by Stephen Fry
Symbolical rather than historical in origin as myths and mythical figures might be, they underwent the same fictional remodeling and embellishments as more factually rooted legends. They too were written down, and the Greek myths especially, thanks to Homer, Hesiod, and those that followed, were chronicled and detailed in ways that have granted us the timelines, genealogies, and character histories that allow for storytelling of the kind I have attempted with this book.
Myths, to put it simply and obviously, deal with gods and monsters that can’t be observed or pointed at. It may be that some members of the ancient Greek population believed in centaurs and water dragons, gods of the sea and goddesses of the hearth, but they would have had a hard time proving their existence and convincing others. Most of those who told and retold the myths would have been aware, I think, at some level of their consciousness, that they were telling fictional tales. They might have thought the world was once peopled with nymphs and monsters, but they could be fairly certain that such beings no longer existed.
Prayer, ritual, and sacrifice, the taxation paid to the invisible forces of nature, those are different things. At some point myth becomes cult becomes religion. It moves from stories told around the fire to a systematized set of beliefs to which obedience is owed. Priestly castes arose who ordained how people should behave. How myths become codified into scriptures, liturgies, and theologies is a subject for another book and quite beyond my scope. We can, however, say that the ancient Greeks had no written revealed texts akin to the Bible or the Qur’an. There were “mysteries” and initiations of various kinds that involved ecstatic states, perhaps not unlike the shamanic ones seen today in other parts of the world, and there were plenty of temples and shrines. It is true, as well, that even in the great Athenian age of reason and philosophy a man like Socrates could be executed for religious reasons.209
THE GREEKS
It is always a mistake to think of the Greeks as superior human beings uniquely endowed with enlightened wisdom and rational benevolence. We would find much in ancient Greece alien and distasteful to us. Women could play no real part in affairs outside the home, slavery was endemic, punishments were harsh, and life could be brutal. Dionysus and Ares were their gods quite as much as Apollo and Athena. Pan, Priapus, and Poseidon too. What makes the Greeks so appealing to us is that they seemed to be so subtly, insightfully, and animatedly aware of these different sides to their natures. “Know thyself” was carved into the pronaos of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. As a people—if we read them through the myths as much as in their other writings—they did their best to attend to that ancient maxim.
So while they may have been far from perfect, the ancient Greeks seem to have developed the art of seeing life, the world, and themselves with greater candor and unclouded clarity than is managed by most civilizations, including perhaps our own.
LOCATION, LOCATION
Greece. What and where is that? It was no kind of a nation at the time of the myths. There is a politically identifiable sovereign landmass and collection of islands we can now visit, but the Greek world of Mythos includes much of Asia Minor, incorporating Turkey, parts of Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon as well as areas of North Africa, Egypt, the Balkans, Albania, Croatia, and Macedonia. The story of “Arion and the Dolphin” takes us to southern Italy and other myths deal with people who might at times have described themselves as Hellenic, Ionian, Argive, Attic, Thracian, Aeolian, Spartan, Doric, Athenian, Cypriot, Corinthian, Theban, Phrygian, Sicilian, Cretan, Trojan, Boeotian, Lydian . . . and much more besides. It is all, I am well aware, confusing and probably irritating to anyone but a scholar or a Greek citizen. There is the map to consult, but otherwise I really hope you don’t bust a boiler trying to work it all out. Goodness knows I bust mine often enough and I wouldn’t wish the same confusion and worry on you.
SOURCES ANCIENT
To retell Greek mythical stories is to tread in the footsteps of giants. In the Foreword to this book I shared Edith Hamilton’s observation that Greek myth is “the creation of great poets.” While its deepest origins lie in prehistory and unrecorded folklore, in preparing material for this book I have been able, as any one of us can, to consult the very first poets of the Western tradition, who just happened to be Greek and whose subject matter just happened to be myth.
There is a unique treasury of extant sources that chart the chronology of Greek myth from the creation of the universe and birth of the gods all the way to the end of their interaction and interference in human affairs. It begins with HOMER, who may or may not have been a single (blind) Ionian bard, but whose name is attached to the two great epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, that were put together some time, it is thought, in the eighth century b.c. Their setting is the siege of Troy and its aftermath, but Homer makes countless useful references back to earlier myths. His approximate contemporary, the poet HESIOD (undoubtedly an individual), did the most to create what might be called a timeline for Greek mythology. His Theogony (Birth of the Gods) narrates the creation, the rise of the Titans, the origin of the gods, and the establishment of Olympus. His Erga kai Hemerai (Works and Days) tells the great human creation stories of Prometheus and Pandora as well as laying out mankind’s Five Ages—Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic, and Iron.
Other Greek and subsequent Roman poets, writers, and travelers filled in gaps, elaborated, embroidered, fused, confused, and just plain fabricated Greek mythical stories that mostly descended from Hesiod’s genealogical plan. Of these the Bibliotheca (Library), a great dictionary of myth, is perhaps the most valuable source. It was originally thought to have been the work of the scholar APOLLODORUS OF ATHENS, who worked in the second century b.c., but this is now doubted; these days the work is attributed to an unknown who goes by the demeaning soubriquet of PSEUDO-APOLLODORUS and dated to the first or second century a.d. Other compelling and/or reliable sources—all of them probably from the second century a.d.—include the Greek traveler and guidebook compiler PAUSANIAS, the “novelists” LONGUS (who wrote in Greek) and APULEIUS, (who wrote in Latin), and the Latin prose writer HYGINUS.
Towering above them all is the Roman poet OVID (43 b.c.–a.d. 17), whose Metamorphoses (Transformations) tells of those mortals, nymphs, and others who were changed by the gods into animals, plants, rivers, or even stones as a punishment or out of pity. His other works, principally the Ars Amatoria (Art of Love) and Heroides (Heroines) also contain recastings of Greek myth, using always the Latin names for the gods—“Jove” or “Jupiter” for Zeus, “Diana” for Artemis, “Cupid” or “Amor” for Eros, and so on. Ovid is prolific, profuse, irreverent, saucy, and cinematic in his energy and restless switching of points of view. It is clear from the wealth of references in his plays and poems that Shakespeare, amongst many other writers and artists, was hugely influenced by him. Ovid was happy to add, subtract, and invent, and this has influenced and emboldened me to be—shall we say imaginative?—in some of my retellings too.
SOURCES MODERN
Many children on both sides of the Atlantic grew up, as I did, on classic collections of the Greek myths by four enduringly popular Americans. Two were nineteenth-century writers: Nathaniel Hawthorne, who gave us A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (1851) and its sequel, Tanglewood Tales (1853); and Thomas Bulfinch, whose The Age of Fable (1855), later incorporated into the compendious Bulfinch’s Mythology (1881), has run through dozens and dozens of editions in its 160 years of life. The twentieth century was dominated by the matchless Edith Hamilton’s Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes (1942), which is still happily in print, and by Bernard Evslin’s evergreen Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths (1967). British equivalents include Charles Lamb’s The Adventures of Ulysses (1808) and L. S. Hyde’s Favorite Greek Myths (1905), this last being a great favorite of mine when I was a boy.
Estimable as all of these were, and still are, they tend shyly to skirt round or bowdlerize the erotic and violent episodes that form such an essential part of the Greek mythic worl
d. The poet and novelist Robert Graves had no such compunctions, but his two eccentrically structured and narrated volumes of The Greek Myths (1955), while meticulous, scholarly, and inspiring, chart a more literary and mythographical course—often with a view to highlighting his obsession with cults of a “white goddess.” The approaches of James Frazer and those who came after, including Joseph Campbell, valuable as they are, also have other, less specifically Greek and more academic, psychological, comparative, and anthropological, fish to fry. Online these days there are plenty of sites devoted to helping the young “find” Greek myth—though you may feel like a lie-down after reading those that describe Cadmus as “a homie,” Hermes as “cool,” and Hades as “a dude with issues.”
The one website I would most heartily recommend is theoi.com—a simply magnificent resource entirely dedicated to Greek myth. It is a Dutch and New Zealand project that contains over 1,500 pages of text and a gallery of 1,200 pictures comprising vase paintings, sculpture, mosaics, and frescoes on Greek mythological themes. It offers thorough indexing, genealogies, and subject headings. The bibliography is superb, and can lead one on a labyrinthine chase, hopping from source to source like an excited butterfly collector.
SPELLING THE NAMES
Because many Greek myths and the characters in them come down to us by way of Latin writers, and because our alphabet is more Roman than Greek, the spelling of personalities and places can be rather hit and miss. I could have chosen only to offer Greek spellings, so that Kerberos, Iason, and Kadmos are used instead of Cerberus, Jason, and Cadmus. Should I have given “Cronus” instead of Kronos? Maybe I ought to have favored “Aktaion” over Actaeon? “Narkissos” seems bloody-minded when we all know Narcissus so well. In the end I’ve been inconsistent, but consistently so.
SAYING THE NAMES
My advice is to pronounce them in your head the way that seems most comfortable to you. The Greek letter kappa covers hard “k” sounds, and the letter chi covers the more aspirated and guttural fricatives found in the “ch” of “loch” and “Bach,” though you are quite safe pronouncing all “ch” instances as if they are standard “k” sounds. The eta, or long Greek “e,” was sounded as “ee” when I was taught ancient Greek at school—so the letter itself was pronounced “eater.” Nowadays it’s taught to rhyme with “waiter.” I get the sense that this modern pronunciation has entered American English more readily than British. Americans will tend to say “baiter” for beta where we say “beater,” for example.
So is Thetis “Theetis,” “Thettis,” or “Thaytis”? Is it “Maytis,” “Mettis,” or “Meetis” for Metis, and “Hearer” or “Hairer” for Hera? “Ahr-ease” or “Airease” for Ares? Modern Greeks pronounce it one way, English and American academics their ways, and common usage, inasmuch as there is common usage, goes its way. Anyone who tells you that there is a definitive right or wrong can be doubted, in my opinion.
207. Robin of Loxley/Locksley and Lord Fitzooth, the Earl of Huntingdon, are popular candidates.
208. Interestingly, the absolute origin of the verb legere and its supine form lectum bears the meaning of “gather”—as in “college” and “collect.” So maybe legends are as much to do with stories that are collected as with those that are written down and read.
209. He was accused of an irreligious refusal to recognize the Athenian state’s gods.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Firstly to my beloved husband Elliott for being patient enough to endure my long periods spent away in the mythic landscape of ancient Greece. To my beloved persistent sister and assistant, Jo Crocker, for sculpting my life into a shape that allowed me the hours in which to write.
As ever thanks to my agent, Anthony Goff, and to Louise Moore and everyone at Michael Joseph, the friendly imprint of Penguin Random House that is obliging enough to publish me. Most especially to my diligent, maddening, charming, thoughtful, and stubbornly insightful editor, Jillian Taylor.
PICTURE CREDITS
Gaia, Mother Goddess Greek relief. Ancient Art Architecture Collection Ltd / Alamy. 21
Polyphemus, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, 1802. Landesmuseum Oldenburg. 22–23
Attic Red-Figure Cup, bpk / Antikensammlung Berlin. 26–27
Attic Black-Figured Hydria, c.540–530 b.c. Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich. 29
Bronze head of Hypnos, c.275 b.c. British Museum / Alamy. 32
The Mutilation of Uranus by Saturn by Giorgio Vasari, c.1560. Palazzo Vecchio, Room of the Elements. 34
The Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli, c.1485. Uffizi Gallery. Florence / Bridgeman. 37
Saturn Devouring One of His Sons, Francisco de Goya, c.1823. Prado Museum, Madrid / Alamy. 40
Attic Red Figure attributed to the Nausicaa Painter, c.475–425 b.c. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 42
The Feeding of the Child Jupiter, Nicolas Poussin, c.1640. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC / Bridgeman. 44
The Battle Between the Gods and the Giants, Joachim Antonisz Wtewael, c.1608. Art Institute of Chicago /Bridgeman. 55
The Dance of the Muses, Joseph Paelinck, 1832. Private Collection / Alamy. 58
Relief of the Three Moirai. Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin. 62
The Gods of Olympus, Sala dei Giganti, c.1528. Palazzo del Te / Bridgeman. 73
Head of Ares, after Greek original by Alkamenes, 420 b.c. State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia / Alamy. 74
Venus and Mars, Sandro Boticelli, c.1485. National Gallery, London / Alamy. 75
Vulcan Forging the Thunderbolts of Jupiter, Peter Paul Rubens, 1636–38. Prado Museum, Madrid / Bridgeman. 76
Hierogamy, unknown artist, 1st century A.D. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples / Bridgeman. 80
Black-figure Amphora, 6th century b.c. Louvre, Paris / Bridgeman. 87
Minerva or Pallas Athena, Gustav Klimt, 1898. Wien Museum Karlsplatz, Vienna / Bridgeman. 89
Diana, Paul Manship, 1925. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC / Alamy. 95
Apollo, Italian School, 17th century. Musee Massey, Tarbes, France / Bridgeman. 105
Red-Figure Cup, 5th century b.c. Louvre, Paris / Bridgeman. 106
Prometheus Bringing Fire to Mankind, Friedrich Heinrich Fuger, 1817. Neue Galerie, Kassel, Germany / © Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel / Ute Brunzel / Bridgeman. 122
Pandora, John William Waterhouse, 1896. Private Collection / Alamy. 127
Charon Crossing the River Styx, Joachim Patenier or Patinir, 1515–24. Prado, Madrid, Spain / Bridgeman. 132
Prometheus Bound, Jacob Jordaens, c.1640. Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Köln, Germany / Alamy. 137
The Return of Persephone, Frederic Leighton, c.1891. Leeds Museums and Galleries (Leeds Art Gallery) UK / Bridgeman. 141
Cupid and Psyche, François-Édouard Picot, 1817. Louvre, Paris / Bridgeman. 151
The Fall of Phaeton, Peter Paul Rubens, c.1604–8. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC / Bridgeman. 180
Drunken Silenus Supported by Satyrs, Peter Paul Rubens (studio of), c.1620, National Gallery, London / Bridgeman. 202
Apollo and Marsyas, Michelangelo Anselmi, c.1540. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC / Bridgeman. 237
The Spinners, or The Fable of Arachne, Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez, 1657. Prado, Madrid / Bridgeman. 240
Marble Relief of the Battle of Giants, Gigantomachy. Getty Images / De Agostini Picture Library. 315
INDEX
Aceso, 212
Acheron (river), 68, 132, 133
Achilles, 77, 215
Acis, 278
Acrisius (king of Argos), 243
Actaeon, 203, 206–7, 265
Adamanthea, 43, 46, 135
Admetus (king of Thessaly), 213
Adonis, 203, 262–64
Aeacus, 133
Aegaeon (Briareos), 23
Aegina, 223, 243
aegis, 89
Aegyptus, 181
Aeolus, 219, 224
Aesop, 31
Aether (light),
20, 30, 48, 81
Agamemnon, 184, 218
agape, 145
Agave, 194, 196, 198, 199, 204
Agenor (king of Tyre), 182–83
Aglaea, 61
Aglauros, 171
Alcathoë, 243
Alexander the Great, 301
Algos (Pain), 129
Alma Mater, 119
Alopex Teumesios (Teumessian Fox), 253–54
alphabet, 183–84, 186, 323
Amalthea (goat), 41, 43, 44, 45, 242
ambrosia, 83, 84, 164, 217
Ameinias, 270
Ampelos, 202–3
Amphidamas, 186–88
Amphilogiai (Disputes), 129
Amphion, 192, 232–33
Amphithea, 222
Amphitrite, 25, 70, 78, 114
Androktasiai (Manslaughters), 129
anemones, 264
Anteros, 144
anthropos, 119
Anticlea, 222
Antigone (of Troy), 242
Antiope, 192, 232, 243
Apate (Fraus; Deceit), 31, 128
Aphrodite (Venus)
beauty, 37, 88, 93
birth, 36–37
Zeus collects from Cyprus, 72
union with Ares (Mars), 75
wedding feast with Hephaestus, 79–81
liaison with Hermes, 142
attended by Erotes, 144
as mother of Eros, 145
jealousy of Psyche, 146, 164
and Eros’s withdrawal, 162
sets Psyche impossible tasks, 162–64
and Zeus’s reuniting Eros and Psyche, 164–65
as supposed mother of Harmonia, 184
lends girdle to Harmonia, 192–93
gives birth to Priapus, 205
deprives Eos of finding joy in love, 256
creates incestuous desire in Smyrna, 262