Rhea
"Your mother is a great goddess. I have heard so much about her."
Yes, she is but and she has
suffered more than most people know. Some of the most beautiful moments
of my life were her worst nightmare.
"What do you mean?"
Well, everytime she was pregnant, she knew something was about to
happen to her children. It was a feeling she could not explain."
"Well, could you tell us the
story about all of her childbirths?"
She has only explained to me
exactly what happened once in my entire life. It was when I was
pregnant
for the first time. My mother was just trying to give me wisdom for any
hardships I might experience with my children or the actual childbirth.
This is not the story that is all over the internet though, so you may
be surprised.
"Well, I think we all know what happened."
HA, you would think a journalist would know first hand how the media
misconstrues everything. If you want to know the truth you'll have to
listen before your judge.
"I'm sorry. Go on.. "
Well, as you know, my mother
Rhea has always been extremely in love with my father, Kronos. She
told me that he was madly in love with her as well. He was always just
so scared to have children because he never wanted anyone to become
more powerful than him. So each time my mother Rhea gave birth to one
of us, my dad, Kronos, would take the child away for a day, or so he
said. This is where the story starts to get muffled through the media.
Unlike all of the rumos, no, my father did not swallow us whole. As you
can see, I am here live and well. He had something else in plan. My mom
always thought that it was just to
bond with us because mothers always get more bonding time than fathers
do. He took all of us Hestia, Demeter, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus and
myself. I am just surprised she never got suspicious, because of what
happned time after time.
"Well, what was he doing
with each child for that day?"
Even my mother only has half
of the story. All I know is that he didn't hurt us and he didn't
want us to be harmed, but the people who lived in the town where he
would take us started
myths that he would dip us in a well of gold. Apparently, the gold
weighed down our powers so that we could never be more powerful than
him. Each time that he brought us home, we all looked a little yellower
than usual. My mother said it was our golden glow. The doctor simply
said we had jaundice and that leaving her the first day of our
lives was extremely dangerous. I obviously do not remember this because
I was only a day old but, my mother says that this is the reason we
were all so tan growing up, little did she know dad had another plan in
mind.
My mother was pregnant with
her last child, Zeus, and she knew that she was about to give birth
soon. My father was packed and ready for his trip with his son and was
especially eager to take him on their "vacation." My mother did not
want to risk her last child Zeus to get jaundice and possible risk
any other diseases. She told me she decided to run away and hide from
my father until the baby was born. My dad never got the chance to take
Zeus on the trip and after that my father hated him.
After my mother found out
that her husband was trying to depower her children, she suffered for
many years. She knew that the reason Kronos was like this was because
he
murdered his own father to become father of the gods. We have a really
complicated family to say the least. But, she has always tried to cover
up the story by laughing it off. She usually jokes about how golden our
skin turns in the summer to make herself feel less guilty. We all know
that the reason our skin looks like this is because well, we are Greek
gods.
"I bet that was hard on your
mother. "
Yes, but she is a strong
woman. We all have our defense mechanismis though, hers just happened
to be jokes. Although she laughed on the outside, my mother and Zeus
decided to come up with a plan. My mother was determined to give her
children their powers that they should have been born with, or else she
would not have a legacy. As you can tell, my mother has always been
about appearance. I know she loved each and every one of her children,
but as you can see all that mattered was what people thought of us.
They bought
tons of polish and washed all of us with the polish. That is when we
all discovered our powers. We don't talk about dad much anymore though.
When she heard about the story of my dad swallowing us, she found it so
absurd that no one would beleive it. It did not bother her at all. Any
god of our social class knows that is absolutely impossible. If the
real story would have been leaked, it would have been a different
situation. Either way, it was a hard thing for her to swallow.
"Of course, I understand
that this must
have been hard for you."
Goddesses have real problems
too, you know.
"I had no idea until now."
Author's Note:
I changed the original story
quite a bit. I decided to change the old myth that Kronos swallows his
children and instead I said that he dipped his children in gold to
disable their powers. This changes the entire dynamic of the story. For
all of the children to get their powers back, Rhea and Zeus washed the
children off with polish. In the original story, Kronos had swallowed
all of the children except Zeus. Then Rhea and Zeus concocteda special
drink for
him that made him throw his children up. They were still alive
because gods cannot be digested. Eventually, all of the children of
Rhea and Kronos made Kronos and his army flee. Zeus then became king of
the
gods just like what Kronos's father said would happen to him. In my
story, I made it so that Kronos always had an outward hatred towards
Zeus because he is the one who saved all of the children and gave them
their power back. I also added that it was a "hard subject to swallow"
because Kronos literally swallowed the children in the original text. I
think that this was the story Hera was most sensitive about because
this directly affected her. It really shows where Hera gets her
arrogance from. She grew up with a mother who only cared about
appearances and now Hera is out "correcting" all of the rumors about
her and her family. This story should tie up the knot and explain the
purpose behind Hera's tone for the entire story book. This last story
served as an eye opener for the readers, although Hera herself will
probably never realize that she is a lot like her mother, just
stronger. I hope that you enjoyed Hera's journey!
Image information: Rhea
Web Source: Rheas Rhapsody
Bibliography:
Wikipedia: Rhea
Theoi: Titanis
Rhea
Greek Mythology: Zeus