Editing Lernaean Hydra (section)

==Second Labor of Heracles==
[[File:Antonio del Pollaiolo - Ercole e l'Idra e Ercole e Anteo - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|alt=Hercules and the Hydra, c. 1475, Uffizi Gallery|[[Antonio del Pollaiuolo|Pollaiuolo]]'s ''Hercules and the Hydra'' ({{circa|lk=no|1475}}). [[Uffizi|Uffizi Gallery]], [[Florence]], [[Italy]]]]

[[Eurystheus]], the king of the [[Tiryns]], sent Heracles (or Hercules) to slay the Hydra, which [[Hera]] had raised just to slay Heracles. Upon reaching the swamp near [[Lerna|Lake Lerna]], where the Hydra dwelt, Heracles covered his mouth and nose with a cloth to protect himself from the poisonous fumes. He shot flaming arrows into the Hydra's lair, the spring of [[Amymone]], a deep cave from which it emerged only to terrorize neighboring villages.{{sfnp|Kerenyi|1959|p=144}} He then confronted the Hydra, wielding either a harvesting [[sickle]] (according to some early vase-paintings), a sword, or his famed club. Heracles then attempted to cut off the Hydra's heads but each time that he did so, one or two more heads (depending on the source) would grow back in its place. The Hydra was invulnerable as long as it retained at least one head.

The struggle is described by the mythographer ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]]'':<ref>[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng1:2.5.2 2.5.2].</ref> realizing that he could not defeat the Hydra in this way, Heracles called on his nephew [[Iolaus]] for help. His nephew then came upon the idea (possibly inspired by [[Athena]]) of using a firebrand to scorch the neck stumps after each decapitation. Heracles cut off each head and Iolaus [[Cauterization|cauterized]] the open stumps. Seeing that Heracles was winning the struggle, [[Hera]] sent a giant crab to distract him. He crushed it under his mighty foot. The Hydra's one immortal head was cut off with a golden sword given to Heracles by Athena. Heracles placed the head&mdash;still alive and writhing&mdash;under a great rock on the sacred way between Lerna and Elaius,{{sfnp|Kerenyi|1959|p=144}} and dipped his arrows in the Hydra's poisonous blood. Thus, his second task was complete.

The alternate version of this myth is that after cutting off one head he then dipped his sword in its neck and used its venom to burn each head so it could not grow back. Hera, upset that Heracles had slain the beast she raised to kill him, placed it in the dark blue vault of the sky as the [[constellation]] [[Hydra (constellation)|Hydra]]. She then turned the crab into the constellation [[Cancer (constellation)|Cancer]].

Heracles would later use arrows dipped in the Hydra's poisonous blood to kill other foes during his remaining labors, such as [[Stymphalian Birds]] and the giant [[Geryon]]. He later used one to kill the centaur [[Nessus (mythology)|Nessus]]; and Nessus' tainted blood was applied to the [[Tunic of Nessus]], by which the centaur had his posthumous revenge. Both [[Strabo]] and [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] report that the stench of the river Anigrus in Elis, making all the fish of the river inedible, was reputed to be due to the Hydra's poison, washed from the arrows Heracles used on the centaur.<ref>[[Strabo]], 8.3.19</ref><ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], 5.5.9</ref>{{sfnp|Grimal|1986|p=219}}

When Eurystheus, the agent of Hera who was assigning [[The Twelve Labors]] to Heracles, found out that Iolaus had handed Heracles the firebrand, he declared that the labor had not been completed alone and as a result did not count toward the ten labors set for him. The mythic element is an equivocating attempt to resolve the submerged conflict between an ancient ten labors and a more recent twelve.