Episode 26C – War Comes – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 26C Show Notes

Source Greek Mythology

This week on MYTH, the red shadow of war lies heavy on the land. In a moment I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for since this series started, we’ll finally be getting in to the nitty gritty of the actual war between Sparta and Troy. You’ll learn that even famous heroes can be assholes, that you should probably listen if a god goes to the trouble of giving you multiple prophecies, and that getting lost can have dire consequences. Then, in Gods and Monsters, we’ll meet the triple goddess who guides the subtle ship of fate through these mythic tales. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 26C, “War Comes”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
When we left the story last time, Paris, former herdsmen and lost prince of Troy, had agreed to judge a beauty contest for three goddesses, which Zeus was using to try and kill off as many humans (and especially his own bastard children) as he possibly could. In exchange for picking Aphrodite as the fairest of all, Paris was promised the love of the most beautiful woman in the world, who turned out to be Helen of Sparta. We spent some time getting to know her last episode, and she’s had kind of a rough go of it when it comes to relationships. Paris had kidnapped her from the home of her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta, while he was off at his grandfather’s funeral, which is honestly just rude.
Helen had gone with Paris, willingly or otherwise (though I personally think that Aphrodite had given Helen the ole psychic whammy to make her love Paris in fulfillment of her bribe; think of it like being slipped a love potion in Harry Potter – you really don’t have any say in the matter). Menelaus had come back to find his wife missing, stolen by the man he had hosted as a trusted guest. The man wasn’t king of one of the greatest warrior societies of all time for nothing, though, so he raises an army of all of the great heroes of the disparate Greek city states to sail for distant Troy on a fleet of a thousand ships.
Almost everyone showed up to honor their oath. Two heroes were reluctant. The first was Odysseus, who had come up with the idea of the group oath in the first place. He had visited an oracle, as one did in ancient Greece, and had been told that if he ever went to Troy, he would be gone for 20 years (which is an awesome story in and of itself, and we’ll get to it some other time). He couldn’t exactly refuse the oath, though, since it was his idea, so he went with the next best thing: he pretended to go crazy when he learned that Menelaus’ messenger was coming to ask him to honor his word. Palamedes rolled up to find Odysseus out in his fields plowing the earth with salt which, if you weren’t aware, pretty much makes it worthless for farming and is a pretty crazy thing to do to your own land.
Palamedes wasn’t a fool, though, and he had a hunch that Odysseus was trying to pull a fast one. To prove it, he went with the favorite option for the ancients when trying to prove a point – he put a child in mortal peril. Palamedes grabbed Odysseus’ infant son Telemachus and laid him on the earth in front of the plow. A truly crazy man would just keep plowing, he reasoned, and if he murdered his own kid, he was definitely crazy. Odysseus didn’t want to go to war, but he wasn’t prepared to murder his son over it, and he turned the plow aside at the last moment. “Gotcha!” Odysseus, his sanity proven, had no choice but to go meet the other heroes.
The other holdout was Achilles, widely considered one of the greatest fighters of the day and, on top of his skill, invulnerable to harm. He was the son of the immortal nereid, or sea nymph,Thetis and the mortal king of the Myrmidons, Peleus. Remember them from the beginning of this whole story? Thetis was the nymph that Zeus was going to fuck until Prometheus, one of the few Titans to join the Olympians in the Titanomachy from the very first episodes, warned him that Thetis would bear a son greater than his father. In some versions, Zeus had been competing with his brother Prometheus for her affection until the prophecy made the both back the hell off and wed her to a mortal post haste.
A different version of the story says that Zeus pursued Thetis, who wasn’t willing to be a part of breaking marriage vows, especially not on Hera. The story says that Hera had helped to raise her, which made Zeus a kind of surrogate father (if a terrible one) and she wasn’t willing to hurt her sort of mother by sleeping with her sort of daddy. In anger, Zeus cursed her, declaring that she would never marry an immortal. Either way, Thetis was justifiably worried about what might happen to her son given the prophecy swirling around him and the conflict with one or two major deities. There is also a more different prophecy that Achilles would have a life that was as brief as it was glorious. She does two things to try and save him. First, she has him raised and trained by Chiron, the one good centaur we met briefly last episode, to become a swift and deadly warrior. Second, she set out to find a way to make him immortal since, as a demigod, he could totally die. Given her immortal nature, she knew the secrets of immortality. First, she went to Mount Olympus and obtained ambrosia, which was the food reserved exclusively for the gods, and anointed the infant boy with it. Then, she sat him on top of a fire, coated in ambrosia, to burn away the mortal part of him leaving only the godly parts. Before the process could finish, though, Peleus wandered in and, screaming in horror, snatched his son off of the fire before it could finish removing his mortality. In a rage, Thetis abandoned her son, doomed to die, with his father and never looked back.
In another, more popular version, she instead sneaks into Hades to dip the infant Achilles in the River Styx. The river had incredible powers, and soaked into his skin, making him invulnerable to harm wherever it touched. Unfortunately, she forgot that she was holding him by his heel, which meant the water didn’t come into contact with that part of his flesh, leaving it vulnerable. Oddly enough, it wasn’t until the 1st century AD, with the writer Statius, that Achilles was invulnerable, even mostly. In the Iliad, the primary source used for this series of episodes, Achilles is simply a very powerful and dangerous warrior.
In the version we’re going with, Thetis doesn’t abandon her son and instead tries to hide him away from the danger coming for him. Figuring that he can’t die young if he doesn’t achieve glory, she goes to the extreme of sending him to the court of Lycomedes, king of Skyros, to dress and act as a little girl named Pyrrha (which means the red-haired girl). It’s not a perfect disguise, what with Achilles growing into a powerfully built warrior, and also with him raping one of his supposed sisters, a woman named Deidamia, getting her pregnant with a son who would eventually be named Pyrrhus, after his father’s alias. He’s…not a good man, just a dangerous one.
Odysseus, peeved at being dragged into this whole mess, decides he wants the best chance of success. He consults the prophet Calchas and learns that the Greeks would never be able to defeat Troy without the son of Thetis, and he soon manages to track down rumors of a manly daughter who looks a lot like Thetis, and goes to Skyros in disguise as a peddler. He goes to court with women’s clothes and jewelry for sale, but he hides a spear and shield amongst his goods. Pyrrha comes with the other women to look at the pretty dresses, but when he sees the spear and shield, he immediately picks them up. Odysseus takes this as proof that this is just a dude who looks like a lady. He confronts Achilles, who admits his true identity. “Dude, doesn’t it suck hiding here amongst the women folk? Wouldn’t you rather go kill some assholes who need killing, and win yourself some glory?” Achilles thinks that sounds awesome sauce, and agrees to go with the Greeks. I mean, he does have a woman that he just married slash raped who is pregnant with his child, but he has no real problem abandoning her for glory.
In another version, Odysseus brings a friend to help him with a trick. He goes in as the peddler still, but has his friend blow an alarm on a trumpet, indicating an attack on the city. The women flee, because they’re not warrior women (who do totally exist in the ancient Greek stories), but Achilles runs towards the trumpet to go and defend the city. Odysseus again calls him on his bullshit ruse, and convinces him to go with the war party. Either way, he’s convinced, and the gang is finally all here.
Now that everyone was gathered in the city of Aulis, they prepared to get underway. Menelaus had sent a messenger to Troy, asking nicely for the return of his wife, or he would huff and puff and blow the city down. The messenger had returned with the ancient equivalent of ‘go fuck yourself’, and that was the end of any attempts at diplomacy. Before leaving, the Greeks make one last sacrifice, this time to Apollo, the god of prophecy (among many other things). As soon as the sacrifice was made, the god sent an omen. A snake appeared from behind the altar, and it slithered over to a bird’s nest that no one had noticed before. It ate the mother and her nine babies before it was suddenly turned to stone. The seer Calchas, formerly of Troy, interpreted the omen as meaning that the Greeks would need to fight at Troy for nine years, but would finally have a chance to triumph in the tenth year. They sailed off to wipe Troy off the goddamned map. This being the days before Google Maps, they had to navigate based on terribly incomplete charts, the stars, and pure dead reckoning. The Greeks were excellent sailors, but they didn’t often leave the relatively safe coastal waters of the Mediterranean. The navigators, given the task of finding Troy, which none of them had ever been to, bucked up, did their best, and fucked the whole thing up completely. The fleet landed at what they believed was Troy and the army rushed out to make war.
The city, caught by surprise, scrambled to get their defenses in order. It was a glorious battle, and the valiant maybe-rapist Achilles led the charge against the hated enemy. The Greeks are more than a little surprised to see that there are deadly warrior women in the mix, but this is a foreign land, so maybe they have strange customs. The general of the warrior women is eventually killed in the fighting, leading to chaos. The king of the city state enters the battle to try and regain order, and manages to make a good showing. He fights and kills Thersander, king of Thebes, before Achilles launches a one on one battle with the king of the city state. He wounds and captures the king, only to learn that this…isn’t King Priam of Troy. This was King Telephus of Mysia, son of Hercules (whose Greek name was actually Heracles, but everyone knows him by his Roman name so I’ll be using that instead). They had sacked a complete innocent city by mistake. Oops.
It turns out the Telephus was married to the Amazon Hiera, who had thrown her force of Amazonian warriors into the fray to defend her new home, and it was she who had been leading the charge initially, before she was killed. A different version of the story holds that Paris and Helen stopped here on their way to Troy and asked the king to fight off any pursuers who might come through looking for them, but I personally like the first version better. It doesn’t require an amazing coincidence for the Greeks to stumble on to the one place that had someone other than the Trojans waiting to attack and besides, I don’t know of any good reason why Telephus would side with the Trojan king against his fellow Greeks, even if they didn’t always get along. Either way, Telephus is injured in the fight with Achilles, and watches them leaving his battered city more than a little pissed off. The Greeks, referred to as the Achaens by Homer, sail for home, but are scattered by a huge storm.
A full eight years later, the heroes returned to the city of Aulis, and decided to try to get a better idea of where they were going. They didn’t want to lose more fighters in sacking another wrong city. Meanwhile, Telephus is finding that the wound from Achilles simply will not heal. Worried, he does what many ancient Greeks did when they had an unsolvable problem: he went to ask the Oracle at Delphi, probably the most famous seer. A brief aside, the oracle wasn’t actually one person. Delphi was an important shrine, located at what the Greek believed was the omphalos, or center (although it literally means belly button) of the entire world. The oracle was the high priestess of the temple, and each priestess was a seer, in an unbroken line. It was sacred to pretty much everybody, so no one attacked it, making it a safe place for anyone to go for advice.
The oracle’s advice, in typical oracle fashion, was cryptic. “He that wounded shall heal.” Telephus wasn’t sure how to interpret that, but he decided to seek out Achilles, who was the man who wounded him in the first place. He goes to Aulis dressed as a beggar to seek out Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon. This isn’t as coincidental as it sounds. Clytemnestra was related to Hercules, as was Telephus, so they were relatives, though not close ones. In addition, Hercules had fought a war that put her father on the throne of Sparta, so she owed his dad. Thirdly, for reasons we’re about to get into, she was super pissed at her husband and more than willing to help out someone he’d had a part in hurting in the first place. She tells him to kidnap her only son Orestes, and threaten to kill him unless Achilles healed Telephus’ wound. Apparently, the ancients just loved threatening child murder as a form of conflict resolution.
Telephus does so, and everyone flips out. They’d kill him, but he’s kind of holding a dagger to a child’s throat, and they don’t want the head honcho’s nephew’s blood on their hands. Achilles steps forward to confront Telephus. “Dude, I don’t know who told you I can heal you, but it’s bullshit. Dammit, man, I’m a fighter, not a doctor!” “The Oracle told me otherwise, so stop complaining and make with the healing. Chop chop!” This standoff would have continued for who knows how long if Odysseus hadn’t thought of something clever. “Chill out, guys. I have an idea. Technically, it was the spear that did the actual wounding, and it’s a pretty phallic weapon, so it could be considered a he. I bet the spear can heal the wound it caused.” This seemed crazy, but this is a time of gods and magic, so they decided to try it. They take Achilles’ spear and scrape some shavings from the tip onto the wound, and sure enough, it magically seals up.
“Okay, guys, I know you’re all super pissed about the kidnapping and threatened child murder thing, but Clytemnestra told me to do it, or I wouldn’t have. I’ll offer this: in thanks for healing me, I’ll tell you how to get to Troy so you don’t get lost again. Sound fair?” They agree, and he gives them directions.
Now the whole reason Clytemnestra is pissed is a different child murder thing. The ships had come back to harbor, but once there, they found they couldn’t leave. The ocean was becalmed, with nowhere near enough wind to get a fleet this size out to sea and on its way. Since this is a world where the literal gods are very much a force to be reckoned with, those gathered suspect that this isn’t a natural event. They consulted with a seer, and learned that Artemis was punishing the gathered heroes because Agamemnon, Menelaus’ younger brother, had killed a deer in her sacred grove and boasted that he was a better hunter than the virgin goddess of the hunt.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but there’s not really a better way to piss of the ancient Greek gods than to boast that you are better at something than they are. Bonus points if you pick something that they are specifically known for. This kind of excessive pride, known as hubris in the old plays, almost always ended up bringing about severe punishment for the boastful asshole, if not total and complete destruction. Agamemnon knew the stories, so he was more than a little trepidatious on hearing this news.
“Okay, Lady Seer. I’ve pissed off Artemis. Fair enough. I said something stupid, and it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that she is a better hunter than I am.” Pause. “Did…did that do it? Are we cool?” The seer shook her head. “You didn’t honestly think that would be enough, did you?” “I was hoping.” “You have insulted a goddess. She demands blood. If your brother is ever to be able to begin his quest to retrieve his bride, you must sacrifice your daughter Iphigenia, a virgin, to her.”
Agamemnon has to sit down. This is some heavy shit. You may remember from last episode that Agamemnon had helped his brother win Helen, and in doing so, had met and married her sister Clytemnestra. She was hardly happy to hear that the men were seriously considering sacrificing her daughter to be able to sail off and try to get her sister back, who may or may not even want to come back. According to the play about her by Euripides, she begs her husband not to do this awful deed. “My sister is kind of a bitch. Seriously, she’s a wicked woman. Don’t buy something we hate with something we love. Please.”
In the end, after much consideration, Agamemnon decides that he has an obligation to help his brother: first, because the man is his blood, and second, because he swore an oath as all of them did. “I’m sorry. I love you, and I love my daughter, but I have a duty. It must be done.” Knowing that his wife would never agree to this, he sends his little girl to the slaughter by telling her that she is to wed Achilles. She shows up, and quickly realizes that everyone is way too solemn for a wedding. “What’s really happening, father?” With a heavy heart, Agamemnon explains the situation. Iphigenia was taken aback, but after some thought, she agreed to sacrifice herself for the greater good. Artemis accepts the blood sacrifice (and in some stories, she replaces the young woman with a deer at the last moment and carries her away with her to the land of the Taurians to live, or even to become the goddess Hecate (according to Hesiod) although no one but the priest saw the switch). The wind picks up at last. With the new directions from Telephus, the armada can finally head to Troy.
Meanwhile, Paris has arrived back in Troy with his new lover Helen in tow. He walks in to the throne room with Helen on his arm, flanked by his brother Hector. His sister, Cassandra, is there talking with their parents, and she flips her shit when she sees Paris and Helen. Now, it’s important to understand a little of Cassandra’s backstory to follow why she reacts this way. A few years ago, the god Apollo had seen Cassandra and taken a shine to her. As is often the case when a god gets all hot and bothered about a mortal, he went off immediately to try and woo her.
He introduces himself and tries to talk her into sleeping with him, but she isn’t having it. “Ah, playing hard to get, I see. Maybe this will change your mind.” He made a grand gesture with his hand, but nothing visibly changed. “You now have the gift of prophecy. You will be able to see things before they happen, with a small part of my divine knowledge and wisdom. Now, will you sleep with me?” “That’s great and all, Lord Apollo, but I really meant no. I swore a vow of chastity, and I don’t intend to break that oath. You understand, right?” In a scene that proves that the trope of the so-called nice guy who thinks women are machines you put in nice deeds and get out sex in return isn’t new, he flies into a rage at being rejected. “What I understand, bitch, is that I went through all of the effort to give you the gift of prophecy, and then you fucking friend zone me. Well screw you. You don’t deserve my gift.” “Are you taking it back then? I kind of didn’t want to have prophecy anyway. It’d be hard to know things before they happen.” In response, he spit in her mouth (seriously). “Oh, I’m gonna be much more creative. You’ll still know things that are going to happen, you’re just going to see bad things and be completely powerless to do anything about it. Whenever you try to warn someone about the danger you see coming, no one will believe you.”
It’s honestly a pretty brutal punishment, especially for the quote unquote “offense” of not wanting to sleep with someone just because he felt like it was owed him. Flash forward to the throne room, with Cassandra seeing Helen and Paris together for the first time. In a flash of divine insight, the Trojan princess could see the storm that was brewing for the city, and knew that it would descend on the city unless Helen were returned to her husband. She shrieked in horror and terror. “Paris, you dumbass! What have you done? How could you kidnap the queen of Sparta and think that everything would just work out? You’re going to doom us all. You have to send her back! She’s a married woman, and her husband is coming for her! If you don’t return her, and now, everyone in this city is doomed!” Given that his parents had tried to have him murdered because of a prophecy that he would bring about the destruction of Troy, you’d think they would believe the totally plausible warning about the king of a powerful warrior society coming for his kidnapped wife, but that’s the horror of Cassandra’s curse. Instead, her father decided she had spontaneously gone stark raving mad and had her locked in a cell in the palace.
King Priam might have decided his daughter was nuts, because everyone knows that a woman with any emotion is just hysterical and can be safely ignored (even though she’s totally right), but he thought she did raise one good point. They had already received a request from Menelaus to return Helen, and had decided to stand with their newly returned son (having had many years to let the shock of the prophecy that had made them want him dead in the first place to wear off and be mostly forgotten). It wouldn’t be terribly surprising if the king of Sparta did bring the warriors of his city to try and bring her back by force, and they should be ready if and when they did.
The fleet had been sailing for weeks, and decided to make a pit stop at the next island for supplies. The island happened to be Mysia, where the mythic hero Tenes had landed. He was the son of the god Apollo and the mortal woman Proclia, the wife of King Cycnus of Colonae. He had a sister (or maybe half sister, depending on whether she was the daughter of the king or the deity) named Hemithea. Their mother died in childbirth with Hemithea, and he soon remarried to a woman named Philonome. As the children grew to young adulthood, she grew jealous of them. The stories don’t explain why, but I suspect she had her own children and wanted them to inherit the throne, rather than her stepchildren (because evil stepmothers have been a trope since time immemorial). Either way, she falsely accuses Tenes of raping her, and brings in a flautist named Eumolpus to corroborate her story, thanks to promises of royal favor and lots of cash.
Given that there was a witness, he believed his wife and sentenced his children to death. He didn’t want to do the deed himself, because executing your own children, even if they did rape your wife, is hard to stomach. Instead, he had Tenes (and Hemithea for good measure for some reason) locked in a chest and thrown into the ocean. Instead of drowning, they were carried to the island of Leucophyre, which in some versions was renamed Tenedos by the natives after naming the young man their king for unknown reasons, and in others was renamed Mysia. Years later, Cycnus managed to piece together the truth of what had happened (the how is again lost to time), and tried to make things right. He had Eumolpus executed for treason, and his wife buried alive for the same. He sailed to Mysia to try to reconcile with his children, but in spite of trying to yell at them that he had learned the truth from his ship, Tenes took an axe and cut the moorings, preventing his father from ever coming ashore.
Tenes was initially very receptive to the Greeks, and it if weren’t for Achilles, it probably would have stayed that way (Achilles is kind of a prick, and it’s going to keep coming up). His mother Thetis, the sea nymph, had warned him not to kill the king of Mysia he would meet on his journey, as he was the son of Apollo and to kill him would be to invite his wrath and ensure his own doom. She even went to the trouble of hiring a servant to follow Achilles around and remind him not to kill the king of Mysia.
Now, in the midst of all this, the hero Philoctetes was bitten by a serpent while wandering the island. He had been a friend of Hercules back in the day, so when it came time to light the funeral pyre for the demigod (which is why he’s not part of this whole war), no one was willing to do it except Philoctetes (we’ll cover that story in more detail when we get to the saga of Hercules). In thanks, Hercules (who is still alive, which is why no one wants to light the pyre) gives him the bow and arrows he’s been using, including the arrows that were dipped in the deadly poison of the Hydra (we’ll get there, I promise). He had been one of the suitors for Helen’s hand, so when the call came, he brought seven ships worth of soldiers and sailed out.
That night, at a feast hosted by the king, Achilles saw the king’s sister Hemithea and, drunk on wine and impending glory, declares to his buddies “I’m gonna fuck her tonight.” “Dude, I don’t think she’s going to be interested in a wandering stranger who spent his life dressing as a girl. Yeah, the prophecy says we need you to bring down Troy, and you were pretty good at the battle we waged against the wrong island before, but you haven’t done enough yet to make the girls throw themselves at you just because. Give it up.”
Achilles does not give it up. A lot of this story is people saying “Achilles, no”, and him replying “Achilles, yes.” He waits until the castle is asleep, and then he sneaks into Hemithea’s bedchamber. She awakes as he sits on the side of her bed. “Who the fuck are you?” “I’m the great Achilles, and you are about to have the honor of riding my dick.” “What? I don’t even know you. I’m definitely not about to sleep with you.” “Bitch, I wasn’t asking.” I wish I could say someone came in and caught him before anything happened, but the ancient myths could be brutal. Achilles climbed into Hemithea’s bed, slapped her around until she was too dizzy to fight him off, and then raped her. When he was done, he sat there, talking to her while she cried and begged him to leave, and then he raped her again. When he was done for the second time, he took his leave with a mocking bow.
Surprising no one, she went immediately to her brother the king and told him what had happened. Tenes, is pissed the hell off because A) his sister has been raped and B) it was by someone he invited into his home as a guest. He storms over to the Greek quarters and demands that the Greeks hand over Achilles for trial and punishment. Achilles, again being an asshat, drew his spear. Since the servant wasn’t there to tell him not to do the thing he had been warned repeatedly not to do, he fought Tenes and slew him in single combat. The servant, who had probably just wandered off to take a piss since it was the middle of the goddamned night and he thought he could safely leave Achilles alone to not kill a man for a few minutes, returned to see Tenes drop dead. “What did you just do, Achilles? Your mother warned you not to kill him! She hired me specifically to warn you about that!” Achilles, worried about the prophecy, whirled on the servant. “And where the fuck were you when I really needed you? It’s your fault I killed him!” Achilles, the crown king of whiny man-babies, slew the servant for not doing enough to keep him from murdering a man, because apparently just being told repeatedly not to do the thing wasn’t enough.
Realizing that it would be a very bad thing to be found with the dead body of the king in their room, the Greeks snuck out in the middle of the night and sailed out for Troy. Achilles leaned on his spear, watching the island recede. “That could have gone better. On the plus side, I got to fuck the king’s sister. Twice. Up high!” No one wanted to high five the guy who had just raped a woman and then killed her brother for trying to defend her, so he was left to himself to wonder just what Apollo might have in store for him.
The wound on Phiolctetes leg quickly turns septic, and Odysseus takes a look at it as the closest thing to a healer they have (which seems like an oversight). “Dude, that is not a natural color, and it definitely shouldn’t smell like dogshit. I think your war days are done, friend. There’s a really nice island called Lemnos coming up. I think you should hang out there and recuperate for a while. When the war is done, or you’ve had enough time to heal, we’ll send someone back to pick you up again.
That seems like a good place to pause this epic again, with Achilles spending time that should be spent reflecting on what a douchebag he is instead congratulating himself. I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m not a big fan of Achilles. He’s a selfish prick, who needs constant validation, and this is going to continue to be a thing. He’s one of the great heroes of Greek mythology, but he’s more of a dick than most of them (and a lot of them are real pieces of work). There’s still more douchebaggery to come, so stay tuned. And with that, it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s god, or rather goddesses, are the Moirae.
You probably know them better by their English name, the Fates. They are a triple goddess, alternatively three goddesses or three aspects of one goddess, and are the Greek incarnation of one of the most universal concepts in mythology: the maiden, the mother, and the crone (although in many versions of the story, they are actually all old, wizened women). First is the maiden, Clotho, whose name means spinner, who spins the thread of life for each mortal upon their birth. Second is the mother, Lachesis, whose name means allotter, who measures out the span of each thread of life, determining how long a mortal has to live. Third is the crone, Atropos, whose name means unturnable or inevitable, who cuts the thread of life bringing death to each mortal life.
They were outside the normal godly chain of command, as they had to be able to watch the course of fate for all of creation, including all of gods, monsters, and mortals. Their relationship with Zeus, however, is up for some debate, as some sources say he is bound to their will, and some say that he is the only being able to command them. In the latter versions, he is known as Zeus Moiragetes, the god of fate, and he served as their leader. The sources also don’t agree even a little on their parentage. According to Hesiod, they are the daughters of Nyx, Titan of night, who was feared by Zeus himself (which would lean towards Zeus being bound by their will). Other stories say they are the daughters of Zeus and Themis, the Titan of law and divine order (which would lean towards Zeus being able to command them). Plato’s Republic has the three fates being the daughters of the goddess Ananke, or necessity.
According to the stories, the Moirae would visit a newborn baby three days after its birth. They would arrive unannounced at the house to see the baby and determine its life and fate. To be clear, fate was not thought of as a clear, inexorable end that came regardless of choice. Fate was subtle, and all about choice. Fate was more conditional than absolute. Certain events may be predestined, but the way they play out, and how it affects everyone involved, was up to the individuals. Take Achilles from this episode, for instance. Fate had decreed that there were two possible fates for Achilles: a long, but uneventful life, or a short, but glorious life. He made his choice, and it’s his choices along the way to Troy and at the city that seal his fate. He could have made a different choice, but he would have had to be a different man. That is the essence of fate.
The Moirae were also in charge of assigning the Erinyes, or Furies, to inflict punishment on the wicked for their evil deeds. The Furies are way too cool to be a secondary piece of a Gods and Monsters segment, so they’ll get their own in a later episode.
The Moirae are heavily influential in later cultures, partly because they are reflected in so many other mythos (the Norns from Norse mythology, the Baltic goddess Laima and her two sisters, the Sudice from Slavic mythology, or the triple goddess from Celtic mythology to name a few). People have always been simultaneously afraid of not being in control of their own destiny and terrified that their doom and destruction is their own fault. The Moirae are an attempt to navigate this conflict.
That’s it for this episode of Myth Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on Stitcher or on TuneIn and now, on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth and on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you like what you’ve heard, I’d appreciate a review on iTunes. These reviews really help increase the show’s standing and let more people know it exists. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff, whom you can find on fiverr.com.
Next time, the Greek fleet will actually arrive at Troy for the first time. You’ll learn that prophecy is tricky, that Odysseus is even trickier, and that you shouldn’t trust Achilles with children. Then, in Gods and Monsters, we’ll be discussing the mythical origin of a mundanely magical animal, the horsie. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.