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.