Leto on Delos

Hera's watchers drive the laboring Leto from every shore.

Zeus next laid eyes on the "dark-gowned Leto," daughter of the Titaness Phoebe (prophetic wisdom) and the Titan Coeus (analytical intellect).

Hesiod describes Leto as "kindhearted to both men and gods, mild from the beginning, gentlest in all Olympos."

Zeus was enchanted by Leto and by her equally modest sister Asteria, mother of Hecate and goddess of the falling stars.

Asteria escaped Zeus's lust by leaping into the sea, transforming herself into the Greek island of Delos. Meanwhile, her sister Leto got pregnant by Zeus and became the new target of Hera's wrath.

In the following "Hymn to Delos," Callimachus describes how Hera kept watch, ensuring that Leto was denied any land on which to give birth…

Callimachus

Hera kept watch in the heavens, her heart swelling with unspoken rage, and she sought to hinder Leto, who was held fast in the pangs of childbirth. She set two watchers to guard the earth: Ares and Iris.

Ares, seated in arms upon the high crest of Mount Haemus, surveyed the wide continents, while his steeds were stalled by the seven-chambered cave of Boreas, the North Wind.

Iris, seated upon Mimas, hastened to the far-scattered isles. There they sat, threatening all the cities that Leto approached, and forbidding them to grant her shelter.

The lands of Arcadia fled Leto; the aged city of Pheneios fled, and all the land of Pelops. Aonia also fled, as did the springs of Dirke and Strophia.

Only Asteria, lover of song, beheld Leto’s suffering. She welcomed her sister ashore.

Leto gladly ended her weary wandering, sat beside the stream of Inopos, loosed her girdle, and leaned her shoulders back against a palm tree, while sweat poured over her flesh like rain.

Hera, Lady of heavy wrath, did not remain long without tidings, for swift Iris sped to her. Still panting, with words mingled in fear, she spoke:

Iris

O Hera, most excellent among goddesses—Leto looses her girdle within an island. All others rejected her, but Asteria called her by name. Asteria—that scum of the sea, as you well know…

Hera (juno)

So now, shameful mates of Zeus, may you all wed in secret and give birth in darkness—not even where poor mill-women labour, but where the sea-seals bring forth, amid desolate rocks.

Yet against Asteria I am not utterly angered. She has wronged me in granting Leto favour, but I still honour her—for she did not desecrate my bed, but chose the sea instead of Zeus.

Leto gave birth to twins, becoming the goddess of motherhood and protector of children. Delos, once barren and wandering, immediately sprung to life.

Apollo

Meet Apollo through his birth, instruments, sunlight, danger, and healing.

On the island of Delos, Leto has just given birth to her godly twins, Apollo and Artemis. Let us first meet Apollo…

E.m. Berens

Phœbus-Apollo, god of Light, Prophecy, Music, Poetry, and the Arts and Sciences, was deemed the noblest conception in Greek myth, his worship widespread across Greece, Asia Minor, and every Greek colony.

Apollo, son of Zeus and Leto, was born beneath a palm at Mount Cynthus on rocky Delos; the earth smiled, Delos arrayed herself in golden flowers, swans circled, and Delian nymphs sang.

Leto resigned the babe to Themis, who swaddled and fed him nectar and ambrosia until, astonishing her, he burst his bands and stood a full-grown youth.

Declaring he would announce to mortals the will of Zeus, he demanded a lyre and a bow as the instruments of his delight and his prophetic office.

Apollo

The golden lyre shall be my friend; the bent bow my delight; in oracles I will foretell the dark future.

E.m. Berens

He ascended to Olympus and was welcomed with joyful acclamations among the immortals, acknowledged as the most beautiful and glorious of all the sons of Zeus.

Phœbus-Apollo was god of light in two senses: the day’s great orb that illumines the world, and the heavenly brightness that animates the soul of man.

He inherited the sun’s function from Helios and came to be fully identified with him; myths of Helios were ascribed to Apollo, and some tribes even named him Helios-Apollo.

As a divinity whose power unfolds in broad daylight, he brings joy to nature and prosperity to man, dispersing night’s noxious vapours and helping grain to ripen and flowers to bloom.

Those darting rays of the sun could also bring about sudden death. When young men died, they were said to be shot down by Apollo (and young women by his twin, Artemis).

E.m. Berens

As god of light he protected shepherds, warming meadows and fields, giving rich pastures to the flocks and gladdening the heart of the herdsman.

Because the sun’s temperate heat invigorates life and fosters medicinal herbs, Apollo was thought to restore health and life, a healing power later perfected in his son Asclepius (we’ll meet him later).

Apollo, Muse-Leader and Prophet

Apollo leads the Muses, gathers prophecy, and claims Delphi.

E.m. Berens

With his first genial beams all nature wakes, and the woods re-echo with untaught lays of countless birds; hence he is the god of music and the inspirer of poetry.

Music marked his worship: sacred dances and even sacrifices were performed to instruments, and this influence led Greeks to hail him as Musagetes, leader of the nine Muses of poetry and song.

In that character he is pictured in a long flowing robe, laurel-crowned, lyre slung by a band across the chest, his hair streaming over his shoulders with a soft, almost effeminate grace.

Yet, above all, historical Greece revered him as god of prophecy; though other gods foretold, Apollo concentrated all seer-power, his all-seeing eye piercing hidden recesses and the dark veils of the future.

No sooner had he tasted Olympus than a desire seized him to interpret Zeus’s will for mortals; he descended to earth, journeying widely to find a fitting site for an oracle.

At last he reached the southern slopes of Parnassus above the harbour of Crissa and discovered, beneath an overhanging cliff, a secluded place.

If you’ll remember, the stone that Cronus regurgitated, the omphalos or “navel,” was placed at Delphi to mark the center of the world.

Here in this sacred spot, Apollo established the Delphic oracle and seated the Pythia, his high priestess. Yet the place was not unclaimed: Python, a monstrous serpent, guarded the springs and scourged the neighbouring land.

Daphne

Apollo defeats Python, insults Cupid, and becomes trapped by divided desire.

Monstrous creatures were left behind by the receding of the Flood of Deucalion. One of those creatures was the giant Python, who now torments the people of Delphi, where Apollo has just built his temple.

Ovid

The remaining moisture of miry fens fermented in the sun and fruitful seeds in nourished soils grew to their ordained shapes. When the seven-streamed Nile returned to her ancient bed, the sun's rays impregnated the slime.

Spread with diluvian ooze, Earth felt heat from the glowing sun and gave unnumbered species to the light. Among these creatures was the monstrous Python, which roamed earthy, terrifying mankind.

Phoebus Apollo, till then a hunter of deer and goat, destroyed the monster with darts. To keep the deed from oblivion, he founded the Pythian Games.

Proud of Python's death, Phoebus Apollo boasted of his archery. He saw the impish Cupid (Eros), the god of Love, bending his little bow and ridiculed him.

Apollo

What use have you, wanton boy, for mighty arms—great weapons suited to war? The bow belongs to high deities whose strength can overcome foes.

It belongs to the one who slew the vast, pestilential Python. Content yourself with the flames your torch enkindles and leave to me the glory that is mine, boy.

Eros (cupid)

Conquer the world with your glorious bow; with this small shaft I shall pierce your boasting heart. By as much as your might exceeds your defeated foes, so much less is your glory than mine.

To prove his point, Cupid shot two arrows: a golden arrow that caused Apollo to burn with love, and a leaden arrow that caused his beloved, a chaste nymph named Daphne, to feel only loathing.

Ovid

The dull lead struck the nymph, daughter of the river-god Peneus; the keen gold pierced the god to the marrow, and love and loathing were parted.

Daphne bound a maiden's fillet round her flowing hair, and her pure mind refused the love of men. Beloved and wooed, she walked in silent paths; her modesty could not bear a man's gaze or hear his pleading.

When Phoebus Apollo saw her, he grew distraught; wonder kindled delusive hopes, and even his own oracles misled him, as fire takes stubble or a careless spark consumes the stacked wheat at dawn.

He saw her bright hair waving on her neck—how beautiful, were it arranged!—her eyes like stars of sparkling fire, lips sweetest for kissing; and whatever was not seen must have been more beautiful still.

The Laurel Chase

Daphne escapes Apollo through metamorphosis; the laurel becomes his sacred crown.

Apollo

Stay, O Nymph, O Daphne, I entreat you; it is no enemy who follows you. The lamb flees the wolf, the fawn the lion, the dove the eagle; yet I pursue for dear love.

Ask whom you will—I am no churl, no cave-dweller. The Delphic land, the Pataraean realm, Claros and Tenedos hold my name in reverence, and my immortal father is Jupiter.

My bow is sure, yet a fiery shaft has pierced my heart; my oracles and my lyre serve gods and men, but no herb can heal my wound.

Ovid

Even as he made his complaint, the nymph fled with timid steps and left him to his murmurs and his pain.

The breeze bared her limbs; zephyrs fluttered in her garments; love lent speed to his feet—like a greyhound gaining on a frightened hare—until his warm breath mingled in her hair.

Daphne

Help me, my father, if your flowing streams have power; help me, O Mother Earth. Destroy the beauty that has injured me, or change the body that brings me ruin.

Ovid

Before her prayer had ended, numbness seized her body; a slender bark closed around her gentle bosom; her hair became moving leaves, her arms waving branches; her feet, once swift, were fixed as clinging roots, and her face was hidden with encircling green.

Apollo admired and loved the graceful tree, for still—though changed—her slender form remained.

Resting his right hand on the trunk, he felt her bosom throbbing in the bark, clung to trunk and branch as if to twine, and kissed the wood, which recoiled from every kiss.

Apollo

Though you cannot be my bride, you shall be my chosen tree. Your green leaves, O laurel, shall forever crown my brow and wreathe my quiver and lyre.

Apollo, grief-stricken but still in love, declared the laurel tree sacred to him: laurel wreaths would adorn his own head, as it would those of poets, victors, and emperors for ages to come.

Asclepius

A raven's report exposes the tragic limit of Apollo's healing power.

Though Phœbus-Apollo possessed the power of restoring health, the true god of healing and medicine was his son, Asclepius.

The serpent entwined “Rod of Asclepius” is the symbol of medicine to this day. We’ll read the birth story of Asclepius from Ovid.

Ovid

Long ago the ravens were not black; their plumage was white as any dove, as the geese that guard the Capitol, as the swans that haunt the streams, until their own chattering tongues brought them disgrace.

Phoebus Apollo loved Coronis of Larissa, fairest maid of Aemonia, but his own Raven had witnessed her unfaithfulness.

Spreading his white wings, the Raven hastened to inform his patron, Phoebus, how he had seen the fair Coronis with a lad of Thessaly.

And when Apollo, Phoebus, heard the tale the busy Raven made such haste to tell, he dropped his plectrum and his laurel wreath, and his bright countenance went white with rage.

He seized his trusted arms; having bent his certain bow, he pierced with a deadly shaft that bosom which so often he had pressed against his own.

Coronis

Ah, Phoebus, punishment is justly mine; but I am pregnant. Why did you not await the hour of birth? By my death an innocent is slain.

Ovid

She drew the keen shaft from the wound; her snow-white limbs were bathed in purple blood, and her soul expired with her life-blood as death congealed her drooping form.

Sadly the love-lorn God repented his jealous deed and regretted too late his credence to the Raven's tale; venting rage on the bird, he hated his bow, the string, his own right hand.

As a last resource to overcome her destiny, he strove to cherish her beloved form, but vain were all his medicinal arts.

The Child from the Fire

Apollo rescues Asclepius from the pyre; medicine grows powerful enough to threaten death.

Ovid

He saw the funeral pyre upraised, where wreathed in flames her body should be burnt; the sorrow of his heart welled forth in sighs, yet he was tearless, for no celestial face may be bedewed.

So grieves the poor dam when the butcher, with a sounding blow, divides the hollow temples of her suckling calf; yet Phoebus poured fragrant myrrh and sweet perfumes upon Coronis' breast.

Once more he pressed that breast against his own, and after the rites were done, he plucked from out the flames, forth from the mother's thighs, his child unborn. He carried the child to the cave of double-natured Chiron.

He then called the silly raven, high in hopes of reward, but, angry with his meddling, turned the bird's white feathers black.

He forbade him evermore to perch among the favoured birds whose plumes are white, condemning him to the blackened hue his tattling tongue had earned.

In jealous fury Apollo has killed Coronis, then too late regretted his deed. From her funeral fire he rescued their unborn son and gave him to Chiron, the wise centaur and teacher of heroes.

The child was Asclepius, raised by Chiron to master the healing art. His skill grew so great that he healed the hopelessly ill and even raised the dead.

He is depicted with a plain staff bearing a single coiled serpent: the staff marks a traveling physician; the serpent, shedding its skin, signifies renewal and cure.

Because of Asclepius's incredible skills as a healer, Hades complained to Zeus that Asclepius was depriving his realm of souls. Zeus struck Asclepius down. Yet the art of medicine endures, marked by the Rod of Asclepius—the serpent-twined staff—seen on medical uniforms and ambulances worldwide.

Artemis and Callisto

Jove weaponizes Diana's likeness; a bath exposes Callisto's pregnancy.

Diana (Artemis to the Greeks) had many followers, including the lovely nymph Callisto, herself a huntress, simple in dress, and skilled with bow and spear.

Jove was repairing the world from the fallout of Phaethon's chariot ride when he happened upon Callisto, "fires kindling in his breast."

Ovid

Callisto was not clothed in sumptuous robes nor did she deck her hair in artful coils; with a buckle she girded her robe and bound her long hair with a white fillet.

As the bright sun rolled down the sky, Callisto entered a secret thicket known to her, slipped the quiver from her arm, and loosed her bended bow.

Softly reclining upon the velvet turf, she pressed her white neck on the quiver and slept; when Jupiter beheld her, negligent and beautiful.

Jove transformed himself, took Diana's form, assumed Diana's dress, and, imitating her, awoke the maid and spoke in gentle tones.

"What mountain slope, O virgin of my train, has been your chase?" he said in Diana's voice, gently imitating the goddess to awaken and reassure the maid.

“Hail, goddess, greater than celestial Jove; I would declare it even if he heard the words,” Callisto replied, rising to greet the seeming Diana.

Jove heard and smiled, well pleased to be preferred above himself; [as Diana,] he kissed her many times and strained her in his arms, while she began to tell the varied fortunes of her hunt.

Jove then took his original form and forced his desire upon her. At last, she broke away to rejoin Diana's train. As the huntresses undressed to bathe, Callisto's pregnancy became obvious to Diana…

Ovid

The Moon's bent horns were rising from their ninth sojourn when, fainting from Apollo's flames, the goddess of the Chase observed a cool umbrageous grove with a murmuring stream over golden sands.

Approving the spot, she lightly struck her foot against the ripples of the stream and praised it, inviting her companions to rest by the murmuring water.

Artemis

Far from the gaze of all the curious, we may bathe our limbs and sport in this clear water.

Ovid

Quickly they undid their garments, but Callisto hid behind the others until they knew her state, and the goddess in anger drove her away.

The Great Bear

Bear, hunter, and jealous goddess become a map of the northern sky.

Callisto gives birth to Arcas. Juno, long suspicious, is enraged, seizes Callisto and transforms her into a bear, taking her speech but not her understanding.

Callisto wanders terrified, hunted by dogs and beasts; years pass as Arcas grew to manhood. While hunting, Arcas sights the bear (his mother) and raises his spear; Jove stops him and lifts them together into the sky.

Ovid

In a mighty wind, through vacant space, he upbore them to the dome of starry heaven and fixed them as constellations, bright amid the starry host.

Juno on high beheld Callisto crowned with glory, and great with rage her bosom heaved; she flew across the sea to hoary Tethys and to old Oceanus, whom all the Gods revere.

Thus to them, in answer to their words, she made address, complaining that her rival now sat upon the Throne of Heaven, honoured to her shame as new-made stars.

They become the Great Bear and a companion constellation; Juno, furious at their honor, asks Tethys and Oceanus to forbid the stars from "bathing," so they never set.

Practically, those stars circle the celestial pole and never dip below the horizon in Greek latitudes, which Juno treats as punishment rather than privilege.

Actaeon

Artemis's inviolable wildness and Actaeon's hunt converge at a sacred pool.

Artemis (Diana to the Romans) was the goddess of the hunt and the moon. She embodied the untamed wild.

She asked her dad Zeus for the gift of perpetual virginity so that she could remain a wild huntress, flanked by fifty nymphs, four hinds (female deer), and a pack of female-only hunting hounds.

The most iconic story of Artemis is when she's caught bathing by the mortal hunter, Actaeon.

Ovid

It was midday, the hour when shadows draw to their shortest; the sun god’s chariot was halfway from east to west.

A band of huntsmen was strolling along through the pathless glades, when their leader, the young Actaeon, calmly made an announcement:

The men did just as he told them. They took their break in a valley, dense with pine and tapering cypress.

The valley was called Gargaphie, sacred haunt of the huntress Diana. There, in a secret corner, was a cave surrounded by woodland.

Nature had moulded porous tufa into an arch. To the right, a babbling spring widened into a pool ringed by a grassy clearing.

Here the goddess who guards the woods, weary with hunting, would come to bathe her virginal limbs in the clear water.

On this occasion she entered and handed her javelin, quiver, and slackened bow to the chosen nymph who carried her weapons.

Other nymphs put out their arms to receive her dress and boots. The more expert nymph, Crocale, gathered the locks billowing over her mistress' neck.

As the virgin goddess bathed in her usual pool, fate brought Actaeon sauntering aimlessly through unfamiliar woodland.

Soon he reached the grotto where the springs welled and trickled. The nymphs, startled in their nakedness, struck their breasts and shrieked.

They rushed to shield their mistress, but Diana, taller by head and shoulders, could not be hidden. As clouds flushed with sunset, or dawn tinged purple, so her face burned when she was seen.

She longed for her arrows, but only water was at hand. She dashed it on his face, and cried words that sealed his doom.

Artemis

Go tell it, if you can, that you saw Diana stripped of her robes!

Ovid

Then Actaeon sprouted the horns of a stag, his neck lengthened, his ears narrowed to points, his hands became hooves, his arms forelegs, and his body became covered in dappled hide.

The Hunter Hunted

Speechless Actaeon becomes the final prize of his own hunt.

Ovid

Last of all came panic. He bolted, marveling at his speed. He saw his horns reflected in a stream and would have said, 'Alas, wretched me!'—but no voice came. Only groans, and tears running down his altered face.

Actaeon

Should I return to my father's halls or plunge into the forest wilds? Fear keeps me from the woods; shame bars my way home.

Ovid

His mind remained, and he wavered: should he return to his father’s halls, or plunge into the forest wilds? Fear kept him from the woods; shame barred the way home.

As he wavered in doubt, his hounds spied him. First Blackfoot and sharp-nosed Tracer gave the cry—Tracer of the Gnossian breed, Blackfoot of the Spartan.

Swift as wind the others followed: Glutton, Quicksight, Surefoot, Blackmane; Killbuck, Rover, Tempest, Savage, Hunter, Wingfoot; more than memory can number.

Over crags and cliffs the pack rushed, where no paths led. He fled by ways he once pursued—but now from his own. He would have cried, “Behold your master, Actaeon!” but no words came.

Actaeon

Behold your master Actaeon!

Ovid

The pack pressed on. Blackmane first tore his back, Savage next, then Rover sank teeth in his shoulder. Others, though late, cut by a path and reached him first, clinging till the rest arrived.

They all fastened on their master's flesh. Groaning, he made sounds no man nor stag could utter. He fell on trembling knees, his stricken eyes pleading with his own hounds to spare him.

His friends, in ignorance, urged the dogs on with shouts of “Actaeon! Actaeon!” as if he were far away. “Why are you not here, indolent man, to enjoy this heaven-sent prize?”

If only he had not been there! But he was. He would dearly have loved to watch the hunt than feel its fury. The hounds tore him piece by piece until nothing lived that was Actaeon, save his memory.

Niobe

Niobe's boast brings Apollo's unerring arithmetic down on her seven sons.

We've just read the story of Actaeon, who accidentally saw Diana bathing. She turns him into a stag, and he is killed by his own hounds.

Actaeon didn't intend to see Diana. It was an accident. So why did he meet such a cruel end? Before we answer this question, let's read the (extremely violent) story of Niobe and her children.

Niobe, queen of Thebes, offended Latona (Leto to the Greeks) by boasting of her many children. Latona, the goddess of motherhood, sent her twins, Apollo and Diana, to settle the score.

On behalf of their mother, Apollo and Diana descended to the citadel of Cadmus where the sons of Niobe were busy racing horses.

Ovid

There the older sons of Niobe, on steeds emblazoned with bright dyes and harness rich with studded gold, were circling in their pride.

One of these, Ismenus, first-born of his mother, while controlling his fleet courser's foaming mouth, suddenly cried out as a shaft pierced his breast.

The reins dropped on the rapid courser's neck; his drooping form fell forward to the ground and lay still.

Not far from him, his brother Sipylus heard the whistling of a fatal shaft and, in fright, urged on the plunging steed like a pilot crowding sail before a storm.

But while he fled, the unerring shaft flew and transfixed him where the neck supports the head, the sharp point protruding from his throat as he rolled over the wild horse's neck.

Phaedimus and Tantalus finished their coursing on the track and, shining with oil, were wrestling in the field when another arrow hurtled from the sky.

Alphenor saw them die, beat his breast in agony, and ran to lift their cold lifeless bodies in his arms; as he did so he fell upon them, struck in the midriff by Apollo.

He pulled forth the fatal shot, which with its barb dragged a torn clot of his lung, and his blood and life poured out upon the air.

The youthful Damasicthon next was struck, not only once; an arrow pierced his leg where the thigh sinews begin, and as he stooped to pluck it, another keen shaft shot into his neck.

The blood drove it out, spouting after it in crimson jets that streaked the ground, and the earth drank it as he sank.

Then Ilioneus, last of seven sons, lifted his unavailing arms in prayer and cried for mercy from the Universal Deities, gods of eternal heaven. But Apollo had already loosed his arrow.

The Weeping Rock

Niobe loses her family, becomes stone, and reveals the impersonal logic of the twins.

News spread. Amphion, Niobe's husband, took his own life. Niobe hugged her dead sons. As the family mourned, Diana arrived to kill Niobe's remaining daughters.

Ovid

Clothed in black, the sisters of the stricken brothers stood with hair disheveled by funeral biers; one, plucking from her brother's heart a shaft, swooned to death and fell on her face upon him.

Another girl, while she consoled her mother, was suddenly stricken by an unseen deadly wound; doubled in convulsions, she closed her lips and held them tight till both breath and life were lost.

Another vainly rushed away from death and met it, pitching head-first to the ground; still another died upon her corpse, another sought a secret death, and then another slipped beyond life's edge.

One child remained, and the mother in frenzy-fear covered her with all her garments and her body. Niobe entreated for her child's life, but it was taken by the same unerring bow.

Childless, Niobe crouched beside her slaughtered sons, her lifeless daughters, and her husband's corpse; not even the breeze moved her fallen hair as a chill of marble spread upon her flesh.

Beneath her pale, set brows her eyes moved not; her bitter tongue turned stiff in her hard jaws; her lovely veins congealed; her stiff neck and rigid hands could neither bend nor move.

Her limbs and body, all, were changed to stone; yet ever she would weep. To this day the weeping rock drips with tears.

To understand this (and other) tragic endings, we need to see the gods as the Greeks and Romans did: as impersonal forces embodied. Remember Actaeon from earlier?

Just as a cliff isn't “cruel” for punishing a misstep, Artemis—the wild, untamed world—isn't "cruel" to punish Actaeon for intruding upon her; it's just her nature.

Diana represents the untouchable limit of the world. Her twin, Apollo, represents the orderly and measurable world. Both descend on Niobe for her hubris.

Niobe insulted motherhood by reducing her children to arithmetic. She measured her motherly virtue by the perishable. For this misstep, the gods of order and limit emptied her account.