Intelligence being brought that Erginus with an army approached the city, Hercules set upon him in a strait passage (where a multitude was of little use) and killed Erginus, and cut off almost his whole army. He fell likewise suddenly upon the city of the Orchomenians, entering unexpectedly, and burnt the palace of the Minyae, and razed the city to the ground.

The fame of this notable exploit was presently noised over all Greece, while such a sudden and unexpected achievement was the subject of every man’s admiration, and Creon the king (wonderfully taken with the valour of the young man) gave him his daughter Megaera to wife, and committed to him the care and charge of the city, as if he had been his own son.

But Eurystheus, king of Argos (jealous of Hercules’s growing greatness, sent for him to perform the labours he was to impose upon him, which he refusing, Jupiter commanded him to obey king Eurystheus; whereupon Hercules went to Delphos, and inquired of the oracle concerning this matter, who answered him—That it was the pleasure of the gods, that he should perform twelve labours at the command of Eurystheus, and that when he had finished them, he should receive the reward of immortality. Hereupon Hercules became exceeding sad and melancholy; for he judged it very much below him to be at the beck of his inferior, and to disobey his father Jupiter a second time he concluded was both unprofitable and impossible. While he was in this perplexity, Juno struck him with madness; being therefore, through the discomfiture of his mind, become distracted, and by the growth of his distemper altogether a madman, he designed to murder Iolaus, who saving himself by flight, he fell upon his own children by Megaera, who were next in his way, and struck them through with his darts, as if they had been his enemies.

As soon as he came again to himself, and understood his error, he almost sunk under the weight of his misery, (being pitied by every body), and shut himself up in his own house a long time from the converse and society of men.