The Greek Myths, Volume 1 (2 page)

54.
THE TELCHINES

55.
THE EMPUSAE

56.
IO

57.
PHORONEUS

58.
EUROPE AND CADMUS

59.
CADMUS AND HARMONIA

60.
BELUS AND THE DANAIDS

61.
LAMIA

62.
LEDA

63.
IXION

64.
ENDYMION

65.
PYGMALION AND GALATEA

66.
AEACUS

67.
SISYPHUS

68.
SALMONEUS AND TYRO

69.
ALCESTIS

70.
ATHAMAS

71.
THE MARES OF GLAUCUS

72.
MELAMPUS

73.
PERSEUS

74.
THE RIVAL TWINS

75.
BELLEROPHON

76.
ANTIOPE

77.
NIOBE

78.
CAENIS AND CAENEUS

79.
ERIGONE

80.
THE CALYDONIAN BOAR

81.
TELAMON AND PELEUS

82.
ARISTAEUS

83.
MIDAS

84.
CLEOBIS AND BITON

85.
NARCISSUS

86.
PHYLLIS AND CARYA

87.
ARION

88.
MINOS AND HIS BROTHERS

89.
THE LOVES OF MINOS

90.
THE CHILDREN OF PASIPHAË

91.
SCYLLA AND NISUS

92.
DAEDALUS AND TALOS

93.
CATREUS AND ALTHAEMENES

94.
THE SONS OF PANDION

95.
THE BIRTH OF THESEUS

96.
THE LABOURS OF THESEUS

97.
THESEUS AND MEDEA

98.
THESEUS IN CRETE

99.
THE FEDERALIZATION OF ATTICA

100.
THESEUS AND THE AMAZONS

101.
PHAEDRA AND HIPPOLYTUS

102.
LAPITHS AND CENTAURS

103.
THESEUS IN TARTARUS

104.
THE DEATH OF THESEUS

MAP OF THE GREEK WORLD

A complete index to both volumes and a map showing the sites mentioned in the text will be found at the end of Volume 2

The death of the Old Bull of the Year apparently poleaxed, and the birth of the New Year’s Bull-Calf from a date cluster; under the supervision of a Cretan priestess, who identifies herself with the palm-tree. From a Middle-Minoan bead-seal in the author’s collection (diameter enlarged 1½ times). About 1900
B
.
C
.

FOREWORD

S
INCE
revising
The Greek Myths
in 1958, I have had second thoughts about the drunken god Dionysus, about the Centaurs with their contradictory reputation for wisdom and misdemeanour, and about the nature of divine ambrosia and nectar. These subjects are closely related, because the Centaurs worshipped Dionysus, whose wild autumnal feast was called ‘the Ambrosia’. I no longer believe that when his Maenads ran raging around the countryside, tearing animals or children in pieces (see
27.
f
) and boasted afterwards of travelling to India and back (see
27.
c
), they had intoxicated themselves solely on wine or ivy-ale (see
27.
3
). The evidence, summarized in my
What Food the Centaurs Ate
(
Steps:
Cassell & Co., 1958, pp. 319–343), suggests that Satyrs (goat-totem tribesmen), Centaurs (horse-totem tribesmen), and their Maenad womenfolk, used these brews to wash down mouthfuls of a far stronger drug: namely a raw mushroom,
amanita muscaria
, which induces hallucinations, senseless rioting, prophetic sight, erotic energy, and remarkable muscular strength. Some hours of this ecstasy are followed by complete inertia; a phenomenon that would account for the story of how Lycurgus, armed only with an ox-goad, routed Dionysus’s drunken army of Maenads and Satyrs after its victorious return from India (see
27.
e
).

On an Etruscan mirror the
amanita muscaria
is engraved at Ixion’s feet; he was a Thessalian hero who feasted on ambrosia among the gods (see
63.
b
). Several myths (see
102
, 126, etc.) are consistent with my theory that his descendants, the Centaurs, ate this mushroom; and, according to some historians, it was later employed by the Norse ‘berserks’ to give them reckless power in battle. I now believe that ‘ambrosia’ and ‘nectar’ were intoxicant mushrooms: certainly the
amanita muscaria
; but perhaps others, too, especially a small, slender dung-mushroom named
panaeolus papilionaceus
, which induces harmless and most enjoyable hallucinations. A mushroom not unlike it appears on an Attic vase between the hooves of Nessus the Centaur. The ‘gods’ for whom, in the myths, ambrosia and nectar were reserved, will have been sacred queens and kings of the pre-Classical era. King Tantalus’s crime (see 108.
c
) was that he broke the taboo by inviting commoners to share his ambrosia.

Sacred queenships and kingships lapsed in Greece; ambrosia then became, it seems, the secret element of the Eleusinian, Orphic and other Mysteries associated with Dionysus. At all events, the participants swore to keep silence about what they ate or drank, saw unforgettable visions, and were promised immortality. The ‘ambrosia’ awarded to winners of the Olympic footrace when victory no longer conferred the sacred kingship on them was clearly a substitute: a mixture of foods the initial letters of which, as I show in
What Food the Centaurs Ate
, spelled out the Greek word ‘mushroom’. Recipes quoted by Classical authors for nectar, and for
cecyon
, the mint-flavoured drink taken by Demeter at Eleusis, likewise spell out ‘mushroom’.

I have myself eaten the hallucigenic mushroom,
psilocybe
, a divine ambrosia in immemorial use among the Masatec Indians of Oaxaca Province, Mexico; heard the priestess invoke Tlaloc, the Mushroom-god, and seen transcendental visions. Thus I wholeheartedly agree with R. Gordon Wasson, the American discoverer of this ancient rite, that European ideas of heaven and hell may well have derived from similar mysteries. Tlaloc was engendered by lightning; so was Dionysus (see
14.
c
); and in Greek folklore, as in Masatec, so are all mushrooms – proverbially called ‘food of the gods’ in both languages. Tlaloc wore a serpent-crown; so did Dionysus (see
27.
a
). Tlaloc had an underwater retreat; so had Dionysus (see
27.
e
). The Maenads’ savage custom of tearing off their victims’ heads (see
27.
f
and
28.
d
) may refer allegorically to tearing off the sacred mushroom’s head – since in Mexico its stalk is never eaten. We read that Perseus, a sacred King of Argos, converted to Dionysus worship (see
27.
i
), named Mycenae after a toadstool which he found growing on the site, and which gave forth a stream of water (see
73.
r
). Tlaloc’s emblem was a toad; so was that of Argos; and from the mouth of Tlaloc’s toad in the Tepentitla fresco issues a stream of water. Yet at what epoch were the European and Central American cultures in contact?