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TABLE OF CONTENTS EPISODE ONE: CREATION 6 EPISODE TWO: THE CHILDREN OF URANUS 8 EPISODE THREE: THE KILLING OF URANUS 11 EPISODE FOUR: THE BIRTH OF ZEUS 14 EPISODE FIVE: THE DETHRONEMENT OF CRONUS 21 EPISODE SIX: ZEUS RULES OLYMPUS 28 EPISODE SEVEN: THE FLOOD 34 EPISODE EIGHT: ECHO AND NARCISSUS 40 EPISODE NINE: IO 47 EPISODE TEN: PERSEPHONE 58 EPISODE ELEVEN: CUPID AND PSYCHE 71 EPISODE TWELVE: THESEUS AND THE MINOTAUR 78 EPISODE THIRTEEN: ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 83 VOICE Dark, empty and still, Night, forever night, And out of the still and the dark, On wings as black as black, Chaos, eddying, churning, Chaos, beating its wings, Broods over nothing, envelops The silence, the empty night. And out of the nothing comes, Slowly, slowly, she, Gaea, the Mother of All, The Mother of Earth to be. Greatest goddess of all, Slowly in sleep brings forth The first of the gods who will rule From the heavens over the deep. GAIA I bear you, Uranus, child, VOICE Spoke Gaea, Mother of All. GAIA Tearing you out of me, Giving you part of my life. I hurl you high above, And make the sky your throne, And there you will rule as God, Turn Chaos into Law, And darkness into light. VOICE Uranus, baby still, On the heels of hurrying Time Grows large and larger until, As vast as the scale of heaven, He glances down from above, And notes the Earth below. Noting, he falls in love, And filled with tenderness, He showers it with rain, And Gaea, blessed, replete, Bears flowers and fruit and trees. And the rain of the God makes rivers Flow into the hollows of earth, And swell into lakes and seas Bordering pleasant plains And mountains, meadows and woods. But far below the earth, As distant from the earth As earth is from the sky, The God of the heavens builds The gloomiest place of all, The terrible Tartarus. And she, great Mother Earth, In the fullness of her time, Bears him, the Monster-God, Monster of earth and sky, Four giant monster sons, One with a hundred hands, And three wild Cyclopes Each with a single eye Implanted in his head. And Uranus, Monster God, Loathing his monster sons, Seizes them one by one And sets them to monstrous tasks. They sweat, they hate, they groan, For aeons slave away, Labor at their tasks For their monster Father-God. VOICE Then one of the Cyclops cried Out of his pain and rage: CYCLOPS ONE We build these mighty walls For whom? - for him we hate, Prisoners to him, Destroyer of our days. CYCLOPS TWO We'll build for him no more! Brothers, throw down your tools! And you with the hundred hands, Make weapons of these tools, Swords and pikes and spears, And we, the Cyclopes, Each with his one eye, Will find him out, and you, With all your hundred hands Will strike and jab and chop And spear him till he's dead. HUNDRED HANDS And then? CYCLOPS TWO And then we'll rule The sky and the earth below, And rule as a tyrant band Worse than the one we kill. VOICE And Hundred Hands is thrilled: HUNDRED HANDS Oho! What lovely words! What charming, charming thoughts! I'll make the swords and pikes, And from a hundred sides I'll poke and rip and tear Until the tyrant lies Bloodied to his toes Across the bloody sky. VOICE And Cyclops Two agrees: CYCLOPS THREE Lovely, lovely thoughts! Brothers, are we one? VOICE And all cry out, ALL We're one! CYCLOPS ONE Brothers! Give me your hands! VOICE Orders Cyclops One. But Hundred Hands, nonplussed: HUNDRED HANDS All hundred? Well, I'll try. (They clasp hands in brotherhood, hundred hands with as many as he can manage.) VOICE And now for many nights, The rebel sons climb up To heaven silently. They urge him, Hundred Hands, A weapon in each one, To move, go forward, go, But he does not, cannot see. The three, the one-eyed brothers, Squint their single eyes, Make out their monster Father Sleeping in his bed. But oh! they do not see That one eye of the God Is opened wide and watching, And one ear, listening, hears The breath of Father-fear. A shout, and Hundred Hands Attacks before, behind, Above, below, he jabs And smites and stabs and strokes, But Monster-Father-God, With magic in his limbs, Feints, and veers, and ducks, Until the brothers writhe Below the Father's foot, And Hundred Hands is robbed Of weapons from each one, And, paralyzed, lies gasping, Helpless, on his back. URANUS Vile and stupid traitors To my blood and throne, And miserable soldiers, Hopeless, every one, No vengeance is too cruel, No punishment too vile, To match betrayal of My love, my care, my labor For my children's good. You, monster with the hands, And you, with single eyes, Will forever suffer In the pit of Tartarus. I hurl you from the heavens To the loathsome place Where misery and want Forever, for your crime, Will be your punishment. VOICE Hurling sons with curses, They fall and fall and fall, Nine days they fall from heaven, From heaven down to earth, And nine days more from earth To blackest Tartarus. And there in rage and shame They groan and bite their arms, And strike at one another For aeon after aeon, Howling their despair.
EPISODE ONE: CREATION
EPISODE TWO: THE CHILDREN OF URANUS