His master proved to be Eurystheus, King of Tiryns or Argos, who was his kinsman, and older by a day.

Then was it that his soul stirred to urge him into the land of Ister; where Leto's horse-loving daughter received him erst when he was come from the ridged hills and winding dells of Arcady, what time his father laid constraint upon him to go at Eurystheus' bidding to fetch the golden-hornëd hind, which once Taÿgete vowed to her of Orthion and made a sign thereon of consecration.

That Iolaos had respect thereto seven-gated Thebes knoweth well, for when he had stricken down the head of Eurystheus beneath the edge of the sword, she buried the slayer beneath the earth in the tomb of Amphitryon the charioteer, where his father's father was laid, a guest of the Spartoi, who had left his home to dwell among the streets of the sons of Kadmos who drave white horses.

Thus Hercules was compelled to serve Eurystheus; and his twelve labors were typed in the twelve signs of the zodiac.

And here Eurystheus bade me try my first Passage of arms, and slay that fearsome thing.

In 1534 a new Eurystheus arose for our Hercules.

EURYSTHEUS, the king of Mycenæ, at whose command, as subject to him by fate, Hercules was required to perform his 12 labours, on the achievement of which depended his admission to the rank of an immortal.