The Greek Myths

by Robin Waterfield

  Demeter lit two torches in the fires of Etna, and for nine days she roamed the broad earth over hill and dale, denying herself sleep and rest, but nowhere was her daughter to be found. All she found was a bunch of dried narcissus blossoms lying on the healed earth. Poseidon took advantage of her distress to press his suit, and when Demeter changed herself into a mare to avoid his attentions, he became a stallion and had his way with her. And in due course of time she gave birth to a wonderful stallion called Arion, and a daughter whose name is known only to the initiated.

  On the tenth day somber Hecate came and told her what little she knew—that her daughter had been abducted. Together they went to Helios, the sun-god, who sees all, and he explained that it was the will of Zeus that Persephone should be the bride of his brother Hades, and consoled her with the thought that Zeus’ equal was no mean husband for her daughter.

  But Demeter was not to be consoled, nor was she of a mind to give up. She wanted nothing now to do with the gods of Olympus, who had betrayed her and her daughter. She disguised herself as a mortal and roamed over the earth ceaselessly, in grief and despair. Only Hesperus, the evening star, could persuade her to quench her parched throat with a little water. For mother and daughter are inseparable, and are ever worshipped together.

  At last she came to Eleusis, where Celeus was king, and seated herself by the Maiden’s Well in the shade of an olive tree. There came to the well to collect water the daughters of Celeus, and they addressed her with the respect due to her venerable years. For Demeter had disguised herself as an elderly woman named Doso, a refugee from pirates. And in this matronly guise, she begged for work.

  Lovely Callidice answered her: “Our mother Metaneira has but lately borne a son. No one in this town would turn you away, for your demeanor is stately and godlike, but let me ask her. She would appreciate help in rearing our brother Demophoön.” When the girls returned from the well, Metaneira was delighted and told them to bring Doso back home. And the goddess followed them, her heart grieving and her head veiled. But when she stood in the doorway, Metaneira looked up and for a moment saw her as a goddess, only to dismiss the vision.

  The weeks and months passed, and in the goddess’s tender care the babe grew bonny and blithe. For by day Demeter anointed him with divine ambrosia, and at night she buried him in the embers of the fire, for she knew how to make him immortal. Her heart was filled with the joy of tending to the boy, though she yearned ceaselessly for Persephone.

  But one night Metaneira saw Demeter burying her son in the coals and screamed out loud for sheer terror. In fury, Demeter snatched the boy from the fire and cast him aside. “Fools! Ignorant mortals!” she cried, revealing herself in her godhood. “I would have made your son deathless, but now he shall be no more blessed than others, except that he has been nursed by a goddess. For I am Demeter, and all worship me.” And she commanded the people of Eleusis to build her a temple, where her mysteries would be celebrated for all time.

  But Demeter mourned her missing daughter with fresh tears, and devised a terrible punishment for gods and men. Crops were stillborn in the barren soil, or, if they appeared at all, it was only to wither with blight. First their cattle died, their sheep and goats, and then human beings themselves were starving to death. Moreover, the gods were not receiving their due in sacrifices, for there was nothing for men to give.

  This was intolerable to Zeus, and he sent many-hued Iris, the rainbow messenger of the gods, arcing down to where Demeter sat in Eleusis. “Come back!” implored Iris. “Let Zeus the cloud-gatherer make you welcome once more in the high halls of Olympus!” But Demeter hardened her heart and shut her ears. She vowed that never again would she tread the paths of fragrant Olympus unless she could do so with her daughter at her side.

  Taking matters in hand, Zeus sent swift-darting Hermes to escort Persephone out of the underworld and into the light of day—to rejoin her mother. “Come with me,” he said, “or all mortal men will perish, whose lives are but the shadow of a dream, and the gods will have no one to honor them.”

  Hades understood, and turned to his bride, who was seated beside him, as befits the queen of the underworld; but still in her heart she pined for her mother. “Go, my dear!” he said. “Console your sorrowing mother. And when you return, you shall have high honor as my wife.” But he did not entirely trust her to return of her own accord, and he gave her the sweet seed of a pomegranate to eat, the forbidden food of the dead, so that she was bound to come back, and not to dwell forever on Olympus with her dark-cloaked mother.

  Hades loaned Hermes his own chariot, and Hermes sped with Persephone by his side to Eleusis. The reunion of mother and daughter was as joyful and tearful as may be imagined—but suddenly Demeter pulled out of their embrace, sensing a trick. “Tell me, daughter,” she asked, “did you eat anything while you were there in the underworld? If you did not, you will be free to dwell with me and the immortal gods forever on Olympus. If you ate even the slightest morsel, you are bound to return, to live as Hades’ bride in the underworld for a third of every year; for so the Fates have ordained it. And for that time, the soil shall be barren in its mourning.”

  Demeter and Persephone’s reunion was bitter-sweet; now the girl must return each year to Hades.[11]

  So it is. Demeter returned to Olympus and the fields began once more to produce their rich harvests. And Triptolemus, the son of Celeus, received from her the gift of agriculture, and became her missionary. On a chariot drawn by dragons, he traveled the earth, teaching men how to cultivate the soil. But the time comes every year when Persephone goes back to dread Hades and takes her seat beside him as his bride, with somber Hecate as her handmaid. On earth, the fruits begin to fade and the leaves of the trees to fall; but when she returns to the light of Olympus and the upper world, the flowers bloom afresh and roots spread deep and wide in the fertile soil.

  So Demeter has the respect of the gods who live on Olympus, and dwells there forever in high honor. Once she took a human lover, Iasion, in a thrice-plowed furrow, but hard-hearted Zeus blasted the man with his thunderbolt for his boldness. And she too was once angry with a mortal man and punished him. Erysichthon, grandson of Poseidon, took twenty of his men, full giants in size, to cut down trees to make a banqueting hall, and chose trees from a grove beloved of the goddess. When the tree nymphs cried out loud in their pain, she appeared to him as her own priestess and tried to dissuade him, but he rashly threatened her with an ax. “Away!” he cried. “Or I fix my keen blade in your flesh!”

  For his greed and impiety she cursed him with insatiable and relentless hunger. However much he ate, he was never satisfied, and his flesh never filled out, until he shrank to no more than skin and bones. Hunger lay deep in his belly, and he ate everything in his house, including the cat, so that the vermin ran free. And then he was reduced, the son of a king, to begging at the crossroads for stale crusts and rancid refuse. Beware the gods! May care and moderation be your watchwords!

  Aphrodite

  Sing of Aphrodite, all you Muses! Sing of her pale loveliness, that no man can resist! Sing of the fair-crowned, laughter-loving goddess, born in the foam off Cyprus, wife of Hephaestus and lover of grim Ares! For her the seas grow calm, the meadows put forth flowers and butterflies, the storms abate. For her gardens bloom. In her train wild wolves and panthers follow with adoration in their eyes and tails wagging in submission. The dove is hers, blessed, smiling Aphrodite, weaver of charms, and her attendants are the Graces and Eros, who is Love. Hers is the allure of sex, hers the magic girdle that makes any woman irresistible. Sometimes she cares not where she finds a lover, but sex within wedlock is her first domain and lawfully begotten children; and the first prostitutes were women of Cyprus who denied her divinity and were henceforth compelled to bear the shame of selling their bodies to all and sundry. For the goddess may bring honor, but she may also bring disgrace.

  Aphrodite, born in the foam off Cyprus, is the irresistible embodiment of love and sex.[12]
r />   Now, Pygmalion was horror-struck by these whores, and denied himself a wife or the pleasures of the marriage bed. But he made a statue of ivory, as white as snow, and made it more beautiful than any living woman. So lifelike was the statue that you would have sworn it had merely paused for a moment before continuing on its way. And Pygmalion fell in love with his creation, kissed it and caressed it gently for fear of bruising its pale loveliness, and called it Galatea. He brought it gifts and love tokens, and dressed it in the finest clothes and jewelry.

  It was the day of Aphrodite’s festival, and everyone turned out for the procession. Pygmalion accompanied his offering at the altar of the goddess with a prayer, which he dared not utter aloud. But kindly Aphrodite understood his need and the flame flared bright on her altar. When Pygmalion returned home, he greeted his statue with a kiss—and it seemed to him that she was warmer, softer than before. Cautiously, but with rising anticipation, he looked into her face and saw beautiful eyes shining back at him with equal measures of love and astonishment. He touched her breasts, caressed her body. She was alive! His unspoken prayer had been answered! Praise be to the goddess!

  Pygmalion yearned for his beloved sculpture to live, and Aphrodite answered his fervent prayer.[13]

  The grandson of Pygmalion was Cinyras, and he in his turn had a daughter called Myrrha. Though courted by many for her beauty, Aphrodite inflamed Myrrha with an unholy passion for her father, for her mother had boasted that her daughter was more fair than the goddess. Myrrha lay awake night after night, wrestling with this demon, consumed by her ungodly passion. Eventually, with the help of a servant, she consummated her love in the secret spaces of dark night. When Cinyras found out that he had been sleeping with his own daughter, he was terrified and filled with anger. To hate one’s father is a lesser crime than to love him like this. As she fled from his wrath, Myrrha prayed to the gods for deliverance, and was turned into the myrrh tree, forever shedding bitter tears. But Myrrha was pregnant and the child continued to grow inside the tree, until his day came. The baby boy was born, and tended by nymphs, and his name was Adonis.

  The child, so unlawfully begotten, was so lovely that Aphrodite wanted to keep him for herself, and she hid him in a chest, and gave him to Persephone for safekeeping. But Persephone peeked inside the chest, and wanted the child for herself. The cries of the quarreling goddesses came to the ears of Zeus on Olympus, and he decreed that the boy would spend a third of the year with each of the two goddesses, and a third of the year wherever and with whomsoever he chose. And fair Adonis chose to stay with Aphrodite for that third of the year as well.

  Adonis grew up to be the ideal of young masculinity, and Aphrodite’s heart was pierced. Love shook her mind like a storm wind falling on tall trees. She was so much in love that she shunned the lofty halls of Olympus, and lingered no more in the shade on soft pillows, but joined her lover every day in his hunting, until her fair skin was darkened and scratched.

  But one day, when Aphrodite was not with him, Adonis was fatally gored by a wild boar, the most savage and unpredictable of the huntsman’s quarry. Even the best have been known to fail, and this boar was sent by Ares, Aphrodite’s jealous lover. Aloft in her chariot, trim-ankled Aphrodite heard the youth’s dying groans and raced down, only to find him a corpse. With a prayer to Persephone, she sprinkled nectar in a death rite on the boy’s spilled blood, and a delicate flower sprang up. Like Adonis, the anemone clings poorly to life and spreads its frail beauty for but a brief spell. And ever after women mourn in the name of Adonis the uncertain swiftness of life’s passing.

  Adonis was not the first mortal man to receive the fair goddess’s love, but his wretched predecessor had been a puppet manipulated by divine intrigues. Zeus wanted to teach sly Aphrodite a lesson. She had proved very expert at causing other gods to fall for humans, but she had always stood apart from such unions herself. So the lord of gods and men showered handsome Anchises, who tended cattle in the hills above Troy, with the essence of virility. So smitten was the golden-haired goddess that she would let nothing stand in the way of their love. She returned straight away to Cypriot Paphos, to her great temple, adorned with star and crescent moon, and there the Graces bathed her and anointed her with divinely perfumed oil of ambrosia, heavenly in its sweetness. But deep in her aching heart she knew that Anchises was a mortal, due to die.

  The good-natured Graces attend Aphrodite along with Eros, the primordial lord of passion.[14]

  That night she found her beloved alone in the hills. She appeared to him in the form of a ripe young virgin, and the moonlight silvered the swell of her breasts. Anchises met the passionate longing in her gaze; he loosened her willing girdle and, all unknowing, made love to a goddess. When he awoke, Aphrodite showed herself to him in her true form, and he was afraid and cast down his eyes. He knew that those who sleep with goddesses lose their potency ever after. But she said: “Fear not! For the beds of the gods are not unproductive, and I shall bear for you a son, Aeneas. He shall be raised in the mountains by nymphs, and his children’s children will rule the earth!” And so it came to pass. Aeneas escaped from the sack of Troy, bearing his father on his back, and, after many adventures, founded the seven-hilled city of Rome. But Anchises boasted of his night with Aphrodite, and was crippled for his arrogance.

  Without Aphrodite, the weaver of snares, Paris would never have won fair Helen, whose face launched a thousand ships. Without Aphrodite, Hippomenes would never have loosened the girdle of majestic Atalanta. The stately daughter of Schoeneus of Boeotia delighted in nothing so much as hunting. She let all her suitors know that she would wed only the one who could beat her in a cross-country race. She was fair of face and slender of body, so her suitors were many, but none could defeat her, and for all the price of defeat was death. Often she would give the hapless man a head start, and then run after him and kill him when she caught up; for they ran bearing shield and sword. It was not that she hated men, but an oracle had warned her to beware of marriage.

  But Hippomenes, son of Megareus, loved the tall maiden and was determined to wed her. He brought with him three golden apples, imbued by Aphrodite with irresistible charm. When he and Atalanta raced, he rolled one apple in front of her and, tempted, she picked it up. This delayed her, but soon she caught Hippomenes up again—and he rolled the second apple. And then the third was enough to allow him to reach the finishing line before her. True to her vow, she happily married Hippomenes, but her foolish husband forgot to thank Aphrodite for the gift of the apples. In punishment, the slender-ankled goddess had the two lovers comport themselves with passionate indiscretion in the shrine of the Mother of All, who turned them for their sin into sexless lions to draw her chariot. So the oracle was true that told Atalanta to beware of marriage. By such stories as these we may come to some little understanding of the power and nature of the gods.

  By Hermes, Aphrodite bore Hermaphroditus. One day, the youth was wandering in the hills of Caria when he came across a beautiful pool, limpid and fresh. It was the home of the nymph Salmacis, and she was unable to resist her desire for the handsome lad. When he undressed and entered the pool to bathe, she stripped off her clothes and joined him. The virgin boy was frightened and tried to fight her off, but Salmacis clung to him and entwined herself around him. “You shall never escape me!” she cried. “May the gods hear my prayer: let us never be separated!” From then on they became as one being, but with both male and female attributes. In his distress Hermaphroditus cried out to his parents, that they should curse the pool. And ever thereafter, any man who steps into the pool emerges less than a man.

  By Dionysus Aphrodite bore Priapus, the lecherous god of gardens. With his gnome-like figure and enormous, swollen phallus, he scares all evil from the gardens of those who worship and pray to him, and his curses fall on those who presume to trespass on ground that is under his protection. He it was who taught infant Ares first to dance, and only then to make war.

  In the presence of Aphrodite even Are
s, god of war, is left defenseless.[15]

  Ares

  When men meet in hand-to-hand combat, as they frequently do in this Age of Iron, there is Ares. His domain is not strategy, not distance killing, but the frenzy, the rage, the screaming madness born of the stark immediacy of killing or being killed, when you can smell the breath and salt sweat of your adversary. Ares is the madness, and he is the most feared and hated of the gods, for there is no one and nothing, save only Father Zeus, who can control his lawlessness.

  At the same time there is no god to match him for virility, for only men of courage can be possessed by him, while others shrink and flee. Golden-helmeted, bronze-armored, strong-fisted Ares launches himself eagerly at every battlefield, and if he is seen by mortal men, it is as a dark storm hovering over the combatants, and he moves with the muscular menace of a wild boar. He is the war whoop, and his sons are Fear and Terror, and goat-footed Pan rides by his side to panic those who are destined to be the losers. At Ares’ shout the mountains tremble, the sky darkens, and all creatures run for cover.

  Now, Ares, born of Hera, fathered heroic warriors on a number of mortal women, but his natural partner is and always was Aphrodite. As the Magnesian stone attracts iron, so the two of them are drawn to each other. And though Aphrodite was given by Zeus to Hephaestus, Ares scorned her marriage and seduced the fair goddess, though she was not unwilling. None knew of their affair, but in time they were seen by Helios, the sun-god, who told lame Hephaestus. In his wrath, the cuckolded god went straight to his workshop, and made a net of gossamer strands, so fine that they were invisible even to immortal eyes, and so strong that not even the god of war could break them in his rage. It was as though the net were made out of the strength of non-things: the stillness of dawn, the sinews of the winds, the potential of an acorn, the sound of a bluebell. And he cunningly fastened the web-like trap to Aphrodite’s bed.