Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume One (48 page)

Once or twice, however, it happened that he spent so much time with a nymph that his horses dipped low to search for him, firing the earth and leaving great scorched places that were later called deserts. And nobody knew how these places came to be until long afterward. Once, while Helios was chasing an oread, or mountain nymph, the horses circled the same peak until it melted inside, blowing its top, spitting flame and red-hot rock. And so, it is told, were volcanoes born.

Uranus, whose name means “rain,” was the First One, Ruler of Sky and Earth and the new boiling seas—and All Above, Beyond, and Between. He ruled wisely and well, and the lesser gods expected him to be king forever, but his son Cronos thought otherwise. Cronos was loud in admiration of his father, pretended utter devotion, and kept singing his praises up to the time that he murdered him.

Actually, murder isn't the right word. Gods are immortal. They can be surprised and dismembered by other gods; even so, each piece will hold a life of its own. But Cronos was as cunning as he was cruel. He had the great body of his father chopped into a thousand bloody gobbets and scattered them over the entire surface of the earth and dropped them into every sea.

Then Cronos announced that because of the tragic and mysterious disappearance of the mighty Uranus, he, Cronos, eldest son, would take the throne until his father chose to reappear. Everyone knew what had happened, if not exactly how, and knew that Uranus would never reappear. But they all feared Cronos and vowed to serve him faithfully.

So Cronos proclaimed himself king, put on the star-encrusted crown and the gorgeous cloud-wool Judgment Cloak, dyed in all the colors of the sunset, and began his reign. He imposed a stricter order upon the wild new earth and divided the work of controlling nature among the Titans, who were his brothers and sisters. It was at that time that he awarded Helios the important task of driving the sun chariot.

Although Cronos held absolute and unchallenged power, he was familiar with fear. For he was haunted by a certain memory, which, instead of fading, seemed to grow more vivid as time passed. The memory was of himself holding a bloody sword as he watched his father's head tumbling in the dust. But the head stopped rolling—stood on its stump of a neck and spoke:

“O Son, you kill me now and steal my throne. But what you have done to me shall be done to you—by a child of your own.”

Cronos had great mastery over himself. During the day he was able to shut out this memory. But at night the head floated into his sleep, looking at him out of scooped and empty eyes. In the white thicket of its beard a black hole opened, speaking those same words:

“What has been done to me shall be done to you—by a child of your own …”

For three nights in a row the head visited his sleep. On the third night Cronos answered: “No! It shall not be! No child of mine shall slay me. It won't live long enough.”

The hundred-headed giant who guarded the royal bedchamber heard his master utter a strangled shout, and ran in to defend him, each hand wielding a tree-trunk club. Cronos awoke and saw the gigantic figure looming above him. He sprang out of bed.

“What do you want?” he growled.

“Pardon, My Lord,” said the giant. “I heard you call. You must have had a bad dream.”

“Very bad,” said Cronos. “But it taught me what to do.”

Now Cronos's young wife, Rhea, was bursting with her first child and happily awaiting its appearance. Cronos surprised her by showing great concern. He would attend the birth, he insisted, to make sure everything went well.

It was a hard labor. Rhea swooned briefly, and swam back to consciousness holding out her arms for her infant. No baby came into her arms, nor did she see any midwife—just her husband looking sadly down at her.

“Where's my baby?” she whispered. “Is it a boy or girl? Give it to me, give it to me.”

“Oh, Wife,” said Cronos with a half sob. “I regret to tell you that our child was born dead. I've already buried it to spare you pain.”

“Your mouth is all bloody,” she whispered.

Hastily, he wiped the blood away with the back of his hand. “In my anguish I must have bitten my lips,” he said. “Do not grieve, dear wife. We'll have other children, many more.”

“Oh, yes,” she murmured.

“I'll have to be more careful next time,” he said to himself. For what had happened was that to destroy all evidence he had eaten the baby.

Three vanished babies later Rhea began to get suspicious. She also got pregnant again. And when her fifth baby disappeared in the same way, her suspicion grew into a furious certainty, for now she realized that her husband had swallowed all their children and meant to keep doing so. But she was determined that he would not.

When she was again ripe with child and felt her time coming she sneaked out of the palace, down the slope of Olympus, and into a dark wood. There, beneath a great oak, she delivered her own child—a boy. She slung a cradle of vines in the tree, suckled him, and put him to sleep. Then she found a rock the right size, wrapped it in swaddling clothes, climbed the mountain and entered the royal bedchamber, holding the rock to her breast and humming a lullaby.

Snorting and bellowing, Cronos arose from his great bed. He snatched the bundle from her and swallowed it, clothes and all—and was amazed. The five other children he had swallowed had given him no trouble at all. This one lay like a stone on his stomach.

Rhea sympathized very sweetly when he complained of indigestion, and, indeed, was all laughter inside. She stole down the mountain again and took her boy from the vine cradle. She found an honest shepherd family and gave them the babe to raise, promising them a great crop of lambs each spring, and a huge hound that would protect their flock from wolves.

The child's name was Zeus, she told them; he was the son of a king and would be a mighty king himself.

“Oh, yes, yes!” cried the shepherd's wife. “Look at him shining there in the manger. He makes the straw look like gold. Not a prince he seems, but a young god.”

And Rhea's heart sang as she made her way up the mountain again. She knew her precious babe would be safe with that family until such time as she could fetch him again.

So the secret was kept. Cronos did not know that he had swallowed a rock instead of an infant, and that the dangerous babe, quite uneaten, was out in the world growing fast. Indeed, Zeus was no longer a baby but a boy. And the boy was growing into a glorious youth. Gray-eyed, suavely powerful, with a joyous, bawling voice and a smile that could melt snow, he prowled the slope like a young panther. So splendid a creature had he become that he amazed even his doting mother, and she realized that his divinity could not be concealed much longer.

And one night she smuggled him into the cloud castle atop Olympus.

The next morning she sought out Cronos and said: “I have a surprise for you, my dear.”

“Do you?” he growled. “I'm not sure I like surprises. In fact, I'm sure I don't.”

“Oh, you'll like this one. I've engaged a new cupbearer.”

“Why? What happened to the old one?”

“
You
happened to him, My Lord. Don't you recall? You split his skull with your scepter when he splashed some wine on your sleeve. Surely, you remember. It was just last week.”

“Oh, that … Did I really hit him hard or is the rascal just pretending?”

“I don't know, dear, but he isn't here anymore. I don't know whether the brains spilled out of that crack in his head or he simply decided it was healthier to vanish. But we need a new cupbearer. And I've found one.”

“Who?”

“I think you'll like him. He's a cousin from a far-off place. Son of bickering Titans whose quarrels grew so violent that their children all ran away. This lad sought refuge here on Olympus. And knowing how you like handsome servants, I took him on immediately. He's a real beauty. You'll see.”

Cronos saw and approved. And Zeus stayed on at the Castle of the Gods, serving as cupbearer. When Cronos was away, he and his mother walked in the garden, weaving a plot. Now, in the manner of gods, when they decided what to do they began to do it. In the midnight kitchen they brewed a strong potion—mustard and stump water, to which was added a paste of crushed fire ants. They let it steep for two days.

“I don't know, Mother,” said Zeus. “See how it hisses and foams? Surely he'll notice it, and know there's something wrong.”

“Perhaps not,” said Rhea. “I'll have the cook prepare his favorite dish—pig's heart and calf brains. He'll hurl himself on the food very greedily, and when he eats, he drinks. Perhaps he'll gulp the brew down without suspecting anything.”

“Well,” said Zeus, “we always knew it would be a risky business. But it's worth it.”

At noon on the third day Zeus filled his father's golden goblet with the special drink. Rhea had ordered the cook to oversalt the pig's heart and calf brains, and when Cronos had devoured a huge serving he was very thirsty. He snatched up the hissing goblet and drained it in a single gulp.

He arose from his chair, retching and gasping. He vomited up first a stone, then all the children he had swallowed—Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon, who, being gods, were still undigested, still alive. At the first touch of sunlight they grew to full size, and stood forth in the glory of their prime. They greeted their mother and their brother with loud cries of joy and clustered about Zeus, praising him and embracing him—and immediately chose him to be their leader. But when they turned to rend their father, they found that he had slipped away.

But Cronos soon made himself felt again. He called his Titans to arms; he summoned his Giants and a flight of fire-spitting dragons, and led this fearsome array against the young gods.

But Zeus had won the loyalty of the Cyclopes, gigantic one-eyed creatures who were the world's first weapon makers. And Cronos had so mistreated the lesser gods, woodland deities, and those of river and field, that they, too, came to fight under Zeus. Thus began the War of the Gods, a series of battles that raged across the floor of heaven, shaking earth and sea, spawning bloody tales and terrifying mankind so badly that human dreams were colored by terror to the end of time. But for this tale all we need to know is that the younger gods won the final battle. Cronos and his Titans were forced to flee, and Zeus ruled as King of Heaven.

Whereupon he divided all powers among his brothers and sisters, his sons and daughters. Helios, the huge, shaggy, flame-haired charioteer, was barred from his golden coach and forbidden even to say farewell to his beloved sun stallions. And a son of Zeus named Apollo became Lord of the Golden Bow, sun god, and charioteer.

2

The Furies

Zeus, as King of the Gods, sometimes visited the realms ruled by his brothers. For the sea god, Poseidon, and Hades, Lord of the Dead, had to be watched closely lest they steal some of his powers.

Both of his brothers received Zeus with great courtesy and sought to lull his suspicions by overwhelming him with hospitality. Poseidon heaped magnificent gifts upon him—spear, sword, and dagger of polished walrus ivory, a bib of first-water pearls, and armlets of gold taken from the holds of sunken treasure ships—and served up a braid of the most gorgeous sea nymphs to attend him wherever he went.

Hades entertained Zeus with strange spectacles. He demonstrated his entire stock of tortures—the Great Mangle, the Marrow-log, the Spiked Shirt—and took him on a tour of the roasting pits.

Now, the shades that inhabit Death's domain are just that—shades, ghosts. They have shed their bodies, leaving pinkish white vapors that drift over the scorched plains of Erebus. But any shade who has been sentenced to torment is clothed again in flesh so that it may again know pain.

And Zeus watched as the condemned shades suffered the attentions of harpies, pitchfork fiends, and assorted demons. He turned every once in a while to praise his brother's ingenuity and the efficiency of his staff, but vowed to himself to send someone else on the next inspection trip. Like all the gods, Zeus could be very cruel when angered, but the spectacle of so much pain when he felt no wrath just made him gloomy. But his interest was quickened when Hades ordered the Furies into action.

Who were these Furies?

They were three hags, sisters, related to the Harpies but even more horrid. They, too, wore brass wings and brass claws and wielded stingray whips, but they were larger than the Harpies, totally vicious, and were used to torment those who had especially displeased Hades. Their Greek names—Tisiphone, Alecto, and Megaera—meant Vengeance, Strange One, and Dark Memory, but they called each other Tiss, Ally, and Meg.

“Watch this!” cried Hades. He pointed to a section of scorched field where iron racks sprouted like trees, and their branches bore leather loops instead of leaves. In a clearing before this weird grove huddled newly fleshed shades. Hades whistled.

Zeus stared as three brass-winged hags dived separately upon three condemned shades, who resembled pinkish, plump men. Each hag seized a man and dug her brass claws into the soft places of his body, so that the victims began to scream before their official punishment started. Tiss flew to a rack, folded her man over a metal arm and bound him fast. Ally and Meg flew to separate racks and tethered their men in the same way. They wheeled then, and, standing on air, curtsied to Hades.

The Lord of the Dead sliced his hand through the air. The three Furies wheeled again, unslung the stingray whips from their girdles, and made the barbed lashes whistle through the air as they began to flog the three pink men. Now arose a screaming and sobbing such as Zeus had never heard before. He sat like a rock. The screaming turned to choked, phlegmy howls. Zeus frowned. It had all become unpleasant to him.

The sounds stopped as suddenly as they had begun. Silence lay upon the scorched plain. Every scrap of flesh had been flayed from the condemned; only bloody, pulsing gobs clung to the metal branches. They were shades again. But pain had been branded so deeply into their cores that they would never stop suffering, even though they had lost their torn flesh.