Atlas and the Hesperides (c. 1922-1925) by John Singer Sargent (American. 1856 – 1925), oil on canvas, diameter: 120 in (304.8 cm), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
I love this vase of Perseus receiving the tools he needed for his quest from the nymphs, he looks so cute and polite. Athena is behind him and not wearing armor which reminds me of how in the Iliad she wears regular feminine clothes when she’s not in battle.
Athena, Herakles with his ridiculous little boat Helios' boat, Atlas, Hesperis (one o the Hesperides or their mother), dragon Ladon and Hermes.
A condensation of the myth of Heracles in the lands of what is now the Atlas Mountains. Heracles needed Atlas to pick apples from the garden of the Hesperides, he deceived him in many ways and succeeded.
Why everyone in this painting is so diva? Even the snake is a diva.
Don't know how to explain how I love Atlas, there is no reason more than being dad of Calypso and in some versions of the Hesperides, I just love nymphs.
And just because some apple trees (imagining this at the Garden of the Hesperides):
My brain adores the idea that the daughters of Lord Hesperus the Evening Star are the beautiful sunset nymphs that protect the golden (forbidden) fruit of immortality.
“ The Hesperides were entrusted with the care of the tree of the golden apples which was had been presented to the goddess Hera by Gaia (the Earth) on her wedding day. They were assisted by a hundred-headed guardian-Drakon (Dragon). The three nymphs and their glowing, golden apples were regarded as the source of the golden light of sunset.”
It’s so cool when myths reaffirm little ideas like this. This is all upg but it just makes so much sense in my mind that the daughters of Lucifer are the nymphs who keep forbidden fruit, accompanied by a hundred headed dragon of all things. It perfectly reflects astral experiences I’ve had with Lucifer, the Garden of the Hesperides feels like a place I frequent often.
Do you have any ideas for traits (personality and looks) and powers, a child of one of the Hesperides could have? <3
Oh hey, Alto! Back on the Child of Hesperides workshop again, are we? Or is it a new child of Hesperides character? 🤔
I mentioned some stuff in this last ask you sent for a child of Hesperides: [LINK] but I'll go over some more details yeah. None of this is hard headcanons for me since these are just ideas after all, and the Hesperides are not as detailed in their lore so its hard to figure out definitively.
Anyways, let's start shall we!
So for LOOKS first:
Since the Hesperides are goddesses nymphs of evening and (the golden light of) sunsets; so which give colours of golden, red/orange, black, and navy blue.
So for typical hair colours, I can imagine a child of the Hesperides having hair that is either golden (either very pale hair that looks white to actally blonde hair) to represent the yellow hue of the sunset and the sun, auburn (definitely red in hue) to represent the dawn/rose coloured epithets of Eos, or black like the night.
As for eyes, they could either have blue eyes for the general sky, or brown-amber eyes to represent the golden sun. But of course, if Percy can have sea-foam green eyes well, a demigod of the Hesperides can have an eye colour that is slightly atypical.
Now PERSONALITIES:
I can see the child of Hesperides being generally aloof to represent the Hesperides being generally secluded by themselves from others so they're not used to or not as open faced. However, they are less aloof and show more emotional to their families and close associates who they share strong bonds with.
Once they are open/warmed up to others, their seemingly aloof exterior is bright and have hues of personalities much like the colours of sunset so its jist a matter of time
They have a desire or affinity for care taking, managing, and protecting; much like the the Hesperides in their role taking care of the Golden Apple Tree of Hera, and the treasures of the gods. They are also very defensive of their belongings and others, ranging from reluctant to lending out their stuff to others to doing their best to prevent others from touching it.
Otherwise, those are just personalities that they would inherit as a "Hesperides".
Powers-Wise,
I wanna say definitely something they might both have light and darkness powers but minor in both. Nothing like a child of Apollo/Helios or a child of Hades, and power-level scale wise and technicalities and possibilities, they are below them, but they make up for it for having both light and darkness elemental powers at their disposal.
They might lean to one more than the other in strength, talent, and just in general what they prefer based on the individuals' personality and attribute, but doesn't change that they can still use both.
So basically, they can use light and darkness powers to cast light and darkness and manipulate it when they need to, but they can't like cause a powerful bolt of light like Will can or shadow travel like Nico. They could try or pull it off once in times of desperation like a Hail Mary, but with severe repercussions.
The child of Hesperides is a child of the evening and golden light nymphs afterall, and half-mortal.
Another power the child of the Hesperides could have is the "power of sweet song". The Hesperides have been noted to have this and have sung many times especially as Heralds of Bridal Nights (Short version: they were notably written singing at the wedding of Thetis).
Now what this power of sweet song details, it could mean anything. Could they have a silver tongue that they can beckon others to do what they want? Do they have the power similar to a siren where they can hypnotize/enchant others? Something like Charmspeak but not really? Who knows! but its definitely allows room for what is convinent to you.
Definitely they have the qualities of a child of Apollo where they can use their music, in this case for the child of Hesperides is their voice, to sing to create an effect.
They might have minor water abilities as the Hesperides were referred to as daughters of Oceanus as stated in the Argonautica but that's a stretch if you go with the PJO canon that they are a children of Atlas.
Now for some extra details is depending which of the Hesperides the child is of, it can affect some things.
There are four notable Hesperides that pop up (although I think they are like 7? off the top of my head) but each of their names mean something that can be used to your advantage like AIGLE "The Radiant", ERYTHEIS "The Red", HESPERE "The Evening", ARETHOUSA "War-swift".
Alto, if you're talking about this child of Hesperides whose mother is Erytheis 'The Red', like that one previous ask, you could have their light being red in colour, reflecting Erytheis's name and quality, and having red hair as such. Or maybe they have red eyes. In the Apollonius Rhodiaus Argronautica, thanks or persuaded by Orpheus, Erytheis became an Elm tree which you can use to your advantage.
There's also some minor connection with Erytheis noted son Euryton, who was associated with herding, which maybe a better communication with Satyrs for the child of Erytheis.
If its Aigle 'The Radiant', this child of Hesperides definitely leans more to Light powers more to reflect the "Radiance" of their mother, and may inherit their mother's gentle voice (as mentioned in the Argonautica). Aigle became a Sacred Willow when rising out of the dust in the Argonatuica.
Which you can use qualities of Willow for this child. Maybe they have long hair like a willow or have a 'healing' side to them, since Willow has been noted in Folk Medicine to have healing back to Ancient Egypt and Greece, and Willow itself is a robust tree that was used in daily life; so maybe they're a handy person or a person of many talents.
If its Hespere 'The Evening', they have more darkness and night powers more as part of the "Evening". Hespere/Hespera became a Poplar tree in the Argonautic, but you could make them popular because well, poplar and popular sound kind of similar to each other. There's also some potential connection with Venus※ or even the Horae Hesperis ('Evening': the 10th Horae/Hour who presided over the hour of dusk), with the name connection.
※(Side Tangent: Long story short, there's another god named Hesperus, son of Eos/son of Iapetus and brother of Atlas, and who is supposedly the father of his daughter who is also named Hesperis (which is also a floral plant IRL), who with Atlas gives birth the Hesperides.
Hesperus is also the Evening star, the planet Venus in the Evening. How this works in the Riordanverse, I dunno but its there for you if you want to go down that rabbit hole).
If its Arethousa 'The Warswift', their personality is more bold, passionate, and quick to act as one whose mother is warswift. Take some fitting attributes that are similar to a child of Ares, mostly because of "Are" in Arethousa, or even children of Nike to them but without, the iconic stuff that is iconic to children of Ares (blood) and Nike (victory). Maybe they are swift like a shooting star kind of deal.
Basically, Arethousa could have a war god attributes, due to her name, but isn't really a war god, and their child could have similar qualities with other war god demigods.
There's also a fact that the Hesperides as caretakers of the treasures of the gods and there have been heroes (i.e. Perseus) who borrowed them in his quest, and there is a possibility the child of Hesperides may be allowed to use one of the treasures as their time as a demigod, but the stipulation is, they are simply borrowing it because all that is under the care of the Hesperides are eventually given back to their hands; from the golden apples and the treasures that Perseus used against Medusa.
A/n: And that's all I can think of. Hope this was either entertaining or a little bit helpful!
The animalistic and raw condition Heracles was in when he reached the Hesperides in Argonautica was soooo haughty! (Heracles's Grief, an analysis)
I gotta say that I was definitely in for Medea's descend to madness from her unnaturally strong passion for Jason and how that occurred to be the very essence of the story but I think the scenes of Heracles's raw fury, sadness and anger were apparent to the book!
The rawest scene I had perceived though in regards to the hero's deep condition of torment by his labors, something that was not so often described by other mythographers who mostly speak on his human weakness and usually perceive his great strength during those said labors but Apollonius gives us one of the rawest perspectives in regards to his human nature and how even he can be taken over by fatigue, hunger or thirst. In the final book of Argonautica we seem to see a different Heracles; taken over by fatigue and thirst after a long march of survival in the wilderness of the Libiyan desert in a shape more of an animal than of a human; having the lion's skin as his only true protection from the scorching sun, Heracles practically crawled to the Hesperides garden, shooting the dragon that guarded it with his arrows and then in his pursue of water he hit with his foot a rock to the side of the lake Tritonis and found water underneath.
This batted and absolutely taken over image of Heracles seems to me directly linked to his grief as perceived in the very first book of Argonautica where he finds out on Hylas's demise. And let me try and explain why
First and foremost his grief in the first book of Argonautica was arguably one of the most characteristic scenes in the entire book and daresay scarred the first book of Argonautica and kinda was a plot starter for the whole thing:
So he spoke (Polyphemus) and his (Heracles's) salty sweat ran in abundance down his temples while deep in his guts, black blood would be boiling in anger. Furious he threw the fir tree down and he ran down the path, as fast as his feet could carry him. And just like a bull, stung by a horsefly abandons the meadows and the plains and doesn't care for the herder or his herd, tramples over the street, sometimes unstoppable, sometimes standing and raises his wide neck to the air to bellow loudly, taken over by madness: similarly he was in a frenzy while running constantly and when his breath was cut off by fatigue he would release woeful cries as far as he could
(Translation by me)
Honestly guys the comparison of Heracles to a maddened bull (and anyone who has seen videos of charging bulls know how terrifying of a sight that is and how the animals pay no heed about anything or anyone in their way when they are like this), showing how he has lost most of his humanity in his fury and madness and he would stop only to call as far as he could for Hylas to reply, honestly you do not get such a raw representation of pain ever since you saw Achilles mourning Patroclus. There is nothing human in the way Heracles mourns! He is the bull, as Apollonius says, maddened and trampling anything in his path! All he sees is the goal of saving Hylas even if he knows deep down that it is hopeless.
What is also really impactful to me is that Apollonius also reveals to us that Heracles loved Hylas very very much because he had raised him from childhood and he held tender feelings for him because of that bond! So imagine hearing that the child you raised suddenly is lost, gone, potentially drowned. Heracles though cannot accept it! No, he cannot be gone! He cannot be just gone! So he runs around like a mad bull, no longer caring for anything else apart from finding Hylas. Nothing else matters, not even his companions that are left behind waiting.
No, in fact his frenzy is turned towards those companions as well deep down. Why are they looking for Hylas too? Why don't they seem to care at all? Why isn't anyone else even aware that Hylas is gone? There is no more precious companion on that ship to Heracles but Hylas and Hylas is now gone and none of the others seem to care or even noticing his absence!
In Heracles's mind that is arguably the ultimate form of betrayal; that his companions don't seem to care about the most precious person on that ship (because in his mind that is Hylas) and they do not even know he is gone. That fury is described clearly by Apollonius with the way he says that "his black blood was boiling in his guts" (ἐν δὲ κελαινὸν ὑπὸ σπλάγχνοις ζέεν αἷμα) He particularly uses the verb "ζέω" which stands for "to boil" so there is an undoubted fury boiling inside him
His fury doesn't seem to stop existing even years later for we know from traditions that the two sons of Boreas are killed by his own hand when they meet again in Tenos.
According to some traditions Heracles even started a whole tradition around the area where the inhabitants of the area had to keep a lookout for Hylas and let him know if they found him
So Heracles's grief and despair were so great that he needed to keep a useless hope up that Hylas would eventually turn up before he could go about his way
Now apparently Apollonius places the Argonautica somewhere in a break between the 12 labors of Heracles. More specifically he places Argonautica soon after Heracles had finished the labor of capturing the Eurymanthian Boar for it is mentioned that he drops the animal off his shoulders once he heard on the trip and he rushed there with Hylas without expecting Eurystheus to give him the order.
It is unclear whether Apollonius is following some specific order for the labors similar to the one Apollodorous provides or Diodorus Siculus or some other altogether (similar to how the metopes of the temple in Olympia show the order of the labors) but we do seem to know that Argonautica is placed after the belt of Hippolyta but before the cleaning of the Augea's Stables.
It feels like Apollonius doesn't follow the known order of the labors but seems like he follows one closer to the set of metopes from Olympia and possibly the local tradition that Pausanias later gives rather than the usual standard orders
Now one could argue on whether the 12th labor is indeed the clearing of the Augeas's Stables or not but it seems that at least according to the small sample of information Apollonius gives us, he follows an order closer to this set but on different order. Apollonius doesn't even tell us whether Heracles already had an order for his next labor while returning the boar so there is that too.
However regardless of the order, Heracles disappears from the team after they leave without him. His loss has a huge impact to the expedition and it wouldn't be a lie if we said that it is because of that very absence that the whole domino of events starts to unravel and ends up to the bond between Medea and Jason (one can wonder whether the Argonauts would need spells to capture the bulls if they had Heracles with them or if they would take so long to carry their ship across the desert etc)
The absence of Heracles echoes throughout the story but we do see his presence too. More specifically when the heroes find themselves in the 4th book of Argonautica in a tough position where their ship gets stuck, the omen given to Jason seems to be interpreted with the heroes lifting their ship on their shoulders and physically carrying it across the desert to the other side till they find the place Poseidon's horse points them to go! The heroes do so and for 12 days they struggle with the heat and thirst till they get to the land of the Hesperides and there I think we get one of the roughest images of the hero we ever get. The Hesperides seem to tell them how one man came there just one or so day before them and his appearance was the very least dreadful to them:
Ah, verily of great help would have been to your troubles if the most shameless of you had come along, the one that has taken the life of the snake-guardian of the divine golden apples, when he came to take them; leaving us in great distress as he left.
So, yesterday some man reeking of hubris and most terrifying of appearance; his two eyes flashed upon his grim forehead, he was ruthless; upon his shoulders he wore the skin of a huge lion as it was raw and untanned; he also had a sturdy club made of olive wood and a bow with which he shot this monster here, annihilating it with his arrows.
And he too had come like you, traveling on foot through this land and parched in thirst. He dashed wildly about this place, looking for water but there was nowhere to be seen. And then he saw a rock next to the lake Tritonis and either on his own accord or by divine order, he cracked it open by kicking it with his foot; and from the crack water emerged.
He proceeded to fall down to the ground, leaning his ragged torso on his hands on them and started drinking from the rock insatiably, as it came out from the deep crack, stooped down like an animal, until he was finally satisfied
(Translation by me)
Boy! Oh boy! That appearance will definitely be something to remember for the nymphs (and I am surprised that I do not see more people talking about it!). From the fact that he has literally terrible appearance; something that only a man sunken in the world of violence might have plus the eternity in wilderness, being of dreadful appearance and maddened by thirst, bending on the ground, literally crawling on it to take a drink of water!
Heracles doesn't even gather water with his hand to take a drink! He is literally pouched in thirst (δίψῃ καρχαλέος) so he drinks straight from the source, straight from the ground; resembling more of a beast than a human (φορβάδι ἶσος)! He had spent days and days out the desert and finally when he had shot the dragon dead with his arrows he wildly sought water (παίφασσε δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἀνὰ χῶρον) until either he himself spotted a water source or some god or goddess helped him (ὅγ᾽ ἐπιφρασθείς, ἢ καὶ θεοῦ ἐννεσίῃσιν).
The Argonauts proceed upon quenching their thirst to the water that Heracles had released and even recognized how even if he is not with them, Heracles had been saving them! And possibly wonder what would happen if they had him with them. They even rush to seek for him just in case they can catch up with him but they failed.
Now why I think Hylas has something to do with it you may ask?
Well, for starters I do not find it random that Heracles more or less closes the first and the forth book of Argonautica or that he plays a catalytic role to the ending.
The antithesis of Heracles technically be left behind or forgotten in first book vs being sought out desperately in the fourth.
Both incidents of Hylas being lost and Heracles showing signs of life are related to a source of water and a lake.
Hylas was off to the lakes to fetch water and find himself useful to Heracles who was off to make an oar. Now Heracles seems to be actively seeking water by himself.
The one time Hylas had taken equipment with him to fetch the water but at the second Heracles has nothing and he doesn't even think of using one.
Both episodes end with an unsuccessful seek. Heracles at first in mad sorrow seeks for Hylas hopelessly while on the other the Argonauts themselves in some happy hole seek out to find Heracles but fail for probably the hero is already far away.
All of the above makes me think of Heracles having thrown himself to work and to battles or actively seeking around in some mad hope that Hylas would be found. It wouldn't be the first time Heracles was tormented by madness after all.
Apollonius tells us that Polyphemus who was with Heracles for quite some time had tried to find Argo anew (abandoning Heracles) and started following the coastline, hoping to catch up with them, after he had founded a new city. Unfortunately he died along the way. Heracles was nowhere to be found.
The hero continued tirelessly move about the region. That roaming behavior strikes me as someone suffering from grief and sorrow; constantly and aimlessly traveling around trying to fulfill that emptiness inside them, sometimes not even considering their personal needs until they are completely necessary. So probably Heracles continued on foot or even on ships up until some point.
This almost animalistic transformation seems to me a result of the loss of Hylas in such a manner. Similarly to how Heracles had to cleanse himself from the murder of his children with the labors in the first place.
And I think people need to remember how long of a distance that is! If one looks at the map here:
Hylas was lost in Mysia (the red circle) and Heracles was seen again at the area of lake Tritonis (the blue circle). Heracles literally traversed most part of the Mediterranean sea by himself, doing who knows what in-between if we believe the myths already set around him.
No wonder he was in such condition, dried out in thirst, in the middle of the desert, constantly moving! He hadn't even stayed around the area for one day and was already gone.
Somehow the image of the hero in such condition is something that I wish people talked about more because GOSH!
(seriously this soundtrack is playing in my head honestly! Hahaha)
