Myth, Ritual And Religion, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Andrew Lang

In Crete too was the grave of Zeus: a scandal to pious heathendom. The euhemerists made this tomb a proof that Zeus was a deified man. Preller takes it for an allegory of winter and the death of the god of storm, who in winter is especially active. Zeus narrowly escaped being swallowed by his father, and, after expelling and mediatising that deity, he changed his own wife, Metis, into a fly, swallowed her, and was delivered out of his own head of Athene, of whom his wife had been pregnant. He now became ruler of the world, with his brother Poseidon for viceroy, so to speak, of the waters, and his brother Hades for lord of the world of the dead. Like the earlier years of Louis XIV., the earlier centuries of the existence of Zeus were given up to a series of amours, by which he, like Charles II., became the father of many noble families. His legitimate wife was his sister Hera, whom he seduced before wedlock "without the knowledge of their dear parents," says Homer,* who neglects the myth that one of the "dear parents" ate his own progeny, "like him who makes his generation messes to gorge his appetite". Hera was a jealous wife, and with good cause.** The Christian fathers calculated that he sowed his wild oats and persecuted mortal women with his affections through seventeen generations of men. His amours with his mother and daughters, with Deo and Persephone, are the great scandals of Clemens Alexandrinus and Arnobius.*** Zeus seldom made love in propria persona, in all his meteorological pomp. When he thus gratified Semele she was burned to a cinder.****

* It is probable that this myth of the seduction of Hera is
of Samian origin, and was circulated to account for and
justify the Samian custom by which men seduced their loves
first and celebrated the marriage afterwards (Scholia on
Iliad, xiv. 201). "Others say that Samos was the place
where Zeus betrayed Hera, whence it comes that the Samians,
when they go a-wooing, anticipate the wedding first in
secret, and then celebrate it openly." Yet another myth
(Iliad, xiv. 295, Scholiast) accounts for the hatred which
Zeus displayed to Prometheus by the fable that, before her
wedding with Zeus, Hera became the mother of Prometheus by
the giant Eurymedon. Euphorion was the authority for this
tale. Yet another version occurs in the legend of
Hephaestus. See also Schol., Theoc., xv. 64.
** Iliad, xiv. 307, 340.
*** Arnobius, Adv. Nat., v. 9, where the abominations
described defy repetition. The myth of a rock which became
the mother of the offspring of Zeus may recall the maternal
flint of Aztec legend and the vagaries of Iroquois
tradition. Compare Clemens Alex., Oxford, 1719, i. 13, for
the amours of Zeus, Deo and Persephone, with their
representations in the mysteries; also Arnob., Adv. Cent.,
v. 20. Zeus adopted the shape of a serpent in his amour with
his daughter. An ancient Tarentine sacred ditty is quoted as
evidence, Taurus draconem genuit, et taurum draco, and
certain repulsive performances with serpents in the
mysteries are additional testimony.
**** Apollodorus, iii. 4, 3.

The amour with Danae, when Zeus became a shower of gold, might be interpreted as a myth of the yellow sunshine. The amours of Zeus under the disguise of various animal forms were much more usual, and are familiar to all.* As Cronus when in love metamorphosed himself into a stallion, as Prajapati pursued his own daughter in the shape of a roebuck, so Zeus became a serpent, a bull, a swan, an eagle, a dove,** and, to woo the daughter of Cletor, an ant. Similar disguises are adopted by the sorcerers among the Algonkins for similar purposes. When Pund-jel, in the Australian myth of the Pleiades, was in love with a native girl, he changed himself into one of those grubs in the bark of trees which the Blacks think edible, and succeeded as well as Zeus did when he became an ant.***

* The mythologists, as a rule, like the heathen opponents of
Arnobius, Clemens and Eusebius, explain the amours of Zeus
as allegories of the fruitful union of heaven and earth, of
rain and grain. Preller also allows for the effects of human
vanity, noble families insisting on tracing themselves to
gods. On the whole, says Preller, "Zeugung in der Natur-
religion und Mythologie, dasselbe ist was Schopfung inden
deistischen Religionen" (i. 110). Doubtless all these
elements come into the legend; the unions of Zeus with Deo
and Persephone especially have much the air of a nature-myth
told in an exceedingly primitive and repulsive manner. The
amours in animal shape are explained in the text as in many
cases survivals of the totemistic belief in descent from
beasts, sans phrase.
**Lian., Hist Vwr., i. 15.
*** Dawson, Australian Aborigines; Custom, and Myth, p. 126.

It is not improbable that the metamorphosis of Zeus into an ant is the result of a volks-etymologie which derived "Myrmidons" from (———), an ant. Even in that case the conversion of the ant into an avatar of Zeus would be an example of the process of gravitation or attraction, whereby a great mythical name and personality attracts to itself floating fables.* The remark of Clemens on this last extraordinary intrigue is suggestive. The Thessalians, he says, are reputed to worship ants because Zeus took the semblance of an ant when he made the daughter of Cletor mother of Myrmidon. Where people worship any animal from whom they claim descent (in this case through Myrmidon, the ancestor of the famed Myrmidons), we have an example of stiraight forward totemism. To account for the adoration of the animal on the hypothesis that it was the incarnation of a god, is the device which has been observed in Egyptian as in Samoan religion, and in that of aboriginal Indian tribes, whose animal gods become saints "when the Brahmans get a turn at them".**

The most natural way of explaining such tales about the amours and animal metamorphoses of so great a god, is to suggest that Zeus inherited,*** as it were, legends of a lower character long current among separate families and in different localities. In the same way, where a stone had been worshipped, the stone was, in at least one instance, dubbed with the name of Zeus.****

* Clemens, p. 84.
** See Mr. H. H. Risley on "Primitive Marriage in Bengal,"
in Astatic Quarterly Review, June, 1886.
*** In Pausanias's opinion Cecrops first introduced the
belief in Zeus, the most highest.
**** Paus., iii. 21, l; but the reading is doubtful.

The tradition of descent from this or that beast or plant has been shown to be most widely prevalent. On the general establishment of a higher faith in a national deity, these traditions, it is presumed, would not wholly disappear, but would be absorbed into the local legend of the god. The various beasts would become sacred to him, as the sheep was sacred to Hera in Samos, according to Mandrobulus,* and images of the animals would congregate in his temple. The amours of Zeus, then, are probably traceable to the common habit of deriving noble descents from a god, and in the genealogical narrative older totemistic and other local myths found a place.** Apart from his intrigues, the youth of Zeus was like that of some masquerading and wandering king, such as James V. in Scotland. Though Plato, in the Republic, is unwilling that the young should be taught how the gods go about disguised as strangers, this was their conduct in the myths. Thus we read of

Lycaon and his fifty sons, whom Zeus
In their own house spied on, and unawares
Watching at hand, from his disguise arose,
And overset the table where they sat
Around their impious feast, and slew them all.***

Clemens of Alexandria**** contrasts the "human festival" of Zeus among the Ethiopians with the inhuman banquet offered to him by Lycaon in Arcadia.(v)