Treasury of Greek Mythology Read online

  Together they created so many sons, all strong rivers, from the great Nile of Egypt, to the famous Skamander of Troy, to the many that emptied into the friendly Black Sea. They swirled in eddies, they rippled with gusto, they rushed over cliffs and fell in loud, energetic sheets to the rocks below.

  Then Oceanus and Tethys created so many daughters, all water nymphs, some inhabiting pools in foothills, some splashing in springs, some slipping through swamps. Each nymph was unique: one rosy, one nimble, one soft-eyed, one knowing—all charming.

  When Zeus, the youngest son of Cronus, deposed his father and took his place on the throne as king of the universe, his eye fell on one of these nymphs, and he was indeed charmed. Metis, known as the wise one, seemed to flow like water to Zeus, cool and soothing. Watching her was like swimming in a clear, bubbling spring. He was smitten. And since he was king and felt he deserved anything he wanted, he simply took her as his wife. Metis soon had a child growing within her.

  BIRTHPLACE of Democracy

  Athena gave the olive tree to a special city, thereafter named Athens. Around 500 B.C., Athens decided citizens should vote. Democracy was born! But women were not included. Men had many powers unique to them. The only power unique to women was childbearing. In the Athena myth, Athena is born from Zeus’ forehead. Certainly the Greeks knew men don’t give birth. But maybe they wished men did, for Uranus, Cronus, and Zeus, each in his own way, tried to take this power from womanhood.

  Olive trees in front of ancient ruins in Athens, Greece

  That’s when Zeus’ grandmother Gaia and grandfather Uranus gave him the ugly warning that, by now, he almost expected: Metis would bear him a daughter and then a son, and the son would be invincible. That splendid son, that wretched and hateful son, he would overcome his father. The curse felt never-ending: Uranus was overcome by his son Cronus, Cronus was overcome by his son Zeus, and now Zeus would be overcome by the son that Metis was fated to bear him.

  Zeus would have none of it. His grandfather Uranus had tried to prevent his overthrow by imprisoning his children inside their mother Gaia. A failed attempt. His father Cronus had tried to prevent his overthrow by imprisoning his children inside himself. Another failed attempt. Zeus was smarter than either of them. He opened his mouth wide and drank Metis—simply drank her, like a glass of the best sparkling water in the world. So long as she was trapped inside him, he could never make a son with her, so the prophecy was null and void.

  Zeus went on to take other wives, a long series of them. And all the while within him Metis sloshed around the growing babe, rocking her lovingly. And the baby experienced the world from inside her mother inside her father. She sensed everything that either of them sensed. She grew wiser than both.

  Time passed and Zeus felt queasy, as though his stomach would burst. Then the pressure moved to behind his eyes and nearly blinded him. His temples throbbed. His hair stood on end. And from his forehead sprang the goddess Athena, whole and solid and heavily armed.

  A baby within a mother within a father—that’s who Athena was—doubly trapped. But she sprang forth against the odds; as goddess of wisdom, she was no one’s prisoner.

  The gray-eyed girl looked around, completely alert and completely wise. She took her place among the Olympian gods and watched, with those gray gray eyes, ever ready for the chance to advise the belligerent, to strategize with warriors, to lead soldiers into battle.

  One image had engraved itself in the mind of young, trapped Hades: the gaping hole of his father’s mouth, the yellow of his teeth, the stench of his breath as the huge man swallowed him. From within his father’s belly he punched now and then at the old man’s liver. Remember us, he beat out with his fists, remember your evil act.

  When the young gods and goddesses finally spilled out amid the loud groans of their retching father, Hades scrambled to his feet and shook his fists at the rudeness of bright daylight. He’d grown accustomed to the dark, plus he was spitting mad.

  So roaring into war beside his siblings felt natural—like butter on a burn—it felt fat and rich and right. He fought like the maddened against his father and the rest of the Titans. And when the Cyclopes joined the battle and presented gifts, Hades didn’t hesitate. He jammed the magic helmet on his head. He flew high, then bombed down like a falcon, straight for the back of Cronus’ neck. He slashed and slashed, flaying the old man’s flesh, always unseen, like in the old days inside the hateful one, but this time effectual. It was Hades who truly overcame the most blame-ridden father of the universe. Hades brought Cronus to his knees; Hades brought Cronus to justice. Wickedness deserves to crawl through the slime.

  When Zeus was about to hand out realms, Hades again didn’t wait. He declared the Underworld his. It was the land of darkness, and in all those years of war, Hades had never learned to like daylight. And it was the land of justice. It was where the ruling god sent those gods who fell out of favor with him, the wicked gods. Hades would deal with the wicked. And show no mercy.

  VISIONS of an Afterlife

  After death, mortals wandered the misty gloom of Hades’ House. Only a few terrible sinners were tormented, and even fewer heroes were rewarded. Many other ancient cultures, in contrast, developed strong punishment or reward visions of the afterlife to encourage good behavior in this life. Others proposed reincarnation: After death, the soul moves to a new body—a desirable one if you’d been good, an undesirable one if bad. However, Confucianism, still practiced, says we should be good simply because that’s the right thing to do.

  A detail from the painting Hell by Hieronymus Bosch

  He sat upon an anvil of bronze and fell from the surface of the Earth for nine days and nine nights, until he landed in the Underworld. He could have simply willed himself there. But it pleased him to experience the enormous distance. No one would bother him down here; he was absolute ruler.

  The Underworld was huge. Had Hades wanted, he could have fallen another year before landing at the very bottom. But he didn’t. The knowledge of its vastness was enough. He visited Night, one of the earliest powers, draped over his walls, so nicely obscuring. He crossed over Styx, the cold river of hate, the oldest daughter of the Titan Oceanus, who had been given a glorious palace in Tartarus for siding with Zeus in the war against the Titans. He passed by Atlas, the dimwitted son of Iapetus, half brother to the Titans. Atlas had sided with the Titans in the long war, so Zeus doomed him for eternity to bear on the nape of his neck and the girdle of his shoulders the entire weight of the heavens. He passed by the Hesperides, daughters of Night, guarding a tree of golden apples.

  This was a fitting realm for him, indeed, especially since now and forever he could keep an eye on that scum-of-a-father Cronus and make sure he never knew freedom again.

  The River Styx flows mean and cold, past the aching shoulders of Atlas, while the beautiful Hesperides watch for would-be thieves and the ferryman Charon waits for the newly dead.

  With a satisfied sigh, Hades entered his stone palace and looked out on the ghostly and frigid fields, where colorless asphodels bent to a chilling wind. It felt strange to be so alone. He’d have to fix that. Soon.

  Zeus, the king of the Olympian gods, married a nymph goddess, Metis, and wound up swallowing her to avoid her ever having a son who might overpower him. From their union came Athena, an Olympian goddess. Then Zeus married a Titan, Themis, and had a number of children who cared about justice and peace and government. Then he married another nymph, Eurynome, a sister to his first wife, and she bore him three daughters with cheeks as round and fresh as apples, called the Graces.

  And then Zeus took a fourth wife. Ah, yes, his fourth wife. She was his sister, the goddess Demeter. None of Zeus’ wives were frivolous, yet none were anywhere near as solid as Demeter. Her hair was the rich gold of ripening wheat. Her fragrant shoulder was a welcoming cushion for a baby’s head. All she needed to do was smile and fruit trees blossomed and bore so many sweetnesses that they bent nearly to the earth with their abundance. All
she needed to do was glance lovingly and greens shot up from the loamy soil and spread thick, dark, nourishing leaves. She was the goddess of the bountiful harvest, and the whole world counted on her generosity. She made Zeus feel cared for, safe—like his grandmother Gaia had made him feel. Perhaps Gaia sensed this; perhaps she felt a small tingle of jealousy.

  Demeter bore to Zeus a single daughter, Persephone. The girl had thin arms, pearl white. She gave off the scent of night jasmine. Light played on her face, making her appear as varied and rich with colors as a meadow of flowers. Her ankles were slight, adding grace to agility. Demeter doted on her. How could she not?

  Persephone played often with the nymph daughters of Oceanus, for they were all of like mind, laughing, lithesome lovelies. One day they gamboled through soft grasses decorated with narcissi, crocuses, violets, irises, hyacinths. And the Olympian god Hades, from the Underworld below, noticed Persephone’s ankles, those trim little things. Those quick little things. There was nothing in Tartarus quite like them. Delicate delicate ankles, spiderwebs glistening with dew in a forest dawn.

  Hades was enamored of her. But she was his brother Zeus’ daughter. So he spoke of his love to Zeus, the king who knew next to nothing about a father’s duty. How could he, being the son of Cronus, the great swallower? Zeus left the raising of his many children to his many wives. So Zeus turned to Gaia, Mother Earth, for help. Gaia should have known better than to be lured in. But maybe that tingle came to her again. Maybe her eyes smarted just a little at the very name of Demeter. Gaia put forth a most radiant flower from the center of her being, a single root with a hundred blossoms whose perfume wafted over the far seas.

  Persephone didn’t have a chance. She reached for the treasure and—oh!—the earth opened and Hades grabbed her. Snatched. Gone.

  Demeter sped like a wild bird over land and sea, searching. She ate nothing, drank nothing, slept not at all. Her cheeks grew hollow, her body gaunt. Greens turned brown. Fruits withered to dust. Hunger twisted the innards of every living creature. And all this time Zeus simply watched.

  But Hecate, the great-granddaughter of two Titans, had pity and told Demeter what had happened. Demeter shrank in upon herself, biting her own fists in rage and frustration. Not until life on Earth was threatened with imminent famine did Zeus finally send his winged son Hermes to fetch the girl.

  THE MARCH of Seasons

  The Earth is tilted on its axis. The part oriented toward the sun is hot; the part oriented away is cold. As the Earth circles the sun, the part oriented toward the sun changes. That is why we have seasons. The Equator, being midway, has a consistent orientation, so climate there is nearly uniform. The ancient Greeks looked at seasons and used myths to explain their mystery. In many ancient cultures, myth originated to account for other baffling natural phenomena.

  Earth and the rising sun

  And so Persephone was returned to Demeter. But Hades had put in her mouth a single pomegranate seed and the winsome girl had swallowed it. Alas. Because she had tasted anything, even this tiny morsel, on her brief and miserable stint in the Underworld, she was obliged to spend a third of every year there as Hades’ wife. The other two-thirds of the year, she spent with her mother Demeter.

  Persephone rejoices in the kiss of sunlight as she emerges from Hades to be with Demeter for the next eight months. Snow melts, seeds sprout, and this girl’s heart temporarily heals.

  Hence the Earth sprouts and flowers and fruits through spring and summer and autumn, when Demeter and Persephone hold hands in the fields. But the world turns bare and unyielding through winter, when Persephone returns to Hades and bereft Demeter mourns.

  Leto, the daughter of Titans, walked in black robes. Not because she didn’t like colors. No, she adored colors. Leto’s favorite thing was walking after a downpour under a sky made marvelous by the trick of Iris and Helios. Iris was the granddaughter of Pontus and a Titan, and Helios, the sun itself, was the child of Titans. They made the heavens arch with rainbows. The desperate felt hopeful, the timid felt emboldened, the bold grew ready to charge. But Leto didn’t want to raise hopes herself, nor embolden others, nor be the target of a charge. Colors uplifted the spirit, but also agitated it. Black was kinder; black settled the spirit.

  So it wasn’t her fault when Zeus’ eye fell on her. Everyone knew Zeus’ eye obeyed no limits. He was a brash, entitled, bossy fellow. Yet somehow Leto felt sympathy for him. It couldn’t be easy ruling the universe. Her fingertips fluttered on his cheeks and she cried inside for him. Besides, he was beautiful—so she accepted him as her husband.

  When she found herself with child, she looked for a suitable birthing place. She expected welcome everywhere; this was Zeus’ child inside her. Instead, she was closed out. Rumor had it that the child would grow to be feared as much as Zeus. What? Gentle Leto would bear a god who made others tremble? How could it be? Certainly, some land somewhere would know this was a good child. She walked the earth, round and round, until her feet felt like stumps.

  And then the pains came. They started in her belly, but they moved swiftly to her back. Excruciating. The goddess Hera, Zeus’ sister, came and put her arms around Leto and took her up to Mount Olympus. Hera whispered comfortingly. She pushed Leto’s lovely tresses away from her face and put cooling compresses on her cheeks and forehead. Leto understood Hera’s acts for what they were: the product of envy. Hera had become Zeus’ next wife shortly after he’d been with Leto. But Hera was not yet with child. It didn’t matter why Hera was helping her, though. Leto clung to her in raw need.

  For nine days and nights Leto’s body struggled with the pains of labor. Then it dawned on her: Water! She needed to float in water. She rolled down the mountain to the sea, and the waves washed her to the little island of Ortygia, where a daughter, Artemis, slipped from her as easy as a stream running downhill. What relief! They set out traveling over sea back to Olympus, so Leto could present Artemis to her father. Yet almost instantly the pains returned. Leto barely made it to the rugged Isle of Delos in time. She dragged herself up the Cynthian Hill, her daughter tied to her chest, and, still kneeling, cast her arms around a lone palm tree, whereupon a second child came forth, leaping into the light.

  Apollo! His very cry was music. He was strong and beautiful. Faultless.

  Leto gave birth to the fast-growing Artemis on one island, then to her twin, Apollo, on another island. The second island was rocky and barren, but became a lush garden the moment the young god was born.

  “Faultless,” came the chorus that echoed Leto’s thought. For all the goddesses had gathered, from the shyest nymph to grand Gaia. Zeus had had many children by many wives, but this was the first son, a true cause for celebration. They washed the boy, and swathed him in white, and fastened a golden band around him.

  The rocky Isle of Delos burst into bloom with flowers of every color, challenging the rainbow.

  Nearly overnight Apollo grew into everything his father hoped. He declared himself unswervingly loyal to Zeus and carried with him a bow and arrows to protect the will of his father. No one dared cross this archer, who never missed a mark. Yet there was something of his mother in him still. In peaceful moments, he played the lyre his younger half brother Hermes gave him. And he often called to his side the Muses, nine daughters of Zeus and the Titan Mnemosyne, who sang with harp voices that resonated in listeners’ hearts and danced with light, agile feet that made the surface of the Earth move in rhythm. Apollo saw them as his personal ornaments. And he often rode with the sun god Helios, source of colors, in his chariot across the wide sky. Apollo fancied himself as bright as the sun, and since he’d been born on the seventh day of the week, thereafter that day became known as Sunday.

  THE DANCING Muses

  Apollo is god of many things, including music, poetry, and other arts. He often walked with the Muses: nine graceful daughters of Zeus and the Titan Mnemosyne. Calliope inspired poets to write epic poems; Erato, love poems; Euterpe, nature poems. Thalia gave humor to those who w
anted to cause laughter; Melpomene gave insight to those who wanted to cause tears. Urania helped people understand stars and planets; Clio helped them understand the past. Terpsichore led her sisters in dance, and Polyhymnia led the songs.

  Dancing muses from a painting by Baldassare Peruzzi

  Leto doted on Apollo. When he was tired, she’d unstring his bow, close his quiver, and hang all on a golden peg in Zeus’ palace. She’d bid him sit and patted his shoulder while Zeus gave him nectar in a golden cup. It’s no surprise that Apollo became the haughtiest of gods.

  All that fuss about Apollo’s birth didn’t faze Artemis. She was the older twin, anyway. Besides, love was not a fixed pie, to be divided up and then gone. Her parents Leto and Zeus both adored her. As for the rest of the gods, Artemis couldn’t really have cared less who they praised or didn’t. She felt no need for flattery.

  While Apollo was almost instantly an adult, Artemis enjoyed her childhood. As a bud of a girl, she sat on Zeus’ lap and asked for a bow and arrows. Not huge, obvious, threatening things like the ones Apollo carried. She wanted slender silver arrows and a small, sweetly curving bow. But she didn’t want anyone to get confused and think she herself was sweet. When her father presented her with these gifts, she gave his beard a quick yank rather than a dainty kiss. And when the great smithy god pulled her onto his knee, she plucked out the hairs on his chest, making the poor god look a bit like a dog with mange. No one could predict what Artemis might do next.