Three of Saint-Saëns' four tone poems are inspired by Greek mythology and two have to do with the hero Hercules. The first of the series, Le Rouet d'Omphale (Omphale's Spinning Wheel), finds Hercules in temporary exile, dressed in women's clothes and working as a maid for the Lydian queen Omphale. The composer did not write a detailed musical narrative linked to the story; instead, this is more of an atmosphere piece, its inspiration derived from three quite different aesthetic experiences Saint-Saëns had in close succession: reading a Victor Hugo poem about Omphale, seeing a beautiful ebony spinning wheel in a friend's home, and admiring a sensuous painting of Venus in the studio of the painter Cabanel. "The basic idea of Le Rouet d'Omphale," the composer wrote, "is voluptuousness." Saint-Saëns provided a description of the tone poem: "The subject of this work is feminine seduction, the victorious struggle of weakness against strength. The spinning wheel is only a pretext, chosen solely from the point of view of the general style and movement of the piece. Hercules surprises Omphale spinning wool at her wheel and tries to win her by the story of his exploits. She laughs at this strength, having as her single weapon of defense her great beauty. Through the witchery of her charm, she vanquishes Hercules and compels him to spin at her feet." The music depicts the wheel with whirling string and woodwind figures and eventually, a melody and rhythm of jerky duplets, perhaps suggesting the spinner's use of a foot pedal. This music expands and fills out, but soon, though the spinning-wheel rhythm never relents, a new, sweeping, and ominous theme develops in relation to Hercules. This subsides, the music pauses, and then the oboe and other woodwinds introduce a light, mocking melody derived from Omphale's music. The spinning wheel material returns, now in even more sparkling orchestration; aside from another sarcastic visit from the oboe, this music holds until the end. Each of these episodes follows a crescendo-decrescendo pattern and the tone poem as a whole can be heard as such, rising from quiet, hesitant string and flute notes, climaxing with the Hercules episode, and receding to a closing passage that is high, soft, and thinly scored—the final thread spun from Omphale's wheel.

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