Alone in old Cronus’s throne-room, Hera looked out on the night. Her fury was undiminished; she burned with anger against Zeus. Never would she accept him. She would remain a virgin for all eternity, and shine barrenly in a lonely sky.
She sighed and leaned against the cracked and crumbling casement. Suddenly she heard a faint, melancholy sound. She started – and smiled. It was a cuckoo, somehow lost high on the granite mountain. Softly she called to it, and the little bird came fluttering to her hand. It was thin and wretched-looking, with feathers awry. It seemed to have flown a great way in search of a nest.
‘Come, little bird,’ murmured the goddess. ‘You and I will share our loneliness in this high place. Come – here is a nest.’
She took the bird tenderly, and warmed it in her bosom—
She cried out! She struggled . . . even fought! But it was too late. She had been deceived. The air was full of golden laughter as Zeus resumed his godlike shape. ‘You shall be my wife, Hera!’ he whispered triumphantly, and held her in arms from which there was no escaping. So Hera gave up the unequal contest, and gazed at the great god with deep, prophetic eyes.
Now the night took on a velvet darkness such as no night has known before or since. It was a curious, soft darkness that seemed to ease the world. There was nothing frightening about this darkness, yet it was full of mystery and strange, subtle noises. There was gentle laughter everywhere – and sudden, tender moans that dissolved into sighs and murmurings . . .
Nor did this strange night give way to day as other nights had done. It lingered and drifted on and on as Zeus and Hera, on the mountain top, embraced in this, their vast bridal night. At last it was the sun who wearied of waiting and crept up over the mountain to shine on the green and golden world. Then Zeus and Hera rose and returned to Mount Olympus, king and queen of the sky.
Immortal Zeus had conquered; but Hera walked the courtyards of heaven with a still prouder air than his. She was with child.
Often Hera talked with her sisters of the glorious infant that was growing within her; of how it stirred as if with longing for its immortal destiny. Sometimes she smiled as she remembered the passion of Zeus and of how he had drawn out the night so he might enjoy her infinite charms. Not Zeus but Hera had conquered; and the witness of her conquest was the child she carried, the child it had taken so enormous a night to make.
Then at last her labour began, and it was as tremendous as the child’s begetting. Hera’s cries rent the sky and all creation waited. At last there came one mighty shout of joy; the child was born!
The shout was heard in the woods and fields where Goat-Pan and his nymphs paused and smiled. It was heard in the dark underworld where grim Hades sighed. It was heard beneath the sea where Poseidon harnessed his brazen-hoofed horses and yoked them to his chariot of gold. Then all the gods mounted up to Olympus to honour Hera, mother of the new-born god.
She lay back with closed eyes and the infant hidden at her breast. She heard the immortals coming; the chamber was filled with strange perfumes and the murmur of expectation.
She opened her eyes. ‘Behold!’ she cried. ‘Behold the child of Hera and Zeus!’ She lifted the babe from her breast and held it up for the gods to wonder at.
Silence. Their wreathed faces seemed touched with stone. They were staring; their golden eyes were crooked. What was wrong? Uneasily, royal Hera turned the child about and looked on it for the first time. She caught her breath. The pain, like a vulture’s beak, tore at her breast as her proud heart cracked.
The child was hideous. The mighty passion of the king and queen of Heaven had brought forth a misshapen monster.
She groaned and the sound was terrible. Then she rose from her childbed and went towards the arched casement, her eyes blazing with savage tears. She lifted up the tiny creature and, after a single kiss, hurled it out into the sky. It glittered in the wide clear blue, seeming to hesitate a moment as if it would fly back; then it began to fall and fall, its shrieks and screams diminishing as it dropped down, down, down towards the sea.
FOUR
THE SPRINGTIME OF THE GODS
There was a silence under the sea. Thetis and Eurynome stared at the god they had saved, who crouched against the cold, rough wall like some tormented memory, frozen in its ugliness.
Suddenly there was a sound of something dropped. Thetis gave a cry of dismay. The brooch – the marvellous brooch had fallen from Hephaestus’s hand. Now it lay on the grotto’s floor. A piece had broken away. The little coral sea-nymph had been snapped off. Only her lover remained. Legs bent as he’d once straddled her and arms emptily outstretched, he resembled Hephaestus himself, limping, yearning after a broken dream.
Even as the goddess watched, a finger of the sea foamed across the floor and covered the nymph. Then it drew back and the wondrous thing was gone.
‘Would you have saved me, Thetis,’ muttered Hephaestus, ‘had you known that my own mother had flung me from the sky?’
‘I – I—’ whispered Thetis, and then her words were lost in a wild bellow of rage and hate and pain, as the outcast child cursed his mighty mother. He beat the walls till the rock flaked and crumbled and his blistered hands hung in tatters. Then, little by little, his roaring grew quieter till it was no more than harsh groaning sighs.
‘What will you do, Hephaestus,’ muttered Eurynome, ‘now that you know all?’
The god raised his head and stared up, up to the grotto’s roof. His face, all seamed and scalded with tears, resembled that part of a furnace where the flames have reached their utmost fury and take on the aspect of eyes, nostrils and shuddering mouth.
‘I will return. I will tear their mountain from the sky. I will—’
‘Look! Look!’ Thetis was staring through the crystal window. There was a disturbance in the sea. The ferns were bending as before an underwater wind; and the sea-forests trembled as multitudes of gleaming sea-nymphs and curious monsters rose up and fled. All the green world was in a commotion, and amid the bubbled currents swirled brief sparklings of white and gold.
Suddenly, the window was obscured. A massive shape of white and crinkled bronze was pressed against the crystal. It was too huge for its form to be seen entire. But it was curved and a fine downy hair seemed to dust it and dance in the swirling sea. Then it was gone.
‘What was it, Thetis?’
‘It was the little finger of Poseidon, child. And he is only the brother of Zeus. Do you still hope for revenge?’
Above the grotto the great sea rolled and rolled, so that, under the sun, its silken coverlet seemed to heave with unquiet dreams. But they were secret, and not even the waves that ceaselessly uncurled on the quiet sands betrayed what lay within.
The child that had fallen from the sky was forgotten as if he had never been. The gods looked down from Olympus and the sea looked up and gave them back only their own image. Proud and gleaming, the immortal mountain soared among the clouds.
It was the Cyclopes who built Olympus, in gratitude to the gods who’d freed them. Sweating under the sun, they raised the walls, set the roofs and paved the courts and avenues with gold and bronze. No mortar had been used but weight had answered weight so that trued and polished stones seemed mortared with air and had an aspect of soaring lightness, despite their eternal strength. And lest the imprisoned Titans should rise again, the Cyclopes stocked an armoury for Zeus of racked thunderbolts and two great silver bows, each with its quiver of sudden arrows winged with black.
From this colonnaded watchtower of the universe, the gods observed the quickening earth below. Goat-Pan hard at play with the nymphs had peopled the woods and glades of Arcadia with creatures not unlike himself. And these little guzzling Pans had leaped aboard each other and got stranger creatures still: rams and goats, deer and lions, queer spotted cats and snuffling boars that blundered tuskily in search of beds, enemies and truffles . . .
The gods laughed – and pricked them on: then Zeus saw lovely Leto, a Titan’s daughter, walking by a lak
e. At once there was a wind in heaven and a fiery light; and out of its eye flew a quail. Down sped the transfigured god, down to pensive Leto. With amorous screeches he flew at her again and again and, in a white passion of wings, quenched his restless heat.
But Hera had seen him, and when he returned in his smiling, god-like shape, he was not well met. Savagely, she turned on him for spending his seed on all but her. Then the queen of Heaven, in her black and scarlet robes, leaned out over the world; and presently down the mountain’s steeps there writhed a huge, malevolent serpent. Through field and forest the monster glided, in pursuit of Leto, Hera’s rival – for the Titan’s daughter was already quick with child.
Leto’s flight had begun, and the sound of her running feet and panting breath echoed across night and day. Wherever she rested, wherever she paused to drink or to crouch in some obscure shade, she heard the harsh scaly rustle and the venomous hiss of her pursuer. Her pace grew slower as the burden she carried grew greater and dragged her down.
At last she came to Delos and, in her extremity of fear and pain, stumbled into a cave. Her time was at hand.
With merciless eyes, Hera still watched from her Olympian chamber as her serpent coiled and nuzzled towards the cave. Beside her watched all-powerful Zeus.
‘Why do you quail, great Zeus?’
The god withdrew his eyes as the monster, ever obedient to Hera’s will, writhed and twisted at the entrance of Leto’s cave.
‘Why talk of quails, Hera? Do you not remember a cuckoo?’
Great Hera turned; and the serpent faltered and looped aimlessly in the grass.
Zeus laid a golden arm about Hera’s white shoulders; drew her back towards the couch. The serpent hissed; its purpose was blinded.
The queen of Heaven smiled as Zeus’s passionate face usurped the sky . . .
The serpent moaned; its coils grew langorous; it slid away from the entrance to Leto’s cave.
Presently there was a cry; it came from the darkness of the cave. It was a cry of sudden pain. Then came another, lower, sweeter, a cry of joy. Momentarily on high Olympus Zeus raised his head.
‘What troubles you?’ murmured Hera.
The father of the gods made no answer. Instead, he shook his head; and laughed triumphantly.
Far, far below, the surface of the sea broke up into a million ripples as if it would let the great god’s laughter in. Then the ripples died and the waters resumed their desolate heaving as if some forgotten god in their depths was beating his fists against blind walls, knowing himself to have been doubly betrayed.
The sea-nymphs shuddered and clapped their hands to their ears; and the towered crabs clambered crazily away. As they went, they pincered up the delicate rubble of the ocean’s floor: forsaken shells, green pebbles, and a curious piece of coral that resembled a nymph. On and on it went, now dropped, now caught up again; but always moving towards a certain shore . . .
There was once a nursery on Mount Olympus, where the Muses taught the children of the wayward nymphs. Some were quick, some were sluggish, some were as careless as their mothers. But there were two who were none of these: a strange brother and sister of surpassing beauty, who learned as if they remembered, and whose eyes in their moments of dreaming turned always to the moon and sun.
From time to time the nymphs would come to claim their children and carry them off with amazement and delight. But none came to claim this brother and sister. Only a sadly beautiful Titan’s daughter would sometimes wander through the glades and watch them at their glittering play.
At last Leto could endure it no longer. She stepped from her concealment and caught the children in her arms. She covered them with tears and kisses and bade them seek their father and claim a birthright from him.
‘Who is our father?’
Leto shook her head. Her eyes were filled with pain and fear.
‘How will we know him? Where will we find him?’
‘On the high mountain. Go, go.’
So the brother and sister set forth and travelled till they reached the foot of the mountain whose glimmering peak dissolved in the clouds. Hand in hand they climbed through the forests, crossed the streams and mounted the frowning face of the rock. As they moved, the sun touched them with fire, so that they seemed at times to be like two dancing flames, one silver, one gold. At last, they entered the region of clouds, where all was vague and undetermined.
These clouds were like curtains in which there were strange patterns, broken by shifting folds. Now they hid rock, now they swayed and opened out on measureless drops to the distant world below. But still the great pair climbed, upward and upward.
‘Brother, look!’ The last of the curtains had parted. A mighty palace hung before them. The doors were open, and a golden light blazed out.
‘Sister, here is our father!’
Zeus, king of the gods, stretched out both his mighty hands. ‘My children, welcome to your home. Ask what you will for your birthright.’
‘Father, we would have the moon and sun.’
Briefly Zeus paused; then he nodded, and all creation shook in assent.
Artemis and golden Apollo had come into their inheritance, and from the armoury of Olympus they took the tall silver bows and quivers of black-winged arrows; for they were young and delighted in sport.
Hera smiled. Her rage against Leto was over and done with. Once more the queen of Heaven was with child, and she was resolved to be calm. She had not forgotten the monstrous fruit of her huge bridal night. This time nothing must be allowed to curdle the child within.
So it grew and grew at its own vast pace. Time and Nature were then still young and loose in their dominion, and events were still fetched and carried according to their brightness and the will of the immortal gods.
Hera’s great calm spread over the universe like a canopy; and mighty Zeus took further advantage of it to welcome home another child.
Grave and lovely was this newcomer, yet with a touch of fierceness, too. Her limbs were straight, her brow was lofty and everywhere she went she kept an owl on her shoulder whose immense inquiring eyes set Hera’s nerves on edge. But the queen of Heaven kept calm . . .
At first, Zeus said the giant Pallas was the newcomer’s father; then, when gently pressed, admitted she was a child of Poseidon and a nymph. Poseidon denied it, so shining Zeus confessed to the still calm Hera that the new goddess had been born in a manner so remarkable that he’d hesitated to disturb her sacred pregnancy with so striking a tale.
He had been assailed by a violent headache as he’d walked by Lake Triton. Such a headache! He’d roared and raged – hadn’t Hera heard him?
No.
Then – then it was Prometheus, that good Titan, who’d come to his aid. At once clever Prometheus had seen what was amiss, and it was he who’d made a deep incision in Zeus’s temple – See! Is the scar still there? – and at once the goddess had sprung forth fully armed.
Hera stared at radiant Zeus. Then she looked at the grave fierce goddess and her owl. Wisely the newcomer held her tongue; so Hera shrugged her white shoulders and Athene, goddess of wisdom, was admitted to Olympus without more ado.
Almighty Zeus beamed; and stole another look at the ever-tempting world below. Sweet limbs shone and amorous eyes glittered from every glade and wood. So down he burned, again and again – sometimes as a bird, sometimes as a mist or shower of rain – or sometimes (though rarely), when the nymph of his instant need was not partial to showers or feathers, as his glorious self. And still Hera, cautious of the god within, kept calm.
So far and wide the great god ranged, plummeting now like a meteor, now like a dove. Scattered cries of laughter and amazement would rise up from the engrossing shadows where he’d plunged and where he was for a while out of sight of Olympus. But one pair of eyes always watched him. Heavy, bitter eyes. They were the eyes of the mountainous Titan, Atlas, who groaned under the burden of the sky. This mighty creature looked on the world he’d lost with envy and with pain. His
punishment was endless and made darker by the brightness that everywhere afflicted his eyes. He lived – if such a dreadful fate was part of living – for one thing alone. The only spark of pleasure in his dark heart was the sight of his child who still went free.
For Atlas had a daughter. Her name was Maia, and she lived in a cave in a sharp, blue mountain.
She was a maid of the mountains and stars. She sang as the water sings when it falls down the face of the rock, gathering in pools, lapping over and pursuing its lilting course till it dwindles into the green silence below. Her song was not unlike the song the nymphs once sang on Mount Ida, when Zeus was a tiny child. Or so Zeus fancied as he saw the naked Maia play. Pierced with sudden joy, the coursing god was halted. Briefly he faltered, hovered, then down he plunged, sideways to the wind.
Further to the south, great Atlas groaned. The aching weight on his shoulders gave way before the sharper weight on his heart. Helplessly he watched his daughter engulfed in his enemy’s fiery embrace. Try as he might, he could not close his eyes, but watched and watched till the lord of the sky was gone.
‘O Maia, my daughter, my child!’
FIVE
THE FIRST THIEF
There was a baby on the sharp blue mountain.
He was wrapped in soft skins and cradled in a leaf. He chuckled and gurgled and sometimes waved to the sun and the sky. Then Maia, his mother, would laugh and shake a finger, which he would seize as if he would steal it. So Maia would undo his fingers and sing to him the only song she knew. When at last he was sleeping, she left him to his dreams, with the mountain for his nurse.
For a moment she paused and looked back. She fancied the child had smiled – a curious, sidelong smile. Then she shook her head. It was not possible in one so young. She went on her way. Again she stopped. She thought she heard a sound of laughter, and quick plump feet. She shook her head once more. Some wild young mountain creature, not her darling new-born god.
The God Beneath the Sea Page 3
