The Consolation of Philosophy

He stripped the spoils from the savage lion,^e
And pierced the birds with certain arrows:^f
He snatched the apples from the watching dragon,^g
Heavier original: "læva" — here referring to the hand (the left) or the weight of the golden apples. with golden metal:
He dragged Cerberus with a triple chain:^h
The victor is said to have offered up the cruel
Master as fodder for savage chariots: referring to the myth of Diomedes of Thrace

He pulled the skin from the cruel lion, pierced the Stymphalian birds with inevitable weapons; he took the apples from the vigilant serpent, bearing the golden metal in his hand. He led the three-headed Cerberus with three chains. The victor is said to have offered the cruel Diomedes to be devoured by his own cruel horses. With the same Hercules as victor, the many-headed serpent

they rushed to the cave of Pholus, who had received Hercules as a guest, as if they were about to inflict an injury.

^e He stripped the spoils from the savage lion] The second labor of Hercules. In the Nemean forest, there was a lion of unusual size, impenetrable by either iron or bronze; whence they said it had fallen from heaven. Hercules pursued it and killed it by the sheer strength of his hands, and, dressed in the skin of the one he had killed, he walked about as long as he lived, protected from weapons.

^f He pierced the birds with certain arrows] The third labor of Hercules. The birds, called Stymphalian because they came from the city, mountain, or lake of Stymphalus, were reported to be of such size that they shadowed the rays of the sun, and of such rapacity that they devastated all of Arcadia. Hercules, as Diodorus Siculus says (Book IV), drove them away by building a bronze rattle and stirring up a huge sound with it; or rather, as Catullus explains in his verses, he pierced them with his arrows. Lucretius writes of these birds in Book V: "And the Arcadian birds, feared for their hooked talons, inhabiting Stymphalus."

^g He snatched the apples from the watching dragon, &c.] The fourth labor of Hercules. The Hesperides, daughters of Hesperus, who was the brother of Atlas—namely Aegle, Arethusa, and Hesperethusa—are said to have inhabited gardens near the city of Lixus in Mauretania, precious with golden trees and guarded by a watchful dragon. But Hercules killed the dragon and carried the stolen fruits to his stepfather Eurystheus. From that garden of the Hesperides, Venus is said to have received the golden apples, with which, when scattered, Hippomenes defeated Atalanta in the race. "Heavier than the left hand" original: "Lævam gravior": understand this phrase as "in respect to," just as it is said in Virgil, Aeneid Book 1, line 593: "Like to a god in face and shoulders."

^h He dragged Cerberus with a triple chain] The fifth labor of Hercules. Pirithous, son of Ixion, after his wife Hippodamia died, agreed with Theseus that they would take no wife unless she were born of Jove. Hence, Theseus abducted Helen. Pirithous, however, intending to abduct Proserpina, the spouse of Pluto, descended to the Underworld accompanied by Theseus and Hercules. But Pirithous was killed by Cerberus in the first encounter. When Theseus attempted to bring him aid, he himself came into the power of Pluto alive and was bound by him, until Hercules held Cerberus, the three-headed dog, bound in a triple chain. We spoke of Cerberus in Metre 12 of Book III.

^i The victor [offered] the cruel [master], &c.] The sixth labor of Hercules. Diomedes, King of Thrace, "was so stingy with his barley," says Apuleius in Book VII of the Metamorphoses, "that he satisfied the hunger of his voracious beasts with the distribution of human bodies." Whence Ovid writes: "Does the image of cruel Diomedes not come to you, he who fed his horses with human flesh?" But Hercules subjected this tyrant to be devoured by those very horses.