So
when the flames had consumed the mother's share of Hercules, the
diviner part, instead of being injured thereby, seemed to start
forth with new vigor, to assume a more lofty port and a more awful
dignity. Jupiter enveloped him in a cloud, and took him up in a
four-horse chariot to dwell among the stars. As he took his place
in heaven, Atlas felt the added weight.
Juno, now reconciled to him, gave him her daughter Hebe in
marriage.
The poet Schiller, in one of his pieces called the "Ideal and
Life," illustrates the contrast between the practical and the
imaginative in some beautiful stanzas, of which the last two may
be thus translated:
"Deep degraded to a coward's slave,
Endless contests bore Alcides brave,
Through the thorny path of suffering led;
Slew the Hydra, crushed the lion's might,
Threw himself, to bring his friend to light,
Living, in the skiff that bears the dead.
All the torments, every toil of earth
Juno's hatred on him could impose,
Well he bore them, from his fated birth
To life's grandly mournful close.
"Till the god, the earthly part forsaken,
From the man in flames asunder taken,
Drank the heavenly ether's purer breath.
Joyous in the new unwonted lightness,
Soared he upwards to celestial brightness,
Earth's dark heavy burden lost in death.
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