The Entire Life of Heracles: From the Cradle to the Pyre | Myths for Sleep

The whole story of Heracles from Greek mythology, told slowly from Apollodorus and Ovid: his birth and Hera's anger, the twelve labours from the Nemean lion to Cerberus, and his death and rising on Mount Oeta. Tonight's story is the whole life of Heracles, the hero the Romans called Hercules, from his cradle in Thebes to the twelve labours and the quiet mountain where his story ends. We will follow it mostly as the mythographer Apollodorus tells it, with Diodorus and Ovid beside him. If you would like more of these old stories, you can save this one or subscribe before sleep comes. The labours of Heracles lasted because they are a whole life in one story: a man pushed by a goddess's anger into twelve impossible tasks, and the gods' reward at the end. Most people know them from films, but in the ancient sources the oracle first asked for only ten labours, and the story does not end with Cerberus but on a quiet funeral pyre on Mount Oeta. CHAPTERS 0:00 The Child Hera Could Not Stop 6:53 Thespiae, Megara and the Oracle 13:35 The Lion of Nemea and the Hydra of Lerna 22:32 The Hind, the Boar and the Stables 30:53 Birds, a Bull, Wild Mares and a Belt 38:32 Toward the Setting Sun 46:41 The Hound at the Gate 52:09 The Lion Skin on Mount Oeta SOURCES - Labours of Hercules - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labours_of_Hercules - Heracles - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracles - Apollodorus, The Library, Book 2, trans. J. G. Frazer - Theoi - https://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus2.html - Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 9, trans. Brookes More - Theoi - https://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses9.html - Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Book 4, trans. C. H. Oldfather - Theoi - https://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4A.html - Hercules - Mark Cartwright, World History Encyclopedia - https://www.worldhistory.org/herakles/ Where the sources disagree, the narration says so. Illustrations are artistic reconstructions created with AI tools; narration voice is synthetic. #mythology #greekmythology #documentary