Mythos (2019 Re-Issue)

by Stephen Fry

  And what was their final destination? It seems that this rather depended on the kind of life they had led. At first Hades himself was the arbiter, but in later years he delegated the Great Weighing Up to two sons of Zeus and EUROPA—MINOS and RHADAMANTHUS who, after their own deaths, were appointed, along with their half brother AEACUS, Judges of the Underworld. They decided whether an individual had lived a heroic, average, or punishably wicked life.87

  The heroes and those deemed exceedingly righteous (as well as the dead who had some divine blood in them) found themselves transported to the Elysian Fields, which lay somewhere on the archipelago known as the Fortunate Isles, or Isles of the Blessed. There is no real agreement as to where this might actually be. Perhaps they are what we now call the Canaries, perhaps the Azores, the Lesser Antilles, or even Bermuda.88 Later descriptions place the Elysian Fields within the kingdom of Hades itself.89 In these accounts souls who reincarnated three times, on each occasion leading a heroic, just, and virtuous life, then earned themselves a transfer from Elysium to the Isles of the Blessed.

  The blameless majority, whose lives were neither especially virtuous nor especially vicious, might expect to be parked for eternity in the Meadows of Asphodel, whose name derived from the white flowers that carpeted its fields. These souls were guaranteed a pleasant enough afterlife: Before they arrived they drank of the waters of forgetfulness from the River Lethe so that a blithe and bland eternity could be passed, untroubled by upsetting memories of earthly life.

  But the sinners—the debauched, blasphemous, wicked, and dissolute—what of them? The least of them flitted in the halls of Hades, eternally without feeling, strength, or any real consciousness of their existence, but the most profane and unpardonable were taken to the Fields of Punishment, which lay between the Meadows of Asphodel and the abysmal depths of Tartarus itself. Here tortures that fitted their crimes with diabolical exactness were inflicted on them for all eternity. We will meet some of the more celebrated of these sinners at a later date. Names like SISYPHUS, IXION, and TANTALUS still ring through the ages.

  While Homer describes the spirits of the departed as keeping the faces and appearance they had in life, alternative accounts tell of a hideous demon called EURYNOMOS who met the dead and, like the Furies, stripped the flesh from their bones. Other poets suggest that the souls of the underworld were capable of speech and given to relating their life stories to each other.

  Hades was the most jealous of all his jealous family. Not one soul could he bear to lose from his kingdom. Cerberus the three-headed dog patrolled the gates. Few, very few, heroes circumvented or duped Thanatos and Cerberus and managed to visit Hades’s realm and return alive to the world above.

  And so death became a constant in human life, as it remains to this day. But the world of the Silver Age, it should be understood, was very different from our own. Gods, demigods, and all kinds of immortals still walked amongst us. Intercourse of the personal, social, and sexual kind with the gods was as normal to men and women of the Silver Age as intercourse with machines and AI assistants is to us today. And, I dare say, a great deal more fun.

  PROMETHEUS BOUND

  With simmering fury Zeus watched the survival of Pyrrha and Deucalion and the rise of a new race of men and women from the stones of the earth. No one, not even the King of the Gods, could interfere with the will of Gaia. She represented an older, deeper, more permanent order than that of the Olympians, and Zeus knew that he was powerless to prevent the repopulation of the world. But he could at least turn his attention to Prometheus. The day dawned when Zeus decided the Titan should pay for his betrayal. He looked down from Olympus and saw him in Phocis, assisting in the laying out of a new town, meddling as ever in the affairs of men.

  Humankind had propagated in the twinkling of an immortal eye, which we would call the passage of several centuries. All this while Prometheus had, with titanic patience, encouraged the spread of civilization amongst Mankind 2.0—once again teaching people all the arts, crafts, and practices of agriculture, manufacture, and building.

  Adopting the form of an eagle, Zeus swooped down and perched on the timbers of a half-built temple that was to be dedicated to himself. Prometheus, who had been carving scenes from the life of the young Zeus into the pediment, looked up and knew at once that the bird was his old friend. Zeus assumed his proper shape and inspected the carving.

  “If that’s supposed to be Adamanthea with me there, you’ve got the proportions all wrong,” he said.

  “Artistic license,” said Prometheus, whose heart was beating fast. It was the first time the two had spoken since Prometheus stole the fire.

  “The time has come to pay for what you have done,” said Zeus. “Now, I could call up the Hecatonchires to carry you forcibly to your destination, or you can choose to bow to the inevitable and come without fuss.”

  Prometheus laid down his hammer and chisel and wiped his hands with a leather cloth. “Let’s go,” he said.

  They did not speak or pause for rest or refreshment until they reached the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, where the Black and Caspian Seas meet. Along the journey Zeus had wanted to say something, had longed to take his friend by the shoulder and embrace him. A weeping apology might have allowed him to forgive and make up. But Prometheus remained silent. Zeus’s stinging sense of being wronged and ill-used flared up anew. “Besides,” the god told himself, “great rulers cannot be seen to exhibit weakness, especially when it comes to betrayal by those close to them.”

  Prometheus shaded his eyes and looked up. He saw the three Cyclopes standing on a great sloping wall of rock that formed one side of the tallest mountain.

  “I know you’re good at climbing up the sides of mountains,” Zeus said with what he hoped was icy sarcasm, but which emerged even to his ears as something more like sulky muttering. “So climb.”

  When Prometheus reached the place where the Cyclopes were, they bound and fettered him and stretched him out on his back, hammering his shackles into the rock with mighty pegs of unbreakable iron. Two beautiful eagles swept down from the sky and glided close to Prometheus, blocking the sunlight. He could hear the hot wind ruffling their feathers.

  Zeus called up to him. “You will lie chained to this rock forever. There is no hope of escape or forgiveness, not in all perpetuity. Each day these eagles will come to tear out your liver, just as you tore out my heart. They will eat it in front of your eyes. Since you are immortal it will grow back every night. This torture will never end. Each day the agony will seem greater. You will have nothing but time in which to consider the enormity of your crime and the folly of your actions. You who were named ‘foresight’ showed none when you defied the King of the Gods.” Zeus’s voice rang from the canyons and ravines. “Well? Have you nothing to say?”

  Prometheus sighed. “You are wrong, Zeus,” he said. “I thought my actions through with great care. I weighed my comfort against the future of the race of man. I see now that they will flourish and prosper independently of any immortals, even you. Knowing that is balm for any pain.”

  Zeus stared at his former friend for a long time before speaking.

  “You are not worth eagles,” he said with an awful coldness. “Let them be vultures.”

  The two eagles immediately changed into rank, ugly vultures who circled the outstretched body once before falling upon it. Their razor-sharp talons sliced open the Titan’s side, and with hideous screeches of triumph they began to feast.

  Prometheus, mankind’s chief creator, advocate, and friend, taught us, stole for us, and sacrificed himself for us. We all possess our share of Promethean fire, without it we would not be human. It is right to pity and admire him but, unlike the jealous and selfish gods, he would never ask to be worshipped, praised, and adored.

  And it might make you happy to know that, despite the eternal punishment to which he was doomed, one day a hero would arise powerful enough to defy Zeus, unbind humanity’s champion, and set him free.

 
Zeus called to Prometheus: “You will lie chained to this rock forever. Each day these eagles will come to tear out your liver, just as you tore out my heart. Since you are immortal, it will grow back every night. This torture will never end.”

  78. It is a subtler name than that, for pan-dora can mean “all-giving” as well as “all-given.”

  79. It is said to have been Erasmus of all people, the great sixteenth-century scholar and Prince of Humanists, who misread Pandora’s pithos (jar) into pyxis (box).

  80. See Appendix, p. 314.

  81. Foresight, but not prophecy . . .

  82. Another English word for a werewolf is lycanthrope, Greek for “wolf-man.”

  83. According to Ovid at least. Other sources suggest Mount Etna or Mount Athos. Round about the same time Noah was landing on Mount Ararat. Archaeology confirms, it seems, that there really was a Great Flood.

  84. See Appendix on p. 312.

  85. Charon was also happy to receive a danake or danace, the Persian equivalent, later incorporated into ancient Greek currency.

  86. Virgil’s description of Aeneas’s visit to the underworld tells of the color of Charon’s boat.

  87. The story of how Zeus seduced Europa will be told a little later on.

  88. The Canaries were Byron’s candidate for the Isles of the Blessed in his Don Juan.

  89. But not in France, despite the name of Paris’s grand thoroughfare, the Champs Elysées.

  PERSEPHONE AND THE CHARIOT

  The world over which Zeus ruled as sovereign lord of heaven was a bountiful mother to mankind. Men, women, and children helped themselves to the fruit of the trees, the grains of the grasses, the fish of the waters, and the beasts of the fields without effort or much labor. Demeter, goddess of fertility and the harvest, blessed the natural world. If there was hunger or deprivation, it came about only as a result of human cruelty and the workings of those terrible creatures let loose from Pandora’s jar, not as a result of divine neglect. All this was to change, however. Hades had a part in it and—who knows?—perhaps his plan all along was to hasten and increase death in the world and so increase the population of his kingdom. Intricate are the workings of Moros.

  Demeter had a daughter, Persephone, by her brother Zeus. So beautiful and pure and lovely was she that the gods took to calling her KORE, or CORA, which means simply “the maiden.” The Romans called her PROSERPINA. All the gods, especially the unattached Apollo and Hermes, fell dizzily in love with her and even offered marriage. But the protective (some might say overprotective) Demeter hid her away in the remote countryside, far from the hungry eyes of gods and immortals, honorable and dishonorable alike, intending for her to remain—like Hestia, Athena, and Artemis—forever virgin and unattached. There was one powerful god, however, who had laid his covetous eyes upon the girl and had no intention of respecting Demeter’s wishes.

  There was nothing the sweet and artless Persephone liked to do more than commune with nature. Very much her mother’s daughter, flowers and pretty growing things were her greatest source of joy. One golden afternoon, a little separated from the companions appointed by her mother to protect her, Persephone was chasing butterflies as they flitted from blossom to blossom in a sun-dappled, flowery meadow. Suddenly she heard a deep rending and roaring sound. It was like thunder yet seemed to be coming, not from the sky above, but from the ground beneath her feet. She looked about her in fear and bewilderment. The earth was shaking and the hillside in front of her split apart. From out of the opening there thundered a great chariot. Before the terrified girl had a chance to turn and run, the driver had scooped her up, swung the chariot round, and driven it back through the cleft in the hillside. By the time Persephone’s alarmed companions had reached the place, the opening had sealed itself up, leaving no sign that it had ever been there.

  Persephone’s disappearance was as inexplicable as it was sudden and complete. One minute she had been happily gamboling through the meadow, the next she had vanished from sight, leaving not a trace behind.

  Demeter’s despair can hardly be described. We have all lost something precious to us—animal, vegetable, or mineral—and passed through the agonizing stages of grief, fright, and anger that sudden dispossession can cause. When the loss is so personal, unforeseen, absolute, and impossible to understand, those feelings are amplified to the most terrible degree. Although, as the days went by it became more and more difficult to believe that Persephone would ever be seen again, Demeter vowed that she would find her daughter if it took the eternity of her immortal span.

  Demeter called upon her Titaness friend HECATE for aid. Hecate was a goddess of potions, keys, ghosts, poisons, and all manner of witchcraft and enchantments.90 She was the possessor of two torches that could illuminate all the corners of the earth. She and Demeter searched those corners, once, twice, a thousand times. They shone light into every cavern and dark place they could find. They scoured the world with no success.

  Months passed. All this time Demeter neglected her responsibilities. The corn, the harvests, the ripening of fruit, and the sowing of crops—all were abandoned, and in the earth nothing germinated. No seeds sprouted, no buds opened, no shoots grew, and the world began to desertify.

  The gods were safe on Olympus, but the cries of the famished and despairing people on earth reached the ears of Zeus. Only when he and the other gods, one night, were making much of the mystery of Persephone’s disappearance did the sun Titan Helios speak up.91

  “Persephone? Oh, I saw what happened to her. I see everything.”

  “You saw? Then why didn’t you say something?” demanded Zeus. “Demeter has been dementedly wandering the earth looking for her, frantic with worry, and the world is turning into a desert. Why the hell didn’t you speak up?”

  “No one asked me! No one ever asks me anything. But I know a lot. The eye of the sun sees all,” said Helios, repeating a line that Apollo had often used during his days in charge of the sun-chariot.

  “What happened to her?”

  “The earth opened and who should come out in his chariot and seize her but . . . Hades!”

  “Hades!” chorused the gods.

  THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS

  Zeus immediately went down to the underworld to fetch Persephone back. But the King of the Underworld was in no mood to take orders from the King of the Overworld.

  “She stays. She is my queen.”

  “You dare to defy me?”

  “You are my younger brother,” said Hades. “My youngest brother in fact. You have always had everything you’ve ever wanted. I demand the right to keep the girl I love. You cannot deny me.”

  “Oh, can’t I?” said Zeus. “The world is in famine. The cries of starving mortals keep us awake. Refuse to return Persephone and you will soon discover the force and reach of my will. Hermes will bring no more spirits of the dead to you. Not one single soul shall ever be sent here. All will be dispatched to a new paradise, or perhaps never even die. Hades will become an empty realm drained of all power, influence, or majesty. Your name will become a laughingstock.”

  The brothers glared at each other. Hades was the first to blink.

  “Damn you,” he growled. “Give me one more day with her and then send Hermes to fetch her.”

  Zeus traveled back up to Olympus well pleased.

  The next day Hades knocked on the door of Persephone’s chamber. You might be surprised that he knocked, but the fact is, in her dignified and assured presence, even such a power as Hades found himself uncertain and shy. He loved her with all his heart, and although he had lost the battle of wills with Zeus he was sure that he could not let her go. Besides, he detected in her something . . . something that gave him hope. A small flicker of returned love?

  “My dear,” he said with a gentleness that would have astonished anyone who knew him. “Zeus has prevailed upon me to send you back into the world of light.”

  Persephone raised her pale face and gazed steadily at him.

  Hades gazed
earnestly back. “I hope you do not think ill of me?”

  She did not reply, but Hades thought he could detect a little color flushing her cheeks and throat.

  “Share some pomegranate seeds with me to show there is no ill-feeling?”

  Listlessly Persephone took six seeds from his outstretched hand and sucked slowly at their sharp sweetness.

  When Hermes arrived the trickster god found that he and Zeus had themselves been tricked.

  “Persephone has eaten fruit from my kingdom,” said Hades. “It is ordained that all who have tasted the food of hell must return. She has tasted six pomegranate seeds so she must come back to me for six months of every year.”

  Hermes bowed. He knew that this was so. Taking Persephone by the hand he led her up out of the underworld. Demeter was so overjoyed to see her daughter that the world immediately began to spring into bloom. It was a joy that was to last for half the length of the year, for six months later, in accordance with ineluctable divine law, Persephone was forced to return to the underworld. Demeter’s distress at this parting caused the trees to shed their leaves and a dead time to creep over the world. Another six months passed, Persephone emerged from Hades’s domain, and the cycle of birth, renewal, and growth began again. In this way the seasons came about, the autumn and winter of Demeter’s grieving for the absence of her daughter and the spring and summer of her jubilation at Persephone’s return.

  For six months, Persephone was Queen of the Underworld. For the other six months, she returned to her mother Demeter as the Kore of fertility, flowers, and frolic.

  As for Persephone herself . . . well, it seems that she grew to love her time below as much as her time above. For six months she was no prisoner in Hades but the contented Queen of the Underworld, a loving consort who held imperious sway over the dominion of death with her husband. For the other six months she reverted to the laughing Kore of fertility, flowers, fruit, and frolic.