Chapter Four, Lecture One

1. Chapter Four, Lecture One Myths of Creation Up to the Birth of Aphrodite; Monsters and Sea Deities

2. “Sing all this to me, Muses, you who dwell on Olympus: from the beginning tell me, which of the gods first came to be.”Hesiod, Theogony (114–5)

3. The cosmogony is the theogony. Cosmogony-story that explains origin of world Theogony-story that explains origin of gods *Remember there are different and contradictory versions of myths.

5. First gods • Hesiod, Theogony 116-125 • Chaos = Chasm • Gaea (Earth), Tartarus (no translation) • Mythic geography • Chaos/Topmost • Earth/Middle • Tartarus/Bottommost

6. The Beginning of Creation • Classical mythology starts with the creation of the universe • To the Greeks, the universe began with a mystery that sprang from the unknown, from Chaos • Hesiod and Ovid had differing views of creation • Hesiod conceived of Chaos as an enormous • chasm born into darkness • Ovid viewed Chaos as shapeless, mutable matter

7. Gaia

8. The Children of Chaos • Is Gaea the mother of all things? • Homeric Myth to Gaea

9. The Children of Chaos • Eros • Force of sexual attraction • Nyx and Erebus (Night and Darkness) • Features of Chaos? • Nyx • Moerae-Fates • Nemesis-Retribution • Eerbus – Nyx • Aether (Radiance) • Hemera (day)

10. Nyx mated with Erebus and produced • 1. Hemera (Day) and Aether (upper air) • a. Night and Day dwell in the same house but never share that house together. • 2. Moros - doom 3. Thanatos - death 4. Hypnos - sleep

11. 5. Nemesis - goddess of retribution

12. 6. Eris - goddess of strife, bred a host of woes ranging from famine and sorrow to lies and murder 7. The Keres - female death spirits, would be charged with collecting and carrying off the bodies of the dead

13. 8. The Moerae - the fates, would be charged with determining the course of events in mortal lives a. Clotho - spun the thread of life b. Lachesis - measured it with a rod c. Atropos - snipped it with shears ending the life span

14. The Children of Gaea: The Titans and their Cousins • Many beings from the earth • Most important the • Titans • Cyclopes • Hecatonchires

15. Cyclops, Hecatonchires • Also children of Gaea and Uranus • Cyclops • Not the Cyclops of Homer (Polyphemos) • Blacksmiths for the gods • Brontes (“Thunderer”), Steropes (“flasher”), Arges (“brightener”)

16. Cyclopes

17. Cyclops, Hecatonchires • Hecatonchires (“hundred-handers”) • Also fifty heads • Cottus, Briareus, Gyes

18. Hecatonchires

19. The Titans • Gaea asexually produced Uranus (Sky), Mountains, Pontus (Sea), Giants, Erinyes (furies) • Gaea + Uranus

20. The Titans • Uranus and Gaea in eternal sexual embrace • C.f. Egyptian Nut and Geb

22. Another Version of the Myth • Uranus enveloped Gaia with love and showered her with fertile rain • Gaia gave birth to the rest of the physical world (bodies of water, mountains, flora, fauna, etc.) • 12 Titans • 1. Two of them (Oceanus and Tethys) continued Creation themselves • 2. Their mating produced • a. 3,000 rivers of Earth all of which draw their waters from the mighty stream Oceanus • b. 3,000 Oceanids, ocean goddesses all

23. One of the 3,000 rivers An Oceanid or sea nymph

24. The Titans Thereafter Gaea was bedded with Uranus, lord of heaven, and bore deep-swirling (1)Oceanus, (2)Coeus, (3)Crius, (4)Hyperion, (5)Iapetus, (6)Theia and (7)Rhea, (8)Themis, (9)Mnemnosynê, (10)Phoebê, and fair-featured (11)Tethys. Last of all she gave birth to (12)Cronus, that scheming intriguer, cleverest child of her brood, who hated his lecherous father. Hesiod, Theogony (126–38)

25. The Titans • Titans six male, six female • Most Titans hardly more than names • Take no role in subsequent Greek myth

26. The Titans • Oceanus – Tethys • Homer’s alternate cosmology makes them the primordial parents of all the gods • Ancient geography • Oceanus rims the world • Sky is a dome over it • The Oceanids

27. Oceanus and Tethys

28. The Titans • Phoebê = “brilliant,” “shinning” • Themis = “settled law” • Occupied Delphi before Apollo • Zeus + Themis => Mnemosynê (Memory) • Cronus + Rhea • Parents or grandparents of the Olympians

29. Themis

30. Mnemosynê

31. Hyperion’s Children: Sun, Moon, Sun • Hyperion (“he who goes above”) • Father of Helius, another sun god • Selenê (moon) • Eos (dawn) • Homeric Hymn to Helius • The Story of Phaëthon in Ovid 1.750-

32. Helius

33. Hyperion’s Children: Sun, Moon, Sun • Phaethon’s fall in art • Phaethon wanted proof of his parentage, so asked Helius if he was truly his father. Helius and confirms and grants his wish to drive the sun chariot. Zeus shoots chariot down and Phaethon dies so he can not destroy the earth.

34. Hyperion’s Children: Sun, Moon, Sun • Selenê and Endymion • Endymion placed in eternal sleep by Zeus • Eos • Tithonus immortal, but not always young • Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 5

35. Cronus Against Uranus • Uranus stuffing newly born Titans back into Gaea • Cronus, the youngest, castrates Uranus with a sickle • Blood from the severed genitals becomes the Erinyes-furies who haunt anyone who sheds kindred blood. (ironic?) • Giants-Earth bound ones

36. Uranus is defeated by Cronus..

37. The Birth of Aphrodite, Monsters and Sea Deities • Aphrodite springs up from the “foam” at Cythera • Monsters-at which you point in surprise • Altered Egyptian and Mesopotamian archetypes: • Harpies, Sirens, Sphinx

38. Aphrodites’s “birth”

39. Harpies

40. Sirens

41. Sphinx

42. The Birth of Aphrodite, Monsters and Sea Deities • Combined human and animal parts • Gorgons, Geryon, Cerberus, Chimera • Natural animals, but with special powers • Ceto, Graeae, Nemaean Lion, Nereus (the Nereids – Thetis-mother of Achilles)

43. Gorgons

44. Cerberus

45. Chimera

46. Next Zeus’s battles