HERCULES IN DRAG

What is one to make of this?

I suppose it may be the earliest “formal” portrait of a tranny
.

After killing a friend in a moment of insanity, Hercules  sought the counsel of the Oracle of Delphi and tried to steal Apollo’s stool, the kind one sits on. His sentence: to serve as a slave to Omphale, Queen of Lydia, in drag, of course.

The artist Bartholomeus Spranger’s sweetly touching rendering of a scene from their time together, Hercules and Omphale, c.1585, captures a moment of tenderness sure to lighten the loins of any of my followers: the abject strongman in a pink frock sits on an elaborately carved low chair, an old hag scolding him over his shoulder, a sneering putti above, and Omphale standing seductively in front of him, the skin of the Nemean lion slung over one shoulder and holding his favored weapon – his club. Oh, girlfriend: don’t you just wish she would trick you out and take control of your club, however meager?

Spranger’s work (why do I keep thinking Springer? Or Schwinger?) certainly isn’t a formal portrait. I mean, Hercules didn’t sit for it, now did he? No, he didn’t. But just imagine the shame he’d feel now, millennia later, seeing himself in his pink frock on the Internet. I don’t know why, but he reminds me of so very many people I know.

Who knew that Hercules in pink would be such a role model?

 And, speaking of role models...

Omphale, regal, statuesque--looks to me like she knew just how to make good use of that club.

I would like to mention here that Omphale eventually ended up fucking taking Hercules as her husband (bride?)

You see, hope really does spring eternal.

Ms. Londoncalling
signing out.