From the first he exhibited a blend of zest for life and strength of will that filled even his mother with awe, and some attested that Amalthea’s milk conferred extraordinary capabilities on the youth as he grew. To this day Cretan guides entertain visitors with tales of the young Zeus’s remarkable powers. They tell the story (as if it happened within their lifetimes) of how, as an infant playing with his beloved nanny-goat and unaware of his own strength, Zeus accidentally snapped off one of her horns.fn18 By virtue of his already prodigious divine powers, this broken horn instantly filled itself with the most delicious food – fresh bread, vegetables, fruit, cured meats and smoked fish – a supply that never gave out no matter how much was taken from it. Thus originated the celebrated Horn of Plenty, the CORNUCOPIA.
Zeus’s determined mother visited Crete whenever she felt able to slip away from the ever watchful Kronos.
‘Never forget what your father did. He ate your brothers and sisters. He tried to eat you. He is your enemy.’
Zeus would listen as Rhea described the unhappy condition of the world under Kronos.
‘He rules by fear. He has no sense of loyalty or trust. This is not the way, my Zeus.’
‘Doesn’t that make him strong?’
‘No! It makes him weak. The Titans are his family, his brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces. Already some are beginning to resent his monstrous tyranny. When your time comes you will exploit that resentment.’
‘Yes, mother.’
‘A true leader forges alliances. A true leader is admired and trusted.’
‘Yes, mother.’
‘A true leader is loved.’
‘Yes, mother.’
‘Ah, you laugh at me, but it is true.’
‘Yes, m—’
Rhea slapped her son.
‘Be serious. You are no fool, I can see that for myself. Adamanthea tells me that you are intelligent, but impetuous. That you spend too much time hunting wolves, teasing the sheep, climbing trees, seducing the ash-tree nymphs. It is time you were properly schooled. You are sixteen now and soon we must make our move.’
‘Yes, mother.’
The Oceanid and the Potion
Rhea asked her friend Metis, wise and beautiful daughter of Tethys and Oceanus, to prepare her son for what was to come.
‘He is clever, but wayward and rash. Teach him patience, craft and guile.’
Zeus was captivated by Metis from the start. He had never seen such beauty. The Titaness was a little smaller than most of her race, but endowed with a grace and gravity that made her shine. The step of a deer and the guile of a fox, the power of a lion, the softness of a dove, all allied to a presence and force of mind that sent the boy dizzy.
‘Lie down with me.’
‘No. We shall go for a walk. I have many things to say to you.’
‘Here. On the grass.’
Metis smiled and took his hand. ‘We have work to do, Zeus.’
‘But I love you.’
‘Then you will do as I say. When we love someone, we always want to please them do we not?’
‘Don’t you love me?’
Metis laughed, though in truth she was astounded by the halo of glamour and charisma that radiated from this bold and handsome youth. But her friend Rhea had asked her to undertake his education and Metis was never one to betray a trust.
For a year she taught him how to look into the hearts and judge the intentions of others. How to imagine and how to reason. How to find the strength to let passions cool before acting. How to make a plan and how to know when a plan needed to be changed or abandoned. How to let the head rule the heart and the heart win the affection of others.
Her refusal to allow their relationship to take on a physical dimension only made Zeus love her more. Although she never told him so, Metis returned the love. As a result there existed a kind of crackle in the air whenever the two were close.
One day Zeus saw Metis standing over a large boulder and bashing its flat surface with a small round-ended stone.
‘What on earth are you doing?’
‘Crushing mustard seeds and crystals of salt.’
‘Of course you are.’
‘Today,’ said Metis, ‘is your seventeenth birthday. You are ready to go to Othrys and fulfil your destiny. Rhea will be here soon, but first I must finish a little preparation of my own devising.’
‘What’s in that jar?’
‘In here there is a mixture of poppy juice and copper sulphate, sweetened with a syrup of manna provided by the Meliae, our friends of the ash tree. I’ll put all the ingredients together and shake them up. Like so.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Look, here is your mother. She will explain.’
As Metis looked on, Rhea outlined the plan to Zeus. Mother and son gazed deep into each other’s eyes, took a deep breath and swore an oath, son to mother, mother to son. They were ready.
Rebirth of the Five
Midnight. The thick cloth that Erebus and Nyx threw across earth, sea and sky to mark the end of Hemera’s and Aether’s diurnal round blanketed the world. In a valley high up on Mount Othrys, the Lord of All paced alone, banging his chest, restless and miserable. Kronos had grown into the most foul-tempered and discontented Titan of all. Power over everything gave him no satisfaction. Since Rhea had – without explanation – banned him from the conjugal bed, sleep had been a stranger to him too. Denied its healing balm his mood and digestion, neither good at the best of times, had worsened. The last of the babies he had swallowed seemed to have provoked a sharp acid reflux that the previous five had not. Where was the joy in omnipotence when his stomach griped and his thoughts stumbled blindly in the thick fog of insomnia?
His heart lifted to a state approaching something like happiness, however, when he heard, unexpectedly, the sound of Rhea’s low sweet voice humming gently to herself as she came up the slope towards the mountaintop. Loveliest sister and dearest wife! It was quite natural that she had been a little upset by his consumption of their six children, but she surely understood that he had had no choice. She was a Titan, she knew about duty and destiny. He called out to her.
‘Rhea?’
‘Kronos! Awake at this hour?’
‘I have been awake for more days and nights than I can count. Hypnos and Morpheus have made themselves strangers to me. Full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife.’ Macbeth, another murderer deprived of sleep and plagued by dark prophesies, was to say the same thing, but not for many years yet.
‘Oh tush, my love. Cannot the wit and craft of a Titaness surpass those silly sleep demons? There is nothing Hypnos and Morpheus can do to soothe your aching body, to calm your racing mind, to ease your wounded spirit, that I cannot match with something sweet and warm of my own.’
‘Your sweet warm lips! Your sweet warm thighs! Your sweet warm –’
‘Those in time, impatient lord! But first, I have brought you a present. A lovely boy to be your cupbearer.’
From the recess stepped Zeus, a radiant smile lighting up his handsome face. He bowed and proffered Kronos a jewelled goblet which the Titan snatched greedily.
‘Pretty, very pretty. I might try him later,’ he said casting an admiring eye over Zeus and drinking down the contents of the goblet in one greedy draft. ‘But Rhea, it is you that I love.’
It was too dark for him to see that Rhea had hoisted one eyebrow into an arch of contemptuous incredulity.
‘You love me?’ she hissed. ‘You? Love? Me? You, who ate all but one of my darling children? You dare talk to me of love?’
Kronos gave an unhappy hiccup. He was undergoing the strangest sensations. He frowned and tried to focus. What was Rhea saying? It could not be that she no longer loved him. His mind was even more foggy and his stomach even more turbulent than usual. What was wrong with him? Oh, and there was something else she had said. Something that made no sense at all.