Editing Heracles (section)

====Marriages====

During the course of his life, Heracles married four times.

* Heracles waged a victorious war against the kingdom of Orchomenus in Boeotia and married his first wife [[Megara (wife of Heracles)|Megara]], daughter of Creon, king of Thebes. But he killed their children in a fit of madness sent by Hera and, consequently, was obliged to become the servant of Eurystheus. According to Pseudo-Apollodorus (Bibliotheca, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.+2.4.12&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022 2.4.12]) Megara was unharmed. According to Hyginus (Fabulae, 32), Heracles also killed Megara.
[[File:HeraclesLocoObraTeatral.jpg|thumb|263x263px|An insane Heracles is depicted killing his son while Megara stands horrified on the right side of the scene ([[National Archaeological Museum, Madrid]], c. 350–320 B.C.E.)]]
* His second wife was [[Omphale]], the [[Lydia]]n queen to whom he was delivered as a slave (Hyginus, Fabulae, 32).
* His third marriage was to [[Deianira]], for whom he had to fight the river god [[Achelous]] (upon Achelous's defeat, Heracles removed one of his horns and gave it to some nymphs who turned it into the [[cornucopia]]). Soon after they wed, Heracles and Deianira had to cross a river, and a [[centaur]] named [[Nessus (mythology)|Nessus]] offered to help Deianira across but then attempted to [[rape]] her. Enraged, Heracles shot the centaur from the opposite shore with a poisoned arrow (tipped with the Lernaean Hydra's blood) and killed him. As he lay dying, Nessus plotted revenge, told Deianira to gather up his blood and spilled semen and, if she ever wanted to prevent Heracles from having affairs with other women, she should apply them to his vestments. Nessus knew that his blood had become tainted by the poisonous blood of the Hydra, and would burn through the skin of anyone it touched. Later, when Deianira suspected that Heracles was fond of [[Iole]], she soaked a shirt of his in the mixture, creating the poisoned [[shirt of Nessus]]. Heracles's servant, [[Lichas]], brought him the shirt and he put it on. Instantly he was in agony, the cloth burning into him. As he tried to remove it, the flesh ripped from his bones. Heracles chose a voluntary death, asking that a [[pyre]] be built for him to end his suffering. After death, the gods transformed him into an immortal, or alternatively, the fire burned away the mortal part of the demigod, so that only the god remained. After his mortal parts had been incinerated, he could become a full god and join his father and the other Olympians on [[Mount Olympus (Mountain)|Mount Olympus]].
* His fourth marriage was to [[Hebe (mythology)|Hebe]], his last wife.