Finishing up the twelve labors, Hercules fights way, way too many things: a giant boar, a giant bull, vicious birds, man-eating horses, the three-headed hell hound Cerberus, and more, all as penance for his crime.
The creature of the week are invisible weasel brothers that might give you a small cut or two...or might cut off your legs...all without you feeling it.
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Songs:
"Direct to Video" by Chris Zabriskie
"One Last Sunset" by Alan Singley
"Leafless Quince Tree" by Rolemusic
"Strange Kiss" by Alasdair Cooper
"Something Elated" by Broke for Free
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As much as I enjoy your storytelling, you really offended me by mocking unrealistic scenes. If you had any knowledge about the origins of the myths and symbolism, you would not put them down. Your SJW white knighting with the Amazononians was ignorant. Your insults towards Heracles for being manly just projects your low self-esteem and jealously. You sound like a product of the Progressive American or Canadian school system. I could do without chiptune music. Not all your listeners are Gen X – Z geeks, Read a real mythology book.
This doesn’t cater to me i’m offended by words in the internet waaaa
ha, I missed this the first time. Usually people who use SJW unironically don’t make it past Mulan. I’m surprised they made it so far.
I’m new to the podcast and really enjoying it. You wondered during the episode why Demeter and Persephone would withhold the Eleusinian Mysteries from Hercules for killing all of those centaurs, but not all of the men he’d killed previously. This is just speculation on my part, but based on my reading it could have been because they were centaurs. The very earliest writings on Demeter make a close connection between her and horses (which makes sense for a harvest diety) and one of her most prominent epithets was Aganippe the mare. A possible interpretation could include a feeling of connection between a goddess who is both horse and woman* and men who are simultaneously horses. Although I don’t have any textual evidence to back this theory up.
*I thought of all this because my archeology professor in college focused her work in Pylos, where they found texts describing an aspect of Demeter as a woman with a horse’s head.
Sorry to keep posting on a year old episode, but I was doing some reading for a project of my own, and I came across a couple of lines in Plutarch’s Lives 1 that imply that the initial problem preventing Hercules from learning the mysteries may not have been his killing of the centaurs, but that he was not an Eleusian. From Plutarch’s Lives, I, Thesus: 33 (Perrin Translation, taken from the Perseus database):
And their behavior confirmed his assurances, for although they were masters of everything, they
demanded only an initiation into the mysteries, since they were no less closely allied to the city
than Heracles. This privilege was accordingly granted them, after they had been adopted by
Aphidnus, as Pylius had adopted Heracles.”
From there I was linked to the Apollodorus (Library, 2.5, Frazer Translation):
When Hercules was about to depart to fetch him, he went to Eumolpus at Eleusis, wishing to be
initiated. However it was not then lawful for foreigners to be initiated: since he proposed to be
initiated as the adoptive son of Pylius. But not being able to see the mysteries because he had not
been cleansed of the slaughter of the centaurs, he was cleansed by Eumolpus and then initiated.
Based on that it sounds like there were two bureaucratic hurdles to overcome: First, the lack of citizenship, and Second, that he had not been cleansed for murdering the centaurs. Not having a better grasp on the functional aspect of Ancient Mediterranean religion I imagine the second one to be somewhat like Catholic confession. Perhaps Hercules had been regularly asking forgiveness for all the human men he killed, but didn’t think to ask about the centaurs until he was told he had to.
Oh my. The shade you threw at Hercules made me so happy. Especially the entire Amazon Women part. I listen at work and it was hard not to stand up and clap.