The Seventh Labour of Heracles
Whistling merrily at his success so far, Heracles was then sent to capture the bull by Eurystheus as his seventh task. He sailed to Crete, whereupon the King, Minos, gave Heracles permission to take the bull away and offered him assistance, which Heracles denied because of pride, as it had been wreaking havoc on Crete by uprooting crops and leveling orchard walls. Heracles snuck up behind the bull and then used his hands to strangle it, and then shipped it back to Athens. Eurystheus, who hid in his pithos at first sight of the creature, wanted to sacrifice the bull to Hera, who hated Heracles. She refused the sacrifice because it reflected glory on Heracles. The bull was released and wandered into Marathon, becoming known as the Marathonian Bull. Theseus would later sacrifice the bull to Athena and/or Apollo. Eurystheus then sent Heracles to bring back the man-eating Mares of Diomedes.
Read more about this topic: Cretan Bull
Famous quotes containing the words seventh and/or labour:
“Tired,
she looked up the path
her lover would take
as far as her eyes could see.
On the roads,
traffic ceased
at the end of day
as night slid over the sky.
The traveller’s pained wife
took a single step towards home,
said, “Could he not have come at this instant?”
and quickly craning her neck around,
looked up the path again.”
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)
“Indeed, I thought, slipping the silver into my purse ... what a change of temper a fixed income will bring about. No force in the world can take from me my five hundred pounds. Food, house and clothing are mine for ever. Therefore not merely do effort and labour cease, but also hatred and bitterness. I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man; he has nothing to give me.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)