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“And all the grove and altar of Pagasaean Apollo flamed because of the dread god [Ares] and because of his arms; for his eyes flashed as with fire. What mortal men would have dared to meet him face to face saved Heracles and glorious Iolaus? For great was their strength and unconquerable were the arms which grew from their shoulders on their strong limbs.”
Introduction
Hesiod’s Shield of Heracles is a poem about a duel between the legendary Heracles1 and a son of Ares named Cycnus. It seems to be the author’s attempt at writing a mini epic poem. It’s called Shield of Heracles because of the lengthy description of Heracles’ shield which shows strong influences of Homer’s description of Achilles’ shield in the Iliad (Book 18). In fact, a number of lines seem to be ripped straight from Homer’s work.
It is generally agreed that, while it is a poem that dates to around Hesiod’s time, Hesiod didn’t compose Shield—though it is still lumped with his other works when they appear in collections. Thanks to college, I knew this before I started writing on Hesiod, so I looked into it a little more. It turns out the author of Shield also lifted many lines from Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women (a work that has only survived in fragments). And this is my observation (or, at least, this thought came to me without reading it somewhere): the author does not defer to the Muses in his work. The only time the Muses show up is in the description of Heracles’ shield. However, the usual reverence toward Zeus, which is prominent in both Theogony and Works and Days, makes its appearance.
I had read Theogony and Works and Days in college, but I had never even glanced at Shield until I wanted to write about it for my blog. This piqued my curiosity of the work and I was looking forward to finally getting to it. My opinions of the poem will be below.
All quotes from the Shield of Heracles are taken from the Hugh G. Evelyn-White translation which is in the public domain. If you want a modern translation, the only other one I have experience with is by Apostolos N. Athanassakis. Athanassakis translated the three major works of Hesiod which appear in one volume. He also translated the Homeric Hymns, another valuable, though lesser known, source for ancient Greek mythology.
Summary
The poet starts his work by explaining Heracles’ birth. There was a man named Amphitryon who married the beautiful and wise Alcmene. After Amphitryon killed Alcmene’s father in a dispute, the couple fled to Thebes and were accepted as suppliants.
Amphitryon vowed he wouldn’t sleep with his wife until he avenged her brothers’ death who were killed by people who burned their villages down. While Amphitryon was out, the king of the gods Zeus plotted for the perfect opportunity to sleep with Alcmene because he desired her. After Zeus slept with her, Amphitryon just happened to come back that same night, successful in avenging Alcmene’s brothers, and slept with her as well. Alcmene ended up giving birth to twins: Heracles, who was Zeus’ offspring, and Iphiclus, who was Amphitryon’s.
The poet then switches focus to the subject of the poem: Heracles’ duel with Cycnus. Not only is Cycnus deterring Heracles from going to the city of Trachis, but Cycnus has also been desecrating sacrifices made to Apollo on his sacred land. This aroused Apollo’s ire and he made sure the duel between Heracles and Cycnus would happen so Heracles could kill him.
On one side of the duel is Heracles and his charioteer Iolaus. Iolaus is the son of Iphiclus and therefore Heracles’ nephew. On the other side is Cycnus, the son-in-law of the king of Trachis and a son of Ares, the god of war. Ares himself is the charioteer.
Athena comes down from Olympus and instructs Heracles that, when he kills Cycnus, he’s to hold off on stripping his armor until Ares is dealt with. She then gets into Heracles’ chariot and they engage Cycnus and Ares.
Heracles tries to talk Cycnus out of dueling, but he refuses to listen. Eventually, both jump off their chariots and fight close quarters. Heracles quickly dispatches Cycnus, leaving Ares furious. After Athena deflects Ares’ spear, he leaps out of the chariot and attacks Heracles. However, Heracles finds an opening in Ares’ defense and wounds him in the thigh. Ares is carried up back to Olympus by Panic and Dread and Athena leaves soon after. Heracles and Iolaus strip Cycnus’ armor and head for Trachis.
Cycnus is buried by his father-in-law, but his grave and memorial are soon blotted out by the local river under orders from Apollo.
Shields as Reflections of the World
As I mentioned in the introduction, the poem is called Shield of Heracles for its lengthy description of Heracles’ shield, which takes a page out of the Iliad which gives a lengthy description of Achilles’ new shield. Both are forged by Hephaestus. Both more or less depict civilization. However, there are clear differences between the two.
Heracles’ shield is clearly a shield meant to spook his enemies with frightful images of Fear, Strife, and Medusa, as well as a graphic depiction of the Fates taking the dead or draining away men’s lives. It’s clearly meant for a man who faced monstrous beings like the Hydra and the Nemean Lion and pitted himself against many different men and armies.
Achilles’ shield, on the other hand, has fewer depictions of violence and more depictions of daily life. Achilles lived in a post-Heracles world—a world that could flourish because it wasn’t being terrorized by monsters and other ghastly beings. Even though Achilles was a violent and powerful man himself, he didn’t have to kill a swarm of man-eating birds or traverse Hades and bring back Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog. His only opponents were humans, or offspring of gods, like himself.
In this regard, I think the author of Shield nailed it. In the world of Heracles, violence and death were a lot more prominent. The lines between mythology and reality were far more blurred. The insecurities that come with having less mastery over nature were more greatly felt. The author reflected this in Heracles’ shield.
Trying to Emulate The Best
It seems that the author, whoever it was, tried his best to copy the style of Homer’s Iliad. This is a reflection of how deeply Homer influenced the Greek world. When people try to imitate your work, you know you’ve left an impression. It’s a testament to the fact that Homer was indeed one of the greats.
In my opinion though, the author came up short in his imitation. However, I don’t want to be too negative, so rather than just calling the author a “Homer wannabe” and moving on, I want to see if I can notice the flaws and offer advice.
The first, and most obvious, criticism is the fact the author straight up copied other works. They say imitation is flattery, but plagiarism is not imitation.2 If you’re going to lift from another work, at least rework it in your own words and add your own style.
Another criticism is the author’s use of Homeric descriptions. Homer has an interesting way of describing situations—at least for the modern reader. Here’s a random example I found in the Iliad, Book 4:
As when some woman of Meonia or Caria strains purple dye on to a piece of ivory that is to be the cheek-piece of a horse, and is to be laid up in a treasure house- many a knight is fain to bear it, but the king keeps it as an ornament of which both horse and driver may be proud- even so, O Menelaus, were your shapely thighs and your legs down to your fair ancles stained with blood.
Samuel Butler translation
The Iliad is full of descriptions like this throughout, and if I recall correctly, most or all of these descriptions are used in violent situations. You can close your eyes and picture ivory, a white material, as the dye touches it and gradually spreads throughout the material. Then, you can transfer that picture over to a man whose blood gradually spreads throughout his clothes from the spot he is wounded.
The author of Shield also employed this style of description in his poem. There’s just one issue: he uses this style of description to describe the duel between Heracles and Cycnus… three times in a row! And then the duel happens and Cycnus is dead. Just like that. The descriptions combined are about twice as long as the duel itself.
The author then uses the Homeric description two times in a row to describe the heat of the moment when Heracles and Ares face each other. Aside from the interruption by Athena to try and talk Ares down, the duel is once again shorter than the description of the moment.
There’s an important lesson here: less is more. In this instance, I think the author would have been better off using one Homeric description per duel and leaving it at that.
Another criticism is the duels themselves. Homer is lot more descriptive about the duels and fights that occur in the Iliad. His writing is more graphic in the depiction of a weapon inflicting damage on a human body. He brings the reader onto the battlefield to witness the carnage the warriors themselves witness. However, with Shield, there’s just something missing.
Here’s a description of the first kill in the Iliad, which is again in Book 4 (there are far more descriptive action scenes in the Iliad, but I want to be fair):
First Antilochus slew an armed warrior of the Trojans, Echepolus, son of Thalysius, fighting in the foremost ranks. He struck at the projecting part of his helmet and drove the spear into his brow; the point of bronze pierced the bone, and darkness veiled his eyes; headlong as a tower he fell amid the press of the fight…
Samuel Butler translation
And here’s the description in Shield:
But the son of Amphitryon, mighty Heracles, with his long spear struck Cycnus violently in the neck beneath the chin, where it was unguarded between helm and shield. And the deadly spear cut through the two sinews; for the hero’s full strength lighted on his foe. And Cycnus fell as an oak falls or a lofty pine that is stricken by the lurid thunderbolt of Zeus…
Hugh G. Evelyn-White translation
Yes, both descriptions are pretty similar—and that’s kind of my point. In the excerpt from the Iliad, the person being killed is some random Trojan. Even then, it’s slightly more descriptive because we, the audience, watch as that Trojan’s body become lifeless. And like I said, this isn’t even the best of the descriptions in the Iliad—just the first one. There are men losing blood, organs, and limbs. There are men crying out in pain or even crying out to their comrades. Others have flashbacks to their lives back home. And with the deaths of the more important characters in the story, there is drama as well.
In Shield, we really don’t get that. This duel between Heracles and Cycnus is the centerpiece of the poem. Why isn’t the duel a little longer? Where is the drama? How is there no blood? Cycnus doesn’t say a single word throughout the poem. Why not?
And this is Heracles for crying out loud. The strongest man in Greek legend. He “violently” pierced the guy through the chin and didn’t take his head off? Or, at least, knocked out some teeth or cut his tongue in half or drain him of his blood? The author could have at least borrowed from some of the best of Homer when it comes to descriptions of combat.
That’s really all I have for criticisms. In the end, I found Shield to be the least interesting of the three works ascribed to Hesiod that have survived in tact. Unless you really want to read everything the ancient Greeks put out, or if you want to be a Hesiod or Heracles expert, just stick with Theogony and Works and Days. Those two works are far more interesting, thought provoking, and essential in understanding Greek mythology and Greek thought.
That’s all for Shield of Heracles.
The next paid post will be on the Homeric Hymns.
May your days be filled with grace.
-Andronikos
Thumbnail: Calliope, Muse of Epic Poetry by Charles Meynier. 1798. Courtesy of The Cleveland Museum of Art.
1Heracles = Hercules. Heracles is the Greek while Hercules is the Latin.
2Yes, yes. I know there was no concept of plagiarism and intellectual property in the ancient world.