Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #1)

by Stephen Fry

So the Chaos that began everything is also the Chaos that will end everything.

Next Gaia visited her daughter Mnemosyne, who was busy being unpronounceable.

Glad he acknowledged that

for the world seems never to offer anything worthwhile without also providing a dreadful opposite.

Zeus accidentally snapped off one of her horns.fn18 By virtue of his already prodigious divine powers, this broken horn instantly filled itself with the most delicious food – fresh bread, vegetables, fruit, cured meats and smoked fish – a supply that never gave out no matter how much was taken from it. Thus originated the celebrated Horn of Plenty, the CORNUCOPIA.

‘A true leader forges alliances. A true leader is admired and trusted.’ ‘Yes, mother.’ ‘A true leader is loved.’

the goddess of peace (PAX to the Romans).

known to us, perhaps because the realm that Zeus in his wisdom apportioned to her was the hearth. In our less communal age of central heating and separate rooms for each family member, we do not lend the hearth quite the importance that our ancestors did, Greek or otherwise.

It is a strange and wonderful thing that out of words for a fireplace we have spun ‘cardiologist’, ‘deep focus’ and ‘eco-warrior’. The essential meaning of centrality that connects them also reveals the great significance of the hearth to the Greeks and Romans, and consequently the importance of Hestia, its presiding deity.

Hades thought along the same lines. ‘Whichever I choose,’ he said to himself, ‘I will shout in triumph, just to annoy that prick Poseidon.’

Hades also came to symbolize riches and opulence. The jewels and precious metals that are mined deep underground and the priceless crops of grain, vegetables and flowers that germinate beneath the earth are all reminders that from decay and death spring life, abundance and wealth.

‘immortal’ is ambrotos and ‘immortality’ itself is AMBROSIA, which became the name of the specially blessed honey.

Apollo and Athena might be said to be its progenitors as much as Prometheus, who fashioned humanity from the four elements: Earth (Gaia’s clay), Water (the spittle of Zeus), Fire (the sun of Apollo) and Air (the breath of Athena).

HERMAPHRODITUS – the protector of effeminate males, mannish females and those of what we would now call a more fluid gender.

the strongest candidate for First Ever Novel: The Golden Ass, by the Roman writer Apuleius.fn5

She did this not in worshipful admiration but to muffle her laughter – she found the men’s vanity when it came to physical prowess endlessly amusing.

After a banquet in Dionysus’s honour Staphylus died of the first fatal hangover.

When the reign of the gods was coming to an end Zeus rewarded this beautiful youth, his devoted minion, lover and friend, by sending him up into the sky as a constellation in the most important part of the heavens, the Zodiac, where he shines still as Aquarius, the Cupbearer.

In these love affairs the gods seem always to say it with flowers. The Greek for flower is anthos – so what follows is, quite literally, a romantic anthology.

‘Not bad,’ said Arguros after a sip. ‘How did you get the cat to sit on the jug?’

The one website I would most heartily recommend is theoi.com