Upload
randolf-higgins
View
219
Download
4
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Chapter Four, Lecture Two
From Zeus Against Cronus:
The Battle with the Titans
Zeus
Zeus Against Cronus:The Battle with the Titans Cronus swallows the newly born
Olympians: Demeter, Hera, Hestia, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus
Rhea delivers the youngest, Zeus, in Crete, hidden from Cronus
Zeus raised by nymphs Alamlthea, Melissa, Corybantes, Curetes
Cronus fooled by rock in baby’s clothing
Rhea gives Cronus a stone.
Nymphs
Zeus Against Cronus:The Battle with the Titans
Zeus overthrows Cronus The stone vomited out and became used as the omphalos in Delphi
Other Titans attack The “Titanomachy” Only the Titans Themis and her son Prometheus
side with the Zeus and the Olympians
Delphi
Prometheus
Zeus Against Cronus:The Battle with the Titans
Olympians win with the help of the Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires
Titans cast into Tartarus Altas given special punishment
Forced to hold up the heaven at the edge of the earth
Cyclopes
Atlas
Zeus’s Battle with Typheous Gaea with Tartarus produce Typhoeus Defeated by Zeus’s thunderbolts Apollodorus adds details
Olympians fled to Egypt disguised as animals Zeus temporarily defeated and “deboned” Hermes puts Zeus back together Typhoeus defeated in a “bloody” battle at Mt.
“Haemus” Typhoeus buried under Mt. Etna
Typhoeus
Hermes
Zeus’s Battle with the Giants Will the succession continue after Zeus? Decendents
and where current reign came from and how entitled Metis (cleaverness), one of his consorts, is pregnant Hears that the next child of Metis after this one will
replace him She is pregnant, so he ingests her Athena, the warrior goddess among things, is born
from his forehead (Prometheus or Hephaestus helps)
Athena
Zeus’s Battle with the Giants Much later: Battle of the Giants
Gigantomachy Not in Hesiod Giants spring from Uranus’s severed
genitals With the help of Hercules(!), are defeated World divided among Zeus (Sky), Poseidon
(Ocean), and Hades (Underworld)
Giants
Zeus and Hera, Hades and Persephone, Poseidon
Themes in Greek Creation Story Divine Myth with folklore elements Cosmos becoming increasingly complex,
away from original unity Creation is through sexual intercourse Ascendancy of male over female Female ambivalence Titans represent untamed forces of nature
Folktale in Greek Creation Story Zeus’s story on Crete from local religion on
Crete Zeus’s story there is pattern after a local
vegetation god
Zeus overcomes them by righting old wrongs (against the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes)
motifs-separation, success, combat
Themes in Greek Creation Story Female is ambiguous – creative and
destructive set in contradictions of family special weapon-sickle
Eastern Creation Stories
Babylonian Enuma Elish
Hittite Kingship in Heaven and Song of Ullikummi
Enuma Elish Babylonian Enuma Elish (“When on High”) Features in common with Greek myth:
Unstable female principle Destruction and overthrow by newer gods of the
older gods Result: one male god presiding over a more-or-
less orderly cosmos
Enuma Elish Ea, one of the new gods, seeks advice from
a friendly older god, Anshar, who demands a counterattack against Tiamat and Kingu
But Ea fails Then Anshar remembers Marduk
Enuma Elish Marduk will fight, but only if given absolute
power if he succeeds Marduk destroys Tiamat by forcing the
winds down her throat and then popping her like a balloon
He imprisons Kingu and gets the Tablets of Destiny, which he then gives to Anu
Enuma Elish Marduk then begins to fashion an orderly
cosmos from and on Tiamat’s dismembered body
Divided the realm into sky and earth gods Builds the first ziggurat and is declared the
ruler of the cosmos
Enuma Elish Ultimate origin is from the seas, and
feminine, which is both life-giving and destroying
Hero-god must kill the beasts of the cosmos and overthrow the mother
The cosmos “progressed” to the form it now has
Kingship in HeavenSong of Ullikummi
Indo-European people in central Turkey Arrived in 1900 B.C. and in 1450 even
sacked Babylon Two fragmentary documents are evidence
for their cosmology
Kingship in HeavenSong of Ullikummi
Very strange indeed and fragmentary Successions and overthrows of earlier gods There is an influence
Kingship in HeavenSong of Ullikummi
Alalush, king in Heaven Served by Anush (=An)
After nine years, Alalush overthrown by Anush
Anush rules Served by Kumarbi
After nine years, fights with Kumarbi, who bites off his genitals and swallows them
Kingship in HeavenSong of Ullikummi
Kumarbi spits them out . . . One of the deities he can’t spit out, Teshub,
who eventually escapes from Kumarbi’s penis (probably)
Teshub the storm god becomes the chief god
Kingship in HeavenSong of Ullikummi
More from the Song of Ullikummi Kumarbi plots to overthrow Teshub Kumarbi has intercourse with a rock
Produces the monster, Ullikummi (“destroyer of Kummiya [Teshub’s city]
Ullikummi given to Ubelluri Teshub eventually defeats him after a great
cosmic battle