Exlibrises (bookplates)

 

 

Heracles and the Hydra

by Arkady Pugachevsky

115×88 mm, X6/3, 1994, op. # 54
owner (customer): W.K. De Bruijn

Heracles and the Hydra

The Second Labour of Heracles

Upon reaching the swamp near Lake Lerna, where the Hydra dwelt, Heracles covered his mouth and nose with a cloth to protect himself from the poisonous fumes and fired flaming arrows into its lair, the spring of Amymone, to draw it out. He then confronted it, wielding a harvesting sickle in some early vase-paintings; Ruck and Staples have pointed out that the chthonic creature's reaction was botanical: upon cutting off each of its heads he found that two grew back, an expression of the hopelessness of such a struggle for any but the hero, Hercules.

 

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