On 2006-01-24 15:03, tgpedersen wrote:
> Maybe I should have done some reading up, but how _did_ Hercules
> become the son of Juno, adopted or otherwise? What's the story?
You must have heard the story of the origin of the Milky Way. Jupiter's
offspring could become divine only if suckled by Juno (thereby becoming
her adopted children). Hercules, predictably, hurt his stepmother's
nipple, she jerked away from him, and a stream of milk spurted across
the starry sky. To be sure, in the classical version of the story
Hercules was still an infant at the time of the ritual suckling, whereas
the Volterra mirror shows him as a bearded hero in his prime -- perhaps
for the sake of easier identification (you know at a glance who the
characters are).
Piotr