Greek Mythology. Jessie M. Tatlock
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with taunting words spake she to Zeus, the son of Cronus, "Now who among the gods, thou crafty of mind, hath devised counsel with thee? It is ever thy good pleasure to hold aloof from me and in sweet meditation to give thy judgments, nor of thine own good will hast thou ever brought thyself to declare unto me the thing thou purposeth
Then the father of gods and men made answer to her: " Hera, think not thou to know all my sayings; hard are they for thee, even though thou art my wife. But whichsoever it is seemly for thee to hear, none sooner than thou shalt know, be he god or man. Only when I will to take thought aloof from the gods, then do not thou ask of every matter nor make question."
. . . He said, and Hera the ox-eyed queen was afraid, and sat in silence, curbing her heart. (Iliad, I. 539 ff.)
Though Hera was Zeus's queen- and lawful wife, he united himself with many other goddesses and mortal women. Many of these unions originated as symbols of natural facts, others as symbols of philosophic truths. Thus as sky-god, god of sun and rain, Zeus must join in marriage union with De me’ter, the grain-goddess, that Per seph’o ne, the young com of the new year, may be born. Again, as the great, creating, regulating mind, he must unite with Mnemosyne (ne mos’i nē) or Memory, that the Nine Muses, the goddesses of poetry, music, and science, may draw from father and mother what is needed for all great creative work. But the extraordinary number of Zeus's unions was due to the fact that Greek mythology was not the creation or inheritance of one land and people, but was drawn from the religion and traditions of Greeks in many different lands and under many different conditions. The religious traditions of many peoples with whom the Greeks had intercourse were incorporated by them into their own mythology. Moreover, each Greek state had its own local hero, the ancestor or early king of that group, and these heroes were always of divine origin, very many of them the sons of Zeus by mortal women. Thus the Arcadians traced their descent from Areas, a son of Callisto by Zeus, of whose love the following story is told.
Cal lis’to was a nymph, a favorite companion of the huntress Ar’te mis. One day, wandering alone in the woods, she lay down upon the ground to rest. Zeus saw her there, and thinking himself quite safe from the jealous eyes of Hera, came down secretly and wooed her. Callisto would gladly have escaped the attentions of the god and gone to rejoin Artemis and her nymphs; but who could withstand Zeus! Artemis, who, as herself a maiden, would have none but maidens in her company, turned Callisto away when she would have rejoined her. Solitary and sad the nymph lived in the woods until she bore to Zeus a son, Areas. Now Zeus's love for Callisto was known to Hera. "You shall not go unpunished," said she to the nymph, "for I shall take away that beauty by which you charmed my husband's love." In vain Callisto begged for pity. Her arms began to be covered with coarse black hair; crooked claws grew from her hands, which now served as forefeet; that face which once aroused Zeus's love was deformed by huge ugly jaws. When she would have prayed for mercy, the power to speak was taken from her, and an angry frightened growl was all that she could utter. But under her bear's form her human heart, her grief and her love remained. How often in her solitary anguish, fearing to rest in the dark woods, she sought her old home! How often she was driven away by the barking dogs! Once herself a huntress, she was now the hunted. Often she hid from the bears she met in the mountains, forgetful that she was now of their kind. So fifteen troubled years passed. One day her son Areas, out hunting wild beasts, met with his mother in the forest. She recognized her child and ran to greet him. Terrified by the rush of the great bear, he aimed at her his hunting-spear. Zeus checked his blow and raised Callisto to the heavens, where he set her as the constellation of the Great Bear. Hera's jealousy was not at all satisfied by this. " Behold I took from her her human form and now she is made a goddess! Is this the punishment for a guilty woman! Is this my power! " She went to the sea-gods and prayed that they would never permit Callisto to dip below their waves. The prayer was granted, and thus it is that the Great Bear can always be seen in the heavens and never sinks below the waters.
Another story that shows the unrelenting hatred with which Hera pursued those favored by Zeus is that of Io.
Io was the daughter of In’a chus, a river-god. Zeus loved and wooed and won her, coming to her secretly under cover of a cloud spread between their meeting-place and Hera's watchful eyes. But the jealous queen, looking down upon the realm of Argos, and wondering to see the low-lying cloud under a clear sky, at once suspected some wrong-doing on her husband's part. She glided down from heaven and bade the cloud recede. Zeus, however, had foreseen the coming of his wife and had changed the daughter of Inachus into a beautiful white heifer. Suspecting the trick, Hera requested the heifer as a gift, and Zeus was constrained to yield or acknowledge his love. Io was given by her mistress in charge of Argus, a monster of whose hundred eyes but two were closed at one time. When she would have held out supplicating hands to Argus, she had no hands to hold out. When she tried to speak, she was terrified by her own lowing. She came to the banks of the river Inachus where she was wont to play; when she saw the reflection of her great mouth and new-formed horns, she fled from her own image in terror. The Naiads did not know her; her own father Inachus did not know her. She followed her father and sisters and offered herself to be petted and admired. She licked their hands and kissed her father's palms, nor could she keep back the big tears from rolling down her nose. At last with her hoof she traced in the sand the letters of her own name, lo. "Woe is me!" cried her father, and fell upon the heifer's neck. "I have sought you through all lands. Better were it that I had never found you." Hundred-eyed Argus parted them as they lamented, and put her in a new pasture. But Zeus could not endure to see her so unhappy. He sent Hermes, his son and messenger, most wily of gods, to destroy the ever-watchful Argus. Laying aside his winged sandals and disguised as a shepherd, Hermes approached Argus, who, weary of his lonely and tedious watch, called to him to come and share the shade of his tree. Seated beside Argus, Hermes piped to him charmingly on his shepherd's pipes, varying with song the long stories with which he beguiled the hours. Two by two the hundred eyes were closed, until at last no eye was awake to watch his charge. Hermes at once slew him and set Io free. The hundred eyes Hera took and placed in the tail of her sacred peacock, where they may be seen to-day. But her jealous wrath still pursued unfortunate lo. She sent a gad-fly to torment her and drive her from land to land. In her weary search for peace, the heifer passed over the strait that divides Europe from Asia, whence it derives its name, Bosphorus, the way of the cow. Over the sea, too, that bears her name, the Ionian Sea, she wandered, until at last she arrived in Egypt, where she was restored to her natural form and gave birth to a son, the ancestor of the Ionian Greeks.
An ti’o pe was the daughter of the king of Thebes. By Zeus she became the mother of two sons Am phi’on and Zethus. Immediately after their birth the babies were taken from her and exposed on Mt. Cithæron, where they grew up among the shepherds. Antiope fell into the power of her uncle Lycus, whose wife Dirce treated her with the greatest cruelty. After some years she made her escape and fled to Mt. Cithæron, where she happened to take refuge in the hut where her sons lived. As one of a company of Bacchantes, votaries of the wine-god Bacchus, Dirce came, by chance, to the same place, and finding the hated Antiope, she ordered Amphion and Zethus to kill her by tying her to the horns of a fierce bull. They were about to carry out this barbarous command when the shepherd informed them that the victim was their own mother. Releasing her, they now executed the same sentence on Dirce, who was instantly torn in pieces by the angry bull. Lycus, too, was killed, and the brothers became kings of Thebes. It is said that when they were building walls about the city Zethus’ strength enabled him to lift huge stones into place, but that Amphion's skill as a musician was so great that when he played his lyre stones yet more huge rose of themselves and took their places in the wall.
Fig. 4. Dirce tied to the bull.
The story of Baucis and Phi le’mon shows how Zeus could reward those who respected the law of hospitality and punish those who violated it.
In a certain place where now is a marsh frequented by wild birds was once a village. Here Zeus came in the guise of a mortal, and with him his son Hermes, winged sandals laid aside. They went to a thousand dwellings seeking rest and refreshment; all were barred against them. Yet one, a little house thatched with reeds, received them. Here good old Baucis and her husband Philemon had grown old together, making happiness