“Welcome, Phaethon, a son no father would deny,” said Helios.
“If you are really my father,” said the boy, “swear to me by the river Styx that you will grant me whatever I wish.”
“Gladly, I swear,” replied the sun god.
“Let me drive your chariot across the sky,” Phaethon demanded.
Helios urged the boy to ask for some other wish, but Phaethon would not change his mind. So Helios gave Phaethon the reins of his chariot.
Phaethon was unable to control the horses from the moment they leaped into the sky. He dropped the reins and the chariot tore across the sky. Mountains burst into flames and seas boiled. Cities and forests went up in smoke. The fields of Africa became the Sahara Desert. Gods and men prayed to Zeus to do something before the world was destroyed.
Zeus cast a lightning bolt at the chariot, tearing it into pieces. Phaethon’s burned body fell into a river. The daughters of Helios wept for Phaethon until their tears became amber. They left behind these words so that he would always be remembered:
Here lies the body of Phaethon,
who drove the chariot of the sun. He failed
greatly, but greatly did he dare.
DIONYSUS
In the city of Thebes, there once lived a beautiful young woman named Semele, daughter of Cadmus. Zeus fell in love with her and came to her in mortal form to woo her. Eventually he revealed his true identity to her, and Semele became pregnant with his child.
When Hera heard of this, she began to plot revenge. She came to Semele disguised as an old woman. The two talked of many things and Semele shared the secret of her baby’s father. The old woman shook her head. “My dear, I do hope it is Zeus, but you never really know, do you? A man will say anything. Next time he shows up, I would ask him to reveal himself as a god in all his glory.”
Semele considered the old woman’s words. How did she know for certain that the man was Zeus? She decided to find out the next time Zeus came to her.
“If you are really a god,” she said, “grant me a wish.” “Anything you want,” Zeus answered. “I swear to you by the River Styx you shall have it.”
“Show yourself to me as a god, just as you appear to Hera,” Semele said.
Zeus groaned in despair. He had sworn by the Styx and could not break his vow, so he put aside his mortal disguise and appeared as himself. In an instant, Semele was reduced to ashes. Before she burned away, Zeus snatched the unborn child and sewed it into his thigh to grow until it was ready to be born.
A few months later, Zeus removed the stitches and took out the baby, whom he named Dionysus. He gave the infant to Hermes, who took him to Semele’s sister Ino to be raised in secret. The boy’s aunt dressed him like a girl to keep him safe from Hera, but Hera knew. She drove Ino mad. Ino leaped into the sea with her son and they became sea gods. Zeus found baby Dionysus and turned him into a goat for his own protection. He was raised by the kindly nymphs of Nysa in distant Asia.
After Dionysus put aside his goat form and grew into a young god, he set off to see the world. He had discovered the secret of making wine during his time in Nysa and wanted to spread the knowledge along with his religious cult throughout the world. He wandered far and wide until he came to the shores of the Aegean Sea. He hailed a pirate ship to take him to the Island of Naxos. The pirates took one look at his rich purple robes and sturdy shoulders and decided to sell him into slavery in some distant land. They forced him onto the ship and tried to tie him up, but the bonds kept slipping off his hands and feet.
The helmsman Acoetes understood what was happening: “You fools, don’t you see that you’ve taken a powerful god on board? No chains can hold him. We must set him free at once or he will surely send a raging tempest to destroy us all.”
The captain of the ship sneered: “Acoetes, you are an idiot.
Pay attention to your sails, and leave this boy to real men.”
When Acoetes hoisted the sails, the mast sprouted grapevines and the sails turned to ivy. Sweet wine flowed over the decks and wild animals appeared. Dionysus turned into a lion and roared. The pirates leaped into the water, and Dionysus turned them all into dolphins, except for Acoetes. From that day forward, dolphins have been kindly to humans.
Hera continued to search for Dionysus. She drove the young god crazy, and he wandered through Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor until he came to the temple of the Great Mother goddess Cybele in Phrygia. The priests and priestesses cured Dionysus with music and dancing and sent him on his way. A band of women known as the Bacchae (after Bacchus, another name for Dionysus) followed him, each carrying a wooden wand wrapped in ivy and crowned with a pinecone.
Before he left the land of Cybele, Dionysus offered to grant King Midas his heart’s desire because he had been kind to him. The king was more kind than wise. He asked his divine visitor to make whatever he touched turn into gold. Dionysus agreed. King Midas eagerly touched an oak branch and watched it turn into a golden twig. Then he touched a stone and the pillars of his palace, all of which turned to gold. The king touched everything he could find.
At last Midas grew weary and called for food and drink. Platters of delicious food and goblets of sweet wine turned to gold when they touched his lips. The king was starving. He realized how foolish he had been and prayed to Dionysus to lift the dreaded power. The god heard his prayer and told Midas to go and wash in a nearby stream. The king plunged into the river. The rocks in the streambed turned to gold, but the gift—or curse—of the golden touch left Midas forever.
Not every king welcomed Dionysus as Midas had. When Dionysus crossed into Thrace, King Lygurgus chased the young god into the sea and seized his followers. Dionysus freed his Bacchae and drove Lygurgus mad. The king struck his own son with an ax thinking he was a grapevine. His subjects were so horrified that they bound the king and tied him to horses to be torn apart.
When Dionysus moved south into Greece, the daughters of King Minyas wanted nothing to do with his wild, new religion. They scorned those who followed the god into the mountains to dance wearing animal skins. Dionysus appeared before the daughters as a young girl and tried to tell them that his rites were not indecent. Wine was not evil, he explained, but necessary to achieve balance in life.
The daughters would not listen. Then Dionysus filled the room with the sound of beating drums and tambourines. Milk and nectar dripped from the ceiling and the women were overcome with madness. They tore one of their own children to pieces and ate him. Then they ran off to the mountains where Dionysus changed them into bats.
When Dionysus returned at last to his hometown of Thebes, he expected to be welcomed. His grandfather Cadmus and the oracle Tiresias embraced Dionysus’s new religion, but the women of the city and his cousin, King Pentheus, scorned him. Dionysus drove the women mad and sent them into the hills with his followers.
To Pentheus, the worship of Dionysus was still a silly excuse to behave badly in the forest. “It’s Aphrodite they’re devoted to, not Bacchus! I’ve captured some and put them under guard at the jail, but I’ll hunt down the rest in the mountains and throw them into iron cages. I’ll put a stop to this worship of the so-called god Dionysus.”
Tiresias tried to explain that the proper worship of Dionysus was to find balance in life. A spy sent into the woods said that the women were drinking only moderate amounts of wine and dancing to the flute. But the king refused to listen.
Dionysus then appeared to Pentheus dressed as one of his own priests and offered to take him to the mountains to see the worship for himself. First Pentheus would have to dress as a woman and watch quietly from a tree. Pentheus agreed and followed Dionysus into the woods. As soon as they arrived, Dionysus revealed the king’s true identity. The women, driven mad by Dionysus, pulled Pentheus out of the tree and tore off his limbs. His own mother Agave was the first to attack.
The women marched back to Thebes, Agave carrying her son’s head in her arms. She believed she had killed a lion. As the spell wore off, she rea
lized the horrible truth. Dionysus blamed the people of Thebes for rejecting him. “If you had only known how to keep your minds balanced, I, the son of Zeus, would have brought good fortune to you—but you would not welcome me.”
Dionysus then transformed his faithful grandfather Cadmus into a snake and his grandmother Harmonia into a wild beast.
As cruel as Dionysus was to his grandparents, he loved his mother very much. He complained that she was confined to Hades while he lived as a god. He decided to journey to the underworld to rescue Semele and bring her back to the land of the living. He searched high and low for an entrance to Hades, until at last he came to an elderly man who offered to show him a secret door. After a long journey, the god found Semele and brought her back. Then at last he led his mother to Mount Olympus where Zeus and the other gods welcomed her and her son ever after as immortals.
CUPID
In some stories Eros was one of the first gods, born from Chaos. In later stories, Eros was the son of Aphrodite who flew about the world shooting arrows of love into unwilling victims. This Eros was known as Cupid. One of the best-loved myths of ancient times was told of Cupid.
Once upon a time a king and queen in a distant land had three daughters. The oldest two were pretty and had many suitors. They were married, but the youngest sister, Psyche, was so lovely that no man thought himself worthy of her. Her beauty was so astonishing that visitors from many lands came just for a glimpse of her. Pilgrims threw garlands at her feet. Soon the temples of Aphrodite were neglected.
When Aphrodite found out she was being ignored for a mortal woman, she was furious. The goddess told her son Cupid to shoot Psyche and make her fall madly in love with the meanest, most disgusting man on the face of the earth. She wanted Psyche to have a terrible life.
The girl’s father worried that such beauty might be a curse from the gods. He asked a sacred oracle what he should do about Psyche: “King, put the girl on a mountain cliff dressed in her finest gown for a wedding—or a funeral. Your son-inlaw will come to her there, but he won’t be a mortal. He will be a savage, wild beast that flies through the air on wings and troubles the world with fire and sword. He is so terrible that Zeus and the gods shake at his approach.”
The poor father could not bear to abandon his daughter to such a fate, but Psyche herself led the way to the cliff dressed as a bride of death. She knew that the oracle’s words were Aphrodite’s revenge, and it was no use to resist.
Psyche waited for something terrible to happen. Suddenly a gentle wind carried her down to the valley far below. She saw a beautiful palace with walls made of gold and floors covered with jewels. A voice told her that all she saw was hers. Invisible servants prepared a fine dinner, and then showed her the way to her bedchamber.
Alone in her room, Psyche began to fear what would happen next. The sun slowly set and the room grew dark. Suddenly, a man took her in his arms. He was gone before the first rays of sun entered the windows of the chamber. The same thing happened the next night and the next.
One night, Psyche’s husband warned her that she could never see his face. He told her she was pregnant and that her child would be a god, but only if she didn’t try to discover who he was. Psyche agreed but begged her husband to bring her sisters for a visit to show them she was safe.
The next day when the two sisters arrived at the cliff where Psyche had waited for her doom, the wind carried them to the castle. Psyche showed them the palace and fed them a glorious feast. As the sun began to set, the wind carried them back to the top of the cliff.
Envy seized the sisters. “Our little sister enjoys the life of a goddess while I’m married to a fat old husband as bald as a pumpkin,” said the elder.
“I don’t care if she is our sister,” replied the other. “It’s not fair that Psyche should have a handsome young god in a glorious palace. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll see that she loses everything!”
The next day the wind carried the sisters to Psyche again. They told her stories of farmers who had seen a giant snake slithering through the forest on the way to the castle. They told Psyche that her husband would eat her alive as a plump, tasty meal. Psyche denied it was true, but she began to wonder.
That night, after her husband fell asleep, Psyche gathered an oil lamp and a sharp knife. She held the lamp up to her husband’s face, ready to cut off the monster’s head. Instead she saw the loveliest man she could ever imagine. His cheeks were rosy and his hair flowed down in perfect ringlets. She pricked her finger on the bow and arrows at his feet and fell deeply in love with her husband, who she now knew was Cupid.
As she drew near to kiss him, a drop of hot oil fell onto his shoulder and woke Cupid with a start.
“Psyche, why didn’t you listen to me?” Cupid asked. “I can never see you again—never. All that we had is lost.”
With that the god disappeared. Psyche fled into the woods to drown herself in a river, but the waters would not receive her. She lay on the grass weeping until Pan saw her and led her to the home of one of her sisters. Psyche collapsed in tears and told her sister everything. Instead of comforting her, the wicked woman ran to the cliff and launched herself into the air, crying, “Take me, Cupid! I will be a worthy wife to you.” But instead of a gentle wind, the sister felt the rush of cold air as she fell down on the jagged rocks below. Psyche told her other sister the story of losing her husband forever. The other sister did the same, and also fell to her death.
Psyche wandered in the forest. A bird saw her and told Aphrodite. The goddess was furious: “Instead of doing his job, my precious son took up with that girl and got her pregnant! I’m too young to be a grandmother!”
Aphrodite brought Psyche to her palace, but instead of servants and fine meals, Psyche received beatings. At last the goddess, weary of tormenting the girl, told her she would be freed if she could complete a few tasks. Psyche was placed in a granary full of mixed wheat, barley, millet, poppy seeds, chickpeas, lentils, and beans and told to sort each grain into a separate pile by morning—or die. Psyche knew Aphrodite was looking for an excuse to kill her, so she sat on the floor and waited for death. A little ant took pity on the girl. He brought all his friends and they began to sort the seeds. By morning, the grains were separated.
The goddess was even more furious at Psyche’s success. She ordered the girl to go among a flock of sheep whose fleece shined with gold and gather some of the wool—or die. The only problem was that the sheep were vicious killers. Once again, Psyche sat down and waited for death, but a slender reed told her a secret. The sheep were ferocious during the day, but if she waited until evening, she could gather some of the wool from branches they had brushed against in passing. Psyche did this and brought the wool to Aphrodite.
“You think you’re so clever, do you?” asked the goddess. “For your next task you must draw a cup of water from a spring of the River Styx. It’s at the bottom of an impassible gorge in the mountains, but I’m sure that won’t be any trouble for you.” Aphrodite laughed in wicked delight and handed Psyche a silver cup.
Psyche knew she could never do what Aphrodite asked. She climbed to the top of a cliff to throw herself off. Just then, the eagle that served Zeus was flying by. Cupid had once done him a favor, so the eagle swooped down, took the cup from Psyche, and filled it in the spring. Psyche presented the goblet to Aphrodite.
The goddess couldn’t believe that a young girl could complete these deadly tasks. She decided on a final test that Psyche would never finish alive. She was to go down into the land of the dead and bring back some of Persephone’s perfume. Aphrodite gave the girl a jar and sent her on her way, confident that she would never see her again.
No mortal could journey to Hades and come back alive. Psyche climbed to the top of a tall tower to throw herself off, but the tower told her that the journey was not impossible. It told her to go to a remote grove near Sparta where she would find an entrance to the land of Hades. She was to carry two barley cakes in her hands and two coins
in her mouth. She was to ignore all requests made to her by anyone she met on her journey and to speak only when she arrived at the house of Persephone. She must not open the jar for any reason.
Psyche thanked the tower for its kindness. She found the entrance to Hades and entered into the dark world. A crippled man asked for her help, but she passed him by. Charon poled her across the River Styx for one of the coins in her mouth. A dead man in the water begged her to pull him into the boat, but Psyche closed her eyes and ignored him. Some old women urged her to stop and weave with them, but Psyche walked on. She tossed one of the barley cakes to the three-headed dog Cerberus and came at last to the palace of Persephone. Smiling, the goddess of the underworld granted Psyche’s request and filled the jar, sealing it tightly.
Returning the way she had come, Psyche gave the other cake to Cerberus and her final coin to Charon. She labored up the long, dark path and emerged at last into the land of the living. Then she began to wonder. If the perfume was so powerful, could it help her win back Cupid’s love? She opened the jar, and immediately fell into a sleep like death.
Cupid found Psyche in the forest and woke her with a prick from his arrow. After giving the perfume to his mother, he asked Zeus and the rest of the gods to make Psyche a goddess. Even Aphrodite was impressed by Psyche’s bravery. With a nod from Zeus, Hermes brought forward a cup of divine ambrosia. Psyche drank deeply and the fire of immortality ran through her veins. Everyone cheered the new goddess. Satyrs played flutes, the Muses sang wedding songs, and Aphrodite herself danced to the music. In due time, the child of Cupid and Psyche was born, a daughter named Happiness.
Goddesses
HERA
Hera, the queen of heaven, was the goddess of marriage and childbirth. She was also the goddess troubled women turned to whether they were young girls, brides, or old women. She was sympathetic to their pain and sorrow, and a goddess of comfort and hope throughout a woman’s life.
Heroes of Olympus Page 5
