"Get up, Antaeus! Bestir yourself, you lazy old Giant! Here comes another Giant, as strong as you are, to fight with you.""Nonsense, nonsense!" growled the sleepy Giant."I'll have my nap out, come who may."Still the stranger drew nearer; and now the Pygmies could plainly discern that, if his stature were less lofty than the Giant's, yet his shoulders were even broader.And, in truth, what a pair of shoulders they must have been! As I told you, a long while ago, they once upheld the sky.The Pygmies, being ten times as vivacious as their great numskull of a brother, could not abide the Giant's slow movements, and were determined to have him on his feet.So they kept shouting to him, and even went so far as to prick him with their swords.
"Get up, get up, get up," they cried."Up with you, lazy bones!
The strange Giant's club is bigger than your own, his shoulders are the broadest, and we think him the stronger of the two."Antaeus could not endure to have it said that any mortal was half so mighty as himself.This latter remark of the Pygmies pricked him deeper than their swords; and, sitting up, in rather a sulky humor, he gave a gape of several yards wide, rubbed his eyes, and finally turned his stupid head in the direction whither his little friends were eagerly pointing.
No sooner did he set eyes on the stranger, than, leaping on his feet, and seizing his walking stick, he strode a mile or two to meet him; all the while brandishing the sturdy pine tree, so that it whistled through the air.
"Who are you?" thundered the Giant."And what do you want in my dominions?"There was one strange thing about Antaeus, of which I have not yet told you, lest, hearing of so many wonders all in a lump, you might not believe much more than half of them.You are to know, then, that whenever this redoubtable Giant touched the ground, either with his hand, his foot, or any other part of his body, he grew stronger than ever he had been before.The Earth, you remember, was his mother, and was very fond of him, as being almost the biggest of her children; and so she took this method of keeping him always in full vigor.Some persons affirm that he grew ten times stronger at every touch; others say that it was only twice as strong.But only think of it!
Whenever Antaeus took a walk, supposing it were but ten miles, and that he stepped a hundred yards at a stride, you may try to cipher out how much mightier he was, on sitting down again, than when he first started.And whenever he flung himself on the earth to take a little repose, even if he got up the very next instant, he would be as strong as exactly ten just such giants as his former self.It was well for the world that Antaeus happened to be of a sluggish disposition and liked ease better than exercise; for, if he had frisked about like the Pygmies, and touched the earth as often as they did, he would long ago have been strong enough to pull down the sky about people's ears.But these great lubberly fellows resemble mountains, not only in bulk, but in their disinclination to move.
Any other mortal man, except the very one whom Antaeus had now encountered, would have been half frightened to death by the Giant's ferocious aspect and terrible voice.But the stranger did not seem at all disturbed.He carelessly lifted his club, and balanced it in his hand, measuring Antaeus with his eye, from head to foot, not as if wonder-smitten at his stature, but as if he had seen a great many Giants before, and this was by no means the biggest of them.In fact, if the Giant had been no bigger than the Pygmies (who stood pricking up their ears, and looking and listening to what was going forward), the stranger could not have been less afraid of him.
"Who are you, I say?" roared Antaeus again."What's your name?
Why do you come hither? Speak, you vagabond, or I'll try the thickness of your skull with my walking-stick!""You are a very discourteous Giant," answered the stranger quietly, "and I shall probably have to teach you a little civility, before we part.As for my name, it is Hercules.Ihave come hither because this is my most convenient road to the garden of the Hesperides, whither I am going to get three of the golden apples for King Eurystheus.""Caitiff, you shall go no farther!" bellowed Antaeus, putting on a grimmer look than before; for he had heard of the mighty Hercules, and hated him because he was said to be so strong."Neither shall you go back whence you came!"
"How will you prevent me," asked Hercules, "from going whither I please?""By hitting you a rap with this pine tree here," shouted Antaeus, scowling so that he made himself the ugliest monster in Africa."I am fifty times stronger than you; and now that Istamp my foot upon the ground, I am five hundred times stronger! I am ashamed to kill such a puny little dwarf as you seem to be.I will make a slave of you, and you shall likewise be the slave of my brethren here, the Pygmies.So throw down your club and your other weapons; and as for that lion's skin, I intend to have a pair of gloves made of it.""Come and take it off my shoulders, then," answered Hercules, lifting his club.
Then the Giant, grinning with rage, strode tower-like towards the stranger (ten times strengthened at every step), and fetched a monstrous blow at him with his pine tree, which Hercules caught upon his club; and being more skilful than Antaeus, he paid him back such a rap upon the sconce, that down tumbled the great lumbering man-mountain, flat upon the ground.
