From ptrourke@ziplink.net Sun Mar 28 06:34:30 1999 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id GAA16910 for ; Sun, 28 Mar 1999 06:34:29 -0800 Received: from ziplink.net (relay-0.ziplink.net [206.15.168.49]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.02/8.9.3+UW99.01) with ESMTP id GAA15290 for ; Sun, 28 Mar 1999 06:34:29 -0800 Received: from patricktrourke (1Cust240.tnt2.danvers.ma.da.uu.net [153.35.113.240]) by ziplink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA21821 for ; Sun, 28 Mar 1999 09:34:27 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <001601be7928$15b3a4e0$f0712399@patricktrourke> From: "Patrick T. Rourke" To: "Classics List" Subject: Heroic Hercules Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 09:33:38 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2014.211 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2014.211 >I was wondering, would you say hercules is a hero in our times? i read somewhere that it was his pure >physical strength that made him a hero to the Greeks, despite his rashness and his lack of intellect. >Looking at some of today's movies, it seems that such physical strength is still considered heroic. >But... well, any thoughts? thanks. Sure. Read the "Women of Trachis" of Sophocles, and especially the "Heracles" of Euripides; probably also read the "Shield of Heracles" attributed to Hesiod, and the account of his labors in the "Library" or "Bibliotheca" attributed to Apollodorus; finally, read the "Alcestis" of Euripides. Though his physical strength is displayed in all five works, in most of them there is something else that makes him truly heroic. What is that something else? Ah, you'll have to read them to find out. As for "lack of intellect" - well, compared to Odysseus, perhaps, or the intellectual characters (most of them villains or victims) in Greek heroic mythology like Palamedes, Daedalus, etc. But you decide. I'm answering your question so elliptically, by the way, because I suspect it's midterm essay time, and if you just quote what I've said above in an essay without reading the works I mention, your instructor will know for sure that you used this list as your "resource" in asking that question. And if I'm wrong and you're asking merely for your own enlightenment, well, reading those four works certainly won't hurt you. As for Heracles as a modern hero: well, a woman I work with watches the TV show so she can see Kevin Sorbo's secondary features on full display. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a coherent answer to that part of your question. P. T. Rourke ptrourke@ziplink.net http://www.ziplink.net/~ptrourke/ .