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condign punishment, fed the mares Diomedes himself.
9. Seizing the girdle of Hyppolyte, queen of the Amazons. Most sources even
name
the wrong queen here. I am shortly going to introduce Her Majesty Moctod into
my
narrative; let me only add here, parenthetically, that the gods never really
favored the idea of my marrying and settling down I was too useful to them as
a
footloose adventurer. On the other hand, the Titans would probably have
supported my adopting a sedentary lifestyle, had they been consulted.
10. Seizing the cattle of the three-bodied (alternately, three-headed) Giant
named Geryon, supposed to live in the island of Erythia, somewhere in the
remote
west. On my way to pillage Geryon of his cows, I supposedly strangled one
Cacus,
a three-headed shepherd who puffed flames and lived in a cave decorated with
the
bones of his victims. A number of factual events seem to be confabulated in
this
adventure, along with some creditably artistic lies; disentangling them would
take more time than I am willing to devote to the subject.
11. Bringing back (I think to King Eurytheus) the Golden Apples kept at the
world's end by the three sisters called Hesperides. We have already seen
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something of the real Apples, and will see more. I think this needs no
further
comment from me, except that the king in his bronze box would not have had
the
faintest idea what to do with them.
12. Fetching up Cerberus from the Underworld. We will soon come to the basis
of
this tale.
It was said of Queen Moctod and her followers that they kept a few men around
as
servants; that at designated times they sought out strangers and lay with
them
to accomplish the reproduction of their race. Boy babies resulting from these
unions would be sacrificed, or given for adoption to neighboring tribes. Each
young girl suffered the amputation of one breast generally the left,
presumably
in early childhood to facilitate the use of the bow.
An alternate version was that every girl was required to kill a man before
she
was allowed to take a husband. My own thought was that women meeting this
qualification might soon face a real shortage of prospective bridegrooms.
Early on in my visit to the Amazons' country, I observed some evidence that
other male adventurers had recently intruded in this space presumably
reserved
for women only, and even that some of my own sex were still on the scene.
One distant figure, dark-bearded and almost breastless, labored in a field,
guiding a plow pulled by a cameloid. Almost certainly a man, I thought, but
very
possibly a slave.
The only children to be seen were girls. If there were any pregnant warriors
about, they seemed to be making an effort not to appear in public.
Evidence of a more recent intrusion could be seen in the occasional glimpses
I
had of wounded women warriors, limping, or nursing the stumps of missing arms
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or
legs; and once I saw in the distance what appeared to be a funeral, but
whether
the death might have been a result of recent combat I had no way to tell.
Again, I once glimpsed on a stout limb of a distant tree three dead bodies,
hanging by their necks. Whether men or women I could not distinguish at the
distance, but they might have been three pirates when they walked and
breathed.
It seemed to me distinctly possible that the rule against men, like many
other
rules in many other lands, was not strictly enforced, and as I have
mentioned,
some adult males, probably slaves, were in fact to be seen. Also I could
imagine
exceptions being made for merchants or skilled workers.
There were also the charred remnants of some ship to be seen, along a muddy
riverbank, and the painted symbol still visible on certain planks suggested
it
had been a pirate vessel. This was of course encouraging in that it suggested
I
was somewhat closer to the sea than I had thought.
The weather was mild, and sleeping out of doors posed no problem to an
experienced traveler. Water was plentifully available, but food was another
matter, and before long I was ravenously hungry.
Almost the only people I saw anywhere, at least for the first several days,
were
women, who did (or at least officially claimed to do) all the heavy work of
farming and hunting. Of course it was hardly unknown in my own land, or any
other, that females should perform these tasks, but it was strange to see no
men
at all. An ignorant stranger, coming on the scene, might have supposed that
the
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