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CRITICAL READING ACTIVITY

The Creation
Greek Mythology
In the beginning there was only Chaos, an empty void. But somehow this enormous
vacancy gave birth to Gaea, the earth, to Tartarus, the great region beneath the earth, and to
Eros, the shining god of love and attraction. Chaos also bore Erebus, the darkness of the
netherworld, and Night, the darkness over the earth. Then Erebus slept with Night, who gave
birth to Ether, the heavenly light, and to Day, the earthly light. Later Night alone produced such
beings as Doom, Fate, Death, Sleep, Dreams, Nemesis, and a long list of other atrocities that
steal upon men in darkness.
Meanwhile Gaea, without help, gave birth to Uranus, the starry sky, to the Mountains,
and to Pontus, the sterile sea. Uranus then became Gaea's mate and equal, for he covered her
on all sides. This primordial couple, sky and earth, produced the twelve Titans, the three
towering wheel-eyed Cyclopes, and the three terrible Hecatoncheires with fifty heads and a
hundred arms apiece.
However, Uranus proved to be a harsh husband and father. Each of the Hecatoncheires
hated him, and he hated them in return. In his anger Uranus pushed them back into Gaea's
womb and kept them there. Gaea writhed in pain at this and plotted revenge upon her mate.
She fashioned a flint sickle and called upon her other children to avenge her. The Titans and
Cyclopes recoiled in fear of their father, and only the last-born Titan, Cronus, was daring
enough.
That night when Uranus came to lie without Gaea the crafty Cronus was hiding in
ambush. He grabbed his father's genitals and severed them with his mother's sickle. As the
blood fell to earth the Furies, who punish crimes, the Ash-Tree Nymphs, and the race of Giants
were created. Cronus heaved the members into the sea, and from the foam arose Aphrodite,
the beautiful goddess of love, who floated along and stepped ashore at Cyprus. The mutilated
Uranus either withdrew forever from the earth or else he perished. But before he did so he
promised that Cronus and the other Titans would be punished.

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After confining the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires to Tartarus, Cronus established his
reign. He married his sister Rhea, and under his lordship the Titans produced many offspring.
Yet Cronus could not allow his own children to survive, for both Gaea and Uranus had
prophesied that Cronus would be supplanted by a son. When Rhea, his wife, gave birth to the
gods and goddesses Cronus swallowed Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon shortly
after each was born. Rhea was furious and took pains to save her sixth child, Zeus, from his
father. She bore Zeus in secret and then gave Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling bands to
swallow instead.
Attended by nymphs, Zeus grew to manhood on Crete. Cronus, meanwhile, was
growing old. So Zeus sought advice on how to defeat him from the Titaness Metis, who
prepared an emetic potion. Disguised as a cupbearer, Zeus gave this potion to Cronus, who
vomited up Zeus's brothers and sisters, as well as the stone Rhea had given him. The gods
were alive and unhurt, and together with Zeus they triumphed over Cronus and bound him in
Tartarus. Zeus then set up the stone at Parnassus, a monument to his victory over the Titan
king.
Zeus's triumph, however, was far from secure. The other Titans, with the exception of
Prometheus and Oceanus, rebelled under these upstart gods. For ten years the fighting lasted,
a cosmos-shaking battle in which the elements of nature raged without check. Neither the gods
nor the Titans could secure a decisive victory. But then Zeus went down to Tartarus and
released the Cyclopes and the hundred-handed monsters. The Cyclopes awarded Zeus their
weapons of thunder and lightning, and the Hecatoncheires pelted the Titans with boulders. And
at last the Titans were defeated. Zeus imprisoned them in Tartarus, and he condemned the
rebel Atlas to stand forever at the edge of the world and bear the heavens on his shoulders.
Gaea was enraged at the downfall of her children, the Titans. And through her union
with Tartarus she gave birth to one last monster, Typhoeus, a dragon with a hundred heads
that never rested. Terrified, most of the gods fled. But Zeus was captured and confined.
Released by Hermes, Zeus finally destroyed the dragon by hurling lightning at it again and
again, and by burying it under Etna in Sicily.
There was one more attempt to dislodge Zeus and the other Olympians from their
mastery of the world. The Giants, who had sprouted from Uranus' blood, were dissatisfied, so
they laid siege to Olympus by piling mountain upon mountain in an attempt to scale it. It

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required all the prowess of the gods and the assistance of the mortal Heracles to subdue and
kill the Giants. Having vanquished the Titans, the dragon Typhoeus, and the Giants, the rule of
the Olympians was undisputed.

Reference:
CLIFF NOTES
Mythology, Summary of Greek Mythology- The Creation
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/m/mythology/summary-and-analysis-greekmythology/the-beginnings-8212-creation