Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold

by Stephen Fry

  The Fallout

  On Olympus news of the devastation being wrought upon the surface of the earth reached the gods and, at last, the ears of Zeus himself.

  ‘Look what’s happening,’ cried a distraught Demeter. ‘The crops are being sun-burned or frost-bitten. It’s a disaster.’

  ‘The people are afraid,’ said Athena. ‘Please, father. Something must be done.’

  With a sigh Zeus reached for a thunderbolt. He looked where the chariot of the sun was now plunging in a mad tumble towards Italy.

  The thunderbolt, as all Zeus’s thunderbolts did, hit its mark. Phaeton was blasted clear of the chariot and fell flaming to earth, where he dropped like a spent rocket into the waters of the River Eridanos with a hiss and a fizz.

  The great sun-steeds were pacified by the absence of the panicky boy’s yells and violent tugs at their traces and at last settled into their proper altitude and course, making their way instinctively to the land of the Hesperides in the far west.

  Phoebus Apollo was not a good or affectionate father, but the death of his son hit him very hard. He vowed never again to drive the chariot of the sun, passing the duty on to the grateful and enthusiastic Helios, who for ever after became the sun’s sole charioteer.fn5

  Phaeton’s affectionate friend Cygnus went to the River Eridanos, into whose waters poor dead Phaeton had plunged. He sat there on the bank mourning the loss of his lover with such a plaintive wail that a distraught Apollo struck him dumb and finally, out of pity and remorse for the youth’s ceaseless but now silent and inconsolable suffering, transformed him into a beautiful swan. This species, the mute swan, became holy to Apollo. In remembrance of the death of the beloved Phaeton the bird is silent all its life until the very moment of its death, when it sings with terrible melancholy its strange and lovely goodbye, its swan song. In honour of Cygnus the young of all swans are called ‘cygnets’.

  And what of Epaphus? Did he look up and see Phaeton high above him steering the great chariot, or was he too busy eating dates and flirting with nymphs on board the ship sailing him and his friends to their holiday beach in North Africa? One would like to think that he did look up and that the glare of the chariot blinded him, a suitable punishment for his cruel taunts. In fact Epaphus went on to become a great patriarch. He married Nilus’s daughter MEMPHIS, after whom he named the city that he had founded. They had a daughter, LIBYA, and his line, which included his great-grandson AEGYPTUS, went on to rule Egypt for generations.

  Phaeton himself was eventually placed amongst the stars in the consolation constellation called Auriga, the Charioteer.fn6 The French named a very sporty, lightweight, dangerous racing carriage the phaéton in his honour. It was the preferred conveyance of hot-headed young men of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, who, unwittingly re-enacting the myth of Phaeton in their youthful impetuosity, very often overturned their carriages, to the fury of their long-suffering fathers.

  The American classicist and teacher Edith Hamilton offered this as Phaeton’s epitaph:

  Here Phaeton lies who in the sun-god’s chariot fared.

  And though greatly he failed, more greatly he dared.

  Cadmus

  The White Bull

  Thanks to Phaeton desert wastes and icy polar regions now gave mankind extremes of temperature to cope with, on top of the cycle of seasons caused by Persephone’s stay in the underworld. The lesson of Phaeton did not stop humankind from reaching ever higher, however. No lesson, no matter how grim, ever seems to deter us. All over Greece kingdoms continued to rise and fall. The Grecian world encompassed Asia Minor too in those days, that bulge of land east of Greece that encompasses what we now call Turkey, as well as Syria and the lands of the Levant (modern-day Lebanon). The influence of this part of the world on Greek culture and myth was immense, bringing great trade, alphabetic writing and eventually the founding of the first example of the polis, the city state that was to reach its greatest pitch with the establishment of Troy, Sparta and Athens. It is a story of Zeus, transformations, a dragon, snakes, a city and a marriage.

  The King of the Levantine city of Tyre, AGENOR (a son of Poseidon and Libya), and his Queen TELEPHASSA (a daughter of Nilus and the cloud nymph NEPHELE) had five children: a daughter, Europa, and four sons, CADMUS (or sometimes, in the more Greek spelling, KADMOS), CILIX, PHOENIX and THASOS.

  The children of Agenor were playing in a flower-filled meadow one afternoon when Europa wandered off and became separated from her brothers. Her eye had been caught by a beautiful white bull grazing in the long grass. As she approached, the animal lifted its head to look at her. Something in its gaze fascinated her. She moved closer. The bull’s breath was sweet and its nose soft and strokeable. She threaded garlands of flowers around its horns and ran her fingers through its thick, warmly inviting coat. Then, without quite knowing why, she lifted herself onto its back. She leaned forward and took a horn in each hand.

  ‘Oh, you beautiful thing,’ she breathed into its ear. ‘So strong and wise and kind.’

  With a toss of its huge head the animal started to trot forward. The trot soon became something close to a gallop. Europa laughed and urged him on.

  Cadmus and his younger brothers had been competing against each other to see who could throw a rock the greatest distance (Cadmus always won – he was an especially gifted thrower of stones, discuses and javelins). They turned just in time to watch their sister being carried out of sight on the back of a bull. They ran after it as fast as they could, but the bull possessed unbelievable speed. It seemed to the brothers, impossible as it must be, that the animal’s hoofs were no longer touching the ground.

  Panicking they called out Europa’s name and shouted to her to throw herself off, but she either didn’t hear or didn’t heed them. The bull rose higher and higher in the air until it had vanished from sight.

  Cadmus returned home and broke the news to his parents King Agenor and Queen Telephassa. Loud was the lamentation and great the recrimination.

  In the meantime, the white bull flew Europa further and further west from her home kingdom of Tyre, across the Mediterranean in the direction of the isles of Greece. Delighted and entirely unafraid, Europa laughed as first the ground flashed beneath her and then the sea. Europa was entranced. The journey was so remarkable that the whole landmass to the west of her homeland has been called Europe in her honour ever since.

  They didn’t stop until they reached the island of Crete where the bull revealed himself to be …

  … who else but Zeus?

  Whether it was Hera’s transformation of Io into a heifer that inspired him to take the shape of a bull we cannot know, but the trick seems to have worked, for Europa stayed happily on Crete for the rest of her life. She was to bear Zeus three sons, Minos, Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon – who went on after their deaths, you may recall, to become the Judges of the Underworld, weighing the lives of dead souls and allotting them their punishments and rewards accordingly.

  The Quest for Europa

  Back home in Tyre, Europa’s unhappy parents sent Cadmus and his three brothers to find their sister, with firm instructions not even to think of returning home without her.

  The Tyrians were already famous navigators and traders. Cadmus’s brother Phoenix (not to be confused with the mythical bird) would in time succeed Agenor as ruler of the kingdom, which he renamed Phoenicia after himself. The Phoenicians’ skill as merchants would bring them great wealth and prestige. They dealt in silks and spices from the far east, but it was the invention and propagation of the alphabet that gave them such an advantage over their neighbours and rivals. For the first time in human history any language could be written down according to its sound, which meant the Mediterranean coastline, including North Africa and the Middle East was able to communicate for the first time using symbols on papyrus, parchment, wax or pottery shards that could be spoken out loud.fn1 The marks on the page or screen that you are interpreting as you read now derive from that Phoenician alp
habet. And it was Cadmus who would take his people’s marvellous invention to Greece in the course of his long search for Europa.

  For years they travelled in vain. For some reason, perhaps an unseen divine influence, Crete seems to have been the one place they failed to search. The island that they alighted on for the longest time was Samothrace, far in the northern Aegean. On Samothrace there lived a Pleiad called ELECTRA.fn2 The Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, were (if you recall) daughters of Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione. By Zeus, this Electra had given birth to two sons, DARDANUSfn3 and IASION, as well as a daughter, HARMONIA.fn4 Cadmus was immediately captivated by Harmonia’s beauty and sweet, placid manner and took her with him on his quest. How willing she was at first is not certain, but the pair left Samothrace and headed for mainland Greece – ostensibly in search of Europa, but really, as far as Cadmus was concerned, in search of a greater purpose.

  The Oracle Speaks

  Cadmus is often called ‘the First Hero’. If you care to do the arithmetic you will see that he was a fifth-generation being, of equally human and divine parentage. He could trace his line back to the very beginnings of life through his paternal grandfather Poseidon, whose father was Kronos, son of Ouranos. Through his grandmother Libya he was descended from Inachus, adding a quantity of royal human blood to course through his veins. He had the restlessness and wanderlust that marks the hero, as well as the required measures of courage, confidence and self-belief. Poseidon was fond of his grandson, as was natural, but it was Athena who looked upon him with the greatest favour, especially now that he had allied himself to Harmonia, who was one of Athena’s most devoted followers.

  Just as Cadmus’s brother Thasos had settled a smaller nearby island, called Thasos, and Phoenix had given his name to the Phoenician kingdom, so the third of Cadmus’s brothers, Cilix, now abandoned the quest for Europa, returning east to Asia Minor to establish his own kingdom, which he called Cilicia.fn5

  With Harmonia by his side and a large retinue of loyal followers from Tyre in attendance upon them both, Cadmus headed for Delphi to consult the oracle. He knew in his bones, as all heroes do, that he was destined for greatness, but he did not know quite where his future lay; and he still needed guidance in the matter of his search for the lost Europa.

  You already know enough about oracles to be unsurprised by the eccentricity of the Pythia’s response.

  ‘Cadmus, son of Agenor, son of Poseidon,’ she chanted. ‘Cast aside the quest for your sister and follow instead the heifer marked with the half moon. Follow the cow until it drops down exhausted. Where it falls, there must you build.’

  ‘Build what?’

  ‘Farewell, Cadmus, son of Agenor, son of Poseidon.’

  ‘What cow? I see no cow.’

  ‘Where the cow falls, there must Cadmus, son of Agenor, son of Poseidon, build.’

  ‘Yes, but this cow …’

  ‘The heifer with the half moon will help Harmonia and her hero, son of Agenor, son of Poseidon.’

  ‘Look here …’

  ‘Farewe-e-e-e-ll …’

  Cadmus and Harmonia looked at each other, shrugged and quit Delphi with their retinue of loyal Tyrians. It was possible that a cow really would materialize magically before them, or perhaps some celestial messenger might appear to guide them to such an animal. In the meantime, they might as well look around.

  Now, Delphi and its oracle, stadium and temples are situated in the area of Greece called Phocis. The King of Phocis, PELAGON, hearing that Harmonia and Cadmus – by now famous throughout the land because of his gift of the alphabet – were in the area, sent out messengers to invite them to stay as his guests of honour at the royal palace. It was an invitation the travel-strained pair and their hungry retinue were only too pleased to accept.

  The Phocian Games

  Three days of feasting and revelry in their honour had passed agreeably and uneventfully when Cadmus and Harmonia, taking an evening walk about the palace gardens between banquets, found their way stopped by Pelagon’s father, AMPHIDAMAS.

  ‘I had a dream,’ said Amphidamas, coming close to the couple and breathing the fumes of honey-wine all over them, ‘in which you, Cadmus, ran races, hurled javelins, threw discuses and won the greatest prize the world has ever seen. Now, my son Pelagon inaugurates the Phocian Games tomorrow. A little local meeting, but dreams are dreams and have a purpose. When does Morpheus ever lie? My advice is that you enter.’ With a benevolent hiccup, he tottered away.

  ‘Well now,’ said Cadmus, putting an arm about Harmonia’s waist and gazing wistfully up at the moon. ‘Why not? The man has not yet been born who can throw a discus or a javelin as far as I can. And I believe I’m pretty swift around the track too.’

  ‘My hero!’ sighed Harmonia, burying her head on his chest. She did this not in worshipful admiration but to muffle her laughter – she found the men’s vanity when it came to physical prowess endlessly amusing.

  The competition against which Cadmus pitted himself next day consisted chiefly of puny local youths and pot-bellied palace guards. When he sent the discus right out of the palace grounds with his first throw, a servant had to be sent to fetch it and the crowd cheered. By the end of the afternoon Cadmus had won every event. Harmonia glared at the women and girls who blew him kisses and threw flowers at his feet.

  Pelagon, who was not a rich monarch, sent his chamberlain in search of a suitable prize for his noble victor ludorum.

  ‘People of Phocis,’ cried the king, placing a hastily plaited crown of olive leaves on Cadmus’s brow, ‘behold your champion, our honoured guest Prince Cadmus of Tyre. And here comes a prize worthy of his great speed and strength and grace.’

  A loud cheer went up, which fell into a puzzled silence as the palace chamberlain came through the crowd driving ahead of him a large cow. The silence bubbled into a titter and the titter burst into outright laughter. The cow chewed its cud, lifted its tail and sent out a liquid spatter of dung from its rear. The crowd hooted with derision.

  Pelagon turned scarlet. His father Amphidamas said to Cadmus with a wink, ‘Oh well. Morpheus can’t be right all the time, hey?’

  But Harmonia nudged Cadmus in great excitement. ‘Look,’ she breathed, ‘look, Cadmus, look!’

  Cadmus saw at once what had attracted her attention. On the cow’s back was a mark in the shape of a half moon. There was no other way to describe it. A clear half moon!

  Pelagon was murmuring something unconvincing in his ear about the animal’s pedigree and high milk yield, but Cadmus interrupted him.

  ‘Your majesty could not have found a more marvellous and welcome prize! I am overcome with delight and gratitude.’

  ‘You are?’ said a faintly stunned Pelagon.

  The chamberlain was so astonished to hear this that he dropped the switch of willow with which he had been slapping the beast towards the winner’s rostrum. It took perhaps thirty seconds for the heifer to become aware that the stinging smack was no longer there to force her on, so she turned and started to amble away.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Cadmus jumping from the rostrum and helping Harmonia down after him. ‘It really is the perfect present. Just exactly what we wanted …’

  The cow made its way through the crowd. Cadmus and Harmonia, their backs to the royal party, began to follow. Over his shoulder Cadmus called back to the king, stammering out thanks and incoherent courtesies.

  ‘Your majesty will excuse us … such a wonderful stay … so grateful for your hospitality … excellent food, marvellous entertainment … most kind … er … farewell …’

  ‘So grateful,’ repeated Harmonia. ‘We’ll never forget it. Never. The loveliest heifer! Goodbye.’

  ‘B-but! What? I mean …?’ said Pelagon, puzzled by this swift and sudden leave-taking. ‘I thought you were staying another night?’

  ‘No time. Come, men. With us!’ cried Cadmus, summoning his retinue of Tyrian servants, men-at-arms, camp-followers and attendants. Buckling up their armour on the run, dropping fo
od and kissing farewell to new acquaintances they caught up with Cadmus, Harmonia and the cow.

  ‘Mad,’ said Amphidamas, watching the plume of dust spiral upwards in the distance as Cadmus’s ragtag army disappeared from view. ‘Quite mad. Said so from the first.’

  The Water Dragon

  For three days and three nights Cadmus, Harmonia and their train of loyal Tyrians followed the heifer with the half-moon markings as it lumbered up and down hills, through meadows, over fields and across streams. They seemed to be travelling in a southeasterly direction towards the province of Boeotia.fn6

  Harmonia believed that the heifer might turn out to be Europa herself. After all, in ravishing her Zeus had transformed himself into a bull, so why mightn’t she have taken bovine form too? Cadmus, hypnotized by the rhythmic swaying of the cow’s broad posterior, was more inclined to think that the whole thing was a cruel hoax sent to perplex him.

  Quite suddenly, after descending a steep hill and arriving at the edge of a wide plain, the heifer sank heavily down and gave vent to an exhausted groan.

  ‘Good lord,’ said Cadmus.

  ‘Just as the oracle prophesied!’ cried Harmonia. ‘What did the Pythia say? “Where the cow falls, there must you build.” So.’

  ‘So?’ said Cadmus, irked. ‘What do you mean, “So”? Build? Build what? Build how?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Harmonia. ‘Let’s sacrifice the cow to Pallas Athena. The poor thing’s almost dead anyway. Athena will guide us.’

  Cadmus agreed and elected to pitch a primitive kind of camp right there. So that he could properly purify the sacrifice he sent some of his men to fetch water from a nearby spring.

  Cadmus slit the cow’s throat and was just sprinkling its blood on a makeshift altar bedecked with wild flowers and burnt sage when one of the Tyrians returned in the most pitiable state of distress, bearing awful news. A dragon, in the grotesque form of a giant water serpent, guarded the spring. It had already killed four men, constricting them in its coils and biting off their heads with its enormous jaws. What could be done?