The maidens cried in their grief; Heracles
went to the tree, and he plucked the golden apples and he put
them into the pouch he carried. Down on the ground sank the
Hesperides, the Daughters of the Evening Land, and he heard their
laments as he went from the enchanted garden they had guarded.
Back from the ends of the earth came Heracles, back from the
place where Atlas stood holding the sky upon his weary shoulders.
He went back through Asia and Libya and Egypt, and he came again
to Mycenae and to the palace of Eurystheus.
He brought to the king the herd of Geryoneus; he brought to the
king the bull of Minos; he brought to the king the girdle of
Hippolyte; he brought to the king the golden apples of the
Hesperides. And King Eurystheus, with his thin white face, sat
upon his royal throne and he looked over all the wonderful things
that the hero had brought him. Not pleased was Eurystheus; rather
was he angry that one he hated could win such wonderful things.
He took into his hands the golden apples of the Hesperides. But
this fruit was not for such as he. An eagle snatched the
branch from his hand, and the eagle flew and flew until it came
to where the Daughters of the Evening Land wept in their garden.
There the eagle let fall the branch with the golden apples, and
the maidens set it back upon the tree, and behold! it grew as it
had been growing before Heracles plucked it.
The next day the heralds of Eurystheus came to Heracles and they
told him of the last labor that he would have to set out to
accomplish--this time he would have to go down into the
Underworld, and bring up from King Aidoneus's realm Cerberus, the
three-headed hound.
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