Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

The three times three Muses remind me to introduce more triads. Gaia and Ouranos gave birth, as we know, to three Hecatonchires, three Cyclopes and four times three Titans. We have already encountered the three Erinyes, also called the Eumenides – those vengeful Furies who sprang from the blood-soaked earth at the moment of the castration of Ouranos. Three seems to have been a very magic number to the Greeks.

The Charites

During the course of the ten-year Titanomachy, apocalyptic as it was, Zeus always found time to fulfil his desires. Perhaps he saw it as discharging his duty to populate the earth. It is certainly the case that Zeus liked to discharge.

One day Zeus’s eye fell on the most beautiful of all the Oceanids – EURYNOME, daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. Hidden in a cave while the battle roared outside, Eurynome bore Zeus three ravishing daughters, AGLAEA (which means ‘splendour’), EUPHROSYNE also known as EUTHYMIA (glee, merriment, mirth) and THALIAfn6 (cheerfulness). Together they were known as the CHARITES or, to the Romans, the GRATIAE. We call them the Three Graces, favoured throughout history by sculptors and painters seeking an excuse to render perfect female nudes. Their sweetness of nature gave the world something to counteract the horrible malice and cruelty of the Erinyes.

Horai

The HORAI, or Hours, consisted of two sets of triplet sisters. These daughters of THEMIS (the embodiment of law, justice and custom) originally personified the seasons. There seem to have been two to begin with, summer and winter, AUXESIAfn7 and CARPO. The classical first triad of Horai was made up by the later addition of THALLO (FLORA to the Romans), bringer of flowers and blossoms, the embodiment of spring. The Horai’s most valuable quality derived from their mother: their gift of the propitious moment, the benign relationship between natural law and the unfolding of time – what you might call ‘divine serendipity’.

The second set of Horai was responsible for a more worldly kind of law and order. They were EUNOMIA, goddess of law and legislation, DIKÉ goddess of justice and the moral order (the Roman equivalent was JUSTITIA) and EIRENE, the goddess of peace (PAX to the Romans).

Moirai

The three MOIRAI, or Fates, were named CLOTHO, LACHESIS and ATROPOS. These daughters of Nyx are to be thought of as sitting round a spinning wheel: Clotho spins the thread that represents a life, Lachesis measures out its length and Atropos (the relentless, remorseless one, literally the ‘un-turning’) chooses when to shear the thread and cut the life short.fn8 I picture them as sunken-cheeked crones, clothed in black rags, sitting in a cave cackling and nodding as they spin, but many sculptors and poets represented them as pink-cheeked maidens, dressed in white robes and smiling demurely. Their name derives from a word that means ‘portion’ or ‘lot’, in the sense of ‘that which is allotted to you’. ‘It was not her portion to be loved’, or, ‘It was his lot to be unhappy’, are the kinds of phrases Greeks employed to describe attributes or destinies apportioned by the Moirai. Even the gods had to submit themselves to the Fates’ cruel decrees.fn9

Keres

These carrion daughters of Nyx were the vile and rapacious spirits of violent death. Like the Valkyries of Norse and Germanic myth they collected the souls of warriors killed in battle. Unlike those benevolent warrior goddesses however, the Keres did not escort their heroic souls to the reward of a Valhalla. They flew from bleeding body to body, greedily sucking up the blood that flowed from them; then, when each corpse was thoroughly drained, they threw it over their shoulders and moved on to the next.

Gorgons

The primordial sea god Pontus had by Gaia a son, PHORCYS, and a daughter, CETO. The progeny of this brother and sister were three island-dwelling sisters, the Gorgons STHENO, EURYALE and MEDUSA. With hair of writhing venomous snakes, intense staring eyes, hideous fixed smiles, boar’s tusk teeth, clawed hands of brass and taloned feet, and scaly golden bodies, these monstrous sisters appeared frightful enough to freeze the blood. But anyone who caught a Gorgon’s eye – exchanged looks with her for just one fleeting second – would quite literally be turned instantly to stone. The word for that is ‘petrified’, which has come to mean scared stiff.

Spirits of Air, Earth and Water

These threesomes were not the only significant beings to spring into life at this time. All over the world, as the Titanomachy raged around them, nature sprites and spirits of all kinds began to multiply and claim their areas of sovereignty. One pictures them scampering for shelter and trembling behind bushes while the rocks and thunderbolts fly through the air and the earth shakes with the violence of war. Somehow these often fragile beings survived and thrived, to enrich the world with their beauty, dedication and charm.