mythology
The subject of mythology deals mainly with the notion of battle, or good versus evil. In this struggle many individuals are singled out for either the evil they cause, or from the good they bring to people. When you mention heroes in mythology, there are two distinct names that a majority of people bring up, those names are Achilles and Hercules. Achilles was born to King Peleus and the sea-nymph Thetis. Soonafter Achilles was born his mother dipped him in the River Styx, she was told, by doing this, that the water would make every part of his body that it touched invincible. Little did she know that the one part of his heel which he was held by would not touch the water. When Achilles mother found out about the war in Troy between the Greeks and the Trojans she did not want her son to fight because she knew that he would eventually be killed there. The way that she tried to preventhim from going into the army was to hide him among the women of the court sothat he could not be persuaded by his close friend Odysseus to join the Greek forces. While trying to find Achilles, Odysseus easily spotted him among the women, and persuaded him to join the Greek army. After many years of battle with the Trojan forces, Achilles ended up ina fa
med duel with Trojan hero Hector, over the slaying of Achilles close friend Patroclus. After killing Hector, Achilles tied his dead body behind a chariot and dragged around the walls of Troy seven times to show his hatred and anger towards the Trojans and their hero. Shortly after the famed battle, Achilles was killed when he was struck, with a poisonous arrow, in the one small spot on his heel which was vulnerable. The arrow was fired by the Trojan prince Paris and was guided by the sun god Apollo. Hercules was the strongest and swiftest man ever to walk the earth. As the son of Zeus and mortal woman Alcmene, Hercules was destined to be a hero. This destiny was shown before he was one year old. Enraged at his affair with a mortal woman, Zeus' wife Hera set out on a plot to kill Hercules. One night after Alcmene put her children to bed, Hercules' twin brother Iphicles was awoken by two huge serpents that were sent by Hera to kill the son of Zeus. When Hercules awoke he grasped the two snakes in order to play with them, and squeezed the life right out of them. When Alcmeneawoke to see what all the commotion was about, she was amazed at the sight of her infant son holding two snakes that he had killed with his bare hands. When Hercules grew to manhood, he married and had six sons, and again fell victim to Hera's hatred towards him. What Hera did was send a fitof madness upon Hercules who mistook his wife and children for enemies and killed them. When his sanity returned he realised what he had done he shut himself up from the world for a long time. After a long time in seclusion Hercules finally emerged and went to the Oracle of Delphi to beg for punishment for his crime. Hercules was sent to King Eurystheus and toldthat the king would assign a punishment to Hercules. The punishment was to perform twelve nearly impossible tasks which are known as the twelvelabours of Hercules. The first of these tasks was to kill and skin the Nemean Lion, whose skin could not be punctured by any weapon. His second labour was to killthe
Some common words found in the essay are:
Trojan War, Zeus Hercules, Nessus Hercules, Garden Hesperides, Hector Achilles, Alcmene Hercules, Mount Olympus, , Achilles Odysseus, King Eurystheus, king eurystheus, close friend, achilles born, bring king eurystheus, bring king, greek hero, friend patroclus, labour hercules, human flesh, close friend patroclus, garden hesperides, dipped river,
Approximate Word count = 1368
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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