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MYTHS of CREATION the Rise of Zeus Y Hesiod Tells of the Origin

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MYTHS of CREATION the Rise of Zeus Y Hesiod Tells of the Origin cHAPTER 4: MYTHS OF cREATION The Rise of Zeus y Hesiod tells of the origin of the universe through succeeding generations of gods. COSMOGONY: a story that explains the ³origin of the world´ THEOGONY: a story that explains the ³origin of the gods´ and their rise to power. y To explain Zeus¶s supremacy in the world Hesiod must go back to the beginning of all things, to the generations of chaos (chasm), Gaea (Earth), and Uranus (Sky). THE cHILDREN OF cHAOS y First came chaos and some understand it as the opening from which the other primordial beings arose. y After chaos came Gaea, the personification of the earth beneath us. y Tartarus is often confused in Greek Myth with the abode of Hades, but is personified by Hesiod as the primordial creature that Gaea has offspring with. y Eros also appears after chaos, the source of motion that brings sexual beings together to produce still more offspring. y Hesiod also believes that Erebus (darkness) and Nyx (night) came from chaos THE cHILDREN OF GAEA: THE TITANS AND THEIR cOUSINS y cyclopes and Hecatonchires had important roles to play in the world¶s early days. THE TITANS y Gaea first bore asexually Uranus y Then she bore her watery doublet Pontus y In sexual union with her son, Uranus, Gaea produced the six male and six female Titans, a word of unknown meaning. y cronus, who will contend with Uranus for power, is named as the last born. y Two notable Titans are the watery male Oceanus and female Tethys o Gave birth to all the gods o Oceanus is a river that encircles the world, where the domes of the sky touches the flat surface of the earth. y Phoebe ³brilliant´ must have something to do with the lights in the sky, and Themis ³law´ refers to the earth, that which is fixed and settled y Themis will bear the children to Zeus, as well Mnemosyne ³memory´. y cronus and Rhea, doublets for Uranus and Gaea, are parents or grandparents of the twelve Olympians, including Zeus, the king of gods. cYcLOPES, HEcATONcHIRES y Gaea bore to three cyclopes ³round-eyes´, and the mighty Hecatonchires, the ³hundred- handers´, after union with Uranus. o combined wisdom of the metallurgist with great strength o Taking raw iron from the depths of earth, they made the irresistible weapon of victory: lightning; their names Brontes (thunderer), Steropes (flasher) and Arges (brightener), reflect the noise and brilliance of their marvellous weapon. y Uranus and Gaea finally bore the three Hecatonchires, who each had a hundred arms that shot from their shoulders, as well as fifty heads, beings who can easily crush any opponent in their mighty hands. HYPERION¶S cHILDREN: SUN, MOON, DAWN y The Titan Hyperion is a sun god, father to the better known Helius, also a sun-god; to Selene, the moon; and to Eos, the dawn. y Phaethon, the son of Helius and clymene, an Oceanid. o Although Phaethon¶s mother was married to the King of Ethiopia, she promised him that his father was the sun. As confirmation, she told Phaethon to journey to the sun¶s palace where the sun allowed Phaethon one wish. He wished to ride the sun¶s chariot across the sky. At first, it went well but the horses lost control and left the save path, landing in Lybia where the people¶s skin burned black to the ablaze. y Selene, the moon, had fallen in love with the handsome shepherd Endymion and she seduced him in his sleep. She bore him fifty daughters and asked Zeus to put him in an eternal sleep so he could never age. y Eos, the dawn, had much more love affairs than Selene. Above all she loved Tithonus, a Trojan prince. She asked Zeus to make him immortal but forgot to ask that he never age so he aged to the point where he could not lift his bones, so Eos in the end locked him in his room. o Other editions of the story claim that Tithonus shrivelled up and turned into a cicada. cRONUS AGAINST URANUS y Uranus hated his own offspring. y The image of Gaea and Uranus is that they are always in perpetual intercourse so that Uranus would never allow his children to leave her womb. y cronus cut off Uranus¶ pee pee which broke him away, allowing him to rise to the place he belongs. o The world is now in its proper configuration, ³Sky´ above and ³Earth beneath, with Tartarus attached. y Fecundated by the drops of blood that fell from the ghastly wounds of Uranus, Gaea gave birth to the Erinyes, the Furies, ferocious female spirits who haunt anyone who sheds kindred blood, driving them into madness. y The Giants ³earthborn ones´ were also created, beings of enormous strength and unbrindled violence, who one day will bring their power to bear against Zeus and his Olympian siblings. THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE, MONSTERS, AND SEA DIETIES y Aphrodite was created with blood fell on the earth, but the genitals themselves fell into the sea and the sea foam mixed with semen until she was created, goddess of sexual love. o Represents the universal force of irresistible sexual desire, a fruit of mutilation and violence. y When Gaea had another union with her other son Pontus and a host of other offspring, most have little importance in later myth or make a brief appearance in heroic legend. o Notable for their monstrous shape or are changeable in appearance y Monster means ³that at which you point in surprise´ and in Greek art, the monstrous descendants of Sea and Earth were most often represented as mixtures of animal and human parts. y Harpies ³snatchers´ are human headed birds that were grandchildren of Gaea and Pontus; hostile spirits of storm who appear from nowhere to carry away the living. y Sirens lured sailors to their deaths but were not descendants of Gaea and Pontus. y Sphinx ³strangler´ a deadly spirit (female with wings) of plague who in Greek myth besieged the city of Thebes y Gorgons had a woman¶s body to which wings were attached, snakes instead of hair, and boar¶s tusks for teeth, in art. y Geryon, an enemy of Heracles, had an ordinary woman for the buttocks up, but a serpent below, ³a glimmering flesh eater in the inky caverns of hallowed earth.´ y cerberus was a fifty headed hound who guarded the gates of Hades¶ realm y chimera ³she goat´ a lion with a snake¶s tail and a goat¶s head growing from its back. y creto ³sea monster´ was a whale or enormous fish y Graeae ³gray ones´ were ³fair cheeked hags, gray from birth´ y Nereus was the wise old man of the sea, a prophetic deity, as are many sea gods. o Had a human shape, but he could also change his shape at will into fire, a leopard, a serpent, or a tree. o Sired the fifty two Nereids, a group of sea spirits hard to distinguish from their cousins o Thetis, mother of Achilles, was the best known Nereid ZEUS AGAINST cRONUS: BATTLE WITH THE TITANS y cronus became king and was told by his parents that he would fall victim to one of his children, so he swallowed them whole as fast as they were born from his mom and sister, Rhea. o These children were Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus y Zeus was born to Rhea in crete, in a cave, where he was brought up by nymphs on milk from the goat Amalthea and Honey from Melissa, the ³bee.´ y Zeus forced cronus to vomit up the children, Zeus¶ siblings y Zeus became king of the gods, and his siblings took up their abode on Mount Olympus. y The Titans banded together in resent and attacked the Olympians in the Titanomachy ³battle of the Titans´ o Zeus joined sides with the Hecatonchires, but were imprisoned by the cyclopes from Tartarus. They drank a mythical drink called nectar and food called ambrosia o The cyclopes made the thunderbolt for Zeus as his weapon y Atlas was condemned to live at the edge of the world by Zeus, where he held up the heavens, continuing the separation between Uranus and Gaea ZEUS͛ BATTLE WITH TYPHOEUS: y Gaea who advised Zeus to summon the Hecatonchires against her own children (titans) resented his victory now y She became his enemy y coupled with Tartarus, she gave birth to Typhoeus (also called Typhon) y **refer to page 92-93 for a passage in Theogony*** y Apollodorus, author of oldest surviving ͞handbook of Greek myth͟ adds details to Hesiod͛s Theogony y He says that Typhoeus was born in cilicia(southern coast of Turkey) and was huge y Typhoeus͛ description: waist down he has serpents, majestic wings, and shaggy hair all over his body y He was able to throw fiery rocks into the heavens and as a result, the Olympian gods morphed into animals and fled to Egypt y Zeus attacked him by pitching thunderbolts at him y Typhoeus beat Zeus by cutting off his hands and feet and putting them in a jar that he threw in a cave in cilicia y Zeus͛ son, Hermes along with a goat-shaped woodland spirit called Aegipan(goat-pan) restored Zeus to his former self y Zeus catches a mountain and throws is right back at Typhoeus and badly wounds him y Thus the mountain is called Mount Haemus(bloody) y Zeus then chases him down and buries under Mount Etna ZEUS͛ BATTLE WITH THE GIANTS: y Even though he defeated the Titans and Typhoeus, a succession myth occurred (a continuation of a previous myth) y This succession myth demanded that Zeus was to be overthrown y To forestall prophecy, Zeus married ͞cleverness͟ herself, the Oceanid Metis y She is already pregnant with Athena y After learning that the next child after Athena will dethrone him, Zeus swallows Metis thus keeping ͞cleverness͟ inside him y This ensures that no one will overthrow him y One day, he cries out for help because of a headache y Hephaestus or Prometheus strike his head with an axe y As a result, Athena is born from his head y The giants, conceived from the blood of Uranus͛ bloody severed genitals
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