Greco Creation Mythos as Handed Down

 

1.                  Homer’s Mythos

Okeanos & Tethys (per Homer “the origin of the gods” and “the origin of everything”

Okeanos was a River God and Titan (river or stream).  His river flows back upon himself.  All waters issue from his “broad, mighty stream”.  Okeanos retained his position under the Olympians.

 

Tethys is known as Mother; Great Mistress of the Seas; a water Goddess.  She and Okeanos would quarrel and didn’t immediately bring forth life.  But original breeding had to cease or be taken out to infinity.  The world would have had no stability, no circular course turning back into itself.  She gave birth to 3,000 sons (rivers) and an equal number of daughters (Okeaninai). 

 

2.                  Orpheus’ Mythos

In the beginning was Nyx (Night).  She is one of the greatest of Goddesses and even Zeus stands in awe.  Nyx is portrayed as a bird with black wings.  Nyx conceived of the wind and laird her silver Egg in the gigantic lap of Darkness.  From her Egg sprang the son of the rushing Wind, a god with golden wings.  One of his names is Eros.  He is also known as ‘Protogonos’, “firstborn”.  Another name is ‘Phantes’ meaning once hatched, he revealed and brought into the light everything that had previously lain hidden in the silver Egg (the whole world). Above was the void Chaos (“yawns”).  Down below was “rest”.  Chaos did not mean turmoil or confusion until after the introduction of the doctrine of the Four Elements.

 

Another version: the earth laid down below in the Egg and the sky and earth married.  Eros brought them in to light and compelled them to mingle.  They produced a brother and sister; Okeanos and Tethys (hatched from the same egg).  According to a poem by Orpheus:

 

“Okeanos, the beautifully flowing, was the first to enter into marriage: he took to wife Tethys, his sister by the same Mother.” 

 

3.                  Hesiod’s Mythos

The Titans

In the beginning as ‘Chaos’, the great abyss and yawn.  Gaia (or Gaea) came into being first and her broad “bosom, the ever-firm foundation of all”.  Tartaros was below, in the underground.  Eros was next (yearning desire/passion). 

 

Next from the abyss came Erebos and dark Night.  Night gave birth to Aether and Day.

Earth’s first child was Ouranos, starry heaven.  Earth also gave birth to the Mountains, barren and raging Sea.  From Ouranos, she bore Ocean, Koios, Krois, Hyperion, Iapetos, Theia, Rheia, Themis, Mnemoisyne, Gold-crowned Phoibe and lovely Tethys, the Cyclopes, and others.

 

Earth then bore Kronos who hated his father Ouranos.  Ouranos used to stuff all of his children back into a hollow of Earth as soon as they were born.  Earth wanted to get even with Ouranos and Kronos was more than happy to assist her.  Earth hid Kronos in an ambush and gave him a jagged flint sickle.  When Ouranos, bringing Night with him,  came to make love to Earth and settled over her, Kronos reached out with his left hand, while with his right he swung the sickle, “pruning the genitals of his own father with one swoop and tossing them behind him”.  Earth soaked up the bloody drops and eventually gave birth to the Erinyes (Furies).

 

From Ouranos genitalia foamed in the ocean waters,  Mighty Aphrodite came.  Grass would spring up under her slender feet.  Ouranos called his sons “Titans” as reproachful nickname as he thought, “they had over-reached themselves and, done a monstrous deed for which vengeance later would surely be exacted”.   Thousands of Titans were born.

 

                        The Olympians

Kronos and Rheia (Rhea) where the parents of Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus.  Kronos fearing a prediction from Earth and starry Heaven, swallowed all his children as soon as they were born.  Rheia, right before the birth of Zeus, petitioned her parents, Earth and starry Heaven, to help in a plan to make Zeus’ birth unnoticeable to Kronos. 

 

Rheia went to Lyktp in Crete and Zeus was born.  Earth received Zeus when he was born and hid him in a cave in the woods of Mount Aigaion.  Rheia wrapped a stone in swaddling clothes and gave it to Kronos.  Kronos did not notice it was a stone and promptly swallowed it.  Zeus by wiles and power, induced Kronos to vomit the stone and all his siblings.  The stone was placed at Pytho as a sign.  Zeus was given thunder and thunderbolt in gratitude by the others.

 

Prometheus was the son of Iapetos and Klymene, a daughter of Ocean.  His brothers included the “witless” Epimetheus and Atlas (“who holds up the sky”).  Prometheus matched wits with Zeus which got both he and all mortals into trouble.  While the Gods and mortals negotiated at Mekone, Prometheus butchered a great ox and served it up.  He tricked Zeus.  Prometheus set out flesh and innards, laid out on the ox hide for Zeus.  For the others, he set out the animal’s white bones disguised by a covering of fat.  Zeus thought the portions unequal and choose one of the bundles of bones and fat.  Since then, men would burn white bones to the immortals upon smoking altars. 

 

            Pandora (Gifted by all the Gods)

Zeus would not give the power of fire to mortals.  Prometheus stole fire and gave it to the mortals.  Zeus ordered Hephaistos to fashion a beautiful woman from clay.  Athena dressed the woman in slivery clothes.  And this lovely evil curse was made to balance the good.  She was full of deception, irresistible to men and became the mother of the race of “deadly” women.  Athene taught her how to weave and do embroidery.  Aphrodite spilled grace on her head, painful desire and knee-weakening anguish.  Hermes gave her a “bitchy mind and a cheating heart”. Hermes placed a voice in the woman’s body and named her Pandora.

 

Hermes took Pandora to Epimetheus (brother of Prometheus) as a present.  Epimetheus forgot that Prometheus had warned him not to accept any presents from the Zeus.  Pandora either knocked over and opened or poured out the contents of a vase (box) that Zeus had given to Prometheus to include in the final creation of men.  Prometheus did not include the contents. These ills, sickness, and all sorts of miseries; thousands and thousands, poured out into the world.  Only Hope was left having gotten trapped under the container’s lid.

 

Before Pandora, men had loved off the land without trouble, no hard work, no sickness or pain that the Fates give to men.  Now there are horrors in the world thanks to Pandora.  Zeus deprived diseases of voice, so they could not talk to man.

 

            The Five Ages

Golden and they lived like Gods.  They had no cares, hard work, grief or old age.  When this age died out, they Golden people were transformed into spirits above ground as “wardens for the whole human race”.  They tend to justice, repaying criminal acts and dispensing wealth.

 

Silver was the 2^nd age.  A child would remain a child for over a 100 years.  They did not live long when they did grow up.  They lacked wits and would hurt each other.  They would not serve the immortals. Zeus destroyed them.  They became known as the “blessed underground mortals”.

 

Bronze was the 3^rd age.  They were made from ash trees.  They were strong, monstrous and heavy and only cared about fighting and war.  They made everything out of bronze: weapons, houses and tools.  They did not use black iron.  They finally killed one another off with their own hands.  No names were left behind.

 

Heroes were the 4^th age.  They were more just and noble than the last age and lived off the land.  They would have been demigods to the 5^th age.  They all died fighting in the great wars (such as Troy).  In death, Zeus granted them a life apart from others and settled them at the ends of the earth.  Kronos is their king.

 

The 5^th age was Iron.  These people know trouble daily, pain, weariness and vexations.  There is still some good too, mixed it.  Zeus will one day destroy this age.

Temple View of the Ancient Creation Mythos

 

 

The ancients looked for physical proof or signs.  The egg is an example.  So which came first? The Greeks answered that easily with Chaos.  The egg and the onion (another sacred symbol) remain as signs of our beginnings, many facets or layers, and connection to the divine. 

 

We place boundaries upon ourselves as to behavior; the Gods did and do not.  Yet They also went through times of trial as in defeating the Titans.  Not all the Titans fought against the Olympians, Hekate is a notable example.  The defeated Titans were placed in Tartaros.  The Gods are not ‘perfekt’.  They don’t claim to be.  They interact with people.  They need us as we need them.  If this connection is ever truly lost, this world as we know it will end.  As our Streghan cousins like to say, so long as one person from the Craft is in the world, the fabric of the universe remains in tact.  When the last Witch is gone, so too ends the world.

 

Pandora, gifted by all the Gods, was not a curse to mankind. The Olympians had very clear ideas on what men should have been created with which Prometheus deliberately changed. Instead of adding and encapsulating the cause of sicknesses and disease in the mortal body, Prometheus removed them all together.  He had planned, like his brother to live among men, until Zeus sent him away to be punished.  Prometheus would have had people worshipping him as a superior among equals.  In essence, people would have been slaves to that Immortal who had denied them the combinations of life in order to learn and grow.

 

Pandora was created as the equalizer.  And as in other mythos, she was given a choice.  As the mother of all, she could choose not to loose the ills upon the world and people.  She must have known of the other ages and their results.  Or, Pandora could release the ills contained in the vase which would plague people, but also inspire them to excel for themselves.  This could not have been an east decision for Pandora.  How easy it would have been to deny the plagues.  Yet, Pandora trusted in the Gods and their promise they would never desert the people nor save them.  That is for us to do for ourselves.  This is actually the greatest of gifts for it allows us to decide our ultimate fate(s) for ourselves.

 

Without sorrow, there can be no joy.  To know more than one aspect is to experience the eternal balance.  Hope was not poured out…Pandora WAS the Hope Zeus sent.  And what was left in the case?  -- False hope.  False hope is the worst of plagues as it implies one waits expectantly for the impossible to happen; and it never will. 

 

We are meant to think and do for ourselves; not have it handed to us or be ruled by a demigod.  We transform matter and learn the laws of nature, science, and magick.  In doing so, we learn and transform ourselves. 

 

We are in the school of life.  We, all of us, are meant to be in this world, this age. and this time together.  We are growing up as the inheritors of the Immortals.

 

Esti ei nai!  So Be It!