The Life of Hercules: Another Digression (the Calydonian Boar)

Fifth of a series. Here are the earlier posts:

The Life of Hercules: Birth and Childhood

The Life of Hercules: The First Six Labors

The Life of Hercules: The Final Six Labors

The Life of Hercules: Digression into the Underworld 

 



Thel'tav'a employing her
dart shooter
(I couldn't find a picture I liked
of the boar hunt, so here is my
rendition of my Atalanta character
in v.4 of the Ki'shto'ba series)

       Heracles himself didn't take part in the Great Hunt for the Calydonian Boar, and neither does Ki'shto'ba in my version of it.  However, Atalanta did, and Atalanta was one of the participants in the Quest for the Golden Fleece, so I wanted an equivalent character in my version.  That character is Thel'tav'a the Intercaste, who turned out to be an excellent addition to the storyline. 
       Meleager was the son of Oeneus, the King of Calydon, but was said to actually have been fathered by Ares (those gods really did get around, didn't they?)  The Fates informed Meleager's mother Althaea that Meleager would live only as long as a certain brand in her fireplace remained unburned, so Althaea immediately extinguished the brand and hid it away.
       When King Oeneus failed to include Artemis in his yearly sacrifices, she sent an enormous and vicious boar to kill his cattle.  Oeneus then invited all the great warriors of the region to hunt the boar, with its tusks and pelt being the prize. 
       Atalanta was the daughter of Iasus, who was so disappointed that she was a girl that he exposed the infant in the forest and left her to die.  (Again, this happens.)  Artemis sent a bear to suckle her and then she was raised by a clan of hunters.  She remained a virgin and always carried arms, including bow and arrows.
       Atalanta came to Calydon intending to join the boar hunt, and Meleager immediately took a fancy to her.  Many of his men, but especially his uncles (his mother's brothers), objected to including a woman in the hunt, but Meleager maintained that if Atalanta was not allowed to participate, he would cancel the hunt altogether.  Thus, the hunt began under poor auspices.
       Two Centaurs were taking part in the hunt and they decided to rape Atalanta, but she shot and killed them and continued with the hunt.  Several others hunters were killed (including some by "friendly fire") in an ill-advised and somewhat comedic melee.  In the process Atalanta wounded the boar with an arrow, and ultimately Meleager moved in and finished off the creature.  He then flayed it and presented the pelt and tusks to Atalanta, saying that her strike would have soon been fatal in any event and so she deserved the prize.
       This mightily offended Meleager's uncles, one of whom maintained that if Meleager wanted to give away the prize, he should have had it on the basis of seniority.  In a rage Meleager killed this uncle, after which the other two uncles went to war against him.  Meleager killed both of them, whereupon the Furies drove his  grieving mother Althaea to commit the act which would doom her son:  she burned the fated brand.  Still on the field of battle, Meleager felt "felt a sudden scorching of his inwards" (as Robert Graves phrases it) and his enemies easily killed him.  Althaea then hung herself.  Thus the Greek tragedy unfolds.

        Afterward, Atalanta went home and her father accepted her as his offspring. Of course like any good parent he couldn't wait to marry her off.  However, oracles had warned the swift-footed Atalanta not to marry and so she announced that she would marry only a suitor who could beat her in a foot race.  If they couldn't beat her, she would proceed to kill them.  Many suitors lost their lives, but Melanion (with Aphrodite's help) devised a trick.  The Goddess of Love gave him golden apples and told Melanion to leave them at places along the race route, and sure enough Atalanta couldn't resist stopping to pick them up.  Thus Melanion was able to beat her and she was forced to marry him.  After this, the myths become garbled, with several versions.  The gist is, Atalanta and her spouse profaned a temple (either of Zeus or of Cybele) by having sex therein.  As punishment they were turned into lions (who, Graves says, are known to mate only with leopards and so the pair could no longer enjoy each other) and they were set to pulling Cybele's chariot.

       So how in the world can these tales be adapted to my termite culture?  It was easier than you might think!  The story does not happen in real time but is narrated by the Remembrancer of the fortress of Ra'ki'wiv'u.  The egg from which Thel'tav'a (Atalanta) hatched was part of a culling that some Shshi fortresses carry out when they become overcrowded.  The fortress of Ra'ki'wiv'u exposes these doomed eggs in the nearby forest rather than chopping them up outright in the Charnel Hall.  The termite planet has no mammals, so a big reptilian rather than a bear nurtures the nymph for a while, after which it was reared by one of the Casteless Ones, whom we first met in v.2: The Storm-Wing.  She turned out to be an Intercaste, a genetic sport with characteristics of both Warrior and Alate.  Living on her own in the forest, she never learns how to speak, but she is a formidable hunter and fighter, as well as the fastest runner around, and she invents the bow and arrow ("dart shooter") to supplement her weak jaws.  Finally, she is rescued by her home fortress and taught how to speak, although she never fully masters the art.
       So what did I do about the male-female attraction part?  Termites have no sex drive, as I've said many times.  Instead, the High Chief Bao'kai'zei (Meleager) becomes her mentor and when a giant carnivorous ground bird shows up in the neighborhood, a hunt is organized and everything plays out as in the myth.  You may recall that the Yo'sho'zei fill the role of Centaurs, so it's quite possible for Thel'tav'a to kill two of these (they see her as their strongest rival and hence try to kill her, since raping doesn't work).  The hunt itself is portrayed as just as inept as in the myth, and the Mother of the fortress has hatchmates who represent the uncles.  Since the Shshi have never tamed fire, what do I do about the brand?  I make it a branch from a tree called a "flame tree" that must never be eaten and it's hidden away until in her grief the Mother brings it out and consumes it, thus dooming her offspring.  She can't hang herself, but she can starve herself to death.  It's amazing how these things can be successfully modeled.
       Ra'ki'wiv'u is known for its annual festival and Warriors' Competition.  Thel'tav'a obviously answers prophecies about the 10th Companion, but she refuses to abandon the memory of her mentor Bao'kai'zei and give her loyalty to another Champion unless that Champion can defeat her in the competition, and particularly in a footrace.  Ki'shto'ba is not known for its speed, so the situation seems hopeless.  How that is all resolved I'll leave for you to read in the book! 
      
       And I might make two other points.  The name Thel'tav'a means "loyal to the good" and the name Atalanta (according to Robert Graves) means "unswaying."  Close enough, don't you think?  Finally, if you're like me, you haven't got a clue as to how to pronounce "Meleager."  In Xena: Warrior Princess (where Meleager is turned into a totally different character), they called it "Me-lee-gar."  That's only one of several pronunciation errors I spotted in Xena.   The dictionary says "mel-ee-ey-jer" and Wikipedia gives the IPA equivalent of the same, so I'm sticking with that.   

     

 



The Life of Hercules: The Final Six Labors



Hercules and Antaeus (1690),
by Gregorio de Ferrari
Wikipedia (public domain)
See Labor No. 10

Third of a series.  Here are the first and second posts:
The Life of Hercules: Birth and Childhood
The Life of Hercules: The First Six Labors

     In the previous post, I discussed how Heracles was forced to perform twelve labors as a kind of penance for killing his own children under the influence of madness.  My Heracles stand-in, the Shshi (intelligent termite) Champion Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head, also suffers an episode of madness, but the onus of performing Twelve Wonders comes to it for a different reason, which you can learn about if you read v.1 of the Ki'shto'ba series, The War of the Stolen Mother.

       Following up on the previous post, I'll list the final six Labors of Heracles and comment on whether and how I used them in my series.  Not all of them are suitable for adaptation to a termite culture.

 

       7.  The Cretan Bull.  A fire-breathing bull was ravaging Crete (possibly the one which sired the Minotaur) and Heracles was constrained to capture it.  He took it back to Eurystheus, who set it free because Hera wouldn't accept it as a sacrifice (gave too much glory to Heracles).

       I didn't use this Labor at all.

 

       8.  The Mares of Diomedes.  Possibly based on a coronation rite in which women in horse masks killed and consumed the sacred king at the end of his reign (see Robert Graves, Greek Myths, under The Eighth Labor).  The savage mares of Diomedes were carnivores and Hercules fed Diomedes himself to them, then captured them while their appetite was sated.  Prettty gruesome tale.

       I didn't use this one, either.

 

       9.  Hippolyte's Girdle.  This is a story of the Amazons; Heracles had to bring back the girdle of Ares, which was worn by the Amazon Queen Hippolyte, as a gift to Eurystheus's daughter. 

       While this makes a good story, it has absolutely no bearing on Ki'shto'ba's quest.  However, in v.6 of the Ki'shto'ba series you will encounter a strangely aberrant termite society consisting entirely of female Alates.  I'll talk about that in a later post.

 

       10.  The Cattle of Geryon.   This is a vast Quest epic in itself, with Heracles travelling into the world's Far West to steal the cattle of a monstrous creature named Geryon.  Cattle raiding is rampant in the culture of ancient peoples, including the Celts; men bought their brides at the price of so many cattle.  Once Heracles gets the cattle, he ends up herding them all over Africa and Europe, having adventures all the while.  It was during this journey that Heracles is said to have opened up the entrance to the Mediterranean (the Pillars of Hercules, or Gibraltar).  He also encountered Antaeus in Libya.

       I made some use of details from this myth.  First, I endowed the termite planet with a long and narrow inland sea much like the Mediterranean.  Ultimately the Companions will reach the outlet of that sea (in the seventh volume, which I haven't written yet).

       And I made intense use of the myth of Antaeus.  I'm going to quote Wikipedia here: "[Antaeus] would challenge all passers-by to wrestling matches, kill them, and collect their skulls, so that he might one day build out of them a temple to his father Poseidon. He was indefatigably strong as long as he remained in contact with the ground (his mother earth), but once lifted into the air he became as weak as other men."  You'll have to read v.4: Beneath the Mountain of Heavy Fear, if you want to know how I applied this. 

 

       11. The Apples of the Hesperides.  Heracles had to go on a second journey to bring back fruit from Hera's golden-apple tree, which was tended by the Hesperides and located either at Mount Atlas or on an island again in the Far West of Earth (undoubtedly the Apple Island of Robert Graves's beautiful poetry).  Atlas lived there as well and the Hesperides were his daughters, conceived before he was set the task of holding the celestial globe on his shoulders.  Hera suspected the Hesperides of stealing some of the apples, so she set a dragon-like creature called Ladon to twine around the Tree and guard it.  Altas also built a great wall around the garden where the tree stood, to protect it from a prophecy that a son of Zeus would steal all the golden apples.  Heracles arrived, and after killing Ladon with an arrow over the wall, he offered to relieve Atlas of his burden for a brief time if he would fetch the apples for him.  Atlas agreed, but upon returning he told Heracles he would take the apples to Eurystheus himself.  Heracles told him he would agree to that if Atlas would allow him one moment to put a pad on his head.  Atlas (apparently not too sharp-witted) complied, resuming the globe, whereupon Heracles scurried off with the plunder.
       It's also said that it was during this journey instead of in the cattle-raiding episode that Heracles encountered Antaeus.
       I used elements of the golden-apple myth, but I twisted them around to my own purposes.  The Quest of Is'a'pai'a of the Gwai'sho'zei (Water People) involves finding the Golden Fungus, which fills the role of the Golden Fleece (the termite planet has no mammals; furthermore fungus is a chief foodstuff of all Shshi, even the woodeaters).  But the Golden Fungus can also stand for the Golden Apples; both are fruit of a type.  And the fungus grows on the root of a primordial tree (the World Tree, in effect) and I set a Ladon-stand-in to guard it: Yak'roit'zei, the Coiling Guardian.  It isn't a dragon and it doesn't have a hundred heads, but it's equally fierce and dangerous.  Think ... giant centipede!  Ki'shto'ba doesn't kill Yak'roit'zei, however, and the Golden Fungus proves elusive.  To find out what does happen, you'll have to wait until v.4 is published.
       I didn't include Atlas in my adaptation.  It's just a little too incredible to conceive of Ki'shto'ba holding up the world!


       12.  The Capture of Cerberus.  The very last Labor contains the requisite visit of the epic hero to the Underworld, the Place of the Dead.  Heracles was charged to bring the dog Cerberus up from Tartarus.  During this daunting task, Heracles met the dead hero Meleager, who agreed to allow Heracles to marry his sisten Deianeira.  I mention this only because of the later repercussions in Heracles's life.  Heracles had many adventures in the Underworld, but ultimately Hades permitted him to capture Cerberus if he could do it without using weapons.  Here is a pertinent quotation from Robert Graves's Greek Myths (Section 134, The Twelfth Labor: The Capture of Cerberus):
       "Heracles ... resolutely gripped him by the throat -- from which rose three heads, each maned with serpents.  The barbed tail flew up to strike, but Heracles, protected by the lion pelt, did not relax his grip until Cerberus choked and yielded."
       Again, I must remark that the termite planet doesn't have any mammals, so I had to make my Cerberus character a reptile.  And Ki'shto'ba is great at wrestling.  Furthermore, he doesn't need a lion pelt, since Shshi Warriors are protected by their own very thick chitin shell!
       I'll have more to say about the journey into the Underworld in my next Hercules post.  Meanwhile, here is my drawing of Ki'shto'ba contending with No'dai'dru'zei, the Monster of the Pit.


Ki'shto'ba and Bu'gan'zei enter Mik Na'wei'tei'zi
(Place of Holy No-Seeing, the Underworld)
Click for larger view