Lecture 4. First Was Chaos
The must complete surviving Greek account of the creation of the universe is Hesiod’s Theogony.
- Hesiod probably composed the poem sometime in the eighth century BC, around the same time as the composition of the Iliad.
- Like the Iliad and the Odyssey, Theogony is a transcription of orally transmitted material; Hesiod did not make Theogony up.
- However, Hesiod does shape his traditional material; other Theogonies differed in detail from his.
- Hesiod’s Theogony was never an orthodoxy; it was not a sacred text in the way that the bible and the Koran are.
Theogony is both a description of how the material universe came into being and a description of the birth of the gods. In this view, the gods are not separate from the universe itself.
- This is an excellent example of the multivalent explanatory nature of myth. It uses the narrative of the gods’ birth to describe events that we would approach through science, philosophy and psychology.
- This aspect of theogony means that a character can be both a natural force of element and an anthropomorphic (神、人同形同性论的) entity（实体） with volition（意志） emotion and bodily functions.
- This creation story reveals much about the nature of gods.
- The gods do not create the universe; they are part of it. This implies, among other things, that the gods are not omnipotent within the universe.
- No external creator exists outside and beyond the universe itself. These gods are not transcendent.
- The gods are immortal for at least so long as the universe lasts.
- The gods are highly anthropomorphic: they eat, drink, sleep, mate and feel emotions.
Theogony posits several primordial entities: Chaos, Gaia, Tartaros, and Eros.
- Chaos in ancient Greek meant a gap or yawning, not a state of disorder. Hesiod says that Chaos came first, then Gaia; it is unclear whether Gaia and the other original entities were born from Chaos or simply appeared after Chaos.
- Gaia is the earth. Because Hesiod’s universe was so geocentric (以地球为中心的), she is pictured as the first natural entity to exist.
- Tartaros is the Underworld, the land that will eventually be inhabited by the souls of dead humans.
- Eros means “sexual desire.” In later versions of myth, he is the son of Aphrodite; but in this account, almost all creation takes place through sexual reproduction. For Hesiod, Eros must be a primary deity.
After the appearance of the primordial deities, birth and sexual reproduction become the standard means of reproduction.
- Chaos gives birth to Night and Erebus. (The gloomy darkness of Tartaros). The latter mate and produce Ether and Day.
- Gaia gives birth to Ouranos (sky), Pontus (Sea), and Mountains. In other words, the earth is taking recognizable shape, creating the Mediterranean Sea and the important mountains known to Hesiod.
Gaia mates with Ouranos and produces 12 children, who are called the Titans. These include important natural element, such as the Sun, the Moon, and the River Oceanus, which flows around the edges of Gaia.
- Ouranos does not allow the children to be born, but pushes them back into Gaia’s womb.
- With the help of her youngest son, Cronos, Gaia disables Ouranos.
- Cronos hides inside his mother’s body and castrates his father.
- Cronos throws the severed genitals into Pontus; Aphrodite (goddess of sexual passion) is born from the foam that springs up around them.
- Ouranos retreats from Gaia and becomes the dome of the sky, leaving room for his children to be born and for other entities to develop.
- This story shows how myth can work on several levels at once.
- Gaia is at the same time a female entity with a womb, who can feel both pain and anger when her husband pushes her babies back into her.
- We also see the sky pressing down on earth so that there is no space for anything to develop between them.
- This story also lends itself to allegorical interpretation, because Crono’s name resembles the Greek word for “time”, chronos.
- According to this interpretation, when Cronos was freed from Gaia’s womb, time came into being.
- The two words Cronos and chronos are not actually related, but this does not necessarily invalidate the allegorical interpretation, if Hesiod or his contemporaries thought that they were related.
The same basic pattern is repeated in the next generation, when Cronos in his turn tries to prevent the birth of his children.
- Cronos marries her sister Rheia, and they produce six children: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus.
- Unlike his father, Cronos does not leave his children in his mother’s body and, thus, to some extent under her control.
- He swallows each chilled as it is born.
- Rheia tricks him by giving him a stone wrapped in swaddling cloths in place of the youngest child, Zeus.
- Zeus is sent to island of Crete to be reared in secret.
- Zeus reaches maturity and overthrows his father.
- Cronos spits out the children in reverse order. Thus, Zeus is in a sense, both the youngest and the oldest of his siblings. Zeus and his five siblings, together with several of Zeus’s children, come to be called the Olympians.
- A ten-year war ensues between the Titans and the Olympians. Finally, Zeus and his siblings triumph.
- At this point, the struggle for power end and the order of rule in the universe is set. Zeus will remain the head god forever. As such, he is often called simply “The Olympian.”
One immediately noticeable and intriguing point about this narrative is that it portrays the struggle for power as one involving other female deities opposed by younger male deities.
- Many scholars argue that this reflects the psychological anxieties of males about their parents’ sexuality, about displacing their fathers, and about having to hand power over to their sons in turn.
- Others see the increased anthropomorphism of each generation and the decreased identification of gods and natural forces as representing the development of civilization.
- Other point to the apparent anxiety in Greek culture about the power of women, the fear that women would exert control if they could.
- Other explanations exist. Any effort to find just one “decoding” of the Ouranos-Cronos-Zeus story is probably doomed to failure.
Theogony presents sophisticated and difficult concepts in the guise of genealogies (家谱学). Compare the creation story as retold by the Roman poet Ovid some 700 years later, in a culture in which literacy was established.
- Ovid’s creation story differs from Hesiod’s, both in tone and emphasis. Rather than describing the creation of the universe through the creation of the Gods. Ovid assumes the gods and offers alternatives for how the physical universe my have come to be.
- He runs thought scientific theories of his day, suggesting that the universe was composed of discordant atoms, or perhaps of the four elements.
- He also glances at different theologies, suggesting that a creator god existed or that Nature simply took it upon herself to order the discordant elements of Chaos.
- Ovid is working in a literate tradition and showing his erudition by glancing at various theories of creation while endorsing none of them.
- These differences illustrate the problems in discussing “classical” mythology; the same myths are presented in different ways with different emphases.
- In Hesiod, we can fell fairly confident that we are dealing with a recounting of the myths that remains close to their oral form.
- In Ovid, we are dealing with a self consciously literary reworking of the myths, in ways that sometimes may work against their traditional import.
- Ironically, Ovid is our main source for several very famous myths.