Mythos (2019 Re-Issue)

by Stephen Fry

  “Don’t do that, dear,” says Hera.

  But Zeus isn’t listening. He has had an idea.

  39. Hospitality, or xenia, was so extraordinarily esteemed in the Greek world that Hestia shared the care of it with Zeus himself, who was on occasion given the name Zeus Xenios. Sometimes the gods tested human “guest friendship,” as we shall see in the story of Philemon and Baucis. This was known as theoxenia. Xenophobes, of course, do not extend the hand of friendship to strangers . . .

  40. You will sometimes see the name DIS (a Latin word for “rich”) used for him or his Judeo-Christian descendant, LUCIFER. Dante in his Inferno called the city of hell Dis. Today only cryptic crossword setters use the name with any frequency.

  41. Or “dwarf planet” as it is now disrespectfully designated. The moons of Pluto are Styx, Nyx (or Nix), Charon, Kerberos, and Hydra.

  42. Which is strange, as naiads, of course, were freshwater nymphs, unlike the salty Nereids and Oceanids. Perhaps the astronomers in this case failed to consult a classicist before allocating names.

  43. Proteus, the shape-shifting Old Man of the Sea, herded sea-beasts and knew much. To get information from him you had to wrestle him, which was tricky as he could quickly and frustratingly change himself into any number of new shapes—from lizard to leopard, from dolphin to dormouse. From this slippery ability we get the word “protean.”

  44. Not to be confused with ARION the singer-songwriter, whom we will meet later.

  45. De-meter is often translated as “barley mother” or “corn mother,” although it is now thought more likely that it originally signified “earth mother,” showing just how thoroughly Zeus’s generation of gods had wrested the reins from Gaia.

  46. Anagrammatically “Rhea” does indeed come out of “Hera”; at least so I hear, but we won’t chase that hare.

  47. We shouldn’t forget that Gaia is a planet too: she is our home world. Latinized as Tellus or Terra Mater she is Saxonized for us as “Earth” (cognate with the Germanic goddess Erde, Erda, Joeth, or Urd).

  48. I would suggest that Marie Dressler, Lady Bracknell, and Aunt Agatha, to name three great examples, can all trace their lineage back to Hera.

  49. Since Zeus took that decision, the number twelve seems to have taken on important properties. It is divisible by two, three, four, and six of course, making it twice as composite as the stupid number ten. The dozen can still be seen around us in the Zodiac, the day’s hours, in months and inches, and pennies (well, when I was a boy, it was twelve pennies to the shilling, anyway) not to mention the Tribes of Israel, Disciples of Jesus, Days of Christmas, and the Asian twelve-year cycle. It’s a duodecimal world.

  50. The gods were—if you think it through—Aphrodite’s nephews and nieces. They were born of Kronos and she was the direct issue of the ejaculate of Ouranos.

  51. An important principal is demonstrated here, one that we will encounter many times. No god can undo the spells, transformations, curses, or enchantments of another.

  52. Vulcan the planet and its people—notably Commander Spock—are not connected, so far as I can establish. The Romans sometimes referred to Vulcan as MULCIBER, smelter, in recognition either of his power to soften metal for working or his ability to soothe the anger of volcanoes.

  53. The Greeks still add pine resin to wine, call it retsina, and offer it to visitors. No one knows why a normally kind and hospitable people should do such a thing. It tastes like what it essentially is, the kind of turpentine artists use to thin their oil paints. I love it.

  54. Of course, this is not the last time we shall witness Zeus playing with oaths and wriggling out of commitments.

  55. Or Cos, home of the type of romaine lettuce that bears its name and is one of the essential ingredients of a Caesar salad.

  56. Actually the gods did not have blood in their veins but a beautiful silvery-gold liquid called ICHOR. It was a paradoxical fluid because, while it retained all the eternal life-giving qualities of ambrosia and nectar, it was lethally and instantaneously poisonous to mortals.

  57. Also Athene—there doesn’t seem to be any shade of meaning attached to the variant spelling.

  58. Sea power, and the trade that it allowed, was to be the saving of Athens (it won them a startling victory over the Persians at Salamis). But the cultivation of the olive and the other crafts, arts, and techniques that were the domain of Athena were arguably of even greater importance.

  59. Besides her armor, Athena was always depicted with an AEGIS. No one is quite agreed as to precisely what an aegis looked like. It is sometimes described as an animal skin (originally goat: aiga is a word for “goat” in Greek), though pelts of lion or leopard can later be seen in sculpture and ceramic representations. Zeus’s aegis is generally held to have been a shield, perhaps covered with goatskin and often showing the face of a Gorgon. Human kings and emperors keen to suggest semi-divine status would throw an aegis over their shoulders as a mark of their right to rule. The word these days suggests a badge of leadership or authority. Acts are performed and proclamations made “under the aegis” of such and such a person, principle, or institution.

  60. Parthenos, the Greek word for virgin, was often attached to her name—hence “the Parthenon,” her temple on the Acropolis.

  61. We are permitted the use of that tired word here—it is Greek after all and allows us to picture Zeus as embued with the grace of the Charites.

  62. I looked it up in a thesaurus and was offered: “unassuming, meek, mild, reserved, retiring, quiet, shy, bashful, diffident, reticent, timid, shrinking, coy; decorous, decent, seemly, ladylike, respectable, proper, virtuous, pure, innocent, chaste; sober, sedate, staid, prim, goody-goody, straitlaced.” I don’t suppose many women would jump up and down in delight if those words were used of them.

  63. In today’s Thrace, bounded by Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey.

  64. Aphrodite and Athena, who equalled her in beauty, were neither of them in the strict sense born, so the claim is good.

  65. Why Apollo turned the raven black, and why the laurel also became sacred to him, we shall discover later on.

  66. Along with the regular Nemean and Isthmian Games, the Pythian and Olympic meetings made up the four so-called “Panhellenic Games.” The prizes do not really compare with today’s lucrative purses and endorsements. An olive wreath for the winners of the Olympics, laurel for the Pythian, pine for the Isthmian, and—most thrilling of all—wild celery for the lucky victor of the Nemean Games.

  67. The name “Delphi” is thought to derive from delphys, meaning “womb.” Of course it might be from adelphi, which means “siblings” (because they come from the same womb). So perhaps the sacred place is named after Apollo the twin, perhaps after the womb of Gaia. There is another theory that suggests Apollo arrived at Pytho on a dolphin, delphis in Greek. A dolphin is, after all, a fish with a womb. But how he could have traveled so far over land on a dolphin I can’t quite say.

  68. When the Pythia prophesied, she was possessed by the god Apollo, the Titaness Themis, or the goddess Gaia. Or perhaps all three. The Greek for “divine possession” is enthusiasmos—enthusiasm. To be enthused or enthusiastic is to be “engodded,” to be divinely inspired.

  69. Some say that steam hissed out from the subterranean Castalian spring, which delighted the local goats, apparently. Perhaps this reminded people of a dolphin’s blowhole, offering yet another explanation for the change of the name from Pytho to Delphi. Castalia, incidentally, is the name of the future world in Hermann Hesse’s novel The Glass Bead Game.

  70. Today’s Mount Kyllini.

  71. Hermes’ natty headgear is known as the petasus. His staff, the kerykeion—or caduceus to the Romans—often appears as a worldwide symbol of medicine and ambulances, either as an alternative to or a confusion with the staff of ASCLEPIUS (of whom, more later).

  72. Medieval and Renaissance alchemists called him Hermes Trismegistus (Hermes the Thrice Majestic). Since he is said to have been able magically to se
al glass tubes, chests, and boxes, a seventeenth-century invention called the Magdeburg Hemispheres (which employed the power of atmospheric pressure and a vacuum to create an incredibly strong seal) was described as “hermetically sealed,” a phrase still much in use today.

  73. This is its modern name—meaning literally “large kettles”—and to this day a rewarding sight for mountaineers who dare scale the heights of Olympus.

  74. It was either the action of the Hecatonchires or of glacial moraines. No one can say for absolute certain.

  THE TOYS OF ZEUS

  Part One

  PROMETHEUS

  I have mentioned Prometheus, son of Iapetus and Clymene, before. This farsighted young Titan had all the attributes that charm. He was strong, almost distressingly good-looking, faithful, loyal, discreet, modest, humorous, considerate, well mannered, and altogether the most engaging and captivating company. Everybody liked him, but Zeus liked him best. When Zeus’s packed schedule allowed, the pair would go rambling over the countryside together, talking of everything and nothing—of fortune, friendship, and family, of war and destiny, and of many silly and inconsequential things besides, as friends will.

  In the days leading up to the inauguration of the dodecatheon, Prometheus—who was as fond of Zeus as Zeus was of him—had begun to notice a change in his friend. The god seemed moody and irritable, less inclined to go for walks, less silly and playful, and more prone to sulks and outbursts of petulance that were unworthy of the kingly, humorous, and self-controlled god that Prometheus knew and loved. He put it down to nerves and kept out of his way.

  One morning, a week or so following the great ceremony, Prometheus, who had taken to sleeping in the long grass somewhere in the fragrant meadows of Thrace, felt himself being jerked awake by a persistent tweaking of his toes. He opened his eyes to see a lively and rejuvenated King of the Gods bouncing up and down in front of him like an impatient child on their birthday morning. The gloom had melted away like mist from a mountaintop, and all the signature joviality had returned tenfold.

  “Up, Prometheus! Up and at ’em!”

  “Hwuh?”

  “We’re going to do something remarkable today, something that the world will shout about for eons. It will ring down the ages, it will be the—”

  “Hunting for bears, are we?”

  “Bears? I have had the most extraordinary idea. Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Zeus gave no answer, but putting an arm round Prometheus he led him forcefully across the fields in a silence punctuated only by occasional barks of excited laughter. If Prometheus hadn’t known his friend better he might have thought him drunk on nectar.

  “This idea,” he prompted. “Perhaps you could start at the beginning?”

  “Good, yes. The beginning. That’s right. The beginning is exactly where we should start. Sit there.” Zeus indicated a fallen tree and paced up and down while Prometheus inspected the bark for ants before seating himself. “Now. Consider how everything began. En arche en Chaos. In the beginning was Chaos. Out of Chaos came the First Order—Erebus, Nyx, Hemera, and their generation—followed by the Second Order, our grandparents Gaia and Ouranos, yes?”

  Prometheus gave a cautious nod.

  “Gaia and Ouranos, who then unleashed upon creation the catastrophic aberration of you people, the Titans—”

  “Hey!”

  “—and next came all those nymphs and spirits, endless minor deities and monsters and animals and what have you, and finally the culmination. Us. The gods. Heaven and earth perfected.”

  “After a long and bloody war against my race. Which I helped you win.”

  “Yes, yes. But the end result—all is well. Peace and prosperity have broken out everywhere. And yet . . .”

  Zeus left such a long silence that Prometheus felt obliged to break it.

  “You surely can’t mean that you miss the war?”

  “No, it’s not that . . .” Zeus continued pacing up and down in front of Prometheus, like a teacher lecturing a class of one. “You must have noticed I’ve been out of sorts lately. I’ll tell you why. You know how sometimes I like to soar over the world in the form of an eagle?”

  “Scouting for nymphs.”

  “This world,” Zeus went on, affecting not to hear, “is quite extraordinarily beautiful. Everything in its place—rivers, mountains, birds, beasts, oceans, groves, plains, and canyons . . . But you know, when I look down, I find myself sorrowing at how empty it is.”

  “Empty?”

  “Oh Prometheus, you have absolutely no idea how boring it is to be a god in a complete and finished world.”

  “Boring?”

  “Yes, boring. For some time I’ve realized that I’m bored and I’m lonely. I mean ‘lonely’ in the larger sense. In the cosmic sense. I am cosmically lonely. Is this how it’s going to be forever and ever now? Me on a throne on Olympus, thunderbolt on lap, while everyone bows and scrapes, sings praises, and begs favors? In perpetuity. Where’s the fun in that?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Be honest, you’d hate it too.”

  Prometheus compressed his lips and thought for a while. It was true that he had never envied his friend the imperial throne and all its bothers and burdens.

  “Suppose,” said Zeus, “suppose I were to start a new race.”

  “In the Pythian Games?”

  “No, not a running race. A race as in a species. A new order of beings. Like us in every particular, upright, on two legs—”

  “One head?”

  “One head. Two hands. Resembling us in every particular, and they would have—you’re the intellectual, Prometheus, what’s the name for that aspect of us that raises us above the animals?”

  “Our hands?”

  “No, the part that tells us that we exist, that makes us aware of ourselves?”

  “Consciousness.”

  “That’s the one. These creatures would have consciousness. And language. They wouldn’t be a threat to us, of course. They’d live down here on the land, use their wit to farm and feed and fend for themselves.”

  “So . . .” Prometheus frowned in concentration as he tried to form a coherent picture in his mind. “A race of beings like us?”

  “Exactly! But not as big as us. And they’d be my creation. Well, our creation.”

  “Our creation?”

  “You’re good with your hands. Another Hephaestus. My idea is that you would model these creatures out of . . . out of clay, for example. They should be shaped in our image, anatomically correct in every detail, but on a smaller scale. Then we could animate them, give them life, replicate them, and release them into nature to see what happens.”

  Prometheus pondered this idea.

  “Would we engage with them, speak to them, move about with them?”

  “That would be exactly the point. To have an intelligent—well, semi-intelligent—species to praise and worship us, to play with us and amuse us. A subservient, adoring race of little miniatures.”

  “Male and female?”

  “Oh, good heavens no, just male. You can imagine what Hera would say otherwise . . .”

  Prometheus could indeed imagine what Hera’s reaction might be if the world were suddenly filled with more females for her errant husband to involve himself with. He saw that Zeus was very excited by his grand scheme. Once he was set upon a course, Prometheus knew, even one as novel and strange as this, not even the Hecatonchires and Gigantes combined could sway his friend from it.

  Not that Prometheus was against the idea. It was an exciting experiment, he decided. Playthings for the immortals. When you came to think of it, it was really rather an enchanting notion. Artemis had her hounds, Aphrodite her doves, Athena her owl and serpent, Poseidon and Amphitrite their dolphins and turtles. Even Hades kept a dog—albeit a perfectly disgusting one. It was only fitting that the chief of gods should design his own special kind of pet, more intelligent, loyal, and endearing than the others.

>   KNEADING AND FIRING

  History does not agree on exactly where Prometheus and Zeus went to find the best clay for realizing the plan. Early sources, like the traveler Pausanias in the second century a.d., claimed that Panopeus in Phocis was the place. Later scholars say that the pair journeyed east of Asia Minor, all the way down to the fertile lands that lie between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates.75 The most recent scholarship maintains that the search took them right down past Nilus, crossing the Equator and ending up in East Africa.

  Wherever it was, they found at last what Prometheus pronounced to be the perfect spot: a river whose slimy banks oozed with just the kind of mud and minerals he wanted for consistency, texture, durability, and color.

  “This is good clay,” he told Zeus. “No, don’t settle down. I need to work in peace and free of all distraction. But before you go I shall require some of your saliva.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “If these creatures are to live and breathe they will need something of you in the composition.”

  Zeus saw the justice of this and was happy enough to hawk up and fill a dried out waterhole with his divine spittle.

  “I’ll need to line up my little clay figures one by one on the riverbank to be baked in the heat of the sun,” said Prometheus. “So be back by evenfall and they should be nicely ready.”

  Zeus would have liked to watch, but he knew enough about the artistic temperament to leave Prometheus to it. Leaping upward in the form of an eagle he flew away, leaving his friend alone with his art.

  Prometheus began tentatively, first rolling out sausages of clay, each roughly four podes long.76 On top of these he stuck a ball of spit-moistened clay for a head. It was then a question of teasing, twisting, and tweaking, mushing, molding, and massaging, pulling, prizing, and pinching, until something like a small version of a god or Titan appeared. The more he worked, the more excited he became. Zeus had not been exaggerating when he compared Prometheus to Hephaestus—he did possess real skill. In fact what he exhibited now as he pressed and shaped was more than skill, it was artistry.