Never Piss Off a God or Goddess
I wouldn’t consider myself to be an expert in Greek mythology (although I honestly think I might know more than the average person). When you read and learn about a particular thing, like an author’s work or perhaps even some of the works of an ancient culture as a whole, you might notice recurring themes and ideas. And there is one common theme I’ve noticed in a lot of stories from Greek mythology.
Never piss off a god or goddess.
One prominent example involves the goddess Artemis (one of my favorite ancient Greek deities). She was the goddess of hunting, the great outdoors, wild animals, chastity (she decided to remain a virgin her entire life, unlike many of the Greek deities who slept around with countless people) and the Moon. When she wasn’t answering the prayers of worshippers, Artemis could often be found outside hunting and simply having a good time. In fact as a child, when with her father Zeus, she asked him to fulfill several wishes of hers. These included but were not limited to giving her a bow and arrow, a short knee-length tunic that would be easy to go hunting in, and twenty nymphs to be her handmaidens, hunting companions, and friends. Being the doting father that he was, Zeus obliged.
Anyway, let’s look at one of the many stories about Artemis. One day she and her nymph friends were out hunting and having a wonderful time. After several hours of hunting and getting sweat and blood all over themselves, they happily flew out of their clothes and swam naked together in a local stream; during this time period swimsuits (at least as we know them today) weren’t really a thing, and most people simply swam in the nude, so this wouldn’t have been unusual in the least.
It just so happened that a man named Actaeon was out hunting with his dogs nearby. And he just so happened to be walking by the spring, when through a bush he could see Artemis and her friends swimming naked together. Immediately Actaeon was intrigued, flabbergasted by the sight of seeing so many nude women together, including a goddess!
Now, if Actaeon had been a smarter man (and quite frankly a more gentlemanly one) he would have left and gone hunting someplace else. But he kept spying on the skinny-dipping women, trying to keep himself hidden in the bush. Soon, one of the nymphs noticed him and screamed, and everyone tried to hide and cover themselves up.
Artemis was justifiably furious. She was furious that this man (a mere mortal, nonetheless) had been starring at her naked body. She was also furious that her friends had been starred at. So, being the logical goddess that she was, Artemis used her powers to turn Actaeon into a deer. His own hunting dogs killed Actaeon without mercy, dying while being painfully torn to pieces and eaten.
And then Artemis and her friends went back to enjoying their swim.
Another story from Greek mythology would involve Princess Andromeda. Like many princesses in mythologies and fairy tales throughout the world, Andromeda was known for her beauty. Her mother Queen Cassiopeia, proud of her daughter, said that she was more beautiful than the sea nymphs known as the Nereids. The Nereids were not pleased upon hearing this, and neither was the god Poseidon, whom the sea nymphs often accompanied and helped out. So again, being the logical god that he was, Poseidon sent a sea monster to wreck havoc upon Andromeda’s kingdom, along with also causing some floods.
Through an oracle, Andromeda’s father King Cepheus found out that to save his kingdom and the lives of countless innocents, he could end the carnage by sacrificing his own daughter to the sea monster, thus appeasing Poseidon and the Nereids. After saying something along the lines of, “Well, I don’t know what else to do,” King Cepheus had his own daughter chained to rock for the sea monster to devour.
To add insult to injury, in many versions of this story, Princess Andromeda was also chained to the rock stark naked. Poseidon didn’t want her to wear any of the clothes or finery that a princess of the time would get to wear, and demanded that she be as naked as the fish and other creatures the sea monster typically ate. So not only did Princess Andromeda have to be sacrificed and suffer a horrific death for the greater good (through no fault of her own!), but she couldn't even die with any real dignity. Unfortunately for her, Andromeda did not have the magical powers of Artemis, so if any ungentlemanly men saw her and began to hoot and holler, she couldn’t turn them into deer as punishment.
The sight of the nude Princess Andromeda awaiting her terrible fate has inspired many artists throughout the ages as well, including Paul Gustave Doré, Théodore Chassériau, Edward Poynter, and John Roddam Spencer Stanhope.
To which I imagine Princess Andromeda replied with, “HOW THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I’M DOING?!”
After getting told the story of how she ended up in this predicament, Perseus was determined to save her. So when the sea monster came, he took out the head of Medusa, one of his many souvenirs from his adventures. Simply seeing the head of the infamously ugly Medusa turned the sea monster into stone, and Princess Andromeda was rescued from certain doom. Right after unchaining her from the rock, Perseus asked the princess to marry him, and she said yes.
Before I end this blog article, there is one more story I should mention, one that truly has the message of, “Don’t piss off a god or goddess.” This story revolves around Prometheus. I will say that Prometheus had better intentions though than simply staring at naked women or complimenting someone’s beauty. He wanted to bring fire, and thus civilization to humankind.
Zeus was not too keen on humans learning how to use fire, and wanted to keep them as dumb and ignorant as possible. Prometheus though thought that humans should be allowed to prosper, to develop art, innovation, and civilization in general. So he stole some fire and gave it to humankind. Zeus, who was not just any god but the ruler of the gods and goddesses, was not too pleased with this theft. So like Princess Andromeda, he had Prometheus chained to a rock. Every day an eagle came to painfully bite into Prometheus’s body and eat his liver. Every day the liver would grow back, and Prometheus would be stuck on that rock, constantly bored while waiting for the eagle to come back.
After centuries and perhaps even millenniums of this torture, Zeus finally got over his beef with Prometheus. Maybe he had grown to like humans just a little bit (Zeus did keep sleeping with several mortal women after all). He sent his son the demigod and Greek hero Hercules to kill the liver-loving eagle and free Prometheus.
I’m not exactly sure if the lesson of, “Never piss of a god or goddess” is relevant in today’s world; there are few if any worshippers of the Greek gods and goddesses, with people moving onto other religions (or even becoming atheists). But if nothing else, through these stories, I think we can at least get a glimpse into what the people of the time found to be valuable and what lessons they wanted to pass on. And to this day, in our very modern world, they’re still entertaining stories.
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