Book 9

Question 1

Achelous and Hercules

Answer 1

• Theseus asks Acheleous how he lost his power. Achelous doesn’t want to tell him but does.
• Achelous had fallen in love with Deianira, who was a bit of a slut. he asks her father for her hand in marriage. hercules had also asked her father the same thing around the same time.
• hercules says “im jupiter’s kid, and i help my stepmom a lot” acheloud says “if he really is jupiter’s kid, then he’s a bastard bc jupiter cheated.”
• hercules gets mad and says “oh you may win w words, but i can beat you up easy.” they start to wrestle but eventually hercules grips achelous’s throat and brings him to his knees. achelous changes into a snake, hercules grips him again, and achelous changes into a bull, but hercules pulls off one of his horns.
• when achelous finishes his story a nymph comes with said horn holding fruit and theseus and his friends decide “ok we’re leaving tomorrow”

Question 2

Hercules and Nessus

Answer 2

• in a similarish story, nessus (a centuar) is fatally wounded trying to compete with hercules for deinaria (why tf does she sleep w so many people?!). after defeating achelous, hercules travels home w deianira, but they come past an impassible river.
• nessus tells hercules that he will carry deianira while hercules swims.
• when hercules reaches land, he hears his wife scream, and yells that nessus is a monster for trying to rape his wife. hercules shoots him w a bow and arrow and nessus says that hercules will pay for killing him then hands deianira his short, telling her that is will make hercules horny.

Question 3

The Death of Hercules

Answer 3

• years later when hercules becomes more popular, juno gets angry bc obv he’s a bastard. she send the goddes rumour to deianira. rumour tells deianira that hercules has fallen in love with lole, a princess from a city hercules has helped.
• deianira things of how to react, either run away or kill lole. she decides instead to give hercules the shirt from earlier. hercules puts it on and sits in front of his altar to jupiter.
• the shirt starts to burn him and hercules goes crazy, stating that this is worse than all the crazy things juno has made him do.
• hercules asks a servant to kill him, but the guy refuses. hercules kills the guy, builds his own burial site, and sits there waiting to die.
• the gods freak out, but jupiter is like “calm down i know he was a great guy but he was a great guy bc of me. besides only the human part of him dies, not the godly part.” when he dies he goes up to join the gods.

Question 4

Alcmena and Galanthis

Answer 4

• when hercules died, lole married his son hyllus bc hercules said so and she becomes pregnant. alcmena, hercules mother, tells her she hopes the gods will be kinder w her brith.
• when alcmena went into labor, she said the pain was unbearable. she prayed to Lucina the goddess of childbirth beggin for help but lucina ignorned her. Galanthis, one of Alcmena’s servants, realised juno was cursing alcmena, so she lied to lucina and told her alcmena had given birth when she really hadn’t and lucina lifted the curse.
• lucina was furious at being tricked and turned the servant into a weasel.

Question 5

Dryope

Answer 5

• lole is like “oh you think that story sucks, wait until you hear mine.”
• her sister dryope, who wasn’t a virgin bc of apollo, had married well.
• one day dryope is walking through the woods, nursing her kid and picks up a lotus. lole notices the lotus dripping blood.
• dryope hadn’t known it was really a nymph who was escaping a man who tried raping her. dryope tries to apologize, but then her feet are rooted to teh floor.
• bark starts covering her limbs, her father and husband find them and they all cry sauing she did nothing wrong.
• lole takes the baby and she fully turns into a tree.

Question 6

Iolaus and Callirhoe’s Sons

Answer 6

• alcmena and lole cry over their stories and look up to see a young man
• it was lolaus, a man who had been restored to youth by hebe (the goddess of yuoth and one of hercules’s wife)
• After Hebe had answered Hercules’s prayer to restore youth to his son, she swore never to do this for anyone else again. However, a complicated civil dispute in Thebes leads Callirhoe, the wife of Alcmaeon who was murdered, to ask Jupiter to put the years that were taken off Iolaus’s life onto her sons’ lives so they can avenge their father. To this end, Jupiter makes use of Hebe’s gift of restoring youth.

Question 7

Miletus

Answer 7

• after hebe adds years to callirhoe’s sons’ lives, the gods cry in outrage. why can’t they also choose who to age or unage? jupiter saus leave it to the fates.
• then he talks about minos, who jupiter wants to revive. he used to be powerful but when he got old, he started to fear miletus, apollo’s strong young son.
• miletus moves away on his own accord, and created a new city in asia, there he marries a nymph and has twins byblis and caunus.

Question 8

Byblis

Answer 8

• as the twins grow, byblis starts to love her brother like more than just a brother (gross). she dreams of being with him and becoming one body. (gross)
• she wishes that she could be with him and hates the day that someone else will have his kids. she writes him a letter w her feelinfs (gross)
• she goes deep in detail about how the two should be together (gross) and he reads it. he is appalled and angry (duh)
• the servant tells byblis that caunus was like “hell no” and she decides “im gonna tell him in person to calm him. he flees (duh)
• byblis wastes away crying over this and when she dies the nymphs who were trying to comfort her collected her tears and used them in a mountian spring named after her.

Question 9

Iphis

Answer 9

• after byblis’s transformation, something familiar happened in crete. a man and woman are expecting a baby. th eman tells his wife he only wants a boy if its a girl, kill it.
• close to her due date, she dreams that iris tells her she must raise the baby despite its gender. she has a girl. she conceals it from the husband and the baby is raised a boy.
• 13 years later, iphis’s father arranges for her/him to marry a girl named ianthe. ianthe is so excited to sleep with him/her on their wedding night, but iphis is scared cause she doesnt have apenis. iphis is like wtf do i do i dont have a penis and i wanna marry ianthe. she even thinks of asking deadalus.
• iphis’s mother is also freaking out and tries to delay the wedding. she goes to iris’s temple and asks for help. the temple trembles and iphis can feel herself becoming stronger and more vigorous. she becomes he and marries ianthe.