Similarities Between Beowulf And Hercules

Beowulf has established himself as one of the most fierce and bloodthirsty warriors in the entire world, there is no doubt about that. His strength matches that of a humanoid machine, his confidence has the ability to intimidate any sane person, and his fighting experience exceeds any other warrior in the known world. He has single handedly tore off the arm of a horrible monster that was terrorizing the Danes and left the demon to die. It is no question that Beowulf is an outstanding epic hero. However, does he share the same stage as the ancient Greek legend, Hercules?

Beowulf, a geatish warrior, and Hercules, a greek demigod from the God of Zeus, share a lot of physical and personality traits. Hercules has been described as “the strongest

of all mortals, and even stronger than many gods”. Meanwhile, Beowulf is depicted in the poem as “the mightiest man on Earth, highborn and powerful, with no one as powerful as him during his time”(Beowulf, 196-198). Both of these descriptions are quite impressive; these men have more power than most mortals could ever dream of. They are both capable of amazing physical feats, like Beowulf holding his breath underwater for hours at a time and Hercules killing the Nemean lion, a creature with a pelt resistant to weapons, with his bare hands.

Both heroes are anything but soft-spoken when referring to all of their adventures they have undertaken or all the monsters they have slain. Beowulf boasts to his

doubters about how he has “had great triumphs...[My kinsmen] seen me boltered in the blood of enemies when I battled and bound five beasts, raided a troll-nest and in the night-sea slaughtered sea-brutes”(Beowulf, 407-409). This is a great example of how both Beowulf and Hercules have a similar history. They both are called upon to rid the area of a horrible best that is terrorizing the citizens, they both brag to the locals about all their impressive adventures they have overcome, and they face a difficult task that pushes them to their limits but overcome the challenge. The stories of Hercules and Beowulf have a lot of similarities within them.
No matter how impressive Beowulf’s physical feats are, they do not compare to the triumphs of great mind power displayed by Hercules in old Greek legends.

An incredible example of Hercules’s intelligence is when Eurystheus, a Greek king, challenged the noble hero to capture Hades’s three-headed dog, Kerberos. Hercules made the journey all the way down to the underworld and “used his sly tongue” to convince the god of the underworld to let him take his monstrous pet back up to the surface world. Beowulf defeated Grendel with his bare hands, grendel’s mother with an ancient sword, and the dragon with a strike from Wiglaf and a stab with his small knife. We never see Beowulf solving any problems with the use of his mind; he is a man of brute force and nothing more. Some would argue that a hero does not need to have brains if he has the muscle to get the job done, but a hero who is capable of thinking on his feet to stay alive as well as having immense strength is a much more viable

option.
There is no doubt that Beowulf is an incredible epic hero. His confidence and bravado are qualities that most men would envy, his accomplishments have been told as legend across the world, and he was the best solution for the Danes’ crisis. Overlooking all of theses positives, Beowulf is actually lacking quite a bit in the area of mental capacity. To be fair, his strength and speed is so reliable that he never has to turn to any other quality to save him. His challenges never really require any forward thinking. They always involve a monstrous beast that beowulf has to kill with a sword or his bare hands, and if he doesn’t, he dies. He has never been ordered with the task of using his wit to solve a problem, like Hercules. This lacking quality is why Beowulf does not deserve the title of a “great epic hero”.