The Birth Of The Gods
The earliest and also the fullest account of the creation and the birth of the giants and gods is to be found in Hesiod's poem, the 'Theogony' (literally, 'The Birth Of The Gods'). Hesiod lived in the 8th century BC at the time when the Greeks first introduced writing skills. We must assume that his account is the culmination of centuries of poems told from memory and handed from generation to generation in an oral tradition. As with other Greek myths, it cannot therefore be considered the only version of the story, but Hesiod's was the most influential source for later poets. There are remarkable parallels with the creation myths of the Hittites and Babylonians, whose literary versions were produced five centuries earlier. Recent archaeological and literary studies have suggested a much greater level of contact between Greece and the Orient than was previously thought for this early period, and Hesiod is now considered to have produced a mixture of oriental and Greek mythology. There was no single divine creator in Greek mythology; the Earth and the Sky 'emerged' from the void and together gave birth to worldly life forms.
First there was Chaos, a chasm without shape or light. The ample-breasted Gaia (Mother Earth) emerged, where one day gods and men would dwell; deep beneath her swirled the mists of Tartarus, later the prison of rebellious giant Titans; and then appeared the most handsome god of all, Eros (Sexual Love), who numbs our limbs and defeats our reason - he has the same effect on the immortal gods. No birth of gods, giants, animals or men would have taken place without his power of attraction.
From the chasm came the two dark ones, Erebus (Dark Underworld) beneath Gaia and Nyx (Night) above her. Eros was present; Nyx and Erebus made love and Nyx gave birth to her brilliant and beautiful children; Aether (Upper Air) with his azure satin cloak stretched across the top of the sky; and his sister Hemera (Day) who steps out of Tartarus bringing us light and returns in the twilight, greeting her mother, Nyx, on the other side of the road.
An Introduction To Greek Mythology
David Bellingham
ISBN 1-86160-568-4
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