The Consolation of Philosophy

The final labor bore the heavens with unbent p
Neck, and again the heavens earned the price
Of the final labor.
Go now, you brave ones, where q the high path
Of a great example leads: r why do you inert ones
Expose your backs? s The conquered earth
Grants the stars.

was about to press. The final labor of Hercules finally rests in this, that he carried the heavens with an unbent neck; whence he again earned heaven, just as if it were a reward, especially for his final labor. Therefore, come on, noble men, since the great example shows you the sublime path; why do you sluggish ones show your back by fleeing? The conquered earth gives heaven.

NOTES

...because it was not killed, it is said here only that it "marked with foam" the shoulders of Hercules, which "the high heavens were about to press," since Hercules is said to have carried the heavens on his shoulders; whence

p The final labor bore the heavens with unbent neck] The twelfth labor of Hercules. Atlas, King of Mauretania, is said to have sustained the heavens on his shoulders; to free him from such a burden, Hercules placed his own shoulders under the heavens. By this final labor, he especially earned heaven and was translated into the college of the Gods, into the star of Mars, as some think. Moreover, the descriptions of all these labors of Hercules are so frequent among the poets that we have thought the poems written by no single poet on this subject needed to be referenced. But we must not omit here what the most learned Huetius recently published in his golden book of Evangelical Demonstration concerning Hercules, namely Proposition IV regarding the book of Joshua, number 13. "This is the widespread opinion of learned men," he says, "that there were many Hercules, and that the deeds of all were gathered by the Greeks into one Theban Hercules, or rather that the name of Hercules was imposed upon every brave man. Diodorus establishes three: the Egyptian, the Cretan, and the Theban. Arrian, in Book II of the Expedition of Alexander, establishes three: the Egyptian, the Tyrian, and the Greek; to whom he adds the Indian besides, in his Indica, from Megasthenes. Others consider the Phoenician to be the most ancient, the second the Egyptian, and the last and more recent the Theban. Some acknowledge two Egyptians; Herodotus, two Greeks, one a God, the other a Hero; Cicero, six; others, twelve; some even far more. I establish that there was only one, and that he was Joshua; for you see that what is attributed to others can all be conveniently referred to Joshua."

q Where] A place is not signified here; otherwise it would have been necessary to say "whither it leads." But rather the reason why brave men must go, just as Cicero said: "Where once someone has perjured himself, he should not be believed afterwards."

r The path of a great example leads] Of Agamemnon, Ulysses, and Hercules, by whose labors we are taught that the path of vice is easy but the end bitter, while the path of virtue is difficult but the exit sweet. Seneca in Hercules Oetaeus, line 1983: "Renowned virtue is never carried to the Stygian shadows: live bravely, and the Fates will not drag you through the Lethean rivers; but when the exhausted day demands the final hours, glory will open the path to those above."