Folklore; Manners and customs; Mythology; Religion
Let us now examine the myth of Cronus, and the explanations which have
been given by scholars. Near the beginning of things, according to
Hesiod (whose cosmogony was accepted in Greece), Earth gave birth to
Heaven. Later, Heaven, Uranus, became the husband of Gaea, Earth. Just
as Rangi and Papa, in New Zealand, had many children, so had Uranus and
Gaea. As in New Zealand, some of these children were gods of the various
elements. Among them were Oceanus, the deep, and Hyperion, the sun--as
among the children of Earth and Heaven, in New Zealand, were the Wind and
the Sea. The youngest child of the Greek Heaven and Earth was 'Cronus of
crooked counsel, who ever hated his mighty sire.' Now even as the
children of the Maori Heaven and Earth were 'concealed between the
hollows of their parents' breasts,' so the Greek Heaven used to 'hide his
children from the light in the hollows of Earth.' Both Earth and her
children resented this, and, as in New Zealand, the children conspired
against Heaven, taking Earth, however, into their counsels. Thereupon
Earth produced iron, and bade her children avenge their wrongs. {49a} Now
fear fell on all of them, except Cronus, who, like Tutenganahau, was all
for action. Cronus determined to end the embraces of Heaven and Earth.
But, while the Maori myth conceives of Heaven and Earth as of two beings
which have never been separated before, Hesiod makes Heaven amorously
approach his wife from a distance. Then Cronus stretched out his hand,
armed with a sickle of iron, or steel, and mutilated Uranus. Thus were
Heaven and Earth practically divorced. But as in the Maori myth one of
the children of Heaven clave to his sire, so, in Greek, Oceanus remained
faithful to his father. {49b}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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