Name: The myth of Hercules: 12 labors in 8-bits - Alex Gendler
Uploaded: 2020-03-19T19:41:57.000Z
Duration: 7 min 51 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hercules, son of Zeus  and champion of humankind,

he had just committed  the most unspeakable crime imaginable.

The goddess Hera, who hated Hercules  for being born of her husband’s adultery,

had stricken him  with a temporary curse of madness.

Consumed by grief, Hercules sought out  the Oracle of Delphi,

who told him the path to atonement lay with his cousin,

King Eurystheus of Tiryns,  a favorite of Hera’s.

Eurystheus hoped to humiliate Hercules  with ten impossible tasks

that pitted him against  invincible monsters

Instead, the king set the stage  for an epic series of adventures

that would come to be known  as the Labors of Hercules.

The first labor was  to slay the Nemean Lion,

who kidnapped women  and devoured warriors.

but Hercules cornered  the lion in its dark cave,

He found no tool sharp enough  to skin the beast,

until the goddess Athena suggested  using one of its own claws.

Hercules returned to Tiryns  wearing the lion’s hide,

frightening King Eurystheus so much  that he hid in a wine jar.

to present his trophies  at a safe distance.

The second target was the Lernaean Hydra, a giant serpent with many heads.

but every time he cut one head off, two more grew in its place.

until his nephew Iolaus thought  to cauterize the necks with fire,

The dead serpent’s remains  became the Hydra constellation.

Instead of slaying a beast,  Hercules next had to catch one, alive.

The Ceryneian Hind was a female deer  so fast it could outrun an arrow.

finally trapping it in the northern land  of Hyperborea.

The animal turned out to be sacred  to Artemis, goddess of the hunt,

When Eurystheus saw the hind,  he demanded to keep it instead,

but as soon as Hercules let go, the animal ran to its mistress.

Thus, Hercules completed his task  without breaking his promise.

The fourth mission was to capture  the Erymanthian boar,

Hercules trapped it  by chasing it into thick snow.

For the fifth task, there were no animals, just their leftovers.

The stables where King Augeas  kept his hundreds of divine cattle

Hercules promised to clean them in one day

if he could keep one-tenth  of the livestock.

rerouting two nearby rivers to flow  through the stables

each requiring  a clever strategy to defeat.

The carnivorous Stymphalian birds  nested in an impenetrable swamp,

but Hercules used Athena’s special rattle  to frighten them into the air,

No mortal could stand before  the Cretan bull’s mad rampage,

but a chokehold  from behind did the trick.

who had trained his horses  to devour his guests,

when Hercules wrestled him  into his own stables.

The ensuing feast calmed the beasts  enough for Hercules to bind their mouths.

But the ninth labor involved someone  more dangerous than any beast,

Hercules was to retrieve the belt given to her by her father Ares, the god of war.

He sailed to the Amazon land of Themyscira prepared for battle,

but the queen was so impressed  with the hero and his exploits

Hercules had to steal a herd  of magical red cattle from Geryon,

a giant with three heads and three bodies.

On his way, Hercules was so annoyed  by the Libyan desert heat

The sun god Helios admired  the hero’s strength

and lent his chariot for the journey  to the island of Erytheia.

There, Hercules fought off  Geryon’s herdsman

and his two-headed dog,  before killing the giant himself.

But Eurystheus announced  that two labors hadn’t counted:

the Hydra, because Iolaus  had helped Hercules kill it,

and the stables,  because he’d accepted payment.

And so, the hero set  about his eleventh task,

obtaining golden apples from  the garden of the Hesperides nymphs.

Hercules began by catching  the Old Man of the Sea

and holding the shape-shifting water-god until he revealed the garden’s location.

Once there, the hero found the titan Atlas holding up the heavens.

Hercules offered to take his place  if Atlas would retrieve the apples.

Atlas eagerly complied, but Hercules then tricked him into trading places again,

The twelfth and final task  was to bring back Cerberus,

the three-headed hound  guarding the underworld.

Helped by Hermes and Athena,  Hercules descended and met Hades himself.

The lord of the dead allowed Hercules  to take the beast

which he achieved by grabbing  all three of its heads at once.

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The myth of Hercules: 12 labors in 8-bits - Alex Gendler

thrive

trick

consume

track