Tales of the Greek Heroes

by Unknown

  ‘Noble sirs,’ he cried, holding up his hands in prayer, ‘surely you are blessed gods come down from Olympus! Pardon us, I beg you, that our entertainment has been so poor, and the food so meagre. Indeed, we would have done better, if we possessed better: but we have given you all we had.’

  Then Zeus smiled kindly on the two old people, and said:

  ‘You have guessed truly: we are Zeus and Hermes, come down to test mankind – and in you we find nothing to blame. Come now, and see what we propose for you!’

  He led the way out of the cottage, and scarcely had they left it when it began to grow and change as they watched it. The rough sticks which held up the roof turned into columns of white marble; the thatch grew yellower and yellower until it shone with pure gold, and the dark earthen floor grew hard and smooth with many-coloured mosaic.

  ‘And now,’ said Zeus, ‘what gift do you desire for yourselves?’

  Then Philemon and Baucis spoke together for a few moments, after which Philemon turned and said:

  ‘Of all things we desire most to be your priest and priestess in the beautiful temple which you have made. And this also we beg, that since we have lived our lives together in such perfect harmony and happiness, we may both die at the same moment.’

  ‘All this I grant,’ cried Zeus, and the thunder rolled across the sky in token of his gift. ‘And, whatever may chance to the wicked among men, here on this sacred mountain top you will be safe. Moreover I make you young again: live your lives as virtuously as you have done, and when death comes to you, both on the instant shall be turned into trees that you may still stand here and bow your heads before my temple.’

  So saying, Zeus turned away from Baucis and Philemon, and set out once more with Hermes, in the direction of Greece.

  Soon they came to wooded Thessaly in the north of Greece, and here Zeus turned to Hermes and said:

  ‘Son of Maia, we have found a virtuous and holy couple living in Asia, but here in our own land of Greece Lycaon the impious man-eater, the wolf-king. This our last visit will save or destroy mankind!’

  Now it may be that Hermes knew, and led the way, or it may be that Zeus was anxious for an excuse to spare some at least of the race of men: but certain it is that the house in which they next sought shelter was that of Deucalion whom Prometheus had made from the clay of Panopeus, and his wife Pyrrha, the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora.

  They found these two everything that they could wish: kindly and pious, honouring the gods, living blameless lives, and practising diligently all the arts which Prometheus had taught.

  ‘Now,’ said Zeus, when he and Hermes had tested Deucalion’s hospitality and found that a King of Thessaly could be as simple and kindly as an ancient peasant of Phrygia – ‘Now I will return to Olympus, and let loose a great flood over the earth. All those who are not fit to live shall drown in that flood, and I will see to it that any who save themselves by climbing to the tops of mountains are worthy of life – and I fear there will be few indeed of them. As for you, noble Deucalion, make haste and build a ship; place a roof over the top of it, store food and clothes in it, and then enter it with your wife and children. In this ship you will be safe, and I will guide it to the land over which I purpose that you and your children shall rule.’

  Then Deucalion did as he was bidden, and brought to the task all the skill which Prometheus had taught him. Soon the ship was finished, and as soon as he and Pyrrha were safely inside it, Zeus let loose the rain.

  For nine days and nine nights the rain poured down upon the earth; and Poseidon stirred up the waves with his trident so that the sea flowed in over the land as well.

  All was desolation: houses lay in ruins beneath the waters, the corn rotted and turned black, and the fishes swam in and out among the branches of the trees. Only the Sea-peoples, the Nymphs and the Dolphins, were happy, swimming about among the mountain tops, and diving down to explore drowned cities beneath the waves.

  At last the waters began to fall, and the ship came to rest on a slope of Mount Parnassus, near Apollo’s shrine at Delphi. Praising the gods for their deliverance, Deucalion and Pyrrha stepped on shore and lay down to sleep.

  In the morning a voice spoke to them out of the deep earth beneath Apollo’s temple which was now hung with sea-weed and encrusted with shells:

  ‘Deucalion and Pyrrha! Father Zeus does not mean to stamp out utterly the race of men. Therefore go down into the valley before you, cover your heads with your cloaks, and cast behind you the bones of your mother!’

  For a long time they were puzzled by this command, for each of them had a different mother, and both were dead. But at last Deucalion hit upon the right answer:

  ‘Surely,’ he said, ‘our mother is the Earth, for out of earth were men formed by our maker Prometheus. And the bones of earth must be the stones.’

  So they went down into the river valley, covered their heads, and began to throw stones backwards over their shoulders. And presently as they threw they heard a murmur behind them, a murmur that swelled and swelled until at last they could restrain themselves no longer.

  They turned round, and there was a multitude of men and women. And as they gazed they saw the last few stones which they had thrown swelling, changing, growing soft and rising up into human shapes: the men from the stones which Deucalion had thrown and the women from those which fell behind Pyrrha.

  In this way the land of Greece was re-peopled, and very soon new cities sprang up from the ruins of the old; the fields yielded rich corn once more, and the olive groves shimmered silver in the sunlight.

  So earth was peopled anew, and the children of Deucalion and Pyrrha, with those who had survived the flood by climbing to the mountain tops, became the kings and queens of the various states of Greece; and the most famous of them, whose name was Hellen, gave his name to the whole country, which is often called Hellas to this very day, and its people the Hellenes.

  Zeus was pleased with mankind now that the more evil of them had been destroyed, and he and the other Immortals wandered often through the lovely land of Hellas, and some married mortal brides whose children became kings and princes.

  ‘This is the Age of the Heroes,’ decreed Zeus, ‘and the men in it shall be stronger and the women more beautiful than their descendants in times to come.’ For Zeus remembered the prophecy of the Titan Prometheus, that when the Giants came to attack him and the other Immortals, they could only win the war if there was a mortal man strong and brave enough to fight at their side and kill the Giants when they had overthrown them.

  So Zeus planned, hoping that the greatest Hero of all would be born in time to help him. The Heroic Age lasted until the contemporaries of the youngest son of that Hero had grown old and died, and among them was Odysseus, the last of the Heroes who fought at Troy.

  But, without the wisdom of Prometheus to guide him, Zeus made a mistake which very nearly caused his doom and wrecked the world. For when Deucalion and Pyrrha had made men and women by casting stones over their shoulders, Zeus, eager to make Greece a pleasant dwelling-place for the Heroes, laid command upon Earth.

  ‘Bring forth Animals!’ he commanded, for all animal life had perished in the great flood, though the birds and the reptiles had been able to survive it.

  Earth did as she was bidden, and animals of every kind came leaping and tumbling out of the ground, squeezing up between the rocks, and pushing their way through the ground just as a mole does. But she laughed to herself, deep down in the caverns where the Titans were imprisoned. And besides the animals, she made the Giants – though they did not come out of their caves for a long time yet to do battle with the Immortals. But in addition to the Giants, Earth produced the most fearful monster ever seen, who was called Typhon.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  TYPHON THE TERRIBLE

  The lyre’s voice is lovely everywhere;

  In the courts of gods, in the city of men,

  And in the lonely rock-strewn mountain-glen,

  I
n the still mountain air.

  Only to Typhon it sounds hatefully;

  To Typhon only, the rebel o’erthrown,

  Through whose heart Etna drives her roots of

  stone,

  To imbed them in the sea.

  MATTHEW ARNOLD

  Empedocles on Etna

  5

  Typhon, the last of the Titans, was born out of the Earth in Asia Minor, far away from the sight of Zeus. Earth hid him as long as possible in a great dark cave in a place called Cilicia, that he might be full-grown before Zeus discovered about him.

  But when Typhon came to full size, there was no hiding for him anywhere in the world. Of all creatures ever known upon the earth, he was the biggest and most frightful.

  He was so tall that as he walked far out in the sea the waves came only a little way above his knees; and when he stood upon the dry land, the stars became entangled in his hair. He was terrible to look at, for from his shoulders grew a hundred heads, with dark, flickering serpent tongues and flaming eyes. Each head uttered from its fearsome mouth a voice of its own: some spoke in words that men could understand, but others bellowed like bulls, or roared like lions or howled like hunting wolves. From this monster’s shoulders grew dragons’ wings; and his hands were so strong that he could lift mountains with them.

  As soon as he was grown to his full height, Typhon came striding suddenly across the Aegean Sea towards Greece, roaring with rage like a thousand hurricanes. Straight for Olympus he came, for the one thought in each of his hundred heads was to destroy the Immortals and rule in their place.

  Then there was terror and panic in heaven, and to save themselves the Immortals fled away into the land of Egypt where they disguised themselves by assuming the heads of animals or birds so that Typhon might not know them. The Egyptians made statues of them and gave them new names: Artemis with a cat’s head they called Bast; Dionysus with the ram’s head became Osiris, cow-headed Demeter became Isis, and so on with the other Immortals.

  But Zeus did not flee: he stood up on Olympus to do battle with his fearful enemy, and hurled a thunderbolt at him.

  Typhon laughed at thunderbolts, and catching the next one Zeus threw he hurled it back, and after that a whole cascade of rocks and mountain tops.

  Zeus dodged them, and snatched up the great sickle made of adamant with which in the beginning of time Cronos had maimed his father the Sky. With this weapon, harder and sharper than the sharpest iron, he attacked the monster, and the whole earth shook and quaked as they fought. Long and fiercely the battle raged; but Zeus was the stronger, and soon Typhon was bleeding from many wounds.

  But as they rolled on the ground, wrestling and struggling together, Typhon made one last tremendous effort and wrenched the sickle from Zeus, while he twined the snakey coils of his body round him and held him prisoner for a moment. Then with a few swift blows Typhon cut off the immortal sinews from Zeus’s arms and legs, leaving him lying on the slope of Olympus, powerless to move.

  Typhon also was sorely wounded and bleeding from many cuts, but he managed to crawl down into a deep valley in the wild land of Thrace in northern Greece, and hid the sinews deep in a cave. Then he rested outside in the sun, guarding the sinews, and waiting until his wounds healed and his strength came back to him.

  Meanwhile Hermes and Pan came quietly across the world in search of Zeus, and found him lying on the mountain side, unable to stir, powerless to defend himself if Typhon returned to the attack.

  They thought of many schemes to save him, and at last Hermes devised a plan:

  ‘We need some simple human to help us,’ he said. ‘Typhon is an Immortal himself, so that he would recognize either of us, however well we disguised ourselves.’

  Then Zeus remembered that Prince Cadmus was at this moment wandering among the hills of Thrace in search of his sister Europa.

  For it happened that a little while before the coming of Typhon, Zeus had visited the land of Phoenicia, to the north of Palestine, in the shape of a wonderful white bull with horns of gold.

  The Princess Europa had been playing on the sea-shore with her companions, and she was delighted with the beauty of the white bull. At first she was afraid, but it came to her in such a friendly way, and let her stroke it, that soon she was treating it almost as a pet. She twined garlands of flowers for its horns, and then, much daring, climbed on to its back for a ride. The white bull was gentleness itself: he walked carefully up and down the beach, and then began to splash through the little waves as they broke on the sandy shore. At first Europa was wild with delight, but her excitement changed suddenly to fear when the bull moved into deep water, and began to swim out to sea.

  She screamed vainly for help, and clung desperately to the golden horns; but the bull brought her safely across the sea to the island of Crete. There Zeus resumed his ordinary shape, and told her that her children should rule in this beautiful island, and so well and so wisely that after their death two of her sons would be made judges of the souls of the dead in the realm of Hades.

  But meanwhile, in Phoenicia, the King, Europa’s father, called his three sons to him and said:

  ‘Go north and south and west in search of your sister, and do not return without her, or you shall die!’

  That was why the eldest of them, Prince Cadmus, was wandering through the valleys of Thrace in northern Greece when suddenly the two Immortals met him.

  ‘Do not be afraid, Prince Cadmus,’ said Hermes, ‘we bring you a message from Zeus. You shall be king of a great city in Greece, and your children shall be famous. Zeus will be your friend, and heap good things upon you and yours… But now he himself is in terrible need, and you can help him.’

  They disguised Cadmus as a shepherd, and Hermes built a little house for him not far from where Typhon was. Pan, the kindly goat-footed Immortal who has charge of all shepherds and their flocks, lent Cadmus some sheep, and gave him also his wonderful pipes which play sweeter, more magical tunes than any made by mortal hands.

  And when Hermes had instructed him in all that he must say and do, Prince Cadmus, in his disguise, went wandering down the valley playing upon the pipes of Pan, with the sheep and lambs gambolling and frisking about him. Presently he came to where Typhon was lying on the soft grass in front of his cave. Typhon heard the music, and made no attempt to harm the simple shepherd who could breathe through the pipes such sweet and wonderful sounds.

  ‘Do not be afraid of me, shepherd,’ rumbled the monster, ‘but play and let me hear sweeter music still, so that I may forget my pains and grow whole more speedily. And when I am lord of heaven and earth I will reward you royally.’

  So Cadmus set the pipes of Pan to his lips once more and played the wild, sweet notes such as come from no other pipes in the world. And Typhon felt that never in his life had he heard anything so wonderful.

  ‘Play! Play again!’ he cried eagerly as Cadmus paused for breath.

  ‘So you like the tune of my pipes,’ said Cadmus. ‘If only you could hear the music of my lyre, you would not even remember the pipes! Why, Apollo himself does not play upon the lyre so sweetly as I do.’

  ‘Then play on the lyre, whatever that is,’ grunted Typhon.

  ‘Alas,’ said Cadmus cunningly, ‘I cannot do so any more. For when I played more sweetly than Apollo himself, that jealous master of music snatched the lyre from my hands and broke all the strings. See, here it is; and unless I can find fresh sinews with which to string it, I can never again draw from it the most beautiful music in the world.’

  Suspecting no evil of this simple young shepherd who played so enchantingly, Typhon crawled painfully into his cave and presently returned carrying the sinews of Zeus.

  ‘Here,’ he rumbled. ‘Take these! String them to your lyre, and play me to sleep!’

  Cadmus took the sinews and placed them carefully in the hollow of the lyre under the stretched cow-hide which made the sounding-board.

  ‘I will take these back to my cottage,’ he said, ‘and fit th
em in place tonight, so that tomorrow I may delight you with the lyre’s melody. It is a slow and delicate task and will take time. But now let me play you a lullaby on the pipes.’

  Then, without giving Typhon time to think, Cadmus played on the pipes of Pan a lullaby so soothing and so filled with the drowsy whispers of slumber that all his heads began to nod and his two hundred eyes to close. Soon he lay there asleep, his snores murmuring up the valley like distant thunder on a summer’s night, and Cadmus crept swiftly away.

  Beyond the hills Hermes and Pan were waiting for him, and while Hermes took the sinews and made haste to carry them to Zeus, Pan led Cadmus swiftly south, away and away until he came to the sea shore where his ship was waiting for him.

  Zeus fitted the sinews back into his arms and legs once more, and in a moment his strength returned to him. He leapt into his chariot, caught up a handful of thunderbolts, and rode out to do battle again with his terrible enemy.

  Typhon, still bleeding from his earlier encounter with Zeus, fled away this time in terror and, pelted with thunderbolts, he fell down at last and lay grovelling in the sea not far from Italy.

  Then Zeus caught up the island of Sicily and flung it upon him. And there he lies imprisoned for ever under the roots of Mount Etna. Sometimes he still writhes, and cries out in fury, sending his fiery breath up through the volcano and with it streams of burning lava which lay waste the fair fields and vineyards of Sicily.

  But meanwhile Prince Cadmus was sailing over the blue sea towards Delphi, for so Pan had told him to do, since by the command of Zeus he must seek for Europa no longer, but make ready to found a kingdom of his own.