Mythical Journeys, Legendary Quests
by Moyra Caldecott
Published by Mushroom eBooks at Smashwords
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Copyright © 1996, 2007 Moyra Caldecott
Moyra Caldecott has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work.
Illustrations Copyright © Rachel Caldecott-Thornton
(Scraper board, based on traditional, ancient and ethnic images)
First published in 1996 by Blandford, a Cassell imprint, United Kingdom
First ebook edition published in 2007 by Mushroom eBooks
This ePub edition published in
2012 by Mushroom eBooks,
an imprint of Mushroom Publishing, Bath,
BA1 4EB, United Kingdom
www.mushroom-ebooks.com
Also available in paperback
All rights reserved. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Contents
1 — Gilgamesh: The Quest for Immortality (Sumeria)
2 — Jason and the Quest for the Golden Fleece (Greece)
3 — The Journey of the Rainbow Snake (Australia)
4 — The Journey of Merytamun to the Hall of Osiris (Egypt)
5 — Kivanga's Journey to the Underworld (West Africa)
6 — The Quest for the Holy Grail (Europe)
7 — The Death of Baldur (Scandinavia)
8 — The Journey of Nala and Damayanti (India)
9 — The Shaman's Celestial Journey (Surinam)
10 — The Journey of Bran's Head (Wales)
11 — The Journey to the Fourth World (North America)
12 — The Three Journeys of Ilya of Murom (Russia)
13 — The Voyage of Maeldun (Ireland)
14 — The Journey to the Dragon Emperor's Palace (Vietnam)
15 — The Seven Voyages of Sindbad (Arabia)
16 — The Quest for the White Bird (Southern Africa)
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Preface
A myth is a story almost entirely told in symbol, metaphor and analogy. It is a story which, even without decipherment, works subliminally. At first, and superficially, the myths from thousands of years ago from cultures very different from our own may seem strange and barbaric. Yet, surprisingly, they ring true against our own once we have decoded their symbolic language.
They have had power to entertain and inform century after century, generation after generation, because they deal with universally important questions. 'Where do we come from?' 'Who are we?' 'Where are we going?' These are questions that are always at the back of our minds, but as yet have never been satisfactorily answered. Myths try to 'access the infinite' in order to answer them, and are constructs of the creative imagination.
Legends are somewhat different because they deal more with the progress of the individual soul in this world, and often use the lives of real historical persons to illustrate their point. Over the centuries, with retelling after retelling, the adventures of the protagonist are exaggerated and embellished until at last we can scarcely believe that such a person existed. But if we allow the legend to do its work properly we soon realize that each 'adventure' is an illustration of a universal principle that applies as much to us here and now as to the legendary hero there and then.
Why should we study these ancient stories when there are so many contemporary stories to read? Is it perhaps because every aspect of our lives is complex and mysterious and the more ways we have to help our understanding of them the better? We are so close to our everyday experiences that we often cannot see them for what they are. A new perspective may give a sudden shock of recognition and understanding. The myths and legends of antiquity are still around because, paradoxically, they have proved time and again that they can supply this shock, this 'new' perspective.
One of the most persistent themes in myth and legend is that of the significant journey, no doubt because of our own strong feeling that we ourselves, in our lives, are on a journey. No matter how often literal-minded people and scientists tell us that there is no evidence for this, we cannot shake off the impression that we existed before we were born and will continue to exist after our death.
In AD 627, King Edwin of Northumbria (the Saxon kingdom in the North of England) held a council to discuss whether he and his people should accept the faith of Christ or not, and this was said:
Your Majesty, when we compare the present life of man with that time of which we have no knowledge, it seems to me like the swift flight of a lone sparrow through the banqueting hall where you sit in the winter months to dine with your thanes and counsellors. Inside there is a comforting fire to warm the room; outside, the wintry storms of snow and rain are raging. This sparrow flies swiftly in through one door of the hall, and out through another. While he is inside, he is safe from the winter storms; but after a few moments of comfort, he vanishes from sight into the darkness whence he came. Similarly, man appears on earth for a little while, but we know nothing of what went before this life, and what follows.1
From the great literary masterpieces of Dante's Divine Comedy (1307-21), Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (about 1387) and John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678-84) to those anonymous stories passed down by word of mouth during generations of tribal gatherings, the theme of the journey or the quest has stirred the imagination, stimulated understanding and powerfully charged the will towards renewal and transformation.
In this book I have gathered together only a few of the many stories about the journey — sacred, mythic and legendary — and I have offered in the commentaries only a brief suggestion as to what may be found there. My hope is that readers will be inspired to set off on their own journeys of exploration through the rich and fertile realms of myth and legend.
MOYRA CALDECOTT, Bath, England
1 — Gilgamesh: The Quest for Immortality (Sumeria)
Origin
A cycle of epic tales describing the adventures of Gilgamesh originated in Sumeria, the Tigris/Euphrates region of the Middle East, nowadays known as Iraq. The hero was said to have lived in Uruk not long before or after 5000 BC, at the height of the Sumerian civilization. Gilgamesh was described as the king of Uruk, one of the major cities of the region, others being Ur and Kish. Early tablets record his battle with King Agga of Kish, suggesting that in fact Gilgamesh was a historical figure. Later tablets exaggerate his prowess and ascribe feats to him that could only have been performed by a mythic hero with some divine blood in his veins. It came to be said that he was the son of a human father, King Lugalbanda of Uruk, and the goddess Ninsun.
The earliest records of his life are in Sumerian, but later the Semite peoples who overran the region took the story up and most of our information comes from clay tablets in the cuneiform writing of the Akkadian language. Babylonian fragments are older than the Assyrian, and trading links with the Hittites (from what is now modern Turkey) and the Hurrians (from what is now modern Armenia) later carried the epic even further afield. Fragments have been found by archaeologists in the archives of Boghazkoy, the ancient Hittite city, and at Megido, but most of what we have today were found in the ruins of the great library of Nineveh, which was sacked c.612 BC. The ancient Elamites were known to have performed a version of it as a drama. There is currently an English dramatic version in existence written by Robert Temple, author of an excellent verse translation of the epic called He Who Saw Everything.
A
SUMERIAN
The Story
Gilgamesh, the great king of Uruk, and his inseparable companion, Enkidu, returned in triumph from the conquest of the giant guardian of the cedar forests, Humbaba. The goddess of love, Ishtar, seeing the young man riding in the streets, his muscles rippling and his curls bound with gold, desired him and called him to her presence.
Gilgamesh stood before her proudly — aware of the scent of a thousand flowers, dazzled by the gleam of her skin and the jewels that twined in long strings around her limbs.
'Gilgamesh,' she said softly, 'come closer. I offer you the greatest treasure any man could desire.'
'What is that, my lady?' the hero asked cautiously, keeping his distance.
She smiled fondly and reached out her slender hand, each finger circled with a different gem.
'You will be my lover,' she purred. 'Come closer, mortal, and taste a greater pleasure than you have ever known.'
Still Gilgamesh held back.
'Come!' she repeated, this time a trifle impatiently.
'Great goddess,' he said. 'I am a king and already have all the treasure any man could desire.'
Her eyes narrowed.
'Forgive me, goddess, but all who have been your lovers are no more. To lie with you is to lie with death.'
'Go then, Gilgamesh, and taste the venom of my curse!' Her eyes flashed. Her lips tightened. Her voluptuous body seemed to harden and grow tall and angular. She towered over him and the sky darkened behind her.
He retreated.
Then Ishtar went to her father, Anu, god of the firmament, and demanded that he avenge the insult that Gilgamesh had given her. Her father at first refused and protested that Gilgamesh was a great hero and had much still to do for the gods.
But Ishtar grew shrill in her demands and declared she would open the seven gates that were between the upper and lower world so that the dead would escape and harass the living.
'Give me the Bull of Heaven, father, to trample down his kingdom, or the dead will outnumber the living on your earth!'
Anu sighed, and gave her the Bull of Heaven.
Triumphantly, she released him in Uruk, the city of Gilgamesh.
He roared and rampaged through the streets, but Gilgamesh heard him and he and Enkidu came out to meet him.
'What sport, friend!' Gilgamesh cried with shining eyes.
'What sport, indeed!' Enkidu replied, and together they wrestled the mighty Bull of Heaven and brought him to the ground. Then, with his bare hands, Gilgamesh ripped him apart and sacrificed his heart to Shamash, the sun god. He mounted the horns on the walls of his bedchamber, laughing at Ishtar's puny attempt at revenge.
To his people he boasted:
Who is the most splendid among
heroes?
Who is the most glorious among men?
Gilgamesh is the
most splendid among heroes!
Gilgamesh is the most glorious among
men!2
Ishtar went to the Assembly of Gods in a rage and persuaded them at last that Gilgamesh and Enkidu had overstepped the bounds of human arrogance once too often.
'One of them must die,' they agreed, 'and the other must suffer at his death.'
One night Enkidu dreamed that he would die.
'As I was standing there between the heaven and the earth,' Enkidu told Gilgamesh, 'I saw a young man whose face was dark...' He shuddered. 'He transformed me with his magic into his double... and I found my arms were wings like a bird.'
Gilgamesh tried to comfort his friend, but he would not be comforted.
From this time on, day by day, Enkidu became weaker and weaker until he was so ill that he could not rise from his bed. In spite of the power he had as king over a mighty nation, Gilgamesh could do nothing to save his life.
Enkidu died.
Gilgamesh wept.
What is this sleep that has
now come over you?
You have gone dark and cannot hear me!3
For seven days he watched beside Enkidu's bed, unable to grasp that he was not coming back. That he was never coming back!
At last he gave up hope and moved away in despair.
He left his palace, he left his city, and he wandered in the wilderness living like a beast, uprooting tubers and reaching for berries. He tore off his fine clothes and wore the skins of animals. Not only was he desolate at the loss of his companion, but he was deeply shocked at the power of death. He realized that he, too, would lie so cold and dark one day, and would no longer have access to the bright splendours of the world. He railed against the gods that put this terrible doom on man and determined that he would find a way of living for ever. The riches he had as king were worthless if he could not have eternal life.
He remembered a story about a man called Ziusudra who, in the ancient days, had survived a flood that had destroyed the rest of mankind and had been given the gift of immortality by the gods. He determined to seek him out.
For a long time he journeyed across the wilderness of the world until he came at last to the mighty mountains of Mashu, through which he must pass if he wanted to reach the Underworld. His way was barred by the fearsome guardians of the mountains, half giant scorpion and half man and woman.
'No man has ever crossed through these mountains and lived,' said the scorpion-creature, raising his sting.
But Gilgamesh stood firm. He told of his heroic deeds and of his sorrow and despair.
'If you can face the darkness of the mountain,' the guardian said, 'it will be Shamash, the sun god himself, who will decide your fate on the other side.'
The scorpion-creature rolled back the gate to the mountain, and the rocks rumbled and groaned beneath it.
Gilgamesh journeyed into the darkness of the mountain, travelling along the path the sun takes when it does not shine upon the earth.
Hour after hour he walked in darkness denser than he had ever experienced before. Hour after hour his spirits sank lower, his despair weighed heavier. And then, after the ninth hour, he felt a slight breeze and his step quickened. After the twelfth hour, he walked out into the brightness of the sunrise on the other side of the mountain.
He found himself in a garden of jewels. Leaves, flowers and fruit gleaming in the early sunlight were all made of the most precious gems. He gazed about in wonderment, almost forgetting his quest.
But remembering at last, he journeyed on.
After a time, he came to a tavern where the tavern-keeper was a woman-being called Siduri whose task it was to dispense calming and hallucinogenic drinks to those on the way to the Underworld. Gilgamesh looked so wild and desperate, and his clothes were so ragged and filthy, that she at first barred her door against him.
'Scorpion-creature'
He beat on the door, announcing his name and a list of all the great deeds he had done.
'If you are Gilgamesh, the great king of Uruk,' she said doubtfully, 'why are your cheeks so wasted, your face so sunken? You have the look of one who has come from afar.'
He told her of how Enkidu had died and how he had since wandered the wilderness, living like a beast. He told her who he was going to meet, and why.
She opened her door to him.
'The way from here lies over the Waters of Death,' she said. 'No man can cross them and return alive. Why do you waste your time worrying about death? Make merry by day and night while you live. Each day should be a feast of rejoicing. Let your garments be sparkling and fresh, your head washed, your body bathed in sweet scents. Enjoy the little one that holds your hand, and the wife who lies in your bed.'
But he would not listen to her and persuaded her to allow him to try to cross the great sheet of water that lay between the worlds — the Waters of Death.
She told him the only way he might be able to do it would be with the help of the boatman, Urshanabi, who had ferried Ziusudra across all those centuries before.
On her advice he sought Urshanabi in the forests, the flash of the boatman's axe attracting his attention.
Again he was questioned.
'Why have you been wandering the wilderness like one pursuing a puff of wind?'
Urshanabi listened to the great feats Enkidu and Gilgamesh had performed, and nodded his head when Gilgamesh told him of his despair at the death of Enkidu.
'I believe that Ziusudra, the one man granted immortality by the gods, will be able to help me,' Gilgamesh said, 'and Siduri told me that you are the man who can take me to Ziusudra.'
Urshanabi pondered the problem.
'Go to the forest,' he said. 'Cut and shape 120 punt-poles. When you have done this, bring them to where my boat is moored.'
Gilgamesh wielded his axe and cut and shaped 120 punt-poles, and together they embarked upon the Waters of Death. Urshanabi warned Gilgamesh that he must not at any time allow any part of himself to touch the Waters.
'As each punt-pole is consumed, you must throw it away and bring out a fresh one.'
The punt-poles were used up before they reached the other side, but Gilgamesh took off his loincloth and made a sail of it to continue his journey.
Ziusudra, who lived at the meeting of three rivers, looked out across the Waters of Death and saw the boat with its strange sail. He wondered that it seemed not to have its usual master at the helm.
When Gilgamesh disembarked he lost no time in telling Ziusudra his story and how he longed for eternal life. Ziusudra, like all who had met Gilgamesh on this journey, warned him that mankind is no more than a fragile reed and cannot expect permanence. Nothing is permanent on earth:
The dragon-fly emerges and
flies.
But its face is in the sun for but a day.4
'If this is so,' Gilgamesh asked Ziusudra, 'how is it that you, a man like myself, have entered the Assembly of Gods and found everlasting life?'
Ziusudra told him about the great Flood in ancient times that destroyed all the rest of mankind. He was warned to build a boat and take on board 'the seed of all living creatures'. He built it in seven days, on instruction, as a cube and sealed it against the storm that was to rage for six days and seven nights.
At sunrise on the seventh day after the storm arose, he looked out and found that it had abated. All had gone deadly quiet.
'All men had returned to clay,'5 said Ziusudra.
The boat eventually came to rest on the peak of Mount Nisir.
When seven days had passed and it seemed to him that the waters were receding, he sent out a dove. Finding no trees on which to rest, it returned. After another seven days he sent out a swallow. The swallow also returned. But when, in another seven days, he sent out a raven, the raven did not return. Ziusudra offered sacrifices and oblations on the mountaintop in gratitude for his survival.
But the Assembly of Gods was in an uproar. It seemed that Enlil, who had ordered the storm because of his anger at the human race, was furious that any living creature had survived, while the other gods were shocked at the extent of the devastation. Ishtar, in particular, wept for her people, and Enki spoke passionately about the injustice of punishing all for the sins of a few.
Enlil began to regret what he had done and agreed that Ziusudra, a human, should be given eternal life in recompense for what his race had suffered.
Gilgamesh listened carefully to the story of how Ziusudra became immortal. If one mortal could become immortal, he thought, surely it would be possible for another — especially one such as he? He would be the first mortal to become immortal by sheer will power. Ziusudra laughed.
'You cannot even ward off sleep for six days and seven nights,' he told Gilgamesh. 'How then can you expect to ward off death?'
Gilgamesh boasted at once that of course he could ward off sleep for six days and seven nights, and prepared to demonstrate it.
Ziusudra's wife baked cakes, and each night Ziusudra placed one beside the bed of Gilgamesh to give him refreshment in the night. But each morning the cake was uneaten because Gilgamesh had slept.
Gilgamesh was forced to admit defeat and Urshanabi was instructed to take him back the way he had come. Ziusudra provided the king with fresh, clean clothes, and Gilgamesh washed himself before he set off.
As they parted, Ziusudra was moved to give him a gift. He told him one of the secrets of the gods. It seemed there was a flower that bestowed immortality — but it grew at the bottom of the sea where no man could reach it.
Nothing daunted, Gilgamesh tied stones to his feet and sank beneath the surface. He found the plant, plucked it and brought it back.
'I will take it to my people,' he cried triumphantly, 'and we will live for ever!'
Ziusudra watched him go, wondering if indeed he would achieve immortality.
Long, long was the journey back with as many dangers as there had been on the way out.
Gilgamesh carried the plant carefully and after twenty leagues broke off a morsel. After thirty more he rested beside a pool. As he refreshed himself in the water, a snake slithered out from behind a rock, smelling the scent of the flower. Quick as lightning, it seized the plant and swallowed it. Horrified, Gilgamesh was in time to see it slough its skin and be rejuvenated before it slid from his sight.
For a while he sat beside the pool bewailing his fate. There was now nothing to be done but return home empty-handed. Wearily, he travelled the last miles to Uruk and then, on a hill overlooking the city, he paused. What he saw was a goodly place with great ziggurats and palaces and temples; with gardens and broad streets where happy people walked up and down; where children laughed, and lovers kissed.
He straightened his shoulders and strode down to reclaim his kingdom.
Traditional
design from stone relief carving
Commentary
Gilgamesh, with his mixed blood, had something of a primitive god's restless ambition for glory combined with the frustrations of being mortal and having only limited time in which to achieve what he desired.
The story goes that when Gilgamesh succeeded his mortal father as king of Uruk, he was thoroughly disliked and feared by his subjects. The young man was an arrogant despot, continually interfering in their lives. In exasperation, they pleaded with the goddess Arura to give him a fitting companion who would somehow occupy his time and draw away some of his attention from his subjects. She agreed, and chose Enkidu, a wild man living among the animals of the mountains and forests. It was said that he could communicate with the natural kingdom and was much hated by hunters because he released their prey from traps and warned the animals of the approach of danger. To prepare him for the great change that was about to take place in his life a harlot was employed to seduce him. She bathed and scented him, and for six days and seven nights he lay with her until he was weak and satiated. When she left he found the animals shunned him, for he now had a human smell.
At their first meeting Gilgamesh and Enkidu fought, rather like the heroes Little John and Robin Hood in the British cycle of myths. After this trial of strength the two became firm friends with deep respect for each other. There are many tales from Mesopotamia of their extraordinary feats of strength, not least among them their defeat of the giant guardian of the cedar forests, Humbaba (Huwawa).
The death of Enkidu after the rejection and mocking of the goddess Ishtar took Gilgamesh from the heights of his arrogance to the depths of despair as he realized the fact of his own mortality. These events happened approximately 5000 years ago and yet we still respond to them, knowing that they are the events, albeit metamorphosed by symbolism, of our own lives. The cry of Gilgamesh beside his dead friend is our own cry as we look at someone close to us lying dead.
What is this sleep that has
now come over you?
You have gone dark and cannot hear me!
That Gilgamesh, the warrior, had gone so far in life without realizing the full implication of death is not as surprising as it seems. Until it touches those close to us, we too do not fully register the implications of death. When we do, we also set off on an inner journey of enquiry — disturbed by questions we cannot answer.
We, like Gilgamesh, have to face the mountains of Mashu — the impediment to true understanding thrown up by all the false but comforting propaganda we have been fed throughout our lives. The guardians of the mountains are scorpions, for truth has a sting in its tail and it is truth we seek. If we can convince them that we are earnest in our quest, they will let us pass.
The twelve hours of the night in the dense darkness of the mountain remind us of the 'dark night of the soul' the great Christian mystics speak about — the darkness we have to pass through when we leave all the comfortable misconceptions of our former lives and set out in search of true illumination. We nearly despair, until we feel the faint breeze of dawn at last, which is the first indication we have that our spirit is stirring to the rising of the sun (the source of light).
As we emerge from the darkness of our doubt and our despair, our first reaction is tremendous relief and joy. The world seems a garden of jewels — precious, wonderful, dazzling. We see everything we had seen before in a new light and appreciate everything much more than we had before. We are in this euphoric state of relief after that rigorous journey through the mountain and forget, for the moment, that we have not yet arrived at our true destination — and that flowers are not jewels.
When we are ready to leave the garden and travel on we come to the tavern of Siduri, where we may still be lulled into a sense of false euphoria. We are tired of the struggle. It would be so pleasant to relax and accept her advice that we should 'eat, drink and be merry'.
These early texts of the epic of Gilgamesh were known throughout the Middle East at the time the Hebrew biblical texts were being compiled, so it is interesting to compare Siduri's words with those in Ecclesiastes 9.7—9, as J. B. Pritchard has pointed out:6
Ecclesiastes:
Go thy way, eat thy bread with
joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God hath now accepted
thy works.
Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack
no ointment.
Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the
days of thy life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the
sun [...] for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour
which thou takest under the sun.
Siduri:
Make thou merry by day and
night,
Of each day make thou a feast of rejoicing,
Day and
night dance thou and play.
Let thy garments be sparkling and
fresh,
Thy head be washed, bathe thou in water.
Pay heed to the
little one that holds thy hand.
Let thy spouse delight in thy
bosom,
For this is the task of mankind.
We are tempted, but if we are determined enough to pursue our journey, we move on. Surely life is more than this? But can it be more with death waiting to cut it short at any moment? Gilgamesh meets Urshanabi, the boatman (reminiscent of the boatman, Charon, who ferries the dead across the Waters of Death in Greek mythology). So many myths have the concept of life originating from the deep primeval 'waters', which existed somehow before existence itself was conceived by the Creator, that it seems logical there should be a return to the primeval waters — or at least a passage over them — at death.
In a sense we have to think about the beginnings of life, the very basis of existence, in order to make sense of death. We have to contemplate the ultimate origin from which duality, and all that followed from it, sprang. But we are not ready to plunge into the depths yet — it is not our time to die — and we may only skim over the surface at this point. Each prop (each punt-pole) we use will be taken from us until we have none left. This is the most dangerous time of all. Many lose their sanity at this point, faced by the loneliness and vastness of the primeval waters. But Gilgamesh, the true hero, improvises a sail to continue forward. We cannot know what this sail will be, in our case, until every support we have relied on has gone. But we must remove every vestige of 'clothing' we have brought from the past and enter this new phase as basic and naked as we were born; without preconceptions, without advice or support from family and friends.
We come to Ziusudra, the man who survived the wrath of God. His story encourages us to believe that it may be possible to survive death. The story of the Flood in the Gilgamesh epic is extraordinarily like the story of Noah in the Bible. Why was this story found so important by the Jews that it is retold in the Bible? Perhaps the story of such a flood is a warning to us that we are always on the edge of extinction. We exist only by the grace of God and if He withdraws His grace we are extinguished.
When I read the description of the storm that brought about the flood in the epic of Gilgamesh I remembered a description of a storm from the same region by A. H. Layard, the excavator of Nineveh and Babylon.
On the sixth of April we witnessed a remarkable electrical phenomenon. During the day heavy clouds had been hanging on the horizon, foreboding one of those furious storms which at this time of the year occasionally visit the Desert. Late in the afternoon these clouds had gathered into one vast circle, which moved slowly round like an enormous wheel, presenting one of the most extraordinary and awful appearances I ever saw. From its sides, leaped, without ceasing, forked flames of lightning. Clouds springing up from all sides of the heavens, were dragged hurriedly into the vortex, which advanced gradually towards us, and threatened soon to break over our encampment.7
Ziusudra makes Gilgamesh perform a practical experiment to drive home to him the impossibility of avoiding death by will power. He asks him to try to do without sleep for six days and seven nights. He cannot, and has at last to admit defeat.
Pity for his fellow human (or is it a further test?) prompts Ziusudra to tell Gilgamesh the secret of the flower that renews youth. Gilgamesh plunges to the bottom of the sea — the ocean of divine consciousness into which we may only be aware of venturing when we are in the highest state of our own spiritual consciousness. Gilgamesh has come so far, discarded so much and learned so much, that he is now capable of achieving the flower. But is he capable of keeping it? Evidently not. The snake, the serpent ever present in Eden, plays his natural role. The chthonic forces of the Underworld, or our subconscious, do not allow us to become gods. We are human and fail every time in the final test. How often do we experience briefly a potent and important truth, only to lose it again as we fall back into, and are swamped by, the trivia of daily life?
But had Gilgamesh ultimately failed? When Gilgamesh saw his city again he saw it as a goodly place. He had come to accept life on its own terms — not in the sense of carefree and careless abandonment of all responsibilities and principles implied in the advice to 'eat, drink and be merry', but in the sense of appreciating what he had. He no longer saw a garden of jewels but instead a city of stone and mortar, with gardens of real flowers and people who were mortal, but were going about their business with enjoyment. Before Gilgamesh set off for home he washed and changed his clothes. The return journey is a different journey. It is not just a matter of retracing his steps. The despair and grief is no more. He is a new man.
The Babylonian name Gilgamesh means 'He Who Saw Everything'. This is the title that Robert Temple chose for his verse translation of the epic. This gives us a clue that Gilgamesh, as long ago as Babylonian times, was no longer looked on as a purely historical figure but, like the British King Arthur, had passed into the potent realm of myth and legend where he teaches us through the magic of metaphor, symbol and archetype what we need to know about ourselves.
However, we must not forget that these ancient myths are as much about the natural phenomena of the world as they are about the development of the human soul. Tammuz, the lover of Ishtar, is ritually slain and has to spend half the year in the Underworld like Persephone in the Greek myth, indicating the change of seasons. Robert Temple develops a very interesting interpretation of the myth of Gilgamesh using astronomical and astrological references. The Flood itself occurs so often in myth because it is a natural phenomenon that periodically devastates great tracts of land and destroys homes and peoples. The 'Wilderness' of Enkidu and his closeness to the animal kingdom followed by his subsequent divorce from it, are suggestive of our own evolution — our closeness in Palaeolithic times to the animal kingdom, and our subsequent break from it as we build houses and communities and civilizations.
Gilgamesh is a most human hero. He is boastful, arrogant, thoughtless, courageous, charismatic. But he suffers and learns, and he changes. We are with him through all his vicissitudes. He longed for immortality and 5000 years after his life and death we are still talking about him!
THE
WATER GOD
2 — Jason and the Quest for the Golden Fleece (Greece)
Origin
This legend was already an old and well-known tale in Greece when Homer came to write the story of the Trojan War in the ninth century BC, for he refers to it on several occasions as though his audience would already be familiar with it. Much later, Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles used the material in drama. Perhaps the best-preserved and most complete version we have today was written in the third century BC by the scholar Apollonius Rhodius, once the pupil of Callimachus, tutor to the Ptolemies of Egypt and chief librarian of the magnificent library at Alexandria, which contained the most authoritative ancient texts in the world before it was burned down by the Romans.
A
Greek ship
The Story
When his father, King Aeson of Iolcos, was ousted from the throne by his half-brother, Pelias the Terrible, the infant Jason was taken secretly from the palace and carried to the Mountain of Pelion where he was left to be reared in safety by the centaur Chiron. There he spent a happy youth unaware that he was heir to the throne of the rich and fertile land he saw far below him on the plain.
Chiron, half man and half horse, now venerable with age and wisdom, was tutor to a great many sons of heroes and kings. His pupils learned all the skills of peace and war — strength and agility of body and mind; knowing when to rely solely on self or when to work with others; the importance of honour in all dealings, whether it be in consideration for others in small things or in the keeping of one's word in the face of death. The boys worked and played on the steep and rugged slopes of the mountain and slept at night deep in Chiron's cave. Not a day passed but Chiron drew out his golden harp and sang to his charges the stories that had come down to him from his ancestors. These stories held their attention not only for the adventures they described and the beauty of the words and sounds he used, but also because they contained layer upon layer of meaning. So, in a very pleasant way, their understanding of themselves and the world around them was enriched.
A
lyre
When Jason was grown almost to manhood he questioned Chiron so earnestly about his parentage that the aged centaur decided it was time for him to reveal it. When Jason heard how his uncle Pelias had seized the throne from his father he determined to return to Iolcos and restore it to its rightful owner. Chiron watched the youth set off, hoping that he would not forget anything of his training on the mountain, for now was the time it would be put most severely to the test.
In the valley at the foot of the mountain flowed a river, so swollen with melting snow that it was a raging torrent. While Jason gazed at it in some alarm, wondering how he was to get over it, he felt a tug at his arm and found a frail old crone at his elbow begging him to carry her over to the other side. He tried to tell her it was not possible, but she was so agitated and so insistent that at last he put her on his back and waded into the torrent. Many times he stumbled on the rolling pebbles and many times he was almost swept away. At last he managed to reach the further bank and lay gasping for breath on a smooth rock. When he had sufficiently recovered he looked around to see how the old woman was faring. To his astonishment, he saw a tall and regal young woman standing in a sphere of light so blinding that he raised his hand to shade his eyes.
She smiled at him, discarding the last vestige of the old crone's rags.
'I am Hera, Queen of Heaven,' she said. 'You have helped me and I shall not forget it, Jason of Iolcos.' And then she was gone like the sparkle on water when a shadow falls upon it.
He rubbed his eyes and stared about him, but there was no sign of anyone present but himself. Bemused, he set off towards the city he had seen from the mountain-top. He noticed that one of his sandals had been lost in the river.
* * * *
As he came to the outskirts of the town he was surprised at how curiously people looked at him. In particular, they pointed at his one sandal and whispered among themselves. He could not know that Pelias, the king, had been told by a soothsayer that his kingdom would be wrested from him by a stranger with only one sandal.
His spies spotted Jason, so the cunning Pelias sent out courtiers to greet him and invite him as a guest to the palace, hoping to render him harmless by the rules of honour governing host and guest. Jason was feasted and entertained royally, and during the entertainment was told the story of the Golden Fleece. It seemed that a certain King Athamas of Boeotia had two children, Phrixos and Helle. When he married again their cruel stepmother devised a way of getting rid of the eldest son. She boiled the seed before sowing so that it would not germinate, and then bribed messengers from the Oracle of Delphi to say that the only way Athamas would be able to feed his people would be if he sacrificed his first-born. Sadly, Athamas was about to do this when a golden ram appeared and called out in human voice to the lad, instructing him to climb upon its back. While all were standing astonished, Phrixos managed to dodge the knife and leap on to the back of the beast. His sister Helle climbed up behind him and the ram took off like Pegasus and flew away towards the east. Over islands and oceans it flew. At one point Helle lost her grip on its fleece and fell to her death. Later, that place was named the Hellespont after her. Phrixos clung on and was deposited at last safely on the shores of a distant land, Colchis, at the furthest end of the stormy Euxine Sea. There, on the ram's own instructions, he sacrificed it to the gods who had saved his life, and hung its golden fleece on a sacred oak tree deep in the forest.
King Aietes of Colchis took the young lad into his court, and he married one of the king's daughters, Chalciope, who bore him several sons. As time passed King Aietes became more and more sure that the fleece that had come into his kingdom so miraculously was meant for him to keep, and he placed a huge serpent at the base of the tree to guard it against robbers.
Phrixos died in Colchis, but his spirit longed for his home country and would not rest until the magical fleece had been returned there. Over the years, many had tried to fetch it back, Pelias said, but all had met with death long before they reached the land of Colchis.
Jason listened to the story fascinated, while Pelias wove his web.
'If a kinsman came to your kingdom,' he asked Jason at the end of the feasting, 'and was intending to kill you and take your kingdom from you, what would you do?'
Jason laughed. 'I would send him in search of the Golden Fleece,' he said. 'Thus I would not have his blood on my hands, yet that would be the last I'd see of him.'
Pelias smiled.
'You have chosen your own fate,' he said. 'Your blood will not be on my hands, but you will not take my kingdom by force. If you bring me the Golden Fleece my kingdom will be yours. I swear it.'
Jason, who had drunk much wine that night, sobered up and saw the trap in which he had been caught. No matter. He would win the Golden Fleece and regain his father's kingdom without shedding family blood.
* * * *
Jason then sent out a herald throughout Greece to call for the strongest and ablest heroes to accompany him on this dangerous quest. While he waited for their arrival, Argus, the greatest shipbuilder in all Greece, made the ship they would row and sail to Colchis. It would have place for fifty oars, one for each hero. He tarred the wood with black pitch to make it waterproof, and painted the bows vermilion. Jason named the ship the Argo, after its creator, and gave the shipwright himself an honoured place among the crew.
Fifty heroes were chosen, many of whom had been Jason's companions on Mount Pelion under the tutorage of the centaur Chiron. The gigantic Hercules, engaged on the fourth of his twelve labours, made short work of wrestling the Erymanthian boar in order to join the crew of the Argo. With him he brought his young squire, Hylas, the most beautiful of boys.
Jason at once asked him to captain the ship, but he refused, saying that no one was worthy to lead them but Jason himself. Tiphys was chosen as steersman because of the skill he had shown on other voyages. Others were Butes, the fairest of men; Castor and Polydeuces, the twins born to Leda and the swan; Caeneus, so strong not even a pine-trunk could fell him; Zetes and Calais, the sons of Boreas, the north wind, and the human Oreithyia. It was known that they could fly, if necessary. Another hero was Peleus, the father of Achilles who, much later, distinguished himself in the Trojan War. Telamon and Oileus also had young sons who later fought in the Trojan War. Mopsus, who could converse with birds, did not have the strength of the others but was a soothsayer of no mean repute. Then there was Idmon, the prophet, and Ancaios, the astrologer, and many more. When they were nearly all gathered and the ship had taken shape, Jason sought out Orpheus in Thrace. He had been one of Jason's companions in Chiron's school for heroes. Orpheus, weary of wandering, was at first reluctant to come, but at last agreed, taking Jason to Dodona where the great oak oracle stood. They cut a bough from the tree and nailed it to the ship.
When the time came to launch the ship they found it was too heavy to move. They consulted the bough from Dodona and were told that Orpheus must play his harp and sing. This he did, and at the sound of his beautiful and melodious voice, the ship began to slide forward. From the Argonauts and the crowds gathered on the beaches nearby, a great shout of joy went up.
As a last act before they set off they slew a bull and offered it as a sacrifice to Hera, the goddess who had promised to remember Jason's kindness to her in the matter of the flooded river. Orpheus held up a golden goblet containing bull's blood, wheat flour, honey, wine and seawater and bade them drink, vowing as they did so to be loyal unto death to Jason and his quest. They set off at last, the plume of smoke from the sacrificial pyre indicating that the winds were right for the beginning of their journey.
Their first landfall was at the base of Mount Pelion, and there the heroes disembarked to visit their beloved tutor Chiron one last time before they sailed away into the dangerous unknown. They found him listening to the boy Achilles playing a harp, but he broke off at once, delighted to see them again. That night he sang to them of the great battle the centaurs and their enemies, the Lapiths, had fought in years gone by. The centaurs had lost because they let wine cloud their judgement. Then Orpheus sang of the first chaos before the world was made, and the fact that all things sprang from Love who could not live alone in the Abyss. The trees, the rocks and all created things listened to his song. The heroes sat quiet. His words, like seeds, took root deep in their hearts.
At dawn they returned to their ship and picked up the oars. They rowed past Mount Olympus where the gods lived in the cloud above the summit, protected by mighty cliffs of rock. They cast many an anxious glance at that forbidding place — but passed it in the end without incident.
They rowed and rowed across the open sea until at last they came to the island of Lemnos. There they were greeted by women and welcomed to draw sweet water and replenish their provisions. It surprised them that they saw no men or boys around — but so well were they treated that they asked no questions.
One by one they were seduced and decided to stay. Even Jason forgot his mission in the arms of their beautiful queen. Only Hercules held out. He had stayed on board to guard the ship and when they did not return he stormed on to the land and hauled them out of their soft beds, berating them for being so weak and forgetful of their great purpose. Unwillingly, they sailed away. They learned later that the women of Lemnos had murdered all the men and boys on the island, determined to live without them. Realizing, after a time, that their race would die out if they did not mate with men, they had captured the Argonauts to breed from them. It is said that many, including their queen, bore children after the Argonauts' brief visit.
They stopped on the shore of the Sea of Propontis and were welcomed heartily by one of Chiron's ex-pupils, King Cyzicus. In the small hours, after a night of pleasurable entertainment, they were interrupted by an attack by monsters from the mountains. They managed to beat them off but in the confusion their friend, King Cyzicus, was killed inadvertently by one of the Argonauts. Horrified, they sailed away, but not for long. A whirlwind and a storm drove them back to shore, and the magic bough from Dodona told them they must appease the soul of Cyzicus. They gave him a noble burial on the headland and Orpheus sang his eulogy while they danced a mystic dance around the shrine of the earth goddess. Then, as was the custom at that time, games were held in his honour.
After they had laid the spirit of Cyzicus to rest, they journeyed on, always travelling east. At one point Hercules broke his oar and when they anchored for the night he went into the forest to seek suitable wood to replace it. Hylas, his squire, followed him, but paused to drink from a pool. The water nymphs saw his youth and beauty and hauled him under to be their lover. In vain, Hercules searched for him throughout the night, and when the dawn came the breeze was so fair for sailing the Argonauts argued as to whether to wait for Hercules and lose the breeze, or sail on without him. In the end they decided to sail, so for the rest of the journey they were without the strength of Hercules.
Further on, they came to a land ruled over by a king as unpleasant as Cyzicus had been pleasant. He was a great brute of a man who fancied himself as a boxer. He challenged the Argonauts to produce a boxer from among themselves who could defeat him. Up to now he had killed everyone who had come against him. Polydeuces, one of the twins, took up the challenge and succeeded in defeating and killing him. His people angrily rose against the Argonauts and they had to row away from the place in haste to save their lives.
Entering the Bosphorus was difficult; fearsome currents and winds nearly wrecked them. But at last they anchored on the shore of Bithynia, ruled by King Phineas, the blind seer. He offered to feed them, but as soon as the food was produced, three ghastly creatures — half bird, half women — descended on them and tore the food away. Phineas told them he and his people were starving because these harpies had been sent to torment them.
Zetes and Calais pointed out that it might be because he had angered the gods by keeping his wife, their sister, imprisoned, and blinding her two sons on the bidding of his mistress. They demanded that he release their sister at once and allow Jason to cure the boys' eyes with a herbal salve he had to hand. This was done, and when the harpies appeared again they were chased off by Zetes and Calais who, as sons of the north wind, could fly further and faster than the harpies themselves.
* * * *
At last the Argo reached the great open sea, the Euxine (known today as the Black Sea). Few Greeks had sailed this far before and they frightened each other with horrific tales about it, hugging the southern shore as best they could.
Orpheus warned them about the wandering rocks that his mother, the muse Calliope, had told him about as a child, and they soon came upon them. Huge, towering cliffs of rock appeared in the ocean, with the water surging and thundering around and between them. It seemed impossible to get past. Orpheus told Tiphys the steersman that Hera would protect them, but Tiphys could not bring himself to trust her until she sent a messenger, a heron, who led them through. Safely on the other side, but exhausted from the prodigious effort of fighting against the waves, they sought a sheltered harbour as soon as they could. They anchored at the mouth of the Wolf River — but there suffered two losses. Both Idmon and Tiphys died, one by fever and one by the thrust of a wild boar. Ancaios, the astrologer, familiar with the pattern of the stars, was chosen as steersman to replace Tiphys.
They rowed past the land of the Amazons, a fierce tribe of warrior women, who sacrificed horses on their altar of black stone, and the shores of Chalybes where black smoke betokened the perpetual fires of the furnaces that smelted the precious metal, iron, as yet unknown in the rest of the world. At last they glimpsed the tall peaks of the Caucasus Mountains at the furthest reach of the sea. There they came upon a boat adrift and in trouble. On board were the four sons of Phrixos and Chalciope, who had left Colchis in the hope of reaching their father's homeland, Greece. Jason and his companions laughed to think that such young lads in such an inadequate ship could dream of tackling the journey they had themselves just completed with such difficulty through storm, tempest and raging seas, but they took them on board kindly and told them of their mission to take the Golden Fleece back to Greece to give peace to the soul of their father Phrixos. The boys agreed to guide the Argonauts to Colchis and introduce them to their grandfather, King Aietes.
Meanwhile, Aietes in his golden palace dreamed that a star fell out of the sky into his daughter Medea's lap. She threw it into the River Phasis that flowed past his palace and it was carried away by the water and was lost in the Euxine Sea. He knew it boded ill for him and his family. Then spies reported seeing a strange, outlandish boat rowing up the Phasis. He called for his golden chariot and his two daughters, Chalciope and Medea, and rode down to meet the boat as it drew near. Around him an army of warriors was ready to attack at his command, but the command was never given because he could see his four grandsons on board.
Jason and his crew, travel-stained and exhausted from their long haul from Greece, greeted him courteously, somewhat awed by the magnificence of the welcoming party and the palace they could see in the background. Aietes replied cautiously, not pleased at all to welcome such a strange, wild bunch of men to his home. But the laws of hospitality demanded that he be civil. The men were invited to the palace where they bathed and were clad in more suitable garments before they sat down to eat. The eyes of Medea never left the handsome Jason and he, in his turn, was not unaware of her admiration, nor was he averse to it.
Because Aietes had greeted them as noble visitors in spite of their appearance, Jason thought it only right he should be straight with him, and he told his host that he had come for the Golden Fleece. Aietes' face grew dark. Angrily he replied that he would not give it up. If Jason and his men were determined to take it they must choose a champion among them who would have the courage to win it in a way that Aietes would dictate.
Jason at once volunteered, knowing that it was he who must win the fleece. Chalciope and Medea drew together, whispering, the one wishing the fleece could go to Greece to release her husband's soul from torment, the other so attracted to Jason she determined to help him no matter what the consequences.
The sons of Phrixos warned Jason not to take up the challenge.
'There is no way you can win,' they said, and told him what horrific labours their grandfather would demand of him.
Then Medea came to him secretly in the night and gave him some magic salve, which he was to rub all over himself and all over his armour.
'But the virtue of this will only last one day, so by nightfall you must have completed your task.'
In the morning his first task was to tame two bulls, yoke them, and plough a four-acre8 field belonging to the god of war. When the furrows were clean and straight he had to sow dragon's teeth in them. The people gathered to watch, the Argonauts filled with misgiving.