In the beginning there was
nothing. Before human life began,
before the gods, before there was an earth, and long before there was an even a
sky to contain this earth, there was nothing. This nothingness was named Chaos, and for countless ages
this immeasurable abyss brooded over an infinite void. All else was silent, empty, and
endless.
At last, and although it is
impossible to explain exactly how, out of this nothingness were born two
children: Night and Darkness.
For many, many years Chaos created no others.
And then a marvel of
marvels came to pass. Out of
nothingness, nighttime, and darkness, there came into being the best of all
things. She was called Love, and
she brought order, meaning, and purpose to all things. Love also created two children of her
own. These were Light and
Day.
Many more years passed until the union of Chaos
& Love. Together they
conceived but a single child, the planet earth, whom they called Gaea. It was Gaea who created the heavens,
for she was naked and in need of a companion to clothe her. And so she bore a son named Uranus to
cover her on all sides and to become forever a home to the blessed gods.
It was not long before Gaea and Uranus became
lovers. Together they produced
terrible offspring. First there
were the Cyclopes, three oafish giants each having on his head just one huge
and hideous eye. Then came three
more monsters with one-hundred hands and one-hundred heads apiece. Last there came the twelve Titans, who
personified the worldÕs natural disasters.
Uranus was a horrible husband and father. He hated his children, especially the
hundred handed and hundred headed monsters, whom he imprisoned inside of the
earth herself. This angered Gaea,
for she loved all her children, and so she devised a plot to destroy her
heartless husband. First, from
very sharp stone she fashioned a scythe, a tool for cutting crops, which had a
large, hook-shaped blade. Then
Gaea tried to ask her children, the Titans, to attack Uranus and kill him with
it. All were too afraid to help
for the youngest Titan, Cronus.
Gaea and Cronus conspired a plan to attack Uranus
while he slept. One night, as he
lay in bed with Gaea, Cronus snuck up on his unsuspecting father and castrated
him with the scythe. In a single,
painful swoop Cronus sliced off his fatherÕs genitals and tossed them into the
sea. From his fatherÕs blood was born a generation of Giants. From this same blood, too, sprang forth
the Furies, wild women whose purpose it was to pursue and punish sinners. The blood that fell into the sea,
however, began to foam, and out of this frothy water there would eventually be
born the most beautiful and most endeared goddess of all time.
After the death of Uranus, his son and murderer
Cronus took over as head of the Titan family and married his sister Rhea. Under CronusÕs rule, an entire race of
Titans were created. But as Rhea
came closer and closer to the delivery of their own firstborn child, Cronus
grew more and more nervous. He
recalled a prophesy foretold to him by his parents that he too would be
overthrown by one of his sons.
Cronus did not want to lose his power, and to escape his fate he
swallowed each of his children as soon as they were born. This made Rhea very angry. Shortly before the birth of her sixth
child, she hid out on an island far away.
Rhea delivered a son and left him to be raised by nymphs. To conceal her act, she wrapped a large
rock in swaddling clothes to make it look like a baby. When it came time for Cronus to eat the
child, Rhea handed the stone to her husband and he swallowed it.
For many years Cronus believed he had eaten his
lastborn son, named Zeus; meanwhile, on a faraway island, the uneaten child
grew into a very handsome and clever young man. Eventually, with the help of
his stepmother, Zeus came up with a way to defeat Cronus. She prepared a potion designed to make
Cronus vomit up the children he had swallowed. After Rhea confessed and
apologized to her husband for fooling him so many years ago, Cronus allowed
Zeus to return to his kingdom on Mount Olympus, but only as his slave in charge
of serving him wine.
Unbeknownst to Cronus, however, this worked out perfectly for Zeus in
light of the plan he had devised.
As soon as he got the chance, Zeus poisoned his fatherÕs wine. All went according to plan. The other children, who remained
unarmed, showed their thanks to Zeus by making him their leader.
Zeus banished the enemy Titans, all except for Atlas, who had led the
Titan army in battle. For his
uncle, Zeus reserved a most severe punishment: to bear the weight of the world
on his shoulders for all of eternity.
From this time forward, troubled only every once in a while by a rebel
giant or renegade, Zeus ruled from his throne atop Mount Olympus as the
undefeated king of every god and goddess.
As of yet there were no human beings; but the world, no longer
terrorized by monstrous giants, was now ready. Some say it was Prometheus who made the first man, whom he
molded out of mud from the earth, and that Athena breathed life into his clay
figure, thereby also providing his mind and soul. Prometheus, a Titan, was very
wise, wiser even than most gods, and neither he nor his brother Epimetheus had
fought against Zeus in the recent war.
For these reasons, Zeus entrusted Prometheus to create all of the
earthÕs living things, but he let his brother decide what qualities should go
to which creatures. Unlike his brother, who took great care to always make the
best decisions, Epimetheus was careless and scatterbrained, acting often on his
impulses. He hastily created various animals, wasting all the best qualities on
them until there were no good things leftover for man—no fur to protect
his body, no strength or courage, no cleverness or cunning wit, not even the
ability to defend himself. Too
little too late, he felt bad about what he and done and consulted his brother
for help. Prometheus took over and
thought to improve man by standing him upright. He then flew to the sun, where he lit a torch and brought
back for man the gift of fire.
Others say Prometheus acted alone in the creation of man. From the earth he is said to have shaped
the first human, who was lifeless and not unlike the other animals. It was Athena, they say, the goddess of
wisdom, who breathed into this clay body a mind and a soul.
Still, there are those who tell an entirely different story. They say the Titans had made this first
race, as the result of early efforts to design an animal in their own image,
for they wanted to show the others what those who created them looked
like. And so the Titans set out to
make a man, experimenting first with gold as the substance with which to mold
their model. When Zeus defeated
Cronus and the Titans, this golden race died also. Their spirit lived on, however, and the gods continued to
experiment with metal in subsequent efforts to recreate a shape to contain it,
but using less and less precious metals as time went on, they found that none
lived up to their golden predecessor in either mind, body or soul. The second race of silver had so little
intelligence they could not keep from killing one another until eventually all
passed away. Next the gods tried
brass, ending in another terrible race.
These men were such lovers of war and violence that they too were
destroyed by their own hands. What
followed was a much more splendid race of godlike heroes, who fought in glorious
wars and went out on great adventures sung about through ages to come, but
eventually they departed from earth to live elsewhere in perfect bliss
forever. The fifth race of men is
that which still lives upon the earth today. Like those who came before us, we too will grow so wicked
that we one day cease to be.
The stories of creation, different as they are, agree in one point: for
a long time, only men were upon the earth; there were no women.
Zeus created women later, in his anger at Prometheus for caring so much
for men. Thus he made a great evil
for men, a sweet and lovely thing to look upon, in the likeness of a shy
maiden. She was a wonder to
behold, and all the gods gave her gifts.
She wore in her hair a bright garland of blooming flowers around a crown
of gold. They called her Pandora,
which means Ōthe gift of all.Ķ And
from Pandora, the first woman, comes the race of women, who are evil to men,
with a nature to do evil.