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希臘神話:HERCULES-赫拉克勒斯

所屬教程:英語寓言

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2018年08月02日

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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.





當(dāng)赫拉克勒斯還在襁褓中的時(shí)候,他就住在底比斯王安菲特律翁的宮殿里。安菲特律翁非常喜歡這個(gè)嬰兒,安排了很多侍女來服侍他、照顧他。但是,赫拉克勒斯并不是他自己的孩子,他乃是天神朱庇特與珀?duì)栃匏沟膶O女阿爾克墨涅所生的。
國王安菲特律翁為赫拉克勒斯感到驕傲,因?yàn)樗绕渌膵雰簜€(gè)子要大得多,也強(qiáng)壯得多。但是,天后朱諾卻不喜歡朱庇特的這個(gè)小兒子。
有一天,赫拉克勒斯正躺在搖籃里,朱諾派遣兩條大毒蛇去傷害他。但是,當(dāng)這兩條蛇沙沙地爬過他的亞麻布被單時(shí),赫拉克勒斯醒來了,他伸出強(qiáng)壯的小手,抓住這兩條蛇的頭,并緊緊地握著,直到它們被扼死為止。他的保姆們聽到他咯咯的笑聲,知道他睡醒了,于是進(jìn)來抱他。發(fā)現(xiàn)他的搖籃里竟然有兩條死了的大毒蛇!
一個(gè)襁褓中的孩子,居然做了這樣一件令人驚訝的事,所以國王安菲特律翁在他的王國里到處炫耀。當(dāng)赫拉克勒斯長大時(shí),國王找來最博學(xué)的老師,以一個(gè)王子所應(yīng)該接受的各種方式來訓(xùn)練他。他學(xué)得很快。不消多少時(shí)日,全國各地的人都在談?wù)撍募寄芰恕?br /> 在赫拉克勒斯出生之前,朱諾已經(jīng)迫使朱庇特保證,將珀?duì)栃匏沟牡谝粋€(gè)男性后裔封為國王,而珀?duì)栃匏沟钠渌淖訉O必須作為這位國王的子民。恰巧歐律斯透斯比赫拉克勒斯提早出生一個(gè)鐘頭。于是,歐律斯透斯被立為邁錫尼國的國王,赫拉克勒斯就成了他的臣民。
歐律斯透斯十分嫉妒赫拉克勒斯,因?yàn)楹绽死账贡冗@位國王要強(qiáng)壯許多,也更出名。因此,他決定強(qiáng)行派給赫拉克勒斯一些艱苦的差事,他確信其中至少有一種差事會(huì)足以危害到赫拉克勒斯的性命。
這些差事被稱為"赫拉克勒斯的十二大苦差"。當(dāng)然,赫拉克勒斯沒有選擇的余地,他必須服從他的國王的指令。
這些冒險(xiǎn)的第一件,就是與尼米亞山谷的猛獅搏斗。當(dāng)他的棍棒無法擊斃獅子時(shí),赫拉克勒斯就用雙手把它扼死,他把這只猛獸的尸體扛在肩上帶了回來。
接著,他斬除了住在阿戈斯的九頭蛇海特拉;然后,又將在阿卡迪亞山區(qū)猖獗已久、駭人噬人的野豬捕捉回來了。
在某次冒險(xiǎn)中,他帶回一只金角銅足的奇妙的雄鹿,這只鹿原本住在阿卡迪亞附近的山上。
后來,他又被派去清掃奧吉厄斯王的牛欄,這位國王有一群為數(shù)三千的公牛,他的牛欄三十年來都不曾打掃過。
赫拉克勒斯想出了一個(gè)打掃這些骯臟牛欄的聰明法子,甚至用不著進(jìn)到牛欄里面去。他挖了一條寬闊的水溝,把河流與牛欄連接起來,然后放水沖洗牛欄,水從另一邊的水溝沖下山去,直流進(jìn)另一條河。
短短幾個(gè)小時(shí)之內(nèi),牛欄就變干凈了。然后,赫拉克勒斯堵住第一條河與水溝之間的缺口。如此一來,水再也流不進(jìn)來了。當(dāng)奧吉厄斯王來看他的牛欄時(shí)大為吃驚!他發(fā)現(xiàn)牛欄既清潔又干爽。
赫拉克勒斯完成其中的十件差事之后,歐律斯透斯開始失望了。于是,他又想出一件比前面所有冒險(xiǎn)加起來更危險(xiǎn)的事情,命令赫拉克勒斯去做。
赫拉克勒斯被派往世界的最西邊,到"四姐妹蘋果園"去找金蘋果。這些金蘋果是由幾個(gè)女神和一條纏繞在園中果樹之間的不眠巨龍看守的。
赫拉克勒斯不清楚這禁園的正確位置,但是,他還是朝著西邊出發(fā),漫無目的地來到一座山上。在山的最高峰上,赫拉克勒斯看見普羅米修斯被捆在一塊巖石上面。普羅米修斯曾經(jīng)從奧林匹斯山盜取火種,以致惹惱了朱庇特,下令懲罰他。
赫拉克勒斯勸父親允許他弄斷鐵鏈,釋放普羅米修斯。朱庇特答應(yīng)了他,于是普羅米修斯在經(jīng)受了長期的懲罰之后,終于獲得解救。
為感謝赫拉克勒斯的搭救,普羅米修斯告訴他如何才能找到金蘋果園。
普羅米修斯說道:"在我的兄弟阿特拉斯扛著天站立的地方,你就會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)這蘋果園。"
赫拉克勒斯再度動(dòng)身前往,最后他找到了阿特拉斯。
阿特拉斯是如此地渴望從天空和群星的重壓下解脫出來,因此他答應(yīng)只要他可以再自由一次,赫拉克勒斯所希望的任何事情他都愿意做。
因此,赫拉克勒斯回答說,如果阿特拉斯能為他取來金蘋果,他便將天體的重量擔(dān)負(fù)在自己肩上。這件事對(duì)阿特拉斯來說是易如反掌,因?yàn)榭词靥O果的女神們都是他的女兒,由她們幫忙,阿特拉斯可以使那巨龍睡覺。
阿特拉斯邁開腳步,激動(dòng)地?fù)u頭晃腦,連喊帶跳地慶祝再度獲得自由。他快樂地走過田園,踏著水渡過清涼的溪流,昂首闊步地踏過綠色的草原。
赫拉克勒斯扛著天,直到阿特拉斯的大手上、口袋里都裝滿金蘋果回來為止。阿特拉斯央求說他可以把金蘋果帶到赫拉克勒斯的國家,并把它們交出去。但是,赫拉克勒斯唯恐他一去不回,于是要他在地上支撐一些時(shí)候,讓他歇歇肩膀。然后,他把天空放回到這位巨人的肩上,自己則帶著金蘋果回底比斯去了。
當(dāng)赫拉克勒斯帶著金蘋果抵達(dá)的時(shí)候,歐律斯透斯開始領(lǐng)悟到,他已經(jīng)想不出其他可以讓這位英雄承受不了的差事了。但是他還是決定再試一次。這一次,國王派他到地獄門去,要他把那守門的"三頭惡狗"圣保路斯帶回來。當(dāng)赫拉克勒斯連這件事也順利完成時(shí),歐律斯透斯只好認(rèn)輸了。
赫拉克勒斯完成了許多光輝的業(yè)績,最后,被朱庇特的車載到奧林匹斯山上,成為眾神之一。
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