The royal family of Thebes runs into further troubles

Dionysus punishes Cadmus and Cadmus’s descendants suffer, as well       

Cadmus of Thebes watched helplessly as his family, which had failed to ackowledge Dionysus’ divinity, was destroyed by the god.  Cadmus’ grandson Pentheus was torn limb-from-limb by his own mother and aunts, whom Dionysus then ordered into exile.  

Cadmus himself had honored Dionysus, but the god proclaimed that for him, retribution had finally come due on an older transgression: the slaughter of an enormous snake that was the son of Ares.  In punishment, Cadmus and his wife, Harmonia, would be transformed into snakes themselves and banished not only from Thebes but from all of Greece until, one day, they returned leading hordes of barbarians to ravage the land.

As soon as Dionysus finished speaking, Cadmus began to change.  His skin grew scaly and mottled; his legs fused together and he toppled forward.  Harmonia picked her husband up from the ground and kissed his lips while they were still the lips she knew, yet even as she did so she felt her own legs dissolving.  As the new snakes slithered away, they heard Dionysus promise that someday, after the gods had pardoned them, they would be conveyed to the Island of the Blessed, where they would live together in pleasure forevermore.  This, however, was a reward too remote in time and too vague in its details to be of much comfort.

Amphion, a son of Zeus, became the next king of Thebes.  He left no heir: all of his sons and daughters were killed by Artemis and Apollo after his wife, Niobe, boasted of being a better mother than Leto.   The throne of Thebes passed to Polydorus, a son of Cadmus who had been an infant when Dionysus destroyed the rest of his family.  Marrying the granddaughter of one of the five original settlers of Thebes, he begot a son, Labdacus, who inherited the kingdom.   Labdacus begot Laius, who in turn inherited the kingdom.

Once, when Laius was competing at the Nemean Games, he caught sight of Chrysippus, the son of King Pelops of Elis.  Chrysippus carried his youthful limbs with grace.  His skin, kissed by the sun and rubbed sleek with oil, gleamed like gold.  Desire gripped Laius; he kidnapped Chrysippus and violated him—the first time that a man raped a boy.

Pelops recovered Chrysippus and prayed to the gods to punish Laius for what he’d done.  Zeus listened and contrived a trap that would slowly close around not only Laius himself but his entire family and city as well—a trap that Laius and his own son, Oedipus, would not only be caught within but unwittingly help to build.

Laius became betrothed to Jocasta, the daughter of a noble Theban family.  Before the wedding, Laius travelled to Delphi to ask Apollo how he might ensure that his first child was a son.  Apollo ignored that question and instead proclaimed,

‘Only by dying childless will you save your city!’ 

Obstinately, Laius returned to the Oracle twice again, but twice again he heard

‘Only by dying childless will you save your city!’

The marriage could not be called-off; too much political capital had been invested in its negotiation.  For many nights after its celebration, Laius left it unconsummated, to the bewilderment of his bride, but there came an evening when Laius drank heavily at dinner and Jocasta saw her chance.  Adorning herself in little more than translucent silks and the best Arabian perfumes, Jocasta drew Laius into her bed.  Their son was conceived.

When Jocasta told Laius of her pregnancy, he was deeply alarmed.  The next day he left for Delphi, hoping that Apollo might relent and give him a new, reassuring message.  What the Pythia spoke forth, however, was even worse:

‘Your son shall kill his father and marry his mother.’

Aghast, Laius went home and told Jocasta what Apollo had said.  He informed her that their son would be taken to the wilderness and abandoned as soon as he saw the light of day. 

And so the squalling baby, still covered with the blood and vernix that he had worn into the world, was placed in a pot and handed to one of the royal shepherds.  Although, formally, there would be no blood on Laius’ hands (the pot, once it had been covered, provided the pretense that he was protecting the child and it would be animals or the elements that brought an end to its short life) for good measure Laius had the hollows behind the child’s ankles pierced and tied together with a rawhide thong, to hobble its vengeful ghost.

‘Take this child to the highest ridge of Mount Cithaeron and leave him there,’ he ordered, as Jocasta wept inconsolably.

But the shepherd took pity on the child.  Knowing that Polybus and Merope, the king and queen of Corinth, were barren, he smuggled the baby to another shepherd, who tended Polybus’ flocks.  The baby was carried into the Corinthian palace after dark and the next day it was announced that the queen had finally given her husband an heir.  Indulging in a private joke, Polybus and Merope named him ‘Oedipus,’ a word that could be interpreted to mean ‘swollen feet,’ for the piercing of the poor baby’s ankles had caused his feet to swell.  Merope removed the thong and anointed the wounds with salve several times a day, until they healed.    

Oedipus grew up in Corinth surrounded by doting parents, attentive coaches and dedicated tutors who prepared him to rule the kingdom one day.  But the people of Corinth had been neither so blind nor so gullible as the king and queen had hoped.  One night at a banquet, when Oedipus was nearly grown, a drunken nobleman referred to him as a bastard.  Polybus denied this, but Oedipus, made uneasy by the nobleman’s assuredness, set out the next morning to learn the truth.

 

Oedipus receives a terrible oracle

Oedipus walked to the harbor and arranged passage aboard a ship that was sailing to Cirrha, the port that served the Delphic Oracle.  The next day he hiked a road that zigzagged up Mount Parnassus alongside mules that carried supplies to the town where the Oracle’s priests and their families lived.  He paid an innkeeper for a meal and a place to sleep that night.

In the morning he took his place among those requesting an audience with the Pythia.  His royal status accorded him preferential treatment; before the sun had reached its zenith he was escorted across the porch of Apollo’s temple and into its outer chamber.  In the inner chamber, Oedipus knew, the Pythia sat upon her tripod, awaiting Apollo’s prophetic embrace.  A fragrance wafted forth from it to meet his nose—sweet and musky, like peaches that in their ripeness have dropped to the grass, windfall for wasps.  He knew then that the god was present.

The priest asked Oedipus for his question and Oedipus said, ‘Who are my real parents?’  The  priest walked to the inner chamber and quietly repeated it to the Pythia.   After a few moments of silence, Oedipus heard dissonant moans, punctuated by gasping, gulping noises, as if the Pythia was struggling to resign herself to the voice that demanded to speak through her.  Finally, across the still air of the temple came Apollo’s dispassionate reply.

‘You will kill your father and marry your mother.’

The priests at Delphi had a practiced equanimity; over the centuries, they had heard Apollo say many remarkable things. They had learned to maintain their composure and escort the enquirer out in a dignified manner.  The god’s pronouncement to Oedipus, however, left the priest bewildered.  Before he could collect himself, Oedipus had unceremoniously run from the temple.

He fled the sanctuary and found himself on an eastward road, blindly scrambling to put as much distance as he could between himself and what the Pythia had said, and between himself and Corinth, to which he now knew he could never return.  He kept moving until the sun began to set and then found lodging with a farmer.  The next day he continued moving eastward, with a vague idea of eventually reaching a seaport and leaving Greece behind.

The road was curling through gnarled olive trees and knee-high grasses when he rounded a curve and reached a place where three roads met—the road he had just taken from Delphi, a road north to Daulia and a road east to Thebes.  He saw a chariot approaching the intersection from the east, drawn by two horses.  The crimson-dyed leather of the harness, gilded here and there to pick out its embossed acanthus leaves, and the purple cloak of the passenger who rode behind its driver announced that the passenger was of royal bearing.  His grizzled hair and beard suggested a king.  In front of the chariot walked a herald.  Three more attendants walked behind.  

They pulled up abruptly at the sight of Oedipus; the road was narrow, allowing little room for the travelers to pass one another.

‘Get off the road!’ commanded the herald.  Oedipus, glancing at the thick tangle of grass that he would have to step into, did not relish the idea.  He wasn’t looking for trouble, however; he moved as far to the margin of the road as he could. 

The chariot began to move forward again.  The horses passed so close to Oedipus that he could smell the oil with which the stable-boy had rubbed their coats that morning, mixed with the odors of dust and lathery sweat.  Then came the chariot itself.  As its driver drew even with Oedipus, he grinned and gave Oedipus’ shoulder a sharp push, hoping to send him toppling backwards into the grass.  Oedipus shifted weight to keep his balance and then lashed out, striking the man with his fist.  Suddenly, the grizzled man was there, too, beating Oedipus on the head with a two-pronged horse goad.

For doing that, the grizzled man paid in full.  Oedipus shoved his walking stick into the man’s stomach and he tumbled backwards out of the chariot.  White-hot with anger, Oedipus killed him then, right where he lay.  Then he killed the driver, the herald and the other servants, who were cowering behind the motionless chariot. 

Shocked by what he’d done, Oedipus sat down in the grass that had seemed so unappealing a moment before and drew a deep, shuddering breath.  The emotions that washed over him were overwhelming; he struggled to figure out what to do next.  After a while he stood up and brushed off his clothing. He approached each of the corpses in turn: first the lesser servants, then the driver, then the herald and finally the grizzled man in the purple cloak.  He dipped his finger in the blood of each, licked it and then spat it out again, to avert their angry ghosts.

He looked first at the road to Daulia and then at the road to Thebes.  Cities full of people lay at the end of either one, and people were the last thing he wanted to see at the moment.  He strode into the grass and kept walking, vanishing into the grove of olive trees.  

Procne, Philomela and Tereus

Two sisters pay a terrible price for revenge.

 

Ares was not a god who mated with mortal women very often, but when he did, he liked to settle the sons born from those unions in the wild lands to the north, where people worshipped him at least as much as they worshipped Zeus.  

One of these sons was Tereus, who ruled over a tribe in Thrace.  Tereus  was an excellent warrior, cut from his father’s cloth.  When King Pandion of Athens was engaged in a border skirmish with the Thebans, he called upon Tereus for help.  When the battle was won, Pandion gave his daughter Procne to Tereus in marriage.  Hymen, the god who blessed weddings, refused to accompany the new husband and wife to their bridal chamber, however; the Erinyes, dread goddesses of vengeance, waited for them there instead.

The day after the wedding, the couple sailed for Thrace.  Procne wept as she bid farewell to her younger sister, Philomela, from whom she had never before been parted.  

Soon, Procne had a baby to distract her: Itys, a lovely son who had been conceived on the voyage home. Nonetheless, as the years went by, Procne found herself yearning for Philomela and eventually she prevailed upon Tereus to sail to Athens and ask Pandion to allow Philomela to visit.  Philomela, who missed Procne as much as Procne missed her, rejoiced at the idea as soon as Tereus presented it.  She wrapped her arms around her father’s neck, begging him to agree, which he did.

What Philomela did not know was that as soon as Tereus had seen her—a woman now, rather than the girl he had glimpsed at the wedding years before—he was inflamed with lust.  He kept himself in check while they were aboard ship, where the eyes of the sailors saw everything, but as soon as they had landed in Thrace, he led Philomela to a hut in the woods, shut the door, and prepared to rape her.   

She wept, she pleaded, she begged him to respect the bonds of family, but desire deafened him to everything she said.  He ripped the combs from her hair and the robes from her body; he pushed her onto the floor.  

When he was done, Philomela began to scream, imploring the gods to avenge her.  Enraged by her audacity, Tereus seized her by the throat with one enormous hand.  Philomela choked and gagged and turned purple; her tongue protruded and he seized it between his fingers.  Releasing her throat but retaining her tongue in his vice-like grip, he yanked his knife from its sheath.   He severed the tongue and threw it to the floor, where it wriggled, for a moment, like a mangled snake. 

He left then, locking the door behind him.  He went home and, weeping crocodile tears, told Procne that Philomela had died at sea.  Over the months that followed, he sent a trusted serving woman to feed Philomela each day, never revealing who the poor, mute woman really was.  He visited her himself sometimes, too, to slake his cravings. 

Eventually, Philomela prevailed upon him, through gestures and imploring eyes, to bring her a loom, so that she could fill her lonely hours by weaving. 

His mercy in that matter was his undoing, for Philomela wove a tapestry depicting all that had happened to her.  When it was finished, she bundled it up and asked the serving woman to deliver it to the Thracian queen.  Let her enjoy it, Philomela indicated with gestures and smiles, lest it languish in the woods unappreciated forever.

When Procne unfolded the tapestry, she immediately understood its message.  Emotions flooded her heart: relief, that her sister was alive, horror at what had been done to her, hatred of Tereus and a burning desire for revenge.

It happened to be the time of year when Thracian women celebrated Dionysus in nocturnal rituals.  Procne dressed herself in the deerskin tunic that Dionysus found pleasing, twined the god’s favorite vines into her hair, and took up a thyrsus—the god’s sacred staff.  

Feigning the ecstasy that Dionysus bestows on his worshippers, Procne wandered away from her friends, into the forest.   She dashed to the hut and beat her thyrsus against its door until the rotting wood gave way.  Quickly draping her sister in deerskin and vines like her own, Procne led her back to the other women, who by now were fully in the god’s grasp, dancing and shrieking ‘Euhoe! euhoe!,’ the victory cry of Dionysus.  As dawn broke, Philomela slipped into the palace unnoticed among the exhausted celebrants.

Once the sisters were alone, Philomela wept and used her hands to express her shame at having transgressed Procne’s marriage bed.  But Procne, seething with rage, declared,

‘You have no need for shame and this is no time for tears—it is the sword that we need, or something stronger, if we can find it.  Shall I sever Tereus’ tongue when next he comes to my bed?  Or shall we kill and dismember him then?

As Procne was speaking, Itys wandered into his mother’s chamber.  Crawling onto her lap, he tried to kiss away her tears as she had so often kissed away his own.  Procne’s heart began to soften—what sort of life would Itys have, if she killed his father and they were exiled from Thrace?  But then she thought of her own father and what had been done to his children. Her resolve grew stronger and a better plan entered her mind.    

 Taking Itys in her arms and warning him not to make any noise, she set out for the palace’s wine cellar.  Philomela scurried behind.  

Itys, who was an obedient child, was quiet until they entered the cellar itself, where the light of the torches, leaping here and there on the rough-hewn walls, created monstrous shadows.  In terror, he clung to Procne, crying ‘Mama, Mama!’ but Philomela pried him away and held him fast.   Procne drew from her belt a knife she had used the night before to cut vines in honor of the god.  It served equally well for a deed that the god would deplore; Procne stabbed Itys and his blood ran out upon the floor, mixing with the puddles of wine that had been spilled when the casks were breached the previous evening

The sisters butchered the small body and boiled and roasted its flesh.  They arranged the choicest cuts on a tray, which Procne carried to her husband.

‘That was delicious, wife,’ said Tereus, after finishing his meal. ‘Now where is my son?  Bring him to me.’

‘He is already with you,’ she replied, signaling to Philomela, who emerged from the shadows carrying a smaller tray, on which were arranged the hands, feet and head of the child whom Tereus had consumed.  The father bellowed and lunged for the women, invoking the same Erinyes who had watched over his wedding night.

The gods grant what they call pity, sometimes, even to those who do not merit it.  Before Tereus could catch the sisters, Procne became a nightingale, singing mournfully for the child she killed, and Philomela a swallow, who scarcely sings at all.  Tereus became a hoopoe, wearing a helmet of blood-red feathers.  Forevermore he chased the sisters through the skies, and forevermore they fled, eternally circling in hatred and fear..

Io's Story

A young priestess has harrowing adventures

In the land of Argos there was a river-god named Inachus, who had a beautiful daughter named Io.  Inachus was the first to build a temple to Hera in Argos, and in gratitude, Hera appointed his daughter to be her priestess.

Soon after assuming her duties, Io began to have alarming dreams.  Zeus appeared to her each night in his favorite guise: a majestic man with sensuous lips and dark hair that curled over his broad brow.

‘Child,’ he said, ‘why do you leave the flower of your beauty unplucked, when you could enjoy the most spectacular union of all with the king of the gods?  Leave my wife’s cold marble temple and come to the meadows of Lerna, where your father pastures his herds and where my desire for you will be fulfilled.’

Already in her dreams, Zeus’ urgent fingers seemed to caress Io.  Deeply troubled, she finally went to her father for advice.  Inachus sent envoys to Apollo’s oracle at Delphi and Zeus’ own oracle at Dodona, asking them what to do.  Each told Inachus to relinquish his daughter to Zeus, and added that if he didn’t, Zeus would strike Argos with lightning, incinerating the city and all its people.

Weeping, Inachus cast Io out of his house.  Her feet, as if of their own accord, carried her to Lerna’s meadows where Zeus made love to her each night.  Io never saw him—he always arrived wrapped in dark clouds, in which he enveloped her as well, in hopes of escaping Hera’s notice—but within the clammy mist she could feel his fingers and lips pressing upon her flesh, and his loins thrusting between her legs.

But it is not possible to elude a god forever.  One night while he was making love to Io, Zeus saw his wife’s hands begin to part the clouds.  Panicking, he did the first thing he thought of: surrounded as he was by Inachus’ herds, he transformed Io into a heifer.  

‘Why Zeus,’ said Hera, after she had penetrated to the center of the clouds, ‘what are you doing with this beautiful heifer?  Pure white—not a brown hair upon her body!  And with horns that curve like the crescent moon.  You know how much I love cows—will you give me this one?’

Hera knew full well who the heifer really was, and Zeus knew that Hera knew, but he was trapped, and so Io became Hera’s possession.  To make sure that Zeus could not rescue her, Hera set an indomitable watchman: Argus, a son of Earth who had 100 bright blue eyes scattered all about his body.  Some eyes slept at some times and other eyes slept at other times, but they were never all asleep at the same time.

Day after day,* Io languished in the meadows.   When the rainy season arrived, the meadows turned into marshes.  The water rose above her hooves and she trembled at the sound of snakes hissing nearby when she lay down in the mud to rest each night. 

Eventually, Io wandered back towards her home and Argus followed in her wake.  One day, she spotted her father and sisters.  Trotting over, she offered them her beautiful white coat to stroke.  Then, with a clumsy hoof that had once been her lovely pink fingers, she traced the letters I and O over and over again in the dirt, until they understood that she was Io.  They wailed with grief but could offer no help.

The months passed.  Finally, as summer’s heat arrived, Zeus came up with a plan that he hoped would relieve Io’s distress.  He sent Hermes, disguised as a cowherd, down to where Argus lounged in the shade of a tree.  Hermes befriended Argus and soon had him enthralled by the marvelous stories he told.  Then, as the sun was setting, Hermes took out his pipes and played on them softly.  One by one, Argus’ eyes winked shut; by moonrise, all of them were closed.  With a snap of his fingers, Hermes conjured a scimitar out of the air and lopped off Argus’ head.   

Hera immediately sensed that something was wrong.  Flying down to the meadow, she discovered Argus’ corpse.   Carefully, she pried open each of his eyelids and plucked from their sockets his beautiful eyes.  She attached them to the tail of her pet peacock and ever since then, peacocks have displayed the eyes of Argus.

But Hera also did something else, before Zeus could arrive and carry Io away.  Summoning Argus’ ghost, she turned it into a gadfly and ordered it to torture the poor cow.  The fly mercilessly pierced Io’s flesh with its razor-sharp mandibles, driving her mad with pain.

 Desperate to escape, Io ran through the world, never knowing where the fly might chase her next.  She travelled west to Dodona and skirted the coast of a sea that took on her name, ‘Ionian.’  She veered north to the land of the gold-hoarding griffins and their enemies, the one-eyed Arismaspians.  Eventually she found herself scrabbling among the Caucasus Mountains, where she found Prometheus, still hanging on his cliff. 

Prometheus told Io that she would make many more arduous journeys before she could rest.   She would be driven further east to the land of the Scythians, a fierce race, and then south to the Amazons, who, hating all males, would pity her and guide her across the strait that would become known as the cow’s crossing: ‘Bosphorus.’  After the gadfly chased her eastward once more, through the arid lands near the sun’s rising, she would reverse her course and travel west to the mouth of the Nile.  Following it north until it opened into the sea, she would again encounter Zeus.  

Zeus, said Prometheus, would touch Io again, but this time with a gentle hand, restoring her human shape.  She would bear him a son, whom she would name Epaphus, meaning ‘born from a touch.’  From the children and grandchildren of Epaphus would descend Europa, Cadmus, Dionysus, Perseus and Heracles—the last of whom would one day kill the eagle that tortured Prometheus each day, freeing him from his agony.  Io would be remembered ever after as the foremother of all these descendants and many more.  

And so it all happened, just as Prometheus predicted.  

When Zeus restored Io’s human shape, she retained her lovely crescent horns. The Egyptians, who witnessed this wonder, recognized by her horns that she who had once been Inachus’ daughter was now their own goddess Isis, come to earth, carrying the moon on her head.

 

Lycaon Tests Zeus

A wicked man tests Zeus’ omniscience

Mortals spread out to cover the earth.  One of the first places they reached was a wild and mountainous land that would later be called Arcadia.  Hermes, the god loved by liars and thieves, was born there, and so was Hermes’ uncanny son Pan, upon whom human eyes cannot gaze with impunity.  Civilization arrived very slowly; for centuries the inhabitants ignored Demeter’s gifts and ate acorns instead of wheat. 

One of their earliest kings was Lycaon, a savage and intemperate man who fathered fifty sons upon his numerous wives. The youngest son was called Nyctimus.  

Lycaon worshipped Hermes, his local god—indeed, Lycaon had established Hermes’ cult, admiring the god’s cunning.  Lycaon doubted, however, the authenticity of Zeus, and was irked by his constant demand for sacrifices.  Finally, he decided to settle, once and for all, the question of whether Zeus was really a god.  Lycaon invited him for a visit, and Zeus, anticipating an excuse to put into action a certain plan that he had been contemplating, accepted.

After feeding Zeus sumptuously, Lycaon escorted him to the best bedroom in the palace.  Once his guest was asleep, Lycaon crept in and beat him mercilessly with a club.   Nonetheless, Zeus slept on, his breaths slow and steady.  Frustrated, Lycaon stabbed Zeus. He merely twitched, however, as if to shake off flies.  He awoke the next morning looking refreshed and declared that he was hungry for breakfast.

Determined still to prove himself right, Lycaon scrambled for a new plan.  Glimpsing Nyctimus, who was playing nearby, he grabbed the child with one hand and a knife with the other.  Gripping his bewildered son around the waist, Lycaon prepared to slit the child’s throat.  When Nyctimus, frantic with terror, kicked the knife out of his father’s hand, Lycaon, enraged, tore the boy’s throat open with his teeth.

When the small body had stopped moving, Lycaon’s rage cooled down.  He wiped the blood from his face and thought about how to proceed.  Butchering Nyctimus’ corpse, he prepared a meal, boiling some of the flesh and roasting the rest.  He arranged the food on a platter, summoned a servant, and ordered him to carry the meal to Zeus.  Lycaon was confident that, lacking a true god’s omniscience, Zeus would eat the flesh without realizing what it was, giving Lycaon the proof that he longed for.  

But Zeus knew immediately what had been placed on the table in front of him—indeed, he had foreseen all of these events long before Lycaon had invited him to visit.   Rising from his chair, Zeus grabbed the edge of the table with both hands and turned it over, spattering the floor and the walls with gobbets of Nyctimus’ flesh.  Then he strode over to Lycaon, who was cowering in a corner.

‘Wicked man—wicked beyond all others!  Bad enough that in your smug insolence you denied my divinity!  Now, by your ghastly actions, you have denied your own humanity, as well!

‘Leave this palace that was built for human habitation; leave this kingdom that was foolish enough to look to you as their leader; leave the human tribe altogether and run with those to whom you are most truly similar.’     

Zeus transfixed Lycaon with his gaze, holding fast his eyes.  Within seconds, the man began to change.  The muscles of his thighs and back rippled and expanded until his garments split.  His sandals tumbled from his feet as his heels disappeared into his ankles.  His nose grew longer and his eyes, yellow and bloodshot, moved round to either side of it.  His ears became pointed.  His mouth curled open in a slavering snarl; his tongue lolled out between dagger-like teeth.    Filthy grey fur covered his skin.  

Lycaon had become a wolf.  With a howl of anguish, he loped out onto the forested slopes.  The peak where he spent what little remained of his life became known as Mount Lycaeon, in token of the awful crimes that he had committed nearby.

In order that the local people might not forget what Lycaon had done and the punishment that he had received, Zeus imposed upon them an enduring penalty.   Every four years, one of their young men was condemned to undergo the same transformation as Lycaon had.  If he abstained from eating human flesh while living in the forests for nine years, his form would be restored.   

This was not, however, Zeus’ only response to what Lycaon had done.  A far larger group of people was about to be sentenced to a far greater punishment.

Pandora's Gifts

This story follows the tale of Prometheus’ punishment by Zeus for stealing fire to benefit men.  When it opens, Prometheus is hanging on a cliff in the distant Caucasus Mountains

17. Pandora’s Gifts 

 

Zeus had sworn that the next misery he inflicted upon men would be impossible for anyone—even Prometheus—to relieve.  He planned to create an evil so enticing that men would scramble to embrace it before they realized its dangers.  

Chortling at his own cleverness, Zeus mustered his forces.  First, he commanded Hephaestus to mix together earth and water and sculpt it into a figure that resembled the goddesses.  Once this was done, Aphrodite poured over its head a beauty that beguiled the minds of all who saw it and made their bodies ache with desire.

It was at this point that the gods noticed the figure was naked.  Athena quickly dressed it in gleaming robes, bound at the waist with a silver belt.  The Graces and Persuasion added golden necklaces, bracelets and earrings that glimmered in the light of the hearth-fire.  

Over its head, Athena draped a finely embroidered veil.   On top of that she placed a wreath of spring flowers that the Seasons had gathered from the meadows, crowned by a golden diadem that Hephaestus had forged.  Upon it, Hephaestus had engraved all of the monsters born from Earth and Sea.  So deft was his work that the creatures seemed to breathe and speak.

Athena gave a few final tugs to the figure’s garments and then stepped back to admire her work: the figure was truly a wonder to behold.

Now that its outer form was finished, the gods infused their creation with skills and emotions.  Touching its hands, Athena bestowed on them an ability to spin and weave.  Touching its breast, Hermes infected it with an audacious mind, a crafty disposition, and deceitful ways.  He also gave it an alluring voice, without which his other gifts would have lain fallow.  

And then he gave it a name: Pandora, which means ‘All-Gifts.’  Hermes smiled at this joke; a gift, indeed, would this be to the tribe of men, this creature destined to be the first woman, the mother of all of men’s misfortunes.

When Hermes spoke her name, Pandora awoke—no longer clay draped in finery but living flesh, blinking her eyes and shaking her limbs.  At Zeus’ command, Hermes escorted her down to earth and offered her to Epimetheus as a bride.   

Many years earlier, Prometheus had warned his brother never to accept any gifts from the gods.  When Epimetheus saw Pandora, however, he forgot everything that Prometheus had said; he could no more refuse Pandora than he could cease breathing.  And so, Epimetheus hugged Zeus’ evil plan to his silly heart, embracing a life of misery for himself and other men.

All of that came later, however.  Pandora and Epimetheus settled into marriage happily, discovering the delights of love together.  Pandora soon bore a daughter whom they named Pyrrha, ‘Fire,’ in honor of Prometheus’ gift. Pandora bore other children, too, and in this early age of human existence, she lived long enough to watch them have children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren of their own.

And Pandora used the cunning Hermes had given her to invent the ways of keeping house.  Previously, men had lived from day to day, never troubling to think ahead.  As long as each man worked at least one day a year, there had always been plenty to go around. 

Now there were other people to consider.  Pandora, the men thought, wasn’t capable of working in the fields or hunting in the forests, especially when she was pregnant.  They told her to stay in the house, which was warm in winter and cool in summer.  The men labored to feed her and her children, which meant that they strove longer and harder than they had before.  As some of them married Pandora’s descendants and begat children of their own, they strove harder still.

Pandora devised ways to save and preserve what the men brought home.  She used ceramic jars to stockpile grain, olive oil and other food.  By sinking the jars partway into the cool earth of her pantry floor, she was able to keep their contents fresh for a long time.   She established the rule that she alone was allowed to open these jars, regulating how much would be consumed and how much kept back against the threat of a bad harvest or a lengthy winter.

One day Pandora discovered that there was an extra jar in her pantry, slightly different from the others.  How did this new jar get there, she wondered, and what did it hold?  Wheat, oil, dried figs, honey?  Something even better—something new and wonderful?  A gift from the gods?  She knelt on the earth and opened it.  

Immediately, a swarm of vermin rushed out, scuttling and slithering away in all directions.  Some unfurled leathery wings and disappeared into the air; others writhed towards the river and, sprouting scales, flung themselves in; still others, hag-like, darted into the fields or forests or dwellings of mortals.  

These were the evils that would plague humans forevermore, as varied as their number.  Some of them worked by night and others by day; some announced themselves boldly to their victims and others, by Zeus’ command, worked silently until their wicked jobs were done.

Toil, rank with sweat, lurched towards the fields, his shoulders stooped and his knuckles swollen.  Famine shivered along behind, too gaunt to keep up but determined nonetheless to reach the crops and blight them.  Drought, licking her blackened lips, settled atop a fountain and stopped the flow of water. 

In house after house, Greed, Jealousy and Betrayal hopped into the men’s quarters and squatted there, croaking with glee.  Dysentery coiled into kitchens, dribbling malodorous brown corruption.  Diphtheria, wiping drool from her chin with a bony hand, headed for the women’s quarters, where she found Child-bed Fever already crouching on the coverlets, exuding putrid ooze.  Stillbirth—clammy, flaccid and blue—curled up in the corners where the birthing-stools were kept.  

Shipwreck propelled himself down the river and into the sea, his tentacles eagerly probing the surface of the waters.  Only War, reeking of gore, remained squatting by the jar, picking his teeth, waiting for the summons that he knew was soon to come, now that the other evils were at work. 

Horrified, Pandora clapped the lid onto the jar again, but it was too late.  Everything had escaped except one creature who, by the will of Zeus, had been too slow to get away: Hope.  Of all of Zeus’ decisions, this may have been the cruelest, for as long as the lid of the jar remained firmly shut, mortals still possessed Hope.  Blinded by her to the gravity of their circumstances, they would persevere, whatever challenges they faced.

Prometheus Steals Fire

In a continuation of the previous story, Prometheus puts himself at risk again to help men.

Sometime after the disastrous encounter at Mecone, Prometheus slipped onto Olympus carrying a fennel stalk.  Outside, the plant was tough and fibrous, but inside, it was hollow and juicy.  Waiting until Hestia was distracted, Prometheus stole a smoldering ember from the divine hearth and dropped it inside the stalk.  

He ran back to earth as quickly as he dared, rolling the stalk back and forth in his palm as he went so that the ember would not nestle so deeply into the moist pulp that it extinguished itself.  As soon as his feet touched the ground, he slid the ember onto a pile of dry leaves and gently blew on it until a flame appeared.  He nurtured the flame with small twigs until it was blazing.  

Gathering men around the new fire, he reminded them how to tend it and use it.  Within a few days, fires were burning throughout the land.

Zeus looked down and saw the flickering lights.  Immediately, he knew what Prometheus had done and summoned him to Olympus.  Consumed by fury, he roared,

‘Titan!  You must be very pleased with yourself for stealing fire.  But be sure of one thing: this isn’t over yet.  The next misery I bring to men will be one that neither your cunning nor your stealth can alleviate.  And as for you—you, too, will suffer eternally for having done this.’ 

Zeus called Force and Power into his presence, and then summoned Hephaestus from his forge.

‘Take Prometheus to the Caucasus mountains, in the farthest reaches of the east.  Pin him to a cliff, using adamantine fetters and manacles riveted with bronze.   Stretch out his arms and legs to either side and pin down each wrist and ankle.  

‘Then, drive a shaft through his entrails and deep into the rock beneath so that he can’t escape, whatever tricks he might try.  Leave him there to be scorched by the sun until his skin turns to leather and to shiver under winter snows.  

Power laughed. ‘We’ll teach him he was a fool to think he could elude your will, Zeus!’

‘I was not done speaking!’ Zeus thundered.  ‘An eagle shall visit you there, Prometheus—a son of Typhon and Echidna, huge and ravenous.  He will tear at your diaphragm until he lays bare your liver, fat and glistening.  Then he will gnaw at it until it is black and tattered.  

‘He will gorge himself in the same way every day, until the end of time, for as soon as he departs, your liver will begin to grow again, preparing itself for the eagle’s next meal.’ 

Hephaestus inwardly groaned, horrified that any god should be treated so barbarically.  He groaned, too, at the loss of a companion who, unlike most of the gods, understood the satisfaction of manual labor.  

Hephaestus suspected that Zeus’ interference with Prometheus and his ideas would prove useless, anyway.  Even during the time that they had been deprived of fire, men had progressed, adapting the skills that Prometheus had taught them to their new circumstances.  Men were resilient; Hephaestus admired them for that.  

None of that mattered at the moment, however.  Hephaestus sighed and prepared for the journey east, packing the tools that would be necessary to implement Zeus’ orders.   The group set out, Prometheus in chains.  

When they reached the Caucasus, Hephaestus did what Zeus had ordered him to, while Force and Power held Prometheus against the cliff.  As they withdrew, Hephaestus saw the great eagle circling overhead, already impatient for his first meal.    

The bird was not only a greedy eater but also a slovenly one. Each time that he finished, shreds of Prometheus’ liver remained dangling from his talons and beak.  When he departed, he carried these with him.

This led to something extraordinary.  Ichor, which runs in the gods’ veins instead of blood, dripped from the shreds onto the mountain slopes below.  From it, plants sprang up, each as high as a man’s knee.  Their purple flowers were beautiful but their roots were the color of freshly butchered flesh and their juice was dark, oily and viscous.  The natives of the area, who knew where the plant had come from, named it the prometheios.

It was Hecate who first discovered the special properties of the plant’s juice, which could either heal or harm.  She taught her student Medea how to put them to use, and Medea, venturing forth from her father’s palace at night, roamed the mountain slopes to find and harvest prometheios by the light of the waxing moon.  On one occasion, she used the plant’s juice to make an ointment that protected the hero Jason from the fiery breath of her father’s bulls.  

Not long after that, new prometheios plants stopped appearing. The hero Heracles had shot the eagle and freed Prometheus from his chains, in thanks for advice that Prometheus had given him.   

By the time he was free, Prometheus had spent 1000 years hanging upon the cliff’s face, tormented sorely for the help he had given men.

 

Prometheus, Epimetheus and the First Men

The First Humans Encounter Some Problems 

When the time came to invent mortal creatures, the younger gods molded their frames from materials that they found within the body of their grandmother, Earth.  Then they handed the frames to Prometheus and Epimetheus, two sons of Themis who had sided with the Olympians during the war against the Titans, and commanded them to finish the job.   Zeus gave the brothers a bag of talents and tools and told them to equip each of the creatures with a few of these.

Epimetheus suggested to Prometheus that they divide the labor between them.  He volunteered to distribute the talents and tools if Prometheus would fix any problems after he was done.

Prometheus should have known better.  Themis had named him Prometheus, which meant ‘Fore-Thinker,’ because already at birth she could discern in him a clarity of thought that laid bare the effects of his decisions.  Her other son seemed to be just the opposite, however, and so Themis had named him Epimetheus, which meant ‘After-Thinker’. 

Nonetheless, Prometheus agreed to the arrangement that Epimetheus proposed, and sure enough, when the job was done Prometheus discovered that Epimetheus had made a grave mistake.  For, Epimetheus had distributed everything in the bag—claws, talons, hooves, wings, antennae, fur, carapaces, fins, scales, gills, quills, shells, pincers, antlers, horns, beaks, stingers, tentacles, speed, stealth, camouflage and more—without noticing that there was nothing left for men, who had been last in line.

Poor men!  They had nothing with which to clothe their naked flesh, nothing to protect the tender soles of their feet, no way to defend themselves from other animals, or even to flee when they were attacked.  Men were surely doomed.

Pitying the feeble creatures, Prometheus slipped into the workshop that Hephaestus and Athena shared and stole all the secrets of their crafts.  He shared those secrets with men so that they would be able to weave clothing to keep themselves warm and forge weaponry that gave them an advantage over other animals.  Soon, they also learned to make other things that eased their lives: plowshares, harnesses, axes, cooking pots, and sandals.

Prometheus stole something else from the gods’ workshop as well: fire.  Without it, knowledge of the gods’ crafts would have been useless.

As the years went by, Prometheus continued to help men.  He taught them seamanship and carpentry, astronomy and meteorology, writing and mathematics, medicine and the divinatory arts.  And he gave them hope, which kept them going even when everything else had failed.

Men were now on the path to success and were grateful to the gods for what they had.  As soon they learned how to raise animals, they established the practice of sacrificing one to the gods every so often, slitting its throat and then placing its carcass upon a fire so that the aroma of its burning flesh would rise to the gods’ noses.  Not a scrap of meat, or bone, or hide or entrails did men keep for themselves—everything was burned for the gods. 

But Prometheus was discontent with this—why should men do all the work of raising an animal and get no pleasure or use from its remains?  He told Zeus that new arrangements would have to be made, and scheduled a meeting between gods and men in the town of Mecone.  He also proposed a way of settling the question.

‘The men,’ he said to Zeus, ‘will surely want to offer you a sacrifice at this event.  After they’ve killed the animal, let me divide its carcass into two packages—one for the gods and the other for men.  You, Zeus, can choose between them. 

‘But let’s agree that whichever package you choose will set the standard: forevermore, every sacrifice will be distributed between gods and men in the same manner.’

Zeus raised his eyebrows for a moment but then smiled and nodded in agreement.    

When the day came, an ox was killed and Prometheus flayed and butchered the carcass.  Before calling Zeus to the altar, he carefully created two parcels.  One of them looked disgusting—it was wrapped in the ox’s paunch—but inside there was good, rich meat.  The other looked delicious—it was wrapped in a sheet of shining fat—but inside there was nothing but bones.   

Zeus arrived.  ‘Prometheus, my friend, you’ve done a very poor job of apportioning the sacrifice.’

‘Oh my, you’re right,’ sighed Prometheus, feigning surprise but hugging his craftiness close to himself.  ‘Well, take whichever parcel you want.’ 

And so Zeus, who can never be fooled, chose the fat-covered parcel, in the knowledge that doing so would give him an excuse to impose an eternity of pain upon men.  Unwrapping it, he thundered forth,

‘Prometheus, your cunning has finally betrayed you.  These men, these upstart little beasts whom you sought to protect, will suffer for your deceit.  

‘To start with, I’ll deprive them of fire.  It’s true that without fire men will no longer be able to make sacrifices to the gods, but they’ll not be able to cook or smelt metal or warm themselves at their hearths, either.  Let’s see how they fare, then.’

Thus began a most dreadful time for men—cold, dark and bereft of all comforts.

Demeter reaches a compromise with Zeus

7.  Demeter and Persephone

 

A grim year followed for mortals.  Demeter sat alone in her new temple, longing for her graceful daughter.  She ignored the seeds that nestled in the soil and let the fields fall fallow.  Without a harvest, the people were forced to let their animals starve, and then, as their stores ran out, they began to starve as well.  

Eventually, when the gods noticed that there was no longer any sacrificial smoke rising from their altars, they realized that they had a problem.  Zeus sent Iris, his golden-winged messenger, to summon Demeter back to the company of the gods but Demeter, clutching her black robes more closely around her, refused to leave her temple.

Zeus sent the other gods, one-by-one, to plead and reason with Demeter, offering many gifts and new honors if she would return to their company and resume her duties, but she remained implacable in her anger, insisting that until Persephone returned, she would neither visit Olympus nor allow the earth to send up grain.

Reluctantly, Zeus tried a different solution.  He sent Hermes to the Underworld to ask Hades to release Persephone, lest the entire world fall into ruin.  After he had listened to Hermes’ speech, Hades allowed an enigmatic smile to creep across his face.  He conceded that he must obey Zeus, who was, after all, the king of the gods.  Then he turned to his wife:  

‘Go home, Persephone, to your weeping mother.  But remember what sort of husband you have married: I am the brother of Zeus himself, who rules over all the gods!  Mine is a magnificent family!  Do not forget, moreover, that as queen of the dead, you receive substantial glory in your own right, and hold immense power over everything that walks or creeps upon the earth.  As my wife, you have the authority to punish for eternity anyone who has behaved unjustly or who has failed to honor you properly with sacrifices.’

Persephone was jubilant at the thought of leaving the dank, shadowy realm in which she had been living and she busied herself with preparations for the journey.  As she was departing, Hades glanced around to make sure that no one was watching and then gave his wife a tiny pomegranate seed—blood-red and sweet.  He knew that if she swallowed it, she would return to him, sooner or later.

Under Hermes’ escort, Persephone swiftly arrived at the new temple where Demeter had secluded herself and Demeter, wild with joy, rushed out to meet her.  As they embraced, however, Demeter had a dreadful thought.  

‘My child, please tell me that you didn’t eat anything while you were down below!  If you haven’t, then you can stay up here in the sunlit world forever.  But if you did eat something, then you’ll have to return to the moldering realm of the ghosts for one third of each year, as the seasons come round.  And tell me as well—how did all of this happen, anyway?’ 

Persephone replied.  ‘Well, Mother, when Hermes came to get me, I was really excited.  Hades handed me a pomegranate seed—they taste so good!—and then he forced me to eat it.  He did it kind of secretly.  I couldn’t help it.  Really!  That’s what happened! 

‘And this is how he snatched me away:  we were all playing by ourselves, gathering flowers and having fun.  Then I saw this beautiful narcissus.  I reached over to pick it and suddenly, there he was!  He pulled me into his chariot and took off for the Underworld, even though I kicked and screamed.  It really upsets me to even think about all of this, but I want you to know exactly what happened.’

Mother and daughter embraced once more, taking pleasure and comfort in one another.  While they were doing so, Hecate arrived, resplendent in a shimmering veil, and joined in their embrace.  Ever since then, Hecate has accompanied Persephone wherever she goes.  

Demeter’s own mother, Rhea, arrived, too, to escort Demeter back to the tribe of gods.  She told Demeter that Zeus had promised to give her whatever she wanted and that he had guaranteed that Persephone would spend only one third of each year below with her husband, if Demeter would relent in her anger and allow the plants that nourished mortals to grow again.  

As so it was; everything unfolded just as Zeus had promised.   But nourishment was not the only gift that Demeter gave to mortals on that occasion.  Summoning the leaders of Eleusis, she taught them the rituals of her mysteries—mysteries that promised to their initiates abundance during life and a blissful existence after they had descended to the land of the dead.  Happy are those who have seen the mysteries of Demeter and her daughter!   But the uninitiated will have no share in anything good down in the darkness and gloom.

 

A note on where this story comes from

 

My source here is the Homeric Hymn to Demeter 305-495.

Stories about the young days of the gods

9. Apollo Establishes His Oracle

 

Apollo had claimed the right to announce the will of Zeus to mortals. This meant telling them about what was going to happen, what was happening at that very moment in other places, and sometimes also telling them what had happened long ago, if knowing that might help them solve their problems.   Old transgressions could cast long shadows; sometimes crop failure here-and-now could be traced to the anger of a ghost murdered long ago.  Only Apollo could tell you what the problem was and how to solve it.

It was a job that came with a lot of power, which Apollo relished.  Although he couldn’t change his father’s will to suit himself, he could choose to speak so cryptically that it was impossible for inquirers to be sure that they were interpreting his words correctly.  By that trick alone, Apollo could smite whomever he wished, either by misleading them or by paralyzing them in a ferment of doubt.   

As he settled into the job, Apollo realized that he needed a spectacular place in which to perform it, where mortals could congregate as they waited to speak to him.  It should also be a place where they could deposit the gifts that they would bring to him—statues made of gold and marble, bronze tripods, war-booty, slaves, animals to sacrifice, and more.  After a tour of Greece, he settled on a beautiful spot in Boeotia and announced to the nymph of the place, Telphousa, that he was about to begin building his oracle.

‘Think carefully, Lord Apollo,’ Telphousa said, ‘this is a very noisy place.  Your uncle Poseidon holds his riotous chariot races nearby and mule-drivers use my springs to water their animals.  If you will allow yourself to be advised by me, humble though I am, I would suggest that you try Mount Parnassus, just over the way.  It’s very quiet high up there, and you would have plenty of room.’  

And so Apollo travelled to Parnassus.  The slope of the mountain was exceptionally steep—mortals would find it impossible to climb unless he constructed roads for them—but the view from the terrace where his oracle would stand was magnificent, sweeping vertiginously over the coastal plain in purples and blues and greens.  The spot itself had an otherworldly beauty; the boundary between earth and heaven was eerily thin there, and the very ground on which Apollo stood exhaled an intoxicating fragrance, as if Earth were whispering secrets to him with her own breath.

When Apollo had finished building his oracle, he went to fetch water from a nearby spring, intending to pour a dedicatory libation.   As he approached the outcropping behind which he thought that the spring was nestled, he heard a slithering hiss and caught the fetid smell of reptile on the breeze.  Pausing, he fit an arrow to his bowstring.

What he saw, once he had carefully stepped around the outcropping, was worse than he could have imagined.  A massive constrictor lay there, rank and bloated, in a nest littered with her discarded skins and pellets of feces, each one clumped with the fur, bones and teeth of her victims—foul trophies of her skill as a huntress.  Her cold skin was stretched taut over a distended belly, through which the last, feeble twitches of an unfortunate wolf could be seen.  

This gigantic she-snake was a bane to everyone and everything, both in her own right and for the enormity of the company she kept.  If Echidna was the matriarch of monsters, then Python (for that was the serpent’s name) was their godmother; she had nurtured Typhon when he was an infant and assisted the Chimaera and other monsters.  Sensing Apollo’s presence, her nostrils flared with a sticky sound and her head swiveled round.  Her yellow eyes took in the intruder.  

‘Who dares to transgress Python’s space?’ she hissed. 

Apollo was not foolish enough to waste time in replying; pulling the bowstring taut, he shot Python through the heart.  As she writhed in her death throes, slapping her coils against the ground so hard that Parnassus shook, she got her answer. 

‘I am Apollo!  Here will you die and here will you putrefy, Python, as your reeking body decays in the sun.’

Stepping over her carcass, Apollo obtained his water, returned to his  temple and poured his libation.    

Two more things remained to be done, however, before his oracle could open for business.  The first was to punish Telphousa, who had purposefully sent him to a place where danger lurked.  Striding back to the spring where the nymph kept her home, he overturned the crag of a hill onto it and sent an avalanche of rocks down upon Telphousa’s head. 

More challenging was the second task: he needed to staff his oracle.  Casting his gaze around the world, he spotted a ship of Cretan sailors who were travelling to Pylos on the west coast of Greece.  Transforming himself into an enormous dolphin, Apollo leapt onto their ship; instantly, it veered from its course, and ignored all the steersman’s efforts to control it.  Over the waves it sped while the dolphin lay upon the deck, glaring at any sailor who dared to approach.  

When the ship reached a bay at the foot of Parnassus, the dolphin changed into a blazing star, which flew off the ship and into Apollo’s new temple, terrifying all who watched.  Moments later, a handsome young  man walked out of the temple and addressed the cowering Cretans.

‘I am Apollo!  And you will be the priests of my new oracle.  Prepare to serve me.’

‘But my lord,’ asked the steersman, ‘how shall we feed ourselves in this remote and lofty place?’

‘Each of you must take a knife in your right hand, and await the sacrificial sheep that mortals will bring here when they seek my help.  So long as my oracle exists, you will never be short of meat.’

Apollo’s oracle and its priests were to thrive for centuries.  He named it, and the city that grew up around it, ‘Delphi,’ a word that would remind his priests of the dolphin who had brought them there.  

 

10. Hephaestus’ Story

 

While the other gods stood around gaping at the sight of Athena springing from Zeus’ head, Hera sat in the corner, seething with fury.   It was bad enough that Zeus was busily producing bastards on other goddesses; this time he had borne a child all by himself (or so he claimed, anyway).  Hera decided to respond in kind.  Mustering her considerable determination, she managed to impregnate herself.  

The months hummed along, Hera smugly growing larger and Zeus none the wiser that the child was not his.  When labor started, however, Hera could stifle her pride no longer.  As she lumbered into her bedchamber, supported by Demeter and Eileithyia, she triumphantly announced that the glorious child she was about to bear was hers and hers alone.

But she had boasted too soon.  The infant, when he arrived, was misshapen, with one leg shorter than the other.  In disgust, Hera seized her baby by the ankle and tossed him over the side of Olympus.  He landed in the sea, where the gentle goddess Thetis swam to his rescue.   She and her sister Eurynome nurtured the child, whom they named Hephaestus.  

When he was older, Hephaestus made his home on Lemnos, an island renowned for its expert craftsmen. The people taught him the art of blacksmithing, at which he excelled.  The unreliability of Hephaestus’ legs had led him to develop muscular arms; this, combined with a wonderful delicacy of touch, enabled him to create works that were both stunningly beautiful and amazingly sturdy.  

It dawned on Hephaestus that he could use these talents to avenge himself upon his mother. 

One day, a splendid golden throne arrived on Olympus, inscribed with Hera’s name.  The figures engraved on its surface were so lifelike that they seemed to breathe; its form was so well proportioned that the metal looked as light as gossamer; its majestic curves were clearly meant to embrace Hera’s body and no one else’s.  

Delighted with the tribute, Hera immediately sat down and luxuriated in its comfort, but her weight, when she sat, triggered a hidden mechanism.  Slender tendrils of gold stealthily began to grow from the throne’s surface, entwining Hera’s thighs and fore-arms.  When she tried to rise, she found that she was trapped.  She kicked, she wailed, she cursed, but to no avail.

Zeus, stifling his laughter, tried to free his wife but failed.  Her son Ares tried but failed as well.  Each of the other gods tried in turn to free her, but none succeeded.  

At last it dawned on the youngest of the group, Dionysus, that one god had been forgotten: Hephaestus.  Although no one had seen him since Hera threw him into the sea, they had heard about his fondness for metalwork.  They had treated it as a joke, sneering that Hephaestus was slumming; what real god would lift a hand to do such lowly labor—and why would a god want to?  But now, given Hera’s dilemma, they began to realize that Hephaestus had discovered a new source of power and claimed it as his own.  

Zeus instructed Dionysus to promise Hephaestus whatever he desired if he would free Hera.   Dionysus descended to Lemnos, but nothing that he offered could persuade Hephaestus to release his mother.  Wouldn’t Hephaestus like a golden palace on Olympus?   No, he could build a better one himself.   Wouldn’t abundant sacrifices please him?  No, he already received them from the people of Lemnos, who loved and admired him.

Finally, Dionysus sighed and ceased negotiating.  He created two goblets of wine and gestured for Hephaestus to recline.  Placing one of them in Hephaestus’ hand, he said, ‘Now let us relax and enjoy my gift to the world, brother.’

Hephaestus had never tasted wine like this—in fact, he had scarcely tasted any wine at all.  He drank its sweetness and asked for more…and more.  Dionysus obliged.  

When the wine had made Hephaestus amenable to compromise, Dionysus leaned forward.  ‘Brother,’ he whispered, ‘you and I are among the youngest of gods, and not always respected.  Let me advise you.  This is your chance to seize a great prize: demand Aphrodite as your wife in return for freeing your mother.  You are not a well-built god; this may be your only chance of winning any bride at all, much less the very best of them.’

Even drunk, Hephaestus saw the wisdom of Dionysus’ words.  He allowed his brother to load him onto the back of a donkey and lead him up to Olympus.  

Dionysus announced the terms of the agreement to the assembly of gods.  Aphrodite strenuously protested, but her feelings made no difference; Zeus was king and could apportion goddesses as he chose.  He shook Hephaestus’ hand (nearly toppling him from the donkey), received the finely wrought cup that Hephaestus had brought along as a bride-price, and formally welcomed Hera’s son—or rather, his and Hera’s son, as he immediately began to call Hephaestus—into the company of the immortals. 

Hephaestus pressed a spring on the back of the golden throne that was invisible to everyone but him; the golden tendrils disappeared and his mother was free.  The ingenuity of the device made the gods gasp, and Hephaestus seized the occasion to expound at length about its construction.

A smile crept across Hera’s face; her son was not so defective, after all, even if he was a bit unconventional.  Zeus might try to claim him, but the gods, at least, knew the truth about his parentage.  

A smile crept across Aphrodite’s face, as well.  Her new husband seemed to be more besotted by his craft projects than he would ever be by any female.  It would be easy enough to deceive him; she saw no reason to terminate her affair with Ares.

Aphrodite was doubly wrong, however.  The time would come when Hephaestus not only learned of her adultery but cunningly trapped the lovers in flagrante delicto.  And the time would also come when Hephaestus’ eye was caught by another goddess.  

That goddess was Athena, who visited Hephaestus’ forge one day seeking new armor.  Seeing her dressed only in robes, which revealed the graceful curves of her body, Hephaestus was overcome by desire and embraced her. 

Athena wrested herself free and ran; Hephaestus pursued her, managing to keep up in spite of his bad leg.  He was just overtaking Athena, in fact, when he stumbled.  The unexpected jolt caused friction between his legs, and friction caused ejaculation.  His divine sperm hit her divine leg.

Disgusted, Athena wiped her leg with a bit of wool and then threw the wool to the ground.  Earth, always fertile, received Hephaestus’ seed and became pregnant.

In due course, Earth bore Hephaestus’ son.  Like many of Earth’s children, the child was snaky from the waist down, but his upper half resembled his father.  Athena, who had a soft spot for children in spite of her determination never to bear one herself, adopted the creature as her own—as, indeed, he almost had been.   She named him Erichthonius.   

When Erichthonius was grown, Athena set him upon the throne of Athens.  He was a good and thoughtful leader, diligently improving the lives not only of his own subjects but of mortals the world over.  From his father, he learned to smelt silver and make coins, which facilitated trade.  He invented the yoke, so that animals could be driven in pairs, and then the plough, so that Demeter’s gifts might be better used.  He designed the first chariot, and established races in honor of Athena at a festival that he called the Panathenaia, inviting all the residents of Athens to participate.  

Erichthonius reigned for fifty years and was followed by his son Pandion.  The line of Hephaestus continued to rule over Athena’s city for many years, although not forever; one day, a son of Poseidon would become Athens’ most famous king of all.    

The War between the Titans and the Younger Gods

This tale tells about Zeus’ leadership of the younger gods and the Titans, and his war with the monstrous Typhon.

Pasiphae and the Bull

Here are two more stories about Minos, in which he gets his comeuppance. 

Minos and Polyeidus, Minos and Scylla

Here are two stories about Minos, the most famous king of Crete, a man of great determination, greed and arrogance.  Later this month, I’ll post two more stories about him that show where excessive determination and greed eventually lead a person.