1 00:00:04,086 --> 00:00:09,098 Alpha stage creation has been underway. We've had our first layer of beings that 2 00:00:09,098 --> 00:00:15,042 come out of Earth and Sky and now it's the turn for a new generation of gods to take 3 00:00:15,042 --> 00:00:19,013 over, Kronos and Rhea. As I said earlier, after Sky has been 4 00:00:19,013 --> 00:00:24,019 castrated we don't hear much from him. Interestingly though, Earth sticks around. 5 00:00:24,019 --> 00:00:29,063 Watch Earth as she involves herself in the story and inserts her will at critical 6 00:00:29,063 --> 00:00:32,089 points in the later generations. Sky, not so much. 7 00:00:32,089 --> 00:00:37,047 Kronos and Rhea now begin let's call it generation stage beta. 8 00:00:37,047 --> 00:00:43,017 The first, if we thought about the first on a software analogy as alpha, now we're 9 00:00:43,017 --> 00:00:48,024 turned to generation stage beta. In the second generation, we have Kronos 10 00:00:48,024 --> 00:00:52,040 and Rhea reproducing and they reproduce all kinds of things. 11 00:00:52,206 --> 00:00:56,863 We'll see some gods that we know. Olympian divinities are going to come out 12 00:00:56,863 --> 00:00:59,063 of them. There are other kinds of things that 13 00:00:59,063 --> 00:01:03,037 emerge in this layer of creation as well. We want to keep track of that. 14 00:01:03,037 --> 00:01:07,047 We'll also notice that not all Olympian divinities emerge from Kronos and Rhea. 15 00:01:07,047 --> 00:01:10,074 Sometimes it's though that that's the case, but that's not really true. 16 00:01:10,074 --> 00:01:14,073 We've already seen Aphrodite pre-exists this layer, she comes out of the foam, 17 00:01:14,073 --> 00:01:18,083 according to Hesiod, she comes out of the foam of the severed genitals, and then 18 00:01:18,083 --> 00:01:22,673 later on, we'll see that Zeus goes ahead and gives birth, himself to some of the 19 00:01:22,673 --> 00:01:25,094 other Olympians. Kronos has a special place in mythological 20 00:01:25,094 --> 00:01:28,773 history. He's particularly nasty. 21 00:01:29,088 --> 00:01:36,078 He has a tough time in life. His mother after all, turns to a rather, 22 00:01:36,078 --> 00:01:40,491 presumably, impressionable age and talks him into a terrible crime against his own 23 00:01:40,491 --> 00:01:42,058 father. He goes ahead and does it. 24 00:01:42,058 --> 00:01:47,006 And then, later on, when it's time for him to become the father the violence that's 25 00:01:47,006 --> 00:01:49,048 part of this family gets exhibited once again. 26 00:01:49,048 --> 00:01:55,505 Now, in contrast to the earlier generation or in, there's a parallel and a difference 27 00:01:55,505 --> 00:01:59,194 to the earlier generation. Remember, Sky was unnerved by the 28 00:01:59,194 --> 00:02:04,203 reproductive power of Earth, came on top of her every night and pressed all her 29 00:02:04,578 --> 00:02:07,706 issue back into her so reproduction could not occur. 30 00:02:07,706 --> 00:02:10,551 Well, that didn't quite work out so well for Sky. 31 00:02:10,551 --> 00:02:15,096 Kronos similarly, is going to try to control the reproduction of Rhea, but 32 00:02:15,096 --> 00:02:19,549 rather than push everything back up into her, what he does is take all the 33 00:02:19,549 --> 00:02:23,950 creatures that come out of her and put them into his own mouth. 34 00:02:23,950 --> 00:02:30,571 Kronos, yes indeed, eats his own children. So even, even, we were already coming away 35 00:02:30,571 --> 00:02:35,940 with a pretty nasty view of him for having castrated his father now we're going to 36 00:02:35,940 --> 00:02:40,445 see him in even worse position, maybe, eating his own children. 37 00:02:40,688 --> 00:02:44,419 Now, these children as immortals are only digested. 38 00:02:44,419 --> 00:02:48,708 It's not like he can digest them, and metabolize them so that they disappear. 39 00:02:48,708 --> 00:02:53,377 They're immortal so they can't die. So, they just sit there in his stomach 40 00:02:53,561 --> 00:02:57,489 trapped inside of there. You can imagine, there must have been some 41 00:02:57,489 --> 00:03:01,606 kind of awful indigestion. But this lead to Kronos's, the worst part 42 00:03:01,606 --> 00:03:05,275 of Kronos's terrible reputation being eater of his own children. 43 00:03:05,275 --> 00:03:09,549 The children are now confined in his stomach and they sit in there waiting for 44 00:03:09,549 --> 00:03:13,642 the next shoe to drop. Let's have a look at how ML West 45 00:03:13,642 --> 00:03:19,089 translates this important part of Hesiod's Theogony, pages sixteen and seventeen in 46 00:03:19,089 --> 00:03:22,585 our translation. The others great Kronos swallowed, as each 47 00:03:22,585 --> 00:03:26,107 of them reached their mother's knees from her holy womb. 48 00:03:26,107 --> 00:03:31,370 His purpose was that none but he of the lordly celestials should have the royal 49 00:03:31,370 --> 00:03:34,995 station among the immortals. For he learned from Earth and starry 50 00:03:34,995 --> 00:03:39,604 Heaven that it was fated for him to be defeated by his own child, powerful though 51 00:03:39,604 --> 00:03:44,537 he was, through the designs of great Zeus. So, he kept no blind man's watch, but 52 00:03:44,537 --> 00:03:49,629 observed and swallowed his children. So, Kronos jumps on him, takes this theme 53 00:03:49,629 --> 00:03:55,116 that we already see exhibited in his family and visits violence upon his own 54 00:03:55,116 --> 00:04:00,083 children, for him it's swallowing them down, until we get to the very last case. 55 00:04:00,083 --> 00:04:05,043 The youngest child is one that Rhea has a special attachment to. 56 00:04:05,043 --> 00:04:09,036 She's seen this awful man eat down all of her children. 57 00:04:09,036 --> 00:04:12,067 She's upset by it. She comes up with a scheme. 58 00:04:12,284 --> 00:04:16,049 This scheme she develops in consultation with Earth. 59 00:04:16,049 --> 00:04:22,037 In fact, that she'll now hand over to Kronus a stone wrapped in cloth instead of 60 00:04:22,037 --> 00:04:25,801 the actual child. Kronos is not too bright, famously and 61 00:04:25,801 --> 00:04:29,858 [unknown] rather dumb. He takes that stone and swallows it down 62 00:04:29,858 --> 00:04:34,877 and doesn't think twice about it. And thinks, yes, so now all things are 63 00:04:34,877 --> 00:04:39,705 done, all these children are contained and controlled inside of myself. 64 00:04:39,705 --> 00:04:45,512 Now, he's, thinks that he's controlled these powerful creatures to come out. 65 00:04:45,512 --> 00:04:50,531 In the meantime, Zeus, the actual baby, Zeus, is taken away and tucked into a cave 66 00:04:50,531 --> 00:04:54,109 in Crete. There, he has a place where he can mature 67 00:04:54,109 --> 00:04:59,446 and develop away from his scheming father. He gets his skills together and gets his 68 00:04:59,446 --> 00:05:04,345 strength together until he finally becomes powerful enough when he can come back and 69 00:05:04,345 --> 00:05:08,487 face his father in a struggle. Now, that struggle's going to come up soon 70 00:05:08,487 --> 00:05:11,773 and it occupies most of the action of the rest of the text. 71 00:05:11,773 --> 00:05:17,142 There are a few digressions that we'll keep an eye on but most of what we, we're 72 00:05:17,142 --> 00:05:22,239 going to see has to do now with Zeus taking on his father and the nasty things 73 00:05:22,239 --> 00:05:25,092 that happen. Before we turn to that though, there's a 74 00:05:25,092 --> 00:05:28,256 coda that we can attach to this story about the stone. 75 00:05:28,477 --> 00:05:32,208 The stone has a name. It's called the omphalos, and at, soon 76 00:05:32,208 --> 00:05:37,095 after Zeus comes of age, he goes round and gets Kronos to vomit up his children. 77 00:05:37,095 --> 00:05:41,062 Earth is again involved in persuading him to do this. 78 00:05:41,294 --> 00:05:47,043 The stone when it comes out, falls onto Earth at a particular place, at the oracle 79 00:05:47,043 --> 00:05:51,006 site of Delphi. It's called the omphalos because the Greek 80 00:05:51,006 --> 00:05:54,020 term omphalos means a navel the center of the earth. 81 00:05:54,020 --> 00:05:58,092 It's thought that this actual stone was in Kronos' belly and got regurgitated out. 82 00:05:58,092 --> 00:06:03,069 When it fell to Earth, it fell at Delphi and that was the center of the universe. 83 00:06:03,069 --> 00:06:08,028 Some of our Penn students, hello, Eliot, nice to see you out there, some of our 84 00:06:08,028 --> 00:06:11,252 Penn students have gone to Delphi to visit this stone. 85 00:06:11,252 --> 00:06:14,545 It still sits there, so for those of you who want to go visit the temple, you'll be 86 00:06:14,545 --> 00:06:18,274 able to find the stone that the locals will point to it and tell you that, yes, 87 00:06:18,274 --> 00:06:21,026 indeed, that is the center, the navel of the universe. 88 00:06:21,177 --> 00:06:25,033 Elliot and his friend went there and made sure that it was there, touched it to make 89 00:06:25,033 --> 00:06:28,010 sure it was real. Yes, indeed the omphalos is still there. 90 00:06:28,010 --> 00:06:31,047 So, I recommend that you go visit. Some of my students, or students I know 91 00:06:31,061 --> 00:06:34,010 are all over in continental Europe, some are actually in Greece. 92 00:06:34,010 --> 00:06:38,056 So, if anyone wants to go check to make sure the stone's still there and come back 93 00:06:38,056 --> 00:06:49,047 and tell us on the forums we'd love to see you.