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By Root 5634 0

the masculine principle, above all kingly and fatherly authority. His queen Hera, whose name derived from the Sanskrit svar, the sky, similarly represented the feminine principle, presiding over marriage and motherhood. Alongside Zeus were five other gods, each representing a particular aspect of masculinity: his son Apollo, god of light and order (and therefore consciousness), also of youthful energy and male physical perfection7; Poseidon and Ares, gods of the sea and of war; Hephaestus, god of craftsmanship, who presided over the use of fire to work metal; and finally Hermes, the divine messenger. Alongside Hera were five goddesses, each representing a particular aspect of femininity: Aphrodite, goddess of love; Athene, goddess of wisdom; Artemis, the huntress; Hestia, who presided over home-making and the domestic use of fire for cooking and warming; and Ceres, or Demeter, presiding over fertility, natural growth and cultivation of the soil. Ranked below them was an array of lesser divine beings, all with their own role to play in the life of mankind, ranging from gods personifying the forces of nature, such as Aeolus, god of the winds, to the nine Muses, personifying different forms of artistic inspiration and learning.

Around all these figures the Greeks wove an immense thicket of stories, which really come under two headings. Firstly, there are stories just about the interrelationships of the gods themselves. But alongside them are all those myths which, although centred on human heroes and heroines, also feature the gods in their mysteriously influential role on the edge of the action. And it is here we see that the true purpose of these supernatural beings is to personify all those dynamic forces in the psyche which govern human emotions and behaviour.

The key to understanding the role of the Greek gods is to see how they appear in a story at just the moment when the particular psychic force they represent becomes relevant to the action which is about to unfold. They thus give us a clue as to what psychic powers are in play: either to help the heroes and heroines on their way to success, or to personify the nature of the challenges they will have to face. One of the most crucial figures in this respect, as we have already seen several times in this book, is Poseidon. As Zeus's brother, the god who lives in the mysterious depths of the sea represents, in his dark aspect, the negative, `inferior' version of full-grown masculinity. In this aspect he thus becomes the `Dark Father. Whenever a hero in some way comes into conflict with Poseidon or one of his agents, we know he is going to have to show himself to be his `light opposite': fully masculine but also balanced, open to the feminine values of selfless feeling and intuition.

Thus when Theseus sets out for Crete to confront the power of the Tyrant Minos, the chief physical opponent he is about to face, the Bull, is a creation of Poseidon. But as Theseus embarks, the protective deity hovering over him is Aphrodite, goddess of love. This tells us that the loving feminine will somehow prove the key to overcoming the dark masculine he is setting out to challenge; as we see when, on his arrival, Ariadne falls in love with him and supplies all he needs to overcome the monster and escape the labyrinth.

When Danae is shut away in a tower by her tyrannical father Acrisius, it is the king of the gods, Zeus, representing `light masculinity, who impregnates her, disguised as a shining shower of gold. Like many mythic heroes, her child Perseus is thus half-man, half-god; and we then see him - with the help of Hermes, Athene and Pluto - winning his manhood by overcoming the Gorgon, representing the emasculating power of the dark feminine. His final task, to show that his manhood is fully balanced, is to rescue Andromeda, the anima, from the sea-monster, which is again a creation of Poseidon.

Similarly, Poseidon is the hero's chief opponent all through the Odyssey, determined that he should not reach his goal. It is Poseidon who has fathered Odysseus's most terrifying opponent,