WEBVTT
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Creation 1: The Very Beginning
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In the very beginning there was sky and earth.
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Sky was called Uranus,
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earth was called Gaia.
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They were lovers.
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They lay clasped in one another’s arms.
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Sky pressed tightly against earth,
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earth holding sky.
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Not even a leaf could have passed between them.
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Earth had given birth to many children
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but she was held so tightly by sky that there was nowhere for her children to go.
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They couldn’t stand to their full height.
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They had to crouch in cracks and crevices in their mother’s body.
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The children of earth were Titans,
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strange grey beings,
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their skin craggy and furrowed like rock that has been worn away by the weather.
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They longed to be able to stand, to step, to stride across the earth.
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But they were trapped by the weight of their father pressing down on them.
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One of the grey Titans was called Cronus.
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He knew that he had to separate his parents.
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He found a hard stone and shaped it into a sickle with a blade as sharp as thought.
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He crept between his mother’s legs.
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He reached up and sliced into the groin and belly of his father.
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With a terrible cry of pain the sky broke away from the earth.
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He rose up and up and up until he was high above the earth.
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He found the place he still inhabits today –
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far, far above our heads.
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And as he rose up,
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his gaping wound poured blood down upon the body of the earth;
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it rained and splattered down onto the ground.
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Wherever the blood of sky landed upon the earth, life appeared:
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trees and plants,
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bright-winged insects and feathered birds,
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scaled fishes and furred animals.
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The whole lovely, green, living world that we know today came into being at that moment.
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And the grey Titans came running out from their cracks and crevices.
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They stretched, they shouted with joy,
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they stamped their great feet,
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they danced with delight.
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All the Titans danced.
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All the Titans danced except for one.
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One of them had other plans.
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His name was Prometheus, which means ‘forethought’.
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While his brother Cronus had been shaping his sickle,
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Prometheus had been fashioning three stone jars.
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Now, as the rest of them danced,
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he carried the jars out into the light.
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He set them on the ground and began to scoop up handfuls of the blood-soaked soil.
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He filled the jars with the flesh of his mother and the spilled blood of his father.
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He packed the jars tight and fitted lids onto them.
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Then he buried the jars.
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He buried them in the earth.
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He buried them deep in the body of his mother.
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This would be a secret between him and her.
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One day he would return for them.
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And then he ran and joined hands with his brothers and sisters.
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He stamped his feet in the joyful circling measure of the Titans’ dance.
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Years and years passed.
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Two of the grey Titans, Cronus and Rhea, had children together.
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But their mother, the earth, warned Cronus that his children would be more powerful than he was.
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She warned him that one day his children would overthrow him.
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Cronus didn’t want that and so he ate his children.
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He swallowed them whole, one after the other.
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The youngest of his children was called Zeus.
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Rhea, his mother, wanted to protect him.
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She hid the baby in a cave
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and then she wrapped soft blankets around a stone.
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She put the stone in Zeus’ cradle.
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Cronus seized the stone and swallowed it.
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Zeus grew up in secret.
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When he was old enough he appeared in Cronus’ hall.
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Cronus took a liking to the stranger and made him his cup-bearer.
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One day, Zeus made his father a honey-flavoured drink but mixed it with a poison that made Cronus sick.
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First he vomited up the stone;
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then out of his throat came his other children:
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Poseidon,
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Hestia,
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Hades,
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Demeter,
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Hera.
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Straightaway Zeus and his brothers seized weapons and waged war on Cronus and the grey Titans.
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For years the terrible war raged.
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The stars were torn from their stations;
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mountains were levelled;
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the heat of the earth’s heart spat and spouted its red flames across the world.
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For eons the war raged until at last Zeus was victorious.
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The grey Titans were bound with chains of adamant and hurled down to Tartarus –
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deep, deep, deep beneath the bowels of the earth.
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Only two of the Titans were spared.
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Prometheus, whose name means ‘forethought’,
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and Epimetheus, who had chosen to turn their backs on war.
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They were allowed to continue tilling the soil of their green valley.
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Zeus and his brothers and sisters and their children built their palaces on the high slopes of Mount Olympus.
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Now that the Titans had been defeated,
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they ruled over the whole universe.
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They began to divide it amongst themselves.
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The three brothers – Zeus, Poseidon and Hades –
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threw lots into a helmet.
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Each closed his eyes and reached inside.
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Zeus plucked out the heavens –
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they would be his realm now;
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Poseidon drew out the wide waters of the sea;
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and Hades chose the underworld,
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that land far, far below where one day the dead would go.
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Zeus and his brothers had a name for themselves.
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They called themselves
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‘gods’.