The children of Poseidon; Demeter and Persephone

⁶Poseidon married Amphitrite, [daughter of Oceanos,] who bore Triton to him, and Rhode,* who became the wife of the Sun.

¹Pluto fell in love with Persephone and, with the help of

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Zeus, he secretly abducted her;* but Demeter, bearing torches,* wandered by night and day all over the earth in search of her. When she learned from the people of Hermion* that Pluto had carried her off, she abandoned heaven in her anger at the gods, and came to Eleusis in the likeness of a woman. First she sat down on the rock which is called the Laughterless Rock because of her, and then made her way to Celeos, who was king of the Eleusinians at the time. There were some women in the house, and when they invited her to sit down amongst them, an old woman called Iambe joked with the goddess and made her smile; and that, they say, is the reason why the women make jokes at the Thesmophoria.*

Metaneira, the wife of Celeos, had a young child, and Demeter took it over to nurse. Wanting to make it immortal, she would lay the baby in the fire at night, stripping it of its mortal flesh. But because Demophon (for that was the child’s name) was growing at such an extraordinary rate each day, Praxithea* kept watch over him, and when she found him buried in the fire, she screamed aloud; as a result, the baby was consumed by the fire, and the goddess revealed her identity.*

²For Triptolemos, the eldest of Metaneira’s children, Demeter fashioned a chariot drawn by winged dragons, and she gave him wheat,* which he sowed over the whole inhabited earth as he was carried through the sky. Panyasis says that Triptolemos was a son of Eleusis, for according to him, that was whom Demeter had visited. Pherecydes, for his part, says that he was a son of Oceanos and Ge.

³When Zeus ordered Pluto to send Kore* back to earth, Pluto, to prevent her from remaining too long with her mother, gave her a pomegranate seed to eat;* and failing to foresee what the consequence would be, she ate it. When Ascalaphos, son of Acheron and Gorgyra, bore witness against her,* Demeter placed a heavy rock over him in Hades, but Persephone was forced to stay with Pluto for a third of every year,* and the rest she spent with the gods.

¹. Such is the story of Demeter.

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The revolt of the Giants

Ge, angered by the fate of the Titans, brought to birth the Giants, whom she had conceived by Ouranos.* These were unsurpassable in size, unassailable in their strength, and fearful to behold because of the thick hair hanging down from their head and cheeks; and their feet were formed from dragons’ scales. According to some accounts, they were born at Phlegrai, or according to others, at Pallene. And they hurled rocks and flaming oak trees at the heavens. Mightiest of all were Porphyrion and Alcyoneus, who was even immortal as long as he fought on the land of his birth. It was he, moreover, who drove the cattle of the Sun from Erytheia. Now the gods had an oracle saying that none of the Giants could be killed by the gods [acting on their own], but if the gods had a mortal fighting as their ally, the Giants would meet their end. When Ge heard of this, she searched for a herb to prevent the Giants from being destroyed even by a mortal; but Zeus forestalled her, for he ordered Dawn, and the Moon and Sun, not to shine and plucked the herb himself. And he sent Athene to summon Heracles as an ally.

And first Heracles shot Alcyoneus with his arrows, but when he fell to the earth, he recovered some of his strength. On the advice of Athene, Heracles dragged him beyond the boundaries of Pallene, and so it came about that the Giant met his death. ²In the course of the fighting, Porphyrion launched an attack against Heracles and Hera. But Zeus inspired him with a lust for Hera, and when he tore her clothing and tried to rape her, she cried for help; and Zeus struck the Giant with his thunderbolt, and Heracles killed him with a shot from his bow. As for the others, Apollo shot Ephialtes in the left eye with one of his arrows, while Heracles shot him in the right. Eurytos was killed by Dionysos with a blow from his thyrsos,* Clytios by Hecate with her torches, and Mimas by Hephaistos with missiles of red-hot iron. Athene hurled the island of Sicily on Encelados as he fled; and she flayed Pallas and used his skin to protect her own body during the fight. Polybotes was pursued through the sea by Poseidon and made his way to Cos, where Poseidon broke off the part of the island called Nisyron* and threw it down on him. Hermes, who was wearing the cap of Hades, killed Hippolytos in the battle, and Artemis killed Gration;* and the Fates, fighting with bronze cudgels, killed Agrios and Thoon. The others were destroyed by Zeus, who struck them with thunderbolts; and all of them, in their death throes, were shot with arrows by Heracles.

The revolt of Typhon

³When the gods had defeated the Giants, Ge, whose anger was all the greater, had intercourse with Tartaros and gave birth to Typhon* in Cilicia. He was part man and part beast, and in both size and strength he surpassed all the other children of Ge. Down to his thighs he was human in form, but of such immense size that he rose higher than all the mountains and often even scraped the stars with his head. With arms outstretched, he could reach the west on one side and the east on the other; and from his arms there sprang a hundred dragons’ heads.* Below his thighs, he had massive coils of vipers, which, when they were fully extended, reached right up to his head and emitted violent hisses. He had wings all over his body, and filthy hair springing from his head and cheeks floated around him in the wind, and fire flashed from his eyes. Such was Typhon’s appearance and such his size when he launched an attack against heaven itself, hurling flaming rocks at it, hissing and screaming all at once, and gushing mighty streams of fire from his mouth. Seeing him rush against heaven, the gods took flight to Egypt,* and when they were pursued by him, transformed themselves into animals. While Typhon was still at a distance, Zeus pelted him with thunderbolts, but as the monster drew close, Zeus struck at him with an adamantine sickle, and then chased after him when he fled, until they arrived at Mount Casion, which rises over Syria. And there, seeing that Typhon was severely wounded, he engaged him in hand-to-hand combat. But Typhon enveloped him in his coils and held him fast; and wresting the sickle from him, he cut the tendons from his hands and feet. And raising him on his shoulders, he carried him through the sea to Cilicia, and put him down again when he arrived at the Corycian cave. He placed the tendons there also, hiding them in a bear’s skin and appointing as their guard the she-dragon Delphyne, who was half beast and half maiden. But Hermes and Aigipan* made away with the tendons and fitted them back into Zeus without being observed. When Zeus had recovered his strength, he made a sudden descent from heaven on a chariot drawn by winged horses, and hurling thunderbolts, he pursued Typhon to the mountain called Nysa, where the fugitive was tricked by the Fates; for persuaded that he would become stronger as a result, he tasted the ephemeral fruits.* Coming under pursuit once again, he arrived in Thrace, and joining battle near Mount Haimos, he began to hurl entire mountains. But when they were thrust back at him by the thunderbolts, a stream of blood*gushed from him onto the mountain (which is said to be the reason why it was called Haimos). When he set out to flee across the Sicilian sea, Zeus hurled Mount Etna at him, which lies in Sicily. This is a mountain of enormous size, and there rise up from it, even to this day, eruptions of fire* that are said to issue from the thunderbolts hurled by Zeus. But that is quite enough on this matter.