War of the Titans (Part 4)

Cronus was overjoyed when Rhea became pregnant with their first child. For the first time in his life, Cronus felt that he would have someone whom he would love unconditionally, no matter what he or she would look like. Then suddenly he understood, for the first time, really understood, how his mother could love the hideous Hecatonchires. A pang of remorse and a sliver of guilt seeped into his otherwise perfectly euphoric state of mind.

Cronus stayed by Rhea’s side until she gave birth to the beautiful Hestia. He picked her up and raised her above his head to admire the perfect little creature that was part of his flesh and blood. Unexpectedly, memory of his father trickled back to his mind. The trickle soon became a torrent and the image of his dying father took over his mind. Cronus heard, clearly in his mind’s ears, his father’s last words, “I hope your children shall show you more mercy when your time comes.”

Cronus panicked at the realization that he had been focusing on the wrong threats. His first instinct was to smash the innocent child’s head against a rock, but he could not do it; he had begun to love that child--his first child--too much to kill it. Still, his desire to live was much stronger than his love for her. So he swallowed her whole, not to kill her, but to stop her from ever conspiring to kill him.

Rhea had been watching Cronus admiring her first born. For a brief moment she thought she had been wrong, she would find happiness after all, despite her fear when she heard Gaia’s toast at her wedding.

She gasped when she saw Cronus swallowed her little girl. Cronus’s act cruelty drove her immediately insane. She plunged at him like a wild beast: punching, kicking, scratching, biting, and wailing at the same time. Her ear-piercing, anguished wailing sent the birds and the beasts scattering in all directions. Even the sun seemed to try to escape from that heart-wrenching scene.

It took Cronus several minutes to wrap his arm around Rhea’s neck in a rear naked choke. He dragged her to the nest that he had used to entrap their father and used it to wrap around her body. He hanged her upside down and then stuffed her mouth with rocks wrapped in cloths to stop her wailing.

The other Titans saw what happened, but none was willing to intervene. Yes, Cronus’s scheme of divide-and-conquer had worked beautifully. The Titans were no longer willing to risk their lives for one another.

***

Rhea struggled mightily at first to free herself from the nest. She wriggled and wiggled, twisted and turned, squiggled and squirmed, threshed and thrashed. The more she struggled the tighter the rope became and the heavier the rocks felt, but she kept struggling until her consciousness left her.

Rhea woke up a changed Titan--a fearful Titan, one with an experience she had never had before. Her head seemed to have had exploded; her vision had blurred: everything was spinning around her, faster and faster. Her breath labored; her throat had burned dry as a result of her screaming and crying. Her neck and back had stretched to the breaking point from the weight of the rocks inside her mouth; and her legs had already gone numb from the hanging.

She resumed wriggling and wiggling, twisting and turning, squiggling and squirming, threshing and thrashing until her consciousness left her again.

When Rhea woke up the second time, it did not take a lot of wriggling and wiggling, twisting and turning, squiggling and squirming, threshing and thrashing before everything went dark again.

The third time Rhea woke up, she was too weak to do any more twisting and turning. Instead, she mustered all her strength to look around.

She saw what she was so used to seeing: Cronus, with the giant sickle menacingly strapped to his back, was playing a gracious host--darting from one Titan to the next. The other Titans were standing around, eating and drinking, talking and joking. With the exception of Oceanus, each Titan was doing his or her best to win favors from Cronus, each was trying to outdo all of the others in praising Cronus so that he would let the most solicitous win the next competition.

Rhea’s brothers and sisters were doing their best to pretend that they did not see her bound, gagged, and hung upside-down in the middle of the house. They navigated carefully around her, making sure that their bodies did not touch hers, as if not touching her body would allow them to say that they did not see her suffering.

Tears swelled up in her eyes and a lump of bitter bile blocked her throat. She sobbed inaudibly because she was too weak to make a sound. She could not believe that none of her siblings had come to her aide, or even expressed a tiny bit of concern for her sake.

But then Rhea knew why: She had used her position as Cronus’s wife to extract too many favors from him to win too many competitions. She was not always a gracious winner, she was always too eager to humiliate the others. She was always bragging about being the most beautiful and the second best, about being able to best anyone besides Cronus. She was always saying that she would not need anyone’s help, under any circumstance.

But now was the very circumstance that she had thought would never materialized. She desperately needed some help--at least some expressed sympathy from her siblings for her sake. But neither help nor sympathy was forthcoming. Rather, Rhea saw a Titan smiling contemptuously at her as if he was trying to tell her he knew she was suffering and she deserved it. Rhea mustered all of her remaining strength, wriggled to turn her face away in shame and desperation. Her beautiful body had been beaten black and blue; her fiery spirit had been crushed; and her prideful dignity had been shredded to pieces. She cried herself to sleep.

Cronus caught the brief silent exchange between Rhea and Hyperion and smiled. It pleased him tremendously: he had completely divided and he had completely conquered. The other Titans were too afraid of him to intervene individually and too mistrustful of one another to intervene collectively. In just another day or two, Rhea would be completely broken and he would be able to do whatever he pleased. His swallowing of Hestia in panic turned out to be his best course of action. He would just simply swallow his children as they were born and no one would dare to intervene. Gaia’s prophecy would never come true; he would rule forever.

The fourth time Rhea woke up she woke up broken, physically, mentally, and instinctually. Her barely animated eyes looked at Cronus beggingly. Cronus cut the rope and let Rhea drop down to the floor like a sack of potatoes. He unbound her and then dragged her into her bedroom by her hair. He left her there and went out.

From that day on Cronus did whatever he wanted to Rhea and she vowed to herself to accept whatever treatment she got from him, obediently and without complaints. Her only concern was her own survival. Nothing else, including her children and the way she lived, mattered to her.

***

Or so she thought. When Rhea gave birth to Demeter, the sight of the beautiful baby awoke her maternal instincts and renewed her desire to keep the child. She begged Cronus not to swallow the baby but the king of the gods did what he had planned. And so Rhea wailed and sobbed, but this time she dared not jump on him.

She kept wailing and sobbing until Cronus had had enough. He put her in a rear naked choke, dragged her to the rope, hang her upside down and shoved cold, hard, sharp-edged, and heavy rocks into her mouth.

Rhea went in and out of consciousness several times in the next three months. When Cronus felt that he had punished Rhea enough and she had been completely broken for good, he cut the rope and let her drop down to the floor like a sack of potatoes. He unbound her and then dragged her into her bedroom by her hair, and there left her.

In the years that followed Rhea gave birth to Hera, Hades, Poseidon. And as he had planned, Cronus swallowed each child as it came out of its mother’s womb. Rhea protested but the protest got successively weaker as the punishment got increasingly more severe.

***

A part of Rhea’s soul died as each of her children was swallowed. She had been reduced to a mere mass of flesh, a far cry from the most beautiful and the second most powerful of the Titans she once was. She had become more and more detached from Cronus and the others, and often wandered into the forest alone for months at a time. Cronus was too busy with his mistresses to care about her whereabouts.

Rhea often sat by a stream, barely aware of her surroundings except for the sounds of the running water and the birds singing. The sounds of the water gently smashing against the rocks provided her a measure of soothing comfort, and the sounds of the birds singing somewhat lessened her pains.

One day Rhea felt movements in her stomach. She knew that she had become pregnant again and she knew what it would mean. Not knowing what to do, Rhea ran into the forest and came to her favorite part of the stream. There she sat for days, transfixed by the running water, not thinking, not feeling, not even hearing the sounds of the water and the birds that had brought a semblance of solace to her suffering soul.

***

“Why are you so melancholic, my child?”

The sound of Gaia’s voice awoke Rhea from her stupor. She looked up, not realizing that it was her mother for a long moment.

At last Rhea said, “O dear Mother. You knew what happened to my children. I have become pregnant again and I do not know what to do. I cannot lose another child but I cannot endure another hanging either. Why is Fate so cruel to me?”

“I do not know why Fate is so cruel to you, my dear child. Fate has not been kind to me, either. Maybe Fate is not so kind to any of us. But we do not have to take what Fate has decided for us willingly, we are not without power.”

“But we shall still lose at the end, Mother. What Fate has decide shall come to pass. I have suffered enough punishments from Cronus, I have been frightened, and I have been broken. My fighting spirit has died long ago. Now I cannot even fathom disobeying him in my head--in my head, Mother.” Rhea began to sob, “How can I even contemplating saving my unborn child?”

Rhea continued, “O dear Mother, you cannot know how despair I have felt and how utterly alone I have been. No one, not even you came to my aide. Not even you offered me a word of solace. And now you expect me to defy Cronus to save my unborn child and face his wrath? Why has Fate been so cruel to me?”

“My dear child,” Gaia said gently. “Fate has not been kind to me, either. And neither have Cronus, you, nor your siblings. I had been ignored--marginalized, by Cronus, by all of you, for so long that I have forgotten what it feels like to be loved and respected by my own children. I had despaired, I had been ashamed of myself, and I had sought to hide from all living creatures because of that shame. But I am not in hiding any longer, I have begun to rebuild my life, my spirit, and my dignity. And now I shall help you do the same.”

“Please do not try to help me, Mother,” Rhea begged. “Please do not try to give me false hope. Your intervention shall make it worse. I shall not be able to endure another hanging. Please go away, Mother. I begged you.” Rhea buried her face in her hands and sobbed more audibly.

Rhea’s sobbing became a wailing. She wanted to curse her mother but she dared not, for Gaia was the only one who had spoken to her, the only one who had even acknowledged her pains. So Rhea wailed and wailed, as if her wailing could somehow offer her a way out of her present predicament.

Rhea wailed until she could wail no longer. When she looked up, expecting to see her mother there, but Gaia had already been gone. Devastated, Rhea crumbled down to the ground, crawled to the spot where Gaia stood, and lay there sobbing.