Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word
Origins 153. The word origin today is herculean. Okay. Let's take a look at
the note. If a person says that someone or
something is herculean, it means that he she or it
is of extraordinary power, might, strength, size , etc. Or number two here.
Herculean can also be used to describe a task or a piece of work that requires
a huge amount of effort. Okay. Let's continue.
The origin of this term comes directly from
Greek mythology. It comes directly from Hercules. I don't know if
you've ever heard of Hercules before, very very famous from Greek mythology. I
remember growing up, there was always a lot of ... you know movies or
something that had something to do with Hercules. He was a great fighter, he was
kind of like a superhero of those ancient times.
All right. Let's continue. Hercules was the son
of Zeus and Alcamene. So remember Zeus, Zeus was the
god of the gods. All right. Alcamene was actually just
a regular woman. She was not a god. All right. So let's
continue. He was known for his great strength
and was most famous for performing the 12
labors in which he had to redeem himself after killing his family. You know his
wife Megara and his children. Yeah. I remember finding
this out. I... a number of years ago I taught mythology
but you know as a kid I never heard this. They never had that in the movies.
And i'm like Hercules killed his wife and children ?
Is this correct ? You know, here he's supposed to be some great hero.
All right , but let's continue. But you know you could you'll
soon find out why. Hera, the wife of Zeus. So she is a goddess
of course and that's another thing even from teaching mythology , you know I
realized you go back to find out in all those
stories the gods back then .... I mean they had as many
bad vices as humans. They were jealous. They were vengeful .
You know, they fooled around like oh Zeus...
Zeus was a womanizer. You know, he went around especially with the
pretty human females. I mean this wasn't the only one he
he you know, he had some sex with. All right. Let's continue.
So, all right. Let's continue. So most ... so he's most famous for
performing the twelve laborers. Hera, the wife of Zeus caused Hercules
to go mad because she was jealous her husband,
Zeus impregnated Alcamene. Okay.
A mortal so she was just like a regular woman. Like how dare she . You know,
and Zeus did this. So she was really angry
about this. So Hercules was son. So he was half god
and half human Okay. In his madness Hercules thought he
was fighting monsters. So he didn't purposely kill his
family. He didn't want to do that. He didn't realize that until later what
he had done. He thought he was fighting off some monsters.
To redeem himself Hercules prayed to the God Apollo who sent him to serve
your Eurystheus, the king of Maycene. You know, at that time
each of the 12 laborers was like mission impossible.
But he did the. I think it took him 10 years to do it. Ten years of his life. He
had to make up for this. But he he was given these 12 very very
difficult feats to accomplish and that was
supposed to be part of his punishment to redeem himself and later on I think
as the you know, Greek mythology goes, I think uh
Hercules eventually did remarry. I think a couple times after
that. But it is unfortunate about this particular
case. All right. Let's continue. All right and
we got three examples to show how we would use this today. So
obviously herculean is kind of like an adjective of Hercules.
The same way meaning great strength, great power or
taking a great amount of effort to do something. So here's the first
one it will take a herculean effort to restore
the world economy after the damage done by the corona virus.
Okay. Or number two here. It was a herculean task
for the soldiers to take back the beaches
of Normandy from the Nazi occupation. You know on D-day.
You know, world war ii. If you ever see any movies like that movie.
If you ever seen the movie "Saving Private Ryan"
with a Steven Spielberg. The very beginning of that movie with all those
bullets flying around. That gives you an idea what they had to go through
in order to take those beaches back. All right. And number three here.
It was a herculean effort to try to dig out any survivors
from the mudslide. Okay. Great. I hope you got it. I hope you
enjoyed the origin. I hope it was very informative. Thank you
for your time. Bye-bye.