Skip to main content

CRONUS

cronus
CRONUS was now the lord of the universe. He sat on the highest mountain and ruled over heaven and earth with a firm hand. The other gods obeyed his will and early man worshiped him. This was man's Golden Age. Men lived happily and in peace with the gods and each other. They did not kill and they had no locks on their doors, for theft had not yet been invented.
But Cronus did not set his monstrous brothers free, and Mother Earth was angry with him and plotted his downfall. She had to wait, for no god yet born was strong enough to oppose him. But she knew that one of his sons would be stronger than he, just as Cronus had been stronger than his father. Cronus knew it too, so every time his Titaness-wife Rhea gave birth, he took the newborn god and swallowed it. With all of his offspring securely inside him, he had nothing to fear.
But Rhea mourned. Her five sisters, who had married the five other Titans, were surrounded by their Titan children, while she was all alone. When Rhea expected her sixth child, she asked Mother Earth to help her save the child from his father. That was just what Mother Earth had been waiting for. She gave her daughter whispered advice, and Rhea went away smiling.
As soon as Rhea had borne her child, the god Zeus, she hid him.
Then she wrapped a stone in baby clothes and gave it to her husband to swallow instead of her son. Cronus was fooled and swallowed the stone, and the little god Zeus was spirited away to a secret cave on the island  of Crete. Old Cronus never heard the cries of his young son, for Mother Earth set noisy earth sprites outside the cave. They made such a clatter, beating their shields with their swords, that other sounds were drowned out.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Scylla And Nisus

MINOS was the first king to control the Mediterranean Sea, which he cleared of pirates, and in Crete ruled over ninety cities. When the Athenians had murdered his son Androgeus, he decided to take vengeance on them, and sailed around the Aegean collecting ships and armed levies. Some islanders agreed to help him, some refused. Siphnos yielded to him by the Princess Arne, whom he bribed with gold; the gods changed her into a jackdaw which loves gold and all things that glitter. He made an alliance with the people of Anaphe, but rebuffed by King Aeacus of Aegina and departed, swearing revenge. Aeacus then answered an appeal from Cephalus to join the Athenians against Minos . b. Meanwhile, Minos was partying the Isthmus of Corinth. He laid siege to Nisa, ruled by Nisus the Egyptian, who had a daughter name Scylla. A tower stood in the city, built by Apollo [and Poseidon ?], an at its foot lay a musical stone which, if pebbles were dropped upon from above, rang like a lyre-because Ap
Post a Comment
Read more

Sisyphus

SISYPHUS, son of Aeolus, married Atlas ’s daughter Merope, the Pleiad, who bore him Glaucus , Ornytion , and Sinon, and owned a fine herd of cattle on the Isthmus of Corinth. b. Near him lived Autolycus , son of Chione , whose twin-brother Philammon was begotten by Apollo , though Autolycus himself claimed Hermes as his father. c. Now, Autolycus was a past master in theft, Hermes having given him the power of metamorphosing whatever beasts he stole, from horned to unhorned, or from black to white, and contrariwise. Thus although Sisyphus noticed that his own herds grew steadily smaller while those of Autolycus increased, he was unable at first to accuse him of theft; and therefore, one day, engraved the inside of all his cattle’s hooves with the monogram SS or, some say, with the words ‘Stolen by Autolycus’. That night Autolycus helped himself as usually and at dawn hoof-prints along the road provided Sisyphus with sufficient evidence to summon neighbours in witness of the th
Post a Comment
Read more

THE DETHRONEMENT OF CRONUS

CRONUS married his sister Rhea , to whom the oak is sacred. But it was prophesied  by Mother Earth , and by his dying father Uranus, that one of his own sons would dethrone him. Every year, therefore, he swallowed the children whom Rhea bore him: first Hestia , then Demeter and Hera , then Hades , then Poseidon . b. Rhea was enraged. She bore Zeus , her third son, at dead of night on Mount Lycaeum in Arcadia, where no creature casts a shadow and, having bathed him in the River Neda, gave him to Mother Earth; by whom he was carried to Lyctos in Crete, and hidden in the cave of Dicte on the Aegean Hill. Mother Earth left him there to be nursed by the Ash- nymph Adrasteia and her sister Io, both daughters of Melisseus, and by the Goat-nymph Amaltheia. His food was honey, and he drank Amaltheia's milk, with Goat-Pan , his foster- brother. Zeus was grateful to these three nymphs for their kindness and, when he became  Lord of the Universe, set Amaltheia's image among
Post a Comment
Read more