Primal Myths
Page 24
He it is who created you of the dust, then of the germs of life, then of thick blood, then brought you forth infants: then he letteth you reach your full strength, and then become old men (but some of you die first), and reach the ordained term. And this that ye may haply understand.
It is He who giveth life and death; and when He decreeth a thing, He only saith of it, “Be,” and it is.
[Sura XL, The Believer: 66–70]
YOUR LORD is God, who in six days created the Heavens and the Earth, and then mounted the throne: He throweth the veil of night over the day: it pursueth it swiftly: and he created the sun and the moon and the stars, subjected to laws by His behest: Is not all creation and its empire His? Blessed be God the Lord of the Worlds!
Call upon your Lord with lowliness and in secret, for He loveth not transgressors.
And commit not disorders on the earth after it hath been well-ordered; and call on Him with fear and longing desire: Verily the mercy of God is nigh unto the righteous.
And He it is who sendeth forth the winds as the heralds of his compassion, until they bring up the laden clouds, which we drive along to some dead land and send down water thereon, by which we cause an upgrowth of all kinds of fruit.—Thus we will bring forth the dead. Haply ye will reflect.
In a rich soil, its plants spring forth abundantly by the will of its Lord, and in that which is bad, they spring forth but scantily. Thus do we diversify our signs for those who are thankful.
[Sura VII, Al Araf: 52–57]
IT IS GOD who hath created seven heavens and as many earths. The Divine command cometh down through them all, that ye may know that God hath power over all things, and that God in his knowledge embraceth all things!
[Sura LXV, Divorce: 12]
AMONG HIS SIGNS is the creation of the Heavens and of the Earth, and the creatures which he bath scattered over both: and, for their gathering together when he will, He is all-powerful.
[Sura XLII, Counsel: 28]
THE EAST and the West is God’s: therefore, whichever way ye turn, there is the face of God: Truly God is immense and knoweth all.
And they say, “God hath a son.” No! Praise be to Him! But—His, whatever is in the Heavens and the Earth! All obeyeth Him,
Sole maker of the Heavens and of the Earth! And when he decreeth a thing, He only saith to it, “Be,” and it is. [Sura II, The Cow: 109–111]
—J. M. Rodwell (trans.). The Koran. London: J. M. Dent, 1909, pp. 245, 299, 431, 273, 350.
THREE
EUROPEAN MYTHS
ANCIENT GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHS
The Pelasgian Creation Myth The Pelasgians entered the Greek peninsula from Asia Minor c. 3500 B.C., bringing with them the ubiquitous female figurines of the ancient Near Eastern mother goddess cult. Aside from their possession of these statuettes and their practise of burying the dead with artifacts (suggesting belief in some kind of afterlife), little is known directly of their religion. Robert Graves has constructed this myth out of several fragmentary allusions to Pelasgian cosmology in later texts.
While many of the themes here are similar to those in Near Eastern myths—the creator rising out of Chaos in the beginning, the egg of creation being laid on the primeval waters, the establishment of order by the creation of controlling planetary powers—its most distinct features are the primacy of the mother goddess Eurynome (“wide-wandering”) and the rebellion of the snake deity Ophion, her son and consort.
Ophion’s primal sin, that of a derivative creature claiming credit for the creation itself, is echoed in several myths around the world. In this case, the events caused by such hubris take on the character of a sexual war as the mother-wife goddess bruises her husband-son’s phallic head and banishes him to the underworld.
Throughout the myth, Chaos appears in various forms as an active and barely controlled force. Not only is it depicted as the source of the Goddess of All Things and as the ocean, the resting place for her universal egg, but it is also personified as wind (that which forms but is not formed itself), transformed into the fertilizing snake, and finally symbolized as the dark and womblike caves of the underworld. After tentatively controlling these chaotic forces, Eurynome creates Pelasgus, the ancestor of the Pelasgian people, who teaches all others the rudiments of civilized life.
IN THE BEGINNING, Eurynome, the Goddess of All Things, rose naked from Chaos, but found nothing substantial for her feet to rest upon, and therefore divided the sea from the sky, dancing lonely upon its waves. She danced towards the south, and the wind set in motion behind her seemed something new and apart with which to begin a work of creation. Wheeling about, she caught hold of this north wind, rubbed it between her hands, and behold! the great serpent Ophion. Eurynome danced to warm herself, wildly and more wildly, until Ophion, grown lustful, coiled about those divine limbs and was moved to couple with her. Now, the North Wind, who is also called Boreas, fertilizes; which is why mares often turn their hind-quarters to the wind and breed foals without aid of a stallion. So Eurynome was likewise got with child.
Next she assumed the form of a dove, brooding on the waves and in due process of time, laid the Universal Egg. At her bidding, Ophion coiled seven times about this egg, until it hatched and split in two. Out tumbled all the things that exist, her children: sun, moon, planets, stars, the earth with its mountains and rivers, its trees, herbs and living creatures.
Eurynome and Ophion made their home upon Mount Olympus, where he vexed her by claiming to be the author of the Universe. Forthwith she bruised his head with her heel, kicked out his teeth, and banished him to the dark caves below the earth.
Next, the goddess created the seven planetary powers, setting a Titaness and a Titan over each. Theia and Hyperion for the Sun; Phoebe and Atlas for the Moon; Dione and Crius for the planet Mars; Metis and Coeus for the planet Mercury; Themis and Eurymedon for the planet Jupiter; Tethys and Oceanus for Venus; Rhea and Cronus for the planet Saturn. But the first man was Pelasgus, ancestor of the others, whom he taught to make huts and feed upon acorns, and sew pig-skin tunics such as poor folk still wear in Euboea and Phocis.
—Robert Graves. Greek Myths. Vol. 1. Baltimore, Md.: Penguin Books, 1955, p. 27.
Hesiod: From the Theogony Hesiod lived in Boetia on the Greek mainland in the latter part of the eighth century B.C. and his Theogony records, in rough and vivid style, the evolution of the gods and the establishment of the sacred and universal Olympian order with the final triumph of Zeus.
Most striking in this myth is the violent and chaotic manner in which the divine forces struggle among themselves: child killing, incest, castration, destruction, and treachery abound. The gods fight in grand and primitive style, and only Zeus emerges as wise and just. While this is primarily a story of divine succession and final ordering, the creative powers of the gods are emphasized throughout. In the beginning, Chaos, Earth, Tartarus (the underworld), and Eros (love) appear spontaneously, and, in the first generation alone, Chaos produced Night and Erebos (another part of the underworld), who together bore Day and Space; Earth gave birth to Heaven and the Sea by herself and then, with Heaven, produced the Titans. These and other children of Earth and of Night, endlessly fertile, produced the generations of the gods who fought together.
CHAOS was first of all, but next appeared
Broad-bosomed Earth, sure standing-place for all
The gods who live on snowy Olympus’ peak,
And misty Tartarus, in a recess
Of broad-pathed earth, and Love, most beautiful
Of all the deathless gods. He makes men weak,
He overpowers the clever mind, and tames
The spirit in the breasts of men and gods.
From Chaos came black Night and Erebos.
And Night in turn gave birth to Day and Space
Whom she conceived in love to Erebos.
And Earth bore starry Heaven, first, to be
An equal to herself, to cover her
All over, and to be a resting-place,
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Always secure, for all the blessed gods.
Then she brought forth long hills, the lovely homes
Of goddesses, the Nymphs who live among
The mountain clefts. Then, without pleasant love,
She bore the barren sea with its swollen waves,
Pontus. And then she lay with Heaven, and bore
Deep-whirling Oceanus and Koios; then
Kreius, lapetos, Hyperion,
Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne,
Lovely Tethys, and Phoebe, golden-crowned.
Last, after these, most terrible of sons,
The crooked-scheming Kronos came to birth
Who was his vigorous father’s enemy.
Again, she bore the Cyclopes, whose hearts
Were insolent, Brontes and Steropes
And proud-souled Arges, those who found and gave
The thunder and the lightning-bolt to Zeus.
They were like other gods in all respects,
But that a single eye lay in the brow
Of each, and from this, they received the name,
Cyclopes, from the one round eye which lay
Set in the middle of each forehead. Strength
And energy and craft were in their works.
Then Ouranos and Gaia bore three sons
Mighty and violent, unspeakable
Kottos and Gyes and Briareus,
Insolent children, each with a hundred arms
On his shoulders, darting about, untouchable,
And each had fifty heads, standing upon
His shoulders, over the crowded mass of arms,
And terrible strength was in their mighty forms.
And these most awful sons of Earth and Heaven
Were hated by their father from the first.
As soon as each was born, Ouranos hid
The child in a secret hiding-place in Earth
And would not let it come to see the light,
And he enjoyed this wickedness. But she,
Vast Earth, being strained and stretched inside her, groaned.
And then she thought of a clever, evil plan.
Quickly she made grey adamant, and formed
A mighty sickle, and addressed her sons,
Urging them on, with sorrow in her heart,
“My sons, whose father is a reckless fool,
If you will do as I ask, we shall repay
Your father’s wicked crime. For it was he
Who first began devising shameful acts.”
She spoke, but fear seized all of them, and none
Replied. Then crooked Kronos, growing bold,
Answered his well-loved mother with these words:
“Mother, I undertake to do the deed;
I do not care for my unspeakable
Father, for he first thought of shameful acts.”
He spoke, and giant Earth was glad at heart.
She set him in a hiding-place, and put
Into his hands the saw-toothed scimitar,
And told him all the plot she had devised.
Great Heaven came, and with him brought the night.
Longing for love, he lay around the Earth,
Spreading out fully. But the hidden boy
Stretched forth his left hand; in his right he took
The great long jagged sickle; eagerly
He harvested his father’s genitals
And threw them off behind. They did not fall
From his hands in vain, for all the bloody drops
That leaped out were received by Earth; and when
The year’s time was accomplished, she gave birth
To the Furies, and the Giants, strong and huge,
Who fought in shining armour, with long spears,
And the nymphs called Meliae on the broad earth.
The genitals, cut off with adamant
And thrown from land into the stormy sea,
Were carried for a long time on the waves.
White foam surrounded the immortal flesh,
And in it grew a girl. At first it touched
On holy Cythera, from there it came
To Cyprus, circled by the waves. And there
The goddess came forth, lovely, much revered,
And grass grew up beneath her delicate feet.
Her name is Aphrodite among men
And gods, because she grew up in the foam,
And Cytherea, for she reached that land,
And Cyprogenes from the stormy place
Where she was horn, and Philommedes from
The genitals, by which she was conceived.
Eros is her companion; fair Desire
Followed her from the first, both at her birth
And when she joined the company of the gods.
From the beginning, both among gods and men,
She had this honour and received this power:
Fond murmuring of girls, and smiles, and tricks,
And sweet delight, and friendliness, and charm.
But the great father Ouranos reproached
His sons, and called them Titans, for, he said
They strained in insolence, and did a deed
For which they would be punished afterwards.
And Night bore frightful Doom and the black Ker,
And Death, and Sleep, and the whole tribe of Dreams.
Again, although she slept with none of the gods,
Dark Night gave birth to Blame and sad Distress,
And the Hesperides, who, out beyond
The famous stream of Oceanus, tend
The lovely golden apples, and their trees.
She bore the Destinies and ruthless Fates,
Goddesses who track down the sins of men
And gods, and never cease from awful rage
Until they give the sinner punishment.
Then deadly Night gave birth to Nemesis,
That pain to gods and men, and then she bore
Deceit and Love, sad Age, and strong-willed Strife.
And hateful Strife gave birth to wretched Work,
Forgetfulness, and Famine, tearful Pains,
Battles and Fights, Murders, Killings of men,
Quarrels and Lies and Stories and Disputes,
And Lawlessness and Ruin, both allied,
And Oath, who brings most grief to men on earth
When anyone swears falsely, knowing it.
And Rhea, being forced by Kronos, bore
Most brilliant offspring to him: Hestia,
Demeter, golden-slippered Hera, strong
Hades, who has his home beneath the earth,
The god whose heart is pitiless, and him
Who crashes loudly and who shakes the earth,
And thoughtful Zeus, father of gods and men,
Whose thunder makes the wide earth tremble. Then,
As each child issued from the holy womb
And lay upon its mother’s knees, each one
Was seized by mighty Kronos, and gulped down.
He had in mind that no proud son of Heaven
Should hold the royal rank among the gods
Except himself. For he had learned from Earth
And starry Heaven, that his destiny
Was to be overcome, great though he was,
By one of his own sons, and through the plans
Of mighty Zeus. Therefore he never dropped
His guard, but lay in wait, and swallowed down
His children. Rhea suffered endless grief;
But when she was about to bring forth Zeus,
Father of gods and men, she begged the Earth
And starry Heaven, her parents, to devise
A plan to hide the birth of her dear son
And bring the Fury down on Kronos, for
His treatment of his father and his sons
Whom mighty, crooked Kronos swallowed down.
They heard their daughter and agreed, and told
Her all that fate would bring up
on the king
Kronos, and to his mighty-hearted son.
They sent her to the fertile land of Crete,
To Lyctus, when she was about to bear
Her youngest child, great Zeus. And in broad Crete
Vast Earth received the child from her, to raise
And cherish. And she carried him, with speed,
Through the black night, and came to Lyctus first.
She took him in her arms and hid him, deep
Under the holy earth, in a vast cave,
On thickly-wooded Mount Aegeum. Then,
To the great lord, the son of Heaven, the past
King of the gods, she handed, solemnly,
All wrapped in swaddling-clothes, a giant stone.
He seized it in his hands and thrust it down
Into his belly, fool! He did not know
His son, no stone, was left behind, unhurt
And undefeated, who would conquer him
With violence and force, and drive him out
From all his honours, and would rule the gods.
The strength and glorious limbs of the young lord
Grew quickly and the years went by, and Earth
Entrapped great clever Kronos with shrewd words
Advising him to bring his offspring back.
(His son, by craft and power, conquered him.)
And first he vomited the stone, which he
Had swallowed last. At holy Pytho, Zeus
Set firm the stone in broad-pathed earth, beneath
Parnassus, in a cleft, to be a sign
In future days, for men to marvel at.
…
From tall Mount Othrys came the Titan lords
And from Olympus, those who give us all,
Whom fair-haired Rhea bore, after she lay
With Kronos; they had anger in their hearts
And fought continually for ten full years
With no release nor end to the harsh strife
For either side; the winning of the war
Was balanced evenly between the two.
But when the sons of Ouranos received,
Fittingly, nectar and ambrosia, which
The gods themselves consume, their spirits rose
Proud in their breasts. And then the father of gods
And men spoke to them: “Hear me, glorious sons