A Dream Come True

6. Zeus and Hera-3

Hermes bowed and vanished again.

“May I ask a question?” said Mateo, clearly nervous.

“That depends upon what you wish to be changed into,” replied Zeus, his face totally expressionless. Then he chuckled again.

“I’d like to think my temper is a bit more in control than Hera’s. You may speak freely.”

“I don’t understand why you and Hera have stayed married for so long. It seems as if you hate each other.”

Everyone else was surprised Mateo had ventured into that kind of territory, but Zeus did not seem offended.

“Despite appearances, we do love each other,” said Zeus. Keisha thought this had to be the most dysfunctional example of love she had ever seen, but, not wanting to join Patrick, she kept her mouth shut.

“Our relationship is…complicated, however. Once she even rebelled against me, helped by Poseidon and Apollo. The cowards bound me while I slept, intending to keep me prisoner while one of them ruled Olympus. Fortunately for me, they could not agree which of them should rule, and while they bickered, Thetis, daughter of Nereus, the son of Pontus and Gaia; and the Oceanid, Doris, sneaked in Briareus, one of the Hecatoncheires I had freed from imprisonment after the fall of Cronus. He easily freed me from my bonds, and, once free, he and I were more than a match for all the Olympians combined.

“Hera I punished by hanging her from the sky, with great anvils attached to her ankles. Eventually the other Olympians persuaded me to have mercy on her. Apollo and Poseidon I condemned to one year of servitude under King Laomedon, for whom they built the walls of Troy.”

Yeah, thought Keisha, nothing says love like imprisonment, torture, and slavery. What a family!

“Hera and the others did rebel, remember?” said Zeus in response to their facial expressions. “Disloyalty such as that could make the world dissolve into anarchy. I had no choice but to punish them. Unlike Cronus, though, I did not try to kill them or imprison them forever in Tartarus. Their punishments were mild in comparison.”

“I guess everything is relative,” said Yong, looking immediately as if he were sorry he said anything at all.

“It would perhaps have been better if I had not made love to so many goddesses and women, but you must remember ancient Greek society was far different from yours. Though society did not believe in polygamy, kings were permitted to have relations with women other than their wives, and some such women even had a position in the household, though not as high a one as the wife did. Looked at from the that society’s viewpoint, it was Hera who was in breach of social custom, not I.”

Since Patrick wasn’t around, there was no one in the group who agreed with that kind of double standard—women obviously didn’t have the same latitude to sleep with multiple men. However, Thanos, who had studied early cultures quite a bit, had to admit that acceptable behavior in one society was often quite different from acceptable behavior in another. Most ancient Greeks would have seen Zeus as being at least partly right.

“I may have made love a bit too often,” said Zeus, which the girls thought was a masterpiece of understatement. “However, Hera made war, inflicting savage vengeance upon my lovers and occasionally even their children. One of the cruelest examples was Semele.”

Zeus had a faraway look in his eyes, just as Hera had when she spoke of their wedding—but Zeus’s mind was a long way from Hera at this point.

“Semele, called both dark eyed and white armed, was one of the most beautiful women of her generation. She was the daughter of Cadmus, the first king of Thebes, and Harmonia, a daughter of Ares and Aphrodite just as lovely as her mother. Fearing the wrath of her husband, Hephaestus, Aphrodite gave Harmonia to mortals to raise. Eventually Harmonia took her place on Olympus as a goddess of marital harmony, though she had many misadventures in her mortal life before she ascended.

“Unfortunately, Semele’s life followed a pattern similar to her mother’s. She was unquestionably mortal but so beautiful that I could not help loving her. I came to her disguised as a mortal man, though I told her I was Zeus. All went well until Hera found out. Once she knew, she came in disguise and convinced Semele I was not really Zeus but was just bragging. When I returned, Semele asked for a favor, and I swore an oath on the River Styx to give her whatever she wanted.”

Zeus looked almost as if he was about to cry.

“An oath sworn on the Styx is irrevocable, and so I was trapped when Semele asked to see me in my full glory, a sight no mortal can endure. I begged her to ask for something else, but she refused to listen. In the end, I had to do as she asked, and the sight of me caused her to burst into flames. I could not save her, but I managed to shield her unborn child from the inferno. I sewed him up in my thigh until he was ready to be born—and so came into being Dionysus, god of wine, no thanks to Hera, who would happily have killed the baby with his mother.

“Now I ask you, who was the more to blame: me for loving Semele or Hera for killing her?”

Keisha prayed that was a rhetorical question. Yes, Hera acted like a total psychopath, and Keisha knew that was only one of several times. However, she didn’t want to give Zeus a completely free pass. If he had been faithful, Hera would have behaved very differently.

“It is not for us mere mortals to judge,” said Thanos, who Keisha thought had quite a future as a diplomat.

“That’s not quite the end of the story, though, is it?” asked Yong.

“No,” replied Zeus. “Dionysus was eventually allowed to venture to the Underworld, free Semele, and bring her to Olympus as the goddess Thyone. Hades was not happy with that decision, for he lost a subject, and Hera was unhappy as well, for she had not killed a woman to make her a goddess. Nonetheless, most of Olympus rejoiced that Dionysus was reunited with his mother.”

“If I may interrupt for a moment, Majesty, we are all concerned about our friend, Patrick,” Thanos continued.

“I know you are,” said Zeus. “As soon as Hermes returns with more news, I will act as swiftly as lightning.”

Unfortunately, Zeus was almost immediately handed another problem, for at that moment an enraged Ares, god of war, stormed into the room.