“she lay with Heaven and bare deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire.” – Hesiod, from The Theogony
`My children, gotten of a sinful father, if you will obey me, we should punish the vile outrage of your father; for he first thought of doing shameful things.’
While Cronus hid away from his father, Uranus was crossing the earth bringing the night. Uranus then appeared before Gaia, planning to lay with her, and it was then that Cronus struck. The young titan approached from behind and used the sickle to cut off the genitals of his father. He then flung them across the earth before they landed in the sea.
The blood from the detached member of Uranus mixed with the foam of the ocean. From the mist and the foam rose a beautiful figure. She was a goddess unmatched in beauty and grace, she stepped upon the land and the flowers and vegetation grew around her. She was Aphrodite, one of the original Olympians.
It was said that as Uranus lay bleeding upon the earth as Cronus stood over him. The blood spilled from the now deposed ruler of heaven and mixed with the earth, Gaia. Instantly several creatures were born from Gaia as her husband lay dying.
From this blood sprang the Giants, the Erinyes (the avenging Furies), the Meliae (the ash-tree nymphs). These creatures sprang from the blood of Uranus and then began to wander the earth.
Cronus was now the king of heaven. He had deposed his father and taken his place as ruler of the universe. However with the dying breath of Uranus, he prophesied a terrible fate for his traitorous son. Uranus predicted that one of Cronus’s children would overthrow him one day, just as he had overthrown his father. The prophecy would hang heavy on the head of the Titan.
4 comments
Alas, Atlas and Prometheus (and Epimetheus and Menoetius) are the children of Iapetus and Clymene, NOT of Uranus and Gaea.
(…and they aren’t two of the 12 Titans, either.)
Nyx was the wife of chaos and then made tarterus the pit of creation and then Gaea and Uranus and then Gaea made the titans and then Kronos killed Uranus with Iapetus, Hyperion, Krios, and Phoebe I think by holding him down and the Cyclops were not Uranus’es they were Gaea’s and Tarterus’es and atlas was a titan and you don’t even mention Atlas he held up the sky for Zeus’es sake
I wish to learn more about Greece and its Mythologies….
The main thing in general chaos is not to lose your human essence.
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