Lernaean Hydra
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This article is about the mythological monster. For other uses, see Hydra
(disambiguation).
Hydra
Gustave Moreau's 19th-century depiction of the Hydra, influenced
by the Beast from the Book of Revelation
Other name(s) Lernaean Hydra
Country Greece
The Lernaean Hydra or Hydra of Lerna (Greek: Λερναῖα Ὕδρα, Lernaîa
Hýdra), more often known simply as the Hydra, is a serpentine water monster
in Greek and Roman mythology. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid,
which was also the site of the myth of the Danaïdes. Lerna was reputed to be an
entrance to the Underworld,[1] and archaeology has established it as a sacred site
older than Mycenaean Argos. In the canonical Hydra myth, the monster is killed
by Heracles (Hercules) as the second of his Twelve Labors.[2]
According to Hesiod, the Hydra was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna.[3] It had
poisonous breath and blood so virulent that even its scent was deadly. [4] The
Hydra possessed many heads, the exact number of which varies according to
the source. Later versions of the Hydra story add a regeneration feature to the
monster: for every head chopped off, the Hydra would regrow two heads.
[5]
Heracles required the assistance of his nephew Iolaus to cut off all of the
monster's heads and burn the neck using a sword and fire. [6]
Contents
1Development of the myth
2Second Labor of Heracles
3Constellation
4In art
5Classical literature sources
6Notes
7References
8External links
Development of the myth[edit]
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The oldest extant Hydra narrative appears in Hesiod's Theogony, while the oldest
images of the monster are found on a pair of bronze fibulae dating to c. 700 BC.
In both these sources, the main motifs of the Hydra myth are already present: a
multi-headed serpent that is slain by Heracles and Iolaus. While these fibulae
portray a six-headed Hydra, its number of heads was first fixed in writing
by Alcaeus (c. 600 BC), who gave it nine heads. Simonides, writing a century
later, increased the number to fifty, while Euripides, Virgil, and others did not give
an exact figure. Heraclitus the paradoxographer rationalized the myth by
suggesting that the Hydra would have been a single-headed snake accompanied
by its offspring.[7]
Like the initial number of heads, the monster's capacity to regenerate lost heads
varies with time and author. The first mention of this ability of the Hydra occurs
with Euripides, where the monster grew back a pair of heads for each one
severed by Heracles. In the Euthydemus of Plato, Socrates likens Euthydemus
and his brother Dionysidorus to a Hydra of a sophistical nature who grows two
arguments for every one refuted. Palaephatus, Ovid, and Diodorus
Siculus concur with Euripides, while Servius has the Hydra grow back three
heads each time; the Suda does not give a number. Depictions of the monster
dating to c. 500 BC show it with a double tail as well as multiple heads,
suggesting the same regenerative ability at work, but no literary accounts have
this feature.[8]
The Hydra had many parallels in ancient Near Eastern religions. In
particular, Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian mythology celebrated the deeds
of the war and hunting god Ninurta, whom the Angim credited with slaying 11
monsters on an expedition to the mountains, including a seven-headed
serpent (possibly identical with the Mushmahhu) and Bashmu, whose
constellation (despite having a single Head) was later associated by
the Greeks with the Hydra. The constellation is also sometimes associated
in Babylonian contexts with Marduk's dragon, the Mushhushshu.
Second Labor of Heracles[edit]
Pollaiuolo's Hercules and the Hydra (c. 1475). Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
Eurystheus sent Heracles to slay the Hydra, which Hera had raised just to slay
Heracles. Upon reaching the swamp near Lake Lerna, where the Hydra
dwelt, Heracles covered his mouth and nose with a cloth to protect himself from
the poisonous fumes. He shot flaming arrows into the Hydra's lair, the spring
of Amymone, a deep cave from which it emerged only to terrorize neighboring
villages.[9] He then confronted the Hydra, wielding either a
harvesting sickle (according to some early vase-paintings), a sword, or his
famed club. The chthonic creature's reaction to this decapitation was botanical:
two grew back, an expression of the hopelessness of such a struggle for any but
the hero. The weakness of the Hydra was that it was invulnerable only if it
retained at least one head.
The details of the struggle are explicit in the Bibliotheca:[10] realizing that he could
not defeat the Hydra in this way, Heracles called on his nephew Iolaus for help.
His nephew then came upon the idea (possibly inspired by Athena) of using a
firebrand to scorch the neck stumps after each decapitation. Heracles cut off
each head and Iolaus cauterized the open stumps. Seeing that Heracles was
winning the struggle, Hera sent a giant enemy crab to distract him. He crushed it
under his mighty foot. The Hydra's one immortal head was cut off with a golden
sword given to Heracles by Athena. Heracles placed the head—still alive and
writhing—under a great rock on the sacred way between Lerna and Elaius, [9] and
dipped his arrows in the Hydra's poisonous blood. Thus his second task was
complete.
The alternate version of this myth is that after cutting off one head he then dipped
his sword in its neck and used its venom to burn each head so it could not grow
back. Hera, upset that Heracles had slain the beast she raised to kill him, placed
it in the dark blue vault of the sky as the constellation Hydra. She then turned the
crab into the constellation Cancer.
Heracles would later use arrows dipped in the Hydra's poisonous blood to kill
other foes during his remaining labors, such as Stymphalian Birds and the
giant Geryon. He later used one to kill the centaur Nessus; and Nessus' tainted
blood was applied to the Tunic of Nessus, by which the centaur had his
posthumous revenge. Both Strabo and Pausanias report that the stench of the
river Anigrus in Elis, making all the fish of the river inedible, was reputed to be
due to the Hydra's poison, washed from the arrows Heracles used on the
centaur.[11][12][13]
When Eurystheus, the agent of Hera who was assigning The Twelve Labors to
Heracles, found out that it was Heracles' nephew Iolaus who had handed
Heracles the firebrand, he declared that the labor had not been completed alone
and as a result did not count toward the 10 labors set for him. The mythic
element is an equivocating attempt to resolve the submerged conflict between an
ancient ten labors and a more recent twelve.
