All 4 Uses of
Hercules
in
Much Ado About Nothing
- I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection the one with the other.
Scene 2.1 *Hercules = mythological Roman hero famous for his strength and for performing 12 immense labors (tasks)
- I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too.†
Scene 2.1
- sometime fashioning them like Pharaoh's soldiers in the reechy painting; sometime like god Bel's priests in the old church-window; sometime like the shaven Hercules in the smirched worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as massy as his club?†
Scene 3.3
- But manhood is melted into cursies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules, that only tells a lie and swears it.†
Scene 4.1
Definitions:
-
(1)
(Hercules) mythological Roman hero famous for his strength and for performing 12 immense labors to gain immortality
- (2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)