Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

Cephalus was not the only young man to catch the moon goddess’s eye. One night, as Selene sailed her silver chariot across the sky over western Asia Minor, she spotted far below ENDYMION, a young shepherd of great beauty lying naked and fast asleep on the hillside outside a cave on Mount Latmos. The sight of his lovely limbs all silvered by her moonbeams and the enticingly seductive smile that played on his lips as he dreamed so filled Selene with desire that she cried out to Zeus, Endymion’s father, to ensure that he would never change. She wanted to see him in exactly that attitude every night. Zeus granted the wish. Endymion stayed just where he was, locked in eternal slumber. Each new moon, the one day in the lunar month when her chariot could not be seen, Selene would come down and make love to the sleeping boy. This unconventional conjugal practice did not prevent her from bearing fifty daughters by him. I will let you picture the physical practicalities, postures and positions which allowed that.

An odd relationship, but one which worked and made Selene happy.fn10

Eos and Tithonus

The love life of Selene’s sister Eos was no less tumultuous. Some time ago the goddess of the dawn had emerged from a dramatically disastrous affair with the god of war. When Aphrodite, Ares’ jealous lover, found out about the liaison she ordained in her heart that Eos would never find joy in the one realm in which Aphrodite was sovereign – love.

Eos was a full-blooded Titaness with all the appetites of that race. Moreover, as bringer of the dawn, she believed in the hope, promise and opportunity heralded by each new day. And so, over the years, Eos stumbled with tragic optimism from relationship to relationship, each one doomed by Aphrodite’s curse, of which she was blithely unaware.

The cougarish Eos was especially drawn to young mortal men: Just as Selene had abducted Cephalus, so Eos tried to do the same thing to a youth called CLEITUS. This led to heartbreak, for he was mortal and died in what to her was the twinkling of an eye.

There must have been something in the air of Troy in those days. LAOMEDON, the nephew of Zeus’s beloved cupbearer, Ganymede,fn1 had a son called TITHONUS, who grew up to be quite his great-uncle’s equal in beauty. Tithonus was perhaps a little slighter, slimmer and smaller in stature than Ganymede, but this made him no less desirable. He had a laughing sweetness that was entirely his own and made him enchanting and irresistible. You just wanted to put an arm round him and own him for ever.

One afternoon Eos saw this exquisite young man walking on the beach outside the walls of Ilium. All her numberless dalliances, abductions, crushes and flings, even the affair with Ares … all these, she now realized, had been but childish whims, meaningless infatuations. This was the real thing. This was it.

Love at First Sight

As Eos approached along the sand, Tithonus looked up and fell in love with her quite as instantly and entirely as she had fallen in love with him. They held hands straight away, without even having exchanged a word, and walked up and down on the shoreline as lovers do.

‘What is your name?’

‘Tithonus.’

‘I am Eos, the dawn. Come away with me to the Palace of the Sun. Live with me and be my lover, my husband, my equal, my ruler, my subject, my all.’

‘Eos, I will. I am yours for ever.’

They laughed and made love with the waves crashing around them. Eos’s rosy fingers found ways to drive Tithonus quite mad with joy. For her own part she knew that this time she could make it work.

Her coral, pearl, agate, marble and jasper apartments within the Palace of the Sun became their home. Few couples had ever been happier. Their lives were complete. They shared everything. They read poetry to each other, went on long walks, listened to music, danced, rode horses, sat in companionable silence, laughed and made love. Every morning he watched with pride as she threw open the gates to let Helios and his chariot thunder through.

The Boon

A problem nagged at Eos, however. She knew that one day her beautiful beloved mortal youth must be taken from her, as Cleitus had been. The thought of his death caused her an inner despair that she could not quite conceal.

‘What is it my love?’ Tithonus asked one evening, surprising her fair countenance in a frown.

‘You trust me, don’t you, darling boy?’

‘Always and entirely.’

‘I am going away tomorrow afternoon. I shall return as soon as I can. Do not ask me where or why I go.’

Her destination was Olympus and an audience with Zeus.

‘Immortal Sky Father, Lord of Olympus, Cloud-Gatherer, Storm-Bringer, King of all the …’

‘Yes, yes, yes. What do you want?’

‘I crave a boon, great Zeus.’

‘Of course you crave a boon. None of my family visits me for any other reason. It’s always boons. Boons, boons, boons and nothing but boons. What is it this time? Something to do with that Trojan boy, I suppose?’