Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

In the days leading up to the inauguration of the dodecatheon, Prometheus – who was as fond of Zeus as Zeus was of him – had begun to notice a change in his friend. The god seemed moody and irritable, less inclined to go for walks, less silly and playful and more prone to sulks and outbursts of petulance that were unworthy of the kingly, humorous and self-controlled god that Prometheus knew and loved. He put it down to nerves and kept out of his way.

One morning, a week or so following the great ceremony, Prometheus, who had taken to sleeping in the long grass somewhere in the fragrant meadows of Thrace, felt himself being jerked awake by a persistent tweaking of his toes. He opened his eyes to see a lively and rejuvenated King of the Gods bouncing up and down in front of him like an impatient child on their birthday morning. The gloom had melted away like mist from a mountaintop and all the signature joviality had returned tenfold.

‘Up, Prometheus! Up and at ’em!’

‘Hwuh?’

‘We’re going to do something remarkable today, something that the world will shout about for aeons. It will ring down the ages, it will be the –’

‘Hunting for bears, are we?’

‘Bears? I have had the most extraordinary idea. Come on.’

‘Where are we going?’

Zeus gave no answer, but putting an arm round Prometheus he led him forcefully across the fields in a silence punctuated only by occasional barks of excited laughter. If Prometheus hadn’t known his friend better he might have thought him drunk on nectar.

‘This idea,’ he prompted. ‘Perhaps you could start at the beginning?’

‘Good, yes. The beginning. That’s right. The beginning is exactly where we should start. Sit there.’ Zeus indicated a fallen tree and paced up and down while Prometheus inspected the bark for ants before seating himself. ‘Now. Consider how everything began. En arche en Chaos. In the beginning was Chaos. Out of Chaos came the First Order – Erebus, Nyx, Hemera and their generation – followed by the Second Order, our grandparents Gaia and Ouranos, yes?’

Prometheus gave a cautious nod.

‘Gaia and Ouranos, who then unleashed upon creation the catastrophic aberration of you people, the Titans –’

‘Hey!’

‘– and next came all those nymphs and spirits, endless minor deities and monsters and animals and what have you, and finally the culmination. Us. The gods. Heaven and earth perfected.’

‘After a long and bloody war against my race. Which I helped you win.’

‘Yes, yes. But the end result – all is well. Peace and prosperity have broken out everywhere. And yet …’

Zeus left such a long silence that Prometheus felt obliged to break it.

‘You surely can’t mean that you miss the war?’

‘No, it’s not that …’ Zeus continued pacing up and down in front of Prometheus, like a teacher lecturing a class of one. ‘You must have noticed I’ve been out of sorts lately. I’ll tell you why. You know how sometimes I like to soar over the world in the form of an eagle?’

‘Scouting for nymphs.’

‘This world,’ Zeus went on, affecting not to hear, ‘is quite extraordinarily beautiful. Everything in its place – rivers, mountains, birds, beasts, oceans, groves, plains and canyons … But you know, when I look down, I find myself sorrowing at how empty it is.’

‘Empty?’

‘Oh Prometheus, you have absolutely no idea how boring it is to be a god in a complete and finished world.’

‘Boring?’

‘Yes, boring. For some time I’ve realized that I’m bored and I’m lonely. I mean “lonely” in the larger sense. In the cosmic sense. I am cosmically lonely. Is this how it’s going to be for ever and ever now? Me on a throne on Olympus, thunderbolt on lap, while everyone bows and scrapes, sings praises and begs favours? In perpetuity. Where’s the fun in that?’

‘Well …’

‘Be honest, you’d hate it too.’

Prometheus compressed his lips and thought for a while. It was true that he had never envied his friend the imperial throne and all its bothers and burdens.

‘Suppose,’ said Zeus, ‘suppose I were to start a new race.’

‘In the Pythian Games?’

‘No, not a running race. A race as in a species. A new order of beings. Like us in every particular, upright, on two legs –’

‘One head?’

‘One head. Two hands. Resembling us in every particular, and they would have – you’re the intellectual, Prometheus, what’s the name for that aspect of us that raises us above the animals?’

‘Our hands?’

‘No, the part that tells us that we exist, that makes us aware of ourselves?’

‘Consciousness.’

‘That’s the one. These creatures would have consciousness. And language. They wouldn’t be a threat to us, of course. They’d live down here on the land, use their wit to farm and feed and fend for themselves.’

‘So …’ Prometheus frowned in concentration as he tried to form a coherent picture in his mind. ‘A race of beings like us?’

‘Exactly! But not as big as us. And they’d be my creation. Well, our creation.’

‘Our creation?’