#typhonomachy

[deathlessathanasia]

Ok so the fact that in the Typhonomachy episode from the Dionysiaca Nike decides to take the appearance of Leto of all people when she goes to arm and encourage Zeus to fight is… quite interesting actually! Nonnos, what did you know?

[tyrantisterror]

I think my only problem with Black Panther is that the first 30-40 minutes are absolutely amazing and perfect and then from there it just very slowly crests downwards into a standard Marvel movie. Also, full agree on Winston Duke being hot as fuck.

I think I’m of the opposite opinion - the movie really picks up for me once Killmonger kills Emperor Snoke and takes over as the actual main antagonist.

[deathlessathanasia]

“An interesting example with regard to characterization is that of Nike’s exhortation to Zeus in the guise of Leto. The difference with Iris’ speech to Dionysus lies not only in the fact that the addressee is a more powerful, presumably all-knowing god, but also in the fact that Nike has no intentions to deceive her addressee. Why would she then make use of a disguise?The answer seems to lie in her rhetorically constructed speech (2.209–236), for which she not only assumes the identity, but also fully adopts the perspective of Leto, who—sufficiently characterized by the mythological tradition—does not appear elsewhere in the Dionysiaca as an acting and speaking character.30 The speech starts with a request to Zeus to fight on behalf of his children (σῶν τεκέων πρόμος ἵστασο, 2.209), which is certainly an appropriate opening sentence for Leto both as the mother of two of these children and in her capacity of a benign mother goddess, connected in her cult to the initiation of young boys and girls.31 The reference to Athena at the start of her speech(γάμων ἀδίδακτον Ἀθήνην, 2.210), whose virginity is threatened by Typhon, has to be connected to the end of the speech, where Leto more elaborately returns to the same topic, now concerning her own daughter Artemis (2.232–236), whom she urges Zeus to defend with even more urgency.32 Whereas the middle part of Leto’s speech is more neutral in tone (2.214–226: a catalogue of gods who have abandoned their tasks because of Typhon), the last part clearly aims at an emotional impact. Leto concludes her catalogue of afflicted gods with an exclamation of surprise, for, despite their history of animosity, she even feels pity for Hera (Ἆ μέγα θαῦμα, | καὶ μάλα μοι κοτέουσανἐποικτείρω σέθεν Ἥρην, 2.226–227). A second exclamation follows (2.228),now in the form of a question: will Kronos and the Titans return to Olympus?( Ἦ ῥα τεὸς γενέτης πάλιν ἵξεται εἰς χορὸν ἄστρων;). Leto immediately confirms that she certainly hopes not and emphasizes in her answer her own identity as a Titan goddess (εἰ Τιτηνὶς ἀκούω, 2.229).33 In her emotional reaction, Leto is portrayed as a faithful Olympian. She puts her rivalry with Hera aside in a time of need and prefers the Olympians over the Titans, thus renouncing her own Titan identity. The emotional impact on Zeus that is aimed at is clear: Leto is made an example of selfless and magnanimous loyalty. Her unselfish reaction to the events has to serve as an incentive for Zeus to fight Typhon with more vigour.

Leto’s character and position among the Olympians make her a suitable speaker to exhort Zeus, which explains Nike’s choice to impersonate Leto. But one might also wonder why Nonnus did not choose to give Leto herself this role in the first place. Why inserting an exhortation by Nike ‘in the guise’ of Leto? There are two factors which we may have to take into account. On the one hand, Nike’s presence as the goddess of Victory can be interpreted as a symbol of Zeus’ nearing victory. Her identity is veiled for Zeus, but for the reader of the Dionysiaca it functions as an interpretative key. On the other hand, the (seemingly unnecessary) complex construction with Nike, who appears in the guise of Leto, puts more emphasis on the choice of Leto as speaker, than would have been the case if Leto herself spoke to Zeus. It draws the attention of the reader to the persuasive effect of the choice of the speaker, and, ultimately, also to the intelligent design of this speech. Within the framework of the Dionysiaca, Nike gives a fine example of an ethopoeia (the rhetorical exercise of speaking ‘in character’) by quite literally putting herself in the shoes of Leto and creating in this way the most suitable persona to convince her addressee.”

- Berenice Verhelst, „Minor Characters in the Dionysiaca”. In Accorinti (Ed.) Brill’s Companion to Nonnus of Panopolis

[deathlessathanasia]

„He [Typhon] felt an urge to usurp the rule of Zeus and not one of the gods could withstand him as he attacked. In panic they fled to Aigyptos, all except Athena and Zeus, who alone were left.” - Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses

„Not otherwise did Typhoeus, boasting that already the kingdom of the sky and already the stars were won, feel aggrieved that Bacchus in the van and Pallas, foremost of the gods, and a maiden’s snakes confronted him.” - Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica

[vickapinto]

Fantastic creatures of the Greco-Roman Mythology: Typhon, the monster who defeated Zeus

Author’s note: The following article was previously published in Spanish language in my Blurt blog on August 15th, 2023. Banner elaborated with Canva. In the past entry we talked about Cerberus, the guardian dog of the entry to the Underworld, to which Heracles had to capture in order to bring him to the surface for a short time. He was the brother of Orthrus, the guardian of Geryon’s flocks, as…

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[deathlessathanasia]

“In the early account by Hesiod, the issue is settled by single combat between Zeus and Typhon. Rising up against the monster in all his strength, Zeus thundered mightily as Typhon poured forth flame, until the earth, sea and sky began to boil, and the world to shake, causing even Hades to tremble in the subterranean land of the dead, and the Titans far below in Tartaros. Zeus leapt down from Olympos after these initial exchanges, and struck at Typhon and lashed him and burned his many heads, forcing him down to the ground as a maimed and helpless wreck; and he then completed his victory by hurling him down to Tartaros. Nothing was left of him in the world above apart from his progeny, namely his offspring by Echidna and all the fierce and harmful winds that bring danger to sailors and damage the crops. These noxious winds of Typhoean origin are distinguished from the divine and beneficial winds that were brought forth by Eos. . . .  

In post-Hesiodic accounts of Typhon’s career, many new features are introduced into his story, mainly from the east. Since Apollodorus provides a composite account that includes most of these new elements, it will be convenient to summarize his narrative before considering certain elements in further detail. When Typhon launched an attack against heaven itself, hurling flaming rocks and emitting fearsome hisses and screams, the gods were so terrified that they fled to Egypt, where they concealed themselves by transforming themselves into animals of various kinds. So Zeus was obliged to confront Typhon on his own, first pelting him with thunderbolts from a distance, and then striking at him with an adamantine sickle (harpe¯). After pursuing the wounded monster to Mt Kasion in Syria, he grappled with him face to face; but Typhon enveloped Zeus in his coils, wrested the sickle from him, and used it to cut the tendons from his hands and feet. He then carried him through the sea to Cilicia and deposited him in a cave there (the Corycian cave), hiding the severed tendons inside in a bear’s skin; and he appointed a fellow-monster as guard, the she-dragon Delphyne, who was formed half like a snake and half like a beautiful maiden. Hermes and Aigipan (Goat-Pan) managed to steal tendons, however, and fitted them back into Zeus, who soon recovered his vigour and returned to the fray. Descending from heaven in a chariot, he hurled thunderbolts at Typhon and pursued him to Mt Nysa (of uncertain location), where the Moirai (Fates) deceived him into eating the ‘ephemeral fruits’ (otherwise unknown), which robbed him of some of his strength. When pursued onward to Haimon, a mountain-range in Thrace (or now Bulgaria), he was still strong enough to hurl entire mountains at Zeus; but Zeus hurled them back at him by means of a thunderbolt, causing him to shed so much blood (haima) that the range below was known as Haimon from that time forth. He then fled overseas to Sicily, where Zeus completed his victory by burying him under Mt Etna.

The ignominious tale of the flight and transformation of the gods was of earlier origin than one might suppose if Pindar did indeed recount it in one of his processional odes, as is reported. It was inspired by an Egyptian myth in which the god Seth and his followers were said to have transformed themselves into animals when pursued by Horus. Since the Greeks identified Typhon with Seth rather than the pursuer Horus and had no interest in the original significance of the transformations, the myth was naturally much altered when they adapted it for their  own purposes, to provide a mythical explanation for the theriomorphic nature of the Egyptian gods. In the earliest version to have survived, as ascribed to Nicander, all the gods fled in a panic apart from Zeus, and they turned themselves into animals on their arrival in Egypt, Apollo into a hawk, Hermes into an ibis, Artemis into a cat, Hephaistos into an ox, and so forth. The basic pattern is obvious enough: the Greek gods are identified with specific Egyptian gods in accordance with accepted tradition, and are said to have transformed themselves into the animal form associated with that Egyptian god. If the animal in question has some connection with the respective Greek god in native myth or cult, so much the better, but that is not the essential point. So Apollo, for instance, who happens to be compared to a hawk in the Iliad and elsewhere, turns himself into a falcon in the present myth because he was identified with the Egyptian god Horus, who was represented as a falcon or with a falcon’s head. Ovid neglects the point in his later version by saying that Apollo turned himself into a crow, the bird that was most closely associated with him in Greek myth. A further detail is added to the story in astral mythology to provide a mythical explanation for the origin of Capricorn, a constellation representing a ‘goat-fish’, a Mesopotamian monster that had no counterpart in Greek myth. After fleeing to Egypt along with the other god, goat-footed Pan threw himself into the Nile, turning his hindquarters into those of a fish and his forequarters into those of a goat; and Zeus was so impressed by his ingenious disguise that he placed an image of the resulting goat-fish among the stars.

Although Apollodorus’ narrative takes Typhon into other areas besides, he was most closely associated with Asia Minor, especially the south-eastern province of Cilicia, which may well have been his original homeland. In a passing reference in the Iliad, Homer states that he lay in the land of the Arimoi (ein Arimois, a phrase that was also interpreted as referring to some mountains called the Arima); and Hesiod states correspondingly that Echidna, a monster who bore children to Typhon in his account, lived in a cave beneath the earth ein Arimoisin. Most scholars of Hellenistic and later times believed that the Arimoi were a people who lived somewhere in Asia Minor; but even if they were right, as is likely enough, their ideas were apparently based on conjecture rather than direct evidence from the early tradition. It seems to have been well-established by Pindar’s time in any case that Cilicia was Typhon’s homeland, for the poet refers to him as ‘Cilician Typhoeus’, and remarks that he was reared in the ‘renowned Cilician cave’ that plays such an important part in Apollodorus’ narrative. Apollodorus’ story of the stolen sinews was surely taken over from Near Eastern mythology; it has been observed that there is a parallel in the Hittite tale of the struggle between the Storm-god and the dragon Illuyanka. In that myth, the Storm-god was initially defeated by Illuyanka, who robbed him of his heart and eyes; but he went on to father a son who married the dragon’s daughter and recovered the stolen heart and eyes with his wife’s aid. When the Storm-god was then restored to his original condition, he set out against the dragon for a second time and killed him. Typhon’s connection with Etna was fairly old even if it could not have been a very ancient feature of his legend. Pindar and the Prometheus Bound already mention that he is buried under the volcano and causes its eruptions by breathing forth streams of fire. Apollodorus seems to be exceptional in ascribing the eruptions to the after-effects of the thunderbolts that were hurled against him by Zeus. According to an alternative tradition first recorded by Pherecydes, Zeus buried Typhon under the island of Pythekousai (i.e. Ischia, off Naples, which contains hot springs and a volcano which was still active in antiquity). Other mythical explanations were also offered for the flame and smoke of Etna, for some claimed that the Giant Enkelados was buried under it, or that the forge of Hephaistos was located in it.”

 - The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology

[deathlessathanasia]

"And now that day there would have been done a thing past mending, and Typhoeus would have been master of gods and of mortals, had not [Zeus] the father of gods and men been sharp to perceive it and gave a hard, heavy clap of thunder, so that the earth gave grisly reverberation, and the wide heaven above, and the sea, and the streams of Okeanos (Oceanus), and the underground chambers. And great Olympos was shaken under the immortal feet of the master as he moved, and the earth groaned beneath him, and the heat and blaze from both of them was on the dark-faced sea, from the thunder and lightning of Zeus and from the flame of the monster, from his blazing bolts and from the scorch and breath of his stormwinds, and all the ground and the sky and the sea boiled, and towering waves were tossing and beating all up and down the promontories in the wind of these immortals, and a great shaking of the earth came on, and Haides, lord over the perished dead, trembled, and the Titanes under Tartaros, who live beside Kronos, trembled to the dread encounter and the unending clamour.

But now, when Zeus had headed up his own strength, seizing his weapons, thunder, lightning, and the glowering thunderbolt, he made a leap from Olympos, and struck, setting fire to all those wonderful heads set about on the dreaded monster. Then, when Zeus had put him down with his strokes, Typhoeus crashed, crippled, and the gigantic earth groaned beneath him, and the flame from the great lord so thunder-smitten ran out along the darkening and steep forests of the mountains as he was struck, and a great part of the gigantic earth burned in the wonderful wind of his heat, and melted, as tin melts in the heat of the carefully grooved crucible when craftsmen work it, or as iron, though that is the strongest substance, melts under stress of blazing fire in the mountain forests worked by handicraft of Hephaistos inside the divine earth. So earth melted in the flash of the blazing fire; but Zeus in tumult of anger cast Typhoeus into broad Tartaros.” - Hesiod, Theogony

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“When the gods saw him [Typhoeus] rushing toward the sky, they headed for Aigyptos to escape him, and as he pursued them they changed themselves into animal shapes. But Zeus from a distance hurled thunderbolts at Typhon, and when he had drawn closer Zeus tried to strike him down with a sickle made of adamant. Typhon took flight, but Zeus stayed on his heels right up to Mount Kasion, which lies in Syria. Seeing that he was badly wounded, Zeus fell on him with his hands. But Typhon entwined the god and held him fast in his coils, and grabbing the sickle he cut out the sinews from Zeus' hands and feet. Then, placing Zeus up on his shoulders, he carried him across the sea to Kilikia, where he deposited him in the Korykion cave. He also hid away the sinews there in the skin of a bear, and posted as guard over them the Drakaina Delphyne, a girl who was half animal. But Hermes and Aigipan stole back the sinews and succeeded in replanting them in Zeus without being seen. So Zeus, again possessed of his strength, suddenly appeared from the sky in a chariot drawn by winged horses, and with thunderbolts chased Typhon to the mountain called Nysa. There the Moirai deceived the pursued creature, for he ate some of the ephemeral fruit on Nysa after they had persuaded him that he would gain strength from it. Again pursued, he made his way to Thrake, where while fighting round Haimos he threw whole mountains at Zeus. But when these were pushed back upon him by the thunderbolt, a great quantity of his blood streamed out on the mountain, which allegedly is why the mountain is called Haimos. Then, as Typhon started to flee again through the Sikelian Sea, Zeus brought down Sikelia's Mount Aitna on him , a great mountain which they say still erupts fire from the thunderbolts thrown by Zeus."” - Pseudo-Apollodoros, the Bibliotheke

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“Then the din of battle resounded on both sides. Eris was Typhon's escort in the mellay, Nike led Zeus into battle. No herds of cattle were the cause of that struggle, no flocks of sheep, this was no quarrel for a beautiful woman, no fray for a petty town: heaven itself was the stake in the fight, the sceptre and throne of Zeus lay on the knees of Nike as the prize of combat. Zeus flogging the clouds beat a thundering roar in the sky and trumpeted Enyo's call, then fitted clouds upon his chest as a protection against the Gigante's missiles. Nor was Typhoeus silent: his bull-heads were self-sounding trumpets for him, sending forth a bellow that made Olympos rattle again; his serpents intermingled whistled for Ares' pipes. He fortified the ranks of his high-clambering limbs, shielding mighty rock with rock until the cliffs made an unbroken wall of battlements, as he set crag by crag uprooted in along line. It looked like an army preparing for battle; for side by side bluff pressed hard on bluff, tor upon tor, ledge upon ledge, and high in the clouds one tortuous ridge pushed another; rugged hills ere Typhon's helmets, and his heads were hidden in their beetling steeps. In that battle, the Gigante indeed one body, but many necks, but legions of arms innumerable, lions' jaws with well-sharpened fangs, hairbush of vipers mounting over the stars. Trees were doubled up by Typhaon's hands and thrown against Kronides, and other fine leafy growths of earth, but all these Zeus unwilling burnt to dust with one spark of thunderbolt cast in a heavy throw. Many an elm was hurled against Zeus with firs coeval, and enormous plane-trees and volleys of white poplar; many a pit was broken in earth's flank.

The whole circuit of the universe with its four sides was buffeted. The four Winds, allied with Kronion, raised in their air columns of sombre dust; they swelled the arching waves, they flogged the sea until Sikelia quaked; the Pelorid shores resounded and the ridges of Aitna, the Lilybaian rocks bellowed prophetic things to come, the Pakhynian promontory crashed under the western wave. Near the Bear, the Nymphe of Athos wailed about her Thrakian glen, the forest of Makedon roared on the Pierian ridge; the foundations of the east were shaken, there was crashing in the fragrant valleys of Assyrian Libanos. Aye, and from Typhaon's hands were showered volleys against the unwearied thunderbolts of Zeus. Some shots went past Selene's car, and scored through the invisible footprints of her moving bulls; others whirling through the air with sharp whiz, the Winds blew away by counterblast. Many a stray shot from the invulnerable thunderbolts of Zeus fell into the welcoming hand of Poseidon, unsparing of his earthpiercing trident's point; old Nereus brought the brine-soaked bolts to the ford of the Kronion Sea, and dedicated them as an offering to Zeus.

Now Zeus armed the two grim sons of Enyalios, his own grandsons, Phobos and Deimos his servant, the inseparable guardsmen of the sky : Phobos he set up with the lightning, Deimos he made strong with the thunderbolt, terrifying Typhon. Nike lifted her shield and held it before Zeus: Enyo countered with a shout, and Ares made a din. Zeus breasting the tempests with his aigis-breastplate swooped down from the air on high, seated in Time's chariot with four winged steeds, for the horses that drew Kronion were the team of the Winds. Now he battled with lightnings, now with Levin; now he attacked with thunders, now poured out petrified masses of frozen hail in volleying showers. Waterspouts burst thick upon the Gigante's head with sharp blows, and hands were cut off from the monster by the frozen volleys of the air as by a knife. One hand rolled in the dust, struck off by the icy cut of the hail; it did not drop the crag which it held, but fought on even while it fell, and shot rolling over the ground in self-propelled leaps, a hand gone mad! As if it still wished to strike the vault of Olympos. Then the sovereign of the heavens brandished aloft his fiery bolt, and passing from the left wing of the battle to the right, fought manifest on high. The many-armed monster hastened to the water torrents; he entwined his rows of fingers into a living mat, and hollowing his capacious palms, he lifted from the midst of the wintry rivers their waters as it came pouring down from the mountains, and threw these detached parcels of the streams against the lightning. But the ethereal flame blazed with livelier sparks through the water of the torrents which struck it; the thirsty water boiled and steamed, and its liquid essence dried up in the red hot mass. Yes--to quench the ethereal fire was the bold Gigante's plan, poor fool! He knew not that the fire-flaming thunderbolts and lightnings are the offspring of the clouds from whence the rain-showers come!

Again, he cut straight off sections of the torrent-beds, and designed to crush the breast of Zeus which no iron can wound; the mass of rock came hurtling at Zeus, but Zeus blew a light puff from the edge of his lips, and that gentle breath turned the whirling rock aside with all its towering crags. The monster with his hand broke off a rounded promontory from an island, and rising for the attack circled it round his head again and again, and cast it at the invincible face of Zeus; then Zeus moved his head aside, and dodged the jagged rock which came at him; but Typhon hit the lightning as it passed on its hot zigzag path, and at once the rock was white-patched at the tip and blackened with smoke--there was no mistake about it. A third rock he cast; but Kronion caught it in full career with the flat of his infinite open hand, and by a playful turn of the wrist sent it back like a bouncing ball to Typhon. The crag returned with many an airy twist along its homeward path, and of itself shot the shooter. A fourth shot he sent, higher than before: the rock touched the tassel-tips of the aigis-cape, and split asunder. Another he let fly: storm-swift the rock flew, but a thunderbolt struck it, and half-consumed, it blazed. The crags could not pierce the raincloud; but the stricken hills were broken to pieces by the rainclouds.

Thus impartial Enyo held equal balance between the two sides, between Zeus and Typhon, while the thunderbolts with booming shots revel like dancers in the sky. Kronides fought fully armed: in the fray, the thunder was his shield, the cloud his breastplate, he cast the lightning for a spear; Zeus let fly his thunderbolts from the air, his arrows barbed with fire. For already from the underground abyss a dry vapour diffused around rose from the earth on high, and compressed within the cloud was stifled in the fiery gullet, heating the pregnant cloud. ...

Zeus the father fought on : raised and hurled his familiar fire against his adversary, piercing his lions, and sending a fiery whirlwind from heaven to strike the battalion of innumerable necks with their babel of tongues. Zeus cast his bolt, and one blaze burnt the monster's endless hands, one blaze consumed his numberless shoulders and the speckled tribes of his serpents; heaven's blades cut off those countless heads; a writhing comet met him front to front discharging a thick bush of sparks, and consumed the monster's hair. Typhon's heads were ablaze, the hair caught fire; with heaven's sparks silence sealed the hissing tresses, the serpents shrivelled up, and in their throats the poison-spitting drops were dried. The Gigante fought on : his eyes were burnt to ashes in the murky smoke, his cheeks were whitened with hoar-frost, his faces beaten with showers of snow. He suffered the fourfold compulsion of the four Winds. For if he turned flickering eyes to the sunrise, he received the fiery battle of neighbouring Euros. If he gazed towards the stormy clime of the Arkadian Bear, he was beaten by the chilly frost of wintry whirlwinds. If he shunned the cold blast of snow-beaten Boreas, he was shaken by the volleys of wet and hot together. If he looked to the sunset, opposite to the dawn of the grim east, he shivered before Enyo and her western tempests when he heard the noise of Zephyros cracking his spring-time lash; and Notos, that hot wind, round about the southern foot of Aigokeros  flogged the aerial vaults, leading against Typhon a glowing blaze with steamy heat. If again Rainy Zeus poured down a watery torrent, Typhoeus bathed all his body in trouble-soothing showers, and refreshed his benumbed limbs after the stifling thunderbolts.

Now as the son was scourged with frozen volleys of jagged hailstones, his mother dry Gaia was beaten too; and seeing the stone bullets and icy points embedded in the Gigante's flesh, the witness of his fate, she prayed to Titan Helios with submissive voice: she begged of him one red hot ray, that with its heating fire she might melt the petrified water of Zeus, by pouring his kindred radiance over frozen Typhon. She herself melted along with his bruised body; and when she saw his legion of highclambering hands burnt all round, she besought one of the tempestuous winter's blasts to come for one morning, that he might quench Typhon's overpowering thirst by his cool breezes.

Then Kronion inclined the equally balanced beam of the fight. But Gaia his mother had thrown off her veil of forests with her hand, and just then was grieving to behold Typhaon's smoking heads. While his faces were shrivelling, the Gigante's knees gave way beneath him; the trumpet of Zeus brayed, foretelling victory with a roll of thunder; down fell Typhoeus's high-uplifted frame, drunk with the fiery bolt from heaven, stricken with a war-wound of something more than steel, and lay with his back upon Gaia (the Earth) his mother, stretching his snaky limbs in the dust and belching flame.” - Nonnos, Dionysiaca