Hephaestus
is quite ugly and misshapen.
In art he is shown lame and bent over his anvil.
He is the only Greek god who cannot walk without the
aid of a stick. He
himself reveals how he became lame: at the climax of a
domestic dispute, he stood with his mother in defiance of
Zeus who, in his rage, caught Hephaestus by the foot and
hurled him from
Mount
Olympus
to the earth far below. Hephaestus’
lameness was the result of his fall.
In Homer, Hephaestus is talking to Hera, sometime
after the event:
“There was a time once before
now I was minded to help you, and he [Zeus] caught me by the
foot and threw me from the magic threshold, and all day long
I dropped helpless, and about sunset I landed in Lemnos, and
there I was not much left in me.
After that fall it was the Sintian men who took care
of me” (Iliad
(1.590-94).
But according to another account,
Hephaestus’ lameness was not the result of his fall.
In Homer, he confesses: “I am a cripple from my
birth” (Odyssey (8.310-11);
and speaking to his wife, Charis, he recalls:
“She
[Thetis] saved me when I suffered much at the time of my
great fall through the will of my own brazen-faced mother [Hera],
who wanted to hide me for being lame.
Then my soul would have taken much suffering had not
Eurynome and Thetis caught me and held me, Eurynome,
daughter of Okeanos, whose stream bends back in a circle.
With them I worked nine years as a smith, and wrought
many intricate things; pins that bend back, curved clasps,
cups, necklaces, working there in the hollow of the cave,
and the stream of Okeanos around us went on forever with its
foam and its murmur. No
other among the gods or among mortal men knew about us
except Eurynome and Thetis.
They knew since they saved me”
(Iliad 18.394-405).
So Hera
was furious at the sight of her lame son and would have done
him further harm had not Thetis and Eurynome hidden him in a
deep cave. Hephaestus
never forgot their kindness.
Years later, when Thetis visited him in order to
obtain new armour for her son (Achilles), Hephaestus and his
wife, Charis, greeted her with open arms.
The armour Hephaestus made for Achilles was so
bright, that the Trojans fled at its sight; and those who
didn’t flee were mercilessly killed and stripped of both
their armour and their honour by the invincible Achilles.
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