Olympus Read online

  Hera did not like Hephaestus because he was born with malformed feet, and cast him out of Olympus soon after his birth. He fell to the earth, and was tended by nymphs. He grew up teaching himself the art of creating instruments and artefacts out of stone, wood and metal. One day, he crafted a throne and invited all the Olympians to sit on it. Everyone admired its beauty, and the comfort it offered. However, when Hera sat on it, the chair folded upon itself and trapped Hera. Hephaestus refused to free her until she apologized for casting him away. Hera had no choice but to apologize.

  In Hindu mythology, Gauri, the domesticated form of Kali, embodies the goddess of the household. She domesticates Shiva and turns the hermit into a householder. Gauri often quarrels with him when she finds him paying undue attention to her handmaidens, but she lacks Hera’s vindictiveness. Hera’s jealousy is attributed to old ‘matriarchal’ traditions that were overrun by patriarchal tribes who adored Zeus.

  Like Ares in Greek mythology, Kartikeya, son of Shiva, is the Hindu god of war, who leads the celestial armies of the devas in battle against the asuras.

  Hera is known as Juno in Roman mythology. She holds a pomegranate in her hand, indicating her association with fertility, and rides a chariot pulled by peacocks.

  In the story of how Hera finds Hephaestus disgusting because he is lame, we see a common association in Greek mythology of beauty with order, and ugliness with chaos. This eventually led to goodness being associated with light, and evil with darkness. It reflects the human fear that is amplified when confronted with ugly, disorderly and dark spaces.

  Hera killed Lamia’s children on learning of her affair with Zeus. In grief, Lamia, queen of Libya, turned into a monster who ate children while they were still in the wombs of their mother.

  Hephaestus

  Zeus felt sorry for neglecting the very talented, and rather useful, Hephaestus and invited him to Olympus. But Hephaestus had a condition. Unloved by his mother and ignored by his father, he demanded the most beautiful goddess, Aphrodite, as his wife. Zeus had no choice but to make this happen.

  The marriage was an unhappy one. Hephaestus loved engineering, but did not understand romance. Where he measured things, Aphrodite enjoyed metaphors and music. He was a brute; she loved refinement. The goddess of love preferred the passionate and dashing god of war, Ares. ‘Both are sons of Zeus, but while my husband makes weapons, it is Ares who knows how to use them in war,’ she told her companions. And so, when Hephaestus was busy in his workshop, a bored Aphrodite began inviting Ares to her bed.

  Eventually, Hephaestus heard the rumours, which Aphrodite denied. Hurt and humiliated, he fashioned a special bed in secret. When the lovers lay on it, a net so fine as to be invisible fell on them, ensnaring them. There they lay for the whole world to see, Aphrodite and Ares, naked, in each other’s arms, trapped by Hephaestus’s net. As he had once shamed his mother, Hephaestus had now shamed his wife.

  Hephaestus’s counterpart in Hindu mythology is Vishwakarma. And like Vishwakarma, he has a close relationship with the sun. If Vishwakarma is the architect of the devas, then Maya is the architect of the asuras. Both forge great weapons and build great cities.

  Hephaestus is known as Vulcan in Roman mythology. He is shown holding a blacksmith’s hammer and depicted as bent, ugly and lame.

  Like Athena he is associated with skills but is considered far inferior and unpolished.

  He is closely linked to volcanic mountains, which are believed to be the workshops where he works on metal.

  Aphrodite

  Aphrodite was born before Olympus was established, when Uranus’s severed genitals struck the sea. But some say Zeus fathered her on the Titan goddess Dione. She made people desire each other, ignoring the rules of age, gender, social status and marriage. This made her very dangerous, especially when she wore a special girdle around her waist. For then she became irresistible and could compel even Zeus to do her bidding.

  Zeus’s decision to get her married to Hephaestus was meant to tame her. But it only created more problems, for she refused to be bound by rules, preferring the company of Ares instead.

  Once, the queen of Cyprus boasted that her daughter was more beautiful than Aphrodite. The enraged goddess made the daughter fall in love with her father, the king, and trick him into having sex. When the father discovered what his daughter had done, he decided to kill her, but she begged the gods to save her and she was turned into a myrrh tree. From this tree was born the child of incest, Adonis, the most handsome youth that ever lived. So beautiful was he that Aphrodite herself fell in love with him.

  A jealous Ares sent a wild boar to kill Adonis, his rival. Aphrodite wept over her beloved’s corpse and caused anemone flowers to sprout in his memory. Unable to bear the separation, she travelled to the land of the dead to bring her lover back. But Persephone, queen of the dead, refused to part with Adonis as she too had fallen in love with him.

  Aphrodite declared there would be no spring unless Adonis was returned to her. And so Zeus declared that Adonis would spend one half of the year in the land of the dead and the other in the land of the living, causing winter to fall in his absence and spring on his arrival.

  In Hindu mythology, Kama, the god of love, is burned alive by a glance from Shiva’s third eye. Later, Shiva discovers love in the Goddess. She is called Kamakshi, one whose eyes evoke desire. She resurrects Kama, though the resurrected Kama has no body and is called Ananga. Thus is physical love distinguished from emotional love. Kama is the Hindu Eros, and his consort, Rati, is the Hindu Aphrodite, but where Kama and Rati are husband and wife, the relationship of Eros and Aphrodite is more ambiguous, with Eros often being shown as a child in Aphrodite’s arms.

  The story of the lover (Adonis) dying and being resurrected mirrors the story of the disappearing and appearing daughter (Persephone). This trope was popular not only in Greece but across the Mesopotamian region as an explanation for the change in seasons and the fertility of the soil.

  This story is found in many Latin works such as Metamorphosis, Fabulae and Bibliotheca.

  Psyche

  Psyche was so beautiful that people stopped worshipping Aphrodite and began offering prayers to her instead, unmindful of the fact that she was mortal. This enraged Aphrodite who ordered her son Eros to make Psyche fall in love with the ugliest man that lived.

  Unfortunately, when Eros saw Psyche, he was so smitten by her beauty that he scratched himself with one of his arrows. He then used divine powers to secure her from her father, and take her to a secret place, far from the ire of Aphrodite. He visited her only at night, warning her that as long as she did not see him in the light, she would experience great happiness.

  For Psyche, life was wonderful at night, but lonely by day, and so she begged her mysterious husband to let her family visit her. After much pleading, Eros agreed, but that was a mistake. For Psyche’s sisters became so jealous when they saw her happiness that they poisoned her mind. ‘Your husband may be a monster who will eat your children. How do you know?’ they told her.

  Influenced by her sisters, one night, Psyche lit a lamp to see the face of her husband. It was anything but monstrous. In fact, it was the most handsome face she had ever seen. As she was admiring her husband, a drop of hot oil fell from her lamp on to his face. He woke up screaming and disappeared in a rage, disappointed by his wife’s lack of faith.

  Consumed by guilt and sorrow, Psyche wandered the world looking for her husband. Wherever she went, she put things in order, making goddesses such as Demeter and Hera happy. But they all refused to help her, for it was forbidden for one Olympian to interfere in the affairs of another.

  Finally, Psyche approached Aphrodite who treated her with contempt and set her to do four terrible tasks: sorting out a variety of grains that had been mixed together; collecting golden wool from violent sheep; fetching water from the River Styx; and securing the beauty ointment used by Persephone. Psyche succeeded each time with a little help from the gods: ants sent by Hermes