Hera, who herself had raised Hydra under a plane tree near the source of Amymoni, placed her, like her accomplice crayfish, in the sky as a constellation.Īnother rational interpretation of the myth, wants Lernos (the king of the area named by him) did not recognize the primacy of Eurystheus in the wider region which included, apart from Lern, cities such as Argos, Mycenae, Tyrrhenia, each with its own king. This poison was one of the components of the so-called love filter that Nessos revealed to Dianeira - it was made from the blood infected with Chiron’s wound, so instead of rekindling Heracles’ love for Dianeira, it eventually caused his death. When he injured the Centaur Chiron with them, the centaur washed his wound in the waters of the river Anigros, which springs from the Arcadian mountain of Lapithos, and since then a bad smell emerges from there, nor are the fishes of this river suitable for eating.
With the blood of Hydra, Heracles poisoned his arrows. Eurystheus, however, said that this feat should not be counted, because he did not defeat Hydra alone but with Iolaus. In this way, after escaping from the heads that were constantly sprouting, Heracles cut her immortal head and burried it under a huge rock on the road that passed through Lerna towards Eleounda. So, first he killed the crayfish and then he asked for the help of Iolaus, who burned part of the nearby forest and scorching with torches the points from which the heads sprouted, did not let any more heads to come out. Hydra was assisted by a giant crayfish that bit his foot in the heel. Heracles, although had cut off her heads with his bat (or with a curved sword), could not exterminate her because, when he cut off one head, two sprouted in its place. She wrapped around one of his legs and immobilized him. When she came out, he caught her and held her tight. Then he stopped the horses and found the water snake on a hill near the springs of Amymoni river, where her nest was, and striking her with a fiery arrows, he compelled her to come out of the nest. Heracles boarded a chariot driven by Iolaus and reached Lerna. Her breathing was deadly even when she was asleep, wreaking havoc on the country’s crops and herds. In Hellenistic times it was said that the central head was female, from which snakes sprouted instead of hair, as in the head of Medusa. Heracles‘ second task that was set by Eurystheus, was to kill the Lernaean hydra, a water snake that was huge, with nine heads, eight were mortal, one, the middle one, was immortal.
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