HOW ZEUS CAME TO BE KING OF GODS
The story told of Zeus is that he had not always been the supreme god. Before him reigned his father, Cronus, and before Cronus his grandfather, Uranus. Cronus deposed Uranus, and having heard that he was destined to be deposed by one of his own children, he indulged in the queer habit of swallowing them all. His wife, Rhea, however, when Zeus was born thought of the happy expedient of giving Cronus a stone to swallow, which he, unsuspecting, did. The little Zeus was hidden in the island of Crete, where he was tended by nymphs and brought up on goat’s milk. When he became a full-grown god, he made his father disgorge the brothers and sisters he had swallowed—namely, Vesta, Ceres, Juno, Pluto, and Neptune—and then went to war against his cruel father. This war is a battle of the powers of light against the powers of darkness. Cronus is helped by his brothers the Titans, and Zeus is helped by the Cyclopes, one-eyed giants, and the Hecatonchires, hundred-handed monsters who had been confined for ages in Tartarus. Zeus and his hosts held Mount Olympus. For ages victory wavered in the balance, until by the advice of Rhea, Zeus released the Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires. Instantly they hastened to the battle-field of Thessaly, the Cyclopes to support Zeus with their thunders and lightnings, the hundred-handed monsters with the shock of the earthquake. Provided with such artillery, shaking earth and sea, Zeus issued to the onslaught. With the gleam of the lightning the Titans were blinded, by the earthquake they were laid low, with the flames they were well-nigh consumed; overpowered and fettered by the hands of the Hecatonchires, they were consigned to the yawning cave of Tartarus. In the council of the gods following this great battle Zeus was chosen Sovereign of the World. He delegated to his brother Posidon or Neptune the kingdom of the sea and all the waters, to his brother Hades or Pluto the government of the underworld, dark, unseen, mysterious, where the spirits of the dead should dwell, and of Tartarus the prison of the subdued Titans. For himself Zeus retained heaven and earth. His dwelling and that of the gods was on the summit of an ideal mountain called Olympus. The gods all had their separate dwellings, but all when summoned assembled in the palace of Zeus, there to feast upon ambrosia and nectar. Their duties consisted in discussing the affairs of heaven and earth, while for amusement they had the melodies of Apollo’s lyre, and the songs of the muses. There was a gate of clouds to this heavenly city kept by goddesses, the Hours or Seasons, and through these gates the celestials passed when bent upon any errand to earth.
The Flying Mercury or Hermes. Giovanni di Bologna.
Hermes (Roman name, Mercury) was the personification of the wind and the messenger of Zeus, and, like the Valkyries, he had the office of conducting the souls of the dead to Hades. His summoning of the souls of the dead is beautifully described in this passage from the Odyssey, translated by the poet Bryant:
“In his hand he bore
The beautiful golden wand, with which at will
He shuts the eyes of men, or opens them
From sleep. With this he guided on their way
The ghostly rout; they followed, uttering
A shrilly wail. As when a flock of bats,
Deep in a dismal cavern, fly about
And squeak, if one have fallen from the place
Where, clinging to each other and the rock,
They rested, so that crowd of ghosts went forth
With shrill and plaintive cries. Before them moved
Beneficent Hermes through those dreary ways,
And past the ocean stream they went, and past
Leucadia’s rock, the portals of the Sun,
And people of the land of dreams, until
They reached the fields of asphodel, where dwell
The souls, the bodiless forms of those who die.”
Among the loveliest of the sky deities are the goddesses of the dawn. Besides bringing light and joy to mankind, they are his kind helpers when he is in trouble, and the givers of all good things. We have already made the acquaintance of the Hindoo Dawn Goddess Ushas, and give here another Vedic hymn in her praise. The counterpart of Ushas in Greek mythology is Aurora, the Goddess of the Dawn, who is pictured flying before the car of Apollo. A more developed Dawn Goddess is Pallas Athēne (Roman name Minerva.) She is represented as having sprung fully armed from the head of her father Zeus, as the Dawn springs up in the morning sky. But she has a warlike, as well as a beneficent side when she wields the lightning and the thunderbolts. When Pallas Athēne decided to give her aid to any human being, she sometimes took the form of Mentes, or of a young shepherd, as she does in different scenes in the “Odyssey.” When she descends to earth she is described as fastening underneath her feet
“The fair, ambrosial golden sandals worn
To bear her over ocean like the wind,
And o’er the boundless land. In hand she took,
Well tipped with trenchant brass, the mighty spear,
Heavy and huge and strong, with which she bears
Whole phalanxes of heroes to earth,
When she, the daughter of a mighty sire,
Is angered. From the Olympian heights she plunged
And stood among the men of Ithaca.
... In her hand she bore the spear,
And seemed the stranger Mentes.”
When Pallas returned to heaven she
“Passed like an eagle out of sight and all
Were seized with deep amazement as they saw.”
Another time Pallas appears to Odysseus or Ulysses in the shape
“Of a young shepherd, delicately formed,
As are the sons of kings. A mantle lay
Upon her shoulder in rich folds, her feet
Shone in their sandals: in her hand she bore
A javelin. As Ulysses saw, his heart
Was glad within him, and he hastened on
And thus accosted her with wingèd words,
‘Fair youth, who art the first whom I have met
Upon this shore, I bid thee hail, and hope
Thou meetest me with no unkind intent.
Protect what thou beholdest here and me;
I make my suit to thee as to a god,
And come to thy dear knees.’”
After a little talk with Odysseus
“the blue-eyed goddess, Pallas, smiled
And touched the chief caressingly. She seemed
A beautiful and stately woman now,
Such as are skilled in works of rare device.”
She advises Odysseus and says to him:
“Hither am I come to frame for thee
Wise counsels, and to hide away the stores
Given by the opulent Phæacian chiefs
At thy departure. I shall also tell
What thou must yet endure beneath the roof
Of thine own palace, by the will of fate.
Yet bear it bravely, since thou must, nor speak
To any man or woman of thyself
And of thy wandering hither, but submit
To many things that grieve thee, silently,
And bear indignities from violent men.”
Thus this beneficent Dawn Goddess is always helping mankind in their troubles, and scattering abroad so much wisdom that she came to be called in Greek mythology the Goddess of Wisdom.
The Indian and the Japanese stories following show other fancies about gods of the sky and air. “The Lover’s Vision of the Happy Land” gives a picture of the home of departed spirits in the sky. “The Message-Bearers” is related to the idea that the wind is a messenger of the gods, but it is the wind in the form of the repeated sounds in echoes.
The Indians[9] were in the habit of frequenting rivers with high, wooded banks, or ravines with precipitous sides where reverberations could be heard for miles, until they would die away in the distance. There they would stand for hours shouting and listening to the echoing shouts as they leaped from shore to shore, or from hill to mountain, and from mountain to valley—on and on into silence; always firmly believing that the words were called from one to another of the faithful spirits until they reached the ears of their loved ones, and finally the Great Spirit himself.
“The Way of the Gods” describes a god of the infinite sky as the beginning of all things.