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Egyptian parallels to Greek deities

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Wisteria
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« on: February 17, 2007, 12:35:19 pm »

I thought some of us might like to examine certain parallels between the ancient Greek and Egyptian deities. If we consider Plato's assertion that Solon substituted Greek names for Egyptian ones as accurate, then the Atlantis story was modified to conform to a Greek mythological setting, and such Greek names may not literally apply. Therefore, we are left to wonder just what the original Egyptian names from which Solon translated into Greek names were - namely Zeus, Poseidon, Atlas, Athena, and Pillars of Heracles.

It is my belief that relying exclusively on the Greek names given in Plato's account to try and solve the Atlantis mystery, may place unecessary restrictions on what we might be able to discover otherwise by removing such limitations - at least temporarily.

One clue given to support this, is that we are told that Goddess Athena is the Greek equivalent to the Egyptian Goddess Neith. This is verified by other sources which indicate that Anouke, the Egyption Goddess of War, is simply the name given to Neith when she's in bad mood. Wink So if we subsitute the word "Athena" with "Neith/Anouke" in reading Plato's story, we can attempt to do the same with the other names.

To start with, here's a list of several Egyptian Deities, included with the names of some of their Greek counterparts. I am trying to determine possible Greek counterparts (and vice versa) to others which are not listed here, such as Poseidon.


Amon = Zeus

Also called Amun, Ra or Re (the Sun), or Amun-Ra or Amen-Ra (the Great Sun), or Khepri. The king of the gods during the Theban dynasties, and the god of fertility. He was part of the Theban Triad, along with Mut and Khonsu. Usually associated with the wind, or things hidden.



Bastet (Bast) = Artemis

Bastet (originally a lion goddess symbolizing the fertilizing force of the sun's rays), became the cat goddess, the patroness of the domestic cat and the home. She is often seen in human form with the head of a cat and holding the sacred rattle known as the sistrim. Bastet is also associated with the eye of Ra, the sun god, and acts as an instrument of his vengeance. She ruled over pleasure, dancing, music, and joy.


Geb and Nut (Geb = Poseidon???)

They were the children of Shu and Tefnut. Geb was the god of earth. Nut was the sky goddess.



Hathor = Aphrodite

The goddess of joy and love, she was a protector of women. Also worshipped as a sky goddess, Hathor is depicted wearing a sun disk held between the horns of a cow as a crown. Hathor was the patroness of all women, artists, music, dance, and happiness. She is often traditionally present in all ancient Egyptian tombs to ensure safe passage into the after world.


Horus = Apollo

The falcon-eyed son of Osiris and Isis, who was conceived miraculously by Isis and the dead Osiris. He swore to avenge his father's murder.


Isis = Demeter/Hera/Selene

Sometimes Isitis, which means Earth or corn-bearing Land. She is the "mother of all creation". A daughter of Geb and Nut, she was the faithful wife of her brother Osiris. She became universally worshipped, is associated with love, motherhood, marital devotion, healing, eternal life, and the casting of magical spells and charms. Isis is the goddess of day, while her twin sister, Nephthys, is the goddess of night. Her sacred symbol is an amulet called the tyet. She is the mother of Horus.


Khem = Pan (Min is also another Egyptian counterpart to the Greek Pan)
Father God. God of reproduction, generation, fertility, harvest, agriculture, plant life, and human fertility. Depicted as a mummy.


Min = Pan

A god of fertility.


Mut = Hera

Mut is seen as the mother, the nurturing force behind all things while her husband Amon is the great energy or creative force. In ancient Egyptian, 'mut' means mother. The mother of Khonsu. Mut is another name of Isis.


Neith = Athena

Means the Heavens. She is goddess of the Sky.



Nephthys = Aphrodite/Nike

The twin sister of Isis, Nephthys is the goddess of night and the protectoress of the dead. She is also Set's sister and wife, although, through her subterfuge, she bore a child (the jackal-headed Anubis) by Osiris


Nut = Rhea

Sky Goddess. Mother of the Gods. Great Mother. One of the Ennead. Goddess and personification of the sky, clouds, stars and of the heavens. Goddess of reincarnation, weather.

 
Osiris = Dionysus/Hades

He was the first child of Geb and Nut. He was the judge of the dead in the underworld. Osiris was killed by his jealous brother Set.


Ptah = Hephaestus

Also spelled as Pthah. He was the god of fire and the creator. His figure is bandaged like a mummy, and his head is shaven like a priest.


Renenet= Tyche

Cobra Goddess of harvest. Fertility Goddess. Nurturer of children. Personification of Fortune. Goddess of the eighth month of the Egyptian calender, children, luck, justice, plenty, good fortune, and the like. Depicted as a woman with the head of a snake.


Sati = Juno (Juno = Hera)
 
also known as Satis and Satet, is an Egyptian archer goddess who personified the waterfalls of the river Nile.


Sebek (Sobek) = Cronus
 
means "crocodile". Also called Seb. Was depicted as having a crocodile face. During the Middle Kingdom he was merged with Re (Sobek-Re) and was worshipped as primordial deity and creator-god.


Seth (Set) = Typhon

The son of Geb and Nut. This powerful god was regarded as god of the desert. He was Osiris' evil brother and was considered the incarnation of wickedness. He tricked Osiris at a feast in Osiris' honor, and killed him, and took his place on the throne. In some myths he is called Typhon, and is associated with the "abominable" animals: the pig, donkey, and the hippopotamus. He was depicted as a strange being with a stiff, forked tail, a long gaunt body, a tapering snout, huge erect ears and protruding eyes.


Shu = Atlas

One of Ra's children. Shu was the god of air and held up the sky. Tefnut, Shu's sister and wife, was the goddess of dew and rain. They were the parents of Geb and Nut.



Tefnut = Artemis

Tefnut, Shu's sister and wife, was the goddess of dew and rain. They were the parents of Geb and Nut.


Thoth = Hermes

The god of learning, he was the lunar god usually depicted with the head of an ibis, though he was worshipped as a baboon in Hermopolis. He acted as secretary to the gods, and was the master over writing, languages, laws, annals, and calculations.







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Wisteria
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« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2007, 01:53:24 pm »

It also seems likely that Poseidon may be a later personification of the sea-god, Yamm.

Yamm

"Tyrannical god of the sea found in a fragmentary papyrus which seems to hint that his exorbitant demands for tribute from the other deities were eventually thwarted by the goddess Astarte."


........................

"Yamm was the god of oceans, seas, rivers and lakes in several old semitic religions, for instance in Phoenicia, Ancient Egypt and for the Canaanites.

According to legend, Yamm was awarded the divine rule over the world by El. Baal, initially destined to become Yamm's servant, refused and challenged Yamm for battle. Baal came out victorious and won the divine kingship.

Yamm was mentioned in the old Egyptian Astarte papyrus and might be identical with the old semitic god Lothan."

.........................

"Yam, according to some also called Ya'a or Yaw, is the name of the Ugaritic god of Rivers and Sea, and in some myths he is one of the 'ilhm (Elohim) or sons of El, the name given to the Levantine pantheon. Others dispute the existence of the alternative names, claiming it is a mistranslation of a damaged tablet. Despite linguistic overlap, theologically this god is not a part of the later subregional monotheistic theology, but rather is part of a broader and archaic Levantine polytheism. The name Yam means "sea" and he is also called Nahar meaning "river".

Yam is the deity of the primordial chaos and represents the power of the sea untamed and raging; he is seen as ruling tempests and the disasters they wreak. Yam shares many characteristics with Greco-Roman Ophion, the serpentine Titan of the sea whom Kronos cast out of the heavenly Mt. Olympus. Likewise, the gods cast out Yam from the heavenly mountain Sappan (modern Jebel Aqra; "Sappan" is cognate to Tsephon (Tsion). The seven-headed dragon Lotan is associated closely with him and the serpent is frequently used to describe him.

Of all the gods, Yam holds special hostility against Baal Hadad over the divine assembly. Yam is a deity of the sea and his palace is in the abyss associated with the depths, or Biblical tehwom, of the oceans. (This is not to be confused with the abode of Mot, the ruler of the netherworlds.) In Ugaritic texts, Yam's special enemy Hadad is also known as the "king of heaven" and the "first born son" of El, whom ancient Greeks identified with their god Kronos, just as Baal was identified with Zeus, Yam with Poseidon and Mot with Hades. Yaw wished to become the Lord god in his place. In turns the two beings kill each other, yet Hadad is resurrected and Yam also returns. Some authors have suggested that these tales reflect the experience of seasonal cycles in the Levant."

...............................

So we have a possible parallel between the (Semitic/Egyptian/Phoenician) sea-god Yamm, and the Greek God Poseidon. Now, the mentioning above of Yamm's tyranical efforts being thwarted by the Goddess Astarte intrigues me. Let's look her up:


Astarte

"Astarte was actually a warrior goddess of Canaan and Syria who is a Western Semitic counterpart of the Akkadian Ishtar worshipped in Mesopotamia.

In the Egyptian pantheon to which she was officially admitted during the 18th Dynasty, her prime association is with horses and chariots. On the stela set up near the sphinx by Amenhotep II celebrating his prowess, Astarte is described as delighting in the impressive equestrian skill of the monarch when he was still only crown prince. In her iconography her aggression can be seen in the bull horns she sometimes wears as a symbol of domination. Similarly, in her Levantine homelands, Astarte is a battlefield goddess. For example, when the Peleset (Philistines) killed Saul and his three sons on Mount Gilboa, they deposited the enemy armor as spoils in the temple of "Ashtoreth"

Like Anat, she is the daughter of Re and the wife of the god Seth, but also has a relationship with the god of the sea. From the woefully fragmentary papyrus giving the legend of Astarte and the sea we learn that Yamm, the sea god, demanded tribute from the gods, particularly Renenutet. Her place is then taken by Astarte called, in this aspect, "daughter of Ptah". The story is lost from that point on but one assumes this liaison resulted in the goddess tempering the arrogance of Yamm.

It should also be noted that outside of Egypt, as well as being a warlike goddess, Astarte seems to have had sexual and motherhood attributes."

...............................

"Ashtart was connected with fertility, sexuality, and war. Her symbols were the lion, the horse, the sphinx, the dove, and a star within a circle indicating the planet Venus. Pictorial representations often show her naked.

Ashtart was accepted by the Greeks under the name of Aphrodite. The island of Cyprus, one of Ashtart's greatest faith centers, supplied the name Cypris as Aphrodite's most common byname.

Other major centers of ‘Ashtart's worship were Sidon, Tyre, and Byblos. Coins from Sidon portray a chariot in which a globe appears, presumably a stone representing ‘Ashtart. In Sidon, she shared a temple with Eshmun. At Beirut coins show Poseidon, Astarte, and Eshmun worshipped together.

Other faith centers were Cytherea, Malta and Eryx in Sicily from which she became known to the Romans as Venus Erycina. A bilingual inscription on the Pyrgi Tablets dating to about 500 BCE found near Caere in Etruria equates ‘Ashtart with Uni, that is Juno. At Carthage ‘Ashtart was worshipped along side the goddess Tanit.

Dama de Galera.Donald Harden in The Phoenicians discusses a statuette of ‘Ashtart from Tutugi (Galera) near Granada in Spain dating to the 6th or 7th century BCE in which ‘Ashtart sits on a throne flanked by sphinxes holding a bowl beneath her breasts which are pierced. A hollow in the statue would have been filled with milk through the head and gentle heating would have melted wax plugging the holes, producing an apparent miracle.

The Syrian goddess Atargatis (Semitic form ‘Atar‘atah) was generally equated with ‘Ashtart and the first element of the name appears to be related to the name Ashtart."

........................

Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate northwest Semitic goddess Astarte. Anunit, Astarte, Atarsamain and Esther are alternative names for Ishtar.
..........................

Interesting to note that warrior Goddess Astarte was said to have conflict with the sea-god Yamm. Could this perhaps be an earlier source for the legend of Athena being frequently at odds with Poseidon?

In addition to Astarte being the likely prototype Goddess for the later Aphrodite, her description would suggest that Goddess Athena may have evolved out of her religious cult as well. We have to keep in mind that Sumerian, Babylonian and Egyptian mythologies all predate the Greek ones.


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Proteus
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« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2007, 02:37:43 pm »

Excellent list, Wisteria, I have long thought the Greek gods had no actualy bearing on the Atlantis story and that it has been wrong to place so much emphasis on them.

You mentioned Yam as possibly being Poseidon.

Here is the Epic of Ba'al, which appoints Yam In to fight Hadad the king of heaven.

(KTU 1.2 iv)r:

"I, myself, Kindly `El the Beneficent, have taken you upon my hands.
I proclaim your name.
Yam is your name,
Your name is Beloved of `El, Yam."
"[Go against] the hand of the Mighty Lord Most High (´Aliyan Ba´al ) —
Because he spoke ill to me —
[And] drive him from the throne of his kingship,
From the resting place,
the cushion on the seat of his dominion.
But if then you do not drive him from his throne of kingship,
from the seat of his dominion,
He will beat you like...
He slaughters oxen and sheep.
He fells bulls and fatted rams, yearling calves,
sheep by the flock, he sacrifices kids.
"

Ba'al Hadad warns Yam that the gods will not allow him to usurp the throne of heaven. In KTU 1.2 iii, the Lord warns:

"From your throne of kingship you shall be driven,
from the seat of your dominion cast out!
On your head be Ayamari (Driver) O Yam,
Between your shoulders Yagarish (Chaser), O Judge Nahar
May Horon split open, O Yam,
may Horon smash your head,
´Athtart-Name-of-the-Lord thy skull!
After a great war in heaven involving many of the gods, Yam is roundly defeated:

And the weapon springs from the hand of the Lord,
Like a raptor from between his fingers.
It strikes the skull of Prince Yam,
between the eyes of Judge Nahar.
Yahm collapses, he falls to the earth;
His joints quiver, and his spine shakes.
Thereupon the Lord drags out Yam and would rend him to pieces;
he would make an end of Judge Nahar.
However, Athtart pleads for Yam, who acknowledges the Lord as king of heaven:

Then up speaks Yam: "Lo, I am as good as dead! Surely, the Lord now reigns as king!"
Hadad holds a great feast, but not long afterwards he battles Mot (death) and through his mouth he descends to his realm below the earth. Yet like Yam, Death too is defeated and in h. I AB iii the Lord arises from the dead:

For alive is the Mighty Lord,
Revived is the Prince, Master of Earth."
'El calls to the Virgin Anat:
"Hearken, O maiden Anat!"[1]



Sounds a bit like Lucifer's fall from heaven, does it not?
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Wisteria
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« Reply #3 on: February 17, 2007, 04:13:17 pm »

>Sounds a bit like Lucifer's fall from heaven, does it not?

You're right. It sure does.

Here is also a profile I found for the God Shu, the Egyptian equivalent of the Greek Atlas (although there won't be any attempts by me to try and rename Plato's lost island "Shutantis"  Wink).

Shu (meaning: void) was the very old god of the cool and dry air, who separated the earth from the sky. In that capacity he was responsible for making the wind. He was often shown standing up supporting his mother sky goddess Nut as a vault over the whole horizon on the command of the sun god Re. Together with his twin sister Tefnut (humid warm air) he was a member of the old family in Heliopolis. Sometimes he was sitting on a throne wearing a crown with plumes and horns topped with a sun disc. Normally he was a man wearing a band with a feather but in some provinces he could also show himself as a lion.

Now my question is: Exactly where did the Egyptians think Shu held up the sky?
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« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2007, 08:31:15 pm »

That's a good question, and one that I do not know.  As I understand it, there are temples surving built to Shu, although his legend does involve pillars that allowed him to hold up the sky.

I found this from Touregypt:




Shu, Holder of the Sky, God of the Air, Wind, Sunlight and Protectionby Caroline Seawright
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/god.jpg

 
 


Image © Mark T. Rigby


Shu (Su) was the god of dry air, wind and the atmosphere. He was also related to the sun, possibly as an aspect of sunlight. He was the son of the creator god, father of the twin sky and the earth deities and the one who held the sky off of the earth. He was one of the gods who protected Ra on his journey through the underworld, using magic spells to ward off Ra's enemy, the snake-demon Apep. As with other protector gods, he had a darker side - he was also a god of punishment in the land of the dead, leading executioners and torturers to kill off the corrupt souls. His name might be derived from the word for dryness -  shu, the root of words such as 'dry', 'parched', 'withered', 'sunlight' and 'empty'. His name could also mean 'He who Rises Up'.

He was generally depicted as a man wearing an ostrich feather headdress, holding a sceptre and the ankh sign of life. Sometimes he is shown wearing the sun disk on his head, linking him to the sun. Occasionally, when shown with his sister-wife Tefnut, he is shown in lion form and the two were known as the "twin lion gods". At other times, he was shown with the hind part of a lion as his headdress, linking him to his leonine form. Mostly, he was shown with his arms raised, holding up the goddess Nut as the sky, standing on the body of Geb.

One story says that Shu and Tefnut went to explore the waters of Nun. After some time, Ra believed that they were lost, and sent the his Eye out into the chaos to find them. When his children were returned to him, Ra wept, and his tears were believed to have turned into the first humans.

Shu was created by asexually or by spitting, the first born of the sun god. He seems to be more of a personification of the atmosphere rather than an actual god.

 That is my daughter, the living female one, Tefnut,
who shall be with her brother Shu.
Life is his name, Order is her name.
[At first] I lived with my two children, my little ones,
the one before me, the other behind me.
Life reposed with my daughter Order,
the one within me, the other without me.
I rose over them, but their arms were around me.

-- Spell 80, Coffin Texts

As a god of the wind, the people invoked him to give good wind to the sails of the boats. It was he who was the personification of the cold northern winds; he was the breath of life - the vital principle of all living things. His bones were thought to be clouds. He was also called to 'lift up' the spirits of the dead so that they might rise up to the heavens, known as the 'light land', reached by means of a giant 'ladder' that Shu was thought to hold up.

...Shu, the 'space', the light cavity in the midst of the primordial darkness. Shu is both light and air, and as the offspring of god he is manifest life. As light he separates the earth from the sky and as air he upholds the sky vault.

-- Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, R. T. Rundle Clark

Despite being a god of sunlight, Shu was not considered to be a solar deity. He was, though, connected to the sun god as one who was thought to bring Ra (and the pharaoh) to life each morning, raising the sun into the sky. During his travels through the underworld, he protected Ra from the snake-demon Apep, with spells to counteract the serpent and his followers. He participated in the judgement of the deceased in the Halls of Ma'ati as the leader of aggressive, punishing beings who were to eliminate the ones not worthy of the afterlife.

THE CHAPTER OF NOT PERISHING AND OF BEING ALIVE IN KHERT-NETER. Saith Osiris Ani: "Hail, children of: Shu! Hail, children of Shu, [children of] the place of the dawn, who as the children of light have gained possession of his crown. May I rise up and may I fare forth like Osiris."

THE CHAPTER OF NOT GOING IN TO THE BLOCK. Saith Osiris Ani: "The four bones of my neck and of my back are joined together for me in heaven by Ra, the guardian of the earth. This was granted on the day when my rising up out of weakness upon my two feet was ordered, on the day when the hair was cut off. The bones of my neck and of my back have been joined together by Set and by the company of the gods, even as they were in the time that is past; may nothing happen to break them apart. Make ye [me] strong against my father's murderer. I have gotten power over the two earths. Nut hath joined together my bones, and behold [them] as they were in the time that is past [and I] see [them] even in the same order as they were [when] the gods had not come into being in visible forms. I am Penti, I, Osiris the scribe Ani, triumphant, am the heir of the great gods."

-- The Book of the Dead, Chapters XLVI and XL

 He also was believed to hold up Nut, the sky goddess and his daughter, above his son the earth god Geb. Without Shu holding the two apart, the Egyptians believed that there would be no area in which to create the life they saw all around them. The Egyptians believed that there were also pillars to help Shu lift up the sky - these pillars were on the four cardinal points, and were known as the 'Pillars of Shu'.

Shu hath raised thee up, O Beautiful Face, thou governor of eternity. Thou hast thine eye, O scribe Nebseni, lord of fealty, and it is beautiful. Thy right eye is like the Sektet Boat, thy left eye is like the Atet Boat. Thine eyebrows are fair to see in the presence of the Company of the Gods.

-- The Speech of Anubis (from the Papyrus of Nebseni)

The Egyptians believed that Shu was the second divine pharaoh, ruling after Ra. Apep's followers, though, plotted against him and attacked the god at his palace in At Nub. Despite defeating them, Shu became diseased due to their corruption, and soon even Shu's own followers revolted against him. Shu then abdicated the throne, allowing his son Geb to rule, and Shu himself returned to the skies.

I am Shu. I draw air from the presence of the Light-god, from the uttermost limits of heaven, from the uttermost limits of earth, from the uttermost limits of the pinion of Nebeh bird. May air be given unto this young divine Babe. [My mouth is open, I see with my eyes.]

-- The Chapter of Giving Air in Khert-Neter (From The Book of the Dead)

There are no known temples to Shu, but despite Akenaten's distaste for the gods of Egypt, he and Nefertiti used Tefnut and Shu for political purposes. They depicted themselves as the twin gods in an apparent attempt to elevate their status to that of being a living god and goddess, the son and daughter of the creator, on earth. Akenaten, not the monotheist that most believe him to be, put out the belief that Shu lived in the sun disk. At Iunet (Dendera), though, there was a part of the city known as "The House of Shu" ( ) and at Djeba (Utes-Hor, Behde, Edfu) there was a place known as "The Seat of Shu" (). He was worshiped in connection with the Ennead at Iunu, and in his lion form at Nay-ta-hut (Leontopolis). 

Shu was the husband of his twin, the goddess Tefnut, son of the sun god Atem-Ra and father to the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut. As such, he was one of the gods of the Ennead. Shu was identified with the Meroitic god Arensnuphis, known as Shu-Arensnuphis. He was also identified with the war god Onuris, known as Onuris-Shu. His links with Onuris are probably because the two gods had wives who took the form of a lioness (Mehit was the wife of Onuris), and both gods were thought to have brought their consorts back from Nubia. In Shu's case, when Tefnut went off in anger to Nubia, Ra sent both him and Thoth to get her, and they found her in Begum. Thoth began at once to try and persuade her to return to Egypt. In the end Tefnut (with Shu and Thoth leading her) made a triumphant entry back into Egypt, accompanied by a host of Nubian musicians, dancers and baboons.

Egypt's second divine ruler, Shu was one of the great Ennead. A god of the wind, the atmosphere, the space between the sky and the earth, Shu was the division between day and night, the underworld and the living world. He was a god related to living, allowing life to flourish in Egypt with his breath of life. He was the bridge between life and death, both a protector and a punisher in the afterlife. To the Egyptians, if there was no Shu, there would be no life - Egypt existed thanks to Shu.




 http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/shu.htm

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Wisteria
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« Reply #5 on: February 18, 2007, 10:38:08 am »

Love that first statue depicted of Shu. I'd like to find me an exact replica!

Here are two stories, one from Greek mythology and the other from Egyptian mythology, with some interesting parallels. They both involve Astarte/Aphrodite being at odds with a malevolent sea-god, and having to be rescued.

Now we already know that Astarte can be equated with Aphrodite, and Neith with Athena.

Set is usually equated with Typhon, but can also be equated with Poseidon.

Yamm has also been equated with Poseidon, but seems to bear more characteristics of Typhon in the second story below.

...............................................................

Aphrodite & The Giant Typhoeus

"Aphrodite was identified with the Syrian Goddess Astarte. This story was created to explain why that goddess was sometimes worshipped in the form of a fish.

"Fishes [constellation Pisces] ... Diognetus Erythraeus says that once Venus [Aphrodite] and her son Cupid [Eros] came in Syria to the river Euphrates [when Typhon attacked Olympos]. There Typhon, of whom we have already spoken, suddenly appeared. Venus and her son threw themselves into the river and there changed their forms to fishes, and by so doing this escaped danger. So afterwards the Syrians, who are adjacent to these regions, stopped eating fish, fearing to catch them lest with like reason they seem either to oppose the protection of the gods, or to entrap the gods themselves." - Hyginus, Astronomica 2.30

"Piscis, heaven’s horses. They say that you and your brother (for your stars gleam together) ferried two gods on your backs. Once Dione [Aphrodite], in flight from terrible Typhon (when Jupiter [Zeus] armed in heaven’s defence), reached the Euphrates with tiny Cupidos [Eros] in tow and sat by the hem of Palestine’s stream. Poplars and reeds dominated the tops of the banks; willows, too, offered hope of concealment. While she hid, the wood roared with wind. She pales with fear, and believes a hostile band approaches. As she clutched son to breast, she cries: ‘To the rescue, Nymphae, and bring help to two divinities.’ No delay; she leapt. Twin fish went underneath them; for which, you see, the present stars are named. Hence timid Syrians think it wrong to serve up this species; they defile no mouths with fish." - Ovid, Fasti 2.458

"Typhoeus, issuing from earth’s lowest depths, struck terror in those heavenly hearts, and they all turned their backs and fled, until they found refuge in Aegyptus and the seven-mouthed Nilus ... Typhoeus Terrigena (Earthborn) even there pursued them and the gods concealed themselves in spurious shapes ... Venus [Aphrodite] became a fish." - Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.319


...........................................................

The Wives of Seth

"Following Seth's long and unsuccessful battle with Horus for the Egyptian throne, the goddess Neith suggested to the council of gods that Seth be awarded a loser's prize: the "foreign" daughters of Re were offered to him as his wives. The involvment of these divine consorts, Anat and Astarte, may be connected with Seth's own affinity with the foreign gods Ba'al and Reshep.

One day as Seth was walking by the Nile, he came across the goddess Anat, bathing in the stream. He changed himself into a ram and raped her. But Anat could only be impregnated by divine fire, and so her body expelled his semen with such force that it struck him in the forehead, making him dangerously ill. Seth was relieved of his punishing headache by Re, whom Isis sent to cure him.

In another myth, of which only a part has ever been found, the gods of Egypt were in conflict with the sea god, Yamm, and were coming off the worst.

Yamm demanded tribute of gold, silver and lapis lazuli, which was duly brought to him by the goddess Renenutet. However, having received these treasures, he became greedy for more, and insisted on further tribute. He threatened that, if his demands were not met, he would enslave every gon in Egypt. In despair, Renenutet sent to Astarte, who was famed both for her beauty and her ferocity. The messenger, in the shape of a bird, begged Astarte to carry the extra tribute to Yamm.

Reluctantly, Astarte agreed. But when she reached the shoreline, her fiery nature got the better of her and she began to taunt the sea god. Alternately outraged by her impudence and bewitched by her beauty, Yamm demanded that he be given Astarte as well as the treasure. The Goddess Renenutet retired to deliberate with the gods, who acceded to the sea god's demands and furnished Astarte with a dowry consisting of Nut's necklace and Geb's signet ring. Seth, however, rebelled against losing his beautiful wife. Tantalizingly, the remainder of the story is lost. But the outcome, surely, was that, whether by force or by guile, Seth overcame the sea god, saved Egypt's pantheon from slavery, and returned from the adventure with Astarte."
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« Reply #6 on: February 18, 2007, 04:40:40 pm »

It appears that the Ugarit Goddess Anat, also shares a link with both Athena and Neith.

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Anat in Egypt

Anat first appears in Egypt in the 16th dynasty (the Hyksos period) along with other northwest Semitic deities. She was especially worshipped in her aspect of a war goddess, often paired with the goddess ‘Ashtart. In the Contest Between Horus and Set, these two goddesses appear as daughters of Re and are given in marriage to the god Set, who had been identified with the Semitic god Hadad.

During the Hyksos period ‘Anat had temples in the Hyksos capital of Tanis (Egypt) and in Beth-Shan (Palestine) as well as being worshipped in Memphis. On inscriptions from Memphis of 15th to 12th centuries BCE, ‘Anat is called "Bin-Ptah", Daughter of Ptah. She is associated with Reshpu, (Canaanite: Resheph) in some texts and sometimes identified with the native Egyptian goddess Neith. She is sometimes called "Queen of Heaven". Her iconography varies, but she is usually shown carrying one or more weapons.

In the New Kingdom Ramesses II made ‘Anat his personal guardian in battle and enlarged ‘Anat's temple in Tanis. Ramesses named his daughter (whom he later married) Bint-Anat 'Daughter of ‘Anat'. His dog appears in a carving in Beit el Wali temple with the name "Anat-in-vigor" and one of his horses was named ‘Ana-herte '‘Anat-is-satisfied'.

Asenath "holy to Anath" was the wife of the Hebrew patriarch Joseph.


Anat and Athene

In a Cyprian inscription (KAI. 42) the Greek goddess Athêna Sôteira Nikê is equated with ‘Anat (who is described in the inscription as the strength of life : l‘uzza hayim).

Anat is also presumably the goddess whom Sanchuniathon calls Athene, a daughter of El, mother unnamed, who with Hermes (that is Anubis) councelled El on the making of a sickle and a spear of iron, presumably to use against his father Uranus. However, in the Baal cycle, that rôle is assigned to Asherah / ‘Elat and ‘Anat is there called the "Virgin."


Anat in Mesopotamia

In Akkadian the form one would expect ‘Anat to take would be Antu earlier Antum. This would also be the normal femanine form that would be taken by Anu, the Akkadian form of An 'Sky', the Sumerian god of heaven. Antu appears in Akkadian texts mostly as a rather colorless consort of Anu, the mother of Ishtar in the Gilgamesh story, but is also identified with the northwest Semitic goddess ‘Anat of essentially the same name. It is unknown whether this is an equation of two originally separate goddesses whose names happened to fall together or whether ‘Anat's cult spread to Mesopotamia where she came to be worshippped as Anu's spouse because the Mesopotamia form of her name suggested she was a counterpart to Anu.

It has also been suggested that the parallelism between the names of the Sumerian goddess, Inanna, and her West Semitic counterpart, Ishtar, continued in Canaanite tradition as Anath and Astarte, particularly in the poetry of Ugarit. The two goddesses were invariably linked in Ugaritic scripture and are also known to have formed a triad (known from sculpture) with a third goddess whose was given the name/title of Qadesh (meaning "the holy one"}.


Anat in Israel

The goddess ‘Anat is never mentioned in Hebrew scriptures as a goddess, though her name is apparently preserved in the city names Beth Anath and Anathoth. Anathoth seems to be a plural form of the name, perhaps a shortening of bêt ‘anātôt 'House of the ‘Anats', either a reference to many shrines of the goddess or a plural of intensification. The ancient hero Shamgar son of ‘Anat is mentioned in Judges 3.31;5:6 which raises the idea that this hero may have been imagined as a demi-god, a mortal son of the goddess. But John Day (2000) notes that a number of Canaanites known from non-Biblical sources bore that title and theorizes that it was a military designation indicating a warrior under ‘Anat's protection.

In Elephantine (modern Aswan) in Egypt, Jewish mercenaries, c. 410 BCE, make mention of a goddess called Anat-Yahu (Anat-Yahweh) worshipped in the temple to Yahweh originally built by Jewish refugees from the Babylonian conquest of Judah.


Anat in Ugarit

In the Ugaritic Ba‘al/Hadad cycle ‘Anat is a violent war-goddess and the sister of the great Ba‘al known as Hadad. Ba‘al is usually called the son of Dagon but ‘Anat is addressed by El as "daughter". Either one relationship or the other is probably figurative.

‘Anat's titles used again and again are "virgin ‘Anat" and "sister-in-law of the peoples" (or "progenitress of the peoples" or "sister-in-law, widow of the Li’mites").

In a fragmentary passage ‘Anat appears as a wild and furious warrior in a battle, wading knee-deep in blood, striking off heads, cutting off hands, binding the heads to her torso and the hands in her sash, driving out the old men and townsfolk with her arrows, her heart filled with joy.

’Anat boasts that she has put an end to Yamm the darling of El, to the seven-headed serpent, to Arsh the darling of the gods, to Atik 'Quarrelsome' the calf of El, to Ishat 'Fire' the **** of the gods, and to Zabib 'flame?' the daughter of El. Later, when Ba‘al is believed to be dead, she seeks after Ba‘al "like a cow for its calf" and finds his body (or supposed body) and buries it with great sacrifices and weeping. ‘Anat then finds Mot, Ba‘al/Hadad's supposed slayer and she seizes Mot, splits him with a sword, winnows him with a sieve, burns him with fire, grinds him with millstones and scatters the remnants to the birds.

Text CTA 10 tells how ‘Anat seeks after Ba‘al who is out hunting, finds him, and is told she will bear a steer to him. Following the birth she brings the new to Ba‘al on Mount Zephon. But nowhere in these texts is ‘Anat explicitly Ba‘al/Hadad's consort. To judge from later traditions ‘Athtart (who also appears in these texts) is more likely to be Ba‘al/Hadad's consort. But of course northwest Semitic culture permitted more than one wife and liaisons outside marriage are normal for deities in all pantheons.

In the story of Aqhat, the protagonist Aqhat son of Daniel is given a wonderful bow and arrows which was created for ‘Anat by the craftsman god Kothar-wa-Khasis but which was given to Daniel for his infant son as a gift. When Aqhat grew to be a young man, the goddess ‘Anat tried to buy the bow from Aqhat, offering even immortality, but Aqhat refused all offers, calling her a liar since old age and death are the lot of all men. He then added to this insult by asking what would a woman do with a bow?

Like Inanna in the Epic of Gilgamesh, ‘Anat complained to El and threatened El himself if he did not allow her to take vengeance on Aqhat. El conceded. ‘Anat launched her attendant Yatpan in hawk form against Aqhat to knock the breath out of him and to steal the bow back. Her plan succeeds, but Aqhat is killed instead of merely beaten and robbed. In her rage against Yatpan, (text is missing here) Yatpan runs away and the bow and arrows fall into the sea. All is lost. ‘Anat mourned for Aqhat and for the curse that this act would bring upon the land and for the loss of the bow. The focus of the story then turns to Paghat, the wise younger sister of Aqhat. She sets off to avenge her brother's death and to restore the land which has been devastated by drought as a direct result of the murder. The story is unfortunately incomplete. It breaks at an extremely dramatic moment when Paghat discovers that the mercenary whom she has hired to help her avenge the death is, in fact, Yatpan, her brother's murderer. The parallels between the story of ‘Anat and her revenge on Mot for the killing of her brother are obvious. In the end, the seasonal myth is played out on the human level.

Gibson (1978) thinks Rahmay 'The Merciful', co-wife of El with Athirat, is also the goddess ‘Anat but he fails to take into account the primary source documents. Most Ugaritic scholars point out that the dual names of deities in Ugaritic poetry is an essential part of the verse-form and that two names for the same deity are traditionally mentioned in parallel lines. In the same way Athirat, is called Elath (meaning "The Goddess") in paired couplets. The poetic structure can also be seen in early Hebrew verse forms.
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« Reply #7 on: February 19, 2007, 10:40:05 pm »

I wonder if Typhoes himself is related to the Atlantis myth?  Here we have an empowered Zeus, at odds with one of the last of the Titans:




THE BIRTH OF TYPHOEUS
"Now after Zeus had driven the Titanes out of heaven, gigantic Gaia (Earth), in love with Tartaros (the Pit), by means of golden Aphrodite, bore the youngest of her children, Typhoeus." - Hesiod, Theogony 820

"She [Ekhidna the Drakaina of Pytho] it was who once received from gold-throned Hera and brought up fell, cruel Typhaon to be a plague to men. Once on a time Hera bare him because she was angry with father Zeus, when Kronides bare all-glorious Athene in his head. Thereupon queenly Hera was angry and spoke among the assembled gods: ' ... Yes, now I will contrive that a son be born me to be foremost among the undying gods - and that without casting shame on the holy bond of wedlock between you and me. And I will not come to your bed, but will consort with the blessed gods far off from you.'
When she had so spoken, she went apart from the gods, being very angry. Then straightway large-eyed queenly Hera prayed, striking the ground flatwise with her hand, and speaking thus: 'Hear now, I pray, Gaia (Earth) and wide Ouranos (Sky) above, and you Titanes gods who dwell beneath the earth about great Tartaros (Storm-Pit), and from whom are sprung both gods and men! Harken you now to me, one and all, and grant that I may bear a child apart from Zeus, no wit lesser than him in strength - nay, let him be as much stronger than Zeus as all-seeing Zeus than Kronos.'
Thus she cried and lashed the earth with her strong hand. Then life-giving Gaia (Earth) was moved: and when Hera saw it she was glad in heart, for she thought her prayer would be fulfilled. And thereafter she never came to the bed of wise Zeus for a full year ... But when the months and days were fulfilled and the seasons duly came on as the earth moved round, she bare one neither like the gods nor mortal men, fell, cruel Typhaon, to be a plague to men. Straightway large-eyed queenly Hera took him and bringing one evil thing to another such, gave him to the Drakaina; and she received him. And this Typhaon used to work great mischief among the famous tribes of men." - Homeric Hymns 3 to Pythian Apollo 300

"Typhon the hundred-headed, who long since was bred in the far-famed Kilikion cave." - Pindar, Odes Pythian 1 Ep1-Ant2

"Typhoeus: Hesiod makes him son of Gaia, Stesichorus son of Hera, who bore him without a father in order to spite Zeus." - Greek Lyric III Stesichorus Frag 239 (from Etymologicum Genuinum)

"The defeat of the Gigantes [or Titanes] by the gods angered Ge (Earth) all the more, so she had intercourse with Tartaros and bore Typhon in Kilikia. He was a mixture of man and beast, the largest and strongest of all Ge's children." - Apollodorus, The Library 1.39

"Tartarus begat by Tartara, Typhon, a creature of immense size and fearful shape." - Hyginus, Fabulae 152

"Typhoeus, issuing from earth’s lowest depths ... Typhoeus Terrigena (Earthborn)." - Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.319

"Luna [Selene the Moon] herself has ordained various days in various grades as lucky for work. Shun the fifth ... then in monstrous labour Terra [Gaia the Earth] bore Coeus, and Iapetus and fierce Typhoeus, and the brethren [Gigantes] who were banded to break down Heaven." - Virgil, Georgics 1.276
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« Reply #8 on: February 19, 2007, 10:41:53 pm »



THE BATTLE OF ZEUS & TYPHOEUS
"Now after Zeus had driven the Titanes out of heaven, gigantic Gaia (Earth), in love with Tartaros (the Pit), by means of golden Aphrodite, bore the youngest of her children, Typhoeus; the hands and arms of him are mighty, and have work in them, and the feet of the powerful god were tireless, and up from his shoulders there grew a hundred snake heads, those of a dreaded drakon, and the heads licked with dark tongues, and from the eyes on the inhuman heads fire glittered from under the eyelids: from all his heads fire flared from his eyes' glancing; and inside each one of these horrible heads there were voices that threw out every sort of horrible sound, for sometimes it was speech such as the gods could understand, but at other times, the sound of a bellowing bull, proud-eyed and furious beyond holding, or again like a lion shameless in cruelty, or again it was like the barking of dogs, a wonder to listen to, or again he would whistle so the tall mountains re-echoed to it.
And now that day there would have been done a thing past mending, and he, Typhoeus, would have been master of gods and of mortals, had not [Zeus] the father of gods and men been sharp to perceive it and gave a hard, heavy clap of thunder, so that the earth gave grisly reverberation, and the wide heaven above, and the sea, and the streams of Okeanos, and the underground chambers. And great Olympos was shaken under the immortal feet of the master as he moved, and the earth groaned beneath him, and the heat and blaze from both of them was on the dark-faced sea, from the thunder and lightning of Zeus and from the flame of the monster, from his blazing bolts and from the scorch and breath of his stormwinds, and all the ground and the sky and the sea boiled, and towering waves were tossing and beating all up and down the promontories in the wind of these immortals, and a great shaking of the earth came on, and Haides, lord over the perished dead, trembled, and the Titanes under Tartaros, who live beside Kronos, trembled to the dread encounter and the unending clamour.
But now, when Zeus had headed up his own strength, seizing his weapons, thunder, lightning, and the glowering thunderbolt, he made a leap from Olympos, and struck, setting fire to all those wonderful heads set about on the dreaded monster. Then, when Zeus had put him down with his strokes, Typhoeus crashed, crippled, and the gigantic earth groaned beneath him, and the flame from the great lord so thunder-smitten ran out along the darkening and steep forests of the mountains as he was struck, and a great part of the gigantic earth burned in the wonderful wind of his heat, and melted, as tin melts in the heat of the carefully grooved crucible when craftsmen work it, or as iron, though that is the strongest substance, melts under stress of blazing fire in the mountain forests worked by handicraft of Hephaistos inside the divine earth. So earth melted in the flash of the blazing fire; but Zeus in tumult of anger cast Typhoeus into broad Tartaros.
And from Typhoeus comes the force of winds blowing wetly, except Notos and Boreas and clear Zephyros. These are a god-sent kind, and a great blessing to men; but the others blow fitfully upon the seas. Some rush upon the misty sea and work great havoc among men with their evil, raging blasts; for varying with the season they blow, scattering ships and destroying sailors. And men who meet these upon the sea have no help against the mischief. Others again over the boundless, flowering earth spoil the fair fields of men who dwell below, filling them with dust and cruel uproar." - Hesiod, Theogony 820

"But violence brings to ruin even the boastful hard-heart soon or late. Kilikion Typhon of the hundred heads could not escape his fate." - Pindar, Odes Pythian 8 Ep1

"Typhon, that earth-born destroying giant, the hundred-headed, native of the Kilikion caves; I [Prometheus] saw him, all his fiery strength subdued by force. Against the united gods he stood, his fearful jaws hissing forth terror; from his eyes a ghastly glare flashed, threatening to annihilate the throne of Zeus. But Zeus's sleepless weapon came on him; he felt the fiery vapour of the crashing thunderbolt, which blasted him out of his lofty boasts, and struck his very heart, and burnt his strength to sulphurous ash. Now, crushed under Mount Aitna's roots, near the sea-strait, he lies, a helpless sprawling hulk." - Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 353

"And on their shields [of two opponents in the War of the Seven Against Thebes] the gods whom they will match together are likewise enemies - one has Typhon breathing fire, while on Hyperbios' shield sits, unmoved, Father Zeus, the fire-bolt flaming in his hand. No man, I think, has seen Zeus worsted. Such are the gods who favour them; and we are with the winning, they the losing side, since in a battle Typhon has less strength than Zeus. If we may hope, with men thus matched, that victory will answer to their emblems, then Hyperbios will know that saving hand of Zeus whose shield he bears.
My faith is that the antagonist of Zeus, who bears on his shield the figure of Typhon the earth-born, the unloved, a picture hateful alike to unseen powers, to the human race, and to immortal gods - that there before our gates his head shall hit the dust." - Aeschylus, Seven against Thebes 511

"The defeat of the Gigantes [or Titanes] by the gods angered Ge all the more, so she had intercourse with Tartaros and bore Typhon in Kilikia. He was a mixture of man and beast, the largest and strongest of all Ge's children. Down to the thighs he was human in form, so large that he extended beyond all the mountains while his head often touched even the stars. One hand reached to the west, the other to the east, and attached to these were one hundred heads of serpents. Also from the thighs down he had great coils of vipers, which extended to the top of his head and hissed mightily. All of his body was winged, and the hair that flowed in the wind from his head and cheeks was matted and dirty. In his eyes flashed fire. Such were the appearance and the size of Typhon as he hurled red-hot rocks at the sky itself, and set out for it with mixed hisses and shouts, as a great storm of fire boiled forth from his mouth.
When the gods saw him rushing toward the sky, they headed for Aigyptos to escape him, and as he pursued them they changed themselves into animal shapes. But Zeus from a distance hurled thunderbolts at Typhon, and when he had drawn closer Zeus tried to strike him down with a sickle made of adamant. Typhon took flight, but Zeus stayed on his heels right up to Mount Kasium, which lies in Syria. Seeing that he was badly wounded, Zeus fell on him with his hands. But Typhon entwined the god and held him fast in his coils, and grabbing the sickle he cut out the sinews from Zeus' hands and feet. Then, placing Zeus up on his shoulders, he carried him across the sea to Kilikia, where he deposited him in the Korykion cave. He also hid away the sinews there in the skin of a bear, and posted as guard over them the drakaina Delphyne (a girl who was half animal). But Hermes and Aigipan stole back the sinews and succeeded in replanting them in Zeus without being seen. So Zeus, again possessed of his strength, suddenly appeared from the sky in a chariot drawn by winged horses, and with thunderbolts chased Typhon to the mountain called Nysa. There the Moirai (Fates) deceived the pursued creature, for he ate some of the ephemeral fruit on Nysa [the intoxicating vine of Dionysos] after they had persuaded him that he would gain strength from it. Again pursued, he made his way to Thrake, where while fighting round Haimos he threw whole mountains at Zeus. But when these were pushed back upon him by the thunderbolt, a great quantity of his blood streamed out on the mountain, which allegedly is why the mountain is called Haimos. Then, as Typhon started to flee again through the Sikelian Sea, Zeus brought down Sikelia's Mount Aitna on him , a great mountain which they say still erupts fire from the thunderbolts thrown by Zeus." - Apollodorus, The Library 1.39-44

"Amykos [a king of Mysia] made one think of some monstrous off-spring of the ogre Typhoeus." - Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2.38

"On the slopes of Kaukasos by the rock of Typhaon. It was there, they say, that Typhaon, when he had offered violence to Zeus and been struck by his thunder-bolt, dropped warm blood from his head, and so made his way to the mountains and plain of Nysa, where he lies to this day, engulfed in the waters of the Serbonian Lake." - Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2.1206

"He [Zeus] slew the Gigantes (Giants) and their followers, Mylinos in Krete and Typhon in Phrygia." - Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5.71.2

"In the dust outstretched he lay, like Typhon, when the bolts of Zeus had blasted him." - Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 5.484

"Tartarus begat by Tartara, Typhon, a creature of immense size and fearful shape, who had a hundred Draco (dragon) heads springing from his shoulders. He challenged Jove [Zeus] to see if Jove would content with him for the rule. Jove struck his breast with a flaming thunderbolt. When it was burning him he put Mount Etna, which is in Sicily, over him. From this it is said to burn still." - Hyginus, Fabulae 152

"[Zeus] he soared ascending to the ethereal sky, and by his nod called up the trailing clouds and massed a storm, with lightnings in the squalls, and thunder and the bolts that never miss ... wielding the fire with which he’s felled hundred-handed Typhoeus." - Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.302

"Huge as Typhon when he glares from the measureless sky, red with fire and tempest, while Jove [Zeus] on high grips him by the hair." - Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 3.130

"Typhoeus, boasting that already the kingdom of the sky and already the stars were won, felt aggrieved that Bacchus [Dionysos] in the van [of a chariot] and Pallas, foremost of the gods, and a maiden’s snakes [Athena’s aegis] confronted him." - Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 4.235

"The ground trembles and quakes at the shock, as when Jupiter [Zeus] strikes Phlegra [home of the Gigantes] with his angry brand and hurls back Typhon to the deepest recesses of the earth." - Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 6.168

"Pan of Korykos, thy son, who, they say, was the saviour of Zeus - the saviour of Zeus but the slayer of Typhon. For he tricked terrible Typhon with promise of a banquet of fish and beguiled him to issue forth from his spacious pit and come to the shore of the sea, where the swift lightning and the rushing fiery thunderbolts laid him low; and, blazing in the rain of fire, he beat his hundred heads upon the rocks whereon he was carded all about like wool. And even now the yellow banks by the sea are red with the blood of the Typhonian battle." - Oppian, Halieutica 3.15

"Haliplanktos (Sea-roaming): Thus Pan is called ... because he hunted Typhon with nets." - Suidas "Haliplanktos"


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« Reply #9 on: February 19, 2007, 10:43:39 pm »


THE BATTLE OF ZEUS & TYPHOEUS (NONNUS)
I) TYPHOEUS STEALS THE WEAPONS OF ZEUS

"He [Kadmos future king of Thebes] came to the bloodstained cave of Arima, when the mountains had moved from their seats and were beating at the gate of inexpugnable Olympos, when the gods took wing above the rainless Nile, like a flight of birds far out of reach, oaring their strange track in the winds of heaven, and the seven zones of the sky were sore assailed.
This was the reason. Zeus Kronides had hurried to Plouto’s bed, to beget Tantalos, that mad robber of the heavenly cups; and he laid his celestial weapons well hidden with his lightning in a deep cavern. From underground the thunderbolts belched out smoke, the white cliff was blackened; hidden sparks from a fire-barbed arrow heated the water-springs; torrents boiling with foam and steam poured down the Mygdonian gorge, until it boomed again.
Then at a nod from his mother, the Earth [Gaia], Kilikian Typhoeus stretched out his hands, and stole the snowy tools of Zeus, the tools of fire; then spreading his row of rumble-rattling throats [Typhoeus had a hundred heads in the shapes of all kinds of animals], he yelled as his warcry the cries of all wild beasts together: the snakes that grew from him waved over his leopard’s heads, licked the grim lions’ manes, girdled with their curly tails spiral-wise round the bulls’ horns, mingled the shooting poison of their long thin tongues with the foam-spittle of the boars.

II) TYPHOEUS ATTACKS THE HEAVENS (as an enveloping storm)

Now he laid the gear of Kronides [Zeus] in a cubby-hole of the rock and spread the harvest of his clambering hands [his hands were as numerous as corn-stalks in a field] into the upper air. And that battalion of hands! One throttled Kynosouris [the Constellation] beside the ankle-tip of Olympos; one gripped the Parrhasian Bear’s mane as she rested on heaven’s axis [the Constellation Ursa Major]; another caught the Oxdrover [the Constellation Bootes] and knocked him out; another dragged Phosphoros [the Star Venus], and in vain under the circling turning-post sounded the whistling of the heavenly lash in the morning; he carried off the dawn, and held in the Bull, so that timeless, half-complete, horsewoman Hora (Season) rested her team. And in the shadowy curls of his serpenthair heads the light was mingled with gloom; Selene the moon shone rising in broad day with Helios the Sun.
Still there was no rest. The Gigante turned back and passed from north to south; he left one pole and stood by the other. With a long arm he grasped the Charioteer [Constellation], and flogged the back of hailstorming Aigokeros; he dragged the two Fishes out of the sky and cast them into the sea; he buffeted the Ram, that midnipple star of Olympos, who balances with equal pin day and darkness over the fiery orb of his spring time neighbour. With trailing feet Typhoeus mounted close to the clouds: spreading abroad the far-scattered host of his arms, he shadowed the bright radiance of the unclouded sky by darting forth his tangled army of snakes.
One of them ran up right through the rim of the polar circle and skipt upon the backbone of the heavenly Serpent, hissing his mortal challenge. One made for Kepheus’s daughter [the constellation Andromeda], and with starry fingers twisting a ring as close as the other, enchained Andromeda, bound already, with a second bond aslant under her bands. Another, a horned serpent, entwined about the forked horns of Taurus the Bull’s horned head of shape like his own, and dangled coiling over the Bull’s brow, tormenting with open jaws the Hyades opposite ranged like a crescent moon. Poison-spitting tangles of serpents in a bunch girdled Bootes the Ox-drover. Another made a bold leap, when he saw another Snake in Olympos, and jumped around the Ophiokhos’s arm that held the viper; then curving his neck and coiling his crawling belly, he braided a second chaplet about Ariadne’s crown.
Then Typhoeus manyarmed turned to both ends, shaking with his host of arms the girdle of Zephyros and the wing of Euros opposite, dragging first Phosphoros, the Hesperos and the crest of Atlas. Many a time in the weedy gulf he seized Poseidon’s chariot, and dragged it from the depths of the sea to land; again he pulled out a stallion by his brine-soaked mane from the undersea manger, and threw the vagabond nag to the vault of heaven, shooting his shot at Olympos - hit Helios the Sun’s chariot, and the horses on their round whinnied under the yoke. Many a time he took a bull at rest from his rustic plowtree and shook him with a threatening hand, bellow as he would, then shot him against Selene the Moon like another moon, and stayed her course, then rushed hissing against the goddess, checking with the bridle her bulls’ white yoke-straps, while he poured out the mortal whistle of a poison-spitting viper.
But Titanis Mene [Selene] would not yield to the attack. Battling against the Gigante’s heads, like horned to hers [Selene was pictured with horns and a disc between them which formed the circle of the moon, with these she locked horns with one of Typhoeus’ bull heads], she carved many a scar on the shining orb of her bull’s horn [i.e the smooth white surface of the moon was scarred by this battle]; and Selene’s radiant cattle bellowed amazed at the gaping chasm of Typhaon’s throat.
The Horai (Seasons) undaunted armed the starry battalions, and the lines of heavenly Constellations in a disciplined circle came shining to the fray. A varied host maddened the upper air with clamour and with flame: some whose portion was Boreas, others the back of the Lips in the west, or the eastern zones or the recesses of the south. The unshaken congregation of the fixt stars with unanimous acclamation left their places and caught up their travelling fellows. The axis passing through the heaven’s hollow and fixt upright in the midst, groaned at the sound. Orion the hunter, seeing these tribes of wild beasts, drew his sword; the blade of the Tanagraian brand sparkled bright as its master made ready to attack; his thirsty Dog [constellation Canis], shooting light from his fiery chin, bubbled up in his starry throat and let out a hot bark, and blew out the steam from his teeth against Typhaon’s beasts instead of the usual hare. The sky was full of din, and, answering the seven-zoned heaven, the seven-throated cry of the Pleiades raised the war-shout from as many throats; and the Planetoi as many again banged out an equal noise.
Radiant Ophiokhos [constellation], seeing the Gigante’s direful snaky shape, from his hands so potent against evil shook off the gray coils of the fire-bred serpents, and shot the dappled coiling missile, while tempests roared round his flames - the viper-arrows flew slanting and maddened the air. Then the [constellation] Archer let fly a shaft - that bold comrade of fish-like Aigokeros [Capricorn]; the Dragon [constellation Draco], divided between the two Bears, and visible within the circle of the Wain, brandished the fiery trail of the heavenly spine; the Oxherd, Erigone’s neighbour, attendant driver of the Wain, hurled his crook with his flashing arm; beside he knee of the Image [the Kneeler] and his neighbour the Swan, the starry Lyre presaged the victory of Zeus.
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« Reply #10 on: February 19, 2007, 10:45:57 pm »



III) TYPHOEUS ATTACKS THE SEAS (as a ravaging storm)

Now Typhoeus shifted to the rocks, leaving the air, to flog the seas. He grasped and shook the peak of Korkykios [a Kilikian mountain], and crushing the flood of the river that belongs to Kilikia, joined Tarsos and Kydnos together in one hand; then hurled a volley of cliffs upon the mustered waves of the brine. As the Gigante advanced with feet trailing in the briny flood, his bare loins were seen dry through the water, which broke heavy against his mid-thigh crashing and booming; his serpents afloat sounded the charge with hissings form brine-beaten throats and spitting poison led the attack upon the sea. There stood Typhon in the fish-giving sea, his feet firm in the depths of the weedy bottom, his belly in the air and crushed in clouds: hearing the terrible roar from the mane-bristling lions of his giant’s head, the sea-lion lurked in the oozy gulf. There was no room in the deep for all its phalanx of Leviathans, since the Earthborn monster (Gegenees) covered a whole sea, larger than the land, with flanks that no sea could cover. The seals bleated, the dolphins hid in the deep water; the manyfooted octopus, a master of craft, weaving his trailing web of crisscross knots, stuck fast on his familiar rock, making his limbs look like a pattern on the stone. All the world was a-tremble: the love-maddened murry herself, drawn by her passion for the serpent’s bed, shivered under the god-desecrating breath of these seafaring serpents. The waters piled up and touched Olympos with precipitous seas; as the streams mounted on high, the bird never touched by rain found the sea his neighbour, and washed himself. Typhoeus, holding a counterfeit of the deep-sea trident, with one earthshaking flip form his enormous hand broke off an island at the edge of the continent which is the kerb of the brine, circled it round and round, and hurled the whole thing like a ball. And while the Gigante waged his war, his hurtling arms drew near to the stars, and obscured the sun, as they attacked Olympos, and cast the precipitous crag.

IV) TYPHOEUS ATTACKS THE EARTH (as a ravaging storm)

Now after the frontier of the deep, after the well-laid foundation of the earth, this bastard Zeus armed his hand with fire-barbed thunderbolt: raising the gear of Zeus was hard work for the monster Typhoeus with two hundred furious hands, so great was the weight; But Kronion [Zeus] would lightly lift it with one hand. No clouds were about the Gigante: against his dry arms, the thunder let out a dull-sounding note booming gently without a clap, and in the drought of the air scarcely did a thirsty dew trickle in snowflakes without a drop in them; the lightning was dim, and only a softish flame shone sparkling shamefacedly, like smoke shot with flame. The thunderbolts felt the hands of a novice, and all their manly blaze was unmanned. Often they slipped out of those many many hands, and went leaping of themselves; the brands went astray, missing the familiar hand of their heavenly master. As a man beats a horse that loathes the bit … so the monster laboured with this hand or that to lift the fugitive flashing of the roving thunderbolt … [Zeus meanwhile has been busy abducting Europa in the form of a bull and carrying her across the sea, to ravish her in Krete] …

V) PAN & KADMOS RECOVER THE LIGHTNING & SINEWS OF ZEUS
But Typhoeus was no longer to hold the gear of Zeus. For now Zeus Kronides along with Archer Eros left the circling pole, and met roving Kadmos [in search of his stolen sister Europa] amid the mountains on his wandering search; then he devised with him an ingenious plan, and entwined the deadly threads of Moira’s spindle for Typhon. And goat-herd Pan who went with him gave Zeus Almighty cattle and sheep and rows of horned goats. Then he built a hut with mats of wattled reeds and fixed it on the ground: he put on Kadmos a shepherd’s dress, so that no one could know him in disguise, when he had clad his sham herdsman in this make-believe costume; he gave clever Kadmos the deceiving pan-pipes, part of the plot to pilot Typhaon to his death. [In the old version of the myth it is the god Aegipan not Kadmos who assists Zeus in deceiving Typhon and recovering Zeus’ sinews & his lightning bolts]
Now Zeus called the counterfeit herdsman and the winged controller of generation [Eros], and disclosed this one common plan: ‘Look alive, Kadmos, pipe away and there shall be fine weather in heaven! Delay, and Olympos is scourged! For Typhoeus is armed with my heavenly weapons. Only the aegis-cape is left me; but what will my aegis do fighting with Typhon’s thunderbolt? I fear old Kronos may laugh aloud, I am shy of the proud neck of my lordly adversary Iapetos. I fear Hellas even more, that mother of romances - what if one of that nation call Typhon Lord of Rain, or Highest, and Ruling in the Heights, defiling my name! Become a herdsman for one day-dawn; make a tune on your mindbefooling shepherd’s pipes, and save the Shepherd of the Universe, that I may not hear the noise of Cloud-gathering Typhoeus, the thunders of a new imposter Zeus, that I may stop his battling with lightnings and volleying with thunderbolts! If the blood of Zeus is in you, and the breed of Inakhian Io, bewitch Typhon’s wits by the sovereign remedy of your guileful pipes and their tune! I will give you ample recompense for your service, two gifts: I will make you saviour of the world’s harmony, and the husband of the Lady Harmonia. You also, Eros, primeval founder of fecund marriage, bend your bow, and the universe is no longer adrift. If all things come from you, friendly shepherd of life, draw one shot more and save all things. As fiery god, arm yourself against Typhon, and by your help let the fiery thunderbolts return to my hand. All-vanquisher, strike one with your fire, and may your charmed shot catch one whom Kronion did not defeat; and may he have madness from the mind-bewitching tune of Kadmos, as much as I had passion for Europa’s embrace.’
With these words Zeus passed away in the shape of a horned bull, from which the Tauros Mountain [in Asia Minor] takes its name.
But Kadmos tuned up the deceitful notes of his harmonious reeds, as he reclined under a neighbouring tree in the pasturing woodland; wearing the country garb of a real herdsman, he sent the deluding tune to Typhaon’s ears, puffing his cheeks to blow the soft breath. The Gigante loved music, and when he heard this delusive melody, he leapt up and dragged along his viperish feet; he left in a cave the flaming weapons of Zeus with Mother Gaia (Earth) to keep them, and followed the notes to seek the neighbouring tune of the pipes which delighted his soul. There he was seen by Kadmos near the bushes, who was sore afraid and hid in a cleft of the rock. But the monster Typhoeus with head high in air saw him trying to hide himself, and beckoned with voiceless signs, nor did he understand the trick in this beautiful music; then face to face with the shepherds, he held out one right hand, not seeing the net of destruction, and with his middle face, blood-red and human in shape, he laughed aloud and burst into empty boasts:
‘Why do you fear me, goatherd? Why do you cover your eyes with your hand? A fine feat I should think it to pursue a mortal man, after Kronion! A fine feat to carry off pan-pipes along with the lightning! What have reeds to do with flaming thunderbolts? Keep your pipes alone, since Typhoeus possesses another kind of organ, the Olympian, which plays by itself! There sits Zeus, without his clouds, hands unrumbling, none of his usual noise - he could do with your pipes. Let him have your handful of reeds to play. I don’t join worthless reeds to other reeds in a row and wave them about, but I roll up clouds upon clouds into a lump, and discharge a bang all at once with rumblings all over the sky!
‘Let’s have a friendly match, if you like. Come on, you make music and sound your reedy tune, I will crash my thundery tune. You puff out your cheek all swollen with wind, and blow with your lips, but Boreas (the North Wind) is my blower, and my thunderbolts boom when his breath flogs them. Drover, I will pay you for your pipes: for when I shall hold the sceptre instead of Zeus, and drive the heavenly throne, you shall come with me; leave the hearth and I will bring you to heaven pipes and all, with your flock too if you like, you shall not be parted from your herd. I’ll settle your goats over the backbone of Aigokeros [the constellation Capricorn], one of the same breed; or near the Charioteer, who pushes the shining Olenian She-goat [Amaltheia] in Olympos with his sparkling arm. I’ll put your cattle beside the rainy Bull’s broad shoulder and make them stars rising in Olympos, or near the dewy turning-point [the spring equinox] where Selene’s (the Moon) cattle send out a windy moo from their life-warming throats. You will not want your little hut. Instead of your bushes, let your flock go flashing with the ethereal Kids: I will make them another crib, to shine beside the Asses’ crib and as good as theirs. Be a star yourself instead of a drover, where the Ox-driver is seen; wield a starry goad yourself, and drive the Bear’s Lycaonian wain. Happy shepherd, be heavenly Typhon’s guest at table: tune up on earth today, tomorrow in heaven! You shall have ample recompense for your song: I will establish your face in the starlit circle of heaven, and join your tuneful pipes to the heavenly Harp. If you like, I will give you Athena for your holy bride: if you do not care for Grayeyes, take Leto, or Kharis, or Kythereia, or Artemis, or Hebe to wife. Only don’t ask me for my Hera’s bed. If you have a horse-master brother who can manage a team, let him take Helios’s fiery four-in-hand. If you want to wield the goatskin cape of Zeus [the aegis], being a goatherd, I will make you a present of that too. I mean to march into Olympos caring nothing for Zeus unarmed; and what could Athena do to me with her armour? - a female! Strike up ‘See the Conquering Typhon comes,’ you herdsman! Sing the new lawful sovereign of Olympos in me, bearing the sceptre of Zeus and his robe of lightning!’
He spoke, and Adrasteia [Nemesis] took note of his words thus far. But when Kadmos understood that the son of Gaia had been carried by Moira’s thread into his hunting-net, a willing captive, struck by the delightful sting of those soul-delighting reeds, unsmiling he uttered this artful speech:
‘You liked the little tune of my pipes, when you heard it, what would you do when I strike out a humn of victory on the harp of seven strings, to honour your throne? … But if ever I find again the swelling sinews [which Typhon ripped from Zeus’ arms when the battled depriving him of his strength], I will strike up a tune with my quills [a lyre strung with the sinews of Zeus] to bewitch all the trees and the mountains and the temper of wild beasts [and call the rest of the universe in chaos during Typhon’s war back into order] … But when you strike Zeus and the gods with your thunderbolt, do leave only the Archer [Apollon], that while Typhon feasts at his table, I and Phoibos may have a match, and see which will beat which in celebrating mighty Typhon! And do not kill the dancing Pierides [Mousai], that they may weave the women’s lay harmonious with our manly song when Phoibos or your shepherd leads the merry dance!’
He finished; and Typhoeus bowed his flashing eyebrows and shook his locks: every hair belched viper-poison and drenched the hills. Quick he returned to his cave, took up and brought out the sinews of Zeus, and gave them to crafty Kadmos as the guest’s gift; they had fallen on the ground in the battle with Typhaon.
The deceitful shepherd thanked him for the immortal gift; he handled the sinews carefully, as if they were to be strung on the harp, and hid them in a hole in the rock, kept safe for Zeus Giant-slayer. Then with pursed-up lips he let out a soft and gentle breath, pressing the reeds and stealing the notes, and sounded a tune more dainty than ever. Typhoeus pricked up all his many ears and listened to the melody, and knew nothing. The Gigante was bewitched, while the false shepherd whistled by his side, as if sounding the rout of the immortals with his pipes; but he was celebrating the soon-coming victory of Zeus, and singing the fate of Typhon to Typhon sitting by his side. So he excited him to frenzy even more; and … so Typhoeus yielded his whole soul to Kadmos for the melody to charm.
And so Kadmos Agenorides remained there by the ankle of the pasturing woodland, drawing his lips to and fro along the tops of the pipes, as a pretended goatherd; but Zeus Kronides, unespied, uncaught, crept noiseless into the cave, and armed himself with his familiar fires a second time. And a cloud covered Kadmos beside his unseen rock, lest Typhoeus might learn this crafty plan, and the secret thief of the thunderbolts, and wise too late might kill the turncoat herdsman. But all the Gigante wanted was, to hear more and more of the mind-bewitching melody with its delicious thrill … so the monster, shaken by the breath of that deceitful tune, welcomed with delight the wound of the pipes which was his escort to death.
But now the shepherd’s reed breathing melody fell silent, and a mantling shadow of cloud hid the piper as he cut off his tune. Typhoeus rushed head-in-air with the fury of battle into the cave’s recesses, and searched with hurried madness for the wind-coursing thunderbolt, and found an empty cave!
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« Reply #11 on: February 19, 2007, 10:47:53 pm »

V) TYPHOEUS STORMS ACROSS THE EARTH

Too late he learnt the craft-devising schemes of Kronides and the subtle machinations of Kadmos: flinging the rocks about he leapt upon Olympos. While he dragged his crooked track with snaky foot, he spat out showers of poison from his throat; the mountain torrents were swollen, as the monster showered fountains from the viperish bristles of his high head; as he marched, the solid earth did sink, and the steady ground of Kilikia shook to its foundations under those drakon-feet; the flanks of craggy Tauros crashed with a rumbling din, until the neighbouring Pamphylian hills danced with fear; the underground caverns boomed, the rocky headlands trembled, the hidden places shook, the shore slipt away as a thrust of his earthshaking foot loosened the sands.
Neither pasture nor wild beasts were spared. Rawravening bears made a meal for the jaws of Typhaon’s bear-heads; tawny bodies of chest-bristling lions were swallowed by the gaping jaws of his own lion-heads; his snaky throats devoured the cold shapes of earthfed serpents; birds of the air, flying through untrodden space, there met neighbours to gulp them down their throats - he found the eagle in his home, and that was the food he relished most, because it is called the Bird of Zeus. He ate up the plowing ox, and had no pity when he saw the galled neck bloody from the yoke-straps.
He made the rivers dust, as he drank the water after his meal, beating off the troops of Neiades from the river-beds …
The old shepherd, terrified to descry the manifold visage of this maddened monster, dropt his pipes and ran away; the goatherd, seeing the wide-scattered host of his arms, threw his reed flying to the winds; the hard-working plowman sprinkled not the new-scored ground with corn thrown behind him, nor covered it with earth, nor cut with earth-shaking iron the land furrowed already by Typhon’s guiding hand, but let his oxen go loose. The earth’s hollows were bared, as the monster’s missile cleft it. He freed the liquid vein, and as the chasm opened, the lower channel bubbled up with flooding springs, pouring out the water from under the uncovered bosom of the ground, and rocks were thrown up, and falling from the air I n torrential showers were hidden in the sea, making the waters dry land: and the hurtling masses of earth rooted themselves firmly as the footings of new-made islands. Trees were levered up from the earth by the roots, and the fruit fell on the ground untimely; the fresh-flowering garden was laid waste, the rosy meadows withered; the West Wind (Zephyros) was beaten by the dry leaves of whirling cypresses. Phoibos [Apollon] sang a dirge in lamentable tones for his devastated iris, twining a sorrowful song, and lamenting far more bitterly than for his clusters of Amyklean flowers, when the laurel by his side was struck. Pan in anguish uplifted his fallen pine; Grayeyes [Athena], remembering Moria [the sacred olive], groaned over her broken olive-tree, the Attic nymphe who brought her a city. The Paphian also wept when her anemone was laid to dust, and mourned long over the fragrant tresses of flowercups from her rosebed laid in the dust, while she tore her hair. Deo [Demeter] mourned over the half-grown corn destroyed and no longer celebrated the harvest home. The Hadryas Nymphai [Hamadryads] lamened the lost shade of their yearsmate trees … ‘
While she spoke, Phaethon [Helios the sun] had left the rounded sky … silent Nyx (Night) leapt up from earth … The immortals moved about the cloudless Nile [hiding there in the form of animals from Typhon], but Zeus Kronides on the brows of Tauros awaited the light of toil-awakening Dawn.
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« Reply #12 on: February 19, 2007, 10:49:43 pm »

VI) TYPHOEUS CHALLENGES ZEUS

It was night. Sentinels stood in line around Olympos and the seven zones [of the stars], and as it were from the summit of towers came their nightly alarms; the calls of the stars in many tongues were carried all abroad, and Selene’s turning-mark received the creaking echo from Kronos’ starting-point [the star Saturn - here the celestial watchword is passed from star to star through the seven zones to the lowest the Moon]. Now the Horai (Seasons), guardians of the upper air, handmaids of Phaethon, and fortified the sky with a long string of covering clouds like a coronal. The stars had closed the Atlantean bar of the inviolable gates lest some stealthy troop should enter the heavens while the Blessed ones were away …
Zeus was alone, when Nike (Victory) came to comfort him, scoring the high paths of the air with her shoe. She had the form of Leto; and while she armed her father, she made him a speech full of reproaches with guileful lips:
‘Lord Zeus! Stand up as champion of your own children! Let me never see Athene mingled with Typhon, she who knows not the way of a man with a maid! Make not a mother of the unmothered! Fight, brandish your lightning, the fiery spear of Olympos! Gather once more your clouds, lord of the rain! For the foundations of the steadfast universe are already shaking under Typhon’s hands: the four blended elements are melted! Deo has renounced her harvests. Hebe has left her cup, Ares has thrown down his spear, Hermes has dropped his staff, Apollon has cast away his harp, and taken a swan’s form, and flown off on the wing, leaving his winged arrows behind! Aphrodite, the goddess who brings wedlock to pass, has gone a wandering, and the universe is without seed. The bonds indissoluble of harmony are dissolved, leaving behind his generative arrows, the adorner of brides, he the all-mastering, the unmastered! And your fiery Hephaistos has left his favourite Lemnos, and dragging unruly knees, look how slowly he keeps his unsteady course! See a great miracle - I pity your Hera, though she hates me sure enough! What - is your begetter [Kronos] to come back into the assembly of the stars? May that never be, I pray! Even if I am called a Titenis, I wish to see no Titan lords of Olympos, but you and your children. Take your lordly thunderbolt and champion chase Artemis … ‘
So she spoke: and Hypnos (Sleep) beating his shady wing sent all breathing nature to rest; but Kronion alone remained sleepless. Typhoeus stretched out his sluggish back and lay heavy upon his bed, covering his Mother Earth; she opened wide her bosom, and lurking lairs were hollowed out in a grinning chasm for the snaky heads which sank into the ground.
Helios the Sun appeared, and many-armed Typhoeus roared for the fray with all the tongues of all his throats, challenging mighty Zeus. That sonorous voice reached where the root-fixt bed of refluent Okeanos surrounds the circle of the world and its four divided parts, girdling the whole earth coronet-wise with encircling band; as the monster spoke, that which answered the army of his voices, was not one concordant echo, but a babel of screaming sounds: when the monster arrayed him with all his manifold shapes, out rang the yowling of wolves, the roaring of lions, the grunting of boars, the lowing of cattle, the hissing of serpents, the bold yap of leopards, the jaws of rearing bears, the fury of gods. Then with his midmost man-shaped head the Gigante yelled out threats against Zeus: ‘Smash the house of Zeus, O my hands! Shake the foundations of the universe, and the blessed ones with it! Break the bar of Olympos, self-turning, divine! Drag down to earth the heavenly pillar, let Atlas be shaken and flee away, let him throw down the starry vault of Olympos and fear no more its circling course - for I will not permit a son of Earth to be bowed down with chafed shoulders, while he underprops the revolving compulsion of the sky! No, let him leave his endless burden to the other gods, and battle against the Blessed Ones! Let him break off rocks, and volley with those hard shots the starry vault which he once carried! Let the timid Horai (Seasons), Helios the Sun’s handmaids, flee the heavens under the shower of mountains! Mix earth with sky, water with fire, sea with Olympos, in a litter of confusion!
‘I will compel the four Winds also to labour as my slaves; I lash Boreas the North Wind, I buffet Notos the South, I flog Euros the East; I will thrash Zephyros the West, with one hand I will mix night with day; Okeanos my brother shall bring his water to Olympos aloft with many-fountained throat, and rising above the five parallel circles he shall inundate the stars; then let the thirsty Bear [constellation Ursa] go wandering in the water with the Waggon’s pole submerged!
‘Bellow, my bulls, shake the circle of the equator in the sky, break with your notched horns the horns of the fiery Bull [constellation Taurus], your own likeness! Let Selene the Moon’s cattle change their watery road, fearing the heavybooming bellow of my heads! Let Typhaon’s bear open wide his grim gaping jaws, and worry the Bear of Olympos! Let my lion face the heavenly Lion, and drive him reluctant from the path of the Zodiac! Let the Waggon’s Snake shiver at my serpents! Little do I care for Zeus, with only a few lightnings to arm him! Ah, but my swords are the maddened waves of the sea, the tors of the land, the island glens; my shields are the hills, the cliffs are my breastplates unbreakable, my halberts are the rocks, and the rivers which will quench the contemptible thunderbolt. I will keep the chains of Iapetos for Poseidon; and the soaring round Kaukasos, another and better eagle shall tear the bleeding liver, growing for ever anew, of Hephaistos the fiery: since fire was the for which Prometheus has been suffering the ravages of his self-growing liver. I will take a shape the counterpart of the sons of Iphimedeia, and I will shut up the intriguing son of Maia [Hermes] in a brazen jar, prisoned with galling bonds, that people may say, ‘Hermes freed Ares from prison, and he was put in prison himself!’ Let Artemis break the untouched seal of her maidenhood, and become enforced consort of Orion; Leto shall spread her old bedding for Tityos, dragged to wedlock by force. I will strip murderous Ares of his ragged bucklers, I will bind the lord of battle, and carry him off, and make the Killer the Gentle; I will carry off Pallas and join her to Ephialtes, married at last; that I may see Ares a slave, and Athena a mother.
‘Kronion [Zeus] also shall lift the spinning heavens of Atlas, and bear the load on weary shoulders - there shall he stand, and hear the song at my wedding, and hide his jealousy when I shall be Hera’s bridegroom. Torches shall not lack at my wedding. Bright lightning shall come of itself to be selfmade torch of the bride-chamber; Phaethon [Helios] himself instead of pine-brands, kindled at the light of his own flames, shall put his radiance at the service of Typhoeus the Bridegroom; the stars shall sprinkle their bridal sparks over Olympos as lamps to my loves, the stars lights of evening! My servant Selene, Endymion’s bed-fellow, along with Aphrodite the friend of marriage, shall lay my bed; and if I want a bath, I will bathe in the waters of starry Eridanos. Come now, ye circling Horai (Seasons)! You prepared the bed of Zeus, build now the bower of love for Typhoeus; you also, Leto, Athenaia, Paphian, Kharis, Artemis, Hebe, bring up from Okeanos his kindred water for Typhon the Bridegroom! And at the banquet of my table, with bridal quill Apollon my menial shall celebrate Typhoeus instead of Zeus.
‘I long for no stranger’s demesne; for Ouranos (Sky) is my brother, a son of Gaia like myself; the star-dappled heaven which I shall rule, the heaven which I shall live in, comes to me through my mother. And cannibal Kronos I will drag up once more to the light, another brother, to help me in my task, out of the underground abyss; I will break those constraining chains, and bring back the Titanes to heaven, and settle under the same roof in the sky the Kyklopes, sons of Gaia. I will make more weapons of fire; for I need many thunderbolts, because I have two hundred hands to fight with, not only a pair like Kronides. I will forge a newer and better brand of lightning, with more fire and flashes. I will build another heaven up aloft, the eight, broader and higher than the rest, and furnish it with brighter stars; for the vault which we see so close beside us is not enough to cover the whole of Typhon. And after those girl children and the male progeny of prolific Zeus, I will beget another multiparous generation of new Blessed Ones with multitudinous necks. I will not leave the company of the stars useless and unwedded, but I will join male to female, that the winged Virgin [constellation Virgo] may sleep with the Oxherd [Bootes] and breed me slave-children.’
So he shouted; Kronides heard, and laughed aloud.

VII) TYPHOEUS BATTLES ZEUS

Then the din of battle resounded on both sides. Eris (Strife) was Typhon’s escort in the mellay, Nike (Victory) led Zeus into battle. No herds of cattle were the cause of that struggle, no flocks of sheep, this was no quarrel for a beautiful woman, no fray for a petty town: heaven itself was the stake in the fight, the sceptre and throne of Zeus lay on the knees of Nike (Victory) as the prize of combat.
Zeus flogging the clouds beat a thundering roar in the sky and trumpeted Enyo’s call, then fitted clouds upon his chest as a protection against the Gigante’s missiles. Nor was Typhoeus silent: his bull-heads were self-sounding trumpets for him, sending forth a bellow that made Olympos rattle again; his serpents intermingled whistled for Ares’ pipes. He fortified the ranks of his high-clambering limbs, shielding mighty rock with rock until the cliffs made an unbroken wall of battlements, as he set crag by crag uprooted in along line. It looked like an army preparing for battle; for side by side bluff pressed hard on bluff, tor upon tor, ledge upon ledge, and high in the clouds one tortuous ridge pushed another; rugged hills ere Typhon’s helmets, and his heads were hidden in their beetling steeps. In that battle, the Gigante indeed one body, but many necks, but legions of arms innumerable, lions’ jaws with well-sharpened fangs, hairbush of vipers mounting over the stars. Trees were doubled up by Typhaon’s hands and thrown against Kronides, and other fine leafy growths of earth, but all these Zeus unwilling burnt to dust with one spark of thunderbolt cast in a heavy throw. Many an elm was hurled against Zeus with firs coeval, and enormous plane-trees and volleys of white poplar; many a pit was broken in earth’s flank.
The whole circuit of the universe with its four sides was buffeted. The four Winds, allied with Kronion, raised in their air columns of sombre dust; they swelled the arching waves, they flogged the sea until Sikelia (Sicily) quaked; the Pelorid shores resounded and the ridges of Aitna, the Lilybaian rocks bellowed prophetic things to come, the Pakhynian promontory crashed under the western wave. Near the Bear, the Nymphe of Athos wailed about her Thrakian glen, the forest of Makedon roared on the Pierian ridge; the foundations of the east were shaken, there was crashing in the fragrant valleys of Assyrian Libanos.
Aye, and from Typhaon’s hands were showered volleys against the unwearied thunderbolts of Zeus. Some shots went past Selene’s car, and scored through the invisible footprints of her moving bulls; others whirling through the air with sharp whiz, the Winds blew away by counterblast. Many a stray shot from the invulnerable thunderbolts of Zeus fell into the welcoming hand of Poseidon, unsparing of his earthpiercing trident’s point; old Nereus brought the brine-soaked bolts to the ford of the Kronion Sea, and dedicated them as an offering to Zeus.
Now Zeus armed the two grim sons of Enyalios, his own grandsons, Phobos (Rout) and Deimos (Terror) his servant, the inseparable guardsmen of the sky: Phobos he set up with the lightning, Deimos he made strong with the thunderbolt, terrifying Typhon. Nike (Victory) lifted her shield and held it before Zeus: Enyo countered with a shout, and Ares made a din. Zeus breasting the tempests with his aigis-breastplate swooped down from the air on high, seated in Khronos’s (Time’s) chariot with four winged steeds, for the horses that drew Kronion were the team of the Winds. Now he battled with lightnings, now with Levin; now he attacked with thunders, now poured out petrified masses of frozen hail in volleying showers. Waterspouts burst thick upon the Gigante’s head with sharp blows, and hands were cut off from the monster by the frozen volleys of the air as by a knife. One hand rolled in the dust, struck off by the icy cut of the hail; it did not drop the crag which it held, but fought on even while it fell, and shot rolling over the ground in self-propelled leaps, a hand gone mad! As if it still wished to strike the vault of Olympos.
Then the sovereign of the heavens brandished aloft his fiery bolt, and passing from the left wing of the battle to the right, fought manifest on high. The many-armed monster hastened to the water torrents; he entwined his rows of fingers into a living mat, and hollowing his capacious palms, he lifted from the midst of the wintry rivers their waters as it came pouring down from the mountains, and threw these detached parcels of the streams against the lightning. But the ethereal flame blazed with livelier sparks through the water of the torrents which struck it; the thirsty water boiled and steamed, and its liquid essence dried up in the red hot mass. Yes - to quench the ethereal fire was the bold Gigante’s plan, poor fool! He knew not that the fire-flaming thunderbolts and lightnings are the offspring of the clouds from whence the rain-showers come!
Again, he cut straight off sections of the torrent-beds, and designed to crush the breast of Zeus which no iron can wound; the mass of rock came hurtling at Zeus, but Zeus blew a light puff from the edge of his lips, and that gentle breath turned the whirling rock aside with all its towering crags. The monster with his hand broke off a rounded promontory from an island, and rising for the attack circled it round his head again and again, and cast it at the invincible face of Zeus; then Zeus moved his head aside, and dodged the jagged rock which came at him; but Typhon hit the lightning as it passed on its hot zigzag path, and at once the rock was white-patched at the tip and blackened with smoke - there was no mistake about it. A third rock he cast; but Kronion caught it in full career with the flat of his infinite open hand, and by a playful turn of the wrist sent it back like a bouncing ball to Typhon. The crag returned with many an airy twist along its homeward path, and of itself shot the shooter. A fourth shot he sent, higher than before: the rock touched the tassel-tips of the aigis-cape, and split asunder. Another he let fly: storm-swift the rock flew, but a thunderbolt struck it, and half-consumed, it blazed. The crags could not pierce the raincloud; but the stricken hills were broken to pieces by the rainclouds.
Thus impartial Enyo held equal balance between the two sides, between Zeus and Typhon, while the thunderbolts with booming shots revel like dancers in the sky. Kronides fought fully armed: in the fray, the thunder was his shield, the cloud his breastplate, he cast the lightning for a spear; Zeus let fly his thunderbolts from the air, his arrows barbed with fire. For already from the underground abyss a dry vapour diffused around rose from the earth on high, and compressed within the cloud was stifled in the fiery gullet, heating the pregnant cloud. For the lurking flame crushed within rushed about struggling to find a passage through; over the smoke the fire-breeding clouds rumble in their agony seeking the middle path; the fire dares not go upwards; for the lightning leaping up is kept back by the moist air bathed in rainy drops, which condenses the seething cloud above, but the lower part is parched and gapes and the fire runs through with a bound. As the female stone is struck by the male stone, one stone on another brings lame to birth, while crushed and beaten it produces from itself a shower of sparks: so the heavenly fire is kindled in clouds and murk crushed and beaten, but from earthly smoke, which is naturally thin, the winds are brought forth. There is another floating vapour, drawn form the waters, which the sun shining full on them with fiery rays milks out and draws up dewy through the boiling track of air. This thickens and produces the cloudy veil; then shaking the thick mass by means of the thinner vapour, it dissolves the fine cloud again into a fall of rain, and returns to its natural condition of water. Such is the character of the fiery clouds, with their twin birth of lightnings and thunders together.
Zeus the father fought on: raised and hurled his familiar fire against his adversary, piercing his lions, and sending a fiery whirlwind from heaven to strike the battalion of innumerable necks with their babel of tongues. Zeus cast his bolt, and one blaze burnt the monster’s endless hands, one blaze consumed his numberless shoulders and the speckled tribes of his serpents; heaven’s blades cut off those countless heads; a writhing comet met him front to front discharging a thick bush of sparks, and consumed the monster’s hair. Typhon’s heads were ablaze, the hair caught fire; with heaven’s sparks silence sealed the hissing tresses, the serpents shrivelled up, and in their throats the poison-spitting drops were dried. The Gigante fought on: his eyes were burnt to ashes in the murky smoke, his cheeks were whitened with hoar-frost, his faces beaten with showers of snow. He suffered the fourfold compulsion of the four Winds. For if he turned flickering eyes to the sunrise, he received the fiery battle of neighbouring Euros. If he gazed towards the stormy clime of the Arkadian Bear, he was beaten by the chilly frost of wintry whirlwinds. If he shunned the cold blast of snow-beaten Boreas, he was shaken by the volleys of wet and hot together. If he looked to the sunset, opposite to the dawn of the grim east, he shivered before Enyo and her western tempests when he heard the noise of Zephyros cracking his spring-time lash; and Notos, that hot wind, round about the southern foot of Aigokeros [Capricorn] flogged the aerial vaults, leading against Typhon a glowing blaze with steamy heat. If again Rainy Zeus poured down a watery torrent, Typhoeus bathed all his body in trouble-soothing showers, and refreshed his benumbed limbs after the stifling thunderbolts.
Now as the son was scourged with frozen volleys of jagged hailstones, his mother dry Gaia (Earth) was beaten too; and seeing the stone bullets and icy points embedded in the Gigante’s flesh, the witness of his fate, she prayed to Titan Helios with submissive voice: she begged of him one red hot ray, that with its heating fire she might melt the petrified water of Zeus, by pouring his kindred radiance over frozen Typhon. She herself melted along with his bruised body; and when she saw his legion of highclambering hands burnt all round, she besought one of the tempestuous winter’s blasts to come for one morning, that he might quench Typhon’s overpowering thirst by his cool breezes.
Then Kronion inclined the equally balanced beam of the fight. But Gaia his mother had thrown off her veil of forests with her hand, and just then was grieving to behold Typhaon’s smoking heads. While his faces were shrivelling, the Gigante’s knees gave way beneath him; the trumpet of Zeus brayed, foretelling victory with a roll of thunder; down fell Typhoeus’s high-uplifted frame, drunk with the fiery bolt from heaven, stricken with a war-wound of something more than steel, and lay with his back upon Gaia (Earth) his mother, stretching his snaky limbs in the dust and belching flame.

VIII) ZEUS GLOATS OVER THE FALLEN TYPHOEUS

Kronides laughed aloud, and taunted him like this in a flood of words from his mocking throat:
‘A fine ally has old Kronos found in you, Typhoeus! Gaia could scarcely bring forth that great son for Iapetos! A jolly champion of Titanes! The thunderbolts of Zeus soon lost their power against you, as I see! How long are you going to wait before taking up your quarters in the inaccessible heavens, you sceptred imposter? The throne of Olympos awaits you: accept the robes and sceptre of Zeus, God-defying Typhoeus! Bring back Astraios to heaven; if you wish, let Eurynome and Ophion return to the sky, and Kronos in the train of that pair! When you enter the dappleback vault of the highranging stars, let crafty Prometheus leave his chains, and come with you; the bold bird who makes hearty meals off that rejuvenescent liver shall show him the way to heaven. What did you want to gain by your riot, but to see Zeus and Earthshaker [Poseidon] footmen behind your throne? Well, here you have Zeus helpless, no longer sceptre-bearer of Olympos, Zeus stript of his thunders and his clouds, holding up no longer the lightning’s fire divine or the familiar thunderbolt, but a torch for Typhaon’s bower, groom of the chamber to Hera the bride of your spear, whom he eyes with wrath, jealous of your bed: here you have Earthshaker with him, torn from the sea for a new place instead of the deep as waiter at your table, not trident in hand but a cup for you if you are thirsty! Here you have Ares for a menial, Apollon is your lackey! Send round Maia’s son [Hermes], King’s Messenger, to announce to the Titanes your triumph and your glory in the skies. But leave your smith Hephaistos to his regular work in Lemnos, and he can make a necklace to adorn your newly wedded bride, a real work of art, in dazzling colours, or a fine pair of brilliant shoes for your wife’s feet to delight her, or he can build another Olympian throne of shining gold, that your golden-throned Hera may laugh because she has a better thrown than yours! And when you have the underground Kyklopes domiciled in Olympos, make a new spark for an improved thunderbolt. As for Eros, who bewitched your mind by delusive hopes of victory, chain him with golden Aphrodite in chains of gold, and clamp with chains of bronze Ares the governor or iron!
‘The lightnings try to escape, and will now abide Enyo! How was it you could not escape a harmless little flash of lightning? How was it with all those innumerable ears you were afraid to hear a little rainy thud of thunder? Who made you so big a coward? Where are your weapons? Where are your puppyheads? Where are those gaping lions, where is the heavy bellowing of your throats like a rumbling earthquake? Where is the far-flung poison of your snaky mane? Do not you hiss any more with that coronet of serpentine bristles? Where are the bellowings of your bull-mouths? Where are your hands and their volleys of precipitous crags? Do you flog no longer the mazy circles of the stars? Do the jutting tusks of your boards no longer whiten their chins, wet with a frill of foamy drippings? Come now, where are the bristling grinning jaws of the mad bear?

IX) ZEUS BURIES TYPHOEUS BENEATH MT AITNA

‘Son of Gaia, give place to the sons of heaven! For I with one hand have vanquished your hands, two hundred strong. Let three-headland Sikelie (Sicily) receive Typhon whole and entire, let her crush him all about under her steep and lofty hills, with the hair of his hundred heads miserably bedabbled in dust. Nevertheless, if you did have an over-violent mind, if you did assault Olympos itself in your impracticable ambitions, I will build you a cenotaph, presumptuous wretch, and I will engrave on your empty tomb, this last message: ‘This is the barrow of Typhoeus, son of Gaia, who once lashed the sky with stones, and the fire of heaven burnt him up.’
Thus he mocked the half-living corpse of the son of Gaia. Then Kilikian Tauros brayed a victorious noise on his stony trumpet for Zeus Almighty, while Kydnos danced zigzag on his watery feet, crying Euoi! In rolling roar for the victory of Zeus, Kydnos visible in the midst, as he poured the flood upon Tarsos which had been there ever since he had been there himself. But Gaia tore her rocky tunic and lay there grieving; instead of the shears of mourning, she let the winds beat her breast and shear off a coppice for a curl; so she cut the tresses from her forest-covered head as in the month of leaf-shedding, she tore gullies in her cheeks; Gaia wailed, as her river-tears rolled echoing through the swollen torrents of the hills. The gales eddying from Typhaon’s limbs lash the waves, hurrying to engulf the ships and riding down the sheltered clam. Not only the surges they invade; but often over the land sweeps a storm of dust, and overwhelms the crops growing firm and upright upon the fields.
Then Phusis (Nature), who governs the universe and recreates its substance, closed up the gaping rents in earth’s broken surface, and sealed once more with the bond of indivisible joinery those island cliffs which had been rent from their bed …
Zeus Kronides … swiftly turned his golden chariot toward the round of the ethereal stars, while Nike by his side drove her father’s team with the heavenly whip. So the god came once more to the sky; and to receive him the stately Horai (Seasons) threw open the heavenly gates, and crowned the heavens. With Zeus victorious, the other gods came home to Olympos, in their own form come again, for they put off the winged shapes which they had taken on. Athena came into heaven unarmed, in dainty robes with Ares turned Komos, and Nike for Melos (Song); and Themis displayed to dumbfounded Gaia, mother of the Gigantes, the spoils of the Gigante destroyed, an awful war ning for the future, and hung them up high in the vestibule of Olympos." - Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.145 - 2.712

TYPHOEUS & THE FLIGHT OF THE GODS TO EGYPT
"Typhon was the son of Ge (the Earth), a deity monstrous because of his strength, and of outlandish appearance. There grew out of him numerous heads and hands and wings, while from his thighs came huge coils of snakes. He emitted all kinds of roars and nothing could resist his might.
He felt an urge to usurp the rule of Zeus and not one of the gods could withstand him as he attacked. In panic they fled to Aigyptos (Egypt), all except Athena and Zeus, who alone were left. Typhon hunted after them, on their track. When they fled they had changed themselves in anticipation into animal forms.
Apollon became a hawk [Horus], Hermes an ibis [Thoth], Ares became a fish, the lepidotus [Lepidotus or Onuris], Artemis a cat [Neith or Bastet], Dionysos took the shape of a goat [Osiris or Arsaphes], Herakles a fawn, Hephaistos an ox [Ptah], and Leto a shrew mouse [Wadjet]. The rest of the gods each took on what transformations they could. When Zeus struck Typhon with a thunderbolt, Typhon, aflame hid himself and quenched the blaze in the sea.
Zeus did not desist but piled the highest mountain, Aitna, on Typon and set Hephaistos on the peak as a guard. Having set up his anvils, he works his red hot blooms on Typhon’s neck." - Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 28

"When the god in Egypt feared the monster Typhon, Pan bade them transform themselves into wild beasts the more easily to deceive him. Jove [Zeus] later killed him with a thunderbolt. By the will of the gods, since by his warning they had avoided Typhon’s violence." - Hyginus, Fabulae 196

"Egyptian priests and some poets say that once when many gods had assembled in Egypt, suddenly Typhon, an exceedingly fierce monster and deadly enemy of the gods, came to that place. Terrified by him, they changed their shapes into other forms: Mercurius [Hermes] became an ibis, Apollo [Apollon], the bird that is called Thracian, Diana [Artemis], a cat. For this reason they say the Egyptians do not permit these creatures to be injured, because they are called representations of gods. At this same time, they say, Pan cast himself into the river, making the lower part of his body a fish, and the rest a goat, and thus escaped from Typhon." - Hyginus, Astronomica 2.28

"Pisces. Diognetus Erythraeus says that once Venus [Aphrodite] and her son Cupid [Eros] came in Syria to the river Euphrates. There Typhon, of whom we have already spoken, suddenly appeared. Venus and her son threw themselves into the river and there changed their forms to fishes, and by so doing this escaped danger." - Hyginus, Astronomica 2.30

"Typhoeus, issuing from earth’s lowest depths, struck terror in those heavenly hearts, and they all turned their backs and fled, until they found refuge in Aegyptus and the seven-mouthed Nilus ... Typhoeus Terrigena (Earthborn) even there pursued them and the gods concealed themselves in spurious shapes; ‘And Juppiter [Zeus] became a ram’, she said, ‘lord of the herd, and so today great Ammon Libys’ [Zeus-Ammon] shown with curling horns. Delius [Apollon] hid as a raven, Semeleia [Dionysos] as a goat, Phoebe [Artemis] a cat, Saturnia [Hera] a snow-white cow, Venus [Aphrodite] a fish and Cyllenius [Hermes] an ibis." - Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.319

"Once Dione [Aphrodite], in flight from terrible Typhon (when Jupiter [Zeus] armed in heaven’s defence), reached the Euphrates with tiny Cupidos [Eros] in tow and sat by the hem of Palestine’s stream ... She pales with fear, and believes a hostile band approaches. As she clutched son to breast, she cries: ‘To the rescue, Nymphae, and bring help to two divinities.’ No delay; she leapt. Twin fish went underneath them." - Ovid, Fasti 2.458


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