Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

by Stephen Fry

  You might think Apollo had every justification to protect his sister, his mother and himself from such a deadly creature, but Python was chthonic – he sprang from the earth – making him a child of Gaia and as such under divine protection. Zeus knew that he must punish Apollo for the slaying of the serpent or lose all authority.

  In truth, the punishment he chose for Apollo was not so very harsh. Zeus exiled the young god for eight years to the snake’s birthplace beneath Mount Parnassus to atone for his crime. As well as replacing the snake-monster Python as guardian of the Omphalos, Apollo was tasked with organizing a regular athletics tournament there. The Pythian Games were duly held every four years, two either side of the Olympic meeting.fn28

  Apollo also established at Pytho (whose name he changed to Delphifn29) an oracle where anyone could come to ask the god or his appointed priestess (known sometimes as a SIBYL or the PYTHIA) questions about the future. In a trancelike state of prophetic ecstasy the priestess would sit out of sight of her interrogator, above a chasm in the ground which channelled down to the womb of the earth itself, and call her ambiguous prognostications up into the chamber above where the anxious petitioner awaited her proclamation. In this way Apollo and the Sibyl were seen to draw their oracular powers in part from Gaia herself, Apollo’s great-grandmother. Vapours were said to rise from beneath the ground that many took to be Gaia’s actual breath.fn30 The spring of Castalia bubbles up here, whose waters are said to inspire poetry in those who drink them or hear their whispers.fn31

  So Delian Apollo became Delphic Apollo too. People still travel to Delphi to ask him about their future. I have done so myself. Apollo never lies, but nor does he ever give a straight answer, finding it amusing to reply with another question or a riddle so obscure as only to make sense when it is too late to act upon it.

  To atone for his grievous assault on the proper way of things and to allow the slain Pytho to sleep the eternal sleep of death in the arms of his mother Gaia, Zeus finally fixed the serpent’s resting-place, the island of Delos, to the earth. While it no longer floats free, those who visit the island can testify to this day that it is tough to sail to, being beset by violent Etesian winds and treacherous meltemi currents. Anyone who travels there is likely to suffer the most awful sea-sickness. It is as if Hera has still not forgiven Delos for the part it played in the birth of the LETOIDES, the glorious twins Artemis and Apollo.

  Maia Maia

  How many Olympians were there now? Let’s do a quick headcount.

  Zeus sat on the throne, with Hera at his side, that’s two. Around them were ranged Hestia, Poseidon (who liked to come inland and keep an eye on Zeus), Demeter, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Ares, Athena, Artemis and Apollo – that’s eleven. Hades doesn’t count because he spent all his time in the underworld and had no interest in taking a seat in the dodecatheon. Eleven. One more then, before Olympus reaches its quorum of twelve.

  Hardly had the dust settled, and the shrieking recriminations from the Python debacle abated to sulks and glowers, than Zeus saw the path of his duty clear before him. He must father the twelfth and final god. Or, to put it another way, his sex-crazed glance fell on yet another appetizing immortal.

  During the Titanomachy, Atlas, the most ferocious champion of the Titans, had fathered seven daughters by the Oceanid PLEIONE. In her honour the Seven Sisters were known as the PLEIADES, although sometimes, out of respect for their father, they might be addressed as the ATLANTIDES too.

  The eldest and loveliest of these dark-eyed sisters was called MAIA. She lived as a shy and happy oread on the pleasant Corinthian slopes of Mount Cyllene in Arcadia.fn32 Happy, that is, until the night the great god Zeus appeared to her and got her with child. With great stealth – for word of Hera’s attitude to Zeus’s bastard children had got out and struck fear into every beautiful girl in Greece and beyond – Maia in due time gave birth in a remote and hidden cave to a healthy boy, whom she named HERMES.

  The Infant Prodigy

  Hermes proved himself to be the most extraordinarily pert and precocious baby that ever drew breath. Within a quarter hour of his birth he had crawled from one side of the cave to the other, throwing out comments to his startled mother as he did so. Five minutes later he had requested a light so that he might better examine the cave’s walls. Being offered none he struck two stones together over twists of straw and kindled a flame. This had never been done before. Now standing upright (and still not half an hour old), this remarkable infant announced that he was going for a walk.

  ‘The close confines of this cramped cavern are occasioning me uncomfortably acute claustrophobia,’ he said, inventing both alliteration and the family of ‘-phobia’ words as he spoke. ‘I shall see you presently. Get on with your spinning or knitting or whatever it is, there’s a good mother.’

  As he ambled down the slopes of Mount Cyllene this singular and sensational prodigy began to hum to himself. His humming turned into tuneful singing, which the nightingales in the woods around him immediately began to copy and have been trying to recapture ever since.

  After he had travelled he knew not how far he found himself in a field where he was met by the wondrous sight of a herd of pure white cattle cropping the grass and lowing gently in the moonlight.

  ‘Oh!’ he breathed, entranced. ‘What beautiful moo-moos.’ For all his precocity he was still not above baby-talk.

  Hermes looked at the cows and the cows looked at Hermes.

  ‘Come here,’ he commanded.

  The cows stared for a while then lowered their heads and continued to graze.

  ‘Hm. So it’s like that is it?’

  Hermes thought quickly and gathered up long blades of grass which he plaited together into something like a bovine version of horseshoes, attaching one to each hoof of every cow. Around his own tiny plump feet he wrapped laurel leaves. Finally he snapped off a branch of young willow and stripped it down into a long switch with which he easily and expertly tickled and stung the cows into a tight and manoeuvrable herd. As an extra precaution he drove them backwards, all the way up the slope and back to the mouth of the cave, where his astonished and alarmed mother had been worriedly standing ever since he had wandered so very calmly away.

  Maia had had no experience of motherhood before this, but she was certain that the striking style and eccentric behaviour of her son were not usual – even amongst gods. Apollo, she knew, had defeated Pytho while still an infant, and Athena of course had been born fully armed, but creating fire out of nothing but stones? Driving cattle? And what was this he was dangling before her eyes – a tortoise? Was she dreaming?

  ‘Now, mother,’ said Hermes. ‘Listen. I’ve had an idea. I’d like you to stun the tortoise, scoop out the flesh and cook it. I expect it will make a delicious soup. I’d recommend adding plenty of wild garlic if I were you and perhaps a suspicion of fennel? And then there’ll be beef for mains, which I shall see to now. I’ll just borrow this knife and be with you again before you know it.’

  With those words he disappeared to the back of the cave, off whose stone walls rang the appalling screams of a cow having its throat cut by a plump-fisted baby.

  After what Maia had to confess was a truly delicious supper she summoned up the courage to ask her son what he might be up to now, for he was hanging out stringy lines of cow gut in front of the fire. While he waited for these foul-smelling strips to dry he busied himself with boring little holes along the edges of the tortoiseshell.

  ‘I’ve had an idea,’ was all he would tell her.

  Apollo Reads the Signs

  Hermes may or may not have known it, but on his first night on earth he had travelled quite a distance. All the way from his birthplace on Mount Cyllene north through the fields of Thessaly and as far as Pieria, where he had found and rustled the cattle. And back again. In baby steps that is quite a distance.

  What Hermes certainly could not have known was that the white cattle belonged to Apollo, who prized them highly. When news reached the god of t
heir disappearance he set off in fury to Pieria in order to follow what he assumed was a vicious gang of thieves to their lair. Wild dryads or fauns gone to the bad, he imagined. They would regret taking property from the god of arrows. He lay down in the cattle’s field to examine the ground with all the thoroughness of an experienced tracker. To his astonishment the brigands had left no useful traces at all. All he could see were random brush marks, meaningless whorls and swirls and – unless he was going mad – one tiny infant footprint. Any impressions that might have been formed by cow’s hoofs seemed to be heading, not away from the field, but towards it!

  Whoever had stolen the cattle was mocking Apollo. They were practised and expert thieves, that much was clear. His sister Artemis was the most skilled hunter he knew: would she dare? Perhaps she had devised some cunning way to conceal her tracks. Ares didn’t have the wit. Poseidon wouldn’t be interested. Hephaestus? Unlikely. Who then?

  He noticed a thrush preening on a branch not far away and in one smooth action drew his bow and brought the creature down. Slitting open its crop the god of oracles and augury peered forward to read the entrails.

  From the colouration in the lower intestine, the kink in the right kidney and the unusual disposition of the thymus gland it was clear at once that the cattle were somewhere in Arcadia, not far from Corinth. And what was that clot of blood on the liver saying to him? Mount Cyllene. And what else? So! It had been a baby’s footprint after all.

  Apollo’s usually smooth brow was drawn into a frown, his blue eyes blazed and his rose-red lips compressed themselves into a grim line.

  Revenge would be his.

  Half-Brothers

  By the time Apollo arrived at the foot of Mount Cyllene his temper had frayed almost to breaking point. The world knew the cows were sacred to him. It was obvious that they were a rare and valuable breed. Who would dare?

  A hamadryad drooping herself from the branches of her aspen could offer no clue but informed him that further up an assorted gaggle of nymphs had gathered around the mouth of Maia’s cave. Maybe he would find his answer there? She would go herself if only she could leave her tree.

  When Apollo reached the top of the mountain he saw that the whole population of Cyllene had congregated at the cave. As he drew nearer he became aware of a sound emerging from it – a sound such as he had never heard before. It was as if sweetness and love and perfection and all that was beautiful had come to life and were gently coursing through his ears and into his very soul. Just as the scent of ambrosia enticed a god to table and made him sigh with glorious anticipation, just as the sight of a comely nymph caused the hot ichor in his veins to sing and fizz until he felt he could burst, just as the warm touch of skin on skin thrilled him to his deeps – so now these invisible noises seduced and bewitched the god until he thought he might go mad with joy and desire. If only he could pluck them from the air and absorb them into his breast, if only …

  The magical sound abruptly stopped and the spell was broken.

  The crowd of naiads and dryads and other spirits that had clustered around the cave’s entrance now dispersed, shaking their heads in wonder as they went, as if emerging from a trance. Shouldering through them, Apollo saw that, beside the mouth of the cave, on piles of stone, two vast sides of beef were on display, sliced into neat steaks. His furious outrage resurfaced.

  ‘Now you will pay!’ he roared as he rushed inside. ‘Now you will –’

  ‘Sh!’

  Apollo’s cousin, the oread Maia, was sitting in a basket chair sewing. She put a finger to her lips and inclined her head in the direction of a crib by the fire in which a rosy-cheeked baby gurgled in its sleep.

  Apollo was not to be put off. ‘That demonic child stole my cattle!’

  ‘Are you mad?’ said Maia. ‘My little angel is not so much as a day old.’

  ‘Little angel my foot! I know how to read a thrush’s entrails. Besides, I can hear the beasts stamping and lowing in the back. I’d know their moo anywhere. That baby is a thief and I demand –’

  ‘You demand what?’ Hermes had sat up and was now staring at Apollo with a quelling eye. ‘Can’t a boy get a wink of sleep? I had a heavy night of it transporting cattle and the last thing I need is for –’

  ‘You admit it!’ yelled Apollo, striding towards him. ‘By Zeus, I’ll strangle the life out of you, you little –’

  But as he picked Hermes up, ready to do who knows what to him, a strange device made of wood and tortoiseshell fell from the crib. In falling it made a noise that instantly recalled the magical sound that had so transfixed Apollo when he stood outside the cave.

  He dropped Hermes back into his cot and snatched up the device. Two thin bars of wood had been attached to the tortoiseshell and lines of cattlegut strung tightly across them. Apollo picked at one string with his thumb and again the marvellous sound came to him.

  ‘How …?’

  ‘What, this old thing?’ said Hermes, raising his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Just a little nonsense I put together last night. I call it a “lyre”. You can get some interesting effects from it though. If you pluck it just right. Or you can strum if you like. You press down on a couple of strings and – here, give it me, I’ll show you.’

  They were soon picking, plucking, slapping, strumming, twanging and swapping new chords like excited teenagers. Hermes was in the process of demonstrating the principle of natural harmonics when Apollo, entranced as he was by the feelings stirred in him by this extraordinary device, came to himself. ‘Yes, that’s all very well,’ he said, ‘but what about my bloody cattle?’

  Hermes eyed him quizzically. ‘You must be, let me see … don’t tell me … Apollo, right?’

  Not to be recognized was a new experience for Apollo and one that he found he didn’t quite like. Being spoken to in superior tones by a day-old baby was another on his list of least favourite experiences. He was about to crush this cocky little squirt with a cutting remark and possibly a swift right hook to the chin when he found himself facing a dimpled outstretched hand.

  ‘Put it there, Pol. Delighted to meet you. Hermes, latest addition to the divine roster. You’ll be my half-brother, I think? Mother Maia here took me through the family tree last night. What a nutty bunch we are, eh? Eh?’

  Another new sensation for Apollo was being playfully poked in the ribs. He felt he was losing control of the situation.

  ‘Look, I don’t care who you are, you can’t go round stealing my cattle and not expecting to pay for it.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll pay you back, don’t worry about that. But I just had to have them. Best quality guts. If I was going to make a lyre for my beloved half-brother I wanted only the finest strings.’

  Apollo looked from Hermes to the lyre and from the lyre to Hermes. ‘You mean …?’

  Hermes nodded. ‘With my love. Yours are the lyre and the art that lies behind it. I mean you’re already god of numbers, reason, logic and harmony. Music fits into that portfolio rather well, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘You can say, “Thank you, Hermes,” and, “By all means keep the cattle, brother mine.” ’

  ‘Thank you, Hermes! And by all means, yes, keep the cattle.’

  ‘Kind of you, old man, but I actually only needed two. You can have the rest back.’

  Apollo pressed a bewildered hand to his perspiring brow. ‘And why did you need only two?’

  Hermes hopped down onto the floor. ‘Maia told me how gods love to be worshipped, you see, and how much animal sacrifices mean to them. So I butchered two of the cattle and offered up eleven slices of burning meat from one of them to Olympus. Mum and I shared the twelfth steak last night. There’s some left over if you’d like it cold? Very good with a preparation of mustard-seed paste I’ve developed.’

  ‘Thank you, no,’ said Apollo. ‘It was thoughtful of you to send up smoke to the gods like that,’ he added. Apollo loved a votive offering as much as the next god. ‘Very proper.’


  ‘Well,’ said Hermes, ‘let’s see if it’s worked, shall we?’ Without warning he leapt up into Apollo’s arms, gripping him by the shoulders.

  This remarkable baby’s lightning fast mind, body and manner were making Apollo dizzy. ‘See if what has worked?’

  ‘My plan to ingratiate myself to our father. Take me up to Olympus and introduce me around,’ said Hermes. ‘That vacant twelfth throne has got my name on it.’

  The Twelfth God

  Everything about Hermes was quick. His mind, his wit, his impulses and his reflexes. The gods of Olympus, already flattered by the fine savoury smoke that had risen to their nostrils the previous night from Mount Cyllene, were entranced by the newcomer. Even Hera presented a cheek to be kissed and declared the child enchanting. He was on Zeus’s lap and pulling at his beard before anyone had noticed. Zeus laughed and all the gods laughed along with him.

  What were to be this god’s duties? His fleetness of mind and foot suggested one immediate answer – he should become the messenger of the gods. To make Hermes even faster, Hephaestus fashioned what would become his signature footwear, the talaria – a pair of winged sandals that allowed him to zip from one place to another more swiftly than an eagle. Hermes was so unaffectedly delighted with them, and clasped Hephaestus to him with such warm and grateful affection, that the god of fire and forges immediately limped back to his workshop and, after a day and a night’s furious work, returned with a winged helmet with a low crown and a flexible brim to go with the talaria. This lent Hermes a touch of grandeur and showed the world that this pert and handsome youth represented the dread majesty of the gods. For extra élan and glamour Hephaestus presented him with a silver staff topped with wings and entwined with two snakes.fn33