TFBT: Blood-Spawned

I got to thinking about Medusa the other day and consequently Uranus. Hesiod mentions that after the castration of Uranus that;

"And not vainly did they fall from his hand; for all the bloody drops that gushed forth Gaia received, and as the seasons moved round she bare the strong Erinyes  and the great Giants)with gleaming armour, holding long spears in their hands and the (ash) nymphs whom they Meliae all over the boundless earth. And so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden [Aphrodite] "

Similarly of Medusa (the sole mortal Gorgon) Hesiod, says, "When Perseus had cut off the head of Medusa there sprang from her blood great Chrysaor and the horse Pegasus)so named from the springs (pegai) of Oceanus, where she was born." Plus Ovid (Metamorphoses 4. 770 ) credits Libya's sands giving birth to vipers after being splattered by the blood-drops from the Gorgon's Head dripped down and (4. 740) her head placed on a cushion of sea-weed creating coral.

Any connection here between the mortal Pontide and the primordial sky? Many heroes are honored with flowers formed from their blood but Medusa and Uranus' blood spawned intelligent and divine beings. What's up with that? Any other examples?

 (PS  This is a re-post from a comment in the forums at Hour 25.  I post it here to make it easier for Maya M and I to discuss.) 

TFBT: Part One of Bill’s Geryoneis

There is a lost epic called the Geryoneis by Stesichorus.  The fragments, testimonies and vases we have relating to the Geryoneis, indicate the story was about a cattle-raid and the hero Geryon.  Stesichorus was a prolific lyric poet (630 – 555 BC^[i]).  Most famously he composed a tale critical of Helen of Troy.  As a consequence, Helen the goddess blinded him.  He then retold the tale, as Helen: Palinodes.  In this version Helen never actually went to Troy.  The Achaeans and Trojans fought and died for a phantom.  Helen spent the war in Egypt. Stesichorus as a consequence, regains his eye-sight.  This epic too is lost. ^[ii]  

The only mortal-gorgon was called Medusa.  She was Geryon’s paternal grandmother.  After a dalliance with Poseidon, she was beheaded.  At the time she was pregnant with twin sons; Chrysaor and Pegasus.  Somewhat like Athena Chrysaor, fully grown and fully armed, burst forth from their mother’s body with Pegasus.  Their father Poseidon was the god of horses and had sired a few “horses” on unsuspecting goddesses.  So Pegasus was another divine winged horse.  His duty in life would be to carry Zeus’ lightning bolts.  It’s not far-fetched to envision the twins fleeing their mother’s butcherer with Chrysaor astride Pegasus

Chrysaor was a giant in bronze armor.  Or a winged-pig.  Yeah, confusing I know.  But we have conflicting accounts.  Medusa was a Pontide (descendant of Pontus) and piggishness ran in their family.  One famous vase painting resolves the issue by having Geryon carry his father’s shield.  The insignia on the shield is the winged-pig.  We don’t know much about Chrysaor.  To quote Aaron Atsma

“Khrysaor's name means "golden-blade" which could be a sword, tusks, or, as in the case Demeter's title Khrysaoros, a reference to golden blades of wheat.”

Maybe in the abstract he was a “golden” lightning bolt; thrown to earth and then retrieved by his brother and brought back to heaven.  But that’s totally in the abstract.  He married the immortal Oceanide Callirhoe. 

Okay, here’s the big part, Geryon was a giant with three bodies.  Generally, he is represented on vases as three guys in a line standing hip to hip to hip.   With “six hands and six feet and is winged." (Fragment S87) He was non-theomorphic. (He was not made in the gods’ image.) Doesn’t mean he was a monster.  Geryon was not a monster, just a guy who owned crimson-colored, ^v “shambling cattle in water-washed Erytheia.” (Hesiod, Theogony)

Below is my attempt to piece the Geryoneis together.

Geryon lived on “sea-circled Erythea beyond the stream of Okeanos… out in the gloomy meadow beyond fabulous Okeanos.”  He had a two-headed guard-dog named Orthros^[iii] and the oxherd called Eurytion (Hesiod, Theogony)

Atsma says “Orthros' name was derived from the Greek word orthros meaning "Twilight".  “He sired deadly Sphinx, the bane of the Thebans.” (Hesiod, Theogony)  Little seems known about Eurytion, except Stesichorus says “of Geryon's herdsman [Eurytion] that he was born' almost opposite famous (island) Erytheia, by the limitless silver-rooted waters of the river Tartessos in the hollow of a rock." ^[iv] 

“The dog (Orthros) smelled (the cattle-raider) there and went after him, but he struck him with his club and when the cowherd Eurytion came to help the dog, he slew him as well.  Menoites (Meneoestes), who was there tending the cattle of Haides, reported these events to Geryon.” ^[v]  and "Menoetes urges Geryon to think of his parents; ‘Your mother Callirhoe and Chrysaor, dear to Ares.’" ^[vi] 

Menoetes is urging Geryon to not act rashly and consider his parents. This rather parallels Priam’s words to Achilles in the last book of the Iliad;

But Priam made entreaty, and spake to him, saying: "Remember thy father, O Achilles like to the gods, whose years are even as mine, on the grievous threshold of old age. Him full likely the dwellers that be round about are entreating evilly, neither is there any toward from him ruin and bane. Howbeit, while he heareth of thee as yet alive he hath joy at heart, and therewithal hopeth day by day that he shall see his dear son returning from Troy-land. (Iliad 14.485)

By this we know that Chrysaor, immortal and ageless or not, is still around.   

“Answering him the mighty son of immortal Chrysaor and Callirhoe said, ‘Do not with talk of chilling death try to frighten my manly heart, nor beg me… (to avoid the cattle-raider?)…for if I am by birth immortal and ageless, so that I shall share in life on Olympus, then it is better (to endure) the reproaches… (of men?)…and . . . to watch my cattle being driven off far from my stalls; but if, my friend, I must indeed reach hateful old age and spend my life among short-lived mortals far from the blessed gods, then it is much nobler for me to suffer what is fate than to avoid death and shower disgrace on my dear children and all my race hereafter--I am Khrysaor's son. May this not be the wish of the blessed gods . . . concerning my cattle."^[vii]     

So, not only is Chrysaor alive, but Geryon assumes his father is immortal.  Immortal father and an Oceanid for a mother: the fact that Geryon is “by birth immortal and ageless” is almost a sure thing.  So, why should he fear death?    Alas, Hesiod says  

“Now sing the company of goddesses… even those deathless one who lay with mortal men and bare children like unto gods.    And the daughter of Ocean, Callirhoe was joined in the love of rich Aphrodite with stout hearted Chrysaor and bare a son who was the strongest of all men, Geryones^[viii]  

The mortal Geryon seems more concerned with his descendants than forbearers.  I found one; “Norax was a son of Erytheia, the daughter of Geryones, with Hermes for his father.” Pausanias 10.17.5

So in fragments S12&S13,   Callirhoe sees the cattle-raider approaching and addresses her son with words like “Obey me, my child." “I, unhappy woman, miserable in the child I bore, miserable in my sufferings… if ever I offered you my breast…”   and then presumably throws open “her fragrant robe."  Sounds kind of odd to us, a mother flashing her son, but they did that sort of thing back then.  According to evidence on vases, that’s how Helen saved herself when her vengeful husband Menelaus finally caught up with his cheating wife; opened her fragrant robe and his sword fell to the ground.  A better example is Queen Hecuba trying to save her son Hector. 

“the mother (Hecuba) in her turn wailed and shed tears,  loosening the folds of her robe, while with the other hand she showed her breast, and amid shedding of tears she spake unto him winged words: "Hector, my child, have thou respect unto this and pity me, if ever I gave thee the breast to lull thy pain." Iliad 22. [77]

Fragment S14 tells us “then grey-eyed Athene spoke eloquently to her stout-hearted uncle, driver of horses [Poseidon]: ‘Come now, remember the promise you gave and (do not wish to save) Geryon from death.’"  In case you don’t know the story Athena is backing the cattle-raider.  In vase paintings, Athena is on the left literally backing up the cattle-raider, Geryon on the right with his mother Callirhoe behind him.  Poseidon is Geryon’s grandfather, hence is interest.  Why can’t help his mortal grandson Geryon is explained in the Iliad 16 426-458.  Zeus says to "Ah, woe is me, for that it is fated that Sarpedon, dearest of men to me, be slain by Patroclus”  The father of men and gods then admits he is pondering whether to snatch him up and carrying him home to Lycia.  “Queenly Hera answered him: "Most dread son of Cronos, what a word hast thou said! A man that is mortal, doomed long since by fate,” She tells him to “Do as thou wilt; but be sure that we other gods assent not”… (and) some other god also be minded to send his own dear son away from the fierce conflict;”  In other words, Zeus can’t save Sarpedon and Poseidon can’t save Geryon because if the gods start saving every demi-god and favorite from harsh death the social structure of the universe starts to unravel.

Fragment S15 doesn’t end well for Geryon.  The cattle-raider nails him in the head with a rock, Geryon loses “helmet with its horse-hair plume” and his foe follows up with an arrow dipped in the Hydra’s^[ix] venom.  “It silently…by divine dispensation…flies straight to the crown of his head…Geryon drooped his neck to one side, like a poppy which spoiling its tender beauty suddenly sheds its petals." 

 

Part One of Bill’s Geryoneis, ends here.

Part Two will look at the evidence from vases more closely. 

Part Three will discuss the more esoteric interpretation of all this.  (In part three we will discuss how Hera nursed the Hydra with her poisoned left breast.  The goddess’ breast was poinsoned by one of the cattle-raiders arrows.  The cattle-raiders’ arrows had been dipped in the dying Hydra’s bile.  Hey what a minute!  Ha ha!

---

[i] Wikipedia

[ii] Hilda Doolittle wrote an inspired poem based on the few remaining lines of the Palinodes; Helen in Egypt.

[iii] The dog was actually his nephew! Hesiod. Theog. 295 

[iv] Stesichorus, Geryoneis Fragment S7 (from Strabo, Geography)

[v] Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.106-8

[vi] Stesichorus, Geryoneis Frag S10

[vii] Stesichorus, Geryoneis Fragment S11 (from Papyri):  This fragment has a lot of gaps in it, called “lacuna” in classical circles. I filled it just enough to have it make sense.

[viii] Hesiod, Theogony 966 & 979

[ix] The Hydra is brother to Geryon’s fallen dog Orthrus.  Go figure!

TLtS: Am I a God or a Star?

I was battle-born.
I sprang forth from my mother,
Fully-armed like
Athena from her father.
I am cyclopean,
A giant dressed in bronze armor

Like they born
From the blood of Uranus
I sprang up; enormous
With the steed Pegasus

Upon the western shore
Of the River Oceanus
I, Chrysaor, in my hands
A falchion held
Of beamy gold
Which my mother felled

I am Pegasus’ twin brother
I am the spirit of bia, Might;
A warrior of stout heart
And powerful-mind

My brother is Wisdom,
metis; and inspiration.

He is a horse, I a mortal
I a demigod, he immortal

I human, he a beast of feather
He and I are a centaur together

I road upon his back to Olympus
Enthroned on winged Pegasus

I left beneath holy earth,
And soared to Olympus; and there abode
In palaces of Zeus and to the god
Deep-counseled, bear flaming arrow and bolt. [i]

I rode between the Deep and Heaven.[ii]

I wed beautiful-flowing Callirrhoe,
Daughter of glorious Oceanus
Blending in love, lying in his embrace
She bore me two fine children of my mother’s race.

Like the stars before the Sun
I faded before the onset of history
.
I faded dew-liked before the day
From all time and all history[iii]

Who was I? What happen to me?

I was flung to earth by Zeus
Same as his fiery son Hephaestus

But like an immortal star
As each day grows fainter

I am rising out of the sea,
Beamy gold and shining
Leaving the arms of Callirrhoe
Forever tender, soft and inviting

Thus over the ocean and forth
Trailed the gleam of my falchion far
Riding inside Night’s gleaming car
Am I a god or a star?

I return to Olympus
Summoned secretly each day by Zeus.[iv]

I am a winged boar with sharpened tusk

I am the All Father’s right hand
I am the slayer of Typhoeus,
The conqueror of the Titans
I was the gold falchion hidden in Tartarus

The one who dubs heroes
Upon Pegasus’ hooves a thundering
I am the thunderbolt[v]
I am Chrysaor the Lightning

[i] Hesiod’s Theogony, translated by Charles Abraham Elton

[ii] Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis

[iii] Helen in Egypt, HD

[iv] Longfellow

[v] Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis