Curiosa: Bloody Hydra

[nebroadwe]

Today's Bright Moment in Cataloging: an engraved title vignette of Louis XIII of France as Hercules defeating the sorriest-looking Hydra I've ever seen. Its freshly severed heads are scattered about it on the ground (awfully neat work for a man wielding a club, I might add) and the necks are still spurting blood -- or so I judge we are to interpret the thin, straight strokes obtruding from the end of each neck. They look like nothing so much as pins to me, however, which might explain the Hydra's perdurance (it's not that new heads grow from the stumps of the old; some minion just sticks the original heads back on!). And suddenly I'm imagining a court entertainment in which Louis/Hercules goes on a monster-slaying rampage in a diorama ("Look, my liege! The Hydra!" "The Hydra!" "The Hydra!" "It's only a model." "Ssh!").