HeraclesPheneosAbyssANCIENT

Catullus, c. 68.107-116. Indulging a remarkably obscure mythological moment, Catullus compares the depth of Laodamia's love for Protesilaus to the depth of the abyss Heracles cut to drain the swamp that once had been near Pheneos in the Peloponnese. "Your love was deeper that that famous abyss..." ——

...tanto te absorbens vertice amoris
    aestus in abruptum detulerat barathrum,
quale ferunt Grai Pheneum prope Cyllenaeum
    siccare emulsa pingue palude solum,
quod quondam caesis montis fodisse medullis
    audit falsiparens Amphitryoniades,
tempore quo certa Stymphalia monstra sagitta
    perculit imperio deterioris eri,
pluribus ut caeli tereretur ianua divis,
    Hebe nec longa virginitate foret.
sed tuus altus amor barathro fuit altrio illo..."

The current engulfing you in love's whirlpool had taken you down into an abject abyss, as deep as the one fabled by the Greeks. They tell that near Cyllenian Pheneus Heracles drained off the swamp and dried out the fertile topsoil there; that the paternally challenged scion of Amphitryon once boldly channeled the mountain's deepest bowels, when he slew the Stympahlian aberrations with his infallible arrows. He obeyed the command of an inferior tyrrant, that the threshold of Olympus be worn down by a few more gods, but that Hebe endure no lengthier virginity. But, Laodamia, your deep lover was deeper than that fabled abyss... —trans. RTM

The parergon explicated by Catullus in this remarkable poem is hardly known. But the association with the Hero's fifth canonical labor is readily understood. Heracles had drained the swampland adjacent to Pheneos either before or after his slaying of the Stymphalian Birds.