He then set down the road with the bushel of corn until it grew too heavy for him to carry. He then met a man on the road who had a chicken, and Anansi exchanged the corn for the chicken. When Anansi arrived at the next village, he asked for a place to stay and a safe place to keep the “sacred” chicken. In this new village, Anansi was again treated as an honored guest, a great feast was held in his honor, and he was shown a house to stay in and given a safe place for the chicken.
During the night Anansi butchered the chicken and smeared its blood and feathers on the door of the chiefs house. In the morning he woke everyone with his cries, “The sacred chicken has been killed! Surely God will destroy this village for allowing this to happen!” The frightened villagers begged Anansi to take ten of their finest sheep as a token of their sincere apology.
Anansi drove the sheep down the road until he came to a group of men carrying a corpse. He asked the men whose body they were carrying. The men answered that a traveler had died in their village and they were bearing the body home for a proper burial. Anansi then exchanged the sheep for the corpse and set out down the road.
At the next village, Anansi told the people that the corpse was a son of God who was sleeping. He told them to be very quiet in order not to wake this important guest. The people in this village, too, held a great feast and treated Anansi as royalty.
When morning came, Anansi told the villagers that he was having a hard time waking the “son of God” from sleep, and he asked their help. They started by beating drums, and the visitor remained “asleep.” Then they banged pots and pans, but he was still “asleep.” Then the villagers pounded on the visitor’s chest, and he still didn’t stir.
All of a sudden, Anansi cried out, “You have killed him! You have killed a son of God! Oh, no! Certainly God will destroy this whole village, if not the entire world!” The terrified villagers then told Anansi that he could pick one hundred of their finest young men as slaves if only he would appeal to God to save them.
So Anansi returned to God, having turned one ear of corn into one hundred slaves.
HOW ANANSI “TRICKED” GOD
Anansi was terribly conceited after the whole affair of the ear of corn. God found Anansi entertaining, but his bragging was growing tiresome. So God gave Anansi a sack and said, “I have something in mind; figure it out and bring it back to me in the sack.” Anansi asked questions, but God would give no further clues as to what that “something” might be. God sent the mortal on his way, saying that if he were only half as clever as he boasted he was, then he should have no problem figuring out what “something” God wanted.
Anansi was puzzled. How was he to know what God wanted in the sack? He left heaven and had a meeting with the birds, explaining his predicament. The birds were sympathetic, but had no clues to offer. However, each agreed to give Anansi one feather, enabling Anansi to fly. Anansi made these feathers into a beautiful cloak, and then flew up to heaven, where he perched in a tree next to God’s house.
Some of the people of heaven saw this strange “bird” and began talking about it. They asked each other what kind of bird this might be. God himself did not recall making any sort of creature that looked like that. One of those present suggested that, if Anansi were so clever, he might know what sort of bird this was.
Anansi, in the tree, heard all of this. God’s attendants were speaking among themselves when one said, “Good luck finding Anansi—God sent him on an impossible mission. How was Anansi to know that God wanted the sun and the moon brought to him in a sack?”
Overhearing this, Anansi went out to fetch the sun and the moon. He went to the python, the wisest of all things, and asked how one might capture the sun and the moon. The python advised him to go to the west, where the sun rests at night. The moon could be found in the east around the same time. So Anansi gathered the sun and the moon, placed them in the sack, and took them to God.
God was so pleased with Anansi’s ingenuity that he made Anansi his captain on earths.
ANANSI AND THE CHAMELEON
As we have said, Anansi grew more and more conceited and arrogant. In fact, God became so annoyed by Anansi’s boast that he had “tricked” God in the episode of the sun and the moon that he was seriously considering removing his patronage from Anansi.
Anansi lived in the same village as the Chameleon. Anansi was rich and owned the finest fields in the area, while the Chameleon was poor and worked hard in his meager fields to make ends meet. However, one year rain fell on Chameleon’s fields, which were now abundant with beautiful crops. No rain fell on Anansi’s land and the crops dried up and dust blew everywhere. Anansi then resolved to take Chameleon’s fields for himself.
Anansi first tried to buy the fields, but Chameleon refused to sell. Anansi offered more and more in exchange, but Chameleon still held on to the land.
Early one morning, Anansi walked boldly down the road to Chameleon’s fields and began harvesting the crops. When Chameleon saw this, he became very angry and chased Anansi away.
When a chameleon walks, it leaves no tracks; it is virtually impossible to tell where a chameleon has been. Knowing this, Anansi took Chameleon to court to sue for possession of the fields. The chief asked Chameleon to prove that the fields were his; Chameleon had no proof to offer. Anansi, on the other hand, took the chief to Chameleon’s fields, showing the many footprints on the road. These were Anansi’s footprints, and the chief awarded the fields to Anansi right then and there.
Although the court decision gave the land to Anansi, God has a higher justice than that which the courts mete out. Chameleon dug a deep, deep hole and put a roof on it. From the outside, the hole looked tiny. But, in fact, Chameleon had dug a vast cavern underground. Then the Chameleon took some vines and some flies and made a cloak. When the sun hits flies, they shine a variety of colors, but they are still flies. Chameleon went down the road wearing this cloak of flies when he encountered Anansi.
Anansi’s first words to Chameleon were, “Hello, my friend. I hope that there are no hard feelings between us.” Anansi saw what appeared to be a beautiful cloak and offered to buy it. Chameleon pretended to be magnanimous and told Anansi that the cloak would be his if only Anansi filled Chameleon’s “little hole” with food. Anansi readily agreed, bragging that he would fill it twice over.
Anansi then took the cloak to the chief who had acted as judge in the lawsuit and gave it to the chief as a gift. The chief admired the cloak and thanked him profusely.
Anansi worked day and night to fill Chameleon’s hole with food and still the hole was not full. He worked weeks and still the hole was not full. Anansi knew that Chameleon had tricked him.
In the meantime, the chief was walking down the road wearing the cloak of flies. One day the vines broke and the flies buzzed off in every direction, leaving the chief naked and livid with anger at Anansi. The chief grew angrier with each step he took. When the chief found Anansi, he ordered him not only to return Chameleon’s property but to give Chameleon the best of his own fields as well. As soon as Chameleon took possession of Anansi’s best field, it rained on that field for the first time in months, and now Chameleon was the richest in the village.
HOW ANANSI BECAME A SPIDER
There was once a king who had the finest ram in the world. When this ram happened to be grazing on Anansi’s crops one day, Anansi threw a rock at it, hitting it between the eyes and killing it. Anansi knew that the king would punish him for what he had done to the prize ram, and he immediately schemed how to get out of the situation. Needless to say, Anansi resorted to trickery.
Anansi sat under a tree to think of an escape when, all of a sudden, a nut fell and struck him on the head. Anansi immediately had an idea. First, he took the dead ram and tied it to the nut tree. Then he went to a spider and told it of a wonderful tree laden with nuts. The spider was delighted and immediately went to the tree.
Anansi then went to the king and told him that the spider had evidently killed the prize ram; the r
am was hanging from a tree where the spider was spinning webs. The king flew into a rage and demanded the death penalty for the spider. The king thanked Anansi and offered him a great reward.
Anansi returned to the spider and warned it of the king’s wrath, crying out to the whole world that the spider had killed the ram. The spider was very confused. Anansi told the spider to go to the king and plead for mercy, and perhaps the spider’s life would be spared.
Meanwhile, the king had gone home for lunch and told his wife what happened. The wife laughed and said, “Have you lost your mind? How on earth could a little spider make a thread strong enough to hold a ram? How in the world could that little spider hoist the ram up there? Don’t you know, Anansi obviously killed your ram!” The king was angry that he had been deceived and told his court to fetch Anansi immediately.
When the king’s men came for him, Anansi assumed that it was to bring him to the palace for his reward for turning in the spider. So Anansi went along willingly. He walked into the palace as if he owned the place and then said to the king, “Well, what is my reward for the killer of your ram?”
This enraged the king so much that he kicked Anansi, splitting him into many pieces; he was no longer a man, but a spider with long legs.
GREEK MORALITY TALES
ICARUS AND DAEDALUS
Daedalus [of whom we shall read again in a later chapter] was the greatest builder of all time. It is he who built the great Labyrinth in Crete at the orders of King Minos. Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, asked Daedalus for assistance in aiding the escape of the hero Theseus. For aiding the escape of Ariadne and Theseus, Minos had Daedalus locked in a tower, together with Icarus, Daedalus’s son.
Daedalus spent his days devising a means for escape. He climbed up on the parapet of the tower and gathered the feathers of birds. He also gathered wax from a hive that some bees had built in the tower. The guards did not notice his work.
Over the space of several months, Daedalus had fashioned enormous wings out of the wax and feathers. The larger feathers were put in place, sewn along a light frame that Daedalus had made of wood that he bribed the guards for, and the smaller feathers were held together with the beeswax. Daedalus wanted to use these wings to escape from the tower. However, Icarus was lighter than he was, and thus was the perfect one to try out wings before the escape.
Daedalus instructed Icarus to watch the birds and see how they fly. Icarus needed to perfectly duplicate the motions of the birds with the wings his father had fashioned. Most important of all, Daedalus instructed his son not to fly too low or he would fall into the ocean and drown; he could not fly too high either—or the sun would melt the wax.
Icarus then leaped off the tower and began flying like a bird. To his amazement, this was great fun. He swooped out over the ocean, diving and rising again. He made a great circle around the tower. Then he tried flying a little higher, and he made circles so high in the sky that his father could barely see him. Exhilarated by his successes, rather than use common sense and return to the tower, Icarus tried to fly still higher and higher until, as his father had predicted, the wax melted and the lad plunged to his death in the ocean.
This is why the gods never allow human beings to fly: They cannot stay within their limits. If they communicate with the gods, they become overly familiar and forget their place. Humans were given reason and skill, but still they use their hands to make weapons to kill each other off. One is well-advised to heed Daedalus’s warning and not fly too high or too low.
ARACHNE
Of all the human sins that annoy the gods, the worst of all is hubris, or arrogant pride. This is the sort of attitude that leads human beings to contest the gods and defy them. Arachne was one such foolish mortal.
Arachne was a peasant girl who was famous throughout Greece for her skills as a weaver and spinner. No one could spin as well or as fast as Arachne—among mortals at least. The cloth that she produced was the finest ever seen.
It was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, who first invented the arts of spinning and weaving. Arachne began to boast that her patroness, Athena, was probably not able to make as fine a cloth as she. At first the goddess laughed and ignored the vain girl. But then people began to believe these boasts, ignoring the temples and festivals of Athena. The usually peaceful and patient goddess became very angry.
Athena came to earth and appeared to Arachne, challenging her to a spinning match. The girl and the goddess each began spinning with as much speed and skill as they could. Arachne’s results were impressive, and Athena was surprised to find her a worthy contender. And if Arachne had been humble and silent during the contest, all might have been well. Instead, Arachne had loudly proclaimed her spinning to be superior to that of Athena, in the very presence of the goddess.
Athena looked at Arachne (which means “spider”) and told her, “If it is spinning you do best, you may do it forever!” And with that, Arachne became a spider. And Arachne’s children spin to this very day.
MIDAS
When King Midas was an infant, a curious omen took place. While the baby was sleeping, ants gathered up grains of wheat and marched them up to his lips, presaging that Midas would be a wealthy man.
Dionysus, the god of the grapes, has a debauched son named Silenus,* who is very rarely sober and tends, when drunk, to forget where he is. This worries his father terribly. While sojourning in Midas’s kingdom Silenus, per usual, got drunk and stumbled about confusedly. In that area there was a terrible whirlpool that had claimed the lives of even many sober men. Silenus stumbled into the waters and would have perished had Midas not saved him.
In gratitude, Dionysus offered the king whatever he wanted. Midas asked that the touch of his hand would turn everything to gold. Dionysus asked him. “Are you sure?” But Midas was insistent. At that, everything that the king touched turned to gold.
At first, Midas found this wonderful; he turned flowers, stones, trees, and other objects to gold. However, he became hungry. As he sat down to eat, his food turned to gold. His daughter came to embrace him; she also turned to gold. Midas was grieved and feared that he would starve to death. Dionysus had known that this would happen; the god hoped that Midas would learn the lesson of greed. Hearing the pitiful pleas of King Midas, Dionysus removed the golden touch.
As well-known as the story of Midas is, there is another tale that demonstrates the results of pride: Midas became reknowned for his wealth and for his wisdom as a ruler. Once the king attended a musical contest between Apollo and the mortal Marsyas that was judged by a river god named Tmolus. Tmolus, of course, awarded the prize to Apollo. However, the arrogant Midas dissented and argued with the river god, saying that Marsyas was a match for the god. At which point Apollo turned the king’s ears into those of an ass.
For a long time after, Midas was able to hide this punishment by wearing a cap, and he extracted a promise from his barber never to reveal this secret under pain of death. It was virtually impossible for the barber to keep from laughing when he cut Midas’s hair. When the barber could bear it no longer, he dug a hole in a riverbank and whispered into it, “Midas has the ears of an ass.”
Sometime later, however, a tiny reed grew out of that very hole and whispered the secret to every passerby. Midas then had the barber killed. But the ass’s ears remained.
NARCISSUS
Narcissus may possibly be the most handsome male who ever lived. At his birth, the blind seer Teiresias prophesied that Narcissus would enjoy a long life only if he never knew himself or saw his own reflection. By the age of sixteen, Narcissus already had left a string of broken hearts, both male and female as he found no one good enough for him.
Among those who sought Narcissus’s favors was the nymph Echo. Hera, the wife of Zeus, had punished Echo by not allowing her to speak but only to repeat what she heard. This was because Echo had detained Hera by telling long stories, allowing Zeus to carry on trysts with the nymphs while Hera was thus distracted.
Narcissus called
out, “Is anyone here?” “Here! Here!” cried Echo. Then Narcissus said, “Come over here.” “Here! Here!” cried Echo. Narcissus walked in the direction that the voice seemed to come from and said, “Don’t avoid me!” Echo answered “Don’t avoid me!” Then Narcissus saw Echo run from her hiding place to meet him. When he saw her, she wasn’t good enough. So Narcissus called out, “You’ll never lie with me!” to which Echo responded, “Lie with me! Lie with me!” To no avail; Narcissus was not interested. Because of this misunderstanding, Echo was yet another rejected lover.
One male suitor of Narcissus was Ameinius, who was repeatedly shunned by him. Narcissus sent Ameinius a sword as a present, to placate him. Because he had been rejected, Ameinius used the gift to kill himself, calling on the gods to avenge his death. The gods were more than happy to oblige this request. They were thoroughly tired of Narcissus’s egotism, cruelty to his suitors, and heartless attitude toward others.
This is how the death of Ameinius was avenged and the prophecy of Teiresias fulfilled: Narcissus went to sit by a riverbank and fell in love with his own reflection in the water. When he bent down to kiss his own reflection, he fell into the water and drowned.
Another version is that Narcissus fell in love with his reflection in the river, then he spent hours trying to make the image speak to him. When the man in the river, the first person he had ever fallen in love with, did not answer him, he plunged his own dagger into his heart, serving justice upon the youth who had caused so many suicides of rejected lovers.
Parallel Myths Page 17
