GREEK MYTHOLOGY

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Myths and legends from Greece are probably among the most famous in the World. Mainly they were written around 600-700 b.C. but already since many time before they were verbally conveyed from a generation to the next. Each storyteller gave his personal version of the story changing it according to his immagination, in this way in all the country the basic legends were all the same, but the details could change from a place to another.

As many primitive, Greeks didn’t believe in an only God, but they had many Gods and Goddesses: many divinities were associated to the nature forces or human feelings, others represented human activities and many had several attributes; monsters represented the evil forces and in legends often to Gods were mixed mortals.

In many places you could find the Oracles, particular sacred places where priests and priestesses interpret the messages from Gods (the most famous was the Apollo’s Oracle in Delphi).

THE ANCIENT GODS

In the beginning there was the Chaos, a undefined, shapeless mass. From the Chaos emerged Gaia, the Mother Earth, and her son, Uranus, moulded the earth in the shape we know it now: with flowers, trees, animals and birds. From Mother Earth and Uranus were born the three Cyclopes with only one eye and the twelve huge Titans, six males and six females. Uranus looked with horror to these sons and, as they born, he banished them in the depth of the earth. Gaia, who loved her sons, covinced Cronos, the younger of the Titans, to take  revenge. Cronos, with a sickle, hit Uranus while he was asleep and took his place ruling on the Titans with his wife (and sister) Rhea.

But Uranus, dying, predicted to Cronos that one of his son will banish him from the throne, so he lived in fear and, unable to destroy his sons who were immortal, swallowed his children whole as they were born. When his wife knew to be pregnant of the sixth son, she ran to Arcadia. Here she gave birth to Zeus. Rhea hid him in a cave and committed to the cures of nymphs Adrasteia, Io and the goat Amalthea.
When Cronos discovered what Rhea done, he got angry and ordered to find the baby. To cover the cry of the baby the nymphs danced and sang everytime the hunter came near. Rhea, afraid that the hunter could find him, came up with a trick: she took a big stone, wrapped it in a cloth and gave it to Cronos saying it was their last baby. Cronos swallowed it whole, like he had done with all the other babies.

Zeus Revenge

The time passed and Zeus grew up. Sometimes Rhea went to visit him and told him what happened to his brothers and sisters; once he became a young man, Zeus decided to avenge them.
Cronos had never seen his son, so when Rhea presented to him a young cup-bearer, he took him to work without even suspecting he was his son. As soon as he became a reliable servant, Zeus asked Metis (one of the Titans) to make him a potion, then he poured it in his father cup. Cronos drank and the effect was immediate and violent: Cronos began to vomit and from his mouth came out Hades, Poseidon, Demeter, Hera and Hestia with also the stone that Cronos swallowed instead of Zeus. Now that they were free Poseidon and Hades were eager to have their revenge and convinced Zeus to guide them against the Titans who helped Cronos.

The War of Gods

The war between the old and the new Gods was long and difficult and in the end Zeus was compelled to ask for the help of the cyclopes that had remained trapped in the depth of earth. Zeus went to them and free them and as sign of thanks the cyclopes gave a gift to the three sons of Cronos: to Zeus they gave a thunderbolt, to Hades an helmet that made him invisible and to Poseidon a trident. Armed in this way the three Gods went to war with their father: Hades, not seen, disarmed him, Poseidon threatened him with the trident and Zeus struck him with the thunderbolt. The stroke killed Cronos.
Discouraged, the Titans were easily defeated by the cyclopes and were cast to the depth of the Tartarus to suffer with neverending pains. Only Cronos was allowed to live in the Elysian Fields (the paradise of Greeks) and the Titan Atlas was condemned to support the sky on his shoulders forever.

THE NEW GODS

According to Greeks, the Gods lived on mount Olympus, where only immortal beings could live. Here lived Zeus, Hermes, Poseidon, Hephaestus, Ares and Apollo, the main Gods, and Athena, Hera, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hestia and Demeter, the main Goddesses. There were also other Gods, like Helios, Leto, Dionysus, Themis and Hebe who were less important but lived anyway in the Olympus.

Zeus and his wives

Zeus was the main God of the Olympus and kept order in the universe. He had the ability to  know and see everything, he did justice to who suffered wrongs, protected the poor and weak; Greeks worshipped him as the God of Sky, Lord of Winds, Rain and Thunder and Zeus talked to mortals through the Delphic Oracle.

Hera became Zeus’ wife and gave him three babies: Ares, the God of War, Hephaestus, The God of the Smith and Hebe, The Goddess of Youth and cup-bearer of the Gods.

But Hera was not the first wife, and certainly not the only one; Zeus' first wife was Metis, of the family of the Titans (the one who prepared the potion to make Cronos vomit); then came Themis, one of Uranus’ daughter who conceived with Zeus the three Horae: Dike (the Justice), Eirene (the peace) and Eunomia (the good order and governance). Themis remained on  Olympus even after Zeus married Hera because he used to consult her for many problems.
After Themis, and before Hera, Zeus had other two wives: Mnemosyne who conceived with Zeus nine daughters, the Muses, each devoted to a different art, and Eurynome who conceived with Zeus the three Charites (or Graces).

Hades, Lord of the Underworld

Hades, Zeus’ brother, although was very important didn’t live on mount Olympus, but underground, where he was the Lord of the land of dead.

With the name Hades the Greeks mean both the God and the land of dead. Hades then was the place were all the dead went, good and evil: their destiny was decided there. When a dead was buried a coin was placed in his mouth, under the tongue. Hermes, the messenger of Gods, brought the soul of the dead to the borders of Hades where there was a river, the Styx. To enter into Hades dead had to ferry beyond the Styx; Charon, the ferryman of the river Styx, would collect the soul only if it had the coin with him. If the soul didn’t have the coin, then it was destined to roam the shores of the river for all eternity. Once delivered the coin to Charon the soul was brought in the Hades. At the entrance there was Cerberus, a monster dog with three heads, whose duty was to prevent the escape of the souls from the land of dead, but it had also to prevent the access of the living in the land of dead. Once entered in the Hades the souls needed to wait for their passed life to be judged by three judges who were: Minos, Rhadamanthys and Aeacus.

The three paths

After being judged the souls need to take one of three paths: the first lead to the Fields of Asphodel, a sad place where day and night didn’t exist, but only a neverending twilight; this was the most frequented place, since here went the souls who in life had been not  bad nor  good, and they were forced to remain there forever.

The second path lead to the Elysian Fields. Here the sun was shiny, the bird singing and you could always hear the sound of flute and lyre in the air. The night didn’t exist (the souls didn’t need rest) and everybody danced, ate and drank wine all the time. In the Elysian Fields the souls enjoyed of another priviledge: they could came back to the earth if they so desired, but their new life in the Elysian Fields was so happy that almost no one decided to came back to earth.

The third path lead to the Tartarus, a place of pain and eternal damnation, reserved to evil;  the screams of pain resounded in this place where the souls remained in eternity.

THE LEGEND OF PERSEPHONE

The disappearance of Persephone

Demeter was Zeus’ sister and was the Goddess of harvests, wheat and all living plants; she lived with her only daughter, Persephone, in the isle of Sicily. Persephone was a very beautiful girl and, although she was the daughter of a great Goddess, she lived a quiet life, far from the quarrels and rivarly of Olympus.
One day Persephone disappeared: she went out alone and didn’t come back. Night came and no message had arrived from the girl. Demeter, worried, ordered to her servant:
“Go and search in the fields, in the hills and in the valleys, if Persephone isn’t came back yet, then it must have been happened something terrible!”
For days and days the servants searched for the girl, but they came back without news for Demeter. So they decided to enlarge their researches, also Demeter joined them; they lit their torches in the flame of the volcano Etna so they could search also in the night, but they didn't  find the girl.

Demeter decided to cross the sea searching for new lands to find her daughter. She was so desperate that she forgot of the mortals she had to help: the wheat harvests finished, the plants and trees died and the ground became sterile.

Demeter in Eleusis

One day Demeter arrived to Eleusis, a little city, where she heard that King Celeus and his wife were searching a wet-nurse for their little baby, so Demeter in disguise as an old woman, went to work for them because she was very tired and she thought that to cure a baby would have make her less sad. One day Demeter, to repay the kindness the King and Queen had always shown her, decided to make the baby immortal: she took him in her arms and lifted him over the fire to destroy everything mortal was in him. In that moment the Queen entered and seeing the scene she screamed ripped the baby from Demeter's arms. Doing so she broke the spell before it could finish, and the baby died istantaneously in her arms. Demeter understood that she had to reveal her real identity, and after this she discovered that another son of the King had news of Persephone: the day she had disappeared, Persephone was collecting flowers and a shepherd noticed her; suddenly a tall man drivind a golden chariot dragged by two horses grabbed the girl and disappeared with her in a chasm opened on the side of the mountain. Demeter immediately understood who this man was: her brother Hades, Lord of the afterlife.

Finding Persephone

Demeter was happy to know that the daughter still alive, but was angry for the trick suffered: if Hades kept Persephone in his reign, then surely Zeus knew that. So, for anger, Demeter refused to give the fertility to the earth: it seems that all men were condamned to starve, and also Gods wouldn’t have received the sacrifices that men usually done for them. Finally Zeus decided to intervene: he sent Hermes in the Hades with a message to ask the free of the girl. Hades accepted, but with one condition: the girl could return home only if she had not touched any of the food while she had been there, because whoever eat the food of the dead must swear allegiance to the King Hades. Hermes found Persephone pale and sad who said:
“I didn’t eat anything from the moment I have been kidnapped. Everyday they brought me food and they gave me the most beautiful fruits I’ve ever seen, but I know that it’s the food of dead they are offering me, and it has the taste of ashes. Oh Hermes, bring me back home!”

Gods' agreement

Hermes brought her back to Sicily and as soon Demeter saw her, the earth began to rebirth again. But in the land of dead Hades questioned all the souls and spirits until someone told him that he saw Persephone pick a pomegranate and ate seven seeds. Hades was very happy and went straight to Zeus asking to have again Persephone as wife again, but Demeter didn’t want to:
“If my daughter won’t stay with me, the earth will remain sterile like the driest of deserts!”
The Gods debated very much, and at the end they took a decision: Persephone would be allowed to spend nine months per year with her mother, and the other three with Hades, her husband.

Also today when Persephone is far from her mother, the trees lost the leaves and the earth become cold and poor, but when she returns the leaves sprout and the flowers bloom, and the winter ends.

Copyright © 2006 Lalaith Lomion | Design by Andreas Viklund