Mythos (2019 Re-Issue) Read online

  After he had traveled he knew not how far he found himself in a field where he was met by the wondrous sight of a herd of pure white cattle cropping the grass and lowing gently in the moonlight.

  “Oh!” he breathed, entranced. “What beautiful moo-moos.” For all his precocity he was still not above baby-talk.

  Hermes looked at the cows and the cows looked at Hermes.

  “Come here,” he commanded.

  The cows stared for a while then lowered their heads and continued to graze.

  “Hm. So it’s like that is it?”

  Hermes thought quickly and gathered up long blades of grass which he plaited together into something like a bovine version of horseshoes, attaching one to each hoof of every cow. Around his own tiny plump feet he wrapped laurel leaves. Finally he snapped off a branch of young willow and stripped it down into a long switch with which he easily and expertly tickled and stung the cows into a tight and maneuverable herd. As an extra precaution he drove them backward, all the way up the slope and back to the mouth of the cave, where his astonished and alarmed mother had been worriedly standing ever since he had wandered so very calmly away.

  Maia had had no experience of motherhood before this, but she was certain that the striking style and eccentric behavior of her son were not usual—even amongst gods. Apollo, she knew, had defeated Pytho while still an infant, and Athena of course had been born fully armed, but creating fire out of nothing but stones? Driving cattle? And what was this he was dangling before her eyes—a tortoise? Was she dreaming?

  “Now, Mother,” said Hermes. “Listen. I’ve had an idea. I’d like you to stun the tortoise, scoop out the flesh and cook it. I expect it will make a delicious soup. I’d recommend adding plenty of wild garlic if I were you and perhaps a suspicion of fennel? And then there’ll be beef for mains, which I shall see to now. I’ll just borrow this knife and be with you again before you know it.”

  With those words he disappeared to the back of the cave, off whose stone walls rang the appalling screams of a cow having its throat cut by a plump-fisted baby.

  After what Maia had to confess was a truly delicious supper she summoned up the courage to ask her son what he might be up to now, for he was hanging out stringy lines of cow gut in front of the fire. While he waited for these foul-smelling strips to dry he busied himself with boring little holes along the edges of the tortoiseshell.

  “I’ve had an idea,” was all he would tell her.

  APOLLO READS THE SIGNS

  Hermes may or may not have known it, but on his first night on earth he had traveled quite a distance. All the way from his birthplace on Mount Cyllene north through the fields of Thessaly and as far as Pieria, where he had found and rustled the cattle. And back again. In baby steps that is quite a distance.

  What Hermes certainly could not have known was that the white cattle belonged to Apollo, who prized them highly. When news reached the god of their disappearance he set off in fury to Pieria in order to follow what he assumed was a vicious gang of thieves to their lair. Wild dryads or fauns gone to the bad, he imagined. They would regret taking property from the god of arrows. He lay down in the cattle’s field to examine the ground with all the thoroughness of an experienced tracker. To his astonishment the brigands had left no useful traces at all. All he could see were random brush marks, meaningless whorls and swirls and—unless he was going mad—one tiny infant footprint. Any impressions that might have been formed by cow’s hoofs seemed to be heading, not away from the field, but toward it!

  Whoever had stolen the cattle was mocking Apollo. They were practiced and expert thieves, that much was clear. His sister Artemis was the most skilled hunter he knew: Would she dare? Perhaps she had devised some cunning way to conceal her tracks. Ares didn’t have the wit. Poseidon wouldn’t be interested. Hephaestus? Unlikely. Who then?

  He noticed a thrush preening on a branch not far away and in one smooth action drew his bow and brought the creature down. Slitting open its crop the god of oracles and augury peered forward to read the entrails.

  From the coloration in the lower intestine, the kink in the right kidney, and the unusual disposition of the thymus gland it was clear at once that the cattle were somewhere in Arcadia, not far from Corinth. And what was that clot of blood on the liver saying to him? Mount Cyllene. And what else? So! It had been a baby’s footprint after all.

  Apollo’s usually smooth brow was drawn into a frown, his blue eyes blazed, and his rose-red lips compressed themselves into a grim line.

  Revenge would be his.

  HALF BROTHERS

  By the time Apollo arrived at the foot of Mount Cyllene his temper had frayed almost to a breaking point. The world knew the cows were sacred to him. It was obvious that they were a rare and valuable breed. Who would dare?

  A hamadryad drooping herself from the branches of her aspen could offer no clue but informed him that farther up an assorted gaggle of nymphs had gathered around the mouth of Maia’s cave. Maybe he would find his answer there? She would go herself if only she could leave her tree.

  When Apollo reached the top of the mountain he saw that the whole population of Cyllene had congregated at the cave. As he drew nearer he became aware of a sound emerging from it—a sound such as he had never heard before. It was as if sweetness and love and perfection and all that was beautiful had come to life and were gently coursing through his ears and into his very soul. Just as the scent of ambrosia enticed a god to table and made him sigh with glorious anticipation, just as the sight of a comely nymph caused the hot ichor in his veins to sing and fizz until he felt he could burst, just as the warm touch of skin on skin thrilled him to his deeps—so now these invisible noises seduced and bewitched the god until he thought he might go mad with joy and desire. If only he could pluck them from the air and absorb them into his breast, if only . . .

  The magical sound abruptly stopped and the spell was broken.

  The crowd of naiads and dryads and other spirits that had clustered around the cave’s entrance now dispersed, shaking their heads in wonder as they went, as if emerging from a trance. Shouldering through them, Apollo saw that, beside the mouth of the cave, on piles of stone, two vast sides of beef were on display, sliced into neat steaks. His furious outrage resurfaced.

  “Now you will pay!” he roared as he rushed inside. “Now you will—”

  “Sh!”

  Apollo’s cousin, the oread Maia, was sitting in a basket chair sewing. She put a finger to her lips and inclined her head in the direction of a crib by the fire in which a rosy-cheeked baby gurgled in its sleep.

  Apollo was not to be put off. “That demonic child stole my cattle!”

  “Are you mad?” said Maia. “My little angel is not so much as a day old.”

  “Little angel my foot! I know how to read a thrush’s entrails. Besides, I can hear the beasts stamping and lowing in the back. I’d know their moo anywhere. That baby is a thief and I demand—”

  “You demand what?” Hermes had sat up and was now staring at Apollo with a quelling eye. “Can’t a boy get a wink of sleep? I had a heavy night of it transporting cattle and the last thing I need is for—”

  “You admit it!” yelled Apollo, striding toward him. “By Zeus, I’ll strangle the life out of you, you little—”

  But as he picked Hermes up, ready to do who knows what to him, a strange device made of wood and tortoiseshell fell from the crib. In falling it made a noise that instantly recalled the magical sound that had so transfixed Apollo when he stood outside the cave.

  He dropped Hermes back into his cot and snatched up the device. Two thin bars of wood had been attached to the tortoiseshell and lines of cattlegut strung tightly across them. Apollo picked at one string with his thumb and again the marvelous sound came to him.

  “How . . . ?”

  “What, this old thing?” said Hermes, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “Just a little nonsense I put together last night. I call it a ‘lyre.’ You can get some intere
sting effects from it though. If you pluck it just right. Or you can strum if you like. You press down on a couple of strings and—here, give it me, I’ll show you.”

  They were soon picking, plucking, slapping, strumming, twanging, and swapping new chords like excited teenagers. Hermes was in the process of demonstrating the principle of natural harmonics when Apollo, entranced as he was by the feelings stirred in him by this extraordinary device, came to himself. “Yes, that’s all very well,” he said, “but what about my bloody cattle?”

  Hermes eyed him quizzically. “You must be, let me see . . . don’t tell me . . . Apollo, right?”

  Not to be recognized was a new experience for Apollo and one that he found he didn’t quite like. Being spoken to in superior tones by a day-old baby was another on his list of least favorite experiences. He was about to crush this cocky little squirt with a cutting remark and possibly a swift right hook to the chin when he found himself facing a dimpled outstretched hand.

  “Put it there, Pol. Delighted to meet you. Hermes, latest addition to the divine roster. You’ll be my half brother, I think? Mother Maia here took me through the family tree last night. What a nutty bunch we are, eh? Eh?”

  Another new sensation for Apollo was being playfully poked in the ribs. He felt he was losing control of the situation.

  “Look, I don’t care who you are, you can’t go round stealing my cattle and not expecting to pay for it.”

  “Oh, I’ll pay you back, don’t worry about that. But I just had to have them. Best quality guts. If I was going to make a lyre for my beloved half brother I wanted only the finest strings.”

  Apollo looked from Hermes to the lyre and from the lyre to Hermes. “You mean . . . ?”

  Hermes nodded. “With my love. Yours are the lyre and the art that lies behind it. I mean you’re already god of numbers, reason, logic, and harmony. Music fits into that portfolio rather well, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You can say, ‘Thank you, Hermes,’ and, ‘By all means keep the cattle, brother mine.’”

  “Thank you, Hermes! And by all means, yes, keep the cattle.”

  “Kind of you, old man, but I actually only needed two. You can have the rest back.”

  Apollo pressed a bewildered hand to his perspiring brow. “And why did you need only two?”

  Hermes hopped down onto the floor. “Maia told me how gods love to be worshipped, you see, and how much animal sacrifices mean to them. So I butchered two of the cattle and offered up eleven slices of burning meat from one of them to Olympus. Mum and I shared the twelfth steak last night. There’s some left over if you’d like it cold? Very good with a preparation of mustard-seed paste I’ve developed.”

  “Thank you, no,” said Apollo. “It was thoughtful of you to send up smoke to the gods like that,” he added. Apollo loved a votive offering as much as the next god. “Very proper.”

  “Well,” said Hermes, “let’s see if it’s worked, shall we?” Without warning he leapt up into Apollo’s arms, gripping him by the shoulders.

  This remarkable baby’s lightning fast mind, body, and manner were making Apollo dizzy. “See if what has worked?”

  “My plan to ingratiate myself to our father. Take me up to Olympus and introduce me around,” said Hermes. “That vacant twelfth throne has got my name on it.”

  Apollo, entranced by Hermes’s gift to the god of music

  THE TWELFTH GOD

  Everything about Hermes was quick. His mind, his wit, his impulses, and his reflexes. The gods of Olympus, already flattered by the fine savory smoke that had risen to their nostrils the previous night from Mount Cyllene, were entranced by the newcomer. Even Hera presented a cheek to be kissed and declared the child enchanting. He was on Zeus’s lap and pulling at his beard before anyone had noticed. Zeus laughed, and all the gods laughed along with him.

  For the messenger of the gods, Hephaestus fashioned what would become Hermes’s signature footwear, the talaria—a pair of winged sandals.

  What were to be this god’s duties? His fleetness of mind and foot suggested one immediate answer—he should become the messenger of the gods. To make Hermes even faster, Hephaestus fashioned what would become his signature footwear, the talaria—a pair of winged sandals that allowed him to zip from one place to another more swiftly than an eagle. Hermes was so unaffectedly delighted with them, and clasped Hephaestus to him with such warm and grateful affection, that the god of fire and forges immediately limped back to his workshop and, after a day and a night’s furious work, returned with a winged helmet with a low crown and a flexible brim to go with the talaria. This lent Hermes a touch of grandeur and showed the world that this pert and handsome youth represented the dread majesty of the gods. For extra élan and glamour Hephaestus presented him with a silver staff topped with wings and entwined with two snakes.71

  The stories of Hermes’s exploits tickled Zeus greatly, then and thenceforward. The guile and duplicity he had shown in stealing Apollo’s cattle made Hermes a natural choice for god of rascals, thieves, liars, conmen, gamblers, hucksters, jokers, storytellers, and sportsmen. The grander side to liars, jokers, and storytellers gave him a share in literature, poetry, oratory, and wit too. His skill and insight allowed him to hold sway in the fields of science and medicine.72 He became the god of commerce and trade, of herdsmen (of course), and of travel and roads. Despite music being his invention he did, as promised, present the divine responsibility for it as a gift to Apollo. Apollo simplified the lyre’s structure by replacing the tortoiseshell with the elegant bracketed frame of gold with which we associate the classic instrument.

  In the same way that I suggested Artemis and Athena might be considered to represent opposites (wild v. cultivated, impulsive v.considered, etc.) so the mutability, swiftness, and energetic impulses of traffic and exchange personified by Hermes might be said to present an exact counter to the serenity, permanence, order, and centered domestic sufficiency of Hestia.

  Aside from the staff, hat, and winged sandals that Hephaestus fashioned for Hermes, his symbols included the tortoise, the lyre, and the cockerel. The Romans called him MERCURY and worshipped him with almost as much fervor as the Greeks. He was smooth of skin like his favorite half brother Apollo (they were now the firmest of friends), and like him he was a deity of light. His light was not golden like Apollo’s, but silver—quicksilver. Indeed the element named “mercury” after him is still sometimes called “quicksilver,” and all things mercurial remind us of this most delightful of gods. Later, Hermes would take on perhaps his most important divine responsibility, but for the moment we will seat him in the twelfth chair and survey the grandeur of Megala Kazania,73 the great stage at the summit of Mount Olympus.

  THE OLYMPIANS

  Two great thrones face ten smaller ones. Each is now occupied by a god or goddess. Zeus reaches out his left hand for Hera to take.

  Megala Kazania, the amphitheater scooped out of Olympian rock by the Hecatonchires during their great battering of the Titans, is spread out before the gods.74 A great cheer goes up from the crowd of immortals gathered there to witness this great occasion, Zeus’s supreme moment.

  The Queen of Heaven takes his hand. She is content. She and her wayward husband have had a Conversation. There are to be no new gods. There will be no more seduction and impregnation of nymphs or Titanesses. The dodecatheon is complete, and Zeus will now turn to the serious business of establishing his rule in perpetuity. She, Hera, will always be there to support and guide him, to uphold order and decorum.

  As he surveys the ten smiling gods ranged in front of them Zeus feels Hera squeezing his hand and understands just what that firm pressure means. He salutes the crowd of pardoned Titans and swooning nymphs massed below. Cyclopes, Gigantes, Meliae, and Oceanids jostle each other to get a good view. The Charites and Horai shimmer shyly. Hades, the Erinyes, and other dark creatures of the underworld bow low. The three hundred hands of the Hecatonchires wave their fier
ce loyalty.

  Now, to signify the start of the Reign of the Twelve, Hestia steps down from her throne and sets light to the oil in a great gleaming bowl of beaten copper. A huge cheer rings around the mountain. An eagle flies overhead. Thunder rumbles across the sky.

  Hestia returns to her throne. Zeus watches her calmly smoothing the skirt of her gown and transfers his gaze to the others, one by one—Poseidon. Demeter. Aphrodite. Hephaestus. Ares. Athena. Artemis. Apollo. Hermes. These gods and all creation are bowing down before him. All his enemies are scattered, destroyed, imprisoned, or tamed. He has created an empire and a rule the like of which the world has never seen. He has won. Yet he feels nothing.

  He looks up and on the far edge of the mountain sees silhouetted against the sky a figure whose dark clothes billow in the wind. His father Kronos has come. The blade of his scythe catches the light of the flames below as he slowly swings it back and forth like a pendulum. Although even Zeus cannot possibly make it out so far away in such poor light he is sure that there is a cruel, taunting grimace on his father’s gaunt and ravaged face.

  “Wave, Zeus. And for heaven’s sake, smile!” Hera’s hissed undertone jerks him away. When he looks back the dark silhouette of his father has gone. Perhaps he only imagined it.

  More cheers arise. To the growl of thunder is added a rumble from the earth itself. Gaia and Ouranos are adding their congratulations. Or perhaps their warnings. The cheering will not stop. Everything alive worships and adores him. This should be the happiest day of his life.

  Something is missing. Something . . . he frowns and thinks. Suddenly a great lightning bolt stabs down from the sky and strikes the ground, sending up a violent puff of smoke and burnt dust.