the ground in despair.

It was then that one of the immortals appeared to him; for the first
and only time he was given help from the gods.

It was Athena who came to him. She stood apart from Heracles, holding
in her hands brazen cymbals. These she clashed together. At the sound
of this clashing the Stymphalean birds rose up from the low bushes
behind the jungle. Heracles shot at them with those unerring arrows of
his. The maneating birds fell, one after the other, into the marsh.

Then Heracles went north to where the Coryneian deer took her pasture.
So swift of foot was she that no hound nor hunter had ever been able to
overtake her. For the whole of a year Heracles kept Golden Horns in
chase, and at last, on the side of the Mountain Artemision, he caught
her. Artemis, the goddess of the wild things, would have punished
Heracles for capturing the deer, but the hero pleaded with her, and she
relented and agreed to let him bring the deer to Mycenae and show her to
King Eurystheus. And Artemis took charge of Golden Horns while Heracles
went off to capture the Erymanthean boar.

He came to the city of Psophis, the inhabitants of which were in deadly
fear because of the ravages of the boar. Heracles made his way up the
mountain to hunt it. Now on this mountain a band of centaurs lived, and
they, knowing him since the time he had been fostered by Chiron,
welcomed Heracles. One of them, Pholus, took Heracles to the great
house where the centaurs had their wine stored.

Seldom did the centaurs drink wine; a draft of it made them wild, and
so they stored it away, leaving it in the charge of one of their band.
Heracles begged Pholus to give him a draft of wine; after he had begged
again and again the centaur opened one of his great jars.

Heracles drank wine and spilled it. Then the centaurs that were without
smelt the wine and came hammering at the door, demanding the drafts
that would make them wild. Heracles came forth to drive them away. They
attacked him. Then he shot at them with his unerring arrows and he
drove them away. Up the mountain and away to far rivers the centaurs
raced, pursued by Heracles with his bow.

One was slain, Pholus, the centaur who had entertained him. By accident
Heracles dropped a poisoned arrow on his foot. He took the body of
Pholus up to the top of the mountain and buried the centaur there.
Afterward, on the snows of Erymanthus, he set a snare for the boar and
caught him there.

Upon