Some folks who live in the area were dismayed to find a dead deer in the yard. It had been shot by a bow hunter. The animal must have run miles before dying.
Georgia has a lot of deer, and so it has an archery season. Whether the hunters are performing a public service is being debated on social media. The folks who had the unpleasant surprise of finding a dead animal in the yard and then having to pay to have the carcass hauled away did not describe hunters as heroic.
In the Labors of Heracles, the simplest story is about a deer hunt. Heracles had to capture the Cyreneian Hind alive. And so he pursued her for a year before she dropped of exhaustion. There was no other way.
Robert Graves thinks that was the original myth, and I suspect he’s right. Some versions of the tale feature a miraculous shot. Heracles was such a good archer that he pinned two of the hind’s legs together with an arrow. He was so accurate that the arrow passed between the sinew and bone of both legs, drawing no blood.
That detail strikes me as it struck Graves, a kind of cadenza, a flourish after the story was told. The hind was a magical creature, and Heracles wanted to capture her without hurting her.
The hind is a symbol of wisdom. In that kind of labor, the only story is about pursuit.
• Robert Graves, The Greek Myths: 2; Penguin Books, 1968, pp. 110-2.
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