The Greek Myths

by Robin Waterfield

  Jason’s first task was to sow a field with dragon’s teeth. It sounded easy enough—but the field had to be plowed by a team of fire-breathing oxen with lethal bronze hoofs and aggression to match. But Medea made Jason a salve which would temporarily protect him from fire and metal. Jason boldly disrobed and smeared his body; naked and gleaming, he approached the oxen unscathed. Staring them in the eyes, he bowed them to his will. They submitted to the sturdy yoke, and he plowed the field, scattering the dragon’s teeth from his helmet.

  But no one—except cunning Aeëtes—expected what happened next. No sooner had the dragon’s teeth been sown than fully armed warriors sprang from the soil and formed up to attack Jason. Medea, looking on, was terrified: she hadn’t anticipated this and had no potion prepared that would save her beloved from the warriors’ spears. But Jason was equal to the task. Thinking quickly (and, if he did but know it, imitating Cadmus), he picked up a boulder and tossed it into the hostile throng. Supposing they were under attack from their own midst, the warriors fell to fighting among themselves, and the slaughter continued until none remained.

  So Jason had survived his first test. The second was simply to take the fleece—but in order to do so he first had to get past the sentinel and into the thicket where the fleece was hanging. Medea brewed a drug and gave it to Jason. “This will put the creature to sleep,” she said, “but he has to take it in deeply. You will have to let it swallow you.”

  “Medea was a priestess of Hecate, skilled in sorcery and charms known only to the wicked and the wise.”[27]

  Jason steeled his nerves and did exactly as she had told him. Clutching the phial of potion, he approached the monster—it was larger than a warship, and venomous spume dripped from its mouth—and let it swallow him whole. As soon as the drug began to take effect, the dragon vomited Jason up from the disgusting depths of its stomach. Then it lay down beneath the tree that held the fleece, and fell fast asleep. Once he had recovered his composure and rinsed the vile stench from his limbs, Jason took the wonderful fleece down from the tree where it was hanging, and ran straight for the Argo, with willing Medea holding tightly onto his hand. All his men were waiting there, for the soothsayer Idmon had guessed Aeëtes’ designs and warned Jason that they must make a swift departure.

  Aeëtes speedily set sail in pursuit. But Medea had taken her little brother Aspyrtus with her as well and she devised a terrible way to delay her father. As they were sailing from Colchis down the Phasis river to the sea, she killed Aspyrtus, chopped his corpse into pieces, and threw it limb by limb over the side of the ship. It took Aeëtes a long time to retrieve enough of the body to ensure that the boy could be given a proper funeral, a father’s first priority. So the Argonauts made their escape.

  Their route back to Thessaly, to claim the throne of Iolcus from Pelias, was tortuous. Storm winds and adverse deities often drove them from their path, even to the waters of Ocean. On Crete, they encountered Talos, the tireless guardian of the island, capable of striding around it three times in a single day. A survivor from the Age of Bronze, he was invincible—except that there was a patch of ordinary skin on his ankle, unprotected by bronze. Medea brought all her powers to bear, and uttered curses and charms that caused the monster to slip and graze his ankle on a sharp rock as he was seeking boulders to hurl at the Argonauts. “Keep away! Keep away!” he shouted. But then, like a tall tree that has been hewn in the forest, Talos swayed on his feet. Looking down, he saw the ichor flowing out of his wound like molten lead, and crashed lifeless to the ground, shaking the entire island and causing a freak wave that threatened to swamp the Argo.

  The eastern slopes of Pelion loomed ever larger as the Argo sped toward her destination. Jason knew that, despite his recovery of the fleece, Pelias had no intention of handing the throne over to him when he returned. His uncle had already killed Jason’s remaining close kin, and the hero understood that only one of them would survive this clash. He confided his concerns to Medea, and she hatched a plan to get rid of Pelias for good.

  When they got close to Iolcus, they beached the ship out of sight, and Medea went on ahead, disguised as a priestess of Artemis. Before long, she had befriended Pelias’ daughters, and had found out that their greatest desire was for their elderly father to be young again. They were enjoying their royal luxury, and didn’t want to see it come to an end soon. Medea told them that she knew just what to do.

  For nine days and nine nights she searched high and low on her dragon-drawn chariot for the herbs she needed, and plucked them without metal in moonlight to preserve their powers. Then, to convince the gullible girls that she knew what she was doing, she demonstrated her skill on an aged ram. Wide-eyed with horror, Pelias’ daughters looked on as she slit the ram’s throat, drained it of blood, and then put the body in a cauldron of elixir made from her special herbs and roots. Three times she circled the cauldron righthandwise, and three times lefthandwise. After a while, the girls were astonished to hear a gentle bleating from inside the cauldron—and Medea pulled out a lamb!

  Certain of Medea’s skill, the very next day the girls persuaded Pelias to accompany them to Medea’s chamber. As soon as they were inside, two of them seized their father’s wrists, while the third slit his throat. The hot blood gushed out and Pelias collapsed to the ground, with a look on his face more of puzzlement than pain. The girls couldn’t wait to stuff his body inside the cauldron. Three times they circled the cauldron righthandwise, and three times lefthandwise. But in the night Medea had drained the cauldron and replaced the rejuvenating elixir with useless soup. Needless to say, the sorceress too had disappeared overnight.

  All the heroes reassembled for the magnificent funeral games in honor of the dead king. The winners were Zetes and Calaïs in the long footraces—but then, as sons of the north wind, they had a distinct advantage; Castor won the sprint, while his brother Polydeuces totally dominated the boxing event; Telamon out-threw all-comers with the discus, as Meleager did with the javelin; Peleus wrestled all his opponents to exhaustion, even fair Atalanta; Iolaus easily won the chariot race, and of course no one could match Orpheus at the lyre.

  But Jason did not take part, for he was not there. The killing of an uncle, however wicked he had been, polluted Jason and Medea with the miasma of sin, and they had to leave Iolcus in the hands of Pelias’ son Acastus. Otherwise, the pollution would spread and infect the whole city with pestilence and famine. They settled in Corinth and lived there for a few years in peace, until Jason decided that, in order to improve his position, he should put aside his foreign wife and marry Glauce, the princess of Corinth, daughter of King Creon. Medea seethed inwardly with rage and jealousy, but disguised it well. “This is the right decision,” she said, “for you and for our children.” But she was lying through her teeth. She sent Glauce and Creon presents for the wedding, a gorgeous robe for Glauce and a crown for Creon, and they accepted the gifts with joy.

  No sooner had they donned these items of clothing than the poison with which Medea had imbued them went to work. Glauce’s robe began to burn her, and she tried to rip it off, but it clung to her like a second skin. She ran shrieking to the nearest water—still known as Glauce’s spring—and hurled herself into the pool, seeking relief. But it was no good. Her flesh blistered and her blood boiled, and she died in sheer agony.

  Meanwhile, Creon’s crown tightened on his head like a vice, and still it went on squeezing, until his skull was crushed and the gray matter of his brains puddled on the ground below the throne where he slumped. Medea then slit her own children’s throats, to spite Jason, and flew off in her dragon-drawn chariot to Athens, where she had been offered refuge by King Aegeus. And apart from the rumor of an attempt on her stepson Theseus’ life there, the ill-famed sorceress passes out of the memory of man.

  As for Jason, some claim that he took his own life, grieving over the murder of his children. Others say that he never recovered his luck, and one day, as he entered the temple of Hera, the cracked stern-piece of
the Argo he had dedicated there in gratitude fell from its plinth and killed him. Those who have been chosen by the gods for great deeds rarely live to a peaceful old age.

  The Calydonian Boar Hunt

  The Fates attend all those who bleed and dream—the heroes of legend no less than us. Fair Althaea, descended from Aeolus, was cousin and consort of Oeneus, king of Calydon in Aetolia. But one night Ares himself, the god of war, came and lay in love with Althaea, and in due course of time she gave birth to a son, and she called him Meleager. But when the boy was no more than seven days old, the implacable Fates paid her a visit and predicted that Meleager would die when a particular piece of wood in the fireplace had burned up. “We have allotted the same span of life,” said the ghastly crones, “to your son and to this log.” Naturally, Althaea snatched the blazing log from the fire and, once she had extinguished the flames, she hid it away in a chest that only she knew about. And the boy grew to be a hardy warrior, strong and proud.

  But Fate cannot be averted. The chain of events began when Oeneus angered the lady Artemis, chaste Mistress of Animals. In his folly, he sacrificed to all the other gods, but ignored or forgot her. She sent a boar to ravage his land—and not just any boar, but a monstrous brute, as large as a hulking bull, capable of uprooting whole trees as it pawed the soil for food. Meleager, expert with javelin and spear, summoned a true band of heroes to help him hunt down the beast. Peleus and Telamon came, Castor and Polydeuces, Jason, the inseparable pair Theseus and Pirithous, Admetus, the soothsayer Amphiaraus, and many others. There also arrived the fair huntress Atalanta, whom Hippomenes one day would wed by guile—but, for now, no sooner had Meleager set eyes on her than he fell in love.

  So they set out after the rampaging boar. They found traces of it everywhere: fallen trees, trunks gashed by tusks, acres of ground churned into a useless mess, trampled crops. All other wildlife had fled in terror. For seven days they tracked it, hardly resting even at night. The rocks and logs of the harsh wilderness served as their only pillows, leaves were their mattresses, and a gibbous moon was all their illumination.

  Heroes gathered at Calydon when angry Artemis plagued the land with a rampaging boar.[28]

  At last they had the beast boxed up in a thicket, and they spread their strong nets to prevent its escape. But a boar is easily enraged, and fights back when threatened. For all their stature as heroes, several fell, gored in the groin or the belly by its savage tusks, bright blood staining the leaf-strewn ground. Eupalemon and Pelagon fell, and so did Hyleus, Hippasus, and Enaesimus, while Eurytion was killed by accident, when Peleus sped his spear too hastily into the dark and tangled thicket. But then, with a bellow of rage, the monstrous creature charged into the open—straight at Nestor of Pylos. No one even had time to shout out a warning, and it looked as though his doom was assured, but he cannily used his spear to vault into the safety of a tree’s branches.

  Despite the encouragement Nestor shouted down to his comrades, it looked as though the boar would prevail, and even escape to continue its destruction of Calydon. But then Atalanta drew back her trusty bow, and the arrow grazed the boar’s back and lodged in the folds of its neck. The sight of red blood made Ancaeus bold. “Let’s see what a man can do,” he boasted. “This is no work for women.” As the boar charged at him he let fly with his spear, but missed. The enraged beast ripped out his bowels with its tusks, and he fell, gasping out his last breath along with his steaming entrails on the blood-stained ground. Then Meleager stepped up and released his javelin; it took the beast through the mouth and brought it crashing in a cloud of dust to the ground, instantly dead. The hide and tusks belonged by right to Meleager, as the killer of the boar. But to honor the first strike, and because he desired her, he gave the spoils of the hunt to fair Atalanta. But his uncles were there, the brothers of Althaea, and they taunted him for being less than a man. Meleager’s mettle was up, and his father’s blood flowed dark and strong in his veins. Before any of those present could draw breath, his mother’s brothers joined the scattered corpses on the hunting ground.

  In the depths of her grief, Althaea went to the old chest, the one in which she had hidden the log all those years ago. She removed the log from its hiding-place and threw it on the fire, calling upon the Furies as avengers of kindred slaughter. Meleager immediately felt a burning sensation deep within, and he faded and died as quickly as an aged log burns in the fire.

  But Althaea repented of what she had done, and tore her cheeks, and hanged herself in sorrow deeper than the sea, while her daughters were turned by Artemis into guinea hens, and mourn their brother forever with plaintive cries. But Gorge and Deianeira were spared at the request of Dionysus, for Deianeira was destined to become the second wife of Heracles; but Gorge bore Tydeus from incestuous union with her father.

  Io and the Danaids

  The great city of Argos, rich in horses and cattle, is in the care of Hera, as Athens is of gray-eyed Athena. Now, Io was the daughter of the river-god Inachus and a priestess of Hera at Argos. As Night’s chariot winged its way across the sky, and the bright foam from his horses’ mouths settled on the earth as dew, Io was troubled by dreams in which she seemed to hear a voice. “Foolish girl,” cajoled the voice, deep and serene. “Why do you guard your virginity, when you could have the greatest of lovers, Zeus himself?”

  Night after night the dreams returned, and eventually she gave in to their insistent clamor. When Zeus visited her, she opened to him not just her arms, but also her heart. But his behavior had aroused the suspicion of Hera, and she came in search of him. Just before she caught the lovers, Zeus detected her approach and changed Io into a cow, as a concrete plea of innocence: “There’s no one here, just this cow.” But Hera could feign innocence as well as her husband, and she asked to keep the cow herself. Zeus had no choice but to let her take it.

  Hera summoned Argus, an earth-born giant with a hundred eyes that could see in all directions, already famous for making the district safe against lawless monsters. She tethered Io to an olive tree within her sanctuary, and set Argus to guard her, giving him the gift, or curse, of sleeplessness, so that none of his eyes would ever be tamed by weariness. But Zeus sent Hermes to free Io from captivity, and once the wily god had lulled Argus the all-seeing to sleep with his soothing pipes, he promptly cut off his head. But Hera retrieved Argus’ eyes and put them in the tail of her favored bird, the peacock.

  Zeus sent Hermes to kill Argus and free Io; yet jealous Hera continued tormenting her.[29]

  Hera’s dark rage had not yet run its course, however, and she sent a gadfly which tormented Io so badly that she wandered, as a cow, all over the earth, denied rest by the irritating bug. Every time she imagined it had gone, it would return and prick her with its sting. At last she came to Egypt, where with a mere brush of his fingers, Zeus restored her to human form; and when her son was born, she called him Epaphus, because she had been impregnated by the tender touch of Zeus. The royal lines of Egypt and Phoenicia, of Argos, Thebes, and Crete, all look back to Epaphus as their ancestor.

  In Egypt, the great grandsons of Epaphus were Danaus and Aegyptus, fathers respectively of fifty daughters and fifty sons. Danaus hated his brother, and took himself and his daughters off to live in exile in Argos. Aegyptus, however, naturally expected that his sons would marry their cousins and followed them to Greece. This was a reasonable expectation, and Danaus was not in a position to stand in his brother’s way—except that he ordered his daughters to kill their husbands on the very night of the mass wedding, before their husbands had taken their virginity.

  The vile deed took place as planned—or almost as planned: one of the Danaids, Hypermestra, could not go through with it. She spared her husband Lynceus and their descendants became the rulers of Argos. But her sisters couldn’t avoid marriage forever. Danaus arranged a footrace for all their suitors, and the first across the line took his first choice of woman, the second chose second, and so on, until all forty-nine were accounted for. Nor could the
Danaids avoid punishment for their terrible crime: in Hades they are condemned eternally to try to prepare their bridal baths by fetching water in sieves.

  Perseus and the Gorgon

  Hypermestra, the Danaid who spared her groom, bore him a son. They called him Abas, and he in his turn had two sons, Proetus and Acrisius. These brothers fought even in the womb and later divided the realm of Argos between them, with Acrisius becoming lord of Argos, and Proetus king of Tiryns. Acrisius had a daughter, Danae, while Proetus had several daughters, whose terrible ten-year madness is a lesson in not insulting the gods. For abusing her temple, Hera caused them to dress like slatterns, and to wander the hills imagining themselves cows. The wise shaman Melampus cured them and received in return a share of Proetus’ kingdom and a princess bride to bear his children.

  Now, Acrisius loved his daughter Danae, but naturally he wanted a son and heir for Argos. He consulted far-shooting Apollo at Delphi, and the news was bitter: he would have no sons, and a son born of his daughter would kill him. They say that love conquers all, but Acrisius let fear overcome love: he imprisoned his dear daughter within an underground chamber of bronze, leaving only a narrow aperture through which Danae took her meals and breathed sweet air. But Zeus conceived a passion for Danae, and no prison made by the hands of man can keep him out. He turned himself into a shower of liquid gold, and poured himself through the slit. Thus the great god lay in love with Danae.