Editing Labours of Hercules (section)

==Allegorical interpretation==
Some ancient Greeks found allegorical meanings of a moral, psychological or philosophical nature in the Labours of Heracles. This trend became more prominent in the Renaissance.<ref>Brumble, H. David. ''Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: A Dictionary of Allegorical Meanings''. Routledge, 2013.</ref>  For example, [[Heraclitus (commentator)|Heraclitus the Grammarian]] wrote in his ''Homeric Problems'':
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I turn to Heracles. We must not suppose he attained such power in those days as a result of his physical strength. Rather, he was a man of intellect, an initiate in heavenly wisdom, who, as it were, shed light on philosophy, which had been hidden in deep darkness. The most authoritative of the Stoics agree with this account.... The (Erymanthian) boar which he overcame is the common incontinence of men; the (Nemean) lion is the indiscriminate rush towards improper goals; in the same way, by fettering irrational passions he gave rise to the belief that he had fettered the violent (Cretan) bull. He banished cowardice also from the world, in the shape of the hind of Ceryneia. There was another "labor" too, not properly so called, in which he cleared out the mass of dung (from the Augean stables) — in other words, the foulness that disfigures humanity. The (Stymphalian) birds he scattered are the windy hopes that feed our lives; the many-headed hydra that he burned, as it were, with the fires of exhortation, is pleasure, which begins to grow again as soon as it is cut out.
|author=Donald Andrew Russell, David Konstan
|source=''Heraclitus: Homeric Problems'' 33 (2005)<ref>Russell, Donald Andrew; Konstan, David (trs.). Heraclitus: Homeric Problems. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005.</ref>
}}