Thursday, 1 April 2021

THE LABORS OF HERACLES # 03: THE CERYNITIAN HIND

 

Heracles when driven mad by the goddess Hera

Murdered his three children and his wife Megara

The Delphic oracle punished him for the murders

By ordering him to perform the Twelve Labors

The labors were set by king Eurystheus his cousin

Capturing a beast was the next labor he was given

He spent the next year hunting the Cerynitian hind

In Arcadia near the Ladon River it was there to find

The Cerynitian hind was a fleet-footed female deer

Who had golden horns and ran faster than a spear

The hind was sacred to goddess of the hunt Artemis

So Heracles dared not wound it and so dare not miss

So between tendons and bones he aimed with his bow

Pinning its legs without drawing blood with his arrow

Artemis was displeased but Heracles appeased her

Simply by blaming king Eurystheus his taskmaster

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