“Oh, that will never do!” cried Giant Atlas, with a great roar of laughter.  “I have not let fall so many stars within the last five centuries.  By the time you have stood there as long as I did, you will begin to learn patience!”

“What!” shouted Hercules, very wrathfully, “do you intend to make me bear this burden forever?”

“We will see about that, one of these days,” answered the giant.  “At all events, you ought not to complain if you have to bear it the next hundred years, or perhaps the next thousand.  I bore it a good while longer, in spite of the backache.  Well, then, after a thousand years, if I happen to feel in the mood, we may possibly shift about again.  You are certainly a very strong man, and can never have a better opportunity to prove it.  Posterity will talk of you, I warrant it!”

“Pish! a fig for its talk!” cried Hercules, with another hitch of his shoulders.  “Just take the sky upon your head one instant, will you?  I want to make a cushion of my lion’s skin, for the weight to rest upon.  It really chafes me, and will cause unnecessary inconvenience in so many centuries as I am to stand here.”

“That’s no more than fair, and I’ll do it!” quoth the giant; for he had no unkind feeling toward Hercules, and was merely acting with a too selfish consideration of his own ease.  “For just five minutes, then, I’ll take back the sky.  Only for five minutes, recollect!  I have no idea of spending another thousand years as I spent the last.  Variety is the spice of life, say I.”

Ah, the thick-witted old rogue of a giant!  He threw down the golden apples, and received back the sky from the head and shoulders of Hercules, upon his own, where it rightly belonged.  And Hercules picked up the three golden apples, that were as big or bigger than pumpkins and straightway set out on his journey homeward, without paying the slightest heed to the thundering tones of the giant, who bellowed after him to come back.  Another forest sprang up around his feet, and grew ancient there; and again might be seen oak trees, of six or seven centuries old, that had waxed thus aged betwixt his enormous toes.

And there stands the giant to this day; or, at any rate, there stands a mountain as tall as he, and which bears his name; and when the thunder rumbles about its summit, we may imagine it to be the voice of Giant Atlas, bellowing after Hercules!

CHAPTER II

THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS

Mother Ceres was exceedingly fond of her daughter Proserpina, and seldom let her go alone into the fields.  But, just at the time when my story begins, the good lady was very busy, because she had the care of the wheat, and the Indian corn, and the rye and barley, and, in short, of the crops of every kind, all over the earth; and as the season had thus far been uncommonly backward, it was necessary to make the harvest ripen more speedily than usual.  So she put on her turban, made of poppies (a kind of flower which she was always noted for wearing) and got into her car drawn by a pair of winged dragons, and was just ready to set off.