goes Heracles’ way.

We see the anger of Apollo only in the dying breaths of the text, which comes as a bit of a surprise to me. I’m getting used to seeing gods take offence at small slights, but Apollo does nothing about the killing of worshipers on the way to sacrifice to him; and yet we see him call up a storm to blot out Cycnus’ memory by destroying his monument at the end.

Comparisons

The Shield of Heracles borrows from the Iliad in how it describes Heracles’ unbreakable shield. Some lines are alluded to, and others are directly copied, from the earlier text.

Again, here in the Shield of Heracles, we see Athena as the god of providence, whisking away heroes from danger and death. In the Iliad, we see this happen as one of the Trojan heroes gets too close to death.
Apollos involvement with protecting his temple pilgrims seems to be very limited (as I stated earlier) and his revenge is almost retrospective. By comparison, in the Odyssey, we see Poseidon have a long running quarrel with Odysseus and his revenge is wrought over and over again. Or by comparing it with Zeus’ revenge on Prometheus in Theogony which is ongoing torture day after day.

Have you read the The Shield of Heracles? If so what did you think?
Does this inspire you to read the The Shield of Heracles? If so tell me what you think when your done!

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