14

Study Guide 201.113

COSMOGONICAL MYTHS


Cosmogony means birth of the cosmos or ordered world.



HESIOD

The principal source for these myths is the poet Hesiod who lived around the
time of Homer (about 700 BC). We know from his own account that his father
had given up sea-trading as unprofitable and had settled in Ascra in Boeotia as a
peasant farmer with a small estate. Hesiod himself lived as a shepherd when he
claimed to have been inspired by the Muses, the goddesses of poetic inspiration,
to sing, i.e. compose poems, of the gods (Theogony 22-35). His two great poems
are the Theogony and the Works and Days.


Theogony

The term theogony is similar to cosmogony, as it refers to the birth of the gods,
many of whom are virtually identified with aspects of the universe. E.g., the god
Uranus is heaven and Gaia (or Ge) is earth. The main part of the poem deals
with the origins and genealogies of the gods and the events leading to the
kingship of Zeus (Extract 1). The succession myth (the passing of the kingship
down the generations from Uranus to Cronus to Zeus) closely resembles certain
Hittite and Akkadian texts and seems to have originated in the Near East. (This
matter is explored in some detail in Powell.)


Works and Days

In this poem Hesiod offers advice for honest hard work. It is ostensibly
addressed to his brother Perses who has bribed the kings and taken more than
his share of his inheritance. Hesiod gives moral advice and practical instruction
especially on agriculture and sea-faring. His arguments are supported by some
famous myths such as Prometheus, Pandora, and the Five Races (Extracts 3-6).
15
201.113 Study Guide
Hesiod, as revealed in his poems, is argumentative, suspicious, ironically
humorous, frugal, fond of proverbs, wary of women (Griffin in The Oxford
History of the Classical World, 88).

The Theogony is a rough Greek equivalent of the Biblical book of Genesis. In the
latter God creates out of nothing. Hesiod begins with Chaos which implies not
total disorder (the modern sense), but a gap between two things. Above Chaos is
the solid earth, Gaia. Below it, apparently, is Tartarus, often associated with
Hades, the realm of the dead. Eros (sexual desire) then appears. So Chaos, Gaia
and Eros seem to be three irreducible entities. Eros is necessary as a causal force
that accounts for the multiplicity of things. The earliest Greek philosophers
(around 600BC), on the other hand, began with a primal substance (arche),
sometimes one of the four elements earth, air, fire and water and argued that
the world in all its rich particularity developed by some process of separation or
rarefaction/condensation. Gaia bore Uranus asexually, and also the mountains
and Sea (Pontus). She mated sexually with her son Uranus (incest is fine among
gods) to produce six male and six female Titans, with Cronus born last. (For
more details, unnecessary for our purposes, see the handbooks, e.g. Powell 78ff.)
Now read Extract 1.


1. Hesiod, Theogony 156-200

The confusions in this story arise largely because the deities are at the same time
parts of the universe and humanised personalities. The primordial, unseparated
state of earth and sky is humanised as an obsessive, endless sexual embrace. But
then for the story to make (realistic) sense we have to imagine Heaven and Earth
as people who do other things apart from having sex. Otherwise how can Earth
design a weapon for use against her husband and where can her son stand to
wield it? On the cosmic level this is a positive tale of the universe moving
towards its final configuration with earth and sky separate, while on the human
level it is a story of rivalry between father and son with the father pathologically
afraid of being replaced. From the drops of the fathers blood come the Erinyes
[errinnee-eez] (Furies), the goddesses concerned with the punishment of crimes
against kin (see Extract 22).

156-8: We are not informed as to Uranus motive, but it is easy enough to infer.

16
Study Guide 201.113
How does Hesiod create suspense?

191: Divine flesh, even when severed, remains immortal.

Aphrodite: the name is here derived (probably incorrectly) from aphros (foam).
Hesiod has thus produced a second deity of sex. Modesty (193), however, was
not a quality the Greeks normally associated with her. Born from the bloody
genitals of a cosmic deity, Aphrodite represents the universal force of irresistible
sexual desire, a fruit of mutilation and violence. The destructive power of sexual
attraction is a central theme in Greek myth (Powell 84).

Antagonism between father and son re-emerges in the next generation. Cronus
parents inform him that one of his children will topple him from his throne, so as
they emerge from his wife (and sister) Rhea he at once swallows them. These
children were the subsequent Olympian gods: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades,
Poseidon, and Zeus whom Rhea bore on Crete and hid in a mountain cave. Rhea
then gave Cronus a stone wrapped in baby clothes which he swallowed in place
of his latest son. Zeus later forced Cronus to vomit up all the other children.

Zeus and his siblings now establish themselves on Mount Olympus, but their
supremacy is challenged by the older generation of Titans, except for the Titan
Themis and her son Prometheus. This is known as the Titanomachy, or Battle of
the Titans, and was later represented as a primordial contest between good and
evil or civilisation and barbarism. Before he can be secure in power Zeus must
also fight Typhoeus, another monster, as well as the Giants (Gigantomachy). But
this is not all. He would be overcome by one who is cleverer than he. This
would be a son born of Metis (cleverness), but Zeus swallowed Metis and so
incorporated cleverness within himself! Later, suffering a severe headache, Zeus
cried out for assistance. Either Prometheus or Hephaestus struck his head with
an axe. Out sprang Athena, fully formed, fully armed, screaming the war cry.
Thus Athena was the child of Zeus alone, his agent and supporter, female in sex
but virgin in body and masculine in thought and behaviour (Powell 95).



17
201.113 Study Guide
EARLY HUMAN HISTORY


There is no single tradition about the creation of human beings, nor, surprisingly
enough, did the Greeks seem to regard it as a central issue. (Human beings came
from ash trees, or were made out of clay or developed from stones.) The Greeks
were more interested in the relative positions in the universe of gods and
mortals. A major mythical mediator between the two realms was the Titan
Prometheus (= Forethinker), a mighty friend of the human race and the son of
Iapetus who was a brother of Cronus. His relations with humans are
summarised in the next three extracts.


2. Hesiod, Theogony 535-54

549: Zeus appears to realise the deceit before he chooses the inferior portion.
551-2: These lines seem to contradict 549, for his anger arises (only?) as he
explores the portion and physically sees the deceit.

Can we explain the above discrepancy?
This is an aetiological myth. How does it work?
What particular anomaly does the myth seek to explain? What more
realistic reason for that anomaly can you suggest?

Apart from the answer to the above question, Kirk (139) suggests that offering
the inferior portion to the gods was perfectly logical, at least from a religious
standpoint, since the only part that could pass from the sacrificial burning up
into the sky, where the gods could receive it, was the smoke and savour, and that
emanated best from the fat and not the flesh. From another but no less important
point of view what was symbolically offered to the gods was the whole animal;
this too was best represented by the bones.


3.

Prometheus has managed to gain for mortals a small advantage but at a
huge price. Is the negative aspect of the human condition thereby
adequately explained?
18
Study Guide 201.113
Zeus punishes Prometheus self-appointed proteges, human beings, by removing
fire from trees so that, because they had grown accustomed to cooked meat, they
had to starve. (Fire was thought to be latent in trees because it was available
when lightning struck them or when friction was created from branches rubbing
together.) But Prometheus pitied his beloved mortals, and stole fire from heaven
by hiding it in a fennel stalk, a thick plant stem with a soft inflammable pith and
a hard fire-resistant coat, used in early times to transport live coals. Ever since,
human beings have enjoyed the permanent possession of fire, though only
constant labouring at gathering fuel would maintain it. After the incident at
Mecone, human life was one of labour (Powell 114). As for Prometheus, Zeus
had him bound to a crag in the Caucasus and sent an eagle to gnaw at his liver by
day. By night the liver was healed so that the eagle could begin anew the next
day.

The torment of Prometheus is dramatised in Aeschylus tragedy Prometheus
Bound. In a speech he describes the benefits he conferred on the human race
(Extracts 3, 4). This play was written in the fifth century BC, long after the
Theogony, and exemplifies a contemporary interest in the ascent of man from
savagery to civilisation as reflected in the use of language, the development of
ethical thinking, and the discovery of technology. This view is contrasted with
the earlier one of a golden age in the remote past (see Extract 6).


4. Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 478-501

484: i.e. how to interpret dreams as messages from the divine and spirit world.
486-8: i.e. how to read omens in chance occurrences, especially the flight of
birds.
491: entrails: When an animal was sacrificed its entrails were studied for signs of
good or bad omen. This was a very complicated business. The quality of the
liver lobe (493) was of particular importance. Divination (the art of discerning
the divine will from signs) was a central aspect of humanitys crucial relationship
with the gods.


5. Hesiod, Works and Days 42-95

81: Epimetheus means Afterthinker, i.e. one who is wise with hindsight.
19
201.113 Study Guide
Another aetiological myth. What is it supposed to explain?
What do you think Pandoras motive might have been in lifting the lid of
the jar?
What is the significance of Hope alone remaining? (Intuitively it seems to
mean one thing, but logically another.)

Like the Biblical story of Eve, all the sufferings of humanity are blamed on
women. Women seem to symbolise the ambivalence of life as men see it.
Another myth that looks back to an earlier golden age is that of the Five Races.


6. Hesiod, Works and Days 106-194

There is an interesting interpretation of this myth in Vernants Myth and Thought
among the Greeks (see Bibliography). There are several points you might like to
consider.

The trend appears to be one of deterioration from gold down to iron. If so,
how does the heroic age fit in (we are told it is superior to the bronze which
precedes it)?
Try thinking of the races in pairs: gold and silver, bronze and heroic, the
two phases of the iron age.
Consider each race as representing a social class (e.g. the bronze and heroic
man are warriors) and as a reflection of real people and society now rather
seeing the myth literally as a succession of races. How human are the first
three races, anyway?



HOMER

Perhaps the most influential poet in shaping the Greek myths was Homer. We
have no biographical information about him. He is the traditional author of the
two great surviving Greek epics (and the first two works of European literature),
the Iliad and the Odyssey. He lived perhaps around 700 BC somewhere in the
East Aegean area (around the present-day western Turkey). Both epics are oral
rather than literary like Virgils Aeneid or Miltons Paradise Lost. That means that
they were not composed on paper or parchment by a literate poet. The oral poet