THE BEGINNING Let the conversation begin … Follow the Penguin Twitter.com@penguinUKbooks Keep up-to-date with all our stories YouTube.com/penguinbooks Pin ‘Penguin Books’ to your Pinterest Like ‘Penguin Books’ on Facebook.com/penguinbooks Listen to Penguin at SoundCloud.com/penguin-books Find out more about the author and
discover more stories like this at Penguin.co.uk
MICHAEL JOSEPH UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia India | New Zealand | South Africa Michael Joseph is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com First published 2018 Copyright © Stephen Fry, 2018 For picture credits The moral right of the author has been asserted Jacket figure illustrations: © Sarah Young Author photo © Claire Newman Williams ISBN: 978-1-405-94038-2
PERSEUS fn1 One of the most important of all Greek city states. The name given to its people, the Argives, was often used by Homer simply to mean ‘Greek’. Philip II and his son Alexander the Great, although Macedonian, were said to originate from Argos. fn2 Often rendered as Danaë, so it should, I suppose, be pronounced ‘Danaye’. fn3 The Roman poet Horace, in his Odes, changed the bronze room to a bronze tower, and thenceforward it has often been portrayed as just such a fairytale Rapunzel-like minaret. The earlier sources insist, however, that it was a room, with slits in the roof to let in light and air. fn4 We do not know whether or not Danaë enjoyed the experience. There are those, it is said, for whom the prospect of a golden shower is actually rather … well … quite. fn5 Which simply means ‘net’. fn6 Not the Italian Pisa of the Leaning Tower, but a city state in the northwestern Peloponnese. The quest for the hand of Hippodamia had repercussions that sounded down to the end of the mythic era and the aftermath of the Trojan War. But their details are for another time and place. fn7 The description of the Gorgons in Mythos omits the idea of Medusa’s separate creation as a mortal Gorgon. There are, of course, many different accounts. The story Danaë tells Perseus is perhaps the most popular. fn8 In later times a ‘consultation tax’ would have to be paid to the priestess, as well as the cost of the requisite sacrifices. fn9 The priestess, known as the PYTHIA, would hold on to a sacred tripod that connected her to the ground. She would receive her messages from clouds of sulphurous steam that rose (and still do) from under the earth at Delphi. fn10 By our standards at least. For a Greek he was more than usually clothed … fn11 The Graeae’s names, as so often in Greek myth, have meanings. Pemphredo is ‘she who guides the way’, Enyo ‘warlike’ and Dino ‘terrible’ (as in dinosaur, which means ‘terrible lizard’). Dino was sometimes called Persis ‘the destroyer’. I’ve avoided that name on account of its similarity to Perseus. But it shows that Perseus and all the Pers- names carry ‘destructive’ meanings. fn12 The two main (and multitudinous) families of sea nymphs, the Oceanids and Nereids were daughters and grand-daughters respectively of the sea Titans OCEANUS and TETHYS. As such they were cousins of Poseidon. See the first volume of Mythos (page 10). fn13 Not to be confused with Ceto, mother of the two immortal Gorgons. Although the sea goddess does lend her name to all such sea monsters and, through them, our cetaceans. fn14 Nilus was one of the more important of the river gods, the potamoi – his descendants bred with Aegyptus, Libya and Ethiopia. As with Asia and Europa, the names of these deities, demigods and mortals can still be found on our maps today. fn15 Andromeda, like many mortals now, seems to show a distaste for incest. The gods are never so fussy. fn16 Herms or hermai were square columns used as good-luck boundary markers and signposts. They had a carved head, typically of the god Hermes (though usually uncharacteristically bearded) on top and male genitals lower down, which were thought to bring good luck when stroked in … a certain way. fn17 Strictly speaking the Peloponnese hadn’t yet earned its name, which was taken from that of King PELOPS, whom we shall encounter later on.
HERACLES fn1 A daughter of Pelops and Hippodamia. It was Pelops who won the chariot race and the hand of Hippodamia that Polydectes had pretended he was going to try for. That story has to be told, but not just yet. fn2 Similar to a well-known episode in Arthurian legend. Merlin disguises Uther Pendragon as Gorlois, husband of Igraine, and in that form he sleeps with her and fathers Arthur … fn3 ‘Even though the sound of it produces consternation,’ as Mary Poppins and Bert the chimney-sweep might sing. fn4 Also ‘Ilithyia’. I pronounce her name, probably wrongly, like ‘Alicia’ said with a lisp. Eileithyia was depicted as a woman wielding a torch, representing the burning pains of childbirth, or with her arms raised in the air to bring the child to the light. The Romans called her Lucina or Natio. fn5 Eurystheus means ‘broad-shouldered’, which might suggest that his delivery gave Nicippe a twinge of pain as he emerged. fn6 Historis somehow escaped her wrath. Perhaps she was smart enough to hide. fn7 ‘Iphi-’ means ‘strong’ or ‘mighty’ (cf. Iphigenia, the ‘strong-born’) and ‘cles’ means ‘pride’ or ‘glory’. Apparently an ‘iphi’ is also a smallish Egyptian unit of dry measurement, familiar to the Greeks, and corresponding roughly to 1–1½ gallons. Perhaps he was dubbed ‘the Glorious Half-Pint’. fn8 It would be pleasing to think that they were rattlesnakes and that this remarkable incident initiated the custom of giving newborn babies rattles to wave, but sadly there is no evidence that the species ever existed outside the Americas. fn9 Sounds silly, but it is true. The Milky Way is a galaxy and the word galaxy is derived from the ancient Greek word gala, meaning ‘milk’. Hence galactic and, perhaps, Galaxy milk chocolate. fn10 Hera, who was herself a mother, would have had breast milk; Athena, a virgin goddess, would not have been able to feed the baby. fn11 While he was Hercules to the Romans and to many of us in everyday speech today, it has become the convention these days to render him Heracles. fn12 See Mythos, Vol. I, for further information about Autolycus, rascally son of Hermes. fn13 We will find out more of these twins, known as the Dioscuri, a little later on. fn14 For nature and fate, the Greeks might have said physis and moira. fn15 Variously an individual mountain and a mountain range. Sacred to Dionysus, it was here that Pentheus was torn to pieces by his mother and aunts, and Actaeon by his own hounds (see Mythos, Vol. I). Cithaeron will go on to play a vital role, as we shall see, in the life and tragic destiny of Oedipus. fn16 Not to be confused with the historical Thespis, Greece’s first actor. fn17 We will meet Creon again when we tell the story of Oedipus. fn18 A practice of self-mortification that still goes on. I have seen with my own eyes penitents arriving on their knees at the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. Some of them have kneel-walked hundreds of miles to get there. Far from being Herculean, they are usually ancient and diminutive old ladies. fn19 Enthusiasm meant, originally, possession by a god. The verb ‘enthuse’ was a later American English back-formation.
THE LABOURS OF HERACLES fn1 In Greek they were variously called the erga or more commonly the athloi of Heracles. The word ergon simply means ‘work’ while