The Banqueting House Ceiling Hercules crushing Discord

The ancient Greek and Roman hero Hercules - the personification of physical heroism - raises his club to destroy a female figure at his feet. She has snakes instead of hair like the infamous gorgon, Medusa and represents the evil of envy or discord. James I brought peace with Scotland and end to the discord that had divided the island of Britain.

In the struggle Discord’s snake bites Hercules’ leg. Its strange rodent-like face suggests the artist - probably one of Rubens’s assistants – had not studied a live snake.