Heracles picks up the apples, and leaves the Titan to his suffering. After all, who understands better the crushing and terrible weight of the sky? He’s one of those people about which great movies are made-they commit a crime out of desperation, but don’t really have what it takes to follow through. I always feel sorry for Atlas at this moment, because his actions, however, foolish, come from empathy. The brains of the family definitely went to Prometheus, because the Titan agreed. He was happy to keep holding up the heavens, but would Atlas mind taking it back for just one second so he can make a pad for his shoulders with his lionskin? But after picking the apples, Atlas realized that he didn’t want to go back to literally carrying the weight of the world. He offered to take the great weight of Heaven off of Atlas’ shoulders for a few moments, in return for the god retrieving the apple for him. Heracles managed to slay the dragon guarding the tree, but needed a god to do the actual picking for him. Hercules holding up the World, with Atlas beside himĪtlas had visitors too, including Heracles, who needed the golden apples to fulfill one of his famous labors. And sometime during all of this (probably before the whole holding up the sky thing) Atlas managed to have children, including the goddess Calypso, who would later seduce Odysseus on her enchanted island, and Maia, who was the mother of Hermes. He wasn’t entirely alone: there were the nymphs of the garden (the Hesperides), who tended to a golden apple tree, which was also guarded by a fearsome dragon. No wonder his name is derived from the Greek word for “enduring.”įor aeons, Atlas stood in the garden of the Hesperides, at the far edge of the world, holding up the sky. Too vigorous, as it turns out, because after the Titans were defeated, Zeus felt threatened by Atlas’ mighty strength, and sentenced him to hold up the vault of the sky for all eternity. When the hero Heracles went there as one of his twelve labours to obtain the heavily guarded. From birth Atlas was exceptionally strong, and when war broke out between the Titans and Olympians, Atlas took vigorous part on the Titan side. Atlas stood near the garden of the Hesperides, his daughters. Frederic Leighton - The Garden of the Hesperides. His father was Iapetus, which makes him the brother to one of my favorite mythological figures of all time, Prometheus. The Garden of the Hesperides is located just in front of where Atlas holds the burden of the sky. Atlas was a second-generation Titan, the race of gods that ruled before Zeus and his Olympian kin took over.
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