The 12 Labors of Hercules: Part II

Hello Again!

Last time we saw our hero, Hercules, he had just completed his fourth labor of his fraternity pledgeship. It’s been a long and difficult journey thus far and there are still more labors to be done, so let's just jump right in!

The Fifth Labor: Augean Stables. There were no stables with fire-breathing horses! Instead, the Augean Stables was what they called the messiest room in the frat house. It was also the room that the biggest stoners lived and smoked in, constantly. It was a permanent hotbox that was just absolutely disgusting, and Hercules had to clean it. He just opened a window and sprayed the stoners with a hose until they ran out of the room. It actually took them so long to notice the water that there was about an inch of water covering the floor. When the bunched-up T-shirts in front of the door were moved and the boys finally ran out, the small flood swept away most of the disgustingness with it. Hercules really only had to spray some air freshener to make the room look like everyone else’s in the house.

The Sixth Labor: Stymphalian Birds. Again, not a real exciting one and there weren't even birds involved. Hercules instead had to capture one of the squirrels around the OU campus. In the myth, they tell you the birds are man-eating, but we have all met the on-campus birds and know they aren't. King E just really didn’t expect him to finish the fifth labor so quickly and needed some time to come up with another one.

The Seventh Labor: The Cretan Bull. This task was a similar story to the first labor in that Hercules had to kidnap another mascot. The Fighting Bulls of Crete College prided themselves on having “the divine bull," who was rumored to be the father of the Minotaur. Hercules kidnapped the bull no problem, even ran him through a few fountains on campus, but he sensed that King E would again not be satisfied. So he called up his connections again and had the Cretan Bull made into a constellation.

The Eighth Labor: Horses of Diomedes. I don’t even know where they got this one from! There were no flesh-eating horses! There’s no trace of what actually happened, though, with this labor. If anyone finds literally anything on the truth behind Hercules’s Eighth Labor, let me know!

The Ninth Labor: The Belt of Hippolyte. Now this task is a funny one because King E really messed up on this one. The task was to get a belt from a specific sorority who was known to mostly focus on sisterhood and not really interact with the fraternities. He thought they were man-haters and would pretty much refuse to let Hercules on their property. Instead, Hercules literally just went and asked their president nicely for the belt and she gave it to him.

The Tenth Labor: Cattle of Geryon. Since this was supposed to be the last labor for Hercules, King E came up with what he thought was going to be the hardest labor by having Hercules steal another mascot. Well, not just any mascot… THE UNIVERSITY OF TROY MASCOT! So Hercules traveled down to Geryon Ranch, got into a fight with Geryon himself, but still made it back with the mascot. Then he painted it red just to show them exactly who owned their mascot now.

The Eleventh Labor: The Golden Apples of the Hesperides. King E was pissed that Hercules had completed the ten labors, so he said that Hercules technically didn’t complete two of the labors. He said that Iolaus helped with Pledge Fight Night and that the water did most of the cleaning of the stable, not Hercules. Hercules took it like a champ because he’d already done ten of these stupid tasks. What was two more? The task was to bring back three golden apples from the enclosed garden of one of the sorority houses. Everyone knew that the house mother for that sorority was about as scary as a dragon when it came to that garden, so this was not going to be an easy task. Hercules got the apples, though, but was banned from that sorority for life.

The Twelfth Labor: Cerberus. The final task was supposed to be the hardest because King E wanted Hercules to bring him Cerberus, Hades' three-headed hellhound. Now the myth they tell you is a great story with Hercules journeying to the Underworld and wrestling Cerberus into submission, but that’s all it is, a story. The truth was that Hades had just gotten Cerberus, and while he was training to become the guardian of the Underworld, he was still just a little three-headed puppy that wasn’t even housebroken yet. Hercules knew this, so he went over to Hades’ house and offered to teach the little Cerberus to use the potty outside in exchange for borrowing the dog for the afternoon. Hades was more than happy with this deal allowing Hercules to complete the labors.

After the completion of the Twelve Labors, which the entire campus had been following, Hercules pretty much became a god… well a frat god, at least.

-Nobody

Author’s Note: Thanks for reading Part II of the journey of Hercules! These were really fun to write! If y'all have any suggestions for one of the labors, I am all ears. Obviously, some of the labors were easier to make into fraternity tasks than others and I’m always open to improving them!

In case you didn’t read the summary of the labors in Part I, here it is again: The Twelve Labors of Hercules were actually started by Hera because she was upset that Hercules was Zeus’s (her husband) illegitimate son. She made him go crazy and kill his children. Hercules feels guilty about this, so he asks that Oracle of Delphi what he can do to make up for this. She tells him that he has to become a servant of King Eurystheus of Argos, who tells Hercules that he has to perform ten labors for him. Hercules does all ten of them but then Eurysthesus gives him two more because he had help on the second and fifth labors. He then gained immortality for completing them all.

Bibliography. The Twelve Labors of Hercules from Theoi.com. Links to page

Photo from Total Frat Move