This would have perpetuated the cycle of rulers of the universe being overthrown by their sons, and Zeus wanted to end the cycle once and for all. Metis lived on within Zeus, providing him advice, helping him to become known for his wisdom and thoughtful arbitration for an example, see Iliad The gods, by the way, never have a sexual encounter in vain; children are always produced.
At some point Zeus married his sister, Hera, and together they had three children: Ares, Eileithyia, and Hebe. Zeus pursued mortal women even more frequently than he pursued goddesses. He sired the god Dionysus with the mortal woman Semele [see Dionysus ]. He came to Alcmene in the form of her husband, Amphitryon [see Heracles], fathering Heracles.
Io later traveled to Egypt and bore Epaphus, who became an Egyptian god. Zeus abducted Europa in the form of a bull and took her to Crete, where she bore him three sons, Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Sarpedon. He came to Leda as a swan and she later laid two eggs with two sets of twins. Zeus was also attracted to young boys. Ganymede, a young and beautiful Trojan prince, was abducted by Zeus and taken up to Olympus to be his personal cupbearer and probably his lover as well.
Because Zeus was the ruler of the gods, the gods often took their quarrels to Zeus for arbitration. He also meted out punishments to immortals and mortals alike who angered him. The Lydian King, Tantalus, was a son of Zeus who was favored by the gods, but he wanted to test their knowledge and power. He invited the gods to a dinner party and served them a dish made from his own son, Pelops. They put Pelops together again giving him an ivory shoulder to replace the one that had been eaten and Tantalus was punished in the Underworld by having to stand up to his chin in a lake that would recede any time he moved to take a drink and overhead was a tree with delicious, ripe fruit that would move away from him when he tried to reach up and grab one.
Needless to say, this parade of paramours caused quite a bit of marital tension between the King and Queen of Heaven. Hera was understandably jealous of all of her husband's infidelities. The goddess had a violent temper, and Zeus roused her fury more than once with his incessant seductions. The scorned goddess poured most of her energy into pursuing, punishing, and persecuting her husband's mistresses and bastard children:.
Teiresias was uniquely qualified to mediate the dispute between Zeus and Hera, for only he had tasted the pleasures of life as both a man and a woman. As a young man, he had killed a female snake in the act of coupling, and was immediately transformed into a woman.
After seven years of this life, he killed a male snake in the act of mating, and he changed back to a man on the spot. Jealousy was not the only emotion that could rouse Hera's anger. The goddess was also extremely competitive about her beauty.
When Side, the first wife of the great hunter Orion, boasted that she was more beautiful than Hera, the goddess dispatched her to Hades. Zeus forbade divine interference in this conflict. Yet despite this prohibition, Hera once seduced her husband, distracting his attention so that Poseidon could incite the Greeks to attack the Trojans. Zeus and Hera once argued about whether men or women derived greater pleasure from the act of making love.
Each insisted that the other's gender reaped the greater share of pleasure. The great seer Teiresias, called in to decide the matter, insisted that a woman's pleasure was nine times that of man. Infuriated, Hera immediately blinded the seer.
Burgess, Ph. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. To order this book direct from the publisher, visit the Penguin USA website or call You can also purchase this book at Amazon.
Hera and Zeus. What a Life! See also:. Trending Here are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about. Is Vatican City a Country? The Languages of Africa. The Mongol Empire.
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