Liv shares an episode of Ancient History Fangirl, Genn and Jenny have a story to share... That time Heracles, the strong man, son of Zeus and noted impenetrable penetrator, lived as a woman. Yes, you read that right. And not only did he live as a woman, he was the submissive to a powerful female dom who took up his lionskin and club as symbols of her own power.
Get ready for a fun, gender-bending episode that completely overturns the ancient Greek binary. Get the show notes here. Find more from Ancient History Fangirl.
Hello, this is let's talk about Miths Baby, And today I am here with something special. So both because I am traveling and only just got into a mental place where I could do literally anything and did not have time to prepare too many five thousand wordscripts in advance, and also because I think that this would be a thing that you all would love to listen to. Today, I am releasing an episode that is no me but by my very good friends in Ancient History fangirl Jenny Williamson and Jen mcmhenumie, and they did a whole series last year on gender rebels in mythology, the way that characters in mythology have played with gender expression and things of the like. But for today's episode, playing with gender expression is absolutely the point, and I think it is. So this is the myth of Heracles and Folly. I have covered it very briefly, I think, or a while ago at some point, but it's been a long time, and I imagine that that Jen and Jenny took a whole other route because they also can kind of discuss between each other and look at these things. So I'm fascinated for you all to hear this and fascinated to listen to it myself if I didn't just reveal that I haven't heard it yet at the time of recording this introduction, but I will and you'll all love it too. And so Heracles and Umfaly like there, I forget the background, but essentially the premise is that at some point in Heracles's life he had to live with Unfal and they fell in love. But also there's some reason why they swapped clothes, and I'm gonna forget why they swapped clothes, but there is a lot of really beautiful and fascinating artwork depicting that, depicting on Phale wearing Heracles' traditional garb like literally his lion skin hat it's not a hat okape, whatever you want to call it, and his club, and then Heracles wearing traditionally women's clothes. And as far as I understand it, these these pieces of artwork, at least like they weren't meant to be, you know, mocking. They were just sort of an examination of this myth and what happened during it. So I was looking for for, you know, how to have some faster episodes, and Jenn and Jenny are just always want to help me because they're just truly joyful and lovely, and so they just were like, Hey, we did this series on methol, do you run one of these episodes? And when Jen said that Heracles and Unfally was a good one, like, I was like, oh, absolutely, absol fucking lutely, let's play this for my listeners. I will also take any opportunity to share other people's shows in this realm, because I think, especially when they are run by women like I just think there should be more of us in the realm of history and mythology and all of that. And of course Jen and Jenny love history even more than I do, so they are just the perfect the perfect people to be talking about it. And you know, they did this episode on such a specific myth that I was like, great, perfect for my show. Everyone's gonna love it. So sit back and enjoy this fascinating story of Heracles, who, of course we know was already very fluid in his sexuality and the time that he played around with gender fluidity too. And of course you can find a bazillion more episodes by Jen and Jenny in asient History fangirl on wherever you're listening to.
This podcast.
May come on, you know you cannot trash my temple and steal the secret tripod.
Hi. This is Jenny from Ancient History Fangirl. Just a heads up that today's intro is gonna be just a little spicy, if you know what I mean. So if you happen to be listening with small children, you might want to skip ahead or perhaps put headphones on. This intro written by the lovely Jen Mcmenamye is just a tad bit naughty.
When the messenger of Olympus brought him before you, your breath caught. So this is the legendary hero everyone spoke of. He is tall, taller than all of your men, and broad of shoulder, so very broad, a mountain of muscle and bone and rage beneath the skin of a lion. His eyes hold yours, fury banked behind his gaze. They say he ripped his whole family limb from limb in a killing madness, and you believe it. A dark thrill sparks beneath your skin. He cost you a small fortune, but you had money. One thing your country wasn't short on was gold and silver and electron. And this man before you is worth his weight in all three. So you paid the price of a small city's worth of plunder to see if you could be the one to tame his violence. The Messenger of Olympus takes his leave, and now it's just you and him alone in your throne room. His eyes burn into yours. He's your slave, but he doesn't look it. He's defiant. He looks at you as if he's the king and you the slave. You will show him that you are queen here, that your word is law. You will never share power again. Remove your clothes. Your voice is calm, authoritative, but he makes no move to obey. He does not twitch a muscle. Yet the fury in his gaze burns hotter, and he looks like he would tear you apart with his bare hands, like he would enjoy unmaking you. You smile. You will enjoy your time with this man. It amuses you that he thinks he will not be the one unmade. Do not make me repeat myself. You say you are mine, and I wish to see what I have bought. For a moment, you think he will refuse again, but this time he does not. The lion skin falls to the floor, and after that the cheeton he wears and the loincloth, and he is breathlessly, gloriously naked. Your eyes travel unabashed over chiseled flesh. There is no part of him that hasn't been carved by the gods. He is an exquisite masterpiece of fine planes and lean curves. The rippling perfection of his ab muscles make you feel greedy, hungry. You lick your lips. He's the one with the lion skin, but you are the lioness. You descend your dais. You are not a short woman. But this man, this beheamoth of glistening muscle and sinew, makes you feel like a child, like you could cradle your whole body in one arm. He is so tall, so strong, and so big. Everything about him is larger than life, made to break and maim. It intrigues you to think that you could teach his killer's hands how to give pleasure and not pain. His eyes never leave yours as you approach him. Finally, you stop before him, so close that you can feel his breath on your skin. You run one finger down his chest, watching his breath quicken at your touch. You slip your hand lower over the rippling plains of his abs and he sucks in a breath. You already have power over him. He thickens and hardens, his eyes dark with lust. The thought of him inside you makes you ache in anticipation. But the time is not ripe, not yet. You will have your labors from him first. I have heard great tales about you, Heracles. You touch his bicep so hard and strong you almost believe he slew his lin by breaking its neck with these arms. It is good to see that, for once the poets weren't wrong. You are a fine specimen of a man. You look up at his face. His eyes are dark with lust. Kneel again. He does not move to obey you, but his eyes are still hot with passion. You place your hands on his shoulders and you push him down. This time he acquiesces. He kneels on the stone floor before you. In this moment, he looks like he would burn the world down for a few fumbling minutes in your bed. Good. You think I can work with this. You pick up his heavy lion skin and drape it around your shoulders. It feels right. It smells of him, pine, campfire and the open skies. That's better, you murmur. Now I will show you what you can do with that mouth of yours.
I'm Jen mcmenamie, and I'm Jenny Williamson.
And this is philth.
That was the filthiest intro. I loved it.
Look I read I am guys, it's like it's all the way.
Time, Jen, I have two words for you, and they're gonna get you even more hot and bothered. Are you ready? Catholic gandal?
If you throw dramaticus in there, I'm just gonna have to take a break before.
Our blue eyed prints, our Golden God. Anyway, enough of this nonsense. This week on Gender Rebels of Anyway, we're trying to get through an episode here anyway, So this week on gender Rebels of Greek Mythology, we're gonna take a look at that time Heracles, the strong Man, the strongest, manliest man, the son of Zeus, and the impenetrable penetrator extraordinary of the Greek mythological hero pantheon, lived as a woman intrigued because Eisher was when Jen told me about this.
Jenny was the one who first discovered this and told me. But I was the one who got to do the deep dive.
You're right, I did first discover this. I forgot anyway. You heard that right, Heracles lived as a woman. He was the submissive to a powerful female dom who was who wore his lion skin, took it for herself and utterly dominated him.
And he loved it, every minute of it. He was here for it.
We're gonna tell you all about that today, so get excited.
Here's something you may or may not know. Heracles a sexuality was very bisexual. Overall, He's depicted as having relationships with both men and women. However, in his relationships with other men, he's typically the erastes or the dominant partner.
By a lot. Like he has relationships with a lot of very much younger men, perhaps boys. I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I think that's kind of the trend.
Remember him and one of his boyfriends are like the role models for the Sacred Band of Thebes.
That's right, Iolas, who is sometimes represented as his nephew barf.
I mean, remember Patrick, Class and Achilles are not bad distant cousins. In some stories.
Uncle niece relationships were not off the table for the ancient Greeks. It doesn't surprise me that uncle nephew relationships were not off the table.
So let's get back to Heracles in a sexuality. To the ancient Greeks, these relationships would have read as hetero, these erastes and romenous relationships, just as Heracles's relationships with women who would have automatically been seen as hetero and Heracles as the dominant partner.
Yeah, because it had less to do with the gender of the person you were with and more to do with who was dominant and who was submissive. And we have talked about this in a lot of depth throughout our Gender Rebel series. So if you don't know about it by now, start at the beginning and you'll know all about it by the time you get back to this episode.
But this relationship we're going to talk about, where Heracles is dominated by a powerful queen, this would have been the queerest relationship he had to the ancient Greek eye, even though it was with a woman.
So if you're scratching your head and trying to remember where in the mythology this story fits, well, we understand your confusion. This period in Heracles's life is kind of a deep cut, but it's a fascinating one and it tells us a lot about the fears the ancient Greeks had about women with sexual agency, and in particular foreign women. So make yourself comfortable, perhaps pour yourself a beverage of choice, if you are so inclined, and get ready, because we're gonna go on a deep dive into one of the strangest, funniest, wildest, and most brilliant stories in Heracles's lexicon, and arguably the most queer.
Yeah. Absolutely so.
Here's a very brief recap on who Heracles was for those of you who don't know the mythology already. Heracles was the son of Zeus and Alcimeni, who was a mortal woman. Zeus, in his usual disgusting sleazy way, disguised himself as Alchimeni's husband Amphi Tryon and had sex with her on the same night that Alchemeni had already got it on with her husband. So in the same night she had sex with her husband Amfa Tryon and with Zeus, but she thought Zeus was Ampha Tryon.
So I'm gonna lay it out for you like this. Essentially, Alcimeni was like mining her own business and her husband's Like, hey, let's make an air and she's like, all right, they got to and then if Trian just left the room, and about two seconds later, if Trion walks back on and is like, hey, round two, not knowing that once again this was Zeus disguised as her husband.
This whole episode resulted in Alchemeni giving birth to twin boys with two different fathers.
If Accles was the son of Ampatryon, al Kameni's mortal husband, and Heracles well we all know who his fuck daddy was, Zeus. I mean, how many other people in this podcast do we call fuck daddy's anyway, Haarah, the queen of the gods, found out that disease had once again impregnated a mortal woman and made a pretty powerful demigod, and she was pissed. As we've talked about a lot in this podcast, goddesses weren't really able to take out their rage on male gods, particularly Harah's rage at her husband, So Parah tended to take her rage out on the female victims of Zeus's assaults. Heracles was kind kind of an unusual male victim of Hera's rage. This is not that common in the mythology, and this may be because through Alchemeni, Heracles came from the line of Perseus. You know, that epic hero who slew Medusa to get his mom the best wedding present ever. Because fuck that dude. Perseus was also an illegitimate son of Zeus, so Zus effectively raped his great granddaughter, So Perseus was also an illegitimate son of Zeus. At this point in time, Zeus transformed himself into a golden shower or a shower of gold to impregnate Perseus's mother because Perces' mother was locked in a tower so no man could impregnate her.
It was a it was a sunbeam with a dog in it. That's how I imagine this.
I just literally imagine, like, oh, it's this beautiful gold just like falling in and then all of a sudden's Zeus. Anyway, this long line of descendants, the descendants of Perseus, weren't exactly Herra's favorite people because they were also born from Zeus and another mortal woman. But Haarah wasn't able to do anything about them, at least not directly so.
Before Heracles was born, but while his mom was pregnant with him, Harah made Zeus promise that the next son born from the house of Perseus would be made the high king of all the land. And Zeus, who was pretty sure that Heracles was due any day now, was like, sure, that sounds like a great idea. I am down. So Harah went to the goddess of childbirth, who was also her daughter, and asked her to make sure that Heracles wasn't born until Harah gave her permission, which is pretty sucky to do to the mom because now she has to be like heavily pregnant for longer than she should be. And it also turns out that Alchemene's sister was also pregnant, and Hara also asked her daughter to make sure that her son Eurystheus, Heracles's future cousin, was born right away. So poor Eurystheus was born very prima sure. But because of Hara's agreement with Zeus, baby Eurystheus was set to inherit Heracles's kingdom, and much more, Heracles was caught out of his own inheritance.
I mean, don't piss off Hara, man, and you feel bad for baby Eurystheus at least I do, because like, do you need a little more time to cook, you know.
And also Heracles probably wouldn't have lived because giving birth to twins in the ancient world is extremely dangerous. Like there's a lot of skeletons of women in the ground who died in childbirth because they were giving birth to twins or even triplets. We've talked about this in previous episodes. The only woman I know in the ancient world who survived giving birth to twins was Cleopatra that I've heard of.
I mean, women did survive giving birth to twins all the time, because if they didn't, we wouldn't have all these stories of twins in mythology and twins in other places. But it was incredibly dangerous and more often than not you would die as a result. It was quite complicated. And I think the interesting thing with twins is twins tend to run in families, so you do you just tend to see like different families repeating that. And also twins tend to happen a bit later in your fertility cycle, like towards the end of your fertile window. You're more likely to have twins because your body's kind of like getting all the eggs out there as fast as possible before it closes up shop. So that's another reason why having twins might have been sometimes that it was just a much later pregnancy.
You mean like when someone's older, or you mean later in their cycle, like in the later time of the month.
Before you go into menopause. You are more likely to have multiple births because your body is like trying to maximize all the period you're gonna have to be fertile, so you may release two eggs.
There's another interesting thing to say here about the way that twins are portrayed in ancient Greek mythology, because this isn't the only story about twins being born where the father of one is mortal and the father of the other one is a god. So it might have been a way that the ancients had to explain fraternal twins that didn't look like each other. They must have different fathers. And then the woman is like, she doesn't want everyone to think that she committed adultery, because that would of course get you run out of town on a donkey, as we've explored in our patreon. So she's like, well, you know, the second one had to have been a god. I bet it was Zeus appearing as my husband, and that's why he looks totally different this one twin.
Possibly. I also think it's one of those things to explain. So you know, if you have identical twins, you know what you've got. They're both going to look the same, probably the same as whoever their father is. If you have fraternal twins, they might look radically different because jenes express themselves differently based on the combination of them. And like, you know, I always give the example of my family, like my mother is an olive skin, dark hair, dark eyes. She has three very pale children. One's a ginger, one has dark hair, another one's a ginger, Like, how do you explain that.
The interesting thing too, is that red hair was sometimes depicted as a sign of divinity in some myths, like for example with Achilles, which we've covered, So that's another possibility.
Or it's a sign of being an evil vampire either.
Or take your pick. Really, but yeah, I.
Think it's trying to understand things like that, you know. And also I think one of the things that the ancients would have known is you can, like a cat can have a litter of kittens with different fathers. So when you see two fraternal twins, it's easy to be like, well, they have different.
Fathers, Yeah, which, of course would get the mom in hot water?
Exactly is that one of those fathers better be a god?
That's right. You better convincingly argue that it was Zeus.
Or Poseidon or take your pick.
Exactly.
You'd think Caro would be happy now that she'd affectively screwed Heracles out of his birth right, although he could have been born after Epicles and then he wouldn't have been heard anyway. But she wasn't happy. As soon as Alcameni gave birth, Harras sent two venomous snakes to the crib of Heracles and his brother. Heracles's brother lost his shit and began crying, and Heracles just killed the snakes and held them up in his arms and stared placidly at his parents, like look what I did. It was now very easy to see which of these kids was the divine one and which wasn't. And that had been Harris's plan all along, used the deadly snakes as a ruse to draw out the divine child so that she could hone in on her target. It's pretty dark shit, however, the rest of Heracles's childhood isn't too plagued with Hara interferences. It's like she took a little moratorium on harassing Heracles. Heracles trained with all the best coaches and trainers and was eventually married off to a princess of thieves named Megea. Heracles had between two and eat kids with Mega. It's safe to say they enjoyed each other, and for a time things were going well. And then well Haro caught up with her least favorite demigod. She sent a fit of madness to Heracles, and in this state he killed his wife and all their children. He ripped them apart and slaughtered them like a crazed animal. He became a family annihilator.
And after he killed his entire family in a fit of madness and rage, Heracles, after he came to his senses, was obviously he was grief stricken that he had done this, and he went to the oracle of Delphi to find out how he could be purified of this horrible thing that he'd done. And the oracle said, well, you have to become a servant to your cousin Eurystheus and perform a certain amount of labors or tasks for him, and then you'll be purified of the family murder. And that's why Heracles had to perform those famous twelve labors, labors that Eurystheus, that guy who became king because Heracles' mom wasn't allowed to give Earth, cooked up with the goddess Harah just to fuck with him. So we're not gonna get into those labors. That's a whole other topic. Each one could be its own episode. The labors were dangerous and impossible tasks that Heracles was forced to do in service to Eurystheus. Each task was supposed to result in Heracles's death, but Heracles was all about exceeding expectations and defying death. Once he'd finished his labors, he was given his purification, and from this point on, Harah kind of left Heracles alone, maybe out of grudging respect for her steps on, But actually my theory, and I think Jen's theory, is that actually, after watching the shit show that Heracles made of his life, she kind of figured out that she didn't really need to interfere in his life to fuck it up. Heracles was perfectly capable of doing it all on his own. So she basically just stepped back and was like, you know what, the worst revenge I could possibly take on this man is just to step back and let him fuck his own life up, because he will.
He absolutely will. I do not have to do anything. He's totally capable. I've given him all the tools. In fact, I didn't really have to give any tools. He just had them already.
Yeah.
There's a really great book called Grief Lessons by Anne Carson four plays of Euripides, and one of those is about Heracles. It is just such a beautiful moving take on Heracles after his family murdering time and what becomes of him, And if you want to read more and know more about it, I highly recommend it, and I recommend that translation. Anyway, moving on, here's the thing about Heracles. He was really easy on the eyes, but not so great in the brains department. He was kind of the epitome of smash and grab masculinity. He was Greek mythology's literal strong guy. He was the bronze, not so much of the brains. He was great at smashing and destroying, he wasn't so great at thinking through the consequences of his actions. It's what constantly landed him in a lot of trouble. He had actual rage and emotional issues, issues that didn't need to be driven by divine madness anymore. Whether his rage or emotional issues stemmed from his guilt over his past crimes, well, that's a generous way of looking at things. It's highly possible that it was just part of who he was. Heracles wasn't big on emotional intelligence, so we're, you know, working to gain any emotional intelligence. So now we're in the present, we're getting to the story we're actually here to tell. After completing all his labors, Heracles winds up in the city of his old archery coach, a king named Eurytus. Heracles was good friends with Eurytus and his son Iphetus. Ipetus and Heracles went way back. I think they might have been argonauts together, and Eurytus had taught Heracles everything he knew about how to be an expert archer. King Eurytus had a daughter who had just reached marriageable age. Let's not think too closely about how old that might have been. Ugh, And she was a woman named Ioli, and Heracles was like hello, Iolee I'd like to marry you. And King Eurytus was like Heracles, I love you and all just like a son, But remember what happened the last time you got married.
Yeah, I don't know that Heracles is someone you want to marry your kid too, just a thought I wouldn't. So. In an effort to keep his daughter from marrying Heracles, King Eurytas set a challenge. Anyone who wanted to marry Ioli had to beat him and his sons, all of whom were expert archers, in an archery contest. This kind of goes down exactly how you were expecting. And I feel like they should have picked another skill that they were good at, and they knew Heracles wasn't good at because they had taught Heracles how to be an expert archer as well.
They had. I guess they just assumed that, like they would be better.
Well, they taught him everything he knew. I don't know, and maybe they didn't have another skill like basket weaving.
What would you take Heracles on it? In like the manliest of man skills. You can't wrestle him, you can't like sword fight him or race him like he's heracles, or.
You could just pick a different skill that isn't a manly man's skill. But I don't think that occurred to them.
I don't think so. I also think, like I guess he probably had to be all five or six or however many of these sons this king had, and they're like, well, you might be able to get lucky once, but is he gonna be able to get lucky against all of us? Unlikely.
You never see any of these kings picking a contest that's like impress us with your loop skills or it's always going to be some kind of like man competition.
Well it's funny you say that, because you've got Apollo, who's like the god of music and light and plagues and also archery, because like he also has to have a manly man's skill. You know.
Yeah, Apollo actually has more skills that are quoted feminine than a lot of male gods have, which and we've talked about him being kind of gender bendy in the past. Anyway, this whole contest travesty goes down exactly how you might have expected. Perhaps Eurytus and his family did not expect it to go down this way, but hey, we're in the future. Heracles wins the archery contest. He gets a perfect score, shocker, and King Eurydas is still not gonna let him marry his daughter at all to a dude who murdered his last wife and his entire family in a fit of rage. Yeah, I think that's pretty reasonable. So King Eurytas refuses to allow Heracles to marry his daughter. He's like, well, yeah, I know you won the archery competition, but guess what, You're not marrying my daughter anyway. Forget it. And Heracles is not happy about this. He loses his shit and winds up throwing his friend if Itus, the son of King Eurydas, the guy he was Argonauts with his buddy from way back from the city walls and killing him. It's a whole fucking epic drama. And then he comes to his senses. He's like, oh my god, I did that. I feel so bad, But of course the damage is done. And also this proves King Eurydas was right about not allowing this man to marry his daughter, because well, clearly I did not make the wrong decision here.
And before you mythology purists come for us, yes, I know, like there's a little more to that story involving like a missing cattle and meany youur has got thrown from some different cities walls, but essentially it's the same. We're keeping it simple.
We're gonna keep it simple. There's a million versions of all the myths, so this is the one we're going with. So King here it is completely understandably throws Heracles out of his city. An old family friendship is irreparably shattered. Heracles has just murdered an old childhood friend. So Heracles goes to the Oracle of Delphi to seek purification again. And remember this is the second time he's shown up at the Oracle of Delphi seeking purification for murdering close friends and family in a fit of rage.
Yeah, the oracle was like, whoa, this is the second time your uncontrollable fits of madness and rage have landed you here. Maybe you don't need purification from me, but this is just something you need to address with yourself. Have you thought about seeing someone? Have you tried better help?
Have you tried better help Heracles?
Yeah? And the Oracle of Delphi was mappingly vague. She refused to give heracle as an answer about how he could get purification. She probably didn't want to give him an omen or a sign or let him off the hook. Maybe she was sick of his bullshit and murdering and just wanted to get this guy out of her sacred temple before he lost his temper again. So what did Heracles do? He started literally trashing the Oracle of Delphi. He picked up the Delphic tripod, essentially the oracle sacred seat, and he stole it. He was about to trash it when Apollo appeared, and Apollo was like, may come on, you know you cannot trash my temple and steal the sacred tripod, when Achilles was like, just watch me, watch me, man, And the two of them essentially got into a tug of war with this tripod and the only thing that broke them up was fuck daddy Zoo's a lightning bolt between the two of them. Yep, that happened. You didn't even know that story and it happened.
This is fucking ridiculous. What a shit show it could be on reality television.
It really could have been like the real illegitimate children of Zeus.
Actually, that's like the best reality TV show idea.
I would be so weir for this.
So, after Heracles and Apollo were done with this uttered travesty of a fight, and once the tripod was returned to the oracle, Heracles finally received his prophecy. He was told that in order to atone for his mounting horrible deeds and bad behavior and murdering of everybody who knew and loved him, that he had to be sold into slavery for one year or maybe it was three years sources ary. Whatever value that Heracles fetched as a slave was to be given to King Eritus as a payment for the loss of his son. And now here's where our story takes its gender bending turn. It was a huge insult for Heracles to be sold into slavery. Most enslaved people in Asian Greece were not Greeks, and certainly not male Greek citizens. I'm sure it did happen, but this was not the usual, and Heracles would have been all of those things. Well, I mean, I guess Greek citizens wasn't really a thing. I mean, this would be like Athenian citizens, or like citizens of whatever city state you were in, and these there weren't city states in the stories, I guess, but Heracles would have been a high ranking Greek man.
You would have essentially been a prince.
He was high ranking, the son of a queen and a god. So yeah, so this would have been a real drop in fortune, shall we say. But there was an even bigger insult coming Heracles's way. Heracles was sold into slavery by Hermes. Hermes kind of transacted this deal, and the person who bought him was a woman named Amphalafala was the hot, young, widowed queen of Lydia. And we've got a step back for a moment and talk about Lydia. Where was Lydia jen.
So Lydia would have been a round western Turkey today. It's a foreign place for a Greek hero to be finding himself.
Yeah, And it's eastern, and Easterners are like especially foreigners, and barbarians and like effeminate and all that stuff.
Because xenophobia existed and has always existed.
Lydia was also extremely wealthy, so wealthy that, according to Herodotus, it was the first country to mint its own coins.
I think the.
Coinage tradition in Lydia goes back all the way to the seventh century PC, and those coins were made from electrum, a mixture of gold and sil where actually electroum was like one of the most valuable and rarest types of metals that you could get in the ancient Greek world. It was sometimes called white gold or green gold. So Lydia had massive deposits of gold and silver, it had electrum, I guess naturally occurring. It was a very wealthy country, and it was also the place Creases comes from.
I think he's pseudo mythical because like the great thing about him is like in the mythology is like he went to Delphie and was like I'm gonna give all these cows and oxes and like a ridiculous amount of things to sacrifice, So it's kind of like from him. Then we later Getfale who bought heracles after this incident in Delphi. Like they're all kind of connected. But yes, Creesus was supposed to be mythologically historically the richest person in all of antiquity.
Cresus like, I actually would love to do a separate deep dive on him because I think I saw a documentary where he's real, But like.
Do you know what it sounds like it sounds like Jenny's volunteering to write a patren about Creasus. Thank you.
I might do that. I might not well. See, so Lydia was an extremely wealthy country. It had a life and gold and silver, and Amfhale could afford whatever price the gods were asking to have Heracles as her slave, and she paid it.
It kind of goes back and forth whether he was sold for a high price or a lower price, but I assume it was a decently high price.
I think it wouldn't have mattered to Imfhale. She'd be like, whatever, write the check, I don't care.
Mfally stripped Heracles of his Nemian lion skin cloak and took away his mighty club, both markers of his heroic deeds and his gender, and she gave him her own clothes. She made Heracles wear her clothes and dresses one of her serving women. While he was in service to Herfhally took to wearing Heracles' lionskin cloak and lounder around on her throne with Heracles's club sort of like a scepter. And you know what, it was really hot. There aren't loads of sources about this story. But there are tons of ancient pottery, coins and frescoes that depict this time in Heracles's life because it's such a fascinating role reversal. Heracles is shown dressed in Themfalia's clothes, lounging with the women of Amfale's court at her feet. He's shown weaving and doing other work that was coded feminine needlework, spinning, weaving and serving imfhale wine. This is like such ultimate boy toy cabana boy stuff. Here. Meanwhilefale is on her throne dressed in Heracles's raiment, his lionskin cloak, with his club, and in male coated garments like a tunic. It's just it's so fantastic, like, oh, Phala is my queen.
And of course we don't have a lot of written sources from the ancient world that talk about Heracles' inner life and opinions about this time in his life, but in all the artwork and this this is a story that mostly shows up in artwork, like things like faces and coins and things like that frescoes. In a lot of this artwork, Heracles looks happy. He looks exactly like we might imagine Anthony looked with Cleopatra, staring adoringly at his mistress, offering her wine, sitting in her lap or by her side. He's no longer the impenetrable penetrator. He's no longer the man who goes mad with human killing rage. Instead, he just looks like a doting fan, a love sick boy, well, actually a love sick man, because he's definitely a grown man. Many of the images have Heracles with his beard, because you know, how else would we know it's him? Right, Like, he's usually depicted with a beard.
If you see something that's got the lion skin and a beard, it's always Heracles. But we're gonna talk about something that's gonna make me so excited in a minute.
Yeah, And I do feel like we should pause for a second and talk about what this servitude would have looked like. Because Heracles was enslaved. The gods demanded it after his actions at Delphi and for the murder of his good friend Iphetus. This was a punishment meant to unman Heracles. It was supposed to be particularly galling to him and the ancient Greeks. The idea that Heracles their biggest hero was enslaved to a barbarian queen. I mean, there's a lot of layers to unpick here.
There really is, and it is supposed to be. Really the biggest light you could possibly do to Heracles to a man at this time period is to put them in servitude to a foreign queen, and then that foreign queen makes a man work as essentially a woman and dressed like a woman, and perform services that a woman would be expected to perform. And we're going to get into that in a minute. But what is very different is slavery is always bad. However, in this instance Heracles is enslavement comes as a punishment from the gods. It's something that he's meant to be doing as kind of a penance. His experience is very different than other enslaved people would have had at the time. I'm not saying all enslaved people and I'm not saying that it's okay, but it is different in that he knows he will not be enslaved for the entirety of his life based on what he's done.
Yeah. And I think the other thing too, is that we're not really taking this as like a realistic depiction of what sex slavery was Heracles was sold into slavery in this story, and it may have been sex slavery. The sources don't explicitly state this, but it is implied. Obviously, this really happened to people. It happened to men as well as women. And when we talk about Heracles's relationship with Amfalle and how he felt about all of this, we're not saying that any real person sold into sex slavery could ever be said to enjoy it. That's not what we're saying. I think that this event in Heracles's life wasn't meant to realistically represent the horrors of sex slavery as it actually happened. It was more of a fantasy that was around in the ancient Greek world, and for many people it was kind of an erotic, titillating fantasy. And so that's how we're talking about it here, as more of this gender bending male submissive, female dominating erotic fantasy that was in the Greek zeitgeist. And what it means that the ancient Greeks and other people in the ancient world depicted the manliest man in the ancient Greek hero lexicon as possibly enjoying this and having a good time.
Stockholm syndrome possible.
Yeah, he could have had Stockholm syndrome. But also I think that power dynamic is still different in this relationship than it would have been in a normal slavery situation. Like he's Heracles, he's not an ordinary mortal, so he has powers and abilities that a normal mortal person wouldn't have had, Like if he really wanted to get out of this, he probably could have.
He has so much physical power, and even though he's enslaved, he's still They wouldn't have used the term a demigod, but he's still the son of a god and a very powerful god. So if at any point in time he really didn't want to do this, he could have just tried his luck and not done it. He had options that normal people would not have had, particularly normal enslaved people. So there is an unfair power dynamic that is going on with m Folly. But also there's the power dynamic involved here with Heracles that is not consistent with how it would have looked for a normal person undergoing this type of slavery.
The other issue here is xenophobia and the message it would have sent to the Greek world that Heracles was enslaved to a quote unquote barbarian queen, and to be clear, the Ladyians themselves had coins depicting this story that were in circulation in the Greek world. Regardless of her wealth, Onfhali was not Greek, and therefore she was a Barbarian to the Greeks. And it didn't matter that her grandfather Criesus was the richest guy in all of antiquity, or that she could buy heracles for whatever price they wanted to sell him at. She could afford whatever. She didn't care. She was a boss. But she was also a foreign woman, and foreign women were seen as dangerous to the ancient Greeks because a lot of cultures around ancient Greece were not as patriarchal and oppressive to their women as the Greeks were. So basically, all the women in other cultures that neighbored ancient Greece had women with probably more freedoms than they all were very, very very threatened by this. Sofhally was dangerous to the men of ancient Greece. She threatened their manhood, she threatened their gender identity just by existing. She had different ideas about the work men and women could do, and she was not going to take any shit from her quote unquote slave Heracles. She was just not going to take any shit from him. And while it's not explicitly stated that Heracles was forced to have sex with her, that's not stated, it is heavily implied that they did have a sexual relationship. One of the things that is a clue is that when Onfale does free him, he marries her of his own accord, or perhaps just stays with her, and they have several kids together.
They do, and in some stories Onfal becomes a second wife. In other stories they just have this sort of partnership. Yeah, but I also get the idea of, like, I contain this man, I can enjoy this man, and I can send him on because I'm a queen with power and agency and I'm not gonna let this dude be the boss of me.
Sorry anyway, I mean, that might be a clue as to ultimately what happens to the relationship, but we're not there yet.
We're not there yet. So this would have been a relationship that Heracles had no control over her, at least during the time where he's in servitude toward unfale. He was the strongest man in mythology, and he was at the sexual whims and pleasure of a woman, A beautiful, widowed woman, a wealthy widowed woman, a woman who knew what she wanted. I mean, can you imagine like saying a Heracles, well, you've been doing it wrong your whole life. Let me teach you.
Everyone you've been with has been faking their orgasms. Let me show you how to do it right.
So we've talked before in the past about how men going down on a woman was seen as one of the most shameful acts and impenetrable penetrator could do in the ancient Greek and Roman world. Because this was seen as the woman penetrating the man. It was seen as very queer. It went against the accepted binary where it's always the man who penetrates, and it's extremely sexually subversive in this time period, and that's exactly what was happening with Heracles. Here, Folly was the penetrator. Do we see that like explicitly shown to us, No, but it's there if you know where to look.
Yeah, it's really heavily implied, and it's actually interesting like, I feel like going down on a woman if you're a man would be seen as like an explicitly queer act to the ancient Greeks and Romans, even though this was an act between a man and a woman. We've got acts like that today. For example, the thing that comes to mind is pegging, where it's like a woman doing it to a man. This might be seen as a queer sex act that a hetero couple could do. I remember reading this article about Miley Cyrus and like, I'm not I haven't like followed a lot about Miley Cyrus. I understand that she identifies as pan sexual. She was engaged to or married to, Liam Helmsworth, and she was talking about how she is queer and even though she's in a relationship with a cisgender man, even though it's a relationship that seems hetero on the surface, She's like, even though this might seem like a hetero relationship to people, it's actually pretty queer under the surface. Like, and that has to do with, you know, the sex that they have and the way that they relate to each other that doesn't necessarily conform to the binary. And I think that that's really what we see going on with Heracles and Fole here, like, yeah, it's a man and a woman, but it's really not conforming to the ancient Greek binary. It might not even conform to the modern binary.
Yeah, And I think that's super important. And I think one of the things to think about is you see Heracle as an Mphalia's relationship played a lot of times for comedy and comedic effects, particularly like amongst Greek theater and potentially in Greek storytelling, but there's something darker at play here, And with darker at play is that yes, it looks silly like the two of them exchanging their roles and blah blah blah blah, but what you're really seeing is not really about role exchanging. It's about the queerness and the subversiveness of this relationship. And I think that that's where the tension comes from and where the impulse for you know, the playwrights and some storytellers was comedy. But the actual interesting thing to unpick is how that queerness worked, why it was subversive, and why it's so important it existed. Why we get to see it and Heracles's relationship with Emphalia is so important is because we get to see queer representation in the ancient world amongst queen and the strongest dude in mythology.
Yeah, and I think there's something really interesting to say about how it's treated with humor in ancient world, because treating it like a joke is a way to negate its power. The idea of a man dedicating himself to pleasuring a woman is something that is sometimes treated with humor in very hetero masculine spaces even now. I think this might be why this is just my thought that I think this might be why romance's genre is kind of maligned. I remember seeing commercials where there's like a hot guy like trying to sell salad dressing or something, and like just how humorous that was being treated as where I'm like, you know, you're not actually selling sex to women here, because women wouldn't see this as funny. Like what you're doing is trying to make this hot guy selling salad dressing or whatever non threatening to whatever man might be watching.
Well, it's the whole Do you remember the diet coke commercials and they've they've revamped them a few times where it's a hot dude drinking diet coke and all the women have their little diet coke break it same time, or maybe he's drinking regular coke and they're just watching him like he's all sweaty, he's working out in the sun and they're like office working ladies or something like that, and they're just like there to fan themselves and watch this adonnis trinkas soft drink. And that's like supposed to be like, oh, take your diet cookbreak. You know that that's working on so many awful levels of like women need to be on a diet, they need to you know, be objectifying. They all do this in gaggles like uugh, But like it's the same thing, right, it's giving you a bit of comedy. If you're sort of the male watching this, it's like, oh, look at those silly women watching that duty. He's not interested in them while they have their diet coke.
Right, this isn't threatening to me because it's just a joke.
It's just a joke. Whereas it's like, actually, maybe all women do like to look at that Hawkeye while he's drinking that whatever. Yeah, maybe you should be worried. Maybe the female gaze is a thing exactly.
Maybe women are actually attracted to hot men. Maybe women like the idea of a man really devoting himself to her pleasure. Maybe we don't think that's funny. Maybe we take it quite seriously.
I'm just gonna throw this out there, like, there are many, many, many men who look incredible in women's clothes. I'm just thinking about the I think it's Tom Holland did the animal put the link in here. It's one of my favorite things to watch. He does this lip sync battle where he's dancing to Ryana's umbrella and he is like in the full outfit, and man, he pulls it off and he is incredible. And my favorite thing about this is someone interviewed him later and he was like, you know, it was a really great performance. I did a really good job. The only thing that upsets me is I should have worn the high heels, because that's what she had to do and that would have made it perfect.
I remember seeing a spread. I think Jen might have texted this to me of like probably somebody famous, but I don't remember who. It was a really hot guy in lingerie, like in a photo shoot that was kind of like I don't know, kind of like Victoria's Secret reminiscent, you know, but not he didn't look hugely feminine, like he had muscles, like he was a good looking, pretty masculine looking guy in like high femme lingerie. And I was like, this hot, Like this isn't something I necessarily thought I would find attractive, but this is hot. And if I had a partner who looked like this in lingerie, I would make them wear that all the time, like good lord.
And I'm just gonna say this too, women in men's clothes. I mean, that's the other side of the coin, Like we are really spending a lot of time objectifying heracles here, But there is such a tradition of women, you know, essentially taking the unfle roll and wearing very tailored men's clothing and really rocking it, or non tailored men's clothing. You know, they have taken on that and said, right, this is my role, this is who I am. And I think, like it's important to remember that I'm Folly is someone here who is playing with gender as well, And she's saying, right, okay, so if the only way the Greeks are gonna see me as a person who deserves respect and to be treated the same as Heracles it is to wear his lion skin and his cheet on and swing about a club. I can do that. I can do that all day.
Or maybe it just kind of turns me on to have the trappings of male power on my body.
Absolutely so. Anyway, the purpose of this punishment that we've just been talking about was probably to teach Heracles how to control his temper, how to be more patient, and maybe a bit more just how to be humble, you know, how to tamp down that ego and learn how to please others, not just with his smashing and his grabbing and his killing, as he did so effectively across the Greek mainland, but with his other talents. And for a while this kind of worked for Heracles and Unfalle.
So again, we don't have a lot of original sources about this story, and even when we do, they don't talk about Heracles' inner life that much, as we've said, but when you look at the artwork around this story, and there is a lot of it, Heracles does not look like his usual rage filled smash and grab self while he's with Unfala, He's calm. He's shown as being serene. We'd call it maybe maybe a little vagematized, if you know what I mean. He's having that sweet lovin on the regular and he's happy ish, I mean, as happy as Heracles can be. He's in a sex haze. He doesn't seem embarrassed by the clothes he has to wear. Maybe he even likes being in this position. You can see the attraction, right. He doesn't have to make decisions, he doesn't have to deal with the rigors of the world, and Polly is handling it all. She's handling all the adult stuff for him.
Polly is cleopatraing his ass, so he doesn't actually have to deal with the real world. All he has to do is just enjoy the good life.
All he's gotta do is stand there and wear the dress and look pretty.
And Okay, yes, there are issues probably with his psyche and his PTSD and how he feels about that, but also he kind of likes it, and I think some of his feelings have to do with kind of liking it, right, they have to deal with like, well, what does it mean that I also kind of like this.
I don't see him as necessarily really wrestling with that like Achilles in Skyros, you know, like it seems like he just really straight up enjoys it for the time that he has.
I feel like you're right, and like I obviously did all the Achilles stuff and all the Heracles stuff because it's mythology and that's my jam kids, and I do think like sometimes I also am capable of really dumbing Heracles down to the lowest common denominator, which is not unfair because that is kind of that we've shown, and not really thinking about his internal life. But I think there's a part of him after all the grief and all the trauma that he's been through, that kind of is happy to be in this role to not have to think, to just be able to enjoy himself, and that's not a bad thing.
Be pampered a little bit, be taken care.
Of, yeah, And also to learn how to serve others and not in the same service he had with Eurystheus. Eurystheus was all about clearing impossible monsters and doing impossible deeds and doing all of these big macro things.
And also Eurystheus was trying to humiliate and maybe murder him.
Yeah, but within Fall, it's more about the micro things, Like she's kind of rebuilding him from the ground up and showing him how to human, how to care about others, how to do meaningful work that will benefit not just in the sort of like kill the big monsters. It's like, here's how you weave, here's how you produce things that will go on to serve others, not just with your fists. Yeah.
And it's not about aggrandizing yourself and performing your masculinity or just weaving a shirt that's going to keep someone else warm, or pleasuring your woman that you're here to pleasure or whatever. You're not aggrandizing yourself while you're serving others.
Yeah, and I think that it's a different type of service that he's learning. Like he learned how to do the big work, now he's kind of learning how to do the quieter, maybe more internal work, and that that is maybe the purpose of this servitude, which is really fascinating to think about.
Yeah. So we're talking about how how Heracles feels, about how he might feel about being in this position. And as for Umfale, she is the boss of her own wealthy country. She's also the b of Heracles in this moment, both in her court and most likely in the bedroom. She's one of the few women in Greek mythology who has sexual agency and isn't punished for it. And that is hot, super hot now, huh. So there are coins, real coins that were in circulation in the ancient world that were from Lydia that depicted on Falle and Heracles's lion skin, cloak and club. She looks fierce and proud and almost androgynous. It's a little bit hard to tell what you're looking at. Some have suggested she's supposed to be an unbearded version of Heracles. But once you know the secret that Heracles is never shown without his beard, or at least very rarely, you realize what you're looking at. That's not Heracles. That's on Falle dressing up as Heracles.
Yeah. And I have actually seen this in a few different places, and when I go back to Greece, I'm going to look and see if I can find it again. It is so cool. I have seen this coin, and I was so excited because number one, I'm an ancient coin freak, and number two, having seen this coin, I've always thought like, oh, why is there no beard? But it's because it's not Heraquini's it's Unfala, and it really excites me for several reasons because it is so cool to see a woman taking on this role. Well, i mean, obviously she's mythical, but it's so cool to see, you know, like a culture taking this queen and being like, we're gonna show you what happens. This badass woman is going to be minted on our coins wearing your hero's outfit. Love it.
It's definitely kind of a little bit of a flex towards Greece, right.
Absolutely onfal is a foreign queen, the Queen of Lydia, dressed as the greatest hero of the Greek world. These coins were actually in circulation in the Greek world, and they would have sent a message, we've emasculated your strongest hero and our queen has taken his emblems of power. It's a total Lydian flex move. It's a real smack in the face to the impenetrable penetrators to see the greatst shame of Heracles's life on display. The entire ancient world, or those who traded with Lydia to see. And you can imagine they had a lot of wealth and resources. A lot of people probably traded with them.
I love how they have like the most valuable coins in the ancient world made of electroum, and those coins have like Heracles being vagematized by Lydia's mythological queen on there, like that's amazing.
So amazing. Anyway, after Heracles' enslavement to em Fallay, the sources are kind of murky. According to them, Heracles winds up staying with them, falling consentually either as a partner or her husband. Sources say that they have children together. Eventually, heracles leaves are high and dry, and let's be honest, that's probably for the best. I suspect. On following I got tired of the emotional labor involved in keeping Heracles in mine and was like, you know what, you want to sack this city and that city and do your own thing. Have at a boi. But before that, there are two two stories that come to us from Heracles's time with Amfal. There's more stories, but these are the two that I thought were important to include. One comes from a time when, in addition to spinning and weaving and tending to his mistresses every need, Pal sent Heracles out into the Lydian countryside to perform some labors, effectively cleaning up the area of monsters and thieves. According to the tale, while Heracles was often Lydia, a new crop of thieves and monsters have arrived in Greece, So Greece is like, dude, you took our monster cleaner upper.
And we wanted to include this story because it is weird and funny, but also because it tells us a lot about Heracles's gender and his rule is an impenetrable penetrator and a manly man. Everyone agrees that in Lydia, Heracles exchanged gender rules and dressed as a woman and performed women's work and was dominated by a woman who was a sexy dom But according to some versions of the tale, he was also periodically allowed to don his cape, pick up his club, and return to his masculine identity. This tells us that Heracles was still the man, the man. He's still the manliest of men underneath.
There.
Don't get it twisted, but this time his masculinity is in service to his mistress's needs. It's channeled to a specific need, and that need is whatever unfale fucking wants at the time. All Right, we couldn't track down. Whether this story comes from before or after Heracles has ended his servitude to Umfale and either married her or agreed to be her consensual mister slash himbo. If it's after, this story could be seen at Heracles transitioning back to his masculine role in the Greek world. Now that he's earned his freedom, he's able to become the man he always was or something something masculinity. I don't know, but we're not hundred percent sure if that's true, so we're just gonna say it and then move on. Anyway, Let's tell the actual story that comes from this time. Two brothers called Krakopees were harassing travelers by stealing from them. They were scammers and thieve, sort of divine maybe monkeys. They were a huge problem in Lydia, and Heracles got sent out to deal with them.
These brothers were warned by their mother that one day someone called black Bottom was going to come along and capture or kill them. Both brothers laughed, what a silly thing to say. Well, Heracles came along and captured both of these maybe monkey brothers. He tied them upside down, and when they were tied upside down, they noticed Heracles's ass.
Just to give you guys an idea of what this looks like with him tying them upside down. I've seen vases that depict Heracles carrying like a big sort of like a stick over his shoulders, and each one is tied by his feet to the stick and hanging upside down from the stick that he's holding on his shoulders. And one of them is lifting Heracles's cheeton while he's hanging there, and it's and looking up in there, and it's really funny.
Anyway, They're tied upside down, and the guy lifting the cheetah notices that Heracles's ass is actually super hairy. He's got lots and lots of black hair. And both brothers start laughing because they had indeed been captured by the mysterious block Bottom, which is possibly the worst pirate name.
That is the hairiest ass I've ever seen in my life.
Just means a hairy black ass.
I mean, like the Kirkcopes are hilarious.
So Heracles got such a kick out of these monkeys that he wound up letting them go in the end. See, he's not really great on the follow through of these tasks. And later on Zeus turned the monkey brothers into stone because and here I'm quoting from the America quote, these caricapes were said to have been turned to stone for trying to deceive Zeus, liars and cheats, skilled in deeds, irredeemable, accomplished knaves. Far over the world they roam, deceiving men as they wandered continually. Anyway, So what does this tell us about Heracles. Well, one, he took on the curcopes, most likely naked, were wearing a very short tunic because they were able to see his bum bum. Actually, this was typical of ancient Greek clothing, remember the cheeton. Remember how short it was. It was basically like wearing a mini dress that fluttered. And this was how like men were always going about flashing each other in public. And we see this actually in the history, in the writings of the time.
Yeah, there's this quote from Xenophon. I talked about it in one of the Amazon's episodes where he's literally talking about how to mount a horse without flashing everyone else in the army and it's so funny.
And two too, Heracley seemed to have regained his quote unquote manhood by taking on a physical task. He's seen laughing with the carcopes and fulfilling his role as protector of the week.
Until he like totally lost the plot and just let them go because they made him laugh.
I feel like you brought them back to him fall and he's like, these guys are hilarious, and Umballa was like, I mean they are kind of funny. I guess you can let them go. Eventually they'll get their comeupp ins and they do. And I would really like to make the case that this happens after Heracles is freed and he married on Falle, but I can't be exactly sure on the timeline here, so I'm just writing fan fiction.
So the other story that we wanted to include has to do with when Amphale and Heracles decided to have a wild time during a festival to Dionysus. I mean, you know that's going to be a wild time, and you know that's going to be very gender bendy because Dionysus would have approved of this relationship. Amfhal and Heracles snuck off to a cave to enjoy some of that sweet, sweet drug induced orgy goodness, and they were still wearing each other's clothes, and this might be something that was done during the festival too. Remember we talked about the gender bending aspects of Dionysus worship. Wearing, you know, the opposite clothes of your gender is something that people did. So Heracles was dressed in a Phaly's gown and Afale was wearing Heracles's lion skin, and after a night of furious love making, they passed out together in a cave. It was late at night when an unwonted visitor arrived. Pan, the god of the Wild, had been wanting to get it on with him Folly for ages. He's like, I want to tap that she was a hattie and Pan is one of those gods who doesn't care about consent, like basically all of them. I mean, that is not a shock.
Years ago I went to this exhibit at the British Museum and there is this horrifying statue of Pan raping a goat. I believe it's a goat, and ever since I've seen it, like, I cannot get over Pan and what he did to animals, people, whatever, Like it's so horrifying.
Anyway, So it's dark in this cave and Pan crawls toward the sleeping couple. Seeing the beautiful gown, he reaches his hand up into the dress. He's a little surprised by the hairy legs, but you know, okay, whatever, and then he finds something else with his questing hand. Heracles jumps up and nearly throttles Pan for trying to assault him, and in some stories he just throws Pan to the floor and laughs, like I've seen versions of this story where he's not necessarily taking this seriously. Again, Pan has no regard for consent. He gets thrown out of the cave and Heracles and Umfhale returned to their evening. So we wanted to include this story because it does stop to show us the horrors of gendered violence. Here. Pan is here to assault a sleeping queen, but instead he winds up on the receiving end of violence from Heracles. While Heracles is dressed as a woman, He's subjected to attempted sexual assault and rape. This says a lot about what the ancients thought about gender. Basically, if you're a woman, or your gender is interpreted as female, you are a fair game for rapists. It's a dark story. Sometimes it is played for laughs in the ancient sources. The funny part is where Pan gets beaten up for being a creep, but the reality of it is kind of dark. It's much darker. If it had been Mphale in that dress, the story would have gone very differently, regardless of the fact that she was a queen and in her own coun on her own land. I mean, I guess if she was alone, it would have gone differently. Like her status doesn't necessarily protect her at least from the gods.
Definitely not from the gods, one hundred percent, not from han So Heracles is a wandering hero in his mythology. He travels across Greece and even to Troy. I mean, he sacks Troy before the Trojan War, and he leaves a wake of bodies and babies. Heracles is one of the most prolific daddies in Greek mythology, taking after his own fuck daddy, and there's a reason for that. Every city, state, and country wanted to have some claim to the hero, so that there is a story about him spending some time in their lands and leaving behind a child or two or three. Heracles was a wild and untamed stallion of the ancient world. He was fiercely primal and male and refused to be tamed. He also refused to learn any lessons. We don't have time to get into what happened to Heracles after his time with Umfhale, but it's safe to say he did not learn his lesson and met a bad end. He also snapped right back into treating women as property, besieging cities to take women as bed slaves. Yeah, it goes to a pretty dark place. There is a huge part of me that wishes Heracles's story could end at the court of Umfhale, where he is laughing and weaving with the handmaidens, where he gets to live out his days enjoying the love of an exceptional woman, where he gets to be a man who is not tied to the gender binary, who is as comfortable in a woman's dress as he is in his lion skin. And it's possible that this was one of the happiest and most uncomplicated times of Heracles's life. But ultimately Heracles chooses to leave the comfort of this court and Mfhale to head out into the toxic world once again.