In the genuine myth (if that’s not an oxymoron) of Hercules, he’s a prince destined to be king and early on marries his first wife, Megara. They have children until Hera, who hates him, sends a madness and while blindly raging, he kills his young family. The guilt that devours him afterwards is intolerable, but Zeus and the Fates decree that if he can perform his famous labors, the guilt will end. This promise drives him through much of the story, during which he avoids women, afraid he’ll lose his mind and kill them, too.

 
Halfway through his Underworld recounting of his life, Persephone asks him about women. Weren’t there any? All those years? No, he says, but talks about the finest woman he ever met, Queen Alcestis, who’d taken her own life so her husband could live on. Hercules had rescued her from the Underworld, for which Hades has yet to forgive him. Then he asks about the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, who he’d been tricked into killing by Hera, and how she’s doing in the Land of the Dead. After telling her story, Hades agrees to treat her ghost with a little more kindness.

 
Constantly filled with rage, Hercules spends a lifetime trying overcome it. It doesn’t really leave him until he spends three years as a slave to Queen Omphale for yet another murder. Accepting the punishment, he’s shocked when she takes his lion skin and commands him to dress like a woman, condemned to weaving with the girls. He learns to make his own dresses. Few people know about this cross-dressing episode in the myth. Yet it is only after this that he truly learns to appreciate women, and is finally free to love again.

 
Still, in the end, love is his undoing. His second wife, Deianira, loves him completely and they live together for years. Yet it is she who causes his death. To find out how, come listen to the tale, Hercules in Hell, this coming Sunday night, April 23 at 8:00 pm at Grendel’s Den in Cambridge, MA.

 
It’s a shocking, twisting tale. Told with 12-string guitar. An adult telling.

 

Tickets are here.