Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One

by Bernard Evslin

  A hush had fallen on the field. Not a sound was heard but the faint crackling of a tree set ablaze by a dragon’s breath. Cronos came closer and closer yet, smiling a ghastly smile. His blade whisked out and sheared off a lock of Demeter’s wheaten hair. She was brave, the tall young goddess. She stood there, chin lifted, her eyes trying to look steadily into those of her father, but when she met the blankness of his eyes, she had to look away.

  Poseidon backed away slowly, until he felt the scorching breath of a dragon and had to stop. Hades sank to his knees, gibbering with fear.

  “Please, father,” said Hestia. But when she heard the softness of her own voice, she realized how useless it was to plead and fell silent.

  Hera, the youngest daughter—the youngest of all there now that Zeus was gone—said nothing and did not stir. She felt her fingers curving into talons. “Let him try to swallow me,” she said to herself. “I’ll claw out his gizzard on the way down.”

  Cronos must have felt a gust of her hatred. He stopped smiling. An arctic light of pure gray murder glimmered in his eyes. Towering above his children, he raised his sickle.

  A strange sound was heard. And those on the slope of Olympus that day saw a marvelous thing. The sound they heard was the wild, eerie mirth of a goat cry, but loud enough to fill the heavens. And what they saw was a goat leaping toward them—a goat bigger than a stag, white as cloud fleece, and with horns silver-gold as the crescent moon. More wonderful still, Zeus was riding her.

  He was shouting, laughing, and holding something high. Hera saw that it was a shaft of polished metal, zigzag, radiant with energy. She realized that the Cyclopes, laboring in their crater, had finished the magic weapons.

  Climbing up the hill were a horde of Cyclopes coming to join the battle. The goat leaped high, clearing the wall of dragons, and landed among the young gods. Cronos retreated slowly, his sickle still poised.

  “Titans, charge!” he shouted. “Atlas, send the dragons!”

  The Titans leveled their huge spears and charged downhill toward the young gods. The dragons slithered uphill, jaws agape, teeth wet.

  But Zeus had handed Hades a helmet and Poseidon a three-pronged staff. When Hades put on his helmet, he spilled darkness the way a squid spreads its inky blackness through the waters. Darkness washed over the slope of the mountain, covering everything. No one could see anyone, friend or foe. But suddenly, the darkness was pierced by flame as the dragons spat fire. Red flame scattered the shadows. The Titans could see the young gods and resumed their advance. The dragons came at them from behind.

  Poseidon raised his trident. He didn’t know what it could do, but knew it was his, profoundly his own. He felt a weird power arching from each of its three prongs, streaming toward the sea, pulling at the tides—pulling at him, exerting an enormous claim, attaching him to the sea forever and making him glory in the attachment. He twirled his staff now, pulling the tides up to him as a fisherman gathers his nets. The sea that washed the shore beneath the Olympian cliffs piled up now, higher and higher, its taut waters shining like silk with a pent force, curling into a giant breaker. The wave broke, washing over the slope and dousing the dragon fires. Poseidon lowered his staff.

  The waters withdrew, rolling off the mountain. The fires were quenched, but the dragons were still huge beasts whose teeth were like ivory knives, with tails that could flail down stone walls. And now Atlas was charging toward the young gods, followed by the great lizards.

  Zeus shouted; his voice was thunder. He raised his zigzag bolt; it became a spear of fire—white-hot, blue-hot, primal flame. It was a spoke of the First Fire, the very fire that brands the sky in a thunderstorm. The flame streamed out of his spearpoint, impaling Cronos and nailing him to the rocky hillside.

  When this happened, everything changed. The Titans felt themselves dwindling, felt privilege ebbing from their pores. The dragons turned and scuttled away like little lizards, trying to burrow under the rocks. Atlas tried to hide, but he was too big. The Cyclopes leaped upon him, wrapping him in chains.

  Other Cyclopes came to where Cronos was nailed to the hillside. Brontes held the net he had made—that wonderful net that had snared the sun chariot. He cast it over Cronos, who struggled helpless as a fly in a spider’s web. For the power had passed from him, passed to his youngest son, Zeus, now king of the gods.

  11

  To Death and Back

  Zeus celebrated his victory by conferring powers. He named Hades Prince of Darkness, King of the Land Beyond Death. Poseidon he made God of the Sea and all therein.

  Demeter, whose name means barley mother, he made Goddess of the Harvest, holding domain over all growing things.

  Hera appointed herself. Insisting on immediate marriage with Zeus, she took her place as queen of the gods.

  It was a puzzle what to do with the eldest sister, Hestia, who disliked court life and conspiracies and battles. Then Hera had an idea that she made Zeus think was his. He made Hestia Goddess of the Hearth and bid her prepare for the coming of a new breed calling themselves humans, who would worship her through marriage.

  Zeus, of course, reigned over all. Lord of the Sky, Sender of Rain, he was permanently endowed with a voice of thunder and a lightning shaft.

  After he had rewarded the victors, he punished the losers.

  Cronos was locked away in a corner of Hades’ realm called Tartarus. The Cyclopes were instructed to cast walls of iron to pen him in. The hundred-handed giants were ordered to patrol these walls and make sure he did not escape.

  Atlas was punished most severely. As big as a mountain, he was given a mountain’s task. He was condemned to stand on the western rim of the world holding a corner of the sky on his shoulders and to bear that unbearable weight through eternity.

  Zeus stripped the wind Titans of their powers and gave the management of the four winds to the youngest of the Titans, who, he knew, was too lazy ever to rebel. The name of this new Keeper of the Winds was Aeolus.

  He punished only those Titans who had been leaders in the war against him. He pardoned the others and invited them to become part of the glittering court at Olympus.

  As for the Cyclopes, although Zeus honored them for their mighty services, they knew they would never fit into the society of gods and Titans. They were too ugly. Even those who respected them couldn’t bear to look at them. So they returned to their smithy to make tools and weapons and ornaments, and everyone was glad they were elsewhere.

  There was another reason for the Cyclopes’ unpopularity. Although Zeus was no bloodthirsty tyrant like his father and his grandfather, he did wield absolute power and his power resided in his thunderbolt. With that volt-blue zigzag shaft he could gaff anyone like a fish—god, demigod, or mortal—and there was no way to hide from or defend oneself against that spear of fire. His subjects, gods and Titans alike, feared him too much to permit themselves to feel even secret resentment. But they had to blame someone for their fear, so they chose to hate the Cyclopes, who had forged the dreaded thunderbolt for Zeus.

  This smoldering hatred brought the Cyclopes into myth again centuries later, after humankind was planted on earth. Apollo, the Sun God, Lord of Music and Healing, loved a princess of Lapith who would not accept his love. Nevertheless, he paid her ardent attention, wooed her with sunstroke, and melted her resistance. When the princess, whose name was Coronis, found she was pregnant, she rebelled and returned to her first love, an Arcadian youth with cool hands.

  Apollo’s sister, Artemis, always watchful of his honor, was enraged by this and killed the girl with one of her silver arrows. Asclepius was born during the princess’s death throes. It is said that the infant, who was to become the father of medicine, watched the details of his own birth with profound attention, displaying a precocious talent for anatomy.

  Indeed, he became such a marvelous doctor that he could bring the dead back to life. Hades, ruler of the underworld, complained to Zeus that the young physician, by robbing him, was attacking the dignity of all go
ds, and, like an experienced plaintiff, he reinforced his complaint with a huge bribe. Zeus nodded, took up a thunderbolt, and hurled it at Asclepius, killing him. Apollo mourned his son. He was maddened by grief, but not mad enough to attack Zeus. Instead, he stormed down to the crater and shot off a quiverful of his golden arrows, killing every Cyclopes who labored there, making thunderbolts.

  Then Apollo went to Zeus and pleaded his son’s case so eloquently, in so musical a voice, that Zeus recalled the young physician to life. In return, Asclepius patched up the Cyclopes, who returned to their anvils.

  But some of them had learned to hate the gods.

  12

  Ulysses and the Cyclops

  The seeds of Ulysses’ most terrible adventure were planted long before he was born—in fact, before the first man was put on earth. It began on that day when Cronos sent the naiad to start a riot in the smithy and disrupt the Cyclopes’ weapon making.

  This trick of Cronos’ was to bear other consequences—to destroy shiploads of men as yet unborn, and to darken the name of the Cyclopes forever. For among the smiths was a youth named Polyphemus, the biggest and most powerful of all, who fell violently in love with the naiad. He couldn’t work. He couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t think of anything but that nymph, white as a birch on the anvil, casting a riverine fragrance upon the sooty air. He fought his way through the riot in the smithy and rushed to the river. Hiding himself in the reeds when the female Cyclopes came raging down, he waited until they had trooped back to the crater. Then he began to search for the naiad. In his madness he actually began to clear the riverbed, hurling aside the heavy boulders as if they were pebbles.

  Now, as it happened, all the naiads had escaped the attack of the she-Cyclopes by simply gliding underwater into a side-stream. But our naiad, whose name was Leuce, came back to the spot on the riverbank where she had first met Cronos, hoping to meet him again and claim a reward. She came in the hour before dawn when it was still dark. In fact, it was darker than it had ever been before because Cronos, who was preparing for battle, had decided to quench the moon that night. The naiad couldn’t see anything, so she listened very hard. She heard odd sounds: the grating of boulder being lifted from boulder, and the thump when it fell. She turned to flee, but then caught a scent that reassured her—the scent of a male.

  “What are you doing?” she called.

  “Looking for you,” said a deep rumbling voice.

  “For me? Do you know who I am?”

  “I do.”

  “But you can’t see me.”

  “I know you in the dark.”

  “How sweet. Why are you looking for me under there?”

  “Don’t you live in this river?”

  “Not now. You have such a nice voice. I wish I could see you. I wish the moon would come out. Wait. I’ll do like a blind person.”

  She reached out and ran her hands over his chest and shoulders. She could reach no higher than his chin. “Oh my,” she murmured, “you’re very big and strong, aren’t you?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Are you a Titan? You must be.”

  “Not exactly. A kind of relative.”

  “I know you’re gorgeous. I can’t wait to get a look at you. But it’ll soon be dawn.”

  “Yes.”

  “Chilly here. Couldn’t you hug me or something?”

  He took her into his arms and, despite his wild hunger, was so stunned by love, so confused by joy, that he cradled her in his mighty embrace as though she were an infant. He didn’t dare kiss her. He didn’t want her to know his face, not until she had seen him for what he was.

  The sky curdled, seeping pink light. It fell upon the riverbed, painted the giant figure on the bank holding the birch-white nymph. Her scream split the air. She slid from his arms.

  “Your eye!” she cried. “What happened to your eye?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Where’s the other one?”

  “This is all I have.”

  “And look where it is! It’s in the wrong place!”

  “I’m a Cyclops,” he muttered. And he reached for her.

  She shuddered away. His arms dropped. She vanished into the mist.

  Utter pain took him. He raised his hand to pluck out the offending eye and crush it under his foot like a snail. But with the impulse to violent action, his grief mixed with rage. He decided to fling himself outward into the world, never to return to the hated forge. He strode away from the crater, through a forest to the sea.

  It is told that other young Cyclopes joined him and insisted on going wherever he went, for he had always been a leader among them. They knocked down trees and lashed them together to make a great raft. Using their mallets as paddles, they stroked so powerfully that the clumsy raft skimmed over the water like a canoe.

  They finally came to an island that suited Polyphemus. Hilly and heavily wooded, it was inhabited only by wild boars, wild goats, and fleet red deer. “This is it!” cried Polyphemus. “We’ll hunt and fish and never touch an anvil again.”

  They did indeed live that way and, as time passed, became very different from what they had been. Without their own work to do, their talents rusting, they sank into bestiality. Polyphemus, their leader, led them there also. With the most to lose, he lost the most. For, lurking behind all thoughts and memories was the image of the nymph who had touched him in the dark and fled at dawn. His companions fished for sea nymphs and occasionally caught one, but he couldn’t bear to. He never again wanted to see that look of horror upon a nymph’s face. Instead, he cultivated only his appetite for food until he became one gross hunger. Worst of all, he developed a taste for human flesh.

  It happened one stormy day that a ship was driven onto shore and split upon a rock. The Cyclopes, who had become magnificently strong swimmers, dived in and hauled out the drowning sailors. But the swim had made the Cyclopes very hungry, and the day was still too stormy for hunting.

  “They’d have drowned anyway,” said Polyphemus. “Look at ’em. They’re half-dead. We’ll just finish them off and have us a hot meal.”

  He took a sailor in his huge hand and twisted his neck like a chicken. The others did the same, and grilled the sailors over an open flame.

  Now this ship’s crew had come from an eastern land where olives grew, and dates and figs. They were young and plump and had a delicate, oily flavor. Polyphemus ate greedily and waited for the next shipwreck.

  But the wind stayed fair; no ships were driven onto the rocks. His hunger grew and his temper became so savage that the other Cyclopes began to avoid him. He squatted on the headland and waited for a sail … and waited … and thought to himself: “Can’t wait forever. I’ll have to push things along.”

  The next time he saw a sail in the distance, he swam to the ship, capsized it, and swam back to the island with his pockets full of sailors. This happened again and again until word spread around the ports, and ships began to avoid those waters altogether. Polyphemus had to go without human flesh for a year and a day.

  By this time, men had grown civilized enough to fight wars, an activity that the gods found immensely entertaining. They took sides, bet with each other on who would win, arranged ambushes and hand-to-hand duels, and pulled every trick possible to help their favorites, puzzling the warriors, who in their ignorance gave the name luck to this god play.

  Now the biggest and bloodiest of these wars had just ended, leaving the gods very bored. One goddess in particular was not only bored, but angry. She was Artemis, twin sister to Apollo and Goddess of the Moon. She and her brother had wagered heavily on the losers. One moonlit night, flying over the Middle Sea in her swan chariot, she spotted a ship that looked familiar. She flew down closer.

  “It’s Ulysses!” she said to herself. “It’s that slimy trickster who did more to defeat my Trojans than anyone else.”

  She immediately began to plan a disaster, something she could do well, for it was she who swung the tides. “What shall I do?” she said t
o herself. “Guide them into a riptide and sink their ship? No, drowning’s too easy and there are no sharks in the area. I want something slow and painful for Ulysses. I want him to suffer just as he made me suffer watching my Trojans being tricked by that accursed wooden horse, watching that beautiful city being sacked and burned. Let me think of something really foul.”

  Her hair and bare shoulders were one color, silver brown, moon-brown, as she leaned out of her chariot to swing the tide on a silver leash and guide Ulysses to the island where the Cyclopes dwelt.

  Now during the time when Polyphemus was happily capsizing ships and eating their crews, he had dug a fire pit in his cave and hung a turnspit over it, for he liked his meat browned evenly on all sides. Crouched at the pit was a curly-haired cabin boy whom Polyphemus had not eaten because he needed someone to tend the fire and turn the spit. He also liked to wipe his greasy hands on the boy’s curls. But by this time, he so hungered for human flesh that he had decided to have the boy for dinner this very night.

  He lifted him by the nape of his neck and held him in front of his face. The terrified lad saw the huge round red eye glaring at him, and tried not to look at the great wet mouth with its yellow fangs. “Only skin and bones,” snarled Polyphemus. “Can’t roast you; there won’t be anything left. Well, bones make soup. Go ahead, useless, fill the pot with water.”

  He put the boy on the floor and went to the door of the cave—and couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw meaty-looking men climbing the hill. It was almost evening; the light was fading. He pivoted the door of the cave, which was an enormous slab of stone, casting a faint glow of firelight upon the dusk. Then he went back inside.

  He didn’t have long to wait. The men were cold and hungry; they broke into a run when they saw the inviting glow. Ulysses tried to stop them, but they paid no heed. They raced up the hillside and into the cave. Ulysses drew his sword and followed.