Hephaestus

“ They seized the mighty Titan, and dragged him to the bleak and barren regions of the Caucasus, beyond the utmost limit of the habitable earth. And with them went the mighty smith Hephaestus, all unwillingly, to bind the great victim with bonds of brass, which none could loose, to the lonely mountain crags.
"'This thing I do loathing,' said Hephaestus. 'Here I must perforce leave thee, chained and bolted to the immovable rocks. Thou shalt never behold the face of man, nor hear the accents of his voice ”

“ Sing, clear-voiced Muses, of Hephaestus famed for inventions. With bright-eyed Athene he taught men glorious gifts throughout the world,—men who before used to dwell in caves in the mountains like wild beasts. But now that they have learned crafts through Hephaestus the famed worker, easily they live a peaceful life in their own houses the whole year round. ”

“ Alas, Prometheus! I lament thy pain.
Strength
Thou, faltering and weeping sore for those
Whom Zeus abhors! 'ware, lest thou rue thy tears!
Hephaestus
Thou gazest on a scene that poisons sight.
Strength
I gaze on one who suffers his desert.
Now between rib and shoulder shackle him—
Hephaestus
Do it I must—hush thy superfluous charge!
Strength
Urge thee I will—ay, hound thee to the prey. ”

“ But my son Hephaestus whom I bare was weakly among all the blessed gods and shrivelled of foot, a shame and disgrace to me in heaven, whom I myself took in my hands and cast out so that he fell in the great sea. But silver-shod Thetis the daughter of Nereus took and cared for him with her sisters: would that she had done other service to the blessed gods! O wicked one and crafty! What else will you now devise? How dared you by yourself give birth to bright-eyed Athena? Would not I have borne you a child—I, who was at least called your wife among the undying gods who hold wide heaven. ”

“ There Perseus slew Medusa gorgon-eyed
By the stars' baths and utmost bounds of earth
And fountains of deep-flowing Ocean, where
Night in the far west meets the setting sun.
There was the Titan Iapetus' great son
Hung from the beetling crag of Caucasus
In bonds of adamant, and the eagle tare
His liver unconsumed—he seemed to groan!
All these Hephaestus' cunning hands had wrought
For Hercules; and these to Poeas' son,
Most near of friends and dear, he gave to bear.
So glorying in those arms he smote the foe. ”

“ They give way to fits of anger and jealousy. "Zeus deceives, and Hera is constantly practising her wiles." All the celestial council, at the sight of Hephaestus limping across the palace floor, burst into "inextinguishable laughter"; and Aphrodite, weeping, moves all to tears. They surpass mortals rather in power, than in size of body. They can render themselves visible or invisible to human eyes. Their food is ambrosia and nectar; their movements are swift as light. They may suffer pain; but death can never come to them, for they are immortal. ”

“ Of the newborn things whose nurture saves the world.
The farmer would have let the maiden go—
Sadly, yet Apollo made it sure.
Or so we said who listened. Yet that one,
That laughing one, pursues him now and sings,
And sings—oh, what low song, what tale of the flesh,
What burden that may topple his intention?
Hephaestus, our contriver, you could seal
His ears, his sleeping eyelids, if you would;
Even tonight you could.”
Hephaestus, pacing
Oddly the smooth floor, rested his leg,
The shortened leg Zeus long ago had crippled.
“The farmer—he works well, and loves the fire
I gave him. Let him be.” ”

“ There is, as usual, no agreement as to the etymology of the name of Hephaestus. Preller inclines to a connexion with ἧφθαι, to kindle fire, but Max Müller differs from this theory. About the close relations of Hephaestus with fire there can be no doubt. He is a rough, kind, good-humoured being in the Iliad. In the Odyssey he is naturally annoyed by the adultery of his wife, Aphrodite, with Ares. Ares is a god with whom Homer has no sympathy. He is a son of Hera, and detested by Zeus (Iliad, v. 890) . He is cowardly in war, and on one occasion was shut up for years in a huge brazen pot. ”

“ All the gods and goddesses had given gifts to her, and for that reason the maiden of Hephaestus's making was called Pandora, the All-endowed.
She was lovely, the gods knew; not beautiful as they themselves are, who have a beauty that awakens reverence rather than love, but lovely, as flowers and bright waters and earthly maidens are lovely. Zeus smiled to himself when he looked upon her, and he called to Hermes who knew all the ways of the earth, and he put her into the charge of Hermes. Also he gave Hermes a great jar to take along ”

“ And she found her dear son as he lay, clasping Patroclus, and wailing aloud; and in throngs round about him his comrades were weeping. Then in the midst of them the bright goddess came to his side, and she clasped his hand, and spake and addressed him: "My child, this man must we let be, for all our sorrow, to lie as he is, seeing he hath been slain once for all by the will of the gods. But receive thou from Hephaestus glorious armour, exceeding fair, such as never yet a man bare upon his shoulders." ”

“ Hephaestus is the "spiritual form" of the Asiatic element in Greek art.
This, then, is the situation which the first period of Greek art comprehends; a people whose civilisation is still young, delighting, as the young do, in ornament, in the sensuous beauty of ivory and gold, in all the lovely productions of skilled fingers. They receive all this, together with the worship of Aphrodite, by way of Cyprus, from Phoenicia, from the older, decrepit Eastern civilisation, itself long since surfeited with that splendour ”

“ To understand the agency of Hephæstus at the birth of Athena, we must again return to the founding of the arts on agriculture by the hand. Before you can cultivate land, you must clear it; and the characteristic weapon of Hephæstus,—which is as much his attribute as the trident is of Poseidon, and the rhabdos of Hermes, is not, as you would have expected, the hammer, but the clearing-ax—the double-edged ρελεκυς, the same that Calypso gives Ulysses with which to cut down the trees for his home voyage ”

“ When Hephaestus appeared before the ruler of the skies, he was requested to make a maiden of gold. He set about the work at once and when Apollo, the next morning, mounted his flaming chariot to shed the heavenly light both upon gods and men, a splendid image was finished which in appearance, speed, and movement resembled a beautiful mortal. Zeus then ordered the other deities to adorn the maiden, who was called Pandora, most sumptuously. ”

“ Then did Thetis tell him of her son Achilles, and of the wrong that had been done to him, and of his wrath, and of how Patroclus was dead, and that the arms that he had had were lost.
"Make me now," she said, "for him a shield and a helmet, and greaves, and a corselet."
greaves, armour for the legs.
And Hephæstus answered: "Be of good cheer. Would that I could keep from him the doom of death as easily as I can make him such arms that a man will wonder when he looks upon them." ”

“ And upon the awful heads of the Gorgons great Fear was quaking.
237 And beyond these there were men fighting in warlike harness, some defending their own town and parents from destruction, and others eager to sack it; many lay dead, but the greater number still strove and fought. The women on well-built towers of bronze were crying shrilly and tearing their cheeks like living beings — the work of famous Hephaestus. And the men who were elders and on whom age had laid hold were all together outside the gates, and were holding up their hands to the blessed gods, fearing for their own sons. ”

“ Pathos is repeatedly appealed to in the play. Hephaestus is one of the kindliest figures in Greek tragedy; the noble-hearted young goddesses cannot fail to hold our affection. They are the most human Chorus in all drama; their entry is admirable; in the sequel we should have found them still near Prometheus after his cycle of tortures. But the subject-matter is calculated to win the admiration of all humanity; it is the persecution of him to whom on Greek principles mankind owes all that it is of value in its civilisation. ”

“ Odysseus put together with his own hands the mighty bed he shared with Penelope; and if the famous weapons of Achilles are no work of his own we only find the various and interfused array of his own activities abated that a god, Hephaestus himself, may provide them at the request of his mother Thetis. In a word, we meet everywhere the youthful delight in novel discovery, the freshness of personal possession, the victorious sense of enjoyment. ”

“ To work his vengeance on mortals he caused Hephaestus to create a woman on whom the gods bestowed all gifts so that she was named Pandora. She opened a jar containing every kind of evil, which straightway flew out among mankind. Only Ἐλπίς remained therein—a word hardly equivalent to our Hope, but rather meaning “anticipation of misfortune.” It then is the only plague to which man is not subjected. [67] He is obliged to suffer, having been involved in the original sin of Prometheus, who wished to cheat Zeus of the sacrifice due him. ”

“ In archaic art Hephaestus is generally represented as bearded, though occasionally a younger beardless type is found, as on a vase (in the British Museum) , on which he appears as a young man assisting Athena in the creation of Pandora. At a later time the bearded type prevails. The god is usually clothed in a short sleeveless tunic, and wears a round close-fitting cap. His face is that of a middle-aged man, with unkempt hair. He is in fact represented as an idealized Greek craftsman, with the hammer, and sometimes the pincers. ”

“ Thus it happened that the seductive charm of woman brought misery to mortals. [4]
18
Zeus again summoned Hephaestus and the two giants, Kratos and Bia, and said to them: “Seize Prometheus, conduct him to the limit of earth, and fasten him to one of the loftiest cliff walls of the Caucasus.” The giants undertook the task willingly, but not so Hephaestus, who had compassion for Prometheus. But at last he had to submit to the will of the ruler of gods and men. Prometheus was seized and taken to the desolate cliff. ”

“ Hephaestus is the god of fire, indeed; as fire he is flung from heaven by Zeus; and in the marvellous contest between Achilles and the river Xanthus in the twenty-first book of the Iliad, he intervenes in favour of the hero, as mere fire against water. But he soon ceases to be thus generally representative of the functions of fire, and becomes almost exclusively representative of one only of its aspects, its function, namely, in regard to early art; he becomes the patron of smiths, bent with his labour at the forge, as people had seen such real workers ”

“ Hephæstus, the son of Zeus and Hera, was the god of fire in its beneficial aspect, and the presiding deity over all workmanship accomplished by means of this useful element. He was universally honoured, not only as the [98] god of all mechanical arts, but also as a house and hearth divinity, who exercised a beneficial influence on civilized society in general. ”

“ How could you possibly discern the true philosopher from the false, then, by the marks you mentioned? It is not the way of such qualities to come out like that; they are hidden and secret; they are revealed only under long and patient observation, in talk and debate and the conduct they inspire. You have probably heard of Momus's indictment of Hephaestus; if not, you shall have it now. According to the myth, Athene, Posidon, and Hephaestus had a match in inventiveness. Posidon made a bull, Athene planned a house, Hephaestus constructed a man ”

“ Thus the immobility and lifelessness [167] of the supposed Prometheus are accounted for. Neither Hephaestus’ sympathy nor Cratos’ insults elicit a single word of reply from his lips. Although this silence arises naturally from the Titan’s unyielding disposition, yet the real reason lies in the use of a dummy. At vs. 81 Hephaestus retires, and after six lines of further insults Cratos follows him. A slight pause would naturally ensue, so that Prometheus might be sure that his enemy had passed beyond the sound of his voice. ”

“ It is doubtful whether the origin of the god can be traced to any specific form of fire. As all earthly fire was thought to have come from heaven, Hephaestus has been identified with the lightning. This is supported by the myth of his fall from heaven, and by the fact that, according to the Homeric tradition, his father was Zeus, the heaven-god. On the other hand, the lightning is not associated with him in literature or cult, and his connexion with volcanic fires is so close as to suggest that he was originally a volcano-god. ”

“ The fire, as an element, belongs to the Olympian Hephaestus; the Titan Prometheus, a more human character, steals it for the use of man. Prometheus resembles the Polynesian Maui, who went down to fetch fire from the volcano of Mahuika, the fire-god. Hephaestus is a culture-god mainly in his secondary aspect as the craftsman, whereas Prometheus originates all civilization with the gift of fire. But the importance of Prometheus is mainly mythological; the Titan belonged to a fallen dynasty, and in actual cult was largely superseded by Hephaestus. ”

“ So also in the case of the Greek god Hephæstus, who was, however, the father of the dragon form of Erichthonius, one of the early kings of Athens. Hephæstus and Athene were closely associated in the ugly story of his origin and in the pious cult of which they were both the objects in Attica. On the Celtic side, the latter association recalls the Irish mythic magician Mog Ruith and his daughter Tlachtga (p. 211) , whose name is connected, indirectly, it is true, with the annual distribution of fire to the hearths of Erinn at Samhain or the first of November. ”