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The Return of Typhon Set
The Tales of Capricorn and Pisces
Chapter 2: The Monster Returns
Hermes looked
down from the heights of Mount Olympus and watched the people on
earth. "How can I judge the lives of men if I do not know what it
is like to live as a man?" he thought. "I must go to earth and live
there and see what it is like for myself." So he went to the forests
and hills of Arcadia and became a shepherd.
While watching over his flocks he had a lot of time to think. "Many
mortals ask 'What is the meaning of life?'. It seems that there
are many meanings to life," he thought. "If you are talking about
the meaning of life for the mind, it is to increase the knowledge
of mankind. If you are talking about the meaning of life for the
body, it is to perpetuate the species." He was very pleased with
his thought and it seemed like such a good answer that he married
and he and his wife gave birth to a son. They named the boy Pan.
Pan was a merry child, happily laughing all the time, but there
was one thing that marred his perfection; he was born with the beard,
horns, legs and hoofs of a goat. He frightened any nurse who came
to tend him, so Hermes wrapped his baby in rabbit skins and took
him to Olympus. The gods raised him and he became clever like his
father. When he was grown he decided to live where he was born,
so he went to earth to the forests of Arcadia.
It was a very warm and sunny day and Echo's calls sounded through
the mountains. Pan wore a crown of pine needles as he nimbly scampered
across the craggy mountain peaks. "Will today be my lucky day?"
he asked as he strained his eyes looking for woodnymphs lounging
by the mountain streams, for he knew that heat exhausted them. "Yes,"
he said, "it is my lucky day," for he spied Syrinx, fast asleep
by a stream. Syrinx was his favorite for she was as beautiful as
the goddess Artemis, but also like the goddess, although she was
pursued by both gods and satyrs, she refused them all. Syrinx was
so tired that she didn't even hear Pan as he approached. But Pan
was so eager that he became careless and stepped upon a crisp dry
branch. It snapped and the nymph awoke with a start.
As she opened her eyes and spied Pan's hooves, she leaped to her
feet, forgetting her bow and arrows as she ran away as swiftly as
the wind. She ran fast, but she was tired and confused and she quickly
lost her sense of direction. She forgot that the path she took led
her down a peninsula where she would be trapped. "This is very lucky
for me," Pan said as he saw her mistake. He quickly scurried after
her.
It was too late when Syrinx discovered that she was trapped. "Oh
please, dear goddess of the moon and sisters of the stream, save
me from my attacker."
Just as Pan reached out to grab her soft slim arm it changed into
a marsh reed and he sighed in disappointment. As his sigh blew over
the reed, a shrill tone filled the air. He was leaning over a bigger
reed when he sighed again, and a very deep tone sounded. "This is
interesting," Pan thought, "I wonder if different lengths of reeds
produce different sounds." As he experimented by blowing across
different sized reeds, he noticed they made a variety of sounds.
The longer they were, the deeper was their tone. "At least I'll
have something to think about besides my broken heart," he said.
He collected reeds of different sizes and found some wax from a
local hive of bees, then he fitted them together into an instrument.
He sat and blew across the reeds, experimenting with the different
tones until he was able to play beautiful music. "I'll soon attract
the nymphs because of my lovely songs," he thought as he played.
From that time forward, the forests of Arcadia were filled with
the magical music of Pan's pipes.
One day, as the breezes of the Arcadian forest carried the tones
of Pan's pipes, the roar of a hundred beasts drowned the music out.
But the sound wasn't really made by a hundred beasts, it was made
by only one and his name was Typhon. Long, long ago when the Titans
were defeated by the Olympians, Earth lost her Titan children and
she was very upset. "If my Titan children will be taken from me,
I'll have another child," she said. "Uranos is no longer here to
father a child. Instead, I'll have a baby with Tartarus, the spirit
of Hell." So she gave birth to the largest and strongest of all
her children and she called him Typhon.
His torso was the only part of him that was human, for he had a
hundred dragon heads with eyes that flashed with fire, while each
mouth made a different monstrous sound so that even when he was
alone, Typhon sounded like an army and he frightened all the other
gods.
Not only did he sound like an army, but he had the power of one,
as well. He was so tall that his heads touched the stars, and his
legs were a sea of a hundred snakes. Giant wings sprouted from his
back and when they flapped they could move the air fast enough to
cause a tornado. He also had a hundred pairs of arms and hands that
were so indestructible they could handle red-hot rocks. He was born
with an evil heart and when he saw the happiness of the gods in
Olympus, he vowed to put an end to their pleasure.
The gods were relaxing on Mount Olympus when, out of nowhere, the
angry roar of a hundred beasts shook their garden and fiery rocks
fell like hailstones all around them, setting the roof of their
palace on fire. As they looked up, a wall of dragon heads opened
its mouths and breathed fire, and the smoke suffocated and choked
them as they ran for their lives. Even Zeus was frightened, but
he knew he had to fight. The flames of Olympus silhouetted Zeus
as he stood tall with his arm raised and a lightning bolt held tightly
in his hand. The foul stench of sulfur came from his enemy, and
mixed with the smoke of the fire, it stung his nostrils. He narrowed
his eyes as he searched the hissing wall of dragon heads, looking
for a vulnerable spot to aim his bolt. Finally he saw an unprotected
part of the demon's underbelly and he hurled the bolt with all his
strength as it sliced into its mark.
But instead of killing the monster, when the bolt struck, Typhon
reared up and uncoiled his spine as the hundred dragon heads unfurled
making a wall so high above the clouds that they seemed to never
end. Zeus grabbed his sickle and craned his neck to see the top
of the beast, but it was impossible and the sun burned his eyes.
Now Zeus was blinded by the sun and he couldn't see as Typhon reached
down with only one of his hundred pairs of hands and grabbed him
tightly.
The sickle that Zeus held was the same one that his father had used
against his grandfather. Although he couldn't see, he thrashed wildly
with his sickle as dragon heads were chopped off and flew in every
direction. Typhon screamed in pain, letting go of Zeus and stumbling
away to Mount Casium. Zeus followed Typhon on his retreat, brandishing
his sickle with one hand and hurling lightning bolts with the other,
and the more Typhon howled in agony, the bolder Zeus became.
Typhon arched his back and his multitude of eyes glared at his adversary.
Typhon swiftly slid his serpent legs around Zeus and tied him tightly
in their coils. Then he reached down, grabbed the sickle out of
Zeus' hand and used it, cutting the tendons from his hands and feet
as Zeus lay limp and helpless in his attacker's hands.
Typhon threw Zeus across his shoulders like a hunter with his daily
kill and he waded across the sea, placing his limp body in the Corycian
cave on the island of Cilicia. Typhon still held Zeus' severed tendons
and, looking for a place to hide them, he spied a bear and tore
the animal apart, wrapping the tendons inside its skin. Then he
found Delphyne, the half-woman half-dragon creature, and he made
her their guard. Once again he raised his dragon heads as he sniffed
the air and started toward Olympus.
"Here he comes again!" the gods exclaimed in fear as they watched
from Olympus. "He destroyed Zeus. What can we do?" It was at this
moment that Pan arrived for he had come to investigate the cause
of the noise that drowned out his music. He had never seen Olympus
in such an uproar for all the gods were speaking at once and no
one was listening. It was obvious that none of them knew what to
do, and they didn't have much time to figure it out for Typhon was
quickly approaching.
"First of all, we must make ourselves safe. We cannot fight him
or save Zeus if we are destroyed," Pan said, looking in a practical
way at the situation. The other gods nodded in agreement. "Let's
go to Egypt where we can take the forms of different animals. We'll
be protected because Typhon won't be able to tell us from the real
animals. That way we'll be near each other, so we can figure out
what to do next." The gods hurriedly agreed and they raced off to
Egypt.
When Typhon reached Olympus he found only an empty city, for far
below on earth Hermes had become an ibis, Apollo changed to a bird,
and Artemis was now a cat. Aphrodite, along with Eros, jumped into
the Nile river and turned into two fishes. Pan joining them in the
Nile, but he wasn't concentrating for he was thinking about what
the gods should do next and, when he hit the water, from the waist
down he became a fish, while the rest became a goat. It was fortunate
that Typhon didn't look for him, for he would have fooled no one.
The gods had escaped him and Typhon was angry so he combed the earth
in search of them. Early in his search he had come to Egypt, but
since he wasn't looking for animals, he never found them and he
left to look in other parts of the world. As soon as Typhon left,
Pan knew it was time to act. "Hermes, we must save Olympus," Pan
said to his father. Together they went to Cilicia.
A full golden moon rode high in the sky when they reached Cilicia
and it lit the land so they could see everything as they flew overhead.
They spied a fire and, lying next to it with a bearskin upon her
lap was Delphyne, the dragonwoman. "Zeus' tendons are in the bearskin,"
Hermes said, for he had watched from Olympus as Typhon hid the tendons.
They silently landed and hid in the bushes. "Delphyne's awake,"
Hermes whispered. "We can't get the bearskin unless she goes to
sleep." Pan reached into his tunic and pulled out his pipes, then
he played a gentle lullaby and they watched Delphyne's head waver
and her eyes grow heavy. Finally her head fell to her chest and
she began to softly snore. Pan continued to play while Hermes stepped
gingerly around the fire, grabbed the bearskin from across her lap,
and quickly returned to the bushes.
"Zeus is in the Corycian cave," Hermes said. "I watched as Typhon
put him there. Let's go." Carefully holding the bearskin, they went
to the cave and found Zeus inside. He was very weak, but he recognized
them as they approached. Removing the tendons from their protective
covering, Hermes took a needle and thread and deftly sewed the tendons
into his father's hands and feet. Then he pulled out some special
herbs and made a potion which he rubbed on the newly sewn skin.
As if by magic, Zeus healed before their eyes and he rose up strong
and powerful once again.
It was night and Apollo's chariot was not in use, so Zeus borrowed
it and harnessed up his son's winged horses, and he flew across
the earth under the light of the full moon and searched for Typhon.
It did not take long to find the fire breathing serpent headed mountain
of a beast for Typhon was careless. He did not expect a challenge,
and Zeus took him completely by surprise. Flying high through the
sky with a full supply of lightning bolts, Zeus took aim for the
monster's heart. His arrow burst into flames as it hit Typhon and
he screamed in agony, then crawled away. From high above the monster,
Zeus hurled bolt after bolt and forced Typhon toward the Nysa mountain.
"Eat some of this fruit," the Moirae called to Typhon, "it will
give you strength." Typhon chose to believe the lying enchanted
creature, but after a single bite he knew he had been tricked, for
it tasted foully of poison. He spat out the tainted fruit, but he
had already swallowed some of its juice and his eyes no longer focused.
Zeus pursued him and he was backed against the mountain range. In
desperation, Typhon lifted a mountain peak and hurled it at Zeus,
but since he couldn't see clearly the mountain missed its mark and
Zeus continued to attack him.
Bolt after bolt struck the monster. Although he tried to run away,
he was too weak to flee and instead he backed himself onto Sicily
and he collapsed there. Then Zeus lifted Mount Aetna and hurled
it down on top of him and from that time on, when Mount Aetna erupts,
Typhon belches fire and hurls red hot rocks high into the air from
his belly far below the surface of the earth.
When the ordeal was over and the rest of the gods had returned to
Olympus, Zeus placed reminders of this event in the sky. The people
of the Nile valley had become afraid to eat fish for fear that they
would capture and eat Aphrodite and Eros, so Zeus placed their fishes
in the heavens to show they were no longer in the river and he named
the fishes Pisces. Then in gratitude to his grandson Pan, Zeus took
the body that Pan had used when he hid in the Nile and he placed
it high in the sky in a place called the 'Gate of the Gods.' "I
will call these stars Capricorn," Zeus said. "It was because of
Pan's courage and practicality that we gods were able to reenter
Olympus, so from this point forward, the souls of all humans leaving
the earth will pass through the stars of Capricorn."
Tales of
the Immortal Night ©2003, J.J. Kuhl
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