Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

by Stephen Fry

  ‘Psyche! Darling! Did all go as planned? You look a little –’

  ‘Never mind me, dear sister. I will tell you what happened. I followed your instructions to the letter, shone a lamp over the sleeping form of my husband and who should he be but the great god Eros. Eros himself!’

  ‘Eros!’ Calanthe clutched at her amber necklace.

  ‘Oh sister, imagine my heartbreak and disappointment when he told me that he had only taken me to his palace as a means of securing you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘That was his dark plan. “Fetch me your beautiful sister Calanthe,” he said to me. “She of the green eyes and russet hair.” ’

  ‘More auburn than russet –’

  ‘ “Fetch her. Tell her to go to the high rock. Launch herself onto Zephyrus, who will pick her up and bring her to me. Tell the beautiful Calanthe all this, Psyche, I beg.” This is his message which I have faithfully relayed.’

  You can imagine with what speed Calanthe prepared herself. She left a scrawled message for her husband explaining that they were not husband and wife after all, that their marriage had been a calamitous mistake, that the officiant who wed them had been drunk, incapable and unqualified, that she had never loved him anyway and that she was now a free woman, so there.

  At the high basalt rock she heard the rustle of a breeze and, with a moan of ecstatic joy, launched herself onto what she thought was Zephyrus.

  But the spirit of the West Wind was nowhere near. With a scream of frustration, rage, disappointment and fear, Calanthe tumbled down the hillside, bouncing from sharp rock to sharp rock until her whole body was turned inside out and she landed at the bottom as dead as a stone.

  The identical fate befell her sister Zona, to whom Psyche told the same story.

  The Tasks of Aphrodite

  With her revenge meted out, Psyche had the rest of her life to consider. Every waking moment was filled with the love and longing she felt for Eros and with the pangs of misery that stabbed her, knowing she was doomed never to see him again.

  Eros, meanwhile, lay in a secret chamber, racked by the agony of the wound on his shoulder. You and I could endure with ease the slight nuisance of a lamp-oil burn, but for Eros, immortal though he was, this was a hurt inflicted by the one he loved. Such wounds take a very long time to heal, if indeed they ever do.

  With Eros indisposed the world began to suffer. Youths and maidens stopped falling in love. There were no marriages. The people began to murmur and grumble. Unhappy prayers were raised to Aphrodite. When she heard them, and learned that Eros was hiding away and neglecting his duties, she became vexed. The news that a mortal girl had stolen her son’s heart and caused him such harm turned her vexation to anger. But when she discovered that it was the very same mortal girl that she had once commanded Eros to humiliate, she grew livid. How could her plan to make Psyche fall in love with a pig have backfired so terribly? Well, this time she would personally and conclusively ensure the girl’s downfall.

  Through enchantments that she did not know were being worked upon her, Psyche found herself knocking one day on a great palace door. Terrible creatures pulled her in by the hair and cast her into a dungeon. Aphrodite herself visited her, bringing sacks of wheat, barley, millet, poppyseed, chickpeas, lentils and beans, which she emptied onto the stone floor and stirred together.

  ‘If you want your freedom,’ she said, ‘separate out all the different grains and seeds and sort them into their own heaps. Finish this task before next sunrise and I will free you.’

  With a laugh that – unbecomingly for a goddess of love and beauty – fell somewhere between a cackle and a screech, Aphrodite left, slamming the cell door behind her.

  Psyche fell sobbing to the floor. It would be impossible to separate those seeds, even if she had a month to do it.

  Just then an ant, making its away across the flagstones, was engulfed by a hot, salt tear falling from Psyche’s cheek.

  ‘Watch out!’ he cried angrily. ‘It may be a little tear to you, but it’s a deluge to me.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Psyche. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t see you. My misery got the better of me.’

  ‘What misery can be so great that it causes you to go about half drowning honest ants?’

  Psyche explained her plight and the ant, who was of an obliging and forgiving nature, offered to help. With a cry inaudible to human ears he summoned his great family of brother and sisters, and together they set about sorting the seeds.

  With the tears drying on her cheeks Psyche watched in amazement as ten thousand cheerful ants shuttled and scuttled back and forth, sifting and separating the seeds with military precision. Well before rosy-fingered Eos had cast open the gates of dawn, the job was done and seven neat and perfect piles awaited Aphrodite’s inspection.

  The frustrated fury of the goddess was something to behold. Another impossible chore was instantly devised.

  ‘You see the grove yonder, on the other side of the river?’ said Aphrodite, yanking Psyche by the hair and forcing her to look out of the window. ‘There are sheep there, grazing and wandering unguarded. Special sheep with fleeces of gold. Go there at once and bring me back a tuft of their wool.’

  Psyche made her way out to the grove willingly enough, but with no intention of carrying out this second task. She resolved to use her freedom to escape not just the prison of Aphrodite’s hateful curse but the prison of hateful life itself. She would throw herself into the river and drown.

  But as she stood on the bank, breathing hard and summoning up the courage to dive in, one of the reeds nodded – although there wasn’t a breath of breeze – and whispered to her.

  ‘Psyche, sweet Psyche. Harrowed by great trials as you are, do not pollute my clean waters with your death. There is a way through your troubles. The sheep here are wild and violent, guarded by the most ferocious ram, whose horns could tear you open like a ripe fruit. You see them grazing there under that plane tree on the further bank? To approach them now would mean a swift and painful death. But if you lie down to sleep, by evening they will have moved to new pastures and you will be able to swim across to the tree where you will find tangles of golden wool clinging to its lower branches.’

  That night an enraged and baffled Aphrodite cast the golden wool aside and insisted that Psyche descend to the underworld to beg a sample of beauty cream from Persephone. Since she had thought of little else but death since Eros had left her, the poor girl consented willingly and followed Aphrodite’s directions to Hades, where she fully intended to stay and see out a miserable, lonely and loveless eternity.

  The Union of Love and Soul

  One day a garrulous swallow told Eros about the tasks which Psyche had been set by his jealous and intemperate mother. Trying to ignore the still agonizing pain of his wound, he rose up and with a mighty effort opened his wings. He flew straight to Olympus, where he demanded an immediate audience with Zeus.

  Eros told his story to an enraptured audience of fascinated Olympians. His mother had always hated Psyche. Aphrodite’s dignity and honour as an Olympian had been threatened by the girl’s beauty and the willingness of a handful of foolish humans to venerate the mortal maiden ahead of the immortal goddess. And so she had sent Eros to cause Psyche to fall in love with a pig. He put his case well.

  Zeus sent Hermes down to the underworld to fetch Psyche and an eagle to summon Aphrodite. When they were present before the heavenly company, Zeus spoke.

  ‘This has been an extraordinary and undignified entanglement. Aphrodite, beloved one. Your position is not threatened; it never can be. Look down at the earth and see how your name is everywhere sanctified and praised. Eros, you have too long been a foolish, impudent and irresponsible boy. That you love and are loved will be the making of you and may save the world from the worst excesses of your mischievous and misdirected arrows. Psyche, come and drink from my cup. This is ambrosia, and now that you have tasted it you are immortal. Here, witnessed by us all, you will for ever be
yoked with Eros. Embrace your daughter-in-law, Aphrodite, and let us all be merry.’

  All was laughter and delight at the wedding of Eros and Psyche. Apollo sang and played on his lyre, Pan joined in with his syrinx. Hera danced with Zeus, Aphrodite danced with Ares and Eros danced with Psyche. And they dance together still to this very day.fn6

  Part Two

  * * *

  THE TOYS OF ZEUS

  Mortals

  Io

  The humans of the Mediterranean world at this time were mostly ruled over by kings. How these autocrats established dominion over their peoples varied. Some were descended from immortals, gods even. Others, as is the human way, seized power through force of arms or political intrigue.

  INACHUS was one of the very earliest rulers in Greece. He was the first King of Argos in the Peloponnese peninsula, then a bustling new town and now one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Inachus was later semi-deified and turned into a river, but during his life as a human his consort MELIA bore him two daughters, IO and MYCENE.fn1

  Mycene was satisfactorily married off to a nobleman called ARESTOR, but Io’s fate was to be the first mortal girl to attract the predatory attentions of Zeus. Inachus had chosen Hera, the Queen of Heaven, as the patron deity of Argos and his daughter Io had been brought up as a priestess in the most important shrine to Hera in the Grecian world. For Zeus to dally with any female would be enough to cause his wife indignation, but any attempt to defile one of her own priestesses would stretch her anger to its limits. Yet he desired the lovely Io very much. How to have her without Hera finding out.

  Zeus stroked his beard, thought hard and came up with what he believed was a masterstroke. He transformed Io into a cow, a beautiful plump young heifer with shivering flanks and large, gentle eyes.fn2 If he hid her in a field Hera would never spot her and he could visit her whenever he liked. Or so he imagined. When lust descends, discretion, common sense and wisdom fly off and what may seem cunning concealment to one in the grip of passion looks like transparently clumsy idiocy to everyone else.

  It is easier to hide a hundred mountains from a jealous wife than one mistress. Hera, to whom cows were sacred, and who possessed therefore a keen, expert eye for the species, noticed the animal and suspected its true identity straight away.

  ‘What a delightful heifer,’ Hera remarked casually to Zeus at breakfast on Olympus one morning. ‘Such a perfect shape. Such long lashes and appealing eyes.’

  ‘What, that old thing?’ said Zeus, looking down with a feigned air of boredom to where Hera was pointing.

  ‘That’s one of your fields, darling, so she must be one of yours.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Zeus, ‘very possibly. One has thousands of cows browsing around. Can’t be expected to keep tabs on all of them.’

  ‘I should very much like that particular heifer,’ said Hera, ‘as a birthday present.’

  ‘Er … really? That one? I’m sure I could find you a much fatter and fitter animal.’

  ‘No,’ said Hera – and those who knew her would have recognized the glint in her eye and the steel in her voice. ‘That is the one I should like.’

  ‘Certainly, certainly,’ said Zeus affecting a yawn. ‘She’s yours. There’s a jar of ambrosia at your elbow … chuck it down my end, would you?’

  Hera knew her husband all too well. Once his libidinous propensities were aroused there would be no taming them. She had Io moved to a small gated paddock and sent her servant ARGUS, Inachus’s grandson, to watch over her.

  Argus, son of Mycene and Arestor, was a loyal follower of Hera’s like all the Argives at that time,fn3 but he also possessed a very special gift which made him a perfect guardian of his aunt Io. He had a hundred eyes. His nickname was PANOPTES, the ‘all-seeing’.fn4 Obedient as ever to Hera’s will, he stationed himself in the field, fixed fifty eyes on Io and let the other fifty range independently around and up and down, on the lookout for marauders.

  Zeus saw this and paced about in a fury. His blood was up. He crashed his fist into his palm. He would have Io. It had become a matter of principle to defeat Hera in this silent and unacknowledged war. He knew the limits of his own cunning, however, so he called upon the wiliest and most amoral rogue on Olympus to aid him.

  Hermes understood right away what needed to be done. Ever happy to oblige Zeus and sow mischief he hurried to Io’s paddock.

  ‘Hello, Argus. Let me keep you company for a while,’ he said, unlatching the gate and slipping in. ‘Nice heifer you’ve got there.’

  Argus swivelled a dozen eyes towards Hermes, who sat down on the grass, took out a set of pipes and started to play. For two hours he played and he sang. The music, the afternoon heat, the scent of poppies, lavender and wild thyme, the soft lapping and purling of a nearby stream – slowly Argus’s eyes started to close, one by one.

  As the very hundredth eye at last winked shut Hermes lowered his pipes, stole forward and stabbed Argus in the heart. All the gods were capable of great cruelty – Hermes could be as vicious as any of them.

  With Argus dead, Zeus opened the gate into the field and set Io free. But before he had a chance to change her back into human form Hera, who had seen what had happened, sent down a gadfly which stung Io so painfully and persistently that she bucked and screamed and galloped away, far from Zeus’s reach.

  Sorrowing at the death of her beloved servant, Hera took Argus’s hundred bright eyes and fixed them onto the tail of a very dull, dowdy old fowl, transforming it into what we know today as the peacock – which is how the now proud, colourful and haughty bird came for ever to be associated with the goddess.fn5

  Io, meanwhile, charged on along the northern shore of the Aegean Sea, swimming over at the place where Europe becomes Asia, the spot we still call in her honour the cow-crossing, or in Greek, the Bosporus.fn6 On and on she careered, thrashing, tossing and squealing in her agony until she reached the Caucasus. There the gadfly seemed to relent for a while, enough for her to see the figure of Prometheus, racked in pain upon the mountainside.

  ‘Sit down and catch your breath awhile, Io,’ said the Titan. ‘Be of good cheer. Things will get better.’

  ‘They could hardly be worse,’ wailed Io. ‘I’m a cow. I’m being attacked by the largest and most spiteful gadfly the world has ever seen. And Hera will destroy me. It’s only a question of whether I am stung to death or go mad and drown myself in the sea.’

  ‘I know it seems dark for you now,’ said Prometheus, ‘but I see into the future sometimes and I do know this. You will return to human shape. You will found a great dynasty in the land where Nilus crawls. And from your line will spring the greatest of all the heroes.fn7 So chin up and be cheerful, eh?’

  It was hard for Io, in all her tribulation, to ignore these words from one who – even as she looked on in horror – was being ripped open and gorged upon by a pair of evil-looking vultures. What were her minor inconveniences when set against his perpetual agony?

  As things turned out, Io did return to human shape. She met up with Zeus in Egypt and bore him a son EPAPHUS, who will play an important party of the story of Phaeton, which is just coming up. Supposedly Zeus impregnated Io just by gently laying a hand on her – Epaphus means ‘touch’. Io also had a daughter by Zeus, called KEROESSA, whose son BYZAS went on to found the great city of Byzantium. Whether Keroessa was conceived by touch or the more traditional method of generation we do not know.

  Io may have been a cow, but she was a very influential and important one.

  The Semen-Soaked Scarf

  A rather touching story tells of how Athena, without sacrificing her chastity, had a role in the conception and birth of one of the founders of the city state of Athens.

  Lame Hephaestus, ever since splitting Zeus’s head and thereby helping bring Athena into the world, had developed a strong passion for the goddess. One day, unable to control his lust, he tracked her down to some corner of high Olympus and tried to force himself on her. Alas, in his excite
ment he succeeded only in spilling his seed on her thigh. Athena, in silent disgust, removed her headband and used it to wipe up the mess before throwing it down the mountain.

  The sodden fillet landed on the ground far below. Hephaestus’s divine semen seeped into the earth and Gaia was made pregnant. From her was born a boy, ERECHTHEUS. Looking down from heaven Athena saw this and determined that this child should be immortal. She descended from Olympus, put the baby in a wicker basket, closed it up and placed it in the care of three mortal sisters, HERSE, AGLAUROS and PANDROSOS. On no account, Athena told them, must the basket ever be opened. But Aglauros and Herse could not resist peeping inside. They saw a wriggling baby boy bound up in the coils of a writhing snake. All snakes were sacred to Athena and this one was a part of the enchantment which the goddess was using to endow the infant Erechtheus with immortality. The shocking sight sent the two women instantly insane and they threw themselves off the topmost point of the hill now called the Acropolis, or ‘high citadel’. Erechtheus grew up to be (or to father, the stories disagree) ERECHTHONIUS, the legendary founder of Athens.fn8

  If you visit the Acropolis in Athens today you can still see, just to the north of the Parthenon, the beautiful temple called the Erechtheum. Its famous porch of caryatid columns in the form of draped maidens is one of the great architectural treasures of the world. Shrines were erected not far away to poor Aglauros and Herse too, which is only fitting.fn9

  Phaeton

  The Son of the Sun

  Erechtheus had Athena as a proxy parent, Gaia as a mother and Hephaestus as a father. Three immortal parents could be regarded as overdoing it (and as boastfulness about their founder on the part of Athenians), but it was not uncommon for mortals to claim one such progenitor. The story of the brave but foolhardy PHAETON,fn1 like the myth of Persephone, explains how certain changes to the geography of the world came about, as well as offering a very literal example of a favourite finger-wagging lesson of Greek myth – how pride comes before a fall.