The Greek Myths

by Robin Waterfield

  Artemis

  As Apollo stands apart, so too does his twin sister Artemis. She is the Mistress of Animals, and her pleasure is in wild and remote places; and she is a chaste virgin, disdainful, undefiled, and free. Men are not to her liking, and as a girl she begged her father Zeus for chastity, and that she should be as great a deity as her noble brother. And great Zeus granted her every desire.

  She ranges with her attendant nymphs over shady hills and the windy heights of virgin wilderness, unsullied by man. Pan gave her Arcadian hunting hounds, the best of their kind, and she deals death with arrows crafted by the Cyclopes that well fit her silver bow. She wears the horns of the cold, chaste moon on her headdress. She is the overwhelming and fearsome presence within untamed lands, where mortal men find how puny they are, and as she passes through the moonlight the hills tremble and the valleys with them, and all beasts cry and howl. She is the V of flying geese and the yellow glare of a lynx’s eye. She is the All-Mother, the protector of all young creatures, and some she allows to live, while the weaklings are culled. She abides on the margins, at change-over points, especially when girls become women, and women become mothers.

  The people of Thebes gave Leto great honor as the mother of the twin deities Apollo and Artemis, but arrogant Niobe, wife of King Amphion, disagreed. As the daughter of Tantalus and granddaughter of Atlas, she claimed that her lineage was greater than that of Leto. She also bragged that, since she had borne and raised a greater number of children, her life was more filled with blessings. And she might indeed have been the happiest of mothers, if only she had not boasted of it.

  For the insult to their mother, Apollo and Artemis removed Niobe’s blessings: Apollo shot down her six sons, while Artemis did the same with her six daughters, except one called Chloris. The twanging of their bows mingled with the screams of the dying, and the corpses remained unburied for nine days.

  Niobe was turned to stone and carried away by a tornado to her native Lydia, where her tears still trickle from the obdurate rock of Mount Sipylus.

  Apollo and Artemis again avenged Leto’s honor when huge Tityus, the son of Earth, tried to rape her as she was on her way one day to Delphi. The twin deities hunted down the giant, and when they found him they riddled him with their arrows. Down to Hades he lurched, where his body is spread out massively over the ground, and on either side sits a vulture, feasting forever on his liver.

  Actaeon of Thebes, learned in the lore of the forest, was relaxing at midday after a morning of good hunting. He loved his aunt, Semele, but she was the beloved of Zeus, and jealous anger swelled in the breast of the great god, father of gods and men. He put it into the mind of Actaeon to take his rest, all unknowing, in a grove favored by Artemis, where the goddess came to be bathed by her attendant nymphs in a limpid pool of cool water, sheltered by a cave. No mortal man sees Artemis naked and lives! While the nymphs screamed at the sight of a man and tried to cover their mistress’s nakedness, she rose to her feet, majestic and unafraid, and revealed all her glory to him in his last moments as a mortal man.

  With a mere flick of her wrist, she splashed him lightly with water from the pool, and before the last drops had rolled like tears down his cheeks, antlers were already sprouting from his head. The stag dropped onto all fours and fled, while Actaeon’s own hounds gave chase with slavering jaws. He tried to shout at them, to calm them as he had in the past, but instead of their master’s voice, they heard only the bellowing of a terrified stag. Soon they caught him and brought him down, and the pack leader’s powerful jaws closed over his windpipe and gripped tight, until the stag breathed no more.

  With none to command them, the rest of the pack set to and tore him to pieces, who had once been their beloved master. And Artemis, Mistress of Animals, was pleased, for the purity of the goddess is not to be tainted, even by “accidents.”

  “The stag dropped onto all fours and fled, while Actaeon’s own hounds gave chase with slavering jaws.”[20]

  Callisto spent her days and nights in the mountains of Arcadia, hunting and living wild with Artemis and her nymphs. But she was very fair, and desire flared in Zeus’ heart and loins. He came to her, taking on the appearance of Artemis, as she rested alone one day in a dell. Too late did the maiden discover his trick when he forced his embraces on her. She fought back, but no mortal or god can resist the power of Zeus. The weeks and months rolled by, and the time came when Artemis called on all her followers to bathe with her, for there was no man to see them. Callisto blushed and hesitated, but she had no choice, and her nakedness made her pregnancy plain for all to see. Artemis in anger turned the maiden into a bear and banished her from her entourage; and the bear gave birth to a son, Arcas, who was raised by Maia, the mother of Hermes. But later Callisto wandered into a forbidden sanctuary of Zeus, and was about to be killed by Arcas himself, for he had become a masterful hunter; but Zeus took pity on his former lover and translated her into the heavens as the Great Bear constellation.

  Orion was a mighty hunter, the son of Poseidon, and lover of Eos, the dawn light. So vast and fleet of foot was he that he could cross valleys at a bound and his father endowed him with the ability to walk on water. But once, drunk on Chios—for the island produces the best of wines—he raped the king’s daughter, and for this sin he was blinded. He took a young boy onto his shoulders, and commanded him to lead him eastward; and as the sun rose, Eos shone her light straight into her lover’s eyes and cured him, and he returned to Crete, where he was awarded the unique honor of hunting in the company of Artemis and Leto.

  So successful was he at clearing the earth of the ferocious beasts that preyed on men’s flocks and livelihoods, that he fell to boasting. “There’s no creature,” he cried, “that I could not bring down with my strong spear or my swift arrows!” Zeus’ brow darkened at this foolish boast, and in anger he sent against Orion a giant scorpion. The contest was over as quick as the flick of the monster’s tail. Zeus raised the victor to the heavens, and, at Artemis’ request, did the same for Orion; and in the heavens the scorpion chases Orion forever. Orion, however, chases the Pleiades, the seven daughters of Atlas after whom he had lusted in life. For seven years he had pursued them, until Zeus in his mercy made them stars.

  Hermes

  Many tales are told too of crafty Hermes, son of Zeus by the nymph Maia. From the moment he came into being, his restless nature was plain. It is said that, on the very day of his birth, he found and killed a tortoise, scooped out the soft flesh, and strung the hollow shell to make the first lyre. Then, that same night, he stole the cattle of the archer-god Apollo. To mislead any who should give chase, he drove the cattle backward, while walking backward himself and disguising his barefoot baby prints with oversized sandals, strapped to his feet like snow-shoes.

  Having corralled the cattle, he invented the fire-stick, and used it to light a cooking fire on which he roasted two whole cows, and ate them. Then he returned to the cave of his birth and clambered into his cot, cooing innocently. But Apollo guessed who the culprit was and threatened to toss the baby down into Tartarus. At first Hermes lied—“I’m just a baby! How could I have stolen any cattle?”—but then he confessed, and to be reconciled with Apollo gave him the lyre. Apollo took the instrument as his own, and in return made for Hermes the three-pronged caduceus wand, the living, golden staff that will be his symbol and sign forever.

  On the day he was born, crafty Hermes invented the lyre and rustled Apollo’s cattle.[21]

  Hermes is the god of the sudden and unexpected, the elusive and edgy. He governs thievery, trade and bargaining, messages and mischief, invention and inspiration. He is the trickster and the eternal adolescent, for he comes when least expected, and not always when called. He is the restless god of magic and of luck, his countenance never still. He is the god of borders and crossings; the guardian of flocks, which stray without his guidance; and the wayfinder, into whose hands travelers commend themselves. He appears out of the blue, bringing good fortune or a message fro
m the gods, perhaps in the form of a lucid dream; or he snatches a dying man and guides him to the underworld. For the journey between life and death takes but an instant. When a sudden silence falls or joy thrills a heart, there is Hermes; unanticipated opportunities for love or fortune are his gifts.

  Some say that Hermes fathered Pan, goat-footed deity of the mountains and valleys, of the remotest crags and peaks and meadows, and the sweet sounds of his reed pipes echo in the canyons in the late afternoon as the shepherds call their flocks. Pan invented the pipes when he lost the nymph he was chasing and turned his attention instead to the reeds where she had hidden. Another musical maiden he loved was Echo, who could imitate any sound in the world. When she spurned him, he drove some shepherds insane, and they tore the fair nymph to pieces; but Earth buried each scattered piece of her, and still the secret places where her parts are buried return the sounds of others. Pan is the god of shepherds and the hunter of small animals, of the kind that keep men alive during their months of vigil, watching over their flocks in the hills and mountains. But he is also the bringer of panic, when flocks—or men in battle—for no reason stampede and turn to frantic flight. And he was called Pan, “All,” for he was pleasing to all the gods, but especially to Dionysus.

  Dionysus

  Sweet Muse, tell at last of twice-born Dionysus. His mother was Semele, daughter of Cadmus, whom Zeus loved. But when Hera found out, in her jealousy she plotted her rival’s death. She appeared to Semele in the guise of her aged nurse and persuaded her that, as the bedmate of the Ruler of All, she should be the equal of Hera—that Zeus should appear to her as a god, not as a mortal man. And Semele listened to the goddess’s honeyed lies, for she wanted to know the greater pleasure of lying with a god not in human form.

  When Zeus next came to her in his earthly disguise, she teased her lover and made him promise to do whatever she asked. Her request, of course, was for him to reveal himself. The great god hesitated, for he knew what would happen. But he had given his word and came blazing to her bed. As Hera had planned, Semele was consumed by the brilliance of Zeus’ majesty, but the cloud-gatherer took up his unborn son from her lifeless womb and sewed him up in his thigh, from where he was born again when his time came. Later on, Dionysus went down to Hades to recover his mother, and she dwells now forever with the blessed gods on Olympus.

  Dionysus is the god of viticulture and wine, a joy for mortal men, and hence of ecstasy and liberation from the conventions of society. He is the sap of life, the blood throbbing in the veins, the sweet burst of the grape in the mouth. He is the god of the theater, for men permit themselves to release their emotions, for better or for worse, when absorbed in the marvelous productions of playwrights. Dionysus is known as Bromius, the rebel, and his robe is as gorgeous as any girl’s.

  His gift is freedom, and so little regard has he for what men call “law” and “custom” that his followers, the raving Maenad women, are said to tear apart wild animals and eat them raw, when they are possessed by the god and endowed with superhuman strength. They drink his blood as wine, and eat his flesh. For the other gods keep their distance, but Dionysus possesses his followers completely and is wholly possessed in return. Clad in fawnskins and clutching the sacred thyrsus staff, entwined with ivy and topped with a pine cone, they revel with wild abandon in the countryside to the sound of the pipes and the cymbal, grasping poisonous snakes with immunity and petting tame panthers. Meanwhile, the horse-eared Sileni and goat-bearded Satyrs who attend the god go about their lusty business.

  Many a tale is told of the fate suffered by those who resist the entry of his shocking and unconventional religion. When Lycurgus of Thrace drove his followers off the mountain, great Zeus, the father of Dionysus, blinded the man for his blindness. And when all the women of Thebes thronged to the hills and forests to worship the god, King Pentheus persecuted them, and for his pains was killed by his own mother and sisters. The fool spied on their worship and was discovered, but the women failed to recognize him in their god-induced frenzy. They tore him limb from limb as easily as they would a rabbit, relishing their gruesome task as a sign of their devotion to the god.

  And in Boeotian Orchomenus the daughters of Minyas refused to acknowledge the god’s divinity and join the other women in the countryside. They preferred to stay indoors, as they believed good women should, and get on with their weaving. Dionysus appeared to them as a girl to warn them of their folly, for the god is not without pity, but they ignored him. He drove them mad, and one of them tore her own baby to bits.

  In the course of his missionary travels, spreading the word of his religion, Dionysus came to Athens. There he taught King Pandion the art of nurturing the vine and turning its fruit into blessed wine, but some drunken peasants, not appreciating the divine gift of the god, thought their king had poisoned them. They killed Pandion and hid his body. His daughter Erigone, led to the woodland grave by her father’s faithful dog, hanged herself in grief from a sturdy branch. But Dionysus always retaliates. He drove the women of Athens mad, and forever after they propitiate the god by hanging little fetishes of Erigone in trees and setting them to swing.

  Once, as a youth, Dionysus was captured by pirates as he walked on the shore, and they were pleased, for they thought him the son of a king and worth a fine ransom. They bound him with strong rope, but the ropes fell in worthless coils to the deck of the ship. When the pirates remained heedless of this warning, further signs appeared: the ship’s hull flowed with sweet wine; vines and ivy, thick with fruit and blooming flowers, entwined the mast and the sails; and phantom shapes, as of tigers and panthers, prowled the deck. Then the god became a lion and devoured the ship’s captain, while the rest of the sailors leapt into the sea and were turned into dolphins. Only the helmsman survived, for he had recognized the god’s divinity, and carried him safely over the waters to his holy haven, the lush island of Naxos.

  * * *

  On high Olympus, the gods are attended at their golden feasts by Hebe, daughter of Zeus and Hera, for she is the ideal of young nubile womanhood, loyal to her elder kin and dedicated to their service. But Zeus’ special cup-bearer is Ganymede, once the mortal prince of Troy, so fair of face and form that Zeus could not resist his charms and had him carried up to Olympus by a whirlwind, though some say Zeus bore him off himself, in the form of an eagle. The lad’s father Tros was grieved, for he did not know where his son had gone; but Zeus sent Hermes to give him the glad tidings that Ganymede was held high in Zeus’ honor and would remain youthful forever.

  Fair Prince Ganymede of Troy was carried off by Zeus to serve him on Olympus.[22]

  As further recompense for his loss, Zeus gave Tros immortal horses, the pick of his shining herds. And so fair Ganymede stands devotedly by the throne of Zeus, ready with the golden cup of sweet nectar. And Hebe modestly supervises the feasting and assures that all appetites are satisfied at the banquet table of the gods.

  These are the gods and goddesses who dwell forever in bliss in the halls of high Olympus. The tales that are told about them imbue them with traits like our own, as though they were simply many times more powerful and wise than mortal men and women. Yet one unbridgeable chasm is set between them and creatures of mere flesh and bone: the gods cannot die! They are eternal and carefree, while men soon wither and die like leaves from a tree, and their lives are filled with toil and sorrow. The gods are, then, finally incomprehensible to mortal minds, just as a monkey cannot understand a man, and that is why we speak of them in parables. The storyteller’s job is to shed light, no more.

  Chapter Four

  THE AGE OF HEROES

  The Flood

  There have been several ages of man, or at least of creatures that we might recognize as human. But in between each age, a cosmic catastrophe more or less destroys the human race, and leaves little memory of the preceding age, and little continuity between them. Such is the history of man: progress cut short by catastrophe. So will it always be, until men learn to worship the gods
and the earth aright.

  First, in the era of Cronus, came the race of golden men, each sprung fully mature from the earth. They had no need to work, or even to cook, for Earth put forth all her bounty freely, and it was theirs for the taking. Nor did they fall ill or grow old: they remained in their prime, and just died one day gently in their sleep, returning to the earth from which they had been born. Of these men and their life of leisured ease no trace remains, unless any of them remain as kindly ghosts upon the earth. It’s hard to say even if they were like us in form, whether we would recognize them as human beings, since they were born from the earth, not of human mothers; for there were as yet no women. They preceded the formation of all animals by Zeus and the Olympian gods, and they came long before Prometheus’ gift of fire, by which we measure the foundation of the human species. For the earth was still very young.

  But the next two races of men—the silver and the bronze, the first two races that benefited from Prometheus’ gift of fire—proved unsatisfactory. The men of silver were fair but witless; immature and irresponsible until they were a hundred years old, they then promptly died. And while they lived, like children, they abused one another and failed to recognize the gods. In due course of time Zeus did away with this race, but the bronze one that followed was little better. They were hulking men, with huge bodies; many had thick hides of bronze. They had limited intelligence, and delighted only in war, until they wiped one another off the face of the earth, and now they dwell forever in Hades.