The Greek Myths, Volume 1

PENGUIN BOOKS

THE GREEK MYTHS

VOLUME ONE

Robert Graves was born in 1895 in Wimbledon, son of Alfred Percival Graves, the Irish writer, and Amalia Von Ranke. He went from school to the First World War, where he became a captain in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. His principal calling was poetry, and his
Selected Poems
have been published in Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics. Apart from a year as Professor of English Literature at Cairo University in 1926 he earned his living by writing, mostly historical novels, which include
I, Claudius
;
Claudius the God
;
Sergeant Lamb of the Ninth
;
Count Belisarius
;
Wife to Mr Milton
;
Proceed, Sergeant Lamb
;
The Golden Fleece
;
They Hanged My Saintly Billy
; and
The Isles of Unwisdom
. He wrote his autobiography,
Goodbye to All That
, in 1929 and it rapidly established itself as a modern classic.
The Times Literary Supplement
acclaimed it as ‘one of the most candid self-portraits of a poet, warts and all, ever painted’, as well as being of exceptional value as a war document. His two most discussed non-fiction books are
The White Goddess
, which presents a new view of the poetic impulse, and
The Nazarine Gospel Restored
(with Joshua Podro), a re-examination of primitive Christianity. He translated Apuleius, Lucan, and Suetonius for the Penguin Classics series, and compiled the first modern dictionary of Greek Mythology,
The Greek Myths
. His translation of
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
(with Omar Ali-Shah) is also published in Penguin. He was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1961, and made an Honorary Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford, in 1971.

Robert Graves died on 7 December 1985 in Majorca, his home since 1929. On his death
The Times
wrote of him,
‘He will be remembered for his achievements as a prose stylist, historical novelist and memorist, but above all as the great paradigm of the dedicated poet, “the greatest love poet in English since Donne”.’

ROBERT GRAVES

THE GREEK MYTHS

VOLUME ONE

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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First published 1955

Reprinted with amendments 1957

Revised edition 1960

25

Copyright © Robert Graves, 1955, 1960

All rights reserved

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-195965-8

CONTENTS OF VOLUME ONE

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

1.
THE PELASGIAN CREATION MYTH

2.
THE HOMERIC AND ORPHIC CREATION MYTHS

3.
THE OLYMPIAN CREATION MYTH

4.
TWO PHILOSOPHICAL CREATION MYTHS

5.
THE FIVE AGES OF MAN

6.
THE CASTRATION OF URANUS

7.
THE DETHRONEMENT OF CRONUS

8.
THE BIRTH OF ATHENE

9.
ZEUS AND METIS

10.
THE FATES

11.
THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE

12.
HERA AND HER CHILDREN

13.
ZEUS AND HERA

14.
BIRTHS OF HERMES
,
APOLLO
,
ARTEMIS
,
AND DIONYSUS

15.
THE BIRTH OF EROS

16.
POSEIDON
’
S NATURE AND DEEDS

17.
HERMES
’
S NATURE AND DEEDS

18.
APHRODITE
’
S NATURE AND DEEDS

19.
ARES
’
S NATURE AND DEEDS

20.
HESTIA
’
S NATURE AND DEEDS

21.
APOLLO
’
S NATURE AND DEEDS

22.
ARTEMIS
’
S NATURE AND DEEDS

23.
HEPHAESTUS
’
S NATURE AND DEEDS

24.
DEMETER
’
S NATURE AND DEEDS

25.
ATHENE
’
S NATURE AND DEEDS

26.
PAN
’
S NATURE AND DEEDS

27.
DIONYSUS
’
S NATURE AND DEEDS

28.
ORPHEUS

29.
GANYMEDES

30.
ZAGREUS

31.
THE GODS OF THE UNDERWORLD

32.
TYCHE AND NEMESIS

33.
THE CHILDREN OF THE SEA

34.
THE CHILDREN OF ECHIDNE

35.
THE GIANTS
’
REVOLT

36.
TYPHON

37.
THE ALOEIDS

38.
DEUCALION
’
S FLOOD

39.
ATLAS AND PROMETHEUS

40.
EOS

41.
ORION

42.
HELIUS

43.
THE SONS OF HELLEN

44.
ION

45.
ALCYONE AND CEYX

46.
TEREUS

47.
ERECHTHEUS AND EUMOLPUS

48.
BOREAS

49.
ALOPE

50.
ASCLEPIUS

51.
THE ORACLES

52.
THE ALPHABET

53.
THE DACTYLS