Dialogues of the Dead (11.1-11.4)

DIOGENES

Isn’t that Heracles? No one else, by Heracles! Bow, club, lionskin, bulk—Heracles from head to toe. Is he dead, then, though a son of Zeus? Tell me, conquering hero, are you a shade? I used to sacrifice to you on earth above, thinking you a god.

HERACLES

And quite right too. The real Heracles is in heaven with the gods, and “hath beauteous-ankled Hebe for his wife”; [*] I am his wraith.

DIOGENES

What do you mean? The god’s wraith? Is it possible for anyone to be half god, and half dead?

HERACLES

Yes, for Heracles is not dead, but only I his likeness.

DIOGENES

I understand. He has given you to Pluto in his own place as a substitute, and you are now dead instead of him.

HERACLES

Something like that.

DIOGENES

But Aeacus is very exact. How did he fail to spot that you were a fraud? How did he accept a changeling Heracles whom he saw face to face?

HERACLES

Because I was exactly like him.

DIOGENES

Very true; an exact likeness indeed; you might be the fellow himself. But perhaps it’s the other way round, and you are Heracles, and the wraith has married Hebe in heaven.

HERACLES

What impudence! You talk too much. If you don’t stop these gibes at me, I’ll soon show you what sort of god has me for a wraith.

DIOGENES

The bow is out and ready. But why should I fear you now? I’ve died once and for all. But please tell

me, in the name of your Heracles; when he was alive, were you with him then too, as his wraith? Or were you both one during his lifetime, but split up when you died, Heracles flying off to heaven, while you, his wraith, came here to Hades, as was only right?

HERACLES

One who makes it his business to poke fun doesn’t so much as deserve a reply. However, I’ll let you have one more answer. All of Amphitryon that was in Heracles is dead, and I am all that part; but the part that came from Zeus is in heaven living with the gods.

DIOGENES

Now I understand perfectly. Alcmena, you mean, bore two Heracleses at the same time, one by Amphitryon, the other from Zeus, and so you were twin sons of the same mother—though nobody knew about it?

HERACLES

No, you fool. We were both the same person.

DIOGENES

That’s difficult to understand, two Heracleses in a compound, unless you were man and god fused together, like horse and man in a Centaur.

HERACLES

Well, don’t you think everyone is compounded of two parts, soul and body? What then prevents the

soul, the part which came from Zeus, from being in heaven, and me, the mortal part, from being with the dead?